Chapter 316: Stop

I set her right foot down on my knee and reached for the left, wrapping my warm fingers around her sore ankle.

But before I could apply pressure to her heel, a violent shudder ran straight up my spine.

My breath caught hard in my throat.

Cassandra hadn’t pulled her right leg back. Instead, her freshly massaged, warm foot slid smoothly along the inner seam of my trousers.

Her arch dragged a slow, deliberate line over my thigh until her smooth heel pressed directly against the heavy, hardening ridge straining beneath the dark fabric of my lap.

“Cassandra…” I choked out, my knuckles turning white around her left ankle.

She didn’t stop.

With torturous slowness, her toes flexed, lightly stroking down the firm contour of my heat through my pants.

The physical friction sent a jolt of pure fire straight to my brain, completely overriding every shred of logical resistance I was trying to assemble.

“Look at that,” Cassandra purred softly, her hooded, stormy grey eyes watching my face burn with a mixture of panic and rising arousal.

“Your mouth keeps telling me no, Jin… but this pathetic, needy body of yours is singing a completely different song.”

Damn this vessel!

I screamed internally, my pulse hammering so loud it drowned out the crackle of the fire.

“I’m giving you a massage,” I gritted out through clenched teeth, attempting to pull her foot away from my groin, but my grip felt uselessly weak.

“Not… whatever the hell you’re doing.”

“It’s whatever I want it to be,” Cassandra whispered, her voice dropping into a low, intoxicating hum as she pressed her foot down firmer, slowly rubbing her arch over my erection with ruthless precision.

A low, shuddering gasp escaped my lips despite my best efforts, making her dark smirk deepen with absolute victory.

She leaned forward on the leather couch, her silver hair falling forward like a curtain around us as her cool fingers reached up to lightly trace the fresh, throbbing bite mark on the side of my neck.

“You can run to Emma, you can visit your little fiancée,” she murmured, her warm breath brushing against my ear while her foot maintained its relentless, rhythmic pressure against my lap.

“But your body knows who you truly belong to.”

With a sudden, forceful jerk, I shoved her leg away and stood up, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged beast.

“Enough,” I growled, taking two hasty steps back to put space between us as I tried to regain control of my breath and my traitorous body.

Cassandra raised her hands in a mock gesture of surrender, her dark smirk easing into a quiet, amused curve.

“Fine, fine… I promise, no more teasing.”

She smoothly pulled her right leg back, tucking it onto the leather cushion.

I stood there for three long, agonizing minutes, glaring at the floor as I waited for the lingering heat in my lap to subside.

Once I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t instantly lose my mind again, I sat back down on the edge of the couch, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on her left foot as I picked it up.

True to her word, Cassandra remained completely silent this time.

She didn’t hum, moan, or throw out provoking remarks.

She simply leaned her head back against the leather frame, watching me through hooded eyes with a quiet, unreadable intensity that felt almost as heavy as her teasing.

I applied steady, firm pressure to her left sole, working through the tight, frozen tendons until the swelling completely faded.

But as I finished and went to set her foot down, my eyes accidentally caught her right foot resting on the rug.

A faint, glistening sheen sat against her pale skin, a clear, humiliating trace of the biological reaction her foot had forced out of me through my dark trousers.

“Ahem… It’s—” my voice cracked slightly, a fresh wave of heat burning up to the tips of my ears.

“Let it be,” Cassandra interrupted smoothly, her voice flat and completely unbothered.

“I’ll wash later.”

She stood up from the couch in one fluid motion.

With a lazy flick of her wrist, a sudden frost-rimed wave of pale blue mana erupted from her fingertips, crawling rapidly along the doorframes, windows, and heavy stone walls.

A thick barrier of spatial containment sealed the entire bedchamber, instantly dampening all sound and locking the heavy oak doors tighter than a vault.

Without missing a beat, she reached up and unbuckled the silver clasps of her tunic to fall to the floor with a dull thud.

She shed the outer layers until she was clad only in light silk undergarments, her smooth, pale skin and delicate shoulder blades completely exposed in the warm lamplight.

Cassandra walked over to the grand four-poster bed, turning back to offer me one last, dangerously soft look over her shoulder.

