Receiver of Many

by Rachel Alexander

  Her essence coated his lips and his chin. Aidon flexed his arm around her to steady her as she undulated, her head thrown back against the sheets. Her fingers threaded through his hair. Another wave rolled through her and she tugged at his scalp, not knowing whether to pull him closer or push him away, unable to withstand anymore. He opened his eyes to watch the peaks of her breasts rise and fall as she gasped in release. Aidon slowly pulled away from her and delivered one last light kiss below her navel, bringing her back and legs to rest on the bed once more. He shifted to lie next to her.

  Persephone opened her eyes to see Aidon run his hand hard over his mouth and the point of his beard. He brought it up and carefully licked each of his fingers, humming in pleasure as if he were drinking the last ambrosia in existence. She stared up at him wordlessly as he fitted his body next to hers, the tip of his member slick and weeping against her thigh.

  “And now I’m convinced,” he said breathlessly and licked his lips with a smile, “that every last bit of you is good and beautiful.”

  She breathed through a grin and closed her eyes once more, unable to move. “That was… How did you…”

  Aidon smiled silently as his hand glided along the light sheen of sweat covering her neck and breasts. She glowed in the lamplight. Persephone saw him position his arm at the side of her head, ready to move over her and fill her once more.

  “Wait.”

  He stopped.

  “My turn.”

  His eyes glazed over at her meaning and he exhaled long and low as she turned toward him. Aidon lay on his back, silently swearing to himself that he wouldn’t stop her. Every inch of him wanted to take her under him this very moment and join their flesh as deeply and thoroughly as he possibly could. Instead, he watched Persephone kiss his chest, moving her hands over his shoulders and tensed arms.

  She stared at one of his flat nipples then darted her tongue out, listening to him hiss through his teeth as his entire body quaked. That was unexpected for both of them. Veins pulsed under the skin of his forearms and his knuckles turned white from clenching his fists. Persephone knew then that he was using every bit of will not to take her then and there. She would have to revisit them later. Greater temptations awaited her and she knew her time to explore him was dangerously pitted against his desire to drive mercilessly into her. She kissed over Aidon’s stomach and heard him sigh, allowing himself to relax against her careful exploration. She ran her hands carefully down the path of coarse hair that started at his navel, not touching his most sensitive flesh just yet. He drew his legs slightly apart so she could kneel between them.

  Persephone stroked her hands up his inner thighs. She cradled the soft globes of flesh at their juncture that felt vulnerable and potent all at once. His thighs tensed as she rolled them in her hand. She startled as his cock jumped on his clenching stomach, reacting to her caress. Aidoneus exhaled sharply as her fingers trailed up the ridge of his shaft, then groaned when her hand wrapped around its base. She stroked upward, lifting it off his stomach as he shut his eyes. Her fingers circled his girth, her thumb barely meeting her middle finger over the pronounced vein pulsing along its length. The skin was softer than she imagined, almost delicate, a surprising contrast with the powerful hardness underneath. She gently pulled it back, then stroked her hand up its length and heard him sigh, his back arching forward. She recognized that reaction, and wanted so badly to give him the same pleasure he had just given her. She ran her thumb over the head and felt the drop at its tip slick over the crown’s uneven edges, smiling in delight when he moaned once more. Another clear drop welled up and replaced it, filling her with an irrepressible urge to taste him.

  Persephone brought her lips down. Aidoneus felt himself straining closer to her waiting mouth. She smiled and stopped for a moment, faintly remembering something Hecate had said just after she arrived, and looked up at him with a playful glint in her eyes. “Aidon?”

  “Yes, love?” he said, his own eyelids heavy with passion.

  “I won’t be trapped here, will I?”

  “What?” His forehead was etched in lines of strained confusion. “What do you mean?”

