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“I want you on your hands and knees,” he growled, not stopping.

“Have me,” I sighed.

Before I knew it, I was on my stomach again, his fingers digging into my sides to push up my hips. My face fell into the pillows, and his knees widened between my own. Every movement was as easy and natural as breathing. He found his way back into me with one hard, unhindered thrust, and I screamed a little, scrunching the sheets in my fists.

Apollo was good with patience and brilliant with harshness. He moved slowly, then maddeningly, lovingly, then devastatingly, looking for that perfect combination of tenderness and irreverence. And once he found it, he was merciless with it.

I felt raw and novel and alive. There were no tomorrows and no decisions to be made. I was nothing but sensation and missing heartbeats and sounds that I did not know I could make.

How good it felt—to be so thoughtlessly reborn.

Apollo leaned over me, slid his arm past my collarbone, and pulled me up to him, my back on his chest, his thrusts so deep I felt him in my stomach.

“Apollo,” I whimpered, digging my nails into his forearm.

He slowed his pace. “Gentler?”

“Harder.”

He cursed under his breath but obeyed, dragging his lips up my shoulder to pepper my skin with kisses. I came breathing out his name, my body soaring and aglow. For a moment, there was no sound or light or color—only my release crashing into his.

I almost fell forward on the bed, but his arms tightened around my chest. “I got you, darling,” he said, breathing hard.

My head lolled back on his shoulder, and for a little while I closed my eyes and simply let myself luxuriate in the safety of his embrace, his scent, his bare skin on mine, hot like the sun.

“I know,” I said at last.

30

Apollo

She was in my arms, with her face buried in my chest, her knees tucked between my own, and her palms pressed on my back. I thought about the odds, the probability of it. In a world so vast, we somehow found each other. People still found people who made them feel like this. Like home and safety and acceptance.

“I smell like you,” she whispered with her eyes shut, dozing off.

“I smell like you,” I took her words in my mouth, aroused to know her tongue had brought them to fruition.

“I wish I could feel like this forever.”

“No, don’t wish that,” I rasped into her hair. “Wish to always appreciate it whenever you do feel like this.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, the sound vibrating against the skin of my sternum.

She fell asleep, and I held her as tightly as I could without hurting her. Suddenly, the darkness of my condition didn’t scare me anymore. She was a star, and she had lit up my sky just by being herself.

For the first time in a very long time, it didn’t matter that I was heartless.

I had her, and she was my heart.

31

Nepheli

Iwoke up at his touch, his arm pulling me in and his lips exploring my shoulder. The moon blazed through the expansive window to cast curious shadows on the hollows of the room, and I lay there for a few moments, feeling him feel me, until I was full of intimacy and I rolled over to face him. His hair was a mess, his mouth soft, his eyes a little sleepy. He looked more handsome and human than ever before. He looked mine.

An inkling of a smile curled his lips. “There she is.”

“I don’t even remember falling asleep,” I admitted, rubbing a knuckle over an eye.