Even if I wasn’t planning to flee the city to save my sister, the events of this afternoon have been an unwelcome reminder of just how dangerous it is to be among the Thirteen. It wasn’t Aphrodite or Hephaestus or Dionysus who was attacked. It was Pan. It could have just as easily been me. If I stayed, it might very well be me next time.
What happens to Alexandra if I get hurt?
If I die?
Apollo kisses me before I can ruin this with messy emotions and an impossible situation neither of us can solve without someone getting hurt. Better we be the ones to hurt than those who depend on us.
Again, I try to reach for him, and again, the rope pulls me up short.
This time, he doesn’t leave me frustrated. He keeps kissing me as he starts to unwind the rope. The problem with the more elaborate forms of bondage is that it takes almost more time to get out of it than it does to get in, but with him, it doesn’t feel like a chore. It’s just a different form of foreplay.
The rope sags and he slips the last bit of it from me. I reach for him, but he catches my wrists in a light but firm grip. “No.” He nips my bottom lip. “Tonight is about you.”
“Well, I want to touch you.”
He leans back enough to give me a rueful smile. “Later. I promise.”
“Apollo…” Something resembling a whine works its way into my voice. “Please.”
His smile falls away. “At the beginning of this, you told me what you want. I’m going to give it to you.” He picks up the rope again. “But I want better access to your breasts. Your hands.”
It’s not quite a command, but it’s close enough. I slowly extend my arms and watch as he binds my wrists together. He’s good. The rope loops several times down my forearms and around in those careful knots, ensuring that it doesn’t put too much pressure on any one part of me.
He tests it. “Too tight?”
I want to be a brat about him removing the ability to touch him again, but I can’t seem to summon the attitude. “No,” I answer honestly.
“Good.” He urges me onto my back and loops the tail of the rope behind the headboard and over the top. Then the bastard presses the loose end into my hands. “I trust you to obey me, love. Hold this.”
Hold this.
What he means is to hold myself captive. I can’t pretend he’s tying me down and that I can’t get free—safe word excepting, of course. No, he’s ensuring I’m a willing participant in this because that’s just who Apollo is.
It’s a head fuck. Part of me wants to release it just to be perverse, to see what he’ll do. The rest of me only wants to please him. That’s the part that wins. I wrap the rope around my palm and tighten my fingers. “Okay.”
“Good girl.” He sits back on his heels and just looks at me. Again, I can’t shake the truth that he sees me. Not just my body at the expense of my mind. Not my mind at the expense of my body. Me. All of me.
Apollo licks his lips. “Now, we can begin properly.”
27
Apollo
In the past, I’ve viewed sex as an intricate dance between myself and my partners. One of consent and power exchange and finding out exactly what makes them tick in order to bring them as much pleasure as possible. All those impulses are there with Cassandra. I am who I am, after all.
But they’re superseded by sheer need.
My logical side has clicked off and there’s only desire. It takes everything I have not to lose control now that she’s naked and spread out, looking at me like I hold the keys to everything she needs. I want to be that for Cassandra. Desperately.
If I can’t give her everything, at least I can give her pleasure. Escape. Comfort.
I smooth her hair back from her face and press a kiss to her forehead, the tip of her nose, her lips. She tries to arch and to deepen the kiss, but I keep moving before she can. I can’t quite keep it light, though. I drag my mouth over the curve of her shoulder, the softness of her arm up to where the rope binds her, and then repeat the process on the other arm.
She shakes like a leaf, little whimpers slipping past her lips that I’m not certain she realizes she’s making. It’s a heady thing to affect this self-possessed woman so deeply. To have her trust me to guide this, to get her where she needs to be. I cherish the feeling, doing my best to memorize it as I move to her breasts.
I lavish attention on them, pressing them together so I can alternate between her nipples. I can’t get enough. Gods, I can barely believe this is happening at all. It feels like a particularly vivid fantasy, as if at any moment I’ll open my eyes and find myself alone in my bed, my fist wrapped around my cock.
I keep playing with her until her shaking has graduated to full tremors. Each breath is gasping and needy and her dark eyes have glazed over with desire. Only then do I move down, giving her stomach and hips the same thorough treatment. She’s so lovely, it makes it hard to breathe.
As tempting as making her come again is, I promised to fulfill her fantasy and that’s exactly what I intend to do. I deny us both and bypass her pussy, worshipping first one leg down to her ankle and then the other.
By the time I finally kneel between her thighs, we’re both breathing hard and she’s so wet, she’s glistening. I drag my knuckle down her center. “Perfect.”
“You keep saying that word.” Her voice is ragged and hoarse.
“I mean it.” I watch her face as I press two fingers into her. She’s even wetter than she was earlier, her body more than ready for mine. “You’re bold and smart and kind, Cassandra. It’s a privilege to take care of you tonight, and I’m glad you trust me to be there for you.”
She smiles, though her mouth trembles a little around the edges. “You’re making it very difficult to protect my heart right now.”
You don’t have to protect your heart from me.
I don’t say the words.
I run my hands up her thighs and press them wide. Her eyes slide half-shut as I grab a condom and rip open the package. It’s quick work to get it on, but I make myself go slower than normal, ensuring it’s properly done. This close to paradise, I’m determined to do nothing to taint the experience.
Now that the moment is here, it feels surreal. I prop myself up with a hand on the bed at her side to brace myself and press my cock into her. We both moan as I work into her in slow, shallow strokes. She wraps her thighs around my hips, urging me deeper. “More. Give me more.”
“Impatient.”
“For you? Always.”
Kissing her is the most natural thing in the world. I can’t believe I’ve spent the last five years not kissing Cassandra Gataki. She kisses me like she’ll never get enough, like she wants to imprint this experience on her memory with the same intensity that I do.
It takes me a moment to gather my wits about me, to smother my instinct to drive into her as deeply as possible. She told me what she wants, and I’ll be damned before I give her anything less than perfection.
I begin to move inside her slowly, but each stroke frays my ability to think, to plan. It feels too good to have her in my arms, her ankles locked at the small of my back. I lose myself a little more with each wave of pleasure that rises.
Time ceases to have meaning. There is only Cassandra. Her little helpless sounds. Her body moving against mine in a rhythm as old as time itself. Her eyes glazed with pleasure and yet focusing on me with an intensity that strikes right to my core.