Her body tingled. Her sex clenched. She groaned as sparks radiated through her core. He was strength and vitality. Power and potency. And as he hit that spot, that perfect spot so far inside, her vision blurred, her mind grew fuzzy, and every bit of her focus zeroed in on that blinding pleasure surging toward her.
“Not yet, mono mia.”
His mouth lifted from her throat. He pulled free of her body. She gasped as he jerked her away from the bookcase and cool air washed over her sweaty skin.
“Wait…”
He carried her across the floor while she searched for his mouth again, whipped her around, and tossed her over the arm of the couch near the fireplace.
Fabric brushed her belly. She grunted and bounced against the soft arm.
He kicked her legs apart. “No more waiting. This is what I want.”
She pushed up on her hands, tried to look back, but his palm between her shoulder blades shoved her back down. Then, before she could even open her mouth, he lined himself up and thrust in so deep, every thought rushed from her mind.
“Oh god. Yeeeeessssss...” Her fingers curled in the cushion beneath her. He didn’t give her time to adjust as he had before. Just drew back and shoved in even harder.
Ecstasy ricocheted through her body like a pinball. She arched, lifting her hips higher so he could drive deeper. Delirious, she moaned, “Fuck me. Fuck me hard. Don’t stop.”
He growled, braced one hand on the cushion near her arm, then leaned over and bit into her neck. And as that wicked-hot mixture of pleasure and pain streaked down her spine, as his thick cock pounded her G-spot again and again from the new angle, her vision clouded until it was nothing but a pinprick of bright light. Right in the center of her universe.
“Like this?” His hot breath ran down her neck as he fucked into her. He grunted at her back. His fingers closed around a handful of her hair and yanked so his lips grazed her earlobe. “Is this what you want?”
Oh god, yes… She opened her mouth to answer. Couldn’t make her lips form words. All she could do was press back against him, taking everything he wanted to give her.
“Nod, mono mia.” He thrust faster. Tightened his grip and yanked her head back harder, until pain raced over her scalp to mix with the pleasure scoring her sex. “Show me this is what you want. Getting fucked by the monster we both know I am.”
The orgasm he’d denied her built until it was almost too much to bear, but his words, the malicious way he said them, drew her back from the edge. Made her remember what he’d said before. When she’d kissed him and told him she wanted this. That she wanted him.
She gasped in a breath. Tightened every muscle so she wouldn’t come. Then shifted her hand beneath her to the side and closed her fingers around his braced against the cushion. “I want you. Just you. However I can get you. I’ve always wanted you.”
His muscles jerked. Deep inside, his cock lengthened and swelled. And against her ear, she heard him whisper, “Fuck.”
But the pressure grew too great for her to focus on his release. Before she could even suck in another breath, a pleasure she hadn’t known possible ignited in her core and exploded outward through each cell, sucking up every bit of light and sound and air and space until there was nothing.
Nothing but darkness.
A darkness she’d been seeking all her life. A darkness that lived in him.
A darkness that drew her home.
Chapter Fifteen
Zagreus wasn’t sure how they’d ended up on the floor, but he was too weak to think right now.
He rolled off Talisa and dropped to his back on the plush rug in front of the fireplace, breathing deeply to slow his still raging pulse as he stared up at the beamed ceiling above.
That… was not the smartest thing he’d ever done. She was supposed to be going home. Not doing—that—with him.
And why in the hell had she said those words? I’ve always wanted you. They weren’t true. They both knew they weren’t true. She’d hated him up until yesterday. In fact, in most of her lifetimes, she’d been scared shitless of him. On top of which, she never remembered him.
“Mm…” Talisa shifted his way then perched her elbow on the rug and rested her head in her hand with a wicked curl of her lips. “Now, that was a lot more like I expected. Not that I’m complaining about last night, mind you. I enjoyed that, too.”
Shit. Last night…
He still wasn’t sure what had really happened last night, but he knew now the sultry images pinging around in his head all day were real.
“I enjoyed it very much.” Her warm hand landed on his bare chest, sending tingles all through his flesh. “Both times.”
He rolled his head on the rug and stared her. At her wild hair, swollen lips, sated eyes, and the freakin’ glow coming off her that told him she’d definitely enjoyed it as much as he had.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “I can’t fucking read you at all.”
She laughed and slid her hand lower, to his abs. Just the casual touch lit him up all over again. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes, it’s a bad thing.” His eyes popped open. “I could always read you before. Which is how I always knew what you were going to do next.”
“Which was…?”
“Run.” He gently brushed her hand away, tugged his pants up, and pushed to sitting. A quick look over the room and he spotted his boots—which he didn’t even remember kicking off. “You never wanted to be with me, which is why it’s so fucking insane I can’t get rid of you now.”
“Interesting.” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees while he stood. “Never?”
“Maybe the first time. But then only until you realized I wouldn’t let you leave.” He grabbed his boots and dropped into a high-backed chair so he could pull them on, thankful she was covering those tempting breasts that made him lose his fucking mind. “Every other time you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
“So we weren’t in love?”
