Her throat worked as she swallowed. He followed the movement with his eyes and brushed the tip of his nose across her jaw again, barely scraped his lips over her neck.
“Someone could walk by.”
His lips curled as he pressed them to a mole at the base of her throat. “That makes it more exciting. And I don’t remember you objecting in that apartment.”
“I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly then. I seem to have that problem when you’re around.”
His chest expanded. He liked that. Liked it a lot.
He nudged her knees apart with his leg, pressed his thigh between hers as he kissed her neck again, as he pressed his lips to the electric skin just behind her earlobe. A tremor ran through her body, one that made his jeans even tighter.
“I know how to ease that problem.” He skimmed his nose across her earlobe again, inhaling a deep whiff of her sweet scent that went right to his head like a drug, pressed his leg just high enough so his thigh rubbed against her mound.
Her chest rose and fell with her deep breaths. She was definitely aroused. Probably already wet.
Gods knew he was aroused. Ever since she’d shown up at Maelea’s house, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her. Shit, that was a lie. He hadn’t stopped thinking of her since he’d seen her at that concert. It didn’t matter that he’d already had her. He wanted her again. Here. Now. However he could get her.
He breathed hot against her neck, watched as the pulse in her throat picked up speed. Her fingers drifted down his side to rest on his hip, dangerously close to the bulge in his jeans. And his blood heated to near boiling at the thought of her fingers so close to his cock.
Her gaze followed her hand to his hip, hesitated. She swallowed, as if she was imagining taking her own delicious sample.
He swelled harder against his zipper, imagined her mouth around his shaft. He didn’t dare move his hand away from the wall for fear he’d forget all common sense and take her, losing their bet before it even got started. “You’re teasing me, Siren.”
Her dark, spiky lashes lifted to reveal amethyst eyes heavy with desire. “I was just wondering what happens if you come first. We didn’t factor that into our bet.”
He nearly came right then, just from the possibility in her words. It was his turn to swallow. “That won’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because I learned to master control long ago.”
She raised her right thigh, slid it up over his hip so his erection sank in the vee of her body until he felt the heat of her sex through the denim and cloth separating their skin. Her hands roamed up his chest to rest against his pecs and squeeze ever so gently. Ripples of sensation flowed from that spot, through his abdomen and lower. “I saw your control in my apartment, daemon. Something tells me you don’t have quite the control you think you do.”
When she pressed her hips forward and his cock rubbed against the cleft between her legs, he knew she was right. If he wasn’t careful, he’d explode long before she even warmed up.
He glanced down at her chest, at her luscious breasts lifting and falling beneath her thin black shirt. Thankfully, she’d taken off the breastplate and arm guards in their stateroom, but he liked the fact she was still wearing those stripper boots. He wouldn’t mind if she wore those and nothing else as she wrapped her legs around his waist and screamed his name.
“So, what do you say, daemon?” She pressed forward, stroked his erection with the heat between her legs. “Why don’t we make the bet a little more interesting?”
He was vaguely aware their power positions had reversed, that she was trained thoroughly in the art of seduction and knew how to strip a male of every thought so she could get what she wanted, but this wasn’t about him. It was about her. And giving her a little of the lust-drenched mind she’d drugged him with the last few days.
He pressed his cock against her heat, rubbed until she sucked in a breath. Yeah, she was wet. He could feel it. “What do you have in mind?”
She pressed back. “Let’s say if you come first, you walk away from Maelea and leave the poor girl alone.”
His hips stilled. He focused on her determined yet very aroused eyes. Eyes that set off a tremor of déjà vu deep in his chest. “Why would a Siren care about someone like Maelea?”
“I don’t.”
For a second he thought she was lying, then he realized she wasn’t. “So this little bet is a way to make sure I don’t use her to get what I want.” When she didn’t answer that thought, another crept into his mind. “Which prompts the question, why would a Siren try to stop her mark? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
She focused on his shoulder. And in her silence he knew she didn’t have an answer. At least not one she could voice. But it was there, hiding behind her familiar and entrancing eyes. An answer that explained what their connection was and why she was all he’d been able to think about since the moment they’d met. Even to the detriment of his one clear goal.
The door at the end of the hall creaked open. Skyla’s head darted that way and her hands pressed hard against his chest, pushing him away from her succulent body.
Another steward came down the corridor toward them, a tray in his hands. He stopped when he caught sight of them, looked from face to face. Understanding dawned in his eyes just before he coughed and a rush of pink spread up his cheeks. “Um. Sorry. I just need to get through.”
Orpheus stepped back against the opposite wall to make room, but he knew his irritation reflected in his eyes. Only…they didn’t flash green the way they normally did when he was irritated.
The man ducked his head and was out the opposite door in a flash.
Skyla stepped away and cleared her throat. “I need some air.”
“Hold on.” He reached for her but wasn’t quick enough to grasp her.
“Thanks, but no. I think we both need a good shot of distance right now. I know I sure do.”
She disappeared out the door before he could think of a reason to make her stay. For a brief moment he considered following, then remembered Maelea in the stateroom. He couldn’t leave Ghoul Girl alone. She was waiting for the first opportunity to run, and contrary to what Skyla thought, he didn’t intend to harm the waif. But he would use her to get what he wanted.
And what he wanted…It was time he remembered his goal and stopped screwing around with the Siren who’d obviously been sent here to get rid of him. She was a distraction he didn’t need. And though he didn’t know why, he had the strangest feeling that being close to her was messing with his daemon.
She was right. They did need distance. Distance so he could call back that part of him he both hated and needed at the same time. Once they got to the half-breed colony, he’d ditch her ass. Because without his daemon…he’d never get what he wanted most.
There were benefits to being the Lord of the Underworld. Chief among those benefits was that souls weren’t just scared of you, they cowered. And though Hades ruled Hell in all its glory, everything that happened within his domain eventually found its way back to his ears, no matter how secret.
Which was how he’d learned Atalanta once again roamed his realm.
He stared at the relief in front of him, carved from the purest marble in the human world. The image of him and his two brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, immortalized as they stood on the top of Mount Othrys, the home of the Elder Gods, after they’d defeated Krónos and the Titans and locked them deep within the bowels of Tartarus.
Their victory in the Titanomachy had been long fought and hard-won. And in that moment when he’d stood there with his kin, the strength of everything they’d accomplished had flowed as rich as wine through Hades’s veins. But it had been fleeting. For as soon as Zeus had locked their father, Krónos, in Tartarus, he’d taken command of the heavens, bestowed the oceans on Poseidon, and left the afterthought to Hades.