Page 46

Cecily

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

It only takes me two seconds to regret what I just said, and I'm even more scared when Dionysus gets up from his chair as well. My fear is not because I think he could do me any harm but because there is nothing left on his face that shows the man I knew.

He seems cold, distant, emotionally unavailable. Exactly the kind of person I imagined he would be when I came to New York.

Only now do I realize what I've gotten myself into.

The problem is, I know I won't run away, because it's not just about Joseph or my promise to Keith anymore. I'm carrying the son of the man I'm deceiving—whom I just deceived again for no other reason than that I'm a coward—inside my body, and I know from how long we've been together that Dionysus is not the type who should be toyed with.

"You're not?" he repeats.

"No. Now we can go back to being what we were before. You don't have to pretend you're worried about me anymore. None of this fanfare was necessary."

"Do you just want to fight, Cecily? Or do you want to break up?"

He's giving me a chance to run while I still have time. While he still doesn’t know about the baby.

Joseph is fine, safe. So why can't I just turn away?

I should take advantage of it, but I can't. Just the thought of walking away from him forever makes my heart bleed.

"No, I don't want to break up. How could I want that? I love you."

"Love?" he repeats, approaching with the same grace and lethality as a lion stalking its prey.

I'm frozen in place, awe and excitement burning my blood. I nod my head in agreement.

He acts quickly. In a moment, he's coming for me. In the next, he’s sweeping everything off the table with his arm in a gesture of impatience, barely contained fury, causing glasses, plates, and cutlery to fall to the floor.

He picks me up and sits me on the table, fitting himself between my legs. "You don't look like someone in love."

"What does someone in love look like, Dionysus?" I ask, already lost in him, removing his suit jacket, opening his shirt urgently, biting and licking any piece of skin I have access to.

His breathing is a roar. Like me, I think he feels hungry, wild.

He doesn't respond. He rips off my clothes with the same furious need I feel to have his skin on mine. My dress comes off over my head and is thrown carelessly to the floor; then he destroys my panties.

"Keep the heels on. I want to fuck you like this." The harshness with which he speaks, his muscular and naked torso, the look that says You're not going to sleep tonight —everything makes me forget why we came and the fight we just had.

I push away to a very secret place in my mind the fact that, once again, I am creating a web of lies.

I'm startled when he flips me over on the table, placing me on all fours. I'm open, exposed, wearing nothing but high-heeled sandals.

I scream when he bites one of my butt cheeks and then moan loudly when he separates them and kisses me between them.

He leans in and attacks my sex with his tongue, but his thumb invades me from behind and I feel dizzy from so many sensations at the same time.

Dionysus seems determined to make me surrender, because we both know that even though I told him I loved him, there are still barriers between us.

I push away the sadness that threatens to creep in when I think about it and just focus on the now.

The sensual assault is relentless, fierce, and it takes me no time to beg for more, pushing myself back, offering him everything, moaning my orgasm.

"You are deliciously sensitive, my Cecily."

My body is speeding through orgasm, but my mind is on his words: my Cecily .

He doesn't give me time to recover, pulling me down, bending me over the table, and sliding inside me with one firm thrust. He puts an arm under my abdomen to keep me raised in the position he wants while at the same time spreading my entire sex.

The man is a multitasker, managing to make me feel as if he were in several places inside me at the same time, trapping me in the fortress of his delicious body.

He rides me hard, going deep and at a pace that takes my breath away.

I close my eyes, delighting in the feeling of being taken carelessly by a male crazy about his female. We are just man and woman, without rules, past, or guilt.

He rides me with ferocity, making me scream his name so many times that the cries merge together.

"Show me how much you love me," he says as he enters me voraciously, pumping into my body as if possessing me is as vital as his next breath.

"I love you. I'm yours, Dionysus. Don't you know that yet?"

He leans back, biting my ear. " Mine," he roars.

"Yes."

He rises again, pushing himself inside me at the same time as his finger invades my untouched place.

I moan, embarrassed but also delighted.

"You like that, don't you?"

"Yes . . . Oh!"

"You are my woman, Cecily. My girlfriend , not one mere affair . I want you with me, in me, and I wish you were pregnant with my child."

I don't think he really knows what he's saying. I believe it's a bit of fury over our fight mixed with frustration that I didn't surrender like my predecessors did.

"You don’t. You just want me. Let's not complicate everything. I love you, and I'm not demanding commitment."

He lifts me up, without leaving my sex, but the height difference between us is big, so I need to rest my hands on the table, reclining.

"You have no idea what I want, Cecily," he says enigmatically.

The way he has me now is almost cruel, but I want more.

I am sensitive, in body and mind. I want his connection and passion. I want his wanting and desire. His hunger and even his lack of control.

I know from his breathing that he's almost reaching climax, but he's a generous lover and he's determined to take me along with him.

He touches my clit, and I shiver, completely at the mercy of his hands.

He caresses me slowly, focusing along my pleasure, even though I know he's very close to his own release. His thrusts are vigorous but at a slower pace now as he murmurs words in Greek that, despite not understanding, I assume are affectionate.

This combination makes my orgasm build in the opposite direction of how he’s taking me—rampant and needy.

"Come for me, yineka mou ? * ."

"Dionysus . . ."

"Give yourself up, Cecily."

His words free me from myself, making anything other than absolute submission impossible.

With a loud moan and an “I love you,” I surrender to my baby’s father.

He holds me, gives me everything, concentrating on my pleasure, and only when my tremors subside does he pull out of me, lean back on the table, and come on my buttocks and back.

"Surrender," he repeats, lying down on my body.

"How can I give you more?"

"I don't just want sex. I want your trust. Give me everything."

* ? "My woman."