The door crashed against the wall as Erebus shoved it open and stalked into the suite he’d shared with Sera last night, trying like hell to calm the roaring vibration still buzzing inside him.
Of course they’d all assume he was the perfect one to sacrifice eternity for them. He was the god of darkness. He probably liked the Underworld, right?
They could all piss off as far as he was concerned.
The door to the suite slammed shut, and footsteps sounded across the floor before coming to a stop at Erebus’s back. He didn’t need to look to see that Sera had followed him. He could smell her lemony scent and all but feel her own anger seeping from her.
The vibrations slowly lessened. Knowing she was just as outraged as him eased his rage.
“When were you going to tell me your plan?” she said at his back.
Confused, not just by the question but by the bite in her voice, he turned to look at her.
But her eyes weren’t the compassionate eyes he’d hoped for. These were like blue ice chips, cold and staring at him as if she were looking at a stranger.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You never cared about helping these people. You only came here with me because you saw it as an opportunity to get away from Zeus. To take a break from your duties and fuck me for a while. But now that you know the Argoleans are going to destroy the key, that changes things, doesn’t it? Are you planning to take it back to Zeus tonight?”
His eyes widened in disbelief. “What?”
“You heard me.” Fire flared in her eyes but it didn’t warm that icy chill brewing in their cold blue depths. “I can’t believe I was so stupid when it came to you. You duped me once before, and you’re doing it again right now.”
He couldn’t believe she thought so little of him. He couldn’t believe that after everything he’d done for her, she could even ask such a question.
He reacted before he could stop himself. Crossing the distance between them in two strides, he grasped her by the arm. “You’re right, nymph. That’s exactly why I came here. I serve Zeus. I must be the same selfish asshole he is, right? Why else would I bother?”
Her chest rose and fell with her heavy breaths, and a whisper of doubt crept into her eyes. “Let go of my arm.”
Something dark burned inside him. Something dangerous he knew he needed to stop but couldn’t seem to tamp down.
“Why?” He moved a step closer, using his size to tower over her. “You knew why I came here. You said it yourself. I came here to fuck you. And you didn’t put up any sort of fight to stop me. In fact, ten minutes ago, if you’d been wearing a skirt, you’d have let me fuck you right there in that office in front of the Argonauts. So why don’t I do that one last time before I leave? I want it. I know you want it too; otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Her eyes widened as he pressed her up against the wall. She lifted her hands to his biceps and pushed, but she wasn’t strong enough to budge him. “If you even think about raping me—”
“Rape you? Oh, oraios. In sixty seconds you’ll be begging for me to fuck you blind.”
“In your dreams.”
Anger swelled inside him. Anger and a burning desire to make her pay. “Since I’m going back to Zeus, dreams are the only thing I’ll have left of you, so I might as well get as much as I can right now.”
He lowered his face to the hollow in her neck and drew in a deep whiff of her scent. Lemon and vanilla and something that made him fucking high. “Gods, you smell good.” He bit down on the tender flesh—not gently, not hard—and she whimpered, which was exactly what he wanted. “Taste even better.”
Her fingers dug into his biceps, but he ignored the pain and kicked her legs apart so he could press himself against her heat. Then he licked the spot he’d just bitten and sucked until her cry of protest turned into a groan of desire.
The sound supercharged his blood and made the darkness inside rush right to the surface of his control. She thought he would rape her? She thought he’d still side with Zeus? He’d been sure she was the one person in the cosmos who understood him, but now he knew the truth. She was just like the gods, using him for her own selfish needs, then discarding him when she had what she wanted, casting him aside as if he were nothing.
He rocked against her and lifted one hand to squeeze the soft mass of her breast. “Tell me you don’t want this, agápi.”
She swallowed hard, pushed against his arms again, but not with the force of before, and against him he felt her muscles already relaxing. Felt her body giving in to the heat of his and melting beneath him. “I-I don’t.”
“You lie.” He lifted his head and closed his mouth over hers. Her fingers fisted in his T-shirt, and she grunted as his tongue swept into her mouth, demanding and unforgiving. But she didn’t try to push him away, and as he stroked her tongue and pressed his hard body into hers against the wall, she tugged on his shirt and pulled him closer.
