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Later, we would talk.
But now...
Now I wanted only this. Only him.
I was not a saint, and I had given up the idea that I might be long ago.
In his arms, I was just a woman. And I needed him to satisfy me as only a man could. “If you want me, then take me,” I said.
“Give yourself,” he said, his voice rough. “Give yourself to me because you have to be in this. All of you. Because if you are not I might hurt you. I might do something you don’t like. I need to know that this is not me taking with my darkness but you giving in to it. Step into it, Marissa, but do so of your own free will, because I do not trust myself. Not now.”
Perhaps that should scare me.
But nothing about him had ever scared me. Not really. It had been my own self that I was always the most afraid of. The feelings that he called up inside of me, and the way that he made me act in a way that I thought was out of character. A way that I had discovered was my character, at least with him.
He had put me in touch with places and pieces and feelings inside of myself that I had not known existed. And he had made me like them.
Then he had taken himself away from me, and I had been left sitting in charred ruin. Not knowing what to do with this new version of myself, unable to go back to who I had been, unwilling to.
And cut off from the joy that I had found in being new at the same time.
He had taken my journey of discovery and made it a hard climb.
And yes, there was joy in being at the summit, joy in holding my daughter in my arms. Joy in who I had become after that long, hard slog.
But I wanted to return to that spark of joy.
I wanted to go back in time to the first moment I’d seen him and be woman enough to handle the bleakness that I had seen there.
But the good news was I could handle it now.
I had been given a gift. A gift of time. A gift of being able to be with him in the way that we both needed.
Desperately.
And so I did as he asked. So I stepped in with both feet.
I pressed my hands to his face and stretched up on my toes, and I claimed his mouth.
Doing that was exhilarating. Being the one to lean in. To take responsibility for all that we were, rather than being the helpless, innocent virgin. The seducer rather than the seduced.
Oh, I knew enough to know that we were both, he and I, wrapped up in this thing that we could not control. That we didn’t want to—not anymore.
A bubble of laughter rose up in my throat, even as I kissed him.
“Something is funny?” he asked, his voice rough, and I knew that I was on dangerous ground.
“It’s not really funny,” I said. I pressed my hand to his chest. “I always imagined parents as some other thing. Off in the distance, remote and mature, and in possession of every answer to the universe. In my father’s case, I imagined that he was basically omniscient. And here we are. Parents. And yet the same as we ever were. Still...with this. Between us.”
“Because children make the mistake of believing that parents are something different entirely,” he said, something dangerous and sharp on the edge of his voice. “That they are not human. When, in fact, that is all they are. And as fallible as any other.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Yes.” But I didn’t say anything more. I simply kissed him again, my lips on his, moving, desperate for access so that I could go deeper. So that we could be consumed in this.
And he gave in, growling and wrapping his arms around me, folding me into the strength of his embrace. I had never felt so safe, so protected and yet so perilously close to danger as I did in that moment.
This was not the sweet touch of a man having deference for his much younger, less experienced lover.
This was a desperation between equals.
And nothing had ever made me more certain of the fact that this had to happen than realizing that.
That this King was standing with me, not above me.
I stripped his T-shirt from his body, marveling at all that golden skin. At the way the years had only improved him. Made his chest deeper, his waist slimmer and more defined. He had more hair on his body, and I found that I liked it. The touch of it. The way that it reminded me he was a man, and so very different from me.
He pulled my dress away, leaving me standing there in nothing but the brief bathing suit that had been provided for me on the island. But I wasn’t embarrassed. Then he stood and began to examine me, and suddenly each and every difference in my body felt large and highlighted to me.
My curves were fuller, my stomach softer. White lines marred the place beneath my belly button and my thighs.
I’d had his child, and I bore the evidence of that.
And I wondered what he would say. What he would think.
There was nothing but that endless black fire in his eyes, and he said nothing. Then he reached behind me and untied the top on my bikini, sending it to the sand. He knelt before me and undid the ties on the bottoms. He looked up at me and I was engulfed in the black fire. But I didn’t burn away. No, if anything, I only became stronger.
He leaned in, and he pressed his mouth to my stomach. Right to the spot where my skin had stretched, where it was looser now and nothing like how it had been the first time he’d been with me.
I closed my eyes tight, fighting back against tears. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to seize this moment with both hands, to dive into the debauchery of it. To be consumed in the intensity. I wanted to have this. With no thought for the future. No thought for consequences.
For the first time in my life, that was what I wanted.
But I couldn’t banish the feeling. The deep, heavy emotion that wound itself around my heart, around my soul.
Because this wasn’t just sex, and he wasn’t just a man.
And we might not primarily be parents here on this island, but we made a life together.
And there was a heaviness to what we were.
Marissa and Hercules.
We couldn’t erase the history between us. And in that moment I didn’t even want to. Because it made it all that much more.
The weight was a blessing. The weight was a curse.
The tears spoke of the beauty as much as the sadness, and I wanted to embrace both.
And he was embracing me. The changes in my body. He took a tour of the map that spoke of the years we’d been apart. Of those nine months when I’d carried his daughter inside me.
He kissed every single one of those marks. His big hands explore
d my thighs, around to my bottom. And he ignited me.
More than just my skin, more than just desire, it was a feeling that was almost too big to be contained inside of my body.
An ache welled up between my legs, my breasts heavy, my nipples aching for his touch.
But if it had been only that, I could have walked away.
He had captured me somewhere deeper. Had made me want in a way that only he could satisfy.
And when I opened my eyes, when I looked at him again, the bleakness there terrified and compelled me.
Hercules.
My only lover. My only love.
My husband.
The list of all the things he was to me was long, and I wondered if it could ever be true for him.
Oh yes, I was his wife. The mother of his daughter.
But did that mean something to him? Did it mean anything beyond the legality?
It didn’t matter. Not now.
Because now there were no barriers between us. Now he was taking his jeans off for me. Showing me that body that haunted my dreams.
His powerful thighs, his very powerful... The rest of him.
And when he came back to me, his naked body pressed against mine, he kissed me.
And every hot, hard inch of him was against every pliant, willing inch of me. It was right that it was here on the beach. Because it had always been the beach for us. Always the ocean.
As if we were ready to sail away at any moment, he and I.
But it had always been an illusion. There had always been a duty for him to return to, and there had always been reality to return to for me.
But not now.
Not now.
We were enfolded in his darkness, and I welcomed it. His hands were rough on my body, his whiskers a hard scrape against the tender skin of my breasts as he took my nipple into his mouth and sucked it deep.
The sharp sensation it created between my legs a glorious and honeyed pleasure that I craved. More.
More.
That was what my father had said about the road to ruin.
One step.
One step on the wide path.
The easy path.
You would keep going that way.
