25

25

Apollo

I’ve made a mistake. I didn’t realize Cassandra was so upset until the moment she said something. Instead of taking care of her, I was focused on the mystery of who attacked Pan. On speculating what motivations could possibly keep the others here after the attack. No matter how they acted, the Thirteen are not usually so foolhardy. And to the best of my knowledge, Charon never is. It speaks to their determination to get close to Minos that they are letting his plans override their normal levels of caution.

It’s enough to make me wonder if some of them know more about Minos and his connections to this enemy of Olympus than they’re saying.

I lead Cassandra back to our room and shut the door softly behind us. Guilt swarms me as I take her in. She’s shaking. “I’m sorry.”

“I…” She exhales. “I forget sometimes that you’re a completely different species from most people. You in the plural term. Not you specifically.”

I catch her hands. “Cassandra.” She’s paler than normal, drawn. “Let me—”

“You should go have a drink or two.” She gently extracts her hands from mine. “Ariadne is still down there, and if you can get her away from the group, you can give her a proper offer to get her to change sides.”

She’s not wrong. All through dinner, Ariadne was laughing a bit too hard and talking a bit too fast. She’s obviously scared, and I might be a monster for using her fear to Olympus’s gain, but it’s a lever I can pull to convince her to do what I want.

But it means leaving Cassandra alone, upset and vulnerable.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Apollo.” She gives a sad smile. “You don’t have to play the hero for me. I know Olympus is your great love and responsibility. Do your duty. I’ll lock the door.”

She’s right. I know she’s right, but now that we’re here and alone, the events of the afternoon come crashing back over me. I don’t know why someone would target Pan, but the attack could have just as easily been against Cassandra. She’s been threatened several times since arriving at this party.

If someone snuck up behind her, hit her before she could run…

The thought has me reaching for her. “Come here.”

“Apollo—”

“I’m not fucking leaving you, Cassandra. You can keep arguing or you can come here and let me hold you until we both feel better.”

It’s a testament to how rattled she is that she places her hand in mine and allows me to pull her close and wrap my arms around her. With her body pressed to mine, I can feel the little tremors working through her. Part of me still wants to insist she leave, but she’s made her choice and I’ll respect it.

I’ll also do my best to ensure she doesn’t pay a price staying.

But it’s neither here nor there tonight. I’ll do whatever I can to make her feel better. With anyone else, that would include wrapping her up and tucking her in until she falls asleep, but I’ve learned not to make assumptions with this woman. “What do you need from me?”

She gives a hoarse little laugh against my chest. “You’ll think the worst of me.”

“Cassandra, I could never think the worst of you.”

A long pause. I stroke her back as I wait her out. Finally, she fists her hands in the fabric of my shirt and mutters. “I need you to fuck me until I can’t think anymore.”

I freeze. “I—”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I realize it’s an unconventional choice.” She’s still speaking softly, still pressing her head to my chest so she doesn’t have to look at me. “But if you’re about to remind me that I don’t have to feel obligated to have sex with you, I will point out, once again, that the only power you have over me is what I choose to give you.”

My heart gives a painful lurch. “Cassandra, look at me.”

She reluctantly lifts her head. Some of her shakiness has disappeared. “Please, Apollo.”

I can deny her nothing. There’s a kind of care in kink and sex, and it’s not a route I would have suggested, but if she needs this, I’m only too happy to give it to her. At least this I can fix. I brush my thumb over her cheek. “Tell me your safe word.”

Cassandra gives a faint smile, relief evident on her gorgeous face. “Python.”

It’s so easy to slip into the role with her. I press a soft kiss to her forehead and step back. “Take off your dress.” My voice is softer than I’ve used with her in the past during these moments, but she needs a soft place to land after the events of today.

I can offer her that. I want to offer her that.

Cassandra is not one for unquestioning obedience in life, and I appreciate that deeply. I honestly expected her to be more of a brat in these kinds of interactions, but she submits so sweetly. She doesn’t hesitate to pull her hair over her shoulder and turn around. “Will you unzip me?”

I step forward and catch the absurdly tiny zipper at the top of the dress. It would be so easy to rip, but while I can enjoy that kind of game, it’s not what either of us needs right now. This might be working its way to sex, but it’s about care, not pure lust.

I drag the zipper down the length of the dress and then run my knuckles up the center of her spine. She’s so soft, it drives me to distraction. Even though I told her to remove the dress, I’m the one that eases the straps off her shoulders and down her arms. Then I coast my hands down her sides and over her hips, pushing the fabric before me.

