Page 27 of Apollo

He was the radiant one, the god of the sun, the protector and healer, the ultimate Amazonius. He didn’t beg for anything from any female, let alone a mortal. Not that dancing in the sheets was any less fun with them than the nymphs of Olympus. Being with humans was . . . well, enjoyable. Simple. Like enjoying a three-a.m. candy bar after closing the club. Available, sweet, convenient.

Nothing about Irowen Steed was convenient.

Not the hypnosis of her eyes nor the spell of her mouth. Certainly not the wizardry of her fingertips, sliding to the center of his chest and pressing divots of inescapable heat there. Not the way he craved for her to keep going until she got inside, grabbed his whole heart, and ripped it straight from him. The pain had to be less than what she made him endure now. Being this close and not touching. Feeling all of this and knowing it wasn’t permanent.

Because, in her roundabout way, she was right.

It wasn