Page 20

CIRCE

“ ? κροκν?φαιο?.”

The word is toxic on my tongue. A word that Ananke made only for me. For an emergency like this.

Nauseating shame floods through me.

Ero’s eyes change, his pained expression fading. I saw him reset on the beach, up close. Nothing could have prepared me to be the one to do it.

I swore that I would never…

Cracks spread across my heart, dragging me down. I can’t face this.

But he’s right there, suffering. Our lips are magnetic.

His hands are impossible to resist as he draws me to his chest. I give in. Completely.

“Ero,” I whisper his name, he melts against me, enveloping me.

“Circe,” he says mine, and I fall apart.

His kiss is a riptide, sweeping me out to sea. The swell of that tide rises, tossing me high, then dragging me under.

But his depths are not cold. They are alight with fire, blossoming in my core. Heat radiates over me from him as he comes alive. Urgent fingers grasp at clothing, eager to remove the barrier between us. My shirt goes first.

His silk-soft lips trace my jawline up onto my cheek, his fingertips trailing along the cup of my ear, tilting my head back, exposing my throat and my neck for him to ravage. Then lower along the top of my shoulder, turning me around to nuzzle the back of my neck.

The animal attraction that we share rumbles beneath a softer, more vulnerable touch. He’s gentle. Thorough. Tenuously holding back the rush of avid desire to work his way across my skin.

And I thoroughly savor the process.

Fingers graze my sides, up my back, lighting my nerves, firing off zaps of tingling shivers. My skin tightens, pebbling to his worship. When he breathes across my neck again, I can’t help curling my toes.

Shutting out any other thoughts, I hone in on Ero’s attention, on his body and mine. Nothing else matters right now.

And I need to block out the horror of what I’ve done.

My bra crumples forward as he unhooks the clasp, my breasts tumbling out into his waiting palms. We sway, the warmth of his chest radiating against my back, raising the temperature in the room by a thousand degrees.

He’s a furnace.

And he’s hard as steel, from pecs to prick.

His scent draws me in, his allure impossible to ignore. Whenever his attention is focused on me, I can forget everything. So I do.

We struggle lightly against one another, hands and arms dueling as I try to reach back, as he tries to envelop me in his embrace. I need to feel how bad he wants me. I need to know that it matches my desire for him.

“You drive me insane,” he growls, rumbling through my entire being.

“Must be contagious,” I laugh softly, sliding my ass up his front.

“You calling me crazy?”

“A madman.”

He flips me around without another word, swooping in for a kiss, lifting me off the floor with arms that could crush me. Yet I’ve never felt safer. Or more alive. The blaze of his desire licks my skin, scours my soul.

Fire spreads through my limbs, my lungs, igniting me into the frenzy only he can fuel. Our essences intertwine, becoming a single inferno.

I might die for the want of him. Addiction doesn’t begin to describe it.

All I want is for him to fill me, consume me, and leave me so utterly exhausted that I can’t feel, can’t stand up.

Like he can read my mind, the bastard does exactly the opposite. In the best way.

His lips pull away, his hands turning me toward the archway in the wall. Guiding my hands forward, he places them on the wall to each side, dragging my hips back until I’m bent at the waist slightly.

“Don’t. Move,” he orders, and a shiver zips up my spine. He’s sultry, but something in his voice snaps like a whip crack, promising pleasure and pain and everything in between.

Ero starts on my back. Only his lips never quite touch me. And every time I try to push back, to connect with him, he pulls away, forcing my hands back to the wall.

Minutes of him working his way down have me sweating, panting. At the lip of my skirt, he eases it down to the floor, then proceeds to torture my ass with the heat of his breath, the tickle of taunting near kisses.

I flex, I writhe, I squirm.

Finally, I shove off the wall and grab him by the belt, forcing him to kiss me again.

“I hope that was satisfying.”

“Not nearly satisfying enough.”

“That’s too bad. I warned you not to move. Now you have to wait even longer.”

Honestly, I have no clue how he does what he does next.

But before I can resist, he’s got me pinned with my arms behind my back, one hand curled into my hair, tugging my head and backing me to the bedroom. By the time we reach the bed, my chest is heaving, my legs shaking. Slick wetness sticks between my thighs.

I didn’t expect this.

Not that we haven’t played with handcuffs or been rough before. This is different. He’s taking control more than usual, dominating me in a way that keeps throwing me for a loop.