He huffed and loosened the laces on one boot. “Love is an illusion. It’s not real.”
She was silent for several seconds, then shifted to her knees in front of him and slid her palms along his thighs.
He glared down at her, trying not to look at those breasts and the sexy barbells through her delicious nipples. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Distracting you.”
He rolled his eyes and went back to loosening his boot.
And why the hell couldn’t he even be irritated with her now? He needed to pull his head out of his ass, stop obsessing about sex—something he was perfectly fine surviving without—and remember what truly mattered here.
“Did it ever occur to you that this time things are different,” she said softly.
“Yeah, no shit they’re different.” Holy hell, who tied his laces in a knot? “It’s still going to end the same way, though. Which is why you need to get the fuck away from me while you still can.”
A tiny voice in the back of his head told him he should be surprised she was not only discussing the fact they’d been together in her past lives but that she’d accepted it—that she believed it. Only he was too irritated with himself to go there.
She tugged the boot from his hands and dropped it on the floor behind her.
His brows snapped together. “What the—”
“Nice try, Grumpy Prince.” She pushed a hand against his shoulder, forcing him back into the chair, then climbed up and straddled his lap. “I’m not going anywhere. You need me.”
Her words warmed a place inside he wasn’t willing to acknowledge. Sighing, he closed his eyes and fought it as her heat seeped into his legs, his hips, his chest where everything was supposed to stay cold. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Everyone needs somebody.”
“Everyone isn’t me.”
Several seconds passed in silence, and when he couldn’t stand it anymore and finally forced his eyes open, he realiz
ed she was smiling down at him. A wide gorgeous smile that lit up her face and made her violet eyes absolutely sparkle.
“Why are you grinning like that?” he asked.
“Because I’m right.”
She leaned down to kiss him but he stopped her with his hands on both of her arms, holding her back. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they were right. All those people who said I was a monster… Every single one from your world… They were right.”
She stilled and met his gaze, but she didn’t speak, and she didn’t try to kiss him again. And though he told himself that was good—it was the only way it could be—something in his chest cinched down tight all over again.
“Every single awful thing they said I did…” He forced the words out. “They were right. I did those things. No one made me to do them. I did them because I wanted to. I did them because I could. I earned the title the Prince of Darkness. Because that’s exactly what I am.”
Her gaze skipped over his features. Unsure but also filled with… defiance. A defiance that lit him up in a million different ways and made him want her even more. “I don’t care.”
She leaned toward him again, but he tightened his hold on her arms, keeping her back. “Then you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
Her luscious lips curled on one side. “Oh, I am. I’m very smart. And you know it too or you wouldn’t be protesting so much.”
“Talis—”
“When a soul has endured terrible things, Zagreus, it can become capable of terrible things. And you have lived through things no one should have to live through. But those things don’t define you. And they don’t control you. Not unless you let them. I don’t care what you did in the past. I don’t care what people have said about you. All I care about is what you do now. And what I’ve seen you do these last few days has not come from a place of darkness. It’s come from light.” She laid her palm back on his chest. Right over his heart. “A light I know is still in here.”
He could barely believe her words. That she’d said them. That she’d said them while looking at him as she was now—with tenderness and honesty—as if she truly believed them.
His heart raced beneath her hand. Disbelief churned inside. And when she eased forward again, he flexed his arms, fighting to keep her away even though he was losing the strength to do just that. “Don’t. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” she said softly. “I’m not fighting something that started a long time ago.”
Her lips grazed his temple, and his resistance wavered. For once he was trying to do the right thing, only she was stopping him. Something that was completely fucking ironic considering their past. “It’s better if you just go now. I’m letting you leave.”
“Too late. I don’t want to go anymore.”
“Talis—”
“I know what it’s like to be alone, Zagreus.” She drew back and met his gaze, the intense look in her violet eyes stopping him more than her words. “Maybe not as long as you’ve been alone, but I know how isolating it is. I know how it feels not to fit in with the people around you. To be told you’re not strong enough or smart enough or special enough. And I know what it’s like to fight against all that because it’s the only thing you’re good at doing.”
His heart raced even faster as he stared up at her.
She brushed her fingertips down the stubble on his cheek, her touch sending zings of electricity all through his skin. “But I also know how it feels to finally find the one person who gets you, who understands you, who accepts you, even with all your flaws.” Her lips tipped up. “Even if that person is not at all who you expected him to be.”
His chest grew so tight he was surprised it didn’t burst, right there in front of her. Her words bathed him in warmth—so much warmth he wanted to grab her and never let go. But he held back. Because if he took what she was so blindly offering, nothing would change. They would both be stuck in the same cycle of life and death and misery that had plagued them for so long.
“It isn’t real,” he whispered.
“What isn’t real?”
