Page 25 of On a Pale Horse
He shook his head twice. “No, we haven’t.”
She grabbed the tie and pulled it completely apart. “Then you have nothing to worry about because I know for a fact Cloris hasn’t been celibate for two thousand years.”
His brow furrowed again. He didn’t like that thought.
She wasn’t about to tell him Cloris had been with her a few times during that period. When he didn’t resist, she let the tie fall with his jacket. She stepped in closer to him as she unbuttoned his shirt and met his eyes as she worked her way down the buttons. Part of her did it because it was exciting, the other part really needed to see if he’d truly recovered enough from his abuse to take what she could dish out.
He didn’t flinch but licked his lips instead.
She couldn’t help but smile at that. She liked the pretty ones. The boys who craved the gentle caresses and the bite of a whip at the same time. She didn’t doubt for one second Hades needed both, and it had been a long, long time since he’d been given either.
“And do you have any limits I should be aware of?” she asked as she ripped his shirt from his pants. He swallowed heavily, his Adam’s apple shifting in his throat.
“Nothing too hardcore like knives, or fire. I also don’t like to be bound by anything but rope. It’s the only thing I can actually stand against my skin.”
She nodded once. “Do you have a safe word?”
He blinked a few times. “I suppose it could be obsidian.”
She nodded. “Good choice. I’m pretty sure that’s what is making up my floor.”
She said it to bait him and when he didn’t rise to the challenge, she knew he’d be a perfect sub. Some men wanted the mind games, the play, but when push came to shove, they would try to show they were the dominant ones.
Hades stood there, allowing her to push him, and he didn’t bat a lash. She appreciated that in a man.
She jerked his shirt off his arms, and he finished stripping it away. “So, we are clear, I’m dominant. I don’t sub, but I think you have a little dominance in you even if you are good at controlling it.”
He nodded. “I suppose I’m a switch. I enjoy both sides of the play. But I’ve never really explored either. I’ve only ever wanted Cloris, and as you are now aware… We haven’t gotten very far.”
Instead of drawing his attention to Cloris, she went the other way. She pressed herself to him and stood with her mouth millimeters away from him. So close she could brush his lips with hers as she spoke. “They say there is no such thing as a switch. They say you’re either one or the other at your core, that a real dominant can never be submissive and vice versa.”
He shivered under her hands. “Well, whoever they are, is wrong. I can handle both being dominanted and dominating.” He waited until she met his eyes again. “Just like Cloris.”
She couldn’t help but laugh this time and stepped back from him. “Drop your pants.”
He swallowed heavily before unbuckling his belt and dropping his pants to the floor. He took off his undershirt and watch next, tossing them into the pile.
She spent a moment looking him over.
His golden skin looked lovely bathed in the low light of the room. His hair lay disheveled as if he only climbed from bed. He was muscular and lean, but not bulky. Definitely beautiful.
She didn’t know how Cloris could have resisted him for so long. She circled him and trailed her fingers across his smooth, soft shoulders. “Do you want to know what I have planned?”
He nodded.
She leaned in and whispered against the back of his neck. Another shiver took him, and she let it play across her ego, revealing in his reaction. “In ten minutes, the hostess is going to bring Cloris to this room. Before then, I’m going to tie you up and begin to take my own pleasure from you. She is going to walk in on it.”
He cleared his throat. “Are you sure that will work?”
“I know Cloris. If she’s been holding back because she thinks she can’t have you, the sight of you with someone else will drive her to claim you as her own. She’s as much an animal as she is a person. There is a dark side to her no one really sees, and if you tap into the edge of that you get an entirely new woman to play with. But, be warned, it will probably hurt.”
He swallowed. “If she is the one hurting me, I can endure much.”
“Good boy.”
She slipped her heels off and placed them at the end of the bed before turning her back. “Can you unzip me?”
He only hesitated a moment before sliding his hands across her shoulders, grasping the zipper at her back, and pulling it down. Underneath she wore a black corset, black panties, and nothing else. Her skin seemed to glisten, which she did on purpose because she loved the look on a partner’s face as they tried to figure out if her skin actually looked that way or if she made it happen herself.
