15

15

Cassandra

I start to slide my hand into Apollo’s pants, but he says, “Wait.” I freeze, suddenly sure that this strange moment has passed and he’s going to call a stop to the whole thing. Instead, he leans down, careful to maintain the distance and not crush my arm, and speaks directly into my ear. “Give me a safe word.”

I want to argue out of habit, but there’s nothing wrong with having a word just between us that means everything stops. I’ve used one before and I’ll no doubt use one again. More, I like that he’s setting that boundary very clearly to keep us both safe. I lick my lips. “Python.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Very well.” His lips brush my ear, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. “Touch me, Cassandra.”

This time, he doesn’t stop me as I slide my hands into his lounge pants and wrap them around his cock. I felt him earlier, of course, but there’s something about his length filling my hand that makes my breath catch in my chest. I stroke him lightly, teasingly. “All this for me?”

“Just for you.” His arms shake a little where they’re pressed against my sides. “I’m going to kiss you now. Give me your mouth.” It’s not a request, but he gives me a bare moment to protest. I don’t. Of course I don’t. I’ve been thinking about our last kiss since it happened, replaying it in my mind more times than I’ll ever admit aloud.

Apollo kisses me as if divining every facet of my taste. Short, drugging kisses that distract me so much, I forget to keep stroking him. Instead, I chase him every time he retreats, little whimpering protests slipping past my lips, only for him to take my mouth again, longer this time.

He reaches between us to clasp my wrist in a firm grip and lift my hand to press to the couch beside my head. Apollo doesn’t break our kiss as he does the same with my other hand. I might complain about not being able to touch him, but he chooses that moment to lower himself onto me, pressing me into the couch. My brain shorts out. It’s been so long since I allowed anyone close enough to be like this. I’m starved for more…for him.

He breaks the kiss slowly but doesn’t move away. “Tell me how to make you feel good, Cassandra.” Again, there’s no question in his voice, no invitation to argue. He’s commanding in that quiet, stern way of his.

“This feels good.”

“Mmm.” He thrusts against me slowly and lets out a tortured groan. “Too good.” He hooks the back of my neck and pulls me up as he shifts back. I barely have a chance to process the fact that we’re changing positions when he sits me up on the couch and kneels between my thighs. I reach for him, but he shakes his head and grabs my wrists in that same firm grip. He presses them to the couch on either side of my hips. “If you touch me, this will end too quickly.”

Surely he doesn’t mean he wants me so much, he’s about to come sooner than he’d like to? I thought he was joking when he said it before. I almost laugh, but my entire body shakes like a leaf over the fact that we’re here and we’re doing this. If he wants me even half as badly as I want him, then maybe it’s best I keep my hands to myself.

For now.

Apollo lifts his hands slowly, making a satisfied noise when I keep mine where he placed them. “Good girl.” I can barely process that when he clasps my knees and gently presses them wider. The bottoms of my pajamas gape. He stares at the juncture of my thighs with an intensity that makes me squirm.

He coasts his hands slowly up my thighs, guiding them wider yet, until his thumbs brush the lace hem of the pajamas. “I’m going to touch you now.”

I exhale shakily. “You don’t have to narrate every move before you do it.”

He gives me a sharp look I can feel despite the shadows. “You squirm so beautifully every time I do. I like it.” He edges his thumbs into the gap between the silky fabric and my overheated skin. “No panties?”

“No,” I gasp. “They…don’t work with the pajamas.”

“Best money ever spent,” he murmurs. He brushes my pussy and applies the barest pressure, spreading my folds. “You’re wet. Just for me?”

It takes several beats for me to realize it’s not a rhetorical question. I try to hold still, but I can’t help squirming just like he predicted. “Apollo—”

“Tell me, Cassandra.” He strokes up and down either side of my pussy as if he has all the time in the world. As if I’m not going to come apart the moment he touches my clit. “Tell me what gets you off. Tell me what you like and what you don’t. Tell me everything.”

I will cut out my own tongue before I admit that I’m afraid everything works for me because it’s him. I might have propositioned him for a fling, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to bare my heart. I swallow hard. “I like knowing I affect you like this. It makes me squirm.”

“Mmm.” He rewards me by dipping his thumbs a little deeper into my folds. “Is that all?”

Damn him. I’m panting as if I’ve run a great distance. I can’t think past where he touches me, his soft but commanding questions. I shake my head. “No, that’s not all.” This time, I don’t make him prod me further. “I liked it when you hauled me in here and pinned me to the couch, even if you were doing it to keep us hidden instead of as foreplay. I–I like this.”

