Page 10

ERO

“ Y ou gonna take care of that?”

“Not with you sitting here.” I squirm on the cot, trying to ignore the…inconvenient result of another night of dreaming about Circe. Even thoughts of her drive me nuts.

“Prude.”

“Freeloader.”

“I did not choose to hitchhike in your brain, I’ll have you know.”

“Right. You’re just a manifestation of my guilt and stress.”

Ciro blinks twice, his head bobbing in a slow nod before leaning toward me and whispering, “Your self-awareness is showing.”

More like anything to ignore what’s been eating at me since Circe came to see me two nights ago. All I can think of is eating?—

I flop back on the thin mattress, shaking the images and sensations of her from my head. Only problem is that all I have left when I’m not thinking about that hunger, is actual hunger. And the swimming delirium that’s settling in slowly without food. At least I have water.

I suppose they’re either planning to starve me out, or they just forgot about me and I’ll die down in the darkness of a crazy, secret mafia woman’s dungeon. Oh, the life I’ve lived.

So I try to shut off, seesawing back and forth between the misery of wakefulness and the misery of haunted sleep. Otherwise, I pace my cell, try to stay moving, keep my claustrophobia from making me freak.

Apparently, I don’t like being penned in. Who does?

Another day passes.

Or night. Can’t tell anymore.

Dreams bleed into my reality, blurring into memories and fantasies I can’t differentiate from truth. I supposed that’s the point. To drive me to the breaking point.

It almost works.

Until I remember a snippet of training, paired with what might be a real memory.

I’m sitting in a garden, surrounded by flowers, plants. Nearby, there’s a fountain, just outside a gazebo, where a young girl is playing with her dolls. Her mother sits drinking tea at a table with a guy who looks more bodyguard than partner.

But I’m barely affected by all of them. At the same time, I’m acutely aware of all of it. Everything around me. It echoes of something deeper, hours and days spent studying martial arts, meditation. I can almost see a man’s face, putting me through trial after trial on a mountain somewhere.

Interesting.

“It’s the garden at the house,” Ciro mutters in the back of my head. Our house, apparently. I don’t let my mind grasp at that thought though. It’s too easy to try, and I’ve tried too many times. It always slips away, leaving me vacant. Confused.

Instead, I follow the track of that sensation, sitting cross-legged in the garden.

Breathing slowly, deeply, I let my eyes droop, falling into the buzzing hum of mental stasis. Yes. This is familiar…

Time loses meaning. Hunger too. Distantly, I see fragments of my past as I drift in the ether.

A compound nestled in an arid desert, near the mountains. I meditated there too. Locked in a cell. I see myself sitting there, looking back at me through the eyes of a black mask. Marked with a red fingerprint.

Mocro. I was one of the Hand.

The realization doesn’t touch me in my reverie, it simply tucks itself away into a drawer with other things I am certain are real. These images fade, others take their place.

More time passes.

By the time I hear the cell door opening, hours, days, maybe weeks later, nothing can touch me. Except for the sharp pang in my gut when the guards lift me off the ground. I’m stiff. Weak.

But I’m stone-faced, unafraid.

Let them do their worst. I’m ready.

What I’m not ready for, is the light from the setting sun clipping through the windows upstairs. It’s dim by any other standard, but to my light-starved eyes it’s blinding.

I’m settled into a chair in a room, elegantly furnished. None of it matters.

Until the smell of food hammers into my senses like a battering ram. Suddenly, every instinct is alive, screaming in need.

I realize I’m breathing hard as my escort uncovers a tray of simple rice and lentils, my mouth practically slobbering. All very abruptly tempered by the sound of silk-draped granite.

“Ero. You look…ready.” Ananke steps into view, sweeping across the room in a gown made for a queen.

“You look…” Like my nightmares.

“I know,” she croons, taking the seat across from me. “I see your hatred has not abated. Good. You’ll need fuel to be your best.”

I want to throw the plate at her, lunge across the table and strangle her.

A single glance of those cold eyes freezes me to my seat. And I realize I don’t really want to hurt her. Not really.

“Eat. Then you may rest.”

Carefully, I take a shaking spoonful, chewing slowly. It takes every ounce of what little self-control I have left not to shovel it into my mouth. A few bites later, I feel unreasonably full.