As I discovered earlier, she’s not wearing panties, but she is wearing a bra. I do away with it quickly, flicking the clasp open and repeating the motion of easing the straps down her arms. I press a kiss to one shoulder before I step back.

Then I allow myself to look my fill.

It doesn’t take long for Cassandra to start squirming, each movement making her ass flex. I have to clench my fists to keep from reaching for her. Not yet. This is a careful dance between us, the tension strung tight. Too much anticipation will have her brain clicking on. Too little will dampen the escape she needs. More, I love looking at her.

She’s perfect.

Thick waist, wide hips and ass, thick thighs that I really enjoyed having clasped around my head. I take a slow breath. Yes, that’s enough. “Turn around.”

She’s slower to obey this time. As Cassandra turns to face me, she actually starts to raise her hands to cover herself before she lets them drop to her sides.

I clear my throat. She’s just as perfect from the front as she is from the back. Oh, not in the glossed-over look that so many people seem to strive for; Cassandra is real. More importantly, for tonight at least, she’s mine to care for.

I glance around the room and finally settle on the chair tucked into the corner by the dresser. I stride over and sink onto it. “Come here.”

She obeys almost tentatively. I lean back in the chair and watch her make her way to me. She’s standing on firmer ground, but she’s not quite here with me yet. “Gods, Cassandra, the things you do to me. You’re temptation personified.”

She misses a step, her gaze snapping to mine. “Excuse me?”

“It’s the pencil skirts. Every time you turn around, your perfect ass is right there and I’m fighting for my life to keep things proper and professional.”

“Apollo.” She raises her brows. “I am reasonably confident in how I look, but no one is going to look at my ass and label it perfect.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

She worries her bottom lip. “I guess not.” She stops in front of me, a few inches short of my knees. “I’ve looked at you, too.”

“Tell me.”

The blush beneath her skin deepens. For someone who can be so cool and collected while facing down any number of powerful people, it’s remarkably easy to make her blush. I like that. It feels like it’s just for me. Cassandra tugs at a strand of her hair. “You know you’re sexy as fuck. Don’t try to pretend you don’t. And you show up every day in these perfectly tailored suits. I’m human. Of course I’ve looked.”

I check her expression. She’s entirely focused on me now, not thinking about the scary things that happened earlier. Good. “Have you done more than look?”

She licks her lips. “It would be the height of unprofessionalism for me to finger myself the second I walk through the door of my apartment because I spent two hours in a meeting staring at the hollow of your throat after you loosened your tie.”

I lean forward and catch her hips, urging her closer until she stands straddling me. Better. This time, I keep touching her as I lean back, running my hands lightly down the outsides of her thighs and back up again. Her skin is so soft. It makes me want to taste every inch of her.

All in good time.

“Did you do that, Cassandra?”

“Yes.” She answers so simply. “More than once. It infuriated me every time. I didn’t want to want you.”

“And now?”

“I still don’t want to want you.” The words contain no edge, but they fall between us like stones. It’s going to hurt her when this ends, too. Maybe that should be enough to make me change course, but the truth is that we’ve gone too far to escape unscathed.

We had even before we kissed the first time.

“Do you trust me, Cassandra?”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

It makes my chest ache in the most glorious way to hold the trust of this prickly, capable woman. I love her. I’ve known it for some time, but I can admit it to myself right now, in this moment. It’s going to break my heart when she leaves, and I’m not selfish or cruel enough to tell her how I feel with that deadline bearing down on both of us. She cares for me, but even if she felt exactly as I do, I won’t put her in a position of choosing between me and her sister. She’s suffered enough as the result of the powerful in Olympus.

“Go to the bed and lie down on your back.”

She blinks down at me. I find myself holding my breath as Cassandra considers me. She doesn’t make me wait long. “Okay.”

I make myself stay seated as she obeys. I get a flash of her pussy as she crawls along the middle of the bed and eases onto her back, and the sight has me fighting down a groan. Patience. I can have patience. Tonight isn’t about me and what I desire. It’s about giving her what she needs.

“What did you think about the last time you touched yourself?”

“I—”

“I would like to hear it. In explicit detail.” I push slowly to my feet and shrug out of my jacket. My fingers fumble a bit as I unbutton my cuffs and start on the ones down the center. I pause after two and raise my brows. “I’m waiting.”

She smiles faintly. “You like hearing me talk, don’t you?”

“It’s one of my favorite things,” I answer honestly. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, and I love your mind.” I smile. “I also love hearing you go breathless when you talk about what you desire.”

“What I desire is for you to take off your shirt.”

