Book!AeneasWouldNever: Which is fine, but I wanted to make sure everything was okay. It was the first day I hadn’t heard from you in

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Well, months, I guess. Anyway, if you haven’t had time, I completely understand, but I just wanted to check on you.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: oh god i’m sorry broke a glass and cut my leg last night, ended up in the emergency room

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: before the stitches they gave me the good pain meds so i’ve been kinda out of it sorry, still am i guess

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m so sorry you got hurt, Ulsie. Are you okay?

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Please, PLEASE tell me you had someone else drive you home, and have someone taking care of you now.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: taxi time, bitches

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: not bothering friends so late, and no way i’d call my parents

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: no worries i’m fine now aeneas’s confused boner week is taking care of me, fanfic ftw

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: turgid tumescent throbbing confused boners ftw really

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Ulsie—

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Shit. I wish I

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Please be careful, and call someone if you need help.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’ll be checking on you whenever I can.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: velvet over steel mofos velvet over fucking steel

17

MEN LIED, TO THEMSELVES AND TO HER.

Cocks didn’t.

Confronted with so much truth—veined, thick, glorious proof—even she couldn’t doubt it anymore. He wanted her. As she was.

April lifted her head and stole a glance at Marcus, currently kneeling between her thighs as she lay sprawled naked on her bed. For privacy, they’d drawn semi-sheer curtains across the windows, but some sunlight was still peeking through. Her room was aglow with it, every inch of her lit and exposed, and his erection had gone from impressive to painful-looking when she’d spread her legs for him.

Which was only fair, because the sight of him had her squirming restlessly.

He was golden in the filtered sunshine, strong and lithe and honed, leashed energy vibrating in every movement. When he hunkered down lower and slid his hands slowly up her thighs, over every dimple and swell, his longer strands of hair in front swung down, shielding his eyes from her.

They couldn’t have made eye contact anyway, though. He was watching the path of his splayed fingers, or rather her flesh as it prickled and burned beneath his deliberate caress. To her disappointment, he didn’t veer inward, toward the juncture of her thighs, but kept moving up, up, up. Past her hips. Over the mound of her belly and the silvery-pink stretch marks there, up her ribs, until he nudged the sides of her heavy breasts. But he didn’t linger there either, instead finding and following the lines of her collarbones with his thumbs, and trailing his knuckles lightly down the lengths of her arms.

She left her palms turned upward and exposed to him. It was probably an unnecessary statement, given the openness of the rest of her body, but she’d wanted them both to know: she was choosing to trust him.

He wasn’t a stranger anymore, and she didn’t intend for this to be a one-night stand. If he walked away now, if he turned a critical eye on her body, he would hurt her.

Still, she lay there, the vulnerable, sensitive cups of her hands pale beneath the stroke of those golden fingers. His body a cage around hers, on hands and knees, he leaned forward and nuzzled into her right palm. Pressed a soft kiss there.

Then he trailed that sharp-edged jaw, ever so slightly rough at this point in the day, back up her arm, and rubbed into her neck until she actually giggled.

She could feel him smile against her skin, and she was done lying still. His shoulders and triceps passed beneath her hands, his skin warm and smooth, every muscle obvious and delineated in a way hers were not and had never been. The light dusting of hair across his upper chest, dark golden and springy, she petted. His nipples she lightly thumbed to peaks, smiling herself as he arched over her and breathed out hard.

Then she was stroking down his belly, solid and flat and bisected by more crisp hair, and suddenly, he wasn’t quite so leisurely anymore.

He sat back on his heels, between her legs. Her exploring hands he nudged aside with a murmur of apology, something about how long it had been, and how little restraint he had left. His own hands swept upward, until he was cupping her breasts for the first time. They spilled out of his gentle hold, too big for containment, and he gave a little pleased-sounding hum.

“So soft.” It was a murmur, as if to himself.

With his thumbs, he was circling her areolae, watching the smooth skin furl in response. Then the pads of those thumbs were feathery on her nipples, brushing back and forth as her legs involuntarily parted further.

Hunkering down again, he rubbed the near-stubble on his jaw over the upper swells of her breasts. She gasped, and then his mouth was hot on her nipple, sucking, teasing, flicking, playing with the faintest hint of a tooth’s edge, as his fingers plucked the other. He switched, and she shifted again. Arched up against his mouth, greedy for more pressure.