That’s it. Just a little more...
He slid one hand over her side and across her lower back, then down to squeeze the soft right globe of her ass. She moaned into his mouth and lifted her leg, hooking it around his hip so his cock could press against her clit. Her hands swept up to his face, then she tipped her head and kissed him deeper, rocking her hot little body against his until he was hard and achy and ready to explode. Until he knew he had her right where he wanted her.
He trailed a line of hot, wet kisses from the corner of her mouth to her jaw and then to the sensitive skin behind her ear. “Tell me you want me, Sera.”
“Oh gods.” She grasped his face again, pulled his mouth back to hers, and kissed him.
“Tell me,” he breathed against her lips, squeezing her ass with every press of his groin against hers. “Tell me and I’ll give you exactly what you deserve.”
“Erebus.” She drew back from his mouth, nipped his bottom lip, swept her tongue over the spot and suckled until he groaned. “Yes, I want you. Take me.”
Primal need pumped hot inside him, but he wasn’t about to let it free. Not with her. Not ever again.
He jerked back from her mouth, let go of her with his hands, and moved away so cool air rushed across her overheated body. “Not even sixty seconds. You’re a predictable little nymphomaniac. I should have seen how manipulative you really were from the start. Zeus did pick you himself, after all.”
He moved for the door. At his back he heard her gasp of shock and disbelief, but he ignored it, wanting only to get as far from her as possible. To get out of this castle and out of this fucking realm before all that darkness inside him burst free and made him do something he knew he’d regret later.
Inches from the entry hall of the suite, his foot hooked something hard, and his weight went out from under him. He hit the carpet with a grunt. Before he could process what he’d tripped over, strong hands flipped him to his back, and the sexy little nymph who’d tormented his body and consumed his thoughts these last few days climbed over him.
She slapped her hands against the carpet near his head and glared down at him. “You’re not leaving.”
“The hell I’m not.”
He shifted his hands to her waist and lifted his torso to shove her off him, but she dropped her weight onto his hips and wrapped her legs around his waist as he sat up, locking her in place against his hard, aching cock.
She leaned in to breathe hot against his ear. “You’re not leaving because we’re not done here.” Her teeth sank into his lobe, then she traced her wicked tongue around the rim of his ear. “You said you were going to fuck me blind.” Against his straining erection, she rocked her steamy sex until he saw stars. “Fuck me, Erebus. Fuck me, now.”
The darkness inside him burst free. He didn’t know what game she was playing but he was past the point of caring. Past the point of thinking. Past the point of stopping.
A growl echoed in the room, one he knew came from him as he pushed her to her back on the carpet, then drew away long enough to rip the pants from her legs. She gasped but didn’t miss a beat, wrenching the shirt over her head and throwing it off to her side with jerky movements.
His blood roared in his ears as he flipped her to her belly. She grunted and pushed up on her hands and knees. Blonde hair spilled across her bare spine and tickled his frantic fingers as he unhooked the white lace bra and pushed it down her arms. She helped him by wriggling out of the garment, then groaned as he ripped the panties from her hips and the sound of tearing fabric filled the room.
With one hand, he unhooked the button at his waistband. With the other, he swept his fingers between her legs and across her hot, steaming flesh. Kicking her knees wider with his, he growled, “Is this what you want?”
She rocked back against his hand so his fingers swirled over her slick clit. “Oh yes... More.”
He drew his fingers down, to her opening, then thrust up inside with two. “This?”
“Yeeees...” She dropped her head forward and moaned, then rocked her hips back, fucking his fingers with long, deep strokes. “Gods, that’s good. But I want more. Give me more.”
Fire roared inside him. Fire and a blazing need he couldn’t ignore, one that shoved aside the darkness until the only thing he knew was this moment.
He yanked his fingers from her body, and flipped her to her back again. She grunted and reached for him as he reached inside his waistband to free his erection. “You want more? You want this?”
“Oh, yes...” She hooked her legs around his waist and lifted her hips, her hot, tight channel finding the tip of his cock until she sucked him in a fraction of an inch.
Every nerve ending in his body flared in that one spot. “Say it,” he growled.
