Chapter 8

CHAPTER8

MEDUSA

Idon’t know if I believe in the gods and some blessed afterlife, but I get as close as humanly possible in the moment Calypso comes apart in my arms, drenching my thigh with her desire. She’s panting against my lips, her skin dewy with sweat and her hair a tangled mess.

She’s never been more beautiful to me.

I expected the desire that flares hotter between us with every passing moment. I didn’t expect the tenderness. I didn’t even know to look for it. I sure as fuck didn’t anticipate how protective I feel at the sight of vulnerability in her dark eyes.

It only drives home the truth I knew from the moment Athena handed out the order; no one has ever taken care of Calypso. She’s been taking care of herself and not letting anyone close. Considering the current circumstances, I don’t blame her. But I want to protect her. I want to wrap her up in my strength and step between her and whatever hurt the world wants to throw in her direction. It’s a fanciful thought and not one I think she’d welcome, but I can’t fight my brain. Or my instincts.

If she won’t allow me to be her shield, then I’ll just have to take care of her body in the only way she’ll let me.

I meant what I said: we have all night and I fully intend to take advantage of every minute before dawn comes, bringing with it several reality checks that I’m not ready to experience.

For how intent I am at tracing her reactions, I really shouldn’t be surprised when she shifts her weight unexpectedly and flips me. It’s well done, too. One second, I’m plotting another descent between her thighs and the next I’m on my back, blinking up at her. “Nicely done.”

“Thank you,” she gasps. She shifts to straddle my stomach and as much as I enjoyed being on top, I can’t deny the sheer joy I feel at the sight of her, naked and in a disarray. She hooks her thumbs under my bra. “Off. I want you naked.”

This time, I don’t argue. She doesn’t budge as I wrestle out of my bra and underwear, which doesn’t make the task easier, but I like the weight of her holding me down just as much as I enjoy being on top of her. More, she keeps touching me. Tracing my collarbone, the slope of my shoulders, the faint lines of my abs. Those seem to delight her to no end, and I have to swat her hands away. “I’m ticklish.”

“Oh?” Her smile goes devious. “How fortunate for me.”

“Calypso—” My protest dissolves into helpless giggles as she goes after me. It’s…playful. And before it gets to be too much, she skates her hands up to cup my breasts. I’m not as generously built as she is, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

She flicks my nipple piercings lightly. “Medusa, you are a treasure trove of delights.”

I bite my tongue before I freely offer what else I have pierced. If she’s this pleased by the nipples… I can barely finish the thought. She leans down and flicks one and then the other with her tongue. “Is it true that they’re more sensitive now?”

“I don’t know if there’s a universal rule.”

She arches a brow. “I don’t care about everyone else’s pierced nipples. I care about yours.”

No reason for that statement to make me melt. None at all. I try for a smile. “They’re more sensitive.”

“Lovely,” she breathes. She starts to ease down and pauses. “If I do something you don’t like, tell me.”

It’s nothing more than the same thing I said to her, but it feels important. Tender. Caring. She licks her way down my abs and presses my thighs wide. Calypso goes still. “Here, too?”

“Yeah,” I manage. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You truly are full of surprises.” She exhales against my clit and then flicks her tongue against my piercing there. “A true delight.”

I soon learn that Calypso is a little fucking tease. She plays with my body, plucking my strings to have my need surging…only to move to another part of me to luxuriate her attention on. My orgasm is thwarted again and again, the pleasure compounding each time. I don’t have words to describe what she’s doing.

It feels a lot like being loved, but even I’m not foolish enough to mistake sex for emotion. I think.

She finally kneels between my thighs, her pale skin flushed and her hair shoved back from her face. “You’ve done beautifully, love.”

“Calypso, please.” The thought that she might leave me hanging on this precarious edge has panic fluttering in my throat. “Don’t stop.”

Her lips curve sweetly. “I won’t.” She eases two fingers into me and presses her other hand down on my lower stomach, angled so she can get at my clit with her thumb. Calypso watches me as she guides my body higher and higher until hers is the only face I see. I come so hard, I think I black out.

I’m distantly aware of her murmuring in a low, melodious voice as she smooths her hands over my body before settling in next to me, tucking herself under my arm like she was always meant to be there. It feels like she was always meant to be there, but that’s got to be the post-orgasmic bliss talking.

There is no reality where a woman like Calypso actually looks at me like I might be someone she could love, but sex chemicals do funny things to brains. I’ve never heard of them making a person hallucinate, but here we are.

That doesn’t stop me from pulling her closer. “You’re a miracle.”

“Hardly.” She huffs out a laugh against my throat. “How can you possibly keep that innocent thread, while doing what you do for Athena?”

The reminder sobers me, but only a little. I stare at the ceiling and let the comforting weight of this woman draped half on top of me convince my heart it doesn’t need to race. It only mostly works. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” She idly sketches her fingertips down my arm. “You’re nice, and I don’t mean that as an insult. Good people in Olympus are rarer than diamonds.”

I tense up, caught between wanting to get away from this conversation and not wanting her to stop touching me like I’m someone valuable. She knows what I’m capable of, so to call me innocent by any definition of the word seems like some bullshit. But Calypso is dead serious.

