Blood of Zeus: (Blood of Zeus: Book One)

by Meredith Wild

  Blatant need and open desire.

  But most of all, she’s mine.

  I’m going to make that true, in every sense of the word. The promise floods my veins, coils my tendons, pushes at every fiber of my muscles. It’s a physical force like nothing I’ve ever known.

  She’s still and sweet and impossibly stunning, her hair splayed on the pillows like dark wings, her face alive with rising lust. I watch, spellbound, as that expression intensifies…with every inch I tug at the soft lace of her panties. Slowly. Slowly. My fingers hardly understand the command from my brain, especially as she fists the sheets and hitches her hips a little higher.

  “Please,” she rasps.

  I flare my nostrils, hoping to convey a wordless request for patience. Stupid move because my senses are widened to more of her scent, a blend of smoky honey and aroused spices that makes me dizzy with desire. Who’s running out of patience now?

  Somehow I manage to grate, “We’ll get there, beautiful. Let me treasure you.”

  And what riches she does have for me. Unlike the moments we stole in my office, I take the time to savor the decadent glory of her. All of her. I start at her feet as I slip the black lace totally free from her body. After kissing each of her delicate, red-polished toes, I slide my hands along the sleek curves of her legs. When I arrive at their crux, I roam my fingertips inward. She’s already slick there, her channel welcoming my touch like a portal to secret wonders.

  Wonders she’s finally giving to me.

  And the secrets? Perhaps now she’ll trust me enough to impart those too. In return, I’ll give her all of mine. All of me.

  She bows into my touch with an achy whimper.

  It’s time.

  I’m past ready.

  And I know, as I raise my head to stare deep into her eyes again, that she is too.

  It’s agony to look away from those soft and smoky depths, but the torment speeds up my reach for the nightstand. I’ve barely begun the stretch when Kara closes her hand around my wrist. The strength in her hold doesn’t surprise me anymore. The urgency of it does.

  Before I can hike one brow, let alone both, she says, “We don’t need one of those.”

  I draw breath for the start of a safe sex lecture when she cuts in.

  “I want this the way it’s meant to be. With nothing between us.” She palms my jaw. “Nothing.”

  I clear my throat. “Kara—”

  “You can’t give me anything. Just…take my word, okay? It’s impossible. Not anything. Not a disease, not an infection, and certainly not a baby.”

  The sorrow that threads her last claim—and the conviction with which I believe her—is enough to have me forgetting the nightstand. Her fingers dig into my beard. With her other hand, she reaches for the snap on my jeans and tugs the zipper down. It’s practically torture. My cock is hot and heavy, forcing us both to wrestle it free from the denim.

  But I’m just eager to strip the rest of what’s between us, to get more of her skin against my skin, so I finish the task by pushing off the bed and hurriedly shucking my jeans. While rising back up, I hurl the pants against the wall. I don’t even care that they hit hard enough to chip the corners of a few bricks.

  But then…I freeze. And linger there a moment too long, just staring in awe. Kara’s writhing harder against the sheet, her hands restless over the flesh I’m certain I could spend the rest of my life worshiping. Starting with tonight…

  “Open up for me, Kara.”

  With a soft sigh, she does. And at once, I’m damn near reborn.

  Everything about the sight, and the simplicity of her act, reaffirms how very ready she is for this. For me.

  I’m lured down over her once more. I scoop her hands beneath mine, meshing our fingers and locking our palms, giving her the breadth of my being. I wish I could find the right words to show her every part of me that she’s unlocked. Every secret she’s made safe. Even the ones I’ve hidden in deep shadows. The frightening things. The dangerous things.

  They don’t frighten me anymore.

  They pulse through me like the rain that’s now become a storm. Flashing more lightning across the air. Bursts that are echoed in my blood, even pounding beneath my skin, as I mold more of my body against Kara’s. Feeding from her fire.

  “Now. I need to feel you now.” Her plea weaves through me like dark, devastating magic.

