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Persephone dragged her eyes back to his face. His eyes remained shut, though more relaxed now that she had had time to cover herself. She rocked to her toes and stretched her neck enough to kiss his cheek, a hand braced on his smooth chest. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“Your turn to look away now.” He grinned as he opened his eyes and turned his head quickly, kissing her on the lips before digging into the basket again. A much smaller piece of cloth coming out in his hands.
Persephone spun around to face the ocean, giving him privacy to change, listening to the small waves crest and break on the shore. Trying to ignore the wet suctioning noises of his clothes peeling off his body, and the images of him rushing through her mind as he did so.
His damp arms wrapped around her neck from behind, resting on her shoulders as they watched sky turn from a brilliant pink to a deep purple. They stood there, silently watching the sky as night fell and the stars appeared above them, providing just enough light to see each other in.
Shutting her eyes to the stars, Persephone listened to the crashing water, inhaling the cold, salty air that breezed across her skin. Leaning her back into the hard body behind her, his warmth seeping through the sheets to touch her skin.
“Persephone,” Pelops called from the blanket.
When he had moved away from her, Persephone wasn’t sure. She’d been deep within herself, lost to the sound of the water around them, the silence beneath it.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it as soon as she sat down, watching him eagerly open a small, travel-sizedamphoraand fill their glasses halfway. Hesitantly, she took one from him, recalling the last time she had sat on this beach and drank wine.
Her thoughts must have been written across her face because he said, “Don’t worry,” reaching over and grasping her free hand, “I won’t let you drink too much,” with a wink.
That was the last time she thought of it all evening as they laughed and drank and ate all the fresh food he bought fresh at theagorathat morning: berries and cured meat, salted fish and thick slices of bread. The combination of salty fish and sweet bread, coated in olive oil, melted in her mouth. The tartness of the berries and wine mingled pleasantly with the salt from the fish and olives on her tongue as they ate and drank through the night.
Pelops cleared his throat, putting his wine and oil soaked bread down to take her hands. She looked at him expectantly, patiently waiting for him to speak as he rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs.
Clearing his throat a third time, Pelops reached behind his head to grip the back of his neck. The muscles and skin of his forearm tightening, the bluish veins more pronounced against the flexed muscles. She tried to maintain eye contact, but conceded to staring at his raised arm when he looked down at her hands.
The silence was agony. Her face and chest started to burn as her heart beat faster, thinking of all the horrible things he must be trying to say to her. Like that he didn’t love her no matter how much she loved him. Or that he was to be married to another, she knew his father was already well into his sixties and had been adamant about wanting to prepare his son for inheriting the kingdom in the case of his elder brother’s death. Her stomach rolled and saliva pooled in her mouth as she listed the possibilities, her mind stuck on the very real possibility that he truly was engaged.
Calm down, she thought, lightly shaking her head to expel the dread filling it. He hadn’t even said anything yet, she was overreacting to his body language, which could mean almost anything, and jumping to conclusions. Far-fetched conclusions.
Maybe it was good news that he was trying so hard to say. Maybe he had brought her a present in one of the many baskets littering the ground around them. Better yet, maybe he was going to ask her to marry him.
It would explain the beautiful surprise picnic, the wine and her favourite foods, the flashing in his eyes as he looked at her again. Her grip tightened on his hand at the thought, her chest rising quick with her anticipatory heartbeats.
Swallowing the bile burning the back of her throat as it rose, as her stomach flipped over itself, she nudged his knee. When his eyes shot to hers again, fear lining his features, she raised her eyebrows as she asked, “What’s wrong?” in a soft voice. She hoped she sounded nonchalant.
“IthinkIloveyou,” he said quickly, jumbling all his words together incoherently.
“What?”
“Gods,” he said, groaning and rubbing his face. “I love you!” His voice was muffled behind his hands, but Persephone understood. Clung to his words.
A sound of excitement rushed past her lips as she threw her arms around his neck, smashing her lips against his in a hard kiss. He teetered back lightly, an arm wrapping around her middle to steady them. He slowly laid back onto the blanket, her knees sinking deeper into the sand beneath the blanket as he did.
“I love you, Pelops,” she said in a low voice against his ear as he kissed down her neck, pulling her onto him completely.
Happiness washed over her with every press of his lips to her skin. He was nervous because he loved her, and surely he wanted to marry her with the way he was acting now.
His hands fervently roamed her body, running down her sides to squeeze her rear hard. Pushing her against him before trailing back up her body to grab her face and kiss her urgently. She dropped her knees beside his hips to steady herself, and felt him hard between her legs as she rested against him.
Suddenly his hands were moving quicker, into her hand and down the thin cloth draping around her. He held her face roughly against his, his hand on the back of her head, tangled in her hair. The knot she’d tied at her chest was loosened quickly, his fingers deftly working through it and ripping the front open until her bare chest was pressed against his.
The makeshift dress laid on her back, covering them like a blanket, her bare skin flush with his own. She hadn’t noticed that he’d removed the small piece of cloth that had been around his waist, not until they heat from his bare thighs was radiating into her own.
It was like a different man lay beneath her.
With one hand held her waist, fingers digging into her soft sides and pressing her against him tight enough that she couldn’t move, couldn’t squirm her way out of his hard grasp. The other hand pressed harder into the back of her head, twisting the strands around his fingers and pulling until she cried out, shoving his tongue inside as she did.
Kissing her harder and faster, needier than ever before.
