12
APHRODITE
I’ve made a miscalculation. I thought I could control this interaction with Hephaestus just like I controlled it last night. He knew I didn’t need foreplay, and I didn’t peg him for the type to enjoy it anyway; more like he gets in, gets out, and rolls over to snore his way through the night.
Apparently I was wrong.
The man between my thighs, currently fucking me with his tongue, is a stranger. He’s obviously furious with me about Pandora, but his solution was to eat me out? It doesn’t—
Hephaestus moves back to my clit, working me with that slow, intentional stroke. Even as I tell myself to be still and silent, a whimper slips free. I didn’t lie before. Getting Pandora off had me so turned on I couldn’t see straight. I fully intended to come home, strip down, and give myself as many orgasms as it took to exhaust me.
Maybe then I’d be able to sleep.
Hephaestus sucks my clit into his mouth and it’s too much. My back bows. My thoughts flicker out. I come so hard, it scatters the world around me.
He releases my hands slowly, as if he expects me to be able to move. “Keep them there.”
I can only blink down at him, this furious husband of mine. There isn’t a single response ready to deploy, even if he wasn’t still covering my mouth with his wide palm. He shifts a little and then his fingers are there, pressing into my pussy.
I thought I was done.
I thought he was done.
Apparently I was wrong on both accounts.
He goes back to my clit, pressing remarkably soft kisses there even as he fucks a third finger into me. I’m almost too full, but my body can’t decide if it hates it or loves it, not with the conflicting signals being sent. Hard and soft. Rough and gentle.
Oh fuck, I’m going to come again.
I start to lift my hand, to tap out. A denied orgasm isn’t ideal, but neither is letting my husband know he’s got my number down. People get cocky when they think they have your pussy on a leash. Sex has never been enough to cloud my judgment, and it won’t be now, but no reason to give him ideas.
It’s too late.
He curls his fingers inside me, testing. His growl of satisfaction is the only warning I get. He zeroes in on my G-spot. Even after the last orgasm, I’m too tightly wound. Too on edge. I come with a scream I’m relieved is muffled.
I think I black out. One moment, I’m lying there, staring at my ceiling and wondering what the fuck just happened. The next, Hephaestus is flipping me onto my stomach. “You done?”
I should be. It’s the smart thing to do. This isn’t going at all like I expected, and that means it’s time to retreat and recalculate. I open my mouth to confirm that I’m done, but those aren’t the words that emerge. “Finish what you started, Husband.” I manage to choke out a laugh that’s almost mocking. “Unless you came in your pants already.”
“So quick-witted.” He hesitates and then his weight is gone. I hear him hefting himself to his feet with a faint pained groan. “Bed. Now. This floor is killer on my knee.”
I watch him walk toward my bedroom. This is my chance to put an end to this. All I need to do is call security and have him escorted out. Married or not, this apartment is mine.
But I don’t.
I stagger upright and follow my husband into my bedroom. I stop short in the doorway. He’s stripping down as if he has every right to be here. Despite myself, I can’t help drinking in the sight of him. A warrior, through and through. It’s written across his medium-brown skin, there in the scars that line his back and pepper his chest. The scar on his knee is still the bright pink of the newly healed, a mess of tissue that indicates just how bad the injury was.
My sister didn’t pull her punches. Or, more accurately, her kick.
“Take off the dress.”
I bristle at his command, but my body still shakes from the two orgasms. Last night was fine, but things are different between us right now. Even though I know better, I want to see what he’ll do.
I unzip the dress and work it down my body. His attention follows the fabric, and he snorts when I step out of it. “No bra, either.” Hephaestus leverages himself down onto the bed.
“It doesn’t go with the outfit.” I strut over to him and place my foot on his upper thigh, the spike heel bare inches from his hard cock. To his credit, he doesn’t so much as flinch, though the muscle flexes beneath my shoe. I bat my eyes at him. “Undo me, Husband?”
“You really are a damned witch.” He moves before I can process that, hooking a hand behind my knee and hauling me down astride his lap. “Condom?”
I don’t know if I’m irritated he doesn’t trust me or proud of him for that same lack of trust. Instead of answering with words, I lean over, letting him catch my hips to keep me in place, and pull one out of the top nightstand drawer. I dangle it in front of his face. “Shall I?”
“No.”
Again, that reluctant admiration flares. My husband is taking no chances, and even if it’s inconvenient, he’s smart not to. I lean back as he rips the packet open and rolls the condom down his impressive length.
He inches back onto the mattress, taking me with him. Hephaestus stares at my breasts for a long moment. “Turn around.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” When I don’t move fast enough, he hooks me around the hips and drags me back as he reclines. We end up on our sides, with his arms wrapped around me. He moves me like a fucking doll, draping one of my legs up and over his hips, opening me so he can press his cock to my entrance. “I’m going to fuck you now, Wife.”
For such a brutal motherfucker, he really is a softy when it comes to ensuring I’m right there with him. If I was any less determined to make him suffer, that might make me waver. I can’t afford to.
My husband is my enemy. My city’s enemy.
“You’re talking so much, you almost sound like you’re working yourself up to it. If you’re too scared, just go home. I can finish myself.” The words feel too sharp, but I can’t help it. I have to remember that we’re on opposite sides of an uncrossable line.
Instead of getting pissed, he relaxes against me and chuckles. “There she is. You had me worried.”
