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“Just…” He grunted and took hold of her knees, bringing them up on either side of his hips, making a wider space between her legs. He was hot and heavy against her, bearing her into the mattress with his solid bulk. He propped himself up on one arm and reached between their bodies. She felt his fingers on her belly and then the nudge of something wide at her entrance.
She held her breath.
His eyes flicked open to look at her. “Be brave.”
She raised an eyebrow, waiting.
He grinned.
There was a pinch, a growing pressure. She tensed. It hurt. He was so big and she felt suddenly small and fragile. Was this truly meant to be?
He leaned down and brushed his lips against her nose. “Sweet Diana.”
Then he shoved hard.
She inhaled. It burned, but that didn’t matter. She was called Artemis, and a huntress could withstand pain. More importantly he was a part of her now, in her now. This intimacy, this closeness with him, was something she would remember forever. All her life seemed to turn upon this point, here, now. She lay very still, but couldn’t help running her hands over his back. He was so powerful and at this moment, he was only hers, pain or no.
Then, still watching her, he shifted, pulling out before slowly shoving back into her again.
His movement lit a spark within her. Not the fire of before, but something warm and nearly sweet. She framed his face with her palms, widening her legs.
He grunted as if pained. “Wrap your ankles about me, Diana.”
She did, the different position making him sink deeper into her. She stroked his high cheekbones, liking the lines on his brow, the sweat that gathered at his hairline. He was moving faster now, the thud of his body against hers on each of his downstrokes firm and strong.
“Diana,” he whispered. “My Diana.”
She touched the corner of his lips, and he opened, taking her thumb into his mouth, biting tenderly on her flesh.
She felt his belly rubbing against hers, the wet slide of his hard flesh in hers, the brush of his chest against her nipples, and she liked it. There was no pain now, only a feeling of closeness. Of animal intimacy. Perhaps she’d been wrong: perhaps this was the moment a woman was nearest to the wild animal: when she was without constraints or thought, no society telling her what she must do and what she must not. Free from civilization.
They were bound together in this primitive act.
He shuddered, like a horse at the point of collapse, his head thrown back, his strong throat working, and she watched his face as he thrust into her one last time, holding himself deep within her as she felt the hot spill of his seed.
Whatever else came tomorrow and for the rest of her life, she would have this moment: this one point in time when she was intimately linked to Maximus.
Maximus the man.
WHEN HE FIRST woke, Apollo thought he had died.
For just a moment.
He was warm. His arms and legs and face and indeed his entire body seemed to ache, but the wonder of the warmth and, now that he considered it, some type of soft material beneath him, made him think he might—he just might—be in a better place.
Then he remembered Ripley.
The turnkey’s eyes as he’d unbuttoned his fall, the unmerciful smirk twisting his lips. The bolt that shot through Apollo’s chest was part fear, part horror, and overlaying both was a cast of shrinking shame.
He rolled and heaved over the side of whatever he lay on. Or at least his stomach attempted to heave. Bile, green and disgusting, drooled from his mouth as his belly cramped, trying to expel what wasn’t there.
A voice exclaimed nearby, and then gentle hands took his shoulders.
Apollo flinched. The hands were male.
He turned fast, shoving them off, and glared at the offender.
The man threw up his hands in a gesture meant to placate. He was tall and rather stringy. Not someone Apollo would fear in the normal way, but this wasn’t normal.