Somehow, that almost makes it worse. “We covered this,” I grind out. “I’ve killed people, as in multiple. I am not a good person. If you look up bad person in the dictionary, pretty sure murderers are listed there.”

“Bad person isn’t a term in the dictionary.” She shifts closer yet, throwing one of her legs over mine. “Don’t run. I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

Calypso is quiet for a long moment, and the steady drift of her fingertips lulls the tension from my body. I don’t have the energy to keep it up right now, even if I’m smart enough to tell she’s just circling to approach the subject from a different angle. The thing is…I don’t know why she cares so much. No one else gives a fuck if I think I’m good or bad. They only care about what I’m able to do for them. I don’t expect quite the same thing from her, but old habits die hard.

Finally, she says, “I grew up with nothing. I think those at the top forget that it’s not like that for everyone, but even though my parents did their best and tried their hardest, they were barely getting by. Maybe it’s selfish or materialistic, but I saw my mom work herself to the bone, saw how it wore her down month after month, year after year.”

She trails off, and I can’t help offering my understanding. “My parents were dockworkers—or are dockworkers, I guess. They worked hard to hide, well, how hard everything was, but I started to notice as a teenager.”

“Yeah.” She sighs. “I had big dreams, you know? I busted my ass, got really good grades, and got accepted into the university on a full scholarship.” She doesn’t have to explain which university; there are several colleges in the upper city, but only one university. Colleges and universities always seemed like the same thing to me, but one accepts everyone and the other only seems to be populated by the elite, with a scattering of those not blessed by being born into the right family. Calypso sighs. “It took less than a quarter for them to put me in my place.”

“I’m sorry.”

She pushes forward, her words coming faster. “The scholarship only covered the basics, so I was on my own for books and all the other little expenses that add up really quickly. I tried to work, but then my grades suffered. Then one of my professors came on to me.”

“What?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. It’s far more common than you’d expect.” Tension bleeds into her body. “I resisted at first. But he kept sneaking little gifts to me—little expensive gifts. I…let him seduce me after that. And then he started buying my books and funding the things I needed.” She lifts her head and looks at me. “He wasn’t terrible. This thing with Odysseus might give you the wrong idea, but I don’t make a habit of sleeping with people who treat me badly. My relationships have just been more explicitly transactional than most.”

I smooth her hair back. “I’m not judging.”

“Most people do.”

“I think we’ve established that most people suck.”

She huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess we have. I misjudged Odysseus. I knew it was never going to be permanent, but he’s charming in his way. I let him convince me it was love.”

And then he turned around and facilitated her attempted murder.

I gather her closer, once again wishing I could stand between her and all those who used her and hurt her. “You deserve to be valued for more than fucking, Calypso.” I frown. “I realize that seems really hypocritical considering what we just did, but I mean it.”

“I know.” She presses a quick kiss to my throat. “Like I said earlier, I’m no innocent. Maybe I haven’t done the exact same things you have, but I understand doing what you need to in order to survive. There’s no shame in that.”

She keeps saying that, but the choices she’s made and the ones I have are markedly different. She’s offered me her past, her truth, and I can do nothing but meet her halfway. I exhale slowly. “I said my parents were dockworkers, right? It’s kind of a generational thing. I wasn’t like you. I didn’t have lofty goals. I’m a hard worker and good at the physical stuff, but I barely passed my classes growing up. I was visiting my parents when I was eighteen and that’s when I ran into Poseidon—the last Poseidon.” From all accounts, the current one isn’t quite the same as his father, but what would I know about that? I’ve taken great pains to avoid him and the rest of the Thirteen, aside from Athena.

I frown at the ceiling. It’s a nice ceiling. No water marks or faded spots. “He decided he liked the way I looked, and I’m not good with words or subtly. I told him to fuck off, that I wasn’t interested. He…didn’t take it well.” The understatement of the century. “He hit me. Several times. And I was too damn stubborn to go down even when he pulled out a knife, which might have stopped it. Or not. Maybe it would have just made him bolder. No one stepped in. Not the other dockworkers. Not even my parents. Because he was fucking Poseidon and the Thirteen can do whatever they want.”

“Oh, Medusa.”

Now it’s my turn to rush, to get the words out so that the story is over. “I don’t know what Athena was doing at the docks that day, but if she hadn’t intervened, I think he would have killed me. She saved me. Took me back to her office building, got me stitched up and bandaged, and offered me a job with the promise that I’d never have to see him again.” I blink past the burning in my eyes. “My parents didn’t try to help, Calypso. I… Maybe one day I’ll get over how much of a betrayal that feels, but I don’t know. We don’t talk much anymore.”

“I don’t blame you,” she murmurs. “And I understand that you feel like you owe Athena for that, but how long has it been since that happened?”

“Twelve years,” I whisper. Athena didn’t send me out right away. There were several years of training before she decided I was ready. I was still as naive as Calypso undoubtedly believes I am now; I honestly thought that I would just join the main special forces population, serving in a squad beneath one of the people I so admire. It didn’t occur to me that it was strange she kept me mostly apart, aside from my instructors. I can’t pretend it would have made a difference.

Athena saved me. I worshipped the ground she walked on.

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed the cracks in the flagstones beneath my feet.