  I give in to it and reach between us.

  And then I’m sinking.

  Into her fire. Into the storm. Fused to her desire. Compelled by the perfect connection of her…us.

  So deep.

  Need to be…so deep…

  But I have to get there slowly, goddammit.

  Between one thrust and the next, I remember the self-control I was so committed to before I got inside her. I’m the first man to take her like this. She’s so small and brave, having to accommodate me.

  And nothing about me has ever been average. Right now, it’s not a bragging right. It’s a circumstance I force into the forefront of my thoughts, no matter how thoroughly my body protests the point. Everything’s working beyond my control. I’m so full and hot, compelled to push in farther.

  Farther…

  I’m only halfway when she sucks in a sharp breath.

  Full stop. I freeze and force my head up. “Kara… I’m sorry.” The words rush from me between brutal breaths. My chest is pumping, smashing into her erect, succulent nipples—which does nothing to help the craving to slam into her fully. “I know I’m—”

  “You are.” She punctuates the acknowledgment with a low moan and a catlike arch beneath me. “You’re also…not deep enough.”

  The surety in those words is a rush of thunder in my lungs. Voltage in my veins. A potent antidote to all my paralyzing worry over hurting her.

  “Stop holding back,” she murmurs. “I said all of you. I meant it.”

  I can barely meet the demand when she shifts instead. Lifting her legs higher, wrapping her thighs tighter. Giving herself the purchase to pull herself up the very moment I can no longer hold anything back. I drive forward…until every inch of my erection is fully seated inside her.

  That high cry that emerges from her becomes an electrode of awareness snapped into the right port of my brain at just the right time. So this is what she means by deep enough.

  “Holy hell.” A blur of cruder language washes across my brain. None of it sums up the fire she’s setting to my cock… The flames she’s spreading everywhere through me…

  She presses a featherlight kiss to my neck. “You stole my line.”

  I can feel her smile against my skin, but I’m past levity. Being this deep in her feels like life or death. Maybe both. I don’t really care which, as long as we see it through. I draw in a shaky breath, taking more of her heavenly scent into me as I do. My angel. My sweet heaven.

  “And you’ve stolen my soul.”

  Our gazes lock again. She gives me a look I don’t know how to interpret, except for the liquid heat in her eyes that I’m sure is made of pure desire. I don’t stop to figure the rest out. Because right now, it doesn’t matter.

  Right now, I can’t stop.

  I’m pressure and passion and tension.

  Fever and flames and obsession.

  I’m wrapped in her heat, plunging to the farthest cushions inside her until all I crave is more.

  Still, I go deeper.

  Even as wind howls at the walls and rain sheets the windows.

  Harder.

  As all the lights flicker, sputter, and then darken completely.

  Farther.

  As a plummeting tree branch slams against my window before crashing onto the ground below. Then another.

  I barely notice. Neither does Kara. She clings like I’m her tree branch, scoring my shoulders with her hold and gouging my back with her heels. Her head is flung back, and her mouth is wide as she gathers air in harsh, hoarse breaths. And her eyes…

  Her eyes might just turn me into
a pyromaniac.

  Their flames, whorling faster and faster around her irises, have me thrusting with deeper force. Driving into her like a man possessed. Maybe I am. My lust is futile without her fulfillment. My blood is just water without her fire.

  “Maximus.”

  My world is consumed by the sexual smoke of her voice.

  She’s not pleading this time. She’s calling me. Compelling me. The sound of my name on her lips is a raw, sexual sibilance, wrapping me tighter than the sweet tunnel of her perfect core.

  “Kara.” I speak it back as complete worship. Transcendent praise. “Are you good?”

  I’m pretty sure of the answer already, but a weirdly vain part of me wants to hear her say the words.

  “So…damn…good.”

  The words do me in even more. “Worth the wait,” I whisper back.