I tug at the third button…and then stop.

She huffs out a breath. “Okay, fine. The last time was after that meeting about Aphrodite—the previous Aphrodite.”

I remember exactly what she’s talking about. The last Aphrodite was exiled from Olympus some months ago, but she’s not the type to disappear quietly and leave everyone in peace. In the time she’s been gone, she’s attempted to launch no less than three smear campaigns against Psyche Dimitriou. At Zeus’s instruction, I’ve managed to catch all of them early and dispel them; he doesn’t want a whisper of scandal to touch his new wife’s family.

That particular meeting had gone long while we sat in on a video call with the team tasked to take down all the posts she’d managed to publish, along with a particularly damning interview scheduled to go live the next morning. Afterward, I was furious enough to have gone through the same song and dance three times that I ordered my team to find a way to plant a virus in her computer and erase everything, with a threat that her finances would be next if she continued on this route. “What was it about that mess that got to you?”

“You were so mad.” She shivers and my mouth starts watering. Cassandra watches closely as I unbutton my third button before she continues. “You never yell when you’re mad. You just get sterner and it made me so hot to imagine you talking to me like that.”

“I’ve never had to talk to you like that.”

“You did last night.” She laughs a little. “You’re doing it right now.”

I pause on the fourth button. “Keep going, Cassandra. You went home quickly after the meeting.”

“Of course I did. My panties were soaked and I was halfway there before I even walked out the door.” She clenches her thighs together. “I pictured you telling me to strip the moment I walked through the door, kind of like you just did earlier. And then I touched myself.”

“Show me.”

Her hand immediately shifts down to her pussy. She creates a V with her fingers and presses hard to either side of her clit. “I was so close, I knew I’d finish too quickly, so I teased myself.” She pulses her fingers, parting her pussy a little. “I wanted your mouth on me.” She sucked in a breath. “I want your mouth on me right now.”

I fumble my way through unbuttoning the rest of my shirt and shrug it off. My hands are shaking. I need to touch her, taste her, make her feel good. I take one step before I catch myself and manage to exert some control. “When I fuck you in your fantasies, how do I do it?”

Her fingers pause and she blinks up at me. “You hold me down, but I feel so damn cared for even as you restrain me. You…” Her blush deepens. “You go slow and torment me until you lose control and then it’s a little rough and hits exactly where I need.”

“Like I did last night.”

She gives a jerky nod. “Yes. Like that.”

“It won’t be hard tonight, Cassandra. It’s not what you need.”

Her brows draw together and she opens her mouth like she wants to argue with me. I wait. She finally gives a cute little growl. “Fine. You’re right. It’s not what I need tonight.”

I consider her. “Spread your legs for me. Let me see all of you.”

She eases her thighs farther apart. As she does, Cassandra become bolder with how she touches herself. She presses a single finger into her pussy and then brings her wetness up to circle her clit. My cock goes so hard, I get a little dizzy from the blood rushing south.

“Better hurry.” Her voice has gone breathy and low. “Otherwise I’ll finish before you ever reach the bed.”

“No, Cassandra.” When her hand pauses, I shake my head sharply. “Keep going.” I circle the bed and hesitate when I catch a glimpse of something golden and shining in my suitcase that most certainly wasn’t there when we left the room earlier. I bend down and pick it up, disbelief making me laugh. “Godsdamn it, Hermes.”

“What is it?”

I turn to her with the golden bondage rope draped between my hands. “Your ex left us a little gift.”

“She’s real thoughtful like that.” Cassandra hasn’t stopped working herself. “Probably did it to fuck with you.”

“Undoubtedly.” But for the first time since I realized Cassandra and Hermes have a history, that prickly jagged feeling inside me has been washed away. It might be only for a short time, but Cassandra is naked and writhing in my bed. She’s allowing me to take care of her, to see to her needs.

I test the length of rope. It’s different from what I’ve used in the past, silky instead of sturdy. “Cassandra—”

“Yes, you can tie me up.” She says the sentence so fast, the words are all mashed together. “I would like that very much, and yes I trust you, and yes I promise to use my safe word if something’s wrong and communicate if anything feels like it’s cutting off circulation. Please, Apollo.”

I like that she’s already anticipating the things that would make me pause, that she’s communicating with me without hesitation. She’s right here with me. “Sit up and put your hands in front of you in a prayer position.”

Cassandra obeys immediately. She’s breathing hard, but she manages to raise a brow at me. “Am I going to be worshipping tonight?”

“No, love. You’re going to be the one worshipped.”