Chapter Twenty

Cassius' P.O.V

I watch his blue eyes speckled with green widen in surprise, which only causes me to smile. My hand caresses his cheek, feeling the softness of his skin brushing against my fingertips. I've imagined this moment over and over again in my mind and somehow this couldn't have been more of a perfect opportunity than now.

His mouth opens before closing as a blush threatens to cover his entire face. I've never once seen him at a loss or words or beyond himself and now I wish I can see more of it. He has this peciluar charm that can enrapture anyone and he doesn't even know it.

"You're jesting," He says in complete disbelief.

"I'm not. I want your hand in marriage Pierce. I want you and only you," I state matter-of-factly not leaving his eyes for a second.

"If you are doing this because of your engage-"

"I'm not," I answer him again in the same resolute voice.

His eyes falters from mine causing a bigger grin to cover my face. My eyes linger on his before my fingers continue their path down every contour of face. I let them trace along the rim of his sharp cheek bones and onto his well-defined chin. As I stop and look at his lips, I notice how full and luscious they look. My thumb drags across the bottom wishing for this soft caress to be my lips and not my fingers. He truly is enamorous.

With another stroke of my finger against his lips, I capture his attention again. This time, he has a heavy amount of confusion and worry in his eyes making me look at him with more of a keen eye.

"You proposed to me. . ." He says more like a question than a statement with lack of better words. It only made me smile.

"As much as I would like to play the damsel-in-distress, I cannot. What difference does it make whether you or I propose to whom?" My hand find its way into his coal, black hair tosslling it this way and that. "I'm a man that wants to marry a man. . .who wants that man to say yes."

This makes him smile until a short laugh comes out of him signaling a slight pang to go through to my heart. I don't know whether it's because we've been a part for some time, but every instance of happiness I see, let it be a smile or a laugh, from him causes me to become unbelievably happy.

"Cassius, you're an idiot." He says with that same smile I love so much to see. I press my nose against his before smiling as well.

"Then let me be an idiot and marry one as well."

His arm binds around my neck, closing in the small increment of space left between us with his mouth tasting of sweet honey and spices I'm so use to knowing. I open mine gladly letting his tongue melt against mine. It goes along the roof of my mouth to each side of my cheeks as if he's spelling a secret message. I reply with a quick, eager message of my own, taking every chance I could get to feel him closer to me.

His hands skim around my lower waist until I feel his cool fingers pressing against my skin. I flinch away not use to this amount of sparks, but before long I settle into it. His leg wraps right in between mine with ease making me become locked in place. Yet, I don't mind.

The minute I notice his touch moving forward causes any remaining reluctance, if there was any at all, to disappear into a very labored moan. The moment I slip away for much needed air, I feel my back plunge into the silky sheets of the bed.

I try to get up up but the minute I do I feel his knee go between my legs rubbing gently against my privates. His body rains down me like a downpour caressing every inch of my body with his own. He presses against my neck leaving a light trail of sweet kisses in his wake. Instinctively, my head tilts backwards the further up he goes revealing more and more of my neck to him.

My body shudders at the sensation of his tongue pressing onto my neck. His hands travel further up to my sides making move away from his unexpected touch, but it was fruitless effort. He closes in the distance just as quickly with a smirk that can be felt on my skin.

The temperature of my body starts to heat up to the point to where I feel like I'm burning up or at least that's how I feel. My heart is beating out of my chest and this strange fuzzy feeling is beginning to prevade my mind. I notice the shakiness in my hands as I put them against his chest stopping him from coming any closer to me.

He looks at my hands before meeting my eyes causing me to bite down hard against my now swollen lips. In all my life I've never felt like this before. I don't necessarily think of this as a bad thing...but...I'm...I'm becoming a little more than anxious.

"Seducing me. . .Isn't the same as answering me." I state in a very low, strained voice. His eyebrows raise at this and soon a smile goes across his face. He takes my hands off of his chest and pins them to each side of me much like the way he did in the kitchen.

"This is hardly seduction, but moreover romance." He quips before towering over me with the look of a predator stalking its prey.

"Some may call it foreplay." His teeth bites softly down against my earlobe pulling at it until I let out an undesirable groan.

As soon as my eyes peel open again my lips part at the air of dominance thickening between us. For once, it isn't coming from me. His hands travel up from my secured arms to my hands until I feel his fingers entangling with my own. "I prefer love." The uneven pacing of my heart goes from bad to worse in less than a second.

His lips press against the side of my hot, cheek brimming with a fresh, new blush. He draws my hands further and further above my head which, in turn, causes my face to turn away in the opposite direction conceding altogether. I close my eyes entirely flustered that I would do such a thing.

As a result, he grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. A wave of arousal comes crashing over me almost instantanteously. I believe I can drown in those icy, blue eyes of his.