“I want your cock. I want you. Fuck me. Fuck me, Erebu—”
He claimed her mouth at the same time he slammed himself inside her. His name erupted on a scream that only shot his blood higher.
He drew out until she whimpered, then drove deep again, grunting at the way her sheath contracted around him as he kissed her.
“Is this what you wanted?” He breathed hot over her lips. Bracing one hand on the floor, he used the other to hold her head still while he shoved deep again and again, fucking her with hard, long strokes that made her whole body shudder.
“Yes, yes...” Her fingertips dug into his shoulders.
She was leaving bruises, he was sure, but he didn’t care. All he could focus on was thrusting deeper, faster, proving to her that he wasn’t at all what she thought.
“Don’t stop,” she rasped. “Gods, don’t stop...”
He couldn’t. He was too far gone.
Shifting his weight to his knees, he grasped both of her legs and shoved them forward, then drove even deeper. “Say you like fucking me,” he growled.
Her eyes slid closed. “I do. Gods, I do.”
A frenzy rose up in his mind. One that told him to prove to her she wasn’t at all what she thought either. “Say you’re a dirty nymph who likes to be fucked by the gods.”
“No.” She tossed her head from side to side and her channel grew impossibly tight around him. “Just by you. Only you. Ah, gods, Erebus. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Electricity raced down his spine and gathered in his balls. He plunged into her harder, unable to do anything but what she demanded, hating that she was still manipulating him, even now. “Say it,” he growled, his fingers tightening around her knees where he held her open to him. “Say you’re a manipulative little slut who uses sex to get what she wants.”
Her eyes shot open, and before he realized what she was doing, she jerked her legs from his hold, pushed her hands against the floor and shot forward so her legs were around his waist, her chest was plastered to his, and her arms were locked tight around his shoulders.
Her slick and tempting pussy clenched around his length as she lifted and lowered herself on his lap. “I’m not,” she breathed against his lips as his hands settled at her hips. “I didn’t. I only want you. I’ve only ever wanted you.”
She pressed her mouth to his and kissed him, and as her tongue swept into his mouth and she groaned, he felt her climax claim her, and the feeling was so tight, so right, so seductive, it triggered his.
Grunting, he pushed her to the carpet and gave himself over to her kiss, to her body, to everything she was and the ecstasy she could give him.
When he was spent, when all he could do was twitch and groan, he pulled free of her slick core and pushed up on one hand to gaze down at her sexy, sated features covered in a thin layer of sweat.
His chest grew tight, so tight he knew it was way past time he left.
He braced his hands on the carpet and started to push up. Her legs hooked around his hips, preventing him from pulling free of her body, and then her hands were at his shoulders, pulling him back down to her.
“Uh uh.” She tugged him back against all her tantalizing heat and stared up at him with eyes that were a soft, relaxed blue and lacked any of the anger he’d seen there before. “I said I’m not through with you, and I meant it.”
His own anger had eased now that he’d released some stress, but he didn’t want to do anything to trigger it again. “Sera.” He reached up to pry her arms from his neck. “This has run its course.”
She tightened her hold. “Not even close.”
Frustrated, desperate now to leave, he frowned down at her. “I’m not going to stay here when—”
“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I was just...” She bit her lip, looking sexy and nervous and innocent all at the same time. “I was scared, okay? I fell for you a year and a half ago during my training sessions. I fell hard, and when our sessions were over, you moved on to a new trainee as if I hadn’t even existed. That hurt me.”
A little of his frustration waned. He braced a hand on the floor near her head. “I didn’t have a choice in that.”
“I know, I just... It still hurt. And when I heard you in there with the Argonauts, I thought... Well, I thought you were getting ready to move on again. I lashed out because I’m weak.”
He frowned. “You’re spirited and frustrating and sexy as hell, but you’re not weak.”
One corner of her mouth curled.
He sighed, liking the way she fit against him way too much. Knowing it was going to be a major problem for him when he left here. “I wasn’t saying no to them because I wanted to leave you. I said no because I have no interest in returning to the Underworld, even for just a visit. I spent thousands of years there doing shit work for Hades. As soon as I step in that realm he’ll try to find a way to keep me, prophecy or no prophecy, whether I use my cloak of darkness or not. Life on Olympus serving Zeus wasn’t a helluva lot better than it was serving Hades, but at least on Olympus I was away from all that misery and death. I can’t go back there.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I should have realized that. I wasn’t thinking. Please forgive me.”
