Page 69 of Hercules

It scared the fuck out of him.

It was seeing too much. Maybe even asking for too much.

Things he longed to give her…

“Damn it,” she finally uttered. “You and your poetic vocabulary.”

Things like those words. Thousands of them, each to match another kiss. A new orgasm. The sunrise on a beautiful day.

Things he wouldn’t promise. He couldn’t. What if the spell suffocated him again, and he suddenly snuffed them all from her?

It was more than just a dread in his mind. He felt the wraith of it, harsh and merciless, invade his face too. But even as she witnessed that force, Lois didn’t fight it. He watched, filled with more awe, as she faced his specter. Accepted it. Dared the boo bunny to do its worst, even as she pulled in air for more words.

“So, Rizon would actually kill her for this? I mean, the Natasha I know, on the inside…she’d be gone? And turned into…”

“What you’d probably assume,” Herc filled in. “Whatever Rizon wants her to be. In this case, a world-famous mouthpiece for him. She’ll trumpet his performances even if they’re shit dumps, defend his honor even if it drags down her own, and convert as many mortals as she can into his slavedom.”

“Slavedom.”

She echoed it like a foreign word—because to her sarcastic yet sunny mind, it likely was—which only thickened the swamp in Herc’s gut. He hated this. Hated being the cloudy morass on the determination in her spirit. But it didn’t compare to how he’d hate being her deceiver. Someone no better than her “Uncle” Ito. Even if he’d screwed her without aspirations of ever keeping her, he’d not led her on with lies about anything else.

Except that now, he nearly wished he’d had.

Obligations he wouldn’t have a choice about. A future, if only a few days or weeks beyond tonight, with her.

Not his aspiration to own. Not as long as he thought of it and could think of nothing but his hands around her throat, impulses stripped from his muscles and revulsion rampaging his senses…

No.

The word was welcomed in his mind as gratefully as an orgasm, though not the circumstances that rode along with it. They dictated the force of his pull on her, until his cheek was resting atop her head.

“I could summon more poetry for it, Scribester,” he murmured, “but you probably could too. And none of it would sound any prettier.”

Her sigh was as silent as a whisper but heavier than the eighteen-wheeler with which he’d rammed her. “The truth always turns up the house lights on the sloppy drunk girls.”

Herc grunted. “But not the assholes hellbent on controlling them.”

Against his will, another rough sound followed, puffing his chest for a sharp second. Lois persisted with her cheek, even pressing a few degrees closer. Goddamn, it felt good. Too good. Especially when she sighed again, spreading her breath further across his sternum.

“Okay, mister.” She paused as if regretting her headstrong jibe. A flock of sheep definitely tiptoed into her tone. “You know I’m referring to lots of drunk girls, right? Natasha plays to arenas. Think of your cute Olympics, circa AD sixty-eight, multiplied by—”

“I know the math,” he interjected, though not before dunking the words in compassion. His poor Erastís. His system vibrated with the aches of her struggle—this time, compounded by his vast expertise with them. The stark disbelief. The craving to disconnect. Perhaps even thinking that if she didn’t say anything, he’d backpedal from his assertion.

Yet again, not happening.

Still Lois swept back by nearly a foot, looking certain she’d spot the pedals by taking in more than just his face. He held firm, predicting exactly what happened next. The crunch of her features, unable to cling to her denial anymore, colliding with the full sag of her knees.

“Hey. I’ve got you,” he soothed. “It’s okay. I’ve g—”

“Stop it.”

What part of not happening did the woman still not comprehend? Not when she was this limp in his hold, losing more of her sweet teddy bear stuffing than before. When so much of her weight relied on his hold that he deepened the flex from his neck to wrists. Though she finally seemed to get that part, her disgruntled huff was pronounced.

“Hey.” She scratched a pair of shoves below his elbows. “I have two legs, and they need to remember how to function on their own.” Very clearly, she wasn’t open to a reminder about how thoroughly she’d liked the nonfunctioning legs status with her clit quivering between them. But Herc wasn’t ready to dish it out with her gaze’s galvanized glints pinging him this hard. “We’re not going to intercept Nat in time if you’re preoccupied with playing Princey Frincey, especially when I can help—”

“With what, exactly?”

And here came the claws from him now, though screw the sheaths. Damn it, they should even be sharper—but his edge was gone because he’d wrapped the talons away. Gladly. Willingly. From the second the woman had woken up and then opened up for him, honoring him with the weight of her baggage just as he’d handed his to her…