Ryan came to me as I stared into Jack’s eyes, one hand wrapping around my waist, the other on my opposite shoulder. “C’mon, Selene,” he whispered in my ear. “You said you had other stuff to do.”
I nodded, fighting back tears. “Yeah,” I said, turning to face him and letting him lead me back toward my suite’s table to plan. “You know where the door is, Jack,” I said, my back turned to him. “Good luck with your next album.”
His feet were heavy behind me. Ryan released me for just a moment to pull out one of the dining chairs, and that moment was long enough for Jack to find an opening. He turned me around, and before I knew it I was pressed between his body and the table, his hands pulling me harshly into his kiss.
I will be honest with you: I had no self control with them. Not anymore. Had this happened earlier, I probably would have remembered that the two of us were not alone and pulled myself away just long enough to remind Jack of that, too. By this point? No. I’d come too far. I’d spent some solid time in the gods realm not knowing if I’d ever see them again. Noah had been entirely stone the last time I’d seen them, and Jack had dropped contact for days, and I was entirely too aware of how precarious everything was, and it meant I had no ability to do anything but kiss him back and hold him to me as if he might vanish again, Ryan and Lucy’s presence be damned.
“So... you’re staying, then?” Lucy had the grace to interrupt us. Jack took the hint and got off of me, leaving me flushed and with my thoughts as far from Eris as they probably could have been.
“Yeah, I’m staying,” Jack said.
“Finally, he makes a choice,” Lucy said, “so let’s get to work.”
Chapter 12
I reluctantly watched Jack and Lucy go to take care of their part of the plan, afraid for Jack as much as I was. He was determined to make up for being so hot and cold with me, and I would let him do whatever he felt he needed to, even if that meant he was setting himself up to get his ass handed to him by Lucy.
Meanwhile, Ryan and I stayed at my place to strategize. My mind was already moving a million miles an hour before the door shut behind the other half of our team.
“So I think we could-” I started, but Ryan’s hand was on my mouth before I could finish my sentence.
He shook his head. “We will do that in a minute,” he said, pulling me from my hand and leading me through the suite toward the bedroom.
“What are you-”
He put his hand on my mouth again. “Selene,” he said, “I want you to do your best not to worry. Not for a moment. Because I have something I need to figure out, if that’s okay with you?”
I nodded, and he smiled hugely, and my heart melted.
“Don’t move,” he told me, “don’t move unless I tell you to.”
He lifted me gently, placing me on my bed and unbuttoning my top as he looked into my eyes.
My breath caught in my throat. When he finished unbuttoning me, he ran his fingertips over the exposed skin on my torso, then up my neck, then brushed my hair back. I felt tension release as he did so and forgot to exhale until he withdrew his hands to take off his shirt.
I wanted to touch him back, but I stayed frozen in place. It was a challenge.
“What do you need to figure out?” I asked him.
“I need to figure out why I’m here,” he said. “I need to figure out why I’m special to you.”
“I thought you said-”
“I said you were allowed to see other guys, not that I didn’t have feelings about it,” he replied, and shrugged. “And I’m not really a jealous guy, either.” He slid my top off my shoulders, then to unclasp my bra. “But I’m just jealous enough to want to know I’ve made you feel a way no other guys have and based on the way you dry humped Jack...”
“I don’t want you to be like Jack,” I said, softly.
He nodded. “I know,” he said, pushing me onto my back and removing my bra entirely before moving to remove my pants, “but I want to know you want me at least as much as you want him. Because here’s the thing, Selene,” he said, “You’ve been doing an extremely good job”—my pants slid to the floor, and he moved his hand to grope my vulva through my underwear—“of not touching me. A man could start to feel like you don’t want to.”
“It’s not like-”
His other hand covered my mouth while the pushed aside my underwear with his other one to dip one, and then two, fingers into me. I moaned.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” he said, “I just want you to moan my name.”
“Ryan,” I moaned.
He chuckled, his fingers sliding in and out of me for another moment before he pulled my underwear off and dropped them somewhere out of sight. He put one hand on each hip, pulling me to the edge of the bed before going down on me.
I didn’t know what I expected. Not that. His tongue moved against my clit with what seemed like practiced motions, and I resisted the urge to press my hips against his mouth harder. I moaned his name again, repeatedly, as the pressure coiled within me and I neared orgasm, closer and closer every time he moved against me.
But he pulled away before I reached it.
I moaned his name again. “Ryan...” came from my lips like a prayer, like I was begging. And I was, to an extent, and, catching a glance at his face, it made him entirely happier than I could have guessed.
He dropped his pants. I tried to get a look at him, but he pushed my head back on to the bed.
“What did I tell you about moving?” he said.
“Not to do so unless you tell me to,” I responded.
“Good.” He scooped me with one arm, moving me up toward the headboard, his now naked body pressing me into place.
It took everything in me not to raise my hips to meet the cock pressing into me. But he’d been clear: he wanted to set the pace. I didn’t know why that was important to him, exactly, just that it was.
