He kissed his way up her body and captured her mouth before she had a chance to catch her breath. But she didn’t care, because his frantic tongue dancing across hers reignited her need, her lust, her desire. Groaning, she scrambled to free him from his jeans. He kicked them off and climbed between her legs.
“I’m not going to make love to you,” he whispered. “I’m not going to fuck you.” The head of his cock slid into her slick heat, sending pleasure arcing down her spine. “I’m going to own you, Cynna. Mind, body, soul. The way you own me.”
Her body trembled. Zagreus had wanted that—to own her. But it was nothing like this. That had been dark and controlling and one-sided. This was light and love and a mutual need to belong. To each other.
Every inch of her skin tingled. Desire roared in her veins at the sound of his husky words, from the heated, intense expression on his focused, handsome face. It was all she could do to hold still. “Nick—”
He lowered his mouth to hers and pushed forward until the tip of his cock pressed a fraction of an inch inside her. “You’re mine,” he whispered against her lips. “The only one I want. The only female I’ve ever loved.”
He drove deep, drew back then shoved in again, moving faster with every thrust. She groaned at the delicious friction, hooked one leg around his hip, and lifted to meet every plunge, every thrust, every press and glide and retreat. Gods, she needed him. Needed this. Was desperate for more. Desperate for him. Desperate to be his everything.
He was right. Her life had been nothing but darkness and despair up until this point, but no more.
“I am yours,” she whispered.
His thrusts grew harder. Faster. Longer. As if her words excited him even more. And his arousal ignited her own, pushing her right back to the peak. She held on tighter. Clenched all around him, lifted her mouth to his, and whispered, “Only yours.”
He groaned, his whole body contracted with his release, and the second his orgasm slammed into him, so did hers, twisting them down together until he was all that mattered. Until she knew he was the lone bright light dragging her back to the person she was meant to be.
He fell against her, and she wrapped her arms around him, kissed his cheek, his temple, sifted her fingers into his hair and held him close for as long as she could. Her heart pounded hard as the bliss settled, and a warm happiness encircled her heart in the silence. One that brought a smile to her lips. One she’d never experienced before. Because this—he—was everything she’d never been strong enough to hope for.
But even as that happiness spread through her veins, a tiny voice whispered this was too good to be true. That love, for someone like her, would never last. And though she fought it, something in the center of her chest grew deathly afraid the voice might be right.
He pushed up on his elbow and looked down at her, his brows drawing together in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Thankful that he couldn’t read her mind, she swallowed back the fear and told herself that tonight she wouldn’t worry about the future. Tonight all that mattered was this. Him. Them. This moment. Everything else could wait.
She lifted her lips back to his. “Just kiss me again.”
A slow, sexy smile curled his mouth as he rolled to his back, pulling her on top of all his muscular heat. “Mm, baby.” He tangled his hand in her hair and tugged her down toward his tantalizing mouth. “That is never something you have to ask for twice.”
She held her breath and kissed him. And for the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she prayed.
She prayed that he was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Isadora stood in the dark closet in the run-down apartment on the outskirts of Tiyrns and lowered the hood of her cloak. Looking up the long metal rungs of the ladder toward the trapdoor above, she drew a steadying breath. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to climb, but she wasn’t going back to the castle. Not yet, at least.
She’d known exactly where Demetrius would go. Knew his thoughts and what he was feeling better than he did. As she pulled herself up the ladder, she wondered how he was able to get his big body through this small space. How he’d done it for so many years when he’d chosen to live in this tiny place instead of in the luxury each Argonaut deserved.
She wasn’t letting him revert back to this. Not to thinking he didn’t matter. Because he did. More than anyone else in this world or the next.
Breathless, she reached the top and pressed her hand against the door. Metal hinges creaked. The muscles in her arms burned. But before she even pushed the door up two inches, it swung back, and strong male hands gripped her, pulling her up to the wood decking of the octagonal room, then tugged her into a sea of strength and heat.
“Kardia.” Demetrius dragged her so close, he was all she felt. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you crazy?”
“Yes,” she said against him, holding on and not letting go. “Crazy for you.”