“I like this, too.” He leans down and presses his face to the fabric right over my pussy. He inhales deeply and I nearly come on the spot. Apollo kisses one thigh and then the other. “When we go back to the bedroom, you’re going to let me look at you.”

“Apollo…”

“You’re so beautiful, Cassandra.” He kisses a little higher on my thighs. “You wouldn’t deny me after I’ve spent years picturing you naked, would you?”

I whimper as he presses a kiss to my pussy through the silk of my shorts. “Oh gods. That feels good.” Between his mouth and my desire, the fabric has gone slippery and wet. He rubs the flat of his tongue against my clit. I want to touch him, to dig my fingers into his hair, to hold him in place until the orgasm rushing to the fore overwhelms me completely.

Instead, I press my hands harder to the couch, obeying the unspoken demand he gave when he placed them there. I can’t stop myself from speaking, though. “More.”

He doesn’t respond with words, but he doesn’t need to. He just keeps up that devastating stroke. I slump back against the couch, writhing even as I try to hold still. “I…” I moan. “I can’t be quiet. It feels too good. We’re going to get caught.”

Without missing a beat, he reaches up and covers my mouth with his big hand. It’s not a harsh touch. Even when Apollo caught me earlier, his grip was firm but not painful. It’s so perfectly him that I lose it.

My orgasm draws a cry from my lips, and he presses his hand a little harder against my mouth as he keeps working me with his tongue. Pleasure rises and rises, cresting again and again. Too much. It’s too much. How am I supposed to move on after this, knowing how good it can be with him? This was a mistake, but I don’t care that my parachute is malfunctioning.

I’m in a free fall and loving every second of it.

Apollo moves his hand, only to replace it with his mouth. I taste myself on his tongue, and it drives me wild. More. I need more. If I’m setting myself up for pain, I will draw out every bit of pleasure in the time I have. I dig my hands into his hair and pull him close as he kisses me. This time, there’s no teasing. He devours me.

Footsteps sound in the hallway again.

I tense, expecting him to stop, but he tugs me down to the floor. I’m still processing the fact that I like how he moves me around when he arranges me in front of him, kneeling on the floor facing the couch with him at my back. He slides one hand down the front of my pajama bottoms to cup my pussy and whispers in my ear, “Be silent, Cassandra. Otherwise, we’re going to get caught.”

Holy shit, he’s really not going to stop.

My safe word is on the tip of my tongue. Not because I want to stop, but because we should stop…

I clamp my lips shut and spread my thighs. A clear invitation that he doesn’t hesitate to take me up on. He wedges two fingers into me, catching my gasp with his hand over my mouth. Apollo fucks me slowly with his fingers, as if we can’t both hear the footsteps coming closer and closer to the door.

I knew I had a bit of an exhibitionist streak, but this feels different. Heightened. We shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t care. I don’t want to stop. I roll my hips, rubbing myself against his cock, and am rewarded by his sharp inhale.

The door opens.

I can’t see more than the top few inches of it from my position. Not enough to see whoever is standing there. I freeze.

Apollo doesn’t.

He keeps up that slow slide of his fingers in and out of me, though his body is tense behind mine. This is out of control. We are out of control. I’m…going to come. I shiver against him, not sure if I want him to stop or keep going. Not sure if whoever’s standing in the doorway walks up to the couch and looks down to see Apollo fingering me.

Can they hear us?

He’s not being rough, but surely they can hear the faint sound of finger fucking? I lean back harder against Apollo, and he responds by wedging a third finger into me.

Oh fuck, I really am going to come.

The door closes slowly. The click of it shutting might as well be a gun going off. I reach down and cover Apollo’s hand with mine, urging him to keep going, to finish this. I can’t stop shaking, can’t stop the little whimpers that his palm barely muffles.

He kisses my neck and nibbles on my ear. “Come for me, Cassandra. I want to feel it.”

My body responds to his command, clenching around his fingers as my orgasm crests hard enough to make my head spin. He eases me down slowly. “That’s my girl.”

I’m not his girl. Not in any permanent way. I just can’t quite make my mouth work to tell him so.

“That was a good start, but I’m nowhere near done with you yet.” He presses one last kiss to the spot behind my ear. “Do you want to walk or shall I carry you?”

Habit has me saying, “I can walk.”

He doesn’t immediately move back. “Cassandra.” There’s quiet censor in his voice. “Do you want me to carry you?”

Very much, but my heart is already doing something funny and I need to wrestle it back under control and quickly. Allowing Apollo to carry me—to care for me—is a terrible idea. No matter how much I crave it. “I want to walk.” I attempt to say it firmly, but the words emerge as a question.