Breast play had never much interested her, to be honest, but the sensation was electric now, her lower belly turning heavy and liquid. He didn’t linger, though, maybe because his breath was growing as short as hers.

After a minute, he was dragging that jaw down again, down more, and then his breath teased through her coarse hair. When he parted her with his fingers, she squirmed, the cool air and anticipation both unbearable. He made a low, amused noise, and she wanted to smack him, but she wanted his mouth on her more, so she waited tensely.

The bastard blew on her clit, a stream of cool air, and he was going to pay at some point in the future for that. She was trembling by then with the need to raise her hips to that teasing mouth, to fist her fingers in his hair and shove his face exactly where she wanted it.

Then he licked her, unhurried and thorough, and she moaned instead. Loudly.

His arms were heavy on her thighs and hips, holding her in place as he settled down and got to work. His tongue was as strong and sensitive and agile as the rest of him, and God, his unrelenting patience as he flicked and sucked and nosed through her slickness—

“Fuck,” she whispered, delving her fingers through his hair, clutching his shoulders. “Marcus—”

At the sound of his name, he sucked on her clit a little harder, and she couldn’t stay still. When her hips lifted, he held her down, held her in place, forced her to accept his pace with the unrelenting strength of his arms. None of it hurt, nothing, but she wasn’t going anywhere, not unless he wanted her to, even though she was so much bigger than him.

The force of that knowledge whited out her brain for a moment, and she whimpered.

He lifted his head for a moment, raising himself up on his arms enough to make eye contact, and she groaned at the sudden absence of that incredibly talented tongue.

“Everything okay?” His mouth was wet with her, his pupils wide and dark. “If I do something you don’t like, just tell me. Or if you want me to stop—”

Okay, enough talking. Back to licking.

“I’ll let you know if I have any complaints.” She lightly pushed at his shoulders and raised her hips again, because God, please. “In the meantime, for the love of—”

Even as a demigod, he’d never looked quite so self-satisfied.

“Say no more.”

Tangling her fingers in his hair, she let out a breathy, appreciative gasp at the darting flick of his tongue. Jesus, if he’d learned that swirling motion for a role, as he had so many of his other impressive skills, she was applauding his choice of parts and possibly nominating him for a retroactive porn award of some sort.

He was sucking on her clit again, flicking it with his tongue, and his thumb was circling her entrance, pressing just inside and rubbing around and around, and she was rocking and arching against him, grinding against his mouth as her chin tipped back and her world became brightness behind her eyelids. Fuck. Fuck.

And then—

His mouth was gone. He was scrambling off the bed, reaching for his jeans, and she lay there and trembled in near-orgasm and scowled at him with the full force of her displeasure.

His hands were unsteady too as he smoothed the condom over his cock, and he winced apologetically as he caught her eye.

“Wasn’t sure I could last long enough inside you for a third orgasm, and I want to feel you come around my dick.”

“Hmph.” That was reasonable enough, she supposed, and she stopped glaring. “Do you want on top, or . . .”

He flopped down on the mattress, his face flushed and eager and oddly young. “I’d love to have you ride me, if that’s good for you. So I can watch you above me.”

Her own face warmed at that, and the pleasure wasn’t entirely sexual.

She straddled his lean hips. And because she was apparently a vindictive bitch when sexually frustrated, she took her time about positioning him and sinking down on his cock. She lowered herself slowly, swallowing him inch by inch, eyes locked to his, hands braced on his thighs behind her as he stretched her wide.

“April,” he protested, but he had no right to complain, and he knew it.

She was so slick and ready, the penetration was nothing but pleasure for her, and she clenched around his thickness within her and smiled with her own brand of smugness as she slid down, down, down on him.

By the time she was done, by the time she had his cock hot and hard and wholly within her, he was panting and hitching his hips against her weight, his blue-gray eyes dazed and frantic. But in that position, with her size, she had the power now.

Leaning forward, she tucked her hair behind her ears and petted his dampening chest.

“Everything okay?” Shit, she had to grind against him. Just a little, because she was still so very close, and her eyes went half-lidded with the jolt of sensation. “If I do something you don’t like—”

“Yes, yes.” His smile was tight and pained but genuine. “I’ll let you know.”

She forced herself to still. “I’m taunting you, obviously.”