Her heart tripped, and her voice cracked when she asked, “What you love about me?”
“Yeah, what I love.” His fingers crazed her throat, traced the line of her sternum between her breasts, and hovered over her heart. “Every time I think about the way you cared for my brother…” He swallowed, and tears dampened his eyes. “You don’t even know him.”
“I know you.”
One corner of his mouth curled. “Yeah, and you still cared for him, regardless.”
“Orpheus—”
“No one’s ever cared about me before. No one’s put their life on the line for me. No one even considered it. You did it not only for me, but for my brother. I—I didn’t think anyone could love me.”
Her heart pinched all over again, and she ran her fingers over his stubbly jaw, the cap she’d kept on her emotions for so long finally blowing free. I loved you before, daemon. It just doesn’t even come close to how much I love you now. “Then you thought wrong. And if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the next five hundred or so years proving just how wrong you were.”
His gaze searched her face. “You will?”
“Well…” Her cheeks heated. “If, that is, you want me to. I might have some free time on my hands soon.”
A slow, easy, devilish smile inched its way across his lips, and he pressed that heavenly erection against her mound all over again. “Oh, I want you, Siren. I’ve wanted you since you first set out to seduce me.”
She lost herself in his kiss. Was so light-headed from his lips and teeth and tongue, she barely registered him kicking off his boots, sliding out of his pants, and dragging hers from her legs. But she definitely knew when his fingers brushed her wetness and his thumb circled her clit, sending a current of electricity racing through her body.
“Orpheus…”
“Like that?”
“Mm, yes. More.”
He chuckled as he stroked her, seemed to enjoy it when her whole body quivered. As he slid two fingers deep inside, he continued to tease her clit with his thumb and lowered his head to her breast, flicking her nipple with his tongue until she moaned. She dropped her head back and lifted one leg so she could dig her heel into the mattress, granting him more access. Pleasure gathered beneath his hands, around his talented fingers sliding in and out of her sheath, along her nipples, where his tongue was doing insane things to her breasts. But it wasn’t enough, wasn’t ever enough when what she wanted most was so very close.
She hooked a leg over his hip and rolled him to his back, thrilled when she felt the naked, blunt head of his cock brush her aching folds. She wanted to taste it again, take it deep in her mouth like last time, feel his pleasure pulse along her tongue. But the throb between her legs was too great. The heat too intense to stop and readjust.
“Orpheus…” Her mouth was on his again.
“Hold on.” He pushed her back. And she watched in awe as he tore the chain from around his neck and dropped the Orb on the floor along with his clothes.
Hero. The word revolved in her mind again. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now.
“Now,” he said, his hands sliding to her hips, guiding her, taking charge even though she was the one directing things. “Where were we?”
The head of his cock slid along her folds, pressed against her opening just enough to draw a groan from her chest, then retreated. She tightened her muscles, tried to lower herself down, met the resistance of his strong hands holding her still.
“Um…yeah,” she managed. “I think…right there.”
“There, Siren?”
“Yes.” She kissed him. “Stop tormenting me.”
“Tell me again.” He lifted his head and kissed her long and deep and slow. “Tell me again what you did before.”
She knew what he wanted. The same thing she wanted. “I love you, Orpheus.”
He sat up so fast, a gasp tore from her mouth. But it turned to a groan when he pulled her hips down to his and thrust inside her. Flesh settled against flesh. His erection twitched inside her. He rolled her to her back and whispered, “Wrap your legs around me.”
She did. Groaned again as he pushed in even deeper. He retreated, thrust into her again and again, stoked her already-roaring fire to within degrees of exploding. When it wasn’t enough, he hooked his arms behind her knees, opening her wider, and drove himself one more reaching inch inside.
“Gods, Skyla,” he said against her lips, “I love being inside of you. I don’t even care that you had to seduce me at the start to get us to this point.”
She gripped his face with both hands. “I didn’t seduce you, Orpheus. I didn’t have to. That connection you kept asking me about is real. All I did was fight it. Way longer than I should have. Believe me. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
“Ah, gods, Siren.” His eyes darkened and he lowered his mouth and kissed her again, this time as if he couldn’t get enough. His thrusts picked up speed. She lifted her hips to meet him, wrapped her arms around his muscular shoulders, slick with sweat and flexing with his movements.
She knew his release was coming. She could feel it growing with every press and slide and groan and thrust and retreat. She lost herself in the feel of him—hard and hot and so very thick. And when he arched his back and his entire body quivered over hers—inside hers—she let herself go.
For the first time ever, she let everything she’d worked for, every disappointment and heartache along the way, every long lonely moment in a life that never should have been, finally go. And as he collapsed against her, as his head slid into the crook between her neck and shoulder and his hot breath washed over her flesh to tighten her nipples all over again, she ran her fingers over the damp skin of his shoulders and told herself there was no going back. Not for the order. Not for Athena. Never again for Zeus.
Not even when the King of the Gods sent her sisters to kill her, which she knew he would undoubtedly do soon.
Chapter 25
That connection you kept asking me about is real.
Images swam behind Orpheus’s closed eyelids as he hovered on the edge of sleep. Images that blended with Skyla’s words and refused to let him rest. Her standing in the chaos of that concert the night he’d been looking for Maelea. Protecting Ghoul Girl with that magical bow and arrow when she thought he was there to harm the girl. The way she’d kissed him after she was pulled from that avalanche. Covered in sweat in the Underworld, comforting his brother. The last few hours alone in this bed, as she’d used her body and voice to enrapture as she had from the start.
His daemon was gone. He didn’t know how, but he couldn’t feel it anymore. Not even a rumble of awareness. Something in the back of his mind said its absence was somehow linked to Skyla, but he didn’t know how that was possible. All he knew was that for so long he’d lived by the push and pull of that daemon. To be free of it…it was like no other feeling in the world.
Save being inside Skyla.
That connection you kept asking me about is real.
Her image flickered again behind his eyelids. And though he knew he shouldn’t be this content when his brother lay floors below, haunted by horrors Orpheus didn’t want to imagine, he couldn’t stop feeling alive any more than he could stop the steady thump of his heart.
And yet…
Something niggled at the back of his mind. The images shifted like billowing smoke, taking shape in different forms. Skyla again, only dressed differently. Speaking…more formally. Telling him…Telling him what?