The disconnected feeling from my cell takes the place of my hunger, my hate.

“This hazing. When you’re done buttering me up, you’ll throw me down there again, won’t you? Maybe torture me a bit. Waterboarding?”

Ananke stares blankly at me for a few seconds.

Then she tosses her head back and laughs, full and throaty.

“Boy, I could do anything I could think of and I know it won’t change who you are at your core.

Believe me, I’ve tried. Consider this an apology for losing my temper, for wanting to punish your impudence and foul language. ”

“So that’s it? I just eat. Sleep. And I can leave tomorrow?”

“You could.” She stands, circling the table, dragging one of those immaculate claw nails along the lacquered wood. “However…you will not go.”

It’s not a command. Not a manipulation. Just a statement.

I want to deny it, to protest. It’s my instinct to argue, to fight.

But she’s right. Something changed in me over the past few days. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. Or don’t want to.

Without a second thought, I lower myself onto my knee before her. I place my lips on the ring at her finger, bowing my head.

“Do you want a purpose? A holy mission?”

“No. I just want someone else to tell me what to do. I’m a weapon. Point me at a target. And let me watch the world burn in my wake.”

It’s dark when my eyes open, just after the door to my room creaked softly. No warnings, no signs of danger.

Anyone else would miss the brush of a foot on the carpet, almost imperceptible. I stay still, feeling the presence move to the other side of the bed, pause.

Then someone eases down onto the bed, curling under the covers and up against my back.

Without a word, I turn over, my arms slipping under Circe’s neck, pulling her toward me. Our noses barely brush in the darkness, right before her lips graze mine.

I should refuse this.

Push her away.

But the silence of the night, the protective darkness around us, lets me give in.

My lips caress her neck, tugging down the strap of her nightgown, liquid smooth under my fingertips. It makes running my hands across her body even more alluring, sensual.

Her collarbones are one of my favorite features, prominent, bold. They accent her neck, graced with strong shoulders, a muscular physique. None of that detracts from her curves, however.

Her hips and ass are full in my grip. And those thighs…

Skin scented with faint traces of honeysuckle and amber tastes as sweet as she smells. Soft gasps and the catch of her breath is music to my ears.

My fingers find their way around her back, clawing furrows into her silk-covered skin, just hard enough to dig into her muscles, to massage and make her arch into me.

The column of her spine leads me lower, over the delicious round of her supple behind, into the crease.

Right to the edge of her gown and under.

Exploring the softest surface of her inner thighs, I find her mouth, nibbling at her bottom lip, licking at her top lip. She tolerates it for a moment.

Then we’re immersed, lips locked in a torrent of desire. A sharp nip of teeth on my tongue has me inhaling, pulling back just enough to catch her eye in the dim, that cocky, daring glare just taunting me.

God, she pisses me off.

And she drives me wild. I’m about to grab her, pin her to the bed, when she reaches down, looping her hand around me, gripping me hard. Suddenly, I’m stock still, stone hard, and completely at her mercy.

Until I shift my palm, still resting on her inner thigh, dragging the tip of my thumb across her slick opening. A little whimper slips out, her mouth agape.

It’s a standoff.

And both of us crack at the same time. Her hips arch into me, trying to drive my finger inside her right as I flex my ass, throbbing in her clutches.

Just like that, we go wild. Palming her center, I ease two fingers into her, curling and pulling back gently, repeatedly, putting pressure on her inner mound. Her insistent tug becomes a rapid rhythm, squeezing and massaging along my length as she pumps up and down.

To top it all off, I can’t seem to kiss enough of her, winding my way from lips to her ear, whispering a growling moan along the cup and down, the crook of her neck, pulling aside her flimsy sleepwear to find those pert, firm nipples waiting for me.

Sucking each into my mouth, I savor every flick of my tongue and the way it makes her writhe, her chest heave.

All as she continues to hold me hostage in her tantalizing fist.

It’s not nearly enough. Breaking free, I lower myself along her midriff, kissing all the way to the base of her skirt, rucking it up as I work my way along each satin smooth leg.

I’m a second from diving into her middle when she plants one foot on my chest somehow, shoving me onto my back.

I catch that foot in the fall, pulling her after me, up onto me as she regains her balance and straddles me.

