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I felt humbled by that. Because I hadn’t been. I had been angry and filled with thwarted pride, and I had tried to erase her from my body, from my skin, in the beds of other women. I didn’t like the way that made me feel. I didn’t like the shame. Didn’t like the heavy, hot emotion that stabbed me in the chest and seemed to twist my heart into strange and unnatural shapes.
She was twisting me into strange and unnatural shapes inside, and I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do about it. I was supposed to be supreme and sovereign ruler, or something like that, and yet... And yet.
I shoved my trousers off, left them down on the ground, and the rest of my clothes along with them.
I was past the point of pretending that I was going to resist.
It was one thing to keep separate when she was across the palace, but it was quite another when she was naked and in my bed.
I had to ask myself who this man was that he couldn’t control himself around a woman. Ever.
That she had been my downfall there on the island, and I had learned nothing in the time since.
But she said she didn’t want to talk, and she said she only wanted me, and why couldn’t I take her like I did any other woman? She was still paradise, still Marissa, and I should be able to have whatever sort of physical relationship with her that I desired. It would feel the same.
I’d had any number of emotionless sexual experiences, and there was no reason she couldn’t be the same. She would have to be. If we were going to continue, if this were going to continue, then we would have to.
And I couldn’t live with her, not in the same sphere and resist her. So we would have to.
She moved, getting up on her knees and sliding her hand slowly across my chest. She was angling to kiss my mouth and I grabbed her chin, stopping her. “No.”
“Why not?”
“You said you didn’t want to talk,” I said. “So don’t talk.”
A fire lit behind her eyes, but she didn’t speak.
I pinched her chin between my thumb and forefinger and guided her slowly downward. She knew what I wanted.
She parted her lips, the expression in her eyes bright. And then she dragged her tongue along the head of my arousal, and I let my head fall back, luxuriating in the soft, slick pleasure as she took me deep into her mouth, making low, satisfied sounds as she did.
We hadn’t had the time to play at such things when we’d been younger, desperate to couple together out in the open, and with no time for extras in case we might get caught.
I had thought about this, though. With her. So many times that I’d lost count.
She had no experience, and I could see that, but what she didn’t have in experience she made up for with her very clear desire for it. For me.
She wasn’t timid; she wasn’t uncertain. She took me in deep, wrapping her hand around the base of me and tasting me slowly and thoroughly.
It was heaven and hell, all contained in this woman. It always had been.
She lowered her head, her dark hair falling over her face, and I tried to force myself to pretend that she was just one of the substitutes that I’d had in the years between our coming together again.
That she didn’t matter.
That she was no one.
But I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to. Because the minute that I tried to imagine it was anyone other than Marissa, the spark was gone. She mattered.
I gritted my teeth. I arched my hips upward, and she accepted me, took me in deeper.
I was getting close to the edge, unable to hold myself back any longer, and I guided her away. She made a soft sound of protest, but I wouldn’t hear of it.
“That isn’t how this is going to end,” I said. “On your knees.”
She looked at me. “I already am.”
“Turn around,” I said, and she obeyed.
I looked at her, the long line of her elegant back, moving down to the full curves of her ass. Her glossy hair was draped over her shoulder, exposing all that skin. And she was exquisite. More than beautiful.
Desire coursed through me, hot and hard as I approached her. I put my hands on her shoulders, slid them down her back, around to grip her hips hard, watching as my fingers left impressions in her skin. Then I reached between her legs and stroked her until her wetness coated my fingers, until her desire was all over my skin. She whimpered, gasping as I pushed two fingers inside of her, rocking her hips back and begging.
I had control. She might have come in here to seduce me, might have come in here to prove some kind of point, but the point would be mine in the end.
I would have her, however I wanted, whenever I wanted, and she would allow it, because she was mine.
Maybe I couldn’t pretend that she was someone else. Maybe I couldn’t make it carry less weight, but I could stay in control of this.
I commanded; she obeyed.
That could work.
We could work.
Because God knew I couldn’t stay away.