It’s not animal or wild.

But it makes something in me quiver, a sensation of anticipation adjacent to fear, but not worried. Maybe I should be. Maybe I unlocked something in him.

Something dangerous.

Of course, I probably should do something about it before he presses me face-first onto the sheets, tying both of my hands to the headboard with a couple of scarves from my bag.

Then the cock-teasing asshole proceeds to go right back to what he was doing.

The effect is more than scintillating, fucking infuriating , as his lips brush against my back. My eyes roll back in my head, pressing my face down into the bed. Biting the comforter in frustration.

Sparks erupt all over me, waves of arousal growing like a tidal wave through my aching abdomen. It’s almost enough to drive me to the edge, stacking layer upon layer of mind-numbing tension.

In seconds, I’m overwhelmed. In minutes, I’m panting.

His tongue toys along the edge of my panties, the heat of his words coruscating across my lips though swiftly soaking silk. “How does this feel?”

“Miserable. Heavenly.”

“Just like you smell, like you taste. Heaven…”

“Oh…just fucking touch me.” I groan, shuddering with every breath.

His eyes snap up to mine, looking down at him as I wag my ass in the air, swaying on my knees.

Those pools of onyx lust set me aflame. The barest hint of a smirk plays at his damnably suckable lips.

Like a promise of vengeful ecstasy.

And this is absolute ecstasy. It’s absolute hell at the same time. I love every fucking minute of it.

“Circe…” he purrs across my aching entrance.

“Yes?” my voice trembles.

“You’re shaking.”

“Your fault.” My words catch in my throat.

“Close your eyes,” he growls, settling behind me. “Focus on this, only on this.”

Ero drags his lower lips across my middle, right up the divide between my thighs, from the base of my tummy, across my peak and all the way to the edges of my flushed cheeks.

Higher, over the blushing curve of my ass, dragging along the string of my thong.

Then right back down, vibrating his tongue and sending shockwaves of bliss through sex drenched lace.

“More, more …”

His tongue plays at the edges of the fabric. He draws it out for long minutes. Kissing, licking, nipping at my skin with his teeth. I’m writhing. I’m practically crawling out of my own skin, desperate for him to be inside me.

How many times will he do this to me? How many times will we fall back into this trap?

Minutes crawl along through miserable, magnificent teasing, and I want to scream. There’s never been anything I’ve wanted so bad in my entire life than for him to take me right now.

My hands long to reach for him, frantic for him to give me just a hint more, to satisfy my thirst for his touch. I jerk against my bonds, useless.

“I can’t…I can’t take it anymore,” I gasp.

“Just what I wanted to hear.” He tugs the fabric aside ever so slightly. It’s all I can do to hold still, my thighs quaking as he tastes my sex, tentatively, drawing it out. “Mmm. Do you have any idea how good you taste?”

That tongue works down one side, then the other, circling his way closer to the middle, sampling each layer of my folds. I savor every layer of pleasure all the way in.

Pure. Unrelenting. Unbearable …

“Ero … eat me out.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

“Ooooh! Goddess yes!”

He pauses, licking his lips. “And if I stop?”

“I might die.”

“Then I am going to keep going. And I am not going to stop until you can’t possibly come again.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I whimper, taunting him with a bite of my lip.

Without a warning, he plunges his tongue into me.

Knuckling the sheets, the balls of my feet dig into the fabric. I pull back against the ties, Raising my butt higher for him, spreading me wider, opening me to him. I want that tongue as deep as it can go.

Until he replaces his tongue with a finger. It’s a completely different sensation, but just as enjoyable. Thicker, harder. It raises the pressure inside me, hits a spot his tongue can’t. Paired with his thumb, stroking slow circles against the hooded button beneath…

Glorious.

Ero flips onto his back, sliding beneath me, hooking his arms around my thighs. This angle lets me control the tilt of my hips, the level of pressure of his lips.

His tongue burrows into me again, no pretense or hesitation, lashing inside me.

Then two fingers, curling down to tease that bundle of nerves, amplifying the soaring rush of pleasure.

Drumbeats of my pulse and his nudging fingertips send me rushing upward toward a cliff that I can’t wait to soar off of.

Need replaces desire as I get closer, waves of ecstatic assault crashing over my brain, drowning me in ardor. My legs lock around his arms, hooked in that position as he lances his fingers faster, smothering his lips around my clit.