  “You’re worth all of it. Everything—” Her own throaty cry is her interruption. “Oh…you…you’re making me—”

  “Yes.” I husk it into her neck, already feeling the rhythmic shock waves taking over more and more of her shuddering frame. “Let it go, Kara. Give me everything.”

  Her breath stops.

  Her stare combusts.

  Just before her scream decimates the air. And her body demands my climax.

  “Fuck!” The second I steal to expel the word is all I get before the heat hits, racing to my center like an ignited bomb fuse. I go off with similar force just as a crack of thunder seems to break open the whole sky over the city.

  I empty all I am into her, chasing completion while praying for any way to draw out the pleasure. Wishing there was a way to extend this single incredible moment between us that’s made up of all the others. All the longing that’s been building up inside me since the day I met her.

  I don’t stop.

  Because she hasn’t.

  Her climax is a fascinating marathon to behold, peppered with her dazed smiles, delighted laughs, and moans that will haunt me every night I have to spend without her. It goes on and on, and with every new phase, I learn I’ve got even more to give her. Not just because of the extra things my body is suddenly capable of. It’s all the other things she’s bringing out of me. All my willing smiles and laughter. My unending passion and desire…

  And astonishment.

  Because I’ve never experienced anything like this. Anyone like this.

  For all my lust-fueled prayers for this bliss to never end, I’m stunned by the completion I feel when it does. Everything—my restlessness, my anger, my confusion—simply melts with the quieting storm, like the gods spinning up the weather are finally sated too. They’ve found their way to some kind of peace…and so have I.

  My heart is still pounding out uneven beats when Kara and I unpeel from each other and I collapse to my back next to her. Little tremors rack her between her heavy exhales. As I piece my brain back together, I remember exactly what we’ve just done. I should be taking care of her better than this.

  I get up, walk to the bathroom, and return with a warm cloth.

  She follows my journey with her heavy-lidded gaze. “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning you up.” I settle against the mattress and lift her knee to open her to me. “Having nothing between us can get messy.”

  I run the cloth softly over her intimate flesh, though it takes tamping down a fresh flare of lust. Christ. That’s even before she starts undulating beneath my touch, humming softly as I stroke all her sweetest places. I have little doubt I could devote hours to the study of her body, taking mental notes of what will give her the most pleasure. Knowing every inch of her better than anyone ever will.

  I flicker my gaze to hers, finding her no less rapt. I hook-shot the cloth across the room, where it lands in the hamper. My thoughts are already swimming toward all the ways I can have her next. And when exactly that can be. How soon is too soon?

  Pump the brakes, Kane.

  If I wasn’t fully obsessed with her before, I’m a lost cause now. That should worry me, but in this moment, I don’t even care. All I care about is that she’s in my bed, looking blissed out and well loved.

  I do a double take when she captures her full bottom lip between her teeth, brighter glimmers igniting in her eyes.

  “What is it?” I murmur, tracing my fingertips over her raised knee.

  “I feel…” She lets go of a little sigh. “I feel so many things right now.”

  I answer with a small smile. “I can relate.”

  She blinks, more brilliant flecks flaring in her big irises. “You can?”

  “Why does that surprise you?”

  “Well…you knew what to expect.” She blushes.

  It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. A sound rumbles from the center of my chest. Not a laugh, but a weight lifting free. “Kara Valari, no experience in my life has equaled that of you.” I feather tiny circles down her slender calves. “Tell me. What are you feeling right now?”

  She rests her palm over her stomach and inches lower. “I feel…empty. Without you.”

  I swallow over my suddenly dry throat. If she had any idea how much I’d like to rectify that… All night long. Every night. I never want her to leave my bed.

  “I also feel like I could stay here forever as long as you were touching me.” She closes her eyes sleepily before opening them again to half-mast.

  “I think you just read my mind.”

  She smiles. “When we were together, I felt you…so strongly.” She reaches out and links our fingers lazily. “Like everything you were feeling flowed right into me, mixing with all these new sensations my brain could hardly keep up with. Usually when I feel you…you’re you. And I’m still me. I can separate the two. This was different…like everything between us wove together and became something new. Something that was just…us.”

