Page 59 of Hercules

Luckily she didn’t have to endure more than a minute of the scalding scrutiny. Though the rest of his features were still mired in what she interpreted as confusion, his lips were ready with practically impatient words.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted first, shaking his head. “I’ve been sitting here, thinking a great deal as I’ve watched you—”

“Not creepy at all.”

“And trying to determine where your mind might be,” he went on, so single-minded that she longed to take back her interjecting mumble, “after…everything.” As he shook his head, she wondered about adding her own comforting hand against his head too. “If I were the one who’d been ripped out of the reality I knew because of an attack from goons with green slime guns, then shown a world I’d only thought of as fiction, along with more violence as a chaser… Well, I’m not sure I’d want one of the cretins from that realm carting me back to his hellhole just to lunge up my skirt. Four times, no less.”

He paused with somber weight, as if just admitting to committing murder instead of those solid hours of eyes-at-the-back-of-her-head sex. Eventually she subdued a full laugh long enough to drop a sentient reply.

“Dear sweet saints, oh my. Not four whole times and almost twice that many orgasms.”

He already started a new breath, undoubtedly for another apology, meaning she had to give up a hand in his hair for a palm smacked across his lips. But the man’s gray matter needed a good chunk of sense inserted, no matter what it took.

A failed initiative—as soon as she mistook his heavy sigh for grudging capitulation.

Her hand only made it to his chin before the maddening male let fly with his next words.

“Good times that were certainly had by all…until they weren’t.”

Assertions she was getting exasperated about fielding.

Mostly because he was making it more and more impossible.

And damn it, he knew it. Sitting here with his ripped pecs, his cascading locks, and his caring-too-much stare, the beautifully bold man knew it.

He’d still have to work harder for it.

“What?” Or maybe she was the one who had to be talked into the next inning here. Or dragged kicking and screaming… “You mean to tell me, with the billion-direction settings on those hips, that you’ve never made a woman sob from a big O before?” A little shrug. “Or a dude. You immortal studs probably need to break the monotony over the centuries, eh? And why let the extra chromosome bitches hoard all that goodness?”

His laugh, though small, was the ice breaker she needed in the middle of this odd new tension—though she felt weird for even describing it like that. No. Not weird. Her palms were clammy, her stomach was twisty, and her brain was a Le Mans track of stress—all for what? Had the years of therapy been just a crock? Hadn’t she worked to be here, in a place to feel safe about sharing her shit from her heart instead of her keyboard? Or was she truly not ready yet?

Contemplating that answer made the backs of her eyes sting all over again. Enough that her vision blurred with Herc’s gentle nudge beneath her chin. Enough that she had to blink so the damn tears would clear—

So she could face the full intent of his unblinking aquas.

The eyes that beheld her like he’d just heard every damn thought of her inner struggle.

Heard it…and had some definite thoughts about it.

Observations that did nothing to unravel the cinch of her stomach.

“Half of me is just a normal dude too, remember?” He openly relished her nervous smile about emulating her slang. But not for long enough. His fingers skimmed from her chin to her cheek, pressing her skin with growing insistence. “Just a man, marveling at an incredible experience with a stunning woman, and feeling like he knows so much of her already…but obviously not enough.”

Before she could help it, her lips twisted tighter than her belly. The hurt in his tone was also unintentional; the knowledge was as true as her own heartbeat, pulling her instincts in a strange new direction. Toward yet another intuition that was hard for her to trust.

Because the feeling was trust.

Oh, God.

Really?

She was all too familiar with the five letters themselves, in that exact configuration—thank you again, therapy hours—but was this what it felt like? The bone-numbing fear to which she’d given such profuse lip service and assured her little Thursday night support group that she’d already confronted and conquered?

At the time, she’d really meant it. Filled in all the workbooks and described all the “work” of putting behind the past to move fully on into—

What?

The logistics, of course. The big move to LA. All the writing extension classes. All the “hot” networking events. All the waitressing and valet parking gigs, just to check off those boxes too. Then finally scoring the big break with Natasha and working hard for it to pay off. Desperately trusting that it would…