The buzz between his ears overrode every rational thought. Lowering his head, he made one long, lingering sweep up her cleft, first with the tip of his tongue, then with the flat. Her entire body nearly burst off the table.
He held her down, did it again. And again. Taking her closer to the edge with every lick. She lifted her hips, moaned his name. He answered by stroking deeper with his finger, flicking her swollen nub with his tongue and finally suckling until she came in his mouth.
“Demetrius…” Her whole body trembled with her release and she grew impossibly tight around his finger. But the only thing he could focus on was the roar in his head screaming Home.
That one word echoed in his gray matter, settled in the center of his chest, and clamped on with the ferocity of a lion until he couldn’t breathe. She reached for him. Desire built all over again, slammed into him at the speed of light, and swept him under.
He dragged her up against his body, closed his mouth over hers, kissed her hard and deep. She answered by moaning into his mouth, twisting her fingers into his hair, and pulling hard.
He needed her now, had to get inside of her. Couldn’t think of anything else. But not here, not on this table. There were just enough synapses firing to remind him she was a virgin. At least there were for now.
He wrapped one arm around her waist, used the other to hook her legs around his hips. Her hot, throbbing sex rubbed against his cock, tightening it to painful levels. He groaned, squeezed her sweet little ass, and snagged the blanket from the table just before he carried her to the sheepskin rug he’d taken from Jason’s trunk and covered with blankets in the corner of the room.
She kissed him harder, deeper, like a woman starved. Her nipples rubbing against his bare chest was the most erotic feeling. Her hot sex straining against his fly had him seeing stars. Frantic to get inside her, he laid her out on the blankets, kissed her again and again, and pressed his hips into hers until they were both breathless and sweaty.
“Oh, gods, Demetrius.”
The sound of her voice cut through the screaming need. He eased back just enough to stare down at her. At her swollen lips, her cheeks rubbed raw by his whiskers, her straining nipples, her heaving chest, her naked hips pressed against his, and finally her sex poised to take him deep into her body.
Him. Atalanta’s son. The enemy.
She stared up at him with soft, trusting eyes. Eyes that didn’t see the real him. Eyes that would be horrified if they ever did.
Sickness pushed up the center of his chest. And reality, harsh and way too real, pressed in until he couldn’t breathe.
This couldn’t happen. This could never happen. He had to get away from her. He never should have touched her. Never should have tasted her. Holy Hades, what had he been thinking?
He jerked to his feet, rubbed a hand down his face. Tried to quell the panic roaring in with the force of a jackhammer, but couldn’t.
“Wh-where are you going?”
“Out. I gotta go…out.”
She pushed up on her elbows. “But I thought—”
His mind spun with excuses. Latched on to one coherent thought. “That’s your problem, Princess. You think too much. I changed my mind.”
“But—”
He had to twist the knife. It was the only way he was going to break free. It was the only way he was going to guarantee she never let him near her again. And he knew the one way to do it, even if the thought sent bile sliding up his chest.
“Look, I figured you had a little more experience, but apparently I was wrong. I’m really not into the whole virgin thing. More work than it’s worth.”
Shock ran across her perfect face, followed by disbelief, then abject mortification. Her cheeks turned bright red and she drew the blanket up to her chin with fingers that shook just enough to tell him he’d done exactly what he intended to do. He’d made her feel as shitty as he did.
His chest squeezed so hard it was all he could do not to drop to his knees and tell her he didn’t mean it. Instead he turned for the stairs and forced himself not to look back.
He didn’t have to. He already knew what was on her face. The image of her pleasure was now branded into his brain along with the horror of what he’d just said to her. And it would stay with him for a long time. As long, probably, as the knowledge that his suspicions over the years had been right. One taste had confirmed it.
Isadora really was his soul mate.
Casey stood in the center of Demetrius’s flat in the rundown Tenedos region of Tiyrns and turned a slow circle on the stained carpet as she looked from the barren table and chairs to the threadbare couch across the room.
The fact that Demetrius, one of the Argonauts, lived here surprised her. Especially when she contrasted this to the massive wood and glass house she and Theron shared in the forests outside the city. But what shocked her more than anything was the garbage that lined the cobblestone streets outside, the busted-out shop windows, and the abandoned belongings. And mostly, the ragged people she and the others had passed as they’d come here, watching them with wary eyes as if they were the villains in a B movie.
Argolea was a beautiful realm, a place of peace and safety. But the more time Casey spent here, the more she realized it wasn’t Utopia. It had its own share of problems, its own class system and prejudices, just like any country. And, now she knew, its own poverty issue.
“I didn’t realize Demetrius was such a neat freak,” Cerek said from across the room. He ran his index finger over a side table and held it up to show Phineus not a speck of dust.
“Don’t touch anything,” Theron warned his guardians. He turned to Casey. “Meli?”
Casey shook her head. “It’s like he never spent time here. I can’t pick up enough of him to get any kind of feeling. Are you sure this is his flat?”
Theron rested his hands on his hips and frowned as he glanced around the empty apartment. Across the room, Callia, Max, and Zander inspected something on the kitchen wall. “This is his listed place of residence.”
A heavy bass echoed through the floor and Casey looked down at her feet, sure they were moving in time with the beat. The rowdy pub one floor below was not what she’d expected either. But then what did she really know about Demetrius to begin with?
“Look around,” Theron said. “There’s got to be something we can use.”
They each fanned out, checking the small flat that consisted of only a near-empty living room, a closet-sized adjoining kitchen, one bathroom, and a bedroom that held no bed. There were no pictures on the walls, no clothes in the closet, nothing in the kitchen that said anyone lived here.
Just when Casey was sure they’d hit another dead end, Max’s small voice from the bedroom called, “Here! I think I found something here!”
The bedroom wasn’t large enough for all of them to fit inside. Casey pushed her way past Cerek and Phineus and stepped into the room, only to realize Max was all the way in the back of the small closet.
“What did you find?” she asked, moving around Zander to peer inside.
“A door,” he said in an excited voice. “And there’s a ladder in here. It’s just like…”
Max didn’t finish the sentence, and one glance at Callia’s suddenly taut face told Casey it reminded Max of the door and ladder in Atalanta’s prison that led to the small loft she’d kept him locked inside.
Max was a resilient kid, but ten years with Atalanta had left its mark, and Callia and Zander were working hard to make sure he felt safe here. Casey reached into the closet and pulled him out of the small space. “I’ll go up.”