[center][h1][color=D0B4EC]Charlotte[/color] & [color=lightsteelblue]Cassius[/color][/h1]

[h3]Part 2 [/h3][/center]

[color=lightsteelblue]Time:[/color]Evening 
[color=D0B4EC]Location:[/color] Hallway, Castle

[hr][color=lightgray]

With everything going on, Cassius simply hadn’t expected this. Every ounce of the helter-skelter night was stripped away in an instant. His anger at Alexander for using unnatural powers to manipulate his mind? Gone. The family drama that played out for all at the banquet to see? Dissolved from his mind. The mysterious revelations at the beginning of the event when he ran into Milo St. Claire? Fuck him and whatever games he was playing. In this moment he didn’t care… No, he [b]couldn’t[/b] care. 

His hands hovered for a second, torn between questions he couldn’t voice and answers he wasn’t sure she would even have. [i]What did this mean? What would it ruin if they were spotted like this, here of all places?[/i] He felt all of it crashing against the inside of his ribs.

But then, in one of those all too rare instances in his life… His mind went quiet…and the storms within subsided, replaced by the gift of her body pressing against his. There was nothing left to hold him back. 

It was no longer just Charlotte kissing him. Cassius returned the gesture, matching every ounce of emotion. The kiss was hard, certain, and felt like it was the only goddamn thing in the world that made sense. One of his hands found the curve of her back, pulling her tighter against him, the other slid into her hair like it belonged there. Just as it had the night before. 

There was nothing delicate in the way he kissed her back. It was the hunger of a starving soul. The complete and absolute surrender to her lips.  

Charlotte’s hands slid to his shoulders, her very soul alight with the feeling of him returning her kiss. When he pulled her into him, a breath hitched in her throat, and she melted against him, as though she could sink into his skin and disappear. There was a silent vow in the way their bodies clung: a primal, burning need that refused even a whisper of space between them. 

Her mind fell into stillness, all sense dissolving beneath the heat of his mouth on hers. The quiet sound of lips meeting echoed in the stillness like a secret only their hearts could hear.

For Cassius, it was as though he needed her more than air… and maybe he did, because when he finally pulled back, it was only to breathe. He took a deep, almost desperate inhale, chest rising against hers. 

His lips trailed over to her ear as his heavy breaths came out slowly, and his voice was low with warmth but rough around the edges with need. 
[color=lightsteelblue]“I’ve never met anyone like you before, Charlotte. You wreck me…you know that?”[/color] 

A shaky exhale slipped from her lips, and Charlotte’s flushed cheeks deepened in color. Her heart thudded against her ribs like it, too, was trying to answer him.
 
 [i]I wreck you.[/i] 

The words echoed in her mind. He had said them so easily, so unguarded, and it terrified her. How could he look at her—[b]really look[/b]—and still say something like that?

For a moment, she hated herself for wanting to believe him.

She searched his face like it held answers. Lottie didn’t know what she expected to find…Maybe pity, maybe doubt. But all she saw was a man without his armor. Her fingers trembled slightly as they slid from his collar, ghosting across the line of his jaw,  a gentle trace as though she were committing the shape of him to memory.  She tilted her head up and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek just beside his mouth.

Then, her voice came, thinned by emotion, and aching.

[color=D0B4EC]“You say I wreck you,”[/color] she murmured, her gaze holding his, [color=D0B4EC]“But you make me feel… quite the contrary.  I begin to believe I may not be as ruined as I once thought.”[/color]

Her hand lifted, coming to rest lightly against his chest, where the wild thrum of his heartbeat betrayed them both.
[color=D0B4EC]“But if you’re not careful…”[/color] she added with the barest, broken smile, [color=D0B4EC]“…I might start to believe you.”[/color]

Charlotte’s final words lingered as they kissed… soft, dangerous, full of invitation.

Cassius didn’t speak; his body did that for him.

One hand slid up her spine, slow as molasses, until his fingers tangled in her hair once more… the other wrapped around the small of her back, pulling her against the full heat of him. His lips met hers with a building sense of desperation, a kiss that was no longer sweet, no longer gentle. It was full of nothing but heat, instinct, and the unrelenting desire built throughout the tension of the night. He kissed Charlotte as though the only way to convince her of his intentions was to make her feel it in her bones.

And gods, she would feel [i]so…many…beautiful…things[/i] by the time he was finished. 

[color=D0B4EC]“Cassius…”[/color] His name slipped from her lips. 

The tension in her body coiled tighter as his hand traced the length of her spine, a shiver blooming in its wake. And then, like a wave pulled by the tide, she moved with him. Her fingers fisted in the fabric of his collar for a moment before they slid upward, threading into his hair like she was terrified he’d vanish if she let go. 

She kissed him again, harder this time, as if her entire body was starving and only he could feed the ache. 

She kissed him like he was something sacred. 

Like she had waited lifetimes just to feel him breathe against her. 

Her whole body leaned into him, every inch of her aching to close the distance.  It wasn’t just passion. It was a [i]surrender[/i]. A desperate confession of: [i]“I need you.”[/i]

If this was ruin, she would choose it again and again with him.

Cassius barely breathed.

Her hands threaded through his hair, and it made his pulse spike, made something old and starved in him reach up to meet her. 

His hand, still curved against her back, drifted downward… down past the swell of her hips… until the tips of his fingers found the hem of her dress. He slipped beneath it...carefully, deliberately...his palm skating along her thigh, slow and warm and reverent.

He didn’t rush.

He let her feel him… the gentle caress of his hand climbing up inch by inch… the heat building between them like lightning begging for a place to strike.

And gods help him… he hoped she wouldn’t stop him.

[color=lightsteelblue]“Charlotte...please.”[/color]

It wasn’t a question, nor was it a demand. It was worship, and it was hunger.

Her name left his lips like a prayer, and it had been the most intimate sound she’d ever heard. Her body responded instinctively, and her eyes, still damp with tears, fluttered shut again as she leaned up into him. Her mouth moved against his with urgency, like the answer to a question she had never dared to ask. 

And then his hand drifted further on her thigh. His palm warmed her skin as he climbed higher, inch by inch, dragging fire through her skin with every touch. Her lips parted against his. She gave a soft, trembling sound… Not of resistance, but of complete, overwhelming surrender.

And then—

[i] Click.[/i]
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