  I take in a half breath. If the act of making love to her tonight wasn’t already imprinting itself on my brain as the best night of my life, I’m certain her words just now would solidify it.

  I manage a response, my voice rough with new emotion. “Kara, you know I meant it, right? I’ve never experienced anything like this.” I end the confession with a soft press of lips to her hand. I move higher, nuzzling up her arm until reaching her sweet mouth once more.

  She weaves her delicate arms around me as I settle alongside her. All I can do is gaze into her eyes, letting myself get lost there. Because she’s everything to me right now. Everything.

  “Is it crazy that I want you again?” she whispers.

  I shake my head. “We just had a hit of something really good. So intensely good, it’s normal to never want it to end. Trust me, I’m there too.”

  She widens her eyes with the possibility.

  I smile and kiss her gently. “Not yet. You need to rest. I’m serious this time. We have tomorrow and the next day—”

  She presses her fingers to my lips, stopping my vow for forever with her. Fresh worry pinches her beautiful features. “Will you stay here with me? Just for now?”

  The rough edges of her whisper make my heart squeeze tighter. “Of course I will.” I press a kiss into her forehead. “I promise.”

  “You won’t leave?”

  “No.” I cage her against me a little tighter, enjoying the perfect press of our bodies once more. “I’ll always be here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kara

  I fell asleep in Maximus’s bed last night, cocooned by his strength and his heat, my limbs tangled with his, like extra anchors, keeping the inevitable storm from tearing us apart. For a few wonderful, peaceful hours, I could believe that.

  I know now the storm was only stalled. And fire is in the forecast today.

  I was awakened by my heart-stopping fear of it, launched into consciousness again in the early morning hours of this deceivingly peaceful Sunday.

  Maximus is still asleep as I rise and creep quietly toward the picture window. The city is gray-blue before the dawn, city lights stil
l blinking across the horizon. A few delivery trucks rumble up and down the shadowed streets, their headlights swinging around corners and into alleyways.

  For once—maybe the first time in my life—I dread the sun. With it comes a day full of terrifying unknowns.

  What happens now?

  Does anyone even know what I’ve done?

  Have I set off some cosmic alarm system that’s got the powers that be meeting even now to decide my fate? If so, what will that fate be?

  Or…is there an easier fix here? Do I just tell everyone I needed time to think, and return home like I’ve simply been driving around all night? When Arden comes to take me, can I fake my way out of all this? Pretend he’s the first who’s ever been inside me?

  I shudder from head to toe. My stomach lurches, begging to eject its contents along with the concept repelled by my mind.

  Pretending away Maximus would be like banishing the best parts of myself. But soon—too damn soon now—I’ll have to do exactly that.

  I wrap my arms around my middle and bring my cheek to my shoulder, covered now with the soft T-shirt Maximus shed in the living room last night. After everything that’s happened between us, the fear of having to say goodbye to him once and for all has grown new thorns. Every second, the dread tightens its coil around my heart and pierces new wounds into my soul.

  I’ll have to leave soon. Arden will come. Whether guided by an underworld alert beacon or his own frightening cunning, he’ll figure things out and find me. When he does, all the fires in hell won’t come close to the pain of losing Maximus. Add in the agony of walking away from him on the arm of another. I suppress another shudder.

  I can’t even approach the idea of asking him to wait until I’m free again. What male, in this realm or any other, would willingly sign up for that humiliation?

  Not that I’ll have a chance to get that far with the explanation.

  I have to figure out how much of the truth to leave him with. For all my hesitations and sidestepping, I feel flayed open after a night in his bed. It’s difficult—damn near impossible—to think straight right now.

  We’ve shared so much already… Pieces of my soul I’d never give anyone else. I’ll never forget the magic of what our bodies can do. The vulnerability of those precious moments. The trust in them. Now, suddenly, keeping the rest from him seems more unfair than ever.