He wanted to believe her, but he was still unsure what was truth. He only knew one truth he should have told her before. “For what it’s worth, I had to put you behind me at the Siren training compound. I couldn’t get emotionally involved with you then. It would have meant the end for both of us. But I didn’t forget about you. I never forgot about you.”
“You didn’t even know who I was when you tackled me in the forest.”
“I knew who you were as soon as I saw you. As soon as I touched you. How could I forget the one person in the world who ever made me feel alive?”
Her eyes went all soft and dreamy, and before he realized it he grew hard inside her once more.
“And what about now?” she asked, her words distracting him from how tight and wet she was around him. “We’re not in danger anymore and you’re free to make your own choices here in Argolea. Do you still want me? Because I want you. I wasn’t lying when I said I’m yours. I want only to be yours, Erebus. Now and always.”
His heart skipped a beat. But he was still worried. Especially if she would only ever see him as a servant to the gods. “That depends on your friends in the other room. The only thing they want me for is to sacrifice myself for some prophecy I know nothing about. They won’t let me stay in this realm now that I’ve said no.”
“Then we’ll go somewhere else.”
When he looked away, she tugged him down to her, so his chest was pressed up against her gorgeous breasts and her mouth was a breath away from his lips. And around his cock, she clenched her muscles until it was all he could do to keep giving in to the pleasure and thrusting hard and deep all over again.
“I don’t care what they want, Erebus. I mean, yes, I want them to be safe. I don’t want any other realm to suffer what Atlantis did, and I was willing to help them if I could, but not if it means losing you. They have the key. We brought it to them. Whatever they do with it now is up to them, not us. All I want is you. I want the future we couldn’t have before.” She clenched even tighter, drawing a groan from his throat. “I love you, Erebus.”
His lungs felt as if they’d completely closed off. And for a moment, he didn’t breathe. Just stared down into her soft blue eyes, trying to see the lie, the manipulation, the contrary truth she was keeping hidden. But he didn’t see any of those things. He saw her. Her innocence when they’d first met on Olympus. He saw the fire inside her when she’d run from him at that half-breed colony. And he saw love. The kind of love he’d always hoped for but never thought was possible.
His mouth was dry as cotton when his lips parted, and the words stuck in his throat. “I...”
She pressed her lips against his. “Say you want the same. Say it, you dirty, dark, sexy god. Say you love me just as much. I know you do. I knew it the moment you pushed me up against the wall and I saw how much I’d hurt you.” She kissed him softly again, lifted her hips and flexed around his aching cock. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for that. Stay with me. Stay and let me make it up to you. I need you. Not for your powers or what you can do. I need you simply because I love you and want you in my life.”
Something in his chest warmed and swelled until it felt like he might crack open wide. Lifting his hands to her face, he drew back from her mouth and brushed the soft locks from her intoxicating eyes. “Oh, Sera. You’re the only one who’s ever said that to me.”
“I’m the only one who’s ever going to love you like this.” She did that wicked rocking again that made him nearly see stars. “Promise you won’t leave me.”
He couldn’t. Not anymore.
He captured her mouth with a searing kiss he felt everywhere, and when she groaned and kissed him back, the last of his doubt faded into the darkness.
He rolled to his back, tugging her on top of him. Brushing the hair back from her face, he drew his mouth back a fraction of an inch and said, “Since you asked so nicely, I’ll stay. But only on one condition.”
She grinned down at him. “Anything.”
“Show me how much you love me, agápi. Make me believe it.”
“I can do that.” Her lips curled in a wicked smile, and she braced her hands on his chest and began to move. “I can happily spend the rest of my days doing that.”
Oh, fuck yes...
She lowered and took his mouth, and as he kissed her back, he knew this time what she said was true. He also knew that he would easily be as happy letting her prove it to him for however long they were together.
He just hoped it was more than a few days. Because now that he’d betrayed Zeus and said no to the Argoleans, they’d soon have to leave this protected realm. And there weren’t many places left in the world where he could hide from the Olympians and keep her safe.