“This. How you think you feel. It’s a set up by the Fates. To bring us together for whatever fucking reason they think we need to be together. They’re moving both of us around like pawns, and I’m sick of it. They’ve been doing it my whole damn life and the only thing that’s guaranteed is that you’ll suffer for it. Just as you’ve suffered every other fucking time they’ve thrown us together.”
“You’ve suffered, too.”
“I don’t matter.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She tipped his chin up when he tried to look away. “You’re also wrong about the Fates. They might have sent me back before, but not this time. This time there’s something stronger at work here. A bigger reason you and I are together in this time and place.”
He frowned. “You’re naïve. There’s no reason some higher power or whatever you want to call it would ever look twice at me.”
“Why not? We all know that the gods are nothing more than fallen angels, and each angel was created in light.” When he scoffed and looked away, she tipped his face back to hers. “And every fallen angel—no matter how dark—can reignite that light. Including you.”
His chest contracted again, only this time it was laced with a bitter reality he could never change. “I’m no hero, Talisa. If that’s what you’re expecting, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed. Even if there is a smattering of light left inside me, it’s overshadowed by a shit-ton of darkness.”
One side of her lips curled as she leaned in close. “If I’d wanted a hero, I could have easily found one in my realm.” Her hand drifted down his abs and into his open pants, her warm breath tickling his lips. “And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, dios, I like the dark.” Her slim fingers wrapped around his cock, already lengthening and swelling in her grip. “It’s what I was looking for the night we met.”
He sucked in a sharp breath as she drew him out of his pants and shifted so the head of his erection could slide through her wetness.
“I’d much rather have a devil in my bed.” She brushed her lips against his temple again, flexed her hips, then shivered as his cock passed over her clit. “A devil who is dark and sexy and wild and wicked.” She moved so he was at the perfect position, then tipped his face up to hers so their lips were almost touching. “A devil with just enough light to lead me right to him.”
She was a drug, one this close he couldn’t resist. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her down, until all her tempting wet heat surrounded him and she was all he knew.
He groaned at the tight fit, at the way she gasped as he stretched her. Pressing his mouth to hers, he tasted her deeply, drawing her into his soul in a way she’d never been before.
She moaned and kissed him back, her hands on both sides of his face, her tongue licking into his mouth in a way that made him wild for more. For everything. Holding her tight against him so she wouldn’t fall, he eased forward in the chair, then moved to his knees on the carpet so she was laid out beneath him.
With one hand braced on the rug, the other arm still wrapped tight around her waist, he lifted his mouth a breath from hers so he could see her eyes. So he could watch her reaction when he rocked back, then pressed deep all over again. So he could figure out what it was about her that was so different this time.
What was making him different.
“Mm, yes, dios…” Her fingertips tightened against his shoulders, her violet gaze never left his. Each time he hit that spot he knew drove her wild, her sheath contracted around his cock and the sexiest grunt slipped from her perfect lips. “Just like that.”
The need to please her, to satisfy her, to give her what she wanted overtook every thought. He tightened his hold on her waist, pulling her tighter against him. Thrust faster each time she pulsed around his length.
Sweat s
licked his skin. Blood pounded in his veins. Heat streaked down his spine as she wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him in closer. But he held his orgasm back, driven by a hot, wicked demand that had only one answer.
Her release. Her cries of carnal pleasure. Her detonation as she erupted in erotic bliss all around him.
Nothing else mattered but that. Every cell in his body zeroed in on her. On finally being exactly what she’d always needed.
“Dios…” She arched and gripped his shoulders tighter. “There. Oh yes, right… There…”
His body responded to the throaty sound of her voice, to the plea in her words. He thrust harder. Deeper. Grunted each time he bottomed out. Still couldn’t look away from her eyes. Couldn’t make his lips work to respond. Couldn’t do anything but fuck her faster and better than he had before. To hold on as every muscle in her body contracted then spasmed as that mindless pleasure utterly consumed her.
It devoured him, too. A shockwave of ecstasy that sucked him under and seemed to have no end. One that didn’t just rock his body but penetrated his soul in a way their joining never had before.
In a way that told him it wasn’t a god or a Fate or a higher power that would finally save him from the darkness. It was her.
Her trust. Her faith. Her belief that there really was some kind of light left inside him worth saving.
All he had to do was tear open every wound inside and let her.
The sound of quiet voices somewhere close roused Talisa from sleep. That and the scent of fresh brewed coffee.
Rolling to her back, she blinked several times in the dimly lit room and focused on a fair-haired nymph setting a tray on a table near the windows.
“Would you like the curtains opened?” the nymph asked.
“Yes.”
A smile tugged at Talisa’s lips when she recognized the gruff voice. Shifting her head the other direction, she looked up to see Zagreus sitting beside her in the pillows.
He was as naked as he’d been when he’d dragged her into his big bed last night, the sheet hitting low at his waist to show off his rock-hard muscles and tantalizing tattoos. Only, he wasn’t looking at the nymph as Talisa expected. He was staring down at her with eyes that were a little bit wary, a tad confused, and a whole lot sexy.
Wicked Page 23