Apollo finally nods. “Very well.” He stands, easily pulling me to my feet with him, though he keeps his hands cupped under my elbows as if he knows exactly how shaky my balance is right now.

“Thanks.”

It should feel silly to lace my fingers with his and allow him to lead me out of the room. Who walks around holding hands when they don’t need to? Even with Hermes, this wasn’t how I operated. She was into casual intimacy, but she wasn’t sweet. And this is sweet enough to make my teeth ache.

The feeling lasts until we turn the corner and come face-to-face with the Minotaur.

Apollo moves before I fully register the man’s presence. He uses his hold on my hand to tuck me neatly behind him and angles his body to stay between me and the larger man. Where before his body language was loose and easy, he’s now so rigid, I press my hand to the middle of his back in support.

“Minotaur.”

The Minotaur looks down at him with no expression at all. Apollo is tall, but the other man towers over him. His scarred face looks even scarier in the low lighting of the hallway. “You shouldn’t wander.”

That surprises me enough that I burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, but why not? Surely you aren’t going to try and convince us that there are ghosts haunting these halls.”

He shifts that eerie attention to me. “Your safety isn’t guaranteed, Cassandra.”

I blink. “What do you mean it’s not guaranteed?” Is he talking generally? Or about me specifically?

“Your safety isn’t guaranteed,” he repeats. “No cameras now. Who knows what could happen to you in the dark?” Without another word, he turns and stalks down the hall in the opposite direction.

Apollo doesn’t move until the other man is out of sight. Only then does he reclaim my hand and lead me back to the bedroom. He closes the door behind us and checks the lock. “Well, we have no cameras to worry about, but apparently they’re going to use that as an excuse to wash their hands of anything that happens here.”

A frisson of fear dampens my lust. “They really are planning something for this party, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know.” His jaw goes tight. “And that worries me.”

My body is still flush with two orgasms. It makes thinking hard, but I try anyway. “Do we ignore the warning and keep looking tonight?”

“I don’t think there’s anything to find on the second floor. The sitting rooms are all exactly what was promised, and the rest of the rooms have occupants. We’ll have a better chance with the third floor and finishing out the main one. We also can’t exclude the possibility that he’s using the garage or some building on the grounds for storage.” He drags his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “We’ve done enough for tonight. Might as well call it and get some sleep.”

“Or we could do exactly as promised earlier and finish what we started in the sitting room.”

“Cassandra.”

I ignore the warning in his tone. In fact, it sends a delicious little shiver down my spine. We can’t take back what we did in that sitting room, but I wouldn’t even if I could. He wants me. I can barely believe it after so long of desiring him.

I’m leaving in a week. I’ll be damned if I miss a single opportunity to fulfill the promise held in the heated way he looked at me, touched me. If we’re not continuing the search tonight, then there’s no reason not to give in to the inferno of lust that makes it hard to breathe when I look at him.

Even so, it takes more courage than I want to admit to hold his gaze and pull my top over my head. I barely register his sharp inhale as I shimmy out of my shorts. The way this man looks at me should be illegal. His gaze sweeps over me as if he can’t take in my features fast enough, as if this is a gift I’ll snatch back at the last moment and he wants to imprint the image of me in his brain. It washes away the last of my hesitance. This is happening. We both want this to happen.

Instead of crawling on the bed, I sink to my knees, taking up the traditional submissive position.

“Cassandra,” Apollo murmurs. “We don’t have to.”

Gods, but I could fall in love with this man. I ignore that thought and shift my stance a little, arching my back and spreading my thighs. “We covered this. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, and right now I want to do you.”

“You want to do me.” His lips quirk in a skeptical smile. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” I eye the hard length pressed against the front of his lounge pants. “I think you want to do me, too.”

He steps closer and sifts his fingers through my hair, tightening them abruptly at the back of my head. I jolt, but it doesn’t hurt. He’s just holding me immobile. He considers me. “You have your safe word. I will respect it, regardless of what we’re doing when you use it.”

I lick my lips. “I know.”

That reassures him. Of course it does. Any dominant worth their salt cares about their submissive’s needs. Not that I’m Apollo’s… I swallow hard. Best not to think about that. Best not to think about a number of things.

He tightens his grip on my hair, bending me backward a little. Apollo’s gaze coasts over my mouth, down my throat, to my breasts and belly. I start to tense, expecting self-consciousness to rise, but how can I feel self-conscious when he’s staring at me like a man who’s finally allowed to touch the one thing he’s craved for years?

“Apollo.”

“Don’t rush me.”

I smile and relax back against his hold. Instantly, he shifts from fisting my hair to cupping the back of my head. I let him take my weight a little and lift my chin. “You have me. What are you going to do with me?”