What the fuck is he talking about? “I—” A horrifyingly delicate whimper slips from my lips at the invasion of his cock. I’m wet enough that he doesn’t have to fight quite as hard as he did last night, but it’s still a tight fit.
He doesn’t give me a chance to catch my breath, though. Hephaestus palms one breast with his hand and the other winds around my thigh, hitching it higher in the process, to press lightly against my clit. I’m so oversensitized that any touch stronger than that would be too much, and damn him, he knows it.
“I’ll tell you a secret.” He fucks me slowly, as if he has all the time in the world. I’m not certain he doesn’t. He pinches my nipple lightly, earning another of those godsawful whimpers. He drags his mouth along my throat up to my ear. “You’re much more pleasant when someone is playing with your clit.”
“You son of a—”
Another nipple pinch steals my words. Hephaestus changes his angle a little and, oh fuck, this feels good. I’m melting for him, and even as I try to fight it, my body has taken over. He keeps up that light touch on my clit, fucking me right to the edge of a third orgasm.
How did I lose control so thoroughly?
I’m a shaking, whimpering thing, and all I can do is cling to him and take what he gives me. Later… Later, I’ll make him pay for this.
After he makes me come again.
His voice is rough with pleasure, lower than normal and gravelly. “Gonna be a requirement for every talk going forward. Spread those thighs and put you in an agreeable mood. If you’re very good, I’ll even give you this cock again.”
I need to push back against this. I have to. Because the picture he’s painting isn’t disagreeable. I can envision it all too clearly. Us trading barbs while he’s fingering me… While he’s going down and putting that vicious tongue to work. “Oh fuck.”
“That’s right, Wife. Come on your husband’s cock.”
I don’t want to. I desperately don’t want to give him this. But it’s too late to go back. I cry out as I come, clenching around his cock. He barely waits for my orgasm to ebb before he picks up his pace, fucking me roughly for several long minutes, and then coming with a curse that makes me shiver.
Then the motherfucker pulls out of me and slaps my ass.
I’m still trying to find words when he returns from my bathroom, drops down next to me with one heavy arm draped over my waist, and passes the fuck out. I blink in shock. The asshole is snoring.
My thoughts are too scattered after this hard pivot to fully comprehend what just happened. That was…good sex. Really good. It doesn’t mean anything, and it certainly won’t divert me from my goals, but it’s more than a little shocking. I don’t know why he’s staying, though. It doesn’t make sense. He hates me as much as I hate him, and while he might be wholly outclassed for his title, that doesn’t mean he’s a complete fool. There’s no way he’d sleep in my bed without good reason.
Surely the reason isn’t because he slept as little last night as I did?
A yawn catches me by surprise. I’m going on forty-eight hours without sleep. Not my longest stretch, not by a long shot, but the longest in years. Even when Adonis and I were on our off times, he was always there for me to crash in his bed, the familiar cadence of his breathing enough to send me under. That’s not an option anymore, and I have no one to blame but myself.
I yawn again. Hephaestus is heavy, his arm a solid weight pinning me to the mattress. I try to shift away, but he tightens his hold on me, tucking me against his larger body. I curse. “You’ve got to be joking me.” I poke his shoulder. “Hephaestus. Hephaestus, you can’t stay here.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t respond at all, other than letting out another quiet snore. I sigh. Some soldier he is. I could claw his eyes out or smother him right now; he might wake up to prevent me from killing him, but I could definitely maim. Surely he doesn’t think so little of me?
It’s definitely not that he trusts me.
I certainly don’t trust him.
I don’t mean to close my eyes. I have every intention of wrestling my way out of Hephaestus’s hold, showering the scent of sex off my body, and then brewing some coffee to keep the mental cobwebs at bay. He just… He smells really good. And my body is relaxed from the orgasms and the feel of him half holding me down. Like my very own cranky weighted blanket.
Dangerous thoughts.
I’m going to get up.
In just a moment…
“Eris?”
I jolt awake. There’s something wrong in the room, and it’s not just the man sleeping at my side. The light is all strange. It was dark just a moment ago, only the lights of the city playing through the windows of my bedroom. Now it’s bright.
I slept.
I slept.
“Eris.”
I belatedly register it’s not my husband talking to me. I look up and go still. Adonis. I wish I could say he looks great, but it would be a lie. His pants are creased and his shirt is buttoned haphazardly. He also hasn’t shaved recently, so a shadow of a beard darkens his jaw. “What are you doing here?”
“I…” He shakes his head sharply. “I was worried about you.”
Gods, it hurts to look at him. It hurts even more that both of us are very carefully not looking at my husband lying naked on the bed between us. There’s no way he’s still sleeping, but he hasn’t opened his eyes, and this moment feels too fraught to call him out on eavesdropping. I drag in a shaky breath. “I told you we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
Adonis’s dark eyes take on a look I’ve never seen before. On anyone else, I would call it cruelty. “And yet you didn’t revoke my permission to your apartment or take your key back. Seems like you’re sending mixed signals.”
I didn’t do either of those things because deep down, I’m a sentimental fool. Not that I’ll ever admit it. I lift my chin. “An oversight on my part. I’ve only been married two days, after all.” I’m being an unforgivable bitch, but why is he here? Surely it hurts him to look at me as much as it hurts me to look at him?
Adonis shakes his head. “I didn’t come to fight with you, Eris. I came to make sure you’re okay.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was an attack.” He looks away. “Someone tried to kill Athena.”