  She gave him a half smile. “Well, if you eat the fruits of the Underworld…”

  “But, sweet one, ‘fruits of the Underworld’ are the asphodel roots out in th—” He stopped as a smile curved his mouth upward, understanding her meaning. The laugh started deep in his throat, his entire body shaking forward. He brought his hand up to his forehead and smoothed his hair back. His laugh sounded unnatural yet beautiful to her, as though such a sound never before existed.

  “What?” she said in mock innocence.

  “No, sweet one,” he laughed, “I don’t think that counts.”

  She watched his chest and stomach clench again in another laugh, his eyes squinting against his smile. He stopped and breathed a sigh, looking up at her tenderly.

  “You’ve never laughed like that before,” she said quietly.

  “No,” he breathed, “I don’t think I’ve laughed like that in my entire life.”

  She returned his smile. “Really?”

  “I never had cause to,” he said softly, sitting up and staring into her eyes. He looked to where her hand still rested.

  She squeezed him, and his eyes glazed over once more. Persephone stroked upward again while he rested back on his wrists and tipped his head forward to watch her. She licked her lips and placed them against the tip, feeling him tense. Aidon moaned as she descended to taste the salt and warm spice of his flesh. Persephone felt his hand reach softly into her hair as she enveloped him with her hot mouth. With her hand, she gripped the shaft below her lips and felt him fight to keep from thrusting into her throat. She tightened her grasp as he strained, his breath coming in ragged bursts when she darted her tongue across the crown. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the fabric of the bed sheets crumpling in his other fist and smiled, knowing that she was bestowing the same gift of pleasure on him that he had just given her.

  Aidon was dying. Every sensation in his body pulled him toward her tongue circling the head of his cock. Rational thought left him when her hand closed around him, then her lips, then her tongue, then the hot touch of the back of her throat. He moaned. Her lips dragged upward with straining pressure before descending once more, enveloping him in the soft wet heat of her mouth. Her rhythm reflected his when he made love to her, each pull upward making him feel twice as hard as before. The feel of her loving him with her mouth became all consuming, pressure building up in the head, ready to burst. He felt himself hurtling toward the precipice.

  “Stop, stop! Persephone, please…”

  “Did I hurt you?” She looked at him, her face falling. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No! No, far from it. I just—” he ached for her, veins throbbing under his skin, pulsing his desire for her. He needed to look into her eyes once more. “I need to be inside you, my love. Please…”

  She sat up and moved over him as he tilted upward. Her body crashed against his chest and she brought her legs over his hips to straddle his lap. This wasn’t how he’d planned to take her, but her advances were very welcome, nonetheless. He felt heat pouring from her center. Aidon drew her into his embrace, his tongue searching hers out in a kiss, his hands tangling in her hair. He reached under her and lifted her up, crossing his legs in front of him while she wrapped hers behind his back. He had dreamed of making love to her this way since they first met in Eleusis, but in the three weeks he’d spent coupling with her in near silence, he wouldn’t have even known how to suggest it.

  Persephone reached between them and gripped his shaft, guiding him to her entrance. With a swift thrust, Aidoneus was inside her. He broke off their kiss and kept his eyes open, face to face with her, watching her gasp, feeling her shudder in his arms as her channel stretched to hold him. Aidon held her hips steady so he could guide their lovemaking. His movements became slow and stilled when her eyes opened to his again. If he we
nt any faster it would be over too soon. He needed this to last as long as possible, to experience the love he knew she felt but still could not voice to him. He needed to show her that it was safe to open up to him fully. Persephone shifted in his arms, needing to feel the sweet friction of him plunging into her, frustrated and mewling for him to go faster.

  “Aidon—”

  “Not yet…” he whispered.

  “—please…”

  “Shh… Persephone…”

  He ran his hands across her back, soothing her until she calmed and came back to him. Persephone felt their union, deep within her and beyond their joined flesh, surrounded and surrounding, supported, blissful. She looked into his eyes as he withdrew. He pushed upward, watching her shudder as he filled her again. Aidon took his time, trailing his lips over her skin, one arm wrapped around her waist as the other wound its way through her hair at the nape of her neck. The last barriers she held against his full possession of her seemed almost strange now, and she could feel herself edging closer to those three fateful words that he longed to hear from her. He pushed into her in a slow rhythm, feeling her grasp and release him with each thrust.

