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I can’t see her face clearly, but I can read all the signs. I shift my touch on her breast and pinch her nipple lightly. She jolts and arches even harder into my hand. “You like that.”
“More!”
I give her more. A little taste of pain to heighten her pleasure. It’s a delicate balance that we can explore more fully later. Right now, I just need her to come more than I need the next beat of my heart.
She grabs my forearms, holding me in place as her body goes tense and she cries out. There.That’swhat I will spend the rest of my life chasing. I surge forward, sinking into her to the hilt and taking her mouth again. She clamps around me, so wet and tight that I nearly blow on the spot. I try to slow down, to pace myself, but she wraps her legs around my waist and then her nails find my ass again, digging in just enough to have pain sparking.
I thrust deeper. “Ohfuck.” It’s too late. My orgasm hits mebefore I can stop it. I’m helpless to do anything but keep mindlessly thrusting, trying to get deeper. “Fuck, fuck,fuck.”
I collapse against her. Eurydice shivers a little, each move sends sparks of pleasure so acute that it’s nearly pain through me. I can’t believe that shit just happened. Any of it. I gather her close and kiss her temple. I’m not twenty anymore—it takes me a little longer to recover—but my cock threatens to twitch back to life. Fuck, but that was barely enough to take the edge off. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” She gives another of those delicious shivers again. “I like that I affect you like that.”
I like it too. But that doesn’t mean I want to make a habit of it. My cock gives another twitch and I can’t help but thrust again. She tightens her legs around my waist. I close my eyes, letting myself sink into the feel of her, of this really happening. “Again?”
“It feels good.” She rolls her hips. “I…don’t want to stop.” She kisses my throat, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. “Keep fucking me, Charon. Until we can’t fuck anymore.”
I don’t tell her it will take a lifetime before I’m satisfied with fucking her. Instead, I lean back just enough to tear off my shirt. I want to be skin-to-skin with her. Ineedit. Eurydice helps me get the shirt down my arms and then her fingers are in my hair and her mouth is on mine.
This time. This time, I’ll take her slow. It’s not a bed, but we have nowhere to be and no one to interrupt us. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.
6
ORPHEUS
I don’t even try to sleep after Charon leaves. His words keep rattling around in my head, but the thing that has me pacing around my apartment, unable to stay still, is the realization that things really are over with Eurydice. They must be if she’s moving on withhim.
I don’t fault her for that. I don’t even try.
We were never going to get back together. I don’t deserve that, even if in my heart of hearts, I desperately want a second chance. That old saying about you not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone is far too accurate. The problem is that once you’ve done something to lose that priceless person, you don’t deserve them back.
But if she’s not able to move on…
“No.” I shake my head, hard. “We’re not going down that road.” I’m barely holding on as it is. Hope will destroy me utterly. All this time, I’ve said I just want to be able to apologize. Get closure. All that shit. Hoping that Eurydice will do anything but spit in my face is a fool’s dream.
I turn for my door, barely pausing to grab my jacket. Maybe I am a fool. It’s the only explanation I have for finding myself, less than an hour later, standing at the Cypress Bridge.
I’ve never been to the lower city. Initially that was becauseno onein the upper city crossed the River Styx. Then, when Hades went public, I sure as fuck wasn’t going to get an invite. In my time spent drinking alone in bars over the last couple months, I’ve heard people brag about trying to cross the bridge without an invitation. Apparently it’s painful enough that all of them were driven back to the upper city, telling tales comparing just how far they made it before the sensation was too much.
I don’t like pain. I never have. It’s sure as fuck not something I seek out in my life, though I’ve had plenty dogging my heels since I fucked things up with Eurydice.
Penance.
This is just one component of it. She was hurt that night. Because of my actions. Because of the choices I made. Because I valued my ambition more than I valued the woman I loved.
I deserve a little pain. More than a little.
I take a deep breath and start across the bridge. The fog makes it feel otherworldly. Dangerous. Downright malicious, even.
Eurydice is on the other side of this bridge, and if I have to go through torment to reach her to make things right, it’s nothing less than she experienced. I can do this. Ihaveto do this. Neither of us will ever get the closure we need if I don’t.
At first I think it’s nerves causing my skin to prickle. But with each step I take, the prickling gets stronger. First irritating. Then painful, as if I left acetone on my broken skin. No, not acetone.Fuckingacid. I flinch and duck my head, but it makes no difference. The sensation follows me, digging in to my skin regardless of how I hold my body.
I’m not even halfway.
“It doesn’t matter. I can do this” I pick up my pace, or I try. The soles of my feet ache as if I’m walking on knives. Sharp, stabbing motions pierce my soles, the feeling so real, I actually turn back to see if I’ve left bloody footprints in my wake. There’s nothing but fog and concrete, and if that’s not a metaphor I refuse to examine, I don’t know what is. The upper city bank is no longer visible behind me.
The temptation rises to give up. Pain sears me and I know if I just turn around, just let my cowardice guide me, the pain will relent.
