Forbidden Passion in the Gallery
Cassian Voss lingered at the far edge of the private gallery, cloaked in the low, amber lighting that cast sharp shadows across the polished marble. His bespoke suit clung to his broad frame with an arrogant sort of elegance, every inch of him radiating the quiet, predatory command that came from owning half the art orbiting through the world’s elite collections. Across the sprawling room, Elowen Hart adjusted a bronze sculpture on its velvet-draped pedestal. Her fingers traced the cold metal curve with the same agonizingly slow, deliberate pressure she had once used on his skin—years ago, when their arrangement had been raw, desperate, and entirely unscripted.
She felt the heavy weight of his stare long before she turned. The history between them was a live wire, stretching back to a rain-slicked night in his glass-walled penthouse after her very first solo show. He had pulled her from the suffocating crowd of sycophants and claimed her against the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glittering city spread out beneath them. That explosive encounter had ended with promises neither had the courage to keep, leaving only a sharp, hollow ache of unfinished hunger every time their paths crossed in these rarefied, high-society spaces.
“You actually came,” Elowen breathed, her voice dropping to a low, intimate register as she closed the distance between them. The heavy silk of her black dress whispered against her thighs, a sound that made Cassian’s gaze drop to her legs before snapping back to her eyes.
His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath his cheek. “I fund the orbit, Elowen. I always come.”
Her pulse spiked at the velvet threat in his double meaning. Wordlessly, she led him past the towering main installation, her heels clicking softly until they slipped behind a heavy velvet curtain draping an isolated alcove. It offered only partial sanctuary from the opening night crowd just yards away. The clinking of champagne flutes and the pretentious murmur of investors drifted through the fabric, heightening the intoxicating danger of being caught.
Inside the cramped, shadowed alcove, the air instantly thickened, heavy with the scent of varnished wood and the intoxicating spice of her perfume. Cassian didn’t hesitate. He stepped into her personal space, so close that the searing heat of his body pressed flush against the cool silk of her dress. His large hand settled possessively at the small of her back, his fingers spreading wide in a relentless grip that violently reminded her exactly who held the power here.
“Tell me to stop,” Cassian demanded, his voice a gravelly scrape against the sensitive shell of her ear.
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Instead, Elowen tilted her chin up, her palms sliding up the crisp front of his shirt until she felt the frantic, thundering strike of his heart beneath the expensive cotton. Their mouths collided in a bruising, desperate clash that tasted of years of bitter restraint finally shattering. Cassian’s hands gripped her waist, backing her forcefully against the cold gallery wall, his thigh sliding heavily between hers to lock her in place.
His palms dragged lower, bunching the silk higher in deliberate inches until cool air kissed her bare thighs. The coarse weave of his suit trousers rasped against her oversensitive skin as he worked the fabric upward, exposing her inch by inch to the shadowed alcove. Elowen’s breath fractured when his fingers finally slipped past the thin lace barrier, parting her with unhurried possession. He traced her slick folds in long, unhurried strokes, circling the swollen bud at the apex until her hips jerked forward in silent plea. The distant clink of glasses beyond the curtain only sharpened every sensation, his thumb pressing firmer while two fingers sank deep, curling against the spot that made her thighs tremble around his.
Cassian withdrew only to drop to one knee, his broad shoulders forcing her legs wider. His mouth replaced his hand, tongue dragging through her wetness in a slow, claiming lick that pulled a stifled whimper from her throat. He feasted with the same ruthless patience he brought to every acquisition, sucking and lapping until her fingers twisted in his hair and her knees threatened to buckle against the marble. Only when her inner walls fluttered around his tongue did he rise again, the wet gleam on his lips catching the low light.
She reached for him then, freeing the hard length from his trousers with trembling urgency. Cassian let her stroke him once, twice, the velvet heat of him pulsing against her palm, before he caught her wrist. He lifted her instead, strong hands gripping her thighs as he pinned her to the wall. The blunt head of his cock dragged through her soaked entrance in deliberate torment, circling, pressing just inside before retreating, the crowd’s murmurs a constant reminder of how exposed they remained. Elowen’s nails dug into his shoulders, her body arching in wordless demand, until finally he drove upward in one smooth, inexorable thrust that seated him to the hilt. The stretch burned with the sweet ache of reunion, every inch reclaiming what had always belonged to him.
They moved in the confined space with controlled ferocity, his hips rolling deep while her legs locked around his waist. The coarse wool of his jacket abraded her bare thighs with each thrust, the slick friction of their joining growing wetter, hotter. Cassian’s grip tightened, possessive and unyielding, as though the years apart could be erased only by branding her from the inside. “This is mine,” he growled against her ear, voice rough with the gravity that had always drawn them back together. “You’ve always been mine.”
Her release crested in tight, pulsing waves that milked him deeper. Cassian followed with a guttural groan, burying himself to the root as heat flooded her in heavy pulses. Their ragged breathing filled the alcove, bodies still joined while the crowd’s voices drifted past the curtain.
He eased her down with careful strength, steadying her until her feet found the marble. From a nearby side table he retrieved a soft cloth, drawing it between her thighs in slow, reverent strokes that soothed rather than aroused. Elowen leaned into his chest, forehead pressed to the steady beat beneath his shirt while his fingers traced idle circles at her nape. Outside, the rain that had begun earlier tapped against the gallery windows, a quiet echo of the night that had first bound them.
“Still orbiting the same gravity,” she whispered.
Cassian’s mouth curved against her hair. “And I’m not letting you drift again.”