  She started to crane her head back in pleasure as he leaned forward and latched his mouth onto her breast. Her hands rested on his shoulders and wound their way into his hair, pulling him forward. He held her between her shoulder blades and sped up, their foreheads tilted together, eye to eye, breathing in unison, feeling every pulse through and around each other. Every sinew in her body from the arches of her feet to the back of her neck tightened once again, the now familiar sign that told her she was at the edge of climax. His own peak drew near and he grew impossibly hard within her. She tilted her head back in pleasure.

  “I want to look into your eyes when you come,” Hades rasped, gently pulling on the roots of her hair to guide Persephone’s gaze back to his. “Let me see you.”

  She felt her face then her entire body clench as she struggled to keep her eyes open for him, seeing the image of her own ecstasy in the strain on his face. A vein coursed over his forehead under beads of sweat, and his face flushed with pleasure. He gasped his completion staring directly at her. Arching forward, she cried out as he cried out, her lips parted wordlessly as his were, face to face, staring into each other. When the intensity overwhelmed them, they fell against each other, their arms and legs wrapped tightly around each other, breathing in unison. Aidon stroked the long waves of hair matted to her back and stayed inside her as she brought her knees back to the side of his hips and fell limp against his chest.

  He tilted their spent bodies back and fell against the pillows, still intimately locked together as they stretched their legs out. He softened and her tight channel slowly released him. In the absence of her most intimate embrace, Aidoneus brought his arms tightly around Persephone, holding her on top of his chest and kissing the top of her head.

  He raised his shaking hand and doused the lights. His eyes closed and he draped his wrist across her back. He held her to him, and stroked her hair. “I love you, sweet one. I love you… My Persephone, I love you. I love you, I love you…”

  Her eyes stayed open, listening to him whisper the words over and over. They faded and slurred as he drifted off, his chest rising and falling under her head. Hades’s words rang in her ears while he fell into a sleep deeper than he’d had in aeons. His breathing was peaceful and measured. Hers was not. Persephone lay awake, her mind repeating his susurrations endlessly— words that she still could not say to him, no matter how badly she wanted to. Exhaustion and the rhythm of his heartbeat finally lulled her into sleep and dreams.

  They burst. Wound against one another, tangled and embraced, they burst in six-pointed flames of red against the life-giving leaves. Their forms were gentle: delicate and temporary. Each petal opened against the air, vulnerable and tender. Their centers unfurled. They waited.

  13.

  It could be like this, she thought, waking up in the crook of his arm.

  Persephone watched the rise and fall of his chest as he slept peacefully. The thoughts were hers, but in her mind, his voice spoke the words. Open yourself to me— love me— be my wife, and it could be like this for all eternity.

  Aidoneus had found a permanent place in her heart yesterday. Persephone didn’t know if it was love, but she longed to say the words she knew he wanted to hear— words that would bind her soul to him forever. She wondered if the mysterious trees in the garden were blooming just as they were in her dream. She nuzzled against Aidon, tempted to wake him and walk with him out to the grove. Perhaps her dream matched his again. The proof would be hundreds of red flowers, their soft petals gilding every branch.

  Persephone looked up at his peaceful face. She had never seen him asleep before. He had always waited for her to fall asleep first, and was already gone before she awoke. If he slept as little as he said, she guessed that this was the first time he’d slept through the night in centuries. Aeons, even.

  Very carefully, Persephone sat up and looked around, their passion-scattered clothing strewn about the room. She leaned over to pick up one of her sandals by the straps and set it by its mate, then got up and folded her chiton, quietly placing it on the chair next to the table. Persephone saw his himation lying in a heap on the floor and sighed contentedly, remembering when he had placed it over her freezing shoulders in the cypress grove without any hesitation. Its edges were soft in her hands as she stretched her arms wide to unfurl and shake out its long length.