Once I find the nerve to look away from his gaze a sad realization begins to dawn on me. I don't know what to do or how to do anything. It's things I should very well know at my age but I don't. I was never interested in those things until he came into my life.

As if reading my thoughts he grabs my wrists and pulls me up onto his lap. Before I can utter a word I feel his hands move my hands down to the hem of his shirt causing me to blink then blink again. Never once in my entire existence did I think I could turn any redder than I am right now.

He coaxes my hands to move somehow through all of the embarrassment coursing through me. After seeing a couple of his hardened abs my curiousity gets the better of me. Wanting to see more of him, I start to pull more and more of his shirt forward until it's over his head.

I've only seen Pierce without a shirt on a couple of times and those weren't the best of times to have wet dreams about. He was almost always covered in blood. But this time. . .

My hands skim around his sides, along his muscles, and down his broad back. Until now, I never really noticed just how much bigger he is compared to me. I also never realized. . .just how much I liked it. I let my hand trace around his abs causing him to grunt and my groin to stiffen.

They go further up to his chest brushing pass his now hard nipples causing me to subconsciously bite down on my bottom lip in pure anticipation. As much as I wanted to do this in the very beginning now I feel like a nervous ninny who knows absolutely nothing on the matters of sexual desires and intercourse.

As he bends right back down I feel something hard rub against my own hardness causing me to overly aware of the sexual tension blooming between us. It only makes that now present blush deepen. There is no possible way I can know what I'm doing.

Any surviving amounts of confidence I had in the beginning disappears with his hands pressing against both sides of my waist. My heart is beating so fast I feel like it'll explode if I don't calm myself down. No matter what I say it just won't fade away.

His thumbs gently massages into my skin coaxing my rising nerves to simmer. I feel his tongue against the skin of my neck leaving tinges of pain with each place he moves to. My body leans into his wanting him to press deeper, harder.

I notice them becoming rougher and harder which masks the feel of his hands rising up to the middle of my chest along with my shirt effortlessly. All I can focus on is the burning sensation that comes with the touch of his skin on mine. He continues to hoist my shirt up over my head until it's off and tossed to some random part of the room before I can even object.

"Wait." I finally breathe before he can close in the minor space between us. I watch his eyes scan down my body before gazing into my eyes with that same lustful, predatorial look he had the last time. The nervousness of my mind begins to deteriorate under his stare.

"I don't know. . .how this works," I say close to an embarrassingly low mumble.

I feel his hands at the small of back pushing me closer to him. His hot skin pressed against mine oozes with fresh sweat. I can smell the mixing of our scents intertwining and jumbling together. It's intoxicating, addicting even.

My hands wrap loosely around his upper back to keep from falling backwards. I feel every muscle of his flexing and moving under my touch. My hands continues to stray down until they're at the hem of his jeans.

His breathe trickles onto my neck. He scathes his canines along the nape of it causing so much sparks to travel through me a gasp threatened to come out of me. It's cut short by his lips on top of mine with a wry smile playing on his own.

He pushes me down against the red, silk sheets with his body and soon allows his wandering hands to venture along my chest. I feel his fingers circling around my nipples before his lips replaces them. All I can do is bite down on my lip to cover the moan wanting to escape from the back of my throat.

Not long after, his tongue drags along the skin of my chest with slight pinches appearing where ever his mouth used to be. I press down so hard against my bottom lip I end up puncturing it causing another sly smile to splay across my skin.The more I try to conceal the pleasure I am getting from this the more he does this.

He knows exactly what he is doing.

As soon as I try to touch him he grabs my wrists and pins them to either side of me again causing me to become a little more than just titilated. The moment his gaze reaches mine I know what this meant. His eyes are an aquamarine color. The same color they were when he finally realized I was his mate.

"You said you wanted an answer. . .so I'm giving you one," He mumbles in no more than a whisper in my ear. The stiffness in my groin only worsens.

His lips are felt on my ear much like a fleeting, light kiss as his hands move away from my wrists and down my chest in a gradual, slow motion. "Unless you want it said in words." They stop at the hem of my pants while his eyes continue to pierce into mine.

I blink a couple times in complete disbelief and lack of words. Never once did I think of him as skilled in the arts of romance. Yet here he is, having me wrapped around his fingers.

Me, the king.

My have I fallen. It matters little to me how far.

I wrap one arm around his neck and show him a small smile. "Actions speak much louder than words ever will." I mine as well fall further.

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[A/N] I'm completely gushing at this part! Finally, they decided to set aside their differences, or rather acknowledge them, and come to terms with the consequences that'll follow soon after their... *ahem* unity.

For all "in depth" readers I'll post that part as a bonus. I left it out of this one so it can be a bonus for the ones who like to read that and answer the questions for the readers who do not.

Thanks again for reading! >_<