“Is that so surprising? I mean, look at you. You’re practically a walking wet dream.” She casts a meaningful glance to where I’ve tried and failed to hide my erection. “I saw you, and I wanted you.”
Now is the time to stop this. Even if what she’s saying is true, she came to dinner with another man. A man who touched her with familiarity and stirred things inside me even more uncomfortable than what I’m feeling right now. If she’s using me to get back at him… Does it matter? It shouldn’t. I don’t know him. I doubt I’ll see her again after she’s through with me. I should just take the offer she’s making and enjoy myself for once without overthinking things.
Too bad I can’t.
I gently extract my wrist from her hand, hating the way I miss the heat of her skin against mine the second her touch is gone. “You’ll regret it if you sleep with me to punish him.”
Her blue eyes go wide. “Are you for real?”
“I try to be.”
She gives herself a shake. “Look, you seem to have gotten the wrong idea. He and I are… complicated. He’s not my husband. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s…” She hesitates, clearly fighting for the right words. “Complicated.” For half a second, her barriers dissipate, and she looks vulnerable and lonely and more than a little sad.
“I don’t use women. Or men, for that matter.”
“Even when they’re asking to be used?” She looks away and then back, her gaze sharpening. “Even when I’m telling you I want to be used.”
I should stand up. Should walk out that door and down the stairs. But that vulnerability calls to me in a way that has me closing the distance between us. “I’m lonely too.”
“I didn’t—”
I kiss her. I don’t mean to, but then I never mean to get myself into trouble. Whatever her story, whatever put that look in her eyes, if I can take it away for a little bit and leave her better off than before, aren’t I obligated to at least try?
She tastes like wine and something spicy, and her mouth goes soft beneath mine almost immediately. And then her tongue is there in a brief stroke against mine, a query I answer in kind. Kissing her feels as natural as breathing.
As natural as breathing?
Ha.
More like as natural and dangerous as a free fall.
Chapter Three
Meg
I had a plan going into this, but Hercules has smashed it to pieces. This man with his kind eyes and sweet smile… He’s nothing like I expected. He kisses me like it’s the main event, as if we never have to go farther than this because he can’t get enough of my mouth on his. And through it all, I can feel Hades’s presence, even if he’s not in the room.
Hercules. What a fucking name. Hercules. Fitting in its way, because he’s built like a Greek statue. His golden hair is cropped short and his eyes are so blue they take my breath away. Especially with how he’s looking at me now, like he can’t believe this is happening and he must be the luckiest man alive. His shoulders flex beneath my grip, and I can’t wait to get him out of his shirt to see if he’s as defined as he seems. In fact, that seems like an excellent idea.
I nip his bottom lip hard enough that he gasps, going a little melty against me. I spare a thought to wondering if Hades knew this man had a masochistic streak. It wouldn’t surprise me. Hades always seems to know when someone around him is harboring a kink or twelve. I tug on Hercules’s shirt and he allows me to pull it over his head. I sit back and just look at him. “You call me beautiful, but you’re the beautiful one.”
His golden cheeks go a little pink and he bites his bottom lip in the same place I did just now. Oh, this guy is too much. I lean in and soothe the spot with my tongue. “Tell me what you want.”
“I…”
He’s going to hold back. I can already tell. I grab his wrist and press his hand to my thigh, right over my tattoo. “Not the polite version. Not what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you want right now, in this moment, more than anything else.”
Hercules’s gaze drops to my mouth and then lower to where his hand brackets my thigh. “I want to taste your pussy.”
My whole body goes hot and tight. He says he’s not pure, but there’s something almost innocent in the way he allows me to lead this. Submissive, yes, but more than that. I want to dirty him right up. I guide his hand beneath my dress and catch my breath as he palms me between my thighs.
He makes a sound suspiciously like a growl. “No panties, Meg?”
“I don’t like them.”
“Fuck, neither do I.”
He doesn’t try anything, letting me lead this. Submitting. All the tangled feelings from dinner with Hades burn to ash in this moment. Damn him, but he’s right. This is exactly what I need tonight. I lean back against the arm of the couch. “Take what you want.”
He looks at me for a long moment as if he’s sure this is a trap. I roll my hips a little, rubbing myself against his palm. It snaps him out of it. He moves down my body so he can shove my dress up to see my pussy.
The look on his face.
I would pay an absurd amount of money to have a picture of this moment, to keep it locked away and bring out whenever I needed a bump. He looks at my pussy like he’s just found a treasure he’s spent his life chasing. And then he’s on me, dragging his tongue down from my clit, over my pussy, spreading me to get lower yet, and then moving back up to flick my clitoral hood piercing. Hades is rarely wrong about these kinds of things, but I’m still almost shocked by his enthusiasm. He fucks me with his tongue, growling against my flesh even as he drives my pleasure relentlessly higher.
Not quite high enough yet.
“Hercules—”
He shifts gears, moving up to my clit and sucking hard as he shoves two fingers into me with enough force to lift my hips off the couch. “Oh fuck.” I look down and find him watching me closely, gauging my reactions. He holds my gaze as he does it again, fucking me with his fingers and giving my clit long pulls that have my toes curling and my eyes rolling back in my head.
How did this get so out of control?
When did I become the seduced, rather than the seducer?
“Wait, wait, wait.”
He immediately lifts his head, though he doesn’t remove his fingers, the dirty boy. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, nothing like that.” I prop myself up on my elbows and try to think through the pleasure of that pulsing thing he’s doing with his fingers against my G-spot. “I need…” God, that feels good. It would be the easiest thing in the world to let him make me come like this.
But I know how to read a man, and this one will make me orgasm hard enough to see stars, then he’ll fix my dress, call me a car, and send me home. He’s got that kind of selfless martyrdom written all over him. Not tonight.
I push on his shoulders until he sits back and then crawl into his lap and claim his mouth in another kiss. I can taste myself on his tongue and hell if that doesn’t make me hotter. I’ve always loved this shit.
“Meg, you don’t have to take care of me.” His hand is between my thighs again, parting my pussy and delving deep. “I want to make you come.”