“Now, my sweet boy,” she purred softly, her voice echoing in the magically sealed quiet of the room.

“Can you please massage my body?”

She dropped gracefully onto the bed, lying face-first against the dark velvet sheets, her long silver hair cascading like spun silk across her bare, exhausted back.

I let out a long, long breath, staring at the thick layer of soundproof frost sealing the heavy mahogany door.

Escape wasn’t an option as my body was moving on its own.

I stepped toward the four-poster bed and sank onto the edge of the mattress beside her.

Cassandra lay still, her long silver hair spread wide like liquid moonlight across the dark sheets.

The line of her spine was delicate yet defined by lean muscle, the body of a warrior who spent her life on the freezing frontlines.

“Don’t get any wild ideas,” I muttered under my breath, placing my warm palms flat against her upper back, right between her shoulder blades.

Her skin was cool to the touch, carrying that distinct, crisp scent of winter air and pure mana.

The moment my hands made contact, I felt the sheer rigidity in her muscles.

I channeled a slow, steady stream of thermal physical mana through my hands, pushing the warmth deep into her skin.

Cassandra let out a long, shuddering sigh into the pillow, her entire frame visibly relaxing under my palms.

“Mmm… right there,” she purred, her voice soft and heavy with exhaustion. “Your mana… it feels far better than any healing spell.”

“That’s because healing spells force tissue regeneration,” I said quietly, moving my hands in slow, circular motions down her back, working out the tension along her spine.

“I’m just dissolving the mana stagnation in your neural pathways.”

“Always the practical intellect…” she whispered, her stormy eyes turning to look up at me sideways from the pillow.

A soft, dangerous glint danced in her gaze.

“Yet your hands are so gentle with me.”

I gritted my teeth, ignoring the way my host body’s pulse traitorously quickened at her tone.

“I’m keeping you functional. If the Vanguard Commander collapses from mana exhaustion, the Capital falls.”

Cassandra let out a quiet, melodic laugh that vibrated against my fingers.

“Keep convincing yourself of that, Jin. But as long as you’re in my room, under my wards… you are mine.”

I dug my thumbs slightly deeper into the muscle beside her shoulder blade, making her gasp sharply before melting back into the mattress.

I needed to shift her focus before the atmosphere pulled me under completely.

“Since you’re so relaxed,” I said, keeping my voice steady and low, “talk to me. What is the actual state of the Capital? You didn’t just spend two days torturing Commander Vane for fun. What did he tell you before you broke him?”

“Mmm… always business with you,” Cassandra murmured into the pillow.

Without a single word of warning, she rolled over onto her back.

My breath caught in my throat, and my hands froze mid-stroke, suspended in thin air.

With her coat, tunic, and undergarments stripped away while messaging, she turned around completely bare.

The soft glow of the amber firelight washed over her pale, porcelain skin, illuminating the flawless curve of her waist, her chest, and the silvery sheen of her long hair cascading across her shoulders.

I stared, utterly paralyzed. My brain completely short-circuited.

Every single self-preservation instinct I possessed screamed at me to look away, to throw a blanket over her.

But the traitorous vessel I inhabited refused to move.

Llocking my eyes right onto her and sending a searing wave of blood straight down to my lap.

Cassandra didn’t make a single move to cover herself.

Instead, she propped herself up slightly on her elbow, looking up at me through hooded, dark grey eyes.

A slow, wicked smirk spread across her pale lips as she watched the color drain from my face before flushing into a deep, furious crimson.

“What’s wrong, my sweet brother?”

Cassandra purred, her voice dripping with dark, intoxicating satisfaction.

“You were asking about Vice-Commander Vane… why did you stop?”

“Cassandra…” I choked out, my knuckles trembling as I forced my hands to pull back, though my gaze felt practically glued to her.

“Put something on. Right now.”

“Why should I?” She shifted slightly on the dark silk sheets, the movement entirely deliberate, her stormy eyes gleaming with utter triumph as she caught sight of the heavy bulge straining once more against my trousers.

“My room. My bed. And my personal attendant… looking at me like he wants to devour me whole.”