I want to peel it off with my teeth.
Pandora gives me a pretty smile. “I might have.”
“Thank you for lunch.” I set the wine bottle down and cross the room to her. “It was really thoughtful of you to do that.”
“You don’t take care of yourself,” she says softly. She slides her hands up my arms as I take her hips. “I figured even if one of the guys got the same idea, better two lunches than none. And let’s not pretend you were going to remember to eat on your own.”
“I’m very busy.” I flush, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s with embarrassment or pleasure. There’s a little bit of both in there. “Thank you for…taking care of me.”
“Mm-hmm.” She steps closer, pressing against me. Her expression is soft and open. “I like to take care of the people I care about. It’s important to me.”
I need to talk to her about Hephaestus, but the words freeze on my tongue. We’ve had such little time alone together. I don’t want to waste it talking about plans and fear and the future. Maybe that’s selfish, but I don’t give a fuck. “I care about you, too.” I release her hip to brush a strand of her hair back and let my hand linger on her throat. “I won’t pretend this didn’t start a particular way, but I’m drawn to you like I’ve never been drawn to anyone else before.”
“Not even Adonis?” She says it with a playful tone.
I should allow her to tease this into a joke, but I can’t quite manage it. “It’s different.” I trace her jaw with my thumb. “Everything’s different with you.”
“Eris.” She bites her bottom lip and meets my gaze. “We don’t have much time before the guys get here.”
“We have enough.” I lean down. My emotions might be tangled when it comes to my husband, when it comes to Adonis, but it feels so damn clear with Pandora. “Let me keep you.”
“I already told you.” She smiles. “I’m not the type of person who’s meant to be kept.”
“Then let me…” Why does this feel so incredibly vulnerable? My instincts demand I retreat, throw up shields between us, but if I do that, I’ll lose her. I recognize that, acknowledge this moment is hung in the balance. Pandora might not be for keeping, but I want her in my life.
No matter what else happens.
I kiss the corner of her mouth. “Then let me share time with you. However that looks. I don’t want to let this go, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that none of us were meant for…a traditional relationship.”
“Are you sure?” She searches my face. “It’s bound to get messy from time to time.”
I laugh a little. “Messier than me marrying your best friend and him seducing my ex?”
“Well… Probably not messier than that.”
“Then we can handle it.” I hope to the gods I’m not lying to her. I want to handle it.
She kisses me before we can talk ourselves out of this. Maybe that would be the smart thing to do because this is so damned complicated. If I was honest with myself, I’d admit I don’t see a way through without crashing and burning.
I pull her close and kiss her hard. We only have a short time and I’m not about to waste it. She tastes of peppermint and feels like a dream in my arms. I want…
I want everything.
I always was greedy like that.
It takes effort to draw away enough to say, “I know I said no sex but—”
She digs her hands into my hair. “Don’t you go noble on me now.”
“Gods forbid.” I smile. “Bedroom or closer?”
“Closer,” she whispers against my lips.
Perfect.
I move back toward my living room, taking her with me. It’s an awkward dance of short steps and bumping into each other, but I don’t want to add even an inch of distance between us. So much about my seduction of Pandora has been calculated—at least in part—but there’s nothing calculated in this. I’m fumbling like a teenager as I reach for the hem of her dress and work it up over her hips.
We tumble onto the couch in a mess of questing hands and greedy lips. Pandora yanks my shirt over my head and my arms get tangled. I curse and have to move off her to free myself. I take the opportunity to divest myself of my pants as well. “Get that fucking dress off.”
“So bossy.” She’s grinning as she pulls her dress over her head and tosses it away. Pandora doesn’t wait for me to say anything to do the same with her bra. There are no panties to speak of.
I have to stop for a moment and just look at her.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” I murmur. Her lush body is a present I’ve been dying to unwrap and now that we’re here, I don’t know where to start. Her wide hips with their scattering of stretch marks? Her soft belly that looks so damn kissable?
My gaze falls to the tops of her thighs. No. That’s where I’m starting. I was thinking about her pussy even before she rubbed herself to orgasm against my thigh. “Spread your legs, love.” I shiver a little as I hear the echo of my husband’s voice in the words, remember how he told me to do the same thing last night. It’s different with Pandora, though. The whole dynamic is different and yet no less necessary. I want to fill my senses with her, to get drunk off the sight and smell and touch and taste of her.
She spreads her thighs slowly, teasingly. “Like this?”
“Yeah.” I lick my lips. “Just like that.” I sink to my knees before her. I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, but surely paradise is this moment, Pandora’s soft thighs and pretty pussy. Perhaps I’m finding religion right here, right now.
33
PANDORA
I fully intended to be a comfort to Eris tonight, not to end up on the couch with her mouth between my thighs. Or at least…I think I did. It’s hard to think clearly with her clever tongue working my clit. She has the most blissed-out expression on her face, as if she could spend hours in this exact position, wringing wave after wave of pleasure from me. I’m certainly not opposed to the idea.
But not tonight. Not when so much hangs in the balance.
I dig my hands into her long dark hair and tug her up to my mouth. She tastes of me and need. It’s too good; I keep expecting it to dispel the way a dream does. I moan against her lips. “We don’t have much time.”
“Fuck them.”
Gods, but I’m falling in love with this woman. It doesn’t matter that it’s happening far too fast and far too intensely. There’s no room for how things should be, only how they are. I can’t see a way through, no matter which angle I look at the problem from. That knowledge scares me more than I want to admit. If there’s no path through, then this ends in tragedy.
I’ve never been a fan of tragedies. I prefer romances with their guaranteed happily-ever-afters.
Desperation gives me the strength to flip us, to press Eris back to the couch and kiss her hard enough to make my head spin. She smells expensive, some perfume I could never afford. Not that I’d wear it. I prefer to trail my nose across her collarbone and inhale it right off her skin. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She doesn’t waste her time with meaningless words of comfort that we both know would be a lie. Instead, she kisses me hard and delves her hand between my thighs. This time, I don’t stop her as she strums my pleasure higher and higher. I tell myself she needs this as much as I do, but the truth is always the same.
I am greedy when it comes to pleasure.
There is so little happiness in this world. Can I really be blamed for grasping the threads of what comes my way and clinging to it with all my strength? It never lasts, but there’s sweetness even in the loss. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when it happens again and again.
I don’t want to lose Eris, though. The thought of her being yet another casualty in the ambitious games of Minos and people like him makes me sick to my stomach. I pull her closer, kissing her as if my mouth can keep her with me, can ensure her safety.