  Persephone heard the muffled clink of metal on the floor and glanced at Aidon. He slumbered, undisturbed by the noise. She turned over the fabric. A long gold fibula was fastened and hidden within its folds— a strange place to wear one. She drew out one side and peered closer. Were those quills? Persephone pulled the other end out and held up a golden arrow the length of her forearm.

  What you saw wasn’t true love, it was just lust.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth in disbelief. Why did he have this? Her mind spun between her mother’s warnings about men and Aidon’s whispered declarations of love from the previous night. She thought about the many sweet things the Eleusinian man had said to his wife in the wedding tent after they coupled. Then about her father’s many lovers.

  They were pricked by Eros, and their love will die someday.

  “Never mind the clothes, Persephone…”

  She gasped and turned her head toward his voice.

  “Come back to bed, sweet one… I want to make love to you while it’s light outside.”

  Persephone faced him, the arrow behind her back. Aidoneus was lying against the pillows, smiling at her. His hands were folded behind his head and she shuddered as her eyes followed contours of smooth muscle and the line of his hip to the fabric pulled up just above his navel. She saw the unmistakable ridge of his arousal ghosting through the sheet. Unbidden, the coil tightened in her stomach and her thighs squeezed together in response to the warmth that flooded between them. Her response to him was always so sudden and overpowering. Had he pricked her with the arrow?

  “What’s the matter, my love?”

  Persephone brought the golden arrow out from behind her back. Aidon’s expression quickly shifted from bliss to his usual mask of solemnity, worry lines deepening on his forehead and his lips pursed together. Of all times, Fates, why did she find it now?! he thought, then closed his eyes and smoothed his hand back through his hair, his forehead etched with frustration.

  “What is this?” she said quietly.

  “Persephone, it’s very dangerous. Please—”

  “Answer my question! I asked you: ‘what is this?!’” she shouted. “How long have you had this? Is this— is this the only reason you—”

  “No! It’s not,” he tried to cajole her. “Please put it down and let me explain—”

  “Explain what? This is a golden arrow, Aidoneus. There’s only one being who shoots these!”

  He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the be
d, the sheets still pooled at his groin, covering his diminishing hardness. “Before I came to you the first time, I went to Olympus to speak with your father about taking you as my wife. After he consented, Eros tried to shoot me in the heart, but I caught the arrow before it reached its target.”

  “I know how these work!” she said angrily. “One only has to be scratched—”

  “And I was!” he snapped back at her, momentarily raising his voice to her level. He tried to calm himself and regain his composure. “But it doesn’t work like—”

  “You pricked me with it last night, didn’t you?! To make me fall in love with you!” Her eyes widened in panic once the words left her mouth. Persephone froze.

  “Oh?” Aidoneus said quietly. He hadn’t even entertained the idea of pricking her with the arrow. After Eros had loosed his bow, he’d kept the cursed thing with him so the emotions that had tortured him ever since wouldn’t befall anyone else. But Persephone had just admitted she loved him. Aidon held his breath and waited.

  Persephone looked away, unable to breathe as she realized what she had just revealed. Every moment she stood here saying nothing would just confirm his suspicions. She tried to look at anything in the room but the man sitting on her bed.

  He watched as she twisted, knotting his forehead. Why couldn’t she have just said something, anything, during their tender moments last night? Maybe she was scared and looking for the right moment to tell him. A hopeful, vulnerable smile teased the corner of his mouth. “Is that what you feel for me, then?”

  “Just answer my question!”

  “The answer is no, Persephone!” Her anger sliced through him, and he felt something constrict in his chest. “I thought I’d already made it clear to you by my actions that I would never use trickery to have you.” Surely she remembered how he had refused her advances when her memories had been washed away by the Lethe— when the girl that was Kore told him that she loved him…