Chapter 64: Agreement pt 2

The image hit me like a splash of ice water. I felt a sudden, sharp spike of irritation, not at Cyan, but at myself. I grabbed Cyan’s pink hair, not enough to hurt, but enough to firmly pull his head back and break the kiss.

Cyan blinked, slightly breathless, his eyes searching mine. He realized the shift instantly. “Wow. You’re… you’re not here, are you?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice like gravel. “Because I’m here for work.”

Cyan smirked, recovered. “I’ll help you. But not without a little payback. I don’t work for free, Cassie.”

“What do you want?”

He leaned in again, kissing me one more time, deep and demanding, before pulling back with a wink. “This. Frequently. And maybe a few favors later.”

I pushed him back slightly, my grip on his hair tightening just enough to make his eyes widen. “You won’t get anything until you carry out your first assignment successfully. You find out about the Lorenzo shipments. Then we talk about payback.”

Cyan grumbled, pouting like a child who’d been told he couldn’t have dessert. “You’re so mean! This is a totally one-sided arrangement! I’m basically an indentured servant!”

He didn’t get off my lap, though. He stayed there, his fingers toying with the buttons of my shirt, brushing over my chest in a way that would have been distracting if my mind wasn’t still stuck on the man in the other room.

“Is it because of Noah?” Cyan asked, his voice suddenly quiet and dangerously sweet.

I didn’t say anything. I just gave him a look, a flat, unyielding stare that didn’t confirm or deny anything.

Cyan’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “I knew it! Something is definitely going on. There’s no way a cutie like that would be around you and you wouldn’t have tried something. I saw the way you stood in front of him at the site on the news. You looked like a dragon guarding a pile of gold.”

“Why are you making it sound like I’m some kind of predator?” I asked, my jaw tightening.

Cyan laughed, the sound loud and genuine. “Because you are, Cassie! You have a type. You’ve always had a thing for the pretty, helpless ones. The ones who look like they need saving so you can be the one to keep them in a cage.”

“Noah is just my assistant,” I said, the lie tasting like ash. “He’s here for work. That’s it.”

“Sure, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, darling,” Cyan said, finally climbing off my lap. He stretched like a cat, his emerald suit straining against his frame. “But just so you know… if you don’t claim him, I might. He really is an adorable little cupcake.”

“Don’t stir up any trouble, Cyan,” I warned, my voice dropping into a lethal register. “He’s off-limits. To everyone.”

Cyan grinned wickedly. “I can’t promise that.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was Lake. An urgent issue with the injunction paperwork, something that required my signature and my direct intervention at the hotel suite with the lawyers.

I stood up, adjusting my shirt. “I have to go. Something came up.”

I looked at Cyan. “I need you to take care of him while I’m gone. He needs suits for the gala. Professional. Sharp. Nothing… pink.”

Cyan laughed. “Sure thing, darling. I’ll take care of your little assistant for you. I’ll make him look so good you won’t be able to keep your hands off him.”

We walked back out into the main office.

Noah was sitting exactly where I’d left him, but he wasn’t looking at his phone. He was leaning forward, his face inches away from a massive, silicon dildo monument. He was staring at it with an intensity that suggested he was either trying to memorize its dimensions or praying for it to come to life and kill him.

Cyan burst out laughing, the sound echoing through the luxurious space. “Oh my God! Were you admiring my collection, Noah?”

Noah’s head snapped back so fast I thought he’d give himself whiplash. His face went from pale to a shade of crimson that rivaled a Spanish sunset. He scrambled to sit back, his hands fluttering nervously.

“I, no! I wasn’t, ! I was just, ! There was a… a smudge! On the gold!” he stammered, looking like he wanted to dissolve into a puddle on the floor.

I looked at him, and for the first time in twenty-four hours, I felt a flicker of genuine amusement. He was so easy to rattle. So transparent.

I stepped toward him, my presence casting a shadow over his flustered form. Cyan immediately moved in, gluing himself to Noah’s side, leaning his head on Noah’s shoulder while Noah stared at the floor, looking like he’d just been caught in a crime.

“Stay here,” I said, my voice cold and commanding, though the amusement was still tugging at the corners of my mind.

Noah looked up at me, his eyes wide and pleading, as if I were abandoning him in a pit of lions. “You’re leaving?”

“I have to step out,” I said. “Cyan will take care of you. You need new suits for the gala. Sit still, do as he says, and try not to break anything.”

Noah looked like he had just been told he was being drafted into a war. He looked at me, then at Cyan, then at the gold dildo monument.

“Make sure he gets the midnight blue,” I told Cyan, not looking back as I walked toward the door. “And Cyan? If I find a single pink sequin on him when I get back, I’ll burn this boutique to the ground.”

“Love you too, Cassie!” Cyan yelled.

I stepped out into the Spanish sun, a faint, rare smile ghosting across my lips. Noah Bennett was a disaster. But he was my disaster. And as I stepped into the car to go deal with the Lorenzos and the lawyers, all I could think about was how much I was going to enjoy seeing him in that midnight blue suit.

And how much I was going to enjoy taking it off him.

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