Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“Icarus.” Gods, I’ll never get tired of the desperate way he says my name. His hands find my hair, tangling with my curls. “Icarus, I’m close.”
I don’t stop. There’s a temptation to pick up my pace, to rush him through this, but if his last orgasm was intense, I want this one to be ruinous. I keep sucking his cock even as he digs his heels into the mattress and thrusts up into my mouth, my throat, so far gone that he’s nothing but need.
He calls my name as he comes, his voice wondering and damn near worshipful. I swallow him down, victory making my blood sing. He’s not mine—he can’t be mine—but in this moment, I can almost see a different world, a different set of circumstances, where he could be.
I ease off his cock and crawl up to sprawl on his chest. Poseidon wraps cautious arms around me. His chest heaves, his breathing ragged and his heart racing against my ear. He makes a sound like he might try to talk, but I reach up without looking to press my fingers to his lips. “Not yet. I’m here. You’re here. We have nowhere to be until morning.”
Thoughts circle, predators keeping to the shadows, waiting for the opportune time to strike. They’ll still be there in the morning—or, more accurately, in the darkest part of the night, when sleep eludes me.
I try very hard to just relax into the moment. To let the comfort of his breathing soothe me. To…
I jolt awake, my eyes flying open and my heart in my throat. The lamp on the nightstand is still on, the sky through the sliver of window still dark, but the clock reads three in the morning.
I fell asleep.
Poseidon’s soft snores fill the room. He’s still under me—I don’t think we’ve shifted even an inch—his arms still wrapped loosely around my body. But we’re covered in a blanket that I sure as fuck didn’t orchestrate. I lift my head cautiously and look into the big man’s face.
Gods, he’s handsome. It’s even more apparent when he’s sleeping, his features relaxed, the stress of the world he carries around through every waking moment having been set down for a little while. He could look like this all the time if he weren’t Poseidon.
The thought jars me out of the peace of the moment. He is Poseidon, and he’s far too good a person to turn his back on his people, even if he’s facing a losing fight. Being foolish enough to fall in love with such a man is a recipe for disaster.
What the fuck am I thinking? Love? He’s a mark, plain and simple. Just because he’s kinder than I expected and so sweet in his submission that he makes my teeth ache… It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t.
Even as I tell myself that, even as I extract myself from his soft grasp, guilt rises, so thick I can barely breathe past it. Everything about this feels so wrong, I might die. Not because it is wrong but because it actually feels so right.
My father is laughing on the slab in a morgue somewhere, safe in the knowledge that I can’t even do this correctly.
I walk silently to Poseidon’s discarded clothing and dig through them until I come up with his phone. The passcode is easy enough—I’ve seen him key it in twice. I know better than to look back, but I can’t quite manage to stop myself. He’s moved a little in my absence, one arm thrown over his face, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady cadence. The blanket sits low on his hips, under the curve of his stomach, and I want nothing more than to tug it lower and wake him up with my mouth. It’s not dawn yet, after all…
No. This might be my only chance to ensure I can actually keep my word for once. I told Poseidon I would leverage my blackmail to drive away Deo and the other four generals. All I had to do was ask for the phone and I have no doubt Poseidon would have given it to me.
But then he’d be standing there to watch me potentially fail to do what I promised. I can’t stand the thought of that.
I glance at the front door but decide the bathroom is a better bet. No matter how much Poseidon acts like he trusts me, at least part of it has to be a lie. Surely he has people watching the apartment, ensuring I don’t kill him and try to take off in the dead of night. If he doesn’t? Well, I can’t afford to think about that right now.
I duck into the bathroom and close the door softly behind me. Then I dial one of the numbers I memorized before coming to Olympus.