I wrap my arms around my naked chest. I’ve never been shy, but I feel suddenly cold. “And if I refuse?”
“You won’t.” The certainty in his voice makes me want to defy him just on principle. Yet there’s something else there, beneath my indignation. A forbidden thrill at the thought of breaking a line. The statue’s cold perfection calls something forbidden within me, some desire I’ve never acknowledged even to myself.
Would it feel like him?
Would the stone piercings create sensations different from his flesh and his metal?
The questions swirl in my mind without me even summoning them.
Ares’ eyes are on me, reading every hint of emotion across my face. He sees the moment my resolve begins to crumble. That makes his lips curve into a smile that has victory, but also hunger, written all over it.
“There are other ways to assure yourself I can’t live without you,” I say, rolling my eyes in a last attempt to maybe find a way out of this. Even though I’m not so sure I even want one right now.
“There are. But you’ll remember this one. So go on,” he says in a soft tone. “Show me how much you want me. How fucking much you want every version of me.”
“I’ll make you pay for this,” I breathe, though there’s no real threat in the words. It’s just a reflex against my own surrender.
“Looking forward to it,” he replies, and even though I’m not watching him, I know the smile reaches his eyes.
My feet move before my mind fully commits to what I’m doing, carrying me toward the marble figure that dominatesthe center of the room.Each step feels like I’m about to do something unthinkable. Expose myself in a way no other man on this planet, except him, could see me. And that makes me vibrate from within.
The first touch of my fingers against the statue's arm sends a shiver through me. The marble is cold, but not as unwelcoming as I expected, as if something is pulling me toward exploring it. I move my hand along the stone limb, feeling the perfectly sculpted muscles, each vein carved in its place.
Ares watches me from a distance, but his eyes never leave me as I go around the figure. My fingertips brush its chest, its abdomen, hesitating just above its raisedmember.
“Don’t stop now,” he whispers, his own anticipation betrayed by his voice. “You’ve come this far.”
My hand trembles as it hovers over the statue’s marble erection. One small gesture, and I cross a line I can never uncross. One touch and I admit to desires darker than anything I thought possible.
But I do it, my fingers close around the cold stone, trailing its Jacob’s ladder, piercing by piercing.
The marble is so fine it feels alive, instantaneously stealing all heat from my skin as I hover over the statue’s hips, my knees braced wide on either side. For a moment, I can’t bring myself to move, fighting the mortification of being watched like this, and still convinced I should fight the curiosity that’s turned my limbs to water.
I sense Ares walking slowly behind me, the closeness amplifying every twitch and tremble. His excitement charges the air, crackling down my spine as I’m still deciding if I should lower myself or just damn run.
“Don’t rush,” he orders, voice low but still in control. “Take your time. I want to see you.”
I bite down on my lip so hard I taste the metallic hint of my own blood, then force my eyes open and my body downward, my whole existence reduced to where my flesh meets marble.
The first brush of it against my core is electric. It feels so much colder than I could have ever imagined, like plunging into arctic waters. I jerk reflexively, a gasp breaking from my lips as I clench around nothing, trying to retreat, but something keeps me in place.
Curiosity is going to be the death of me one day.
The sensation is nothing like human touch. The hardness is foreign against my skin, uninviting.
Ares is close, just out of sight, watching, breathing with me, for me. Suddenly, he walks next to me, then crouches down to my level. “There you go. Feel that?” His hand glides across my thigh. “Let it in, little curse.”
I want to swear, say something obscene that would hurt him. But at this point, I’ve already gone too far. I try to lower my body, leaning my torso forward to make the passage easier but it’s like impaling myself on a frozen blade.
The marble head presses in, stretching me open, and then the first of the piercings catches on my entrance.
I feel the pressure, the impossible stretch, the coldness of the stone, and I want to scream. Yet even more than that, I want for him to watch, to see me trembling at the feel of his eyes searing this into his memory.
My thighs are shaking with the effort of holding myself above thething, every single one of my muscles is locked and burning harder than they do in training as I grit my teeth and slide lower.
“Fucking hell,” Ares murmurs, coming closer to watch the point where stone meets flesh. He’s already in that inhuman state. His eyes are almost all black, his lips curled back in a wolfish sneer of approval.
I grind down further, the second piercing forcing a broken moan past my lips.