And he was intent on drawing it out.
He pulled my hips upward to angle himself between my thighs. I still couldn’t see him, but I could feel the tip pressing into me, and he moved slowly. It would take the smallest motion for me to have him all inside me, and it took every remaining ounce of my willpower not to do it. So, instead, I kept perfectly still. He slid into me exquisitely slowly until his abdomen pressed into me, then pulled outward with similar deliberate speed.
He would destroy me. That was it. I would curl into myself from want and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Please, Ryan,” I heard myself begging. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me faster.”
“No,” he said, “I’m not convinced you want it badly enough yet.”
I moaned. It was agony. I debated whether I’d be able to flip him, to get him on bottom so I could ride him at the speed my cunt was begging me to, and as if in response to my thoughts he moved one hand to hold my wrists above my head.
That, plus the one still on my waist? I could squirm a little if I really tried. But his grip, while not painful, was firm, and he didn’t leave me much of an option.
“Open your eyes,” he said, and when I did so I met his. He was silver. My sparkles combined with the black molten goo that seemed to be a lasting result of Lucy’s glare. He needed this control, now more than ever to, as he put it, figure something out.
And, fuck, I was happy for him to do so like this, but at some point soon these men would have to give me a chance to do what I wanted with them because they would drive me mad at this rate.
As he pressed into me, his eyes rolled back in pleasure, his breathing getting rougher as he moved. He was putting so much effort into maintaining control of himself it was nearly impressive, but I wanted nothing more than for him to lose it. To move according to what his body wanted, not what he felt he needed.
“Tell me what you want,” he said between breaths.
And I told him. Somehow, I found the words. “I want you to give into your desire to tak
e me,” I said.
“I’m not that kinda guy,” he argued, but his voice went gruff with the lie. He didn’t want to be that kinda guy, but he was. Or would be, if he let himself.
“But you want to be,” I said, “and I want you to be everything you want to be.”
He growled at me. Growled. He moved from total control to almost none, fucking me hard enough it nearly hurt, and it was marvelous. And I moaned his name, over and over, letting him know this is all I wanted from him, that this was the only thing he needed to do: what he wanted.
He did not lift his hands from my wrists, or remove the one from my waist. He did not press into me painfully, but laid on top of me, pinning me to the bed as he thrust inward. He kissed me on the mouth, not with reckless abandon but with the firmness of a man who knew what he wanted, then moved his mouth to my neck, kissing me there to give me goosebumps down my sides.
His mouth came back to mine as he thrust a few more times, pressing hard into me with his orgasm, and I came against him when he did so. I clung to him. I adored him, and had beforehand, and I didn’t know if he’d gotten what he needed, but perhaps I could give it to him still.
“Selene,” he said my name like a prayer, like a promise. “Selene.”
“Ryan.” I let him go just far enough that he could look into my eyes. He was searching for something, still, but what I wasn’t sure. I hoped he found what he was looking for. “Did you figure it out?”
He smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “I did.” And he leaned down to kiss me again before finally sliding out. “So I’ve been told we have some work to do, right?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “We should probably do that.”
I nodded. “Right. Yeah. End of the world coming or something. Probably should get some pants.”
When we emerged from the bedroom, and I finally glanced out the window, I realized exactly to what extent New York had gone to shit while I’d been preoccupied with the gods realm and my romantic life.
Priorities, right?
The sight below was an interesting juxtaposition with my first few hours in the city. It’s difficult for me to explain here because honking and sirens are noises that always happen in downtown New York City, but there are certain rhythms to them. This differed from their usual patterns, and I could not tune them out the way I usually could.
I looked out the window again. It was bad news. Not only was traffic backed up—which was also not abnormal for this area of town—but it no longer followed anything resembling a logical progression, nor did it seem like, at a glance, even basic traffic laws were being followed.
I threw on my jacket—had to be prepared for anything, right?—grabbed my purse, and headed downstairs.
Walking down the street, I realized it was even worse than it had appeared: people shouted gibberish, musicians that normally played on corners were just striking a jarring combination of notes. Business people on their way to work wore the most colorful and eccentric clothing they owned, or, as it appeared in some cases, stole, and not always in ways that made sense.
It was like a three-year-old had redone the entire city.
It was, to put it lightly, not great. I had been correct to be alarmed at the prospect of Eris roaming the city, but this?
Yeah, I didn’t expect this.
At first glance, everything was chaotic but... okay. Everything was weird, but people seemed to be enjoying themselves, and I wasn’t one to impede what seemed like mere childish exuberance.
I used my muse sight to get a better idea of the situation. Everyone, and I mean everyone, sparkled with silver and ran with the black goo of despair. It moved from person-to-person willy-nilly, like no boundaries existed anymore, everyone transitioning from happy to sad to angry to the most excited they’d ever been in their lives in minutes or moments.
It reminded me somewhat of the concert, but on a mass scale and with multiple degrees more energy involved.
I was, in short, terrified. And that was before they began destroying things around me.