She made a little kittenish cry, arching back, the motion pushing my fingers deeper into her body, and my arousal pulsed with need. I pulled away from her, positioning myself at the entrance to her body, teasing her, sliding my length through her folds before moving back to her opening and pushing in just slightly, before repeating the motion again.
She was panting, near to crying, when I finally gave her what we both wanted.
I gripped her hips hard and pushed in, rough and deep.
But she didn’t seem to mind.
No, if her cry of pleasure was any indicator, she was more than happy with my desperation.
And that meant that I would have hers.
Because this could not be a meeting of equals. I had to make sure that she was the one who was desperate. She was the one who was reduced. Because I could not afford to be.
I pumped into her, chasing my release, chasing our end. She whimpered, and I pressed my hand between her shoulder blades, pushing her chest down flat on the bed, keeping her hips raised up. Then I grabbed hold of her arms, wrapped my hand around her wrist and pinned it to her lower back, then the other. I held her tight as I thrust into her, over and over again, the angle letting me go deep, the way I had her pinned keeping her motionless.
“Please,” she whimpered, “please.”
But I refused to end it. I kept it going, torturing her, torturing myself, the bright, brilliant flashes of pleasure that consumed me a torment that I didn’t want to end. I knew what she needed. I knew that she needed me to touch her between her legs so that she could come. Or that she needed to touch herself, but I had her captive.
She began to shake, she began to weep, and I moved harder inside of her, until we had slid up the mattress, until I had to brace myself on the headboard, so we didn’t collide into it. I freed her hands when I did, and she used the opportunity to shift, wiggling and putting her hands between her legs as I continued to pump inside of her.
“Don’t,” I bit out. “Not until I say.”
“I need to,” she said.
“You are my wife,” I said. “My Queen. Your body belongs to me.”
She went still. “Yes,” she whispered. “But your body belongs to me.”
She reached between her legs, beneath us, and stroked me at the point where our bodies met, and I shuddered, cursing as she did so.
“Witch,” I said, finally agreeing to give her what she wanted.
I put my hand where I knew she needed me, and I pinched her gently, before stroking her, keeping time with my thrusts.
And then the
re were no games, no more fights for control, because there was only pleasure. Wrapping around us, binding us together.
And when we both found our release, it was together, the violence of it shaking us, shaking the bed, shaking the very stone the palace was made of.
Shaking what I was made of.
And when it had ended, she curled up against my chest, and I couldn’t play games any longer.
I hadn’t won anything. I hadn’t distanced myself.
When her fingers traced delicate shapes over my chest, I couldn’t pretend she wasn’t Marissa, couldn’t pretend that it would ever be anything but heavy.
“Hercules,” she whispered, “I love you.”
Marissa
And that was when the walls fell down around us. My heart was still beating hard from my release. But more than that. From the admission that had just fallen from my lips. I wasn’t afraid, though. There was no place for fear here. Inside my body. How could I fear when I was in his arms?
Hercules was my husband, the father of my daughter. He was the man that I loved. And with him I had always felt an absence of fear. With him I had always felt strong and solid in who I was. And what I knew from talking to my mother was this: what you allow will continue.
And I could allow for us to continue on in unspoken words. I could allow for us to stay in a world where I let safety mean more than truth.
But I didn’t want that. And I didn’t have to allow it.
“I love you,” I repeated, again.
He shifted. “No,” he said, simply, definitively.
“Hercules, I don’t know who you think you’re speaking to, but I am neither your daughter nor one of your subjects. I am your wife. And you don’t get to tell me no as a response to I love you.”
“I... No. I cannot accept.”
“It wasn’t a gift. It was a statement of fact.”
On some level, I wasn’t surprised at his denial. On some level, this didn’t shock or wound me. Because how could it? This was who he was. A man made of rock, and for some reason he seemed to need to cling to the facade.
I knew that I would have to break the walls down. I knew that I couldn’t simply walk up to the door and ask for entry. No. I had asked for entry, and now I would have to be willing to do battle.
