Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I grab the lube and a condom. This might all be over tonight. Circe’s conquest. My romance with Poseidon. I want to give him something to remember me by.
I push his legs wide and spread a generous amount of lube over his ass. “You’ve been so wonderful at keeping your hands on the headboard. Keep them there a bit longer, big guy.”
“Icarus.”
If I live another seventy years, I’ll never forget the desperate, loving way he says my name. “What do you need?”
“Let me touch you. Please.”
It’s dangerous, but I’ve already thrown myself fully into the reality of walking away from this with a broken heart. If I walk away at all. There’s every possibility that my body will join my father’s in some unmarked grave outside the city proper. What will it hurt to allow this moment of total intimacy? I drag in a rough breath. “Okay.”
He doesn’t hesitate. He wraps his arms around me even as I sink into him, one slow inch at a time. It’s like being held by a mountain, like in his embrace, nothing would dare touch me. In this moment, I can’t help but believe it. My heart lurches and a horrible burning starts behind my eyes. “This city doesn’t deserve you.” I withdraw almost completely and shove back into him. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You have me,” he moans. He strokes those work-roughened hands down my back as I keep fucking him.
Except it doesn’t feel like fucking.
It feels like love.
It doesn’t matter how hard I thrust, how intense the pleasure. There’s no denying the current of caring between us. It’s there in the way he arches up, in the way I catch his mouth, in the press of his fingertips against my skin.
He breaks the kiss. “Icarus! I’m going to—”
“Come for me, big guy.” I nip his bottom lip. “Please.”
That single word is his undoing. I angle back so I can fuck him more thoroughly. It takes a single stroke and he cries out, coming in great jerks all over his stomach as I take him. A fucking masterpiece, his freckles, his seed, my wax. It’s too much. I follow him over the precipice. Too good. Everything with him is too damn good.
It’s like my bones dissolve. I slump onto his chest, mess and all, and he immediately wraps his arms around me and hugs me to him. Words blossom in my chest, words I can’t allow myself to speak. If I tell Poseidon that I love him, he’ll never let me go. Even if it hurts him in the end. Even if it kills him.
I don’t tell him I love him. I don’t tell him that he’s given me a gift beyond measure. He’s cared for me, seen value in me that no one else in my life recognized—not even my beloved sister. For Poseidon, I can put away my selfish ways. For him, I can be brave enough to do the right thing.
To leave him.
30
Poseidon
We manage a shower before falling back into bed. I have the presence of mind to set an alarm and then I pass out, Icarus tucked against my body. At least until my phone wakes me up sometime later. I roll over, relishing the sting of the tiny burns Icarus made, the languidness of my body, and fumble the phone up to my ear. “What?”
“What did you do?” Hera is so coldly furious that I’m half-surprised she doesn’t manage to ice the entire room with her displeasure alone.
I check the alarm next to the bed but can’t quite manage to breathe a sigh of relief when I realize I have two hours before I need to meet Zeus and Hades. Except there’s no relief to be had because Hera is on the phone. She said something… “What?”
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I don’t sound the least bit convincing. I’m a shit liar even when I have time to prepare. Icarus shifts next to me and makes a small sound. I don’t hesitate to cover his mouth with my free hand and give him a little shake to wake him up. I don’t think Hera is waiting outside the door to murder us, but I’d be a fool to underestimate her.
“Don’t insult me by trying to lie. You’re terrible at it,” she snaps. “Why is my husband missing, Poseidon? Did you warn him of my plans?”
“Zeus is…missing.” Belatedly, understanding rolls over me. Of course Zeus isn’t where his wife expects him to be. He’s staging a coup and planning a midnight attack.
She pauses for a beat. “That time, I almost believed you have no idea where he is.”
“I don’t.” That, at least, is the truth. I know where he’ll be, and I could take a guess or two to figure out where he is now—coordinating with Ares and Athena tops the list—but it’s not as if he provided me with an itinerary.