When I’d walked downstairs, shops had already started losing windows and cars had already started crashing. But it had been minor acts of chaos by individuals, nothing truly frightening. Now, I watched the black goo swirl as one mass, like a creature with a mind of its own that could break and rejoin at will and was slowly reprogramming every human to do its bidding.
At first, it wasn’t anything huge: they’d topple a car, maybe pull down a single pole as a group. But each action gave them more drive, the inspiration feeding the goo-creature instead of contradicting it, and as I watched I finally understood why I was here in tandem, and why inspiration was necessary for helping the crowds begin the end of the world.
I was what had given them the idea to do it.
I was what had given them the inspiration to know what to do and to figure out how.
Me.
It was all me.
I felt sick to my stomach. I hadn’t known muses could even be sick to their stomachs, but, well, here I was. The crowd was growing and their collective power was greater than human power should have been, as if the physics that ruled the gods realm had breached into earth’s, and perhaps they had.
I needed to find Eris, and I needed to do it now.
Chapter 13
Lucy had, bless her, begun tracking down Eris while I was distracted. I made a promise to myself that when this was all over I would try to convince all three of them to write a story about a gorgon saving the day and hurried to meet up with them.
The thing with New York City is that, on a good day, there are quite a few crowds to navigate when you’re looking for someone. Seasoned New Yorkers are good at this, as it comes with the territory of making a life there. Out-of-towners, especially classic tourists, will usually decide on a landmark or have some other system in place to find one another if they lose each other in the crowds. Me? I was—and still am, let’s be honest—kind of rubbish at finding people, and usually relied on them finding me.
Now?
I had no idea how I would find anyone, but I was more or less banking on Eris being easy enough to find as a goddess. I tried to run in the general direction Lucy had mentioned in her text to me, but the text had come a few hours ago and who knew how far they had moved since? And Lucy wasn’t answering my calls anymore, because of course not.
So I ran, hoping I wasn’t too late. I was moving in the direction that was more-or-less opposite where the black goo was traveling to, and that seemed like a bad sign. What it turned out was that the destruction I had perceived as just beginning had been going for quite some time, and I had been lucky enough—or unlucky enough—to meet it where it was and watch the transformation happen before my eyes.
The further I went, the worse it was, moving from mere property destruction and strange outfits to wholesale chaos and, for lack of a better term, rioting. People were dead, bodies strewn about the streets, and I had never seen the silver of inspiration look as ominous as it did on their organs.
My stomach threatened to heave. The remaining people were mostly ignorant of me, given into what I could only describe as insanity or bloodlust or some wretched combination of the two. I wondered if perhaps I was invisible, or at least invisible to them, and I wondered what that would mean for finding the other two divine beings I was sure were out in this mess somewhere.
Or, well, at least two, because at this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an entire menagerie on standby.
I knew I was going in the right direction when I started finding the statues. Picture it: people of all ages and genders in so many poses, mostly angry or fighting, turned to stone. Like the cavern of the original three gorgons, they were all kinds of colors and different types of stone, but all newly carved, perfect in their impossible places, and they looked truly terrified. A few around the fringes had been broken, perhaps mobbed or toppled on accident, but mostly, the further I walked the fewer flesh and blood people remained, except for the occasional person who had presu
mably wandered away from the group somehow.
Before I continue, I want to be clear on something: For all that this story is about me and how I came to be in New York City, and for all that I’m the one who finds herself and her true loves in these pages, I’m not the hero.
Are you kidding me? No, I don’t have it in me to be the person who saves the day. I don’t have it in me to be anything other than self-absorbed.
But you know who does?
Lucy.
And I’m prefacing the next statement with that because I want it to be extremely well understood that I say the following with absolute love, adoration, and respect:
When I made it to the center of the statues, I was pretty sure I’d walked into hell itself.
When Lucy had turned her monster powers onto the guys, she’d been the scariest thing I could ever remember seeing. Even in the gods realm, I had been less actively afraid of the original gorgons than I had been of Lucy for those few moments.
But, now?
I nearly wet my pants at the sight of her.
She was terrifying. Mind you, I have looked in the face of monsters since then, and I’m still pretty terrified of my bestie on the sunniest of days after this. Her human disguise was nowhere to be found, her eyes shining with hellfire, her long claws waving dangerously in front of her. But, honestly, the thing that really got to me is the snakes.
As a muse, I don’t have to fear her hair snakes the same way humans do. They can’t turn me to stone with a stare, though I definitely wouldn’t chance one biting me. But, now, they were each hell beasts in their own ways, each set of their eyes glowing with the same bright red-orange flames hers were, each one of their mouths opening impossibly largely, their fangs dripping with what appeared to be blood.
She did not look at me, she only stared ahead, surrounded by waves of the dark black goo that had taken a life of its own. It surrounded her, and now it was clear how foolish I had been—she was not producing it, no, but she fed off if it, she fed off the despair itself, and that fueled her anger, and in her anger was her power.
Confessions of a Muse Page 11
