She smiled, the tension inside her easing. She closed her hands over his forearm lying against her belly. “I suppose since you haven’t had sex in a hundred years, I could cut you some slack.”
“Oh, I have sex.”
Her fingers stilled against the Argonaut markings on his arms. “You do?”
“Yeah. Why? Does that surprise you?”
“No. I just thought… Well, you said you couldn’t touch anyone.” Except for me. “That it had been a hundred years.”
“I haven’t. But I’m not celibate. A guy has needs.”
She froze beneath him. Didn’t know what to say.
“Ask me, ligos Vesuvius.”
She looked his way and narrowed her eyes. “Are you reading my mind?”
“No.” He smiled. “But you’re getting hot again, and I can tell this time it’s not from arousal.”
He was right. She was heating up. She hated that her emotions were so closely tied to that damn element inside her.
“I just…I saw the way you reacted when the Amazons touched you. You were in pain. How do you…you know…deal with that and keep it…hard…enough….to have sex with other”—shit—“people?”
His cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink. “It’s a complicated process of clothing and condoms and making sure they don’t physically touch me.”
“They who?”
He glanced away, and his cheeks grew pinker. He was embarrassed. The knowledge sent an odd thrill through her. “There are a couple regular females back in Argolea who know what I like.”
That thrill turned to a quick shot of dislike. Had she done what he liked? She didn’t know. Suddenly, she wanted to know a whole lot more. And who these females were who were throwing themselves at him. “And what is it you like?”
His arm tightened around her waist, and he nuzzled her ear. “I like being inside you. Naked. Feeling every part of you. Gods, your whole body melts like liquid fire when you come.”
He was being cute. And sexy. And he was damn good at both. But she suddenly couldn’t stop thinking of him with those “regular” females.
She literally felt her temperature rising. It was stupid to get so worked up. She hadn’t known him before a few days ago, and back when he was fucking these other females, she’d been frozen anyway.
“Tasa.” He lifted his hand from her belly, used his index finger to tip her face his way, and forced her to look at him. “They can’t touch. That’s the rule. And usually they’re restrained because I don’t trust them. They agree to it not because of me, but because of the bragging rights for sleeping with an Argonaut. I hate it. It’s clinical at best. But it’s the only thing I’ve found that works. I wasn’t built to be celibate.”
She could feel that. He was still semi-hard against her thigh, even in the middle of this fucked-up conversation. He was obviously built for pleasure and release. And though her anger had subsided, the thought of him giving that pleasure to someone else burned a path of fire straight to her gut.
“I’m sorry.” She looked down at his lips. Couldn’t meet his eyes. “I told you before I’m…” Emotionally volatile. A raving lunatic. Pathetically jealous.“…unstable.”
His luscious lips curled. “And I told you I am too.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Being with you… It’s not even a comparison. Just thinking about the sounds you made, the way you climaxed… The way you felt coming around me… Skata, it’s making me even harder, right now. Can’t you feel that?”
She smiled because she could feel it. And because this conversation was off-the-charts insane. Burning with embarrassment, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.
He kissed her throat and breathed cool against her skin. “You’ve ruined me for anyone else, you know. There’s no way I’ll be able to go back to that after this.”
The thought eased the sting. Made her sex clench. But then she realized what it meant. And guilt slithered in. Guilt for making such a big deal over something that—in a few weeks—wouldn’t even matter anymore.
If she were normal, if she had any kind of future, he’d be the sort of guy she’d want to spend it with.
She couldn’t tell him what his words meant to her. But she could give him something he’d been waiting for.
“Titus, the element inside me… It’s getting hotter. I went to Argolea in the hopes maybe Maelea could tell me where Zeus chained Prometheus. He’s the only one who knows how to stop it. He gave it to me. He’s…my father.”
He pushed up on his arm and stared down at her. “Your father? But how…?” His gaze raked her features. “That makes you like…four thousand years old.”
“Technically, yes.” She rested her hands against his shoulders, loving the way his muscles flexed beneath her fingers. “But chronologically I’m only twenty-nine. I was trapped in a frozen state for over three thousand years.”
His brow wrinkled. She could see he was working through the probability of that. “Run that by me again.”
She pushed against his shoulders and leaned back in the pillows. Explaining all this when his touch was a teasing chill she liked too much made it hard to focus. “My mother was a nymph who was seduced by Zeus. They had a love affair, but when Hera found out, she flipped. To protect my mother, Zeus turned her into a…well, a cow. People say a beautiful white heifer, but really, she was a cow. I think he did it because he’s an ass. I mean, he could have picked anything, but a cow?” She shook her head, pulled her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them. “Hera was so pissed he’d tried to protect her, she banished my mother from Greece and cursed her to wander the wilds as a beast.”
He didn’t say anything, just leaned on his elbow and stared up at her, dumfounded. Okay, springing the Prometheus card on him probably hadn’t been the smartest thing for her to do, but now that it was out there, she couldn’t take it back. And part of her didn’t want to.
“Zeus did nothing to stop Hera, and my mother had no choice but to leave the only home she’d ever known. She wandered for years. What Zeus didn’t plan for though was that during that wandering, she’d accidentally come across Prometheus, whom he’d already imprisoned. I guess she felt bad for the elder god—they were basically in the same kind of prison but with different walls, both exiled and alone. Whatever she said must have resonated with Prometheus, because though he was still chained, he retained the power to ease at least part of her suffering. He changed her back into a woman.”
Titus slowly sat up. “I know this story. Io. The nymph who was turned into a cow was Io. You’re Io’s daughter?”
Natasa swallowed hard. The sheet fell against his waist. Light from the edge of the curtains glinted off his strong, solid chest. Faintly she wondered what time it was—what day—but the shock and awe alive in his features kept her from asking. “Being the father of foresight, Prometheus has the gift to see into the future. He also told my mother that one day she’d reach Egypt, and there, far from Hera’s sight, Zeus would eventually break the wandering curse. To thank him for the hope she’d given him, my mother, uh, eased his…um, suffering.”
“Hold on.” Titus held up a hand. “While Prometheus was chained to a rock, your mother…”
Fucked him blind?
Natasa’s cheeks burned. “Ah…yeah. She, um, relieved him…as much as she could while he was bound. I was the result.”
Titus chuckled. “Gives new meaning to the title of that ancient Greek play, Prometheus Bound.”