Raising up, she rakes ghosting fingernails down my abs, hooking my boxers and ripping them down in a swift, clean motion, revealing me in all my rigid glory.

I about lose my shit when she licks her lips, her eyes on fire in the dark. She needs to finish what she started in my cell.

But I need more of her as well.

Circe angles in, crawling back up toward me, ready to devour my shaft.

A single hook of my heel, looping my leg around hers, spins her around toward me, and she rolls right along with the motion, throwing one leg over my head.

The blazing heat of her tummy rests against my chest, her fingers clamping down on my thighs.

I only get a few seconds to admire the view, her gown rucked up around her waist, her glistening entrance an inch from my chin. Then my brain, my entire body tightens, fireworks flashing in my head as she swallows me entirely.

I’m so fucking lost.

Splaying her cheeks with both hands. I don’t waste a second before I kiss her sex-drenched core. The taste is sharp, pure ecstasy on my tongue as I drag the flat along her from apex to opening, driving the tip inside to sample her velvet embrace.

Circe’s soft moan vibrates straight into me through my aching cock, thrust over and over into her throat. Every caress of her tongue makes me thrum like an earthquake.

So I pay her back in kind.

Locking my lips around her peak, I curl the tip of my tongue around, fluttering, sucking, and matching her gulping rhythm with a venture of one fingertip into her soaked center.

I increase the speed of my tongue lashing, every so often replacing my finger with my tongue inside her, just for a second.

The effect is … exponential.

In a few minutes, her hips are rolling back and forth over me, showing me the pace she needs to get where she so clearly wants to go. And me?

All I do is focus on sending her over the edge and refuse to erupt first. It’s…almost fucking impossible.

Her lips tighten around me, her throat and jaw adjusting to my size more and more. She must have the muscle control of a fucking opera singer to keep taking me so deep, never once showing a hint of hesitation or gag reflex.

There’s no way I can last much longer.

So I double down, locking my arm around her leg to drive my fingers into her rapidly, never plunging all the way in, always pressing down along her inner front wall.

All the while, my tongue never stops, sucking just enough to keep her clit exposed, licking faster, barely touching her with every pass.

She groans, her body beginning to shake.

“Don’t you dare hold back…” I growl, never slowing down, “Fucking sit on my face. Ride me till you come, baby!”

Like a bull out of the gate, she unravels on top of me.

Those full, luscious cheeks smother me, grinding down on my mouth. Her wordless scream sends shocks of my oncoming climax through my balls, down my legs. All I do is hold on for dear life.

A rush of hot magma floods my tongue, my lips, my hands locked around her ass as she tenses, quivering and bucking above me. Never once letting me slip out of her mouth.

I never stood a chance.

My growl only makes her orgasm seem to draw out longer as I clench every muscle in my lower body, the surge of molten hot jizz exploding from me in a wave of mind shattering ecstasy.

Circe takes it in stride, every drop, still riding out the slowing waves of her pleasure. Her legs ease up, letting me come up for air.

And fuck me. I gasp, more out of shock at how incredible she felt. Aftershocks quake through me, heightened by her continued teasing and sucking.

“Oh! S-stop!” I hiss, even though I really don’t want her to. But it’s overwhelming, overstimulating. And my release has me melting mentally, relaxing physically in ways I haven’t relaxed in…well, ever.

A little giggle sends a thrill through me as she finally pulls away, licking her fingers and her lips clean. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so fucking sexy in my entire life.

“Oh really?” she hums, arching her back and looking back at me over her shoulder.

Fuck. I said that out loud.

Licking my own lips, I marvel at the taste. It’s better than I could have ever imagined. Before I can finish, she’s shifting around, slipping along my side, into the crook of my arm and tasting my lips with a wicked little grin.

“Nothing hotter than tasting what you did to me.”

Son of a bitch.

Several minutes slip by, lost in a deep, passionate kiss. My head is spinning when we both slump back, her head on my chest.

Thoughts of more, of taking her again, start to swim through the haze. But I’m already fading. Guess I’m still pretty exhausted from the fighting, the lack of sleep, the lack of food.

My eyes droop. My breath slows.

I only vaguely feel her ease out of my arms sometime later, covering me with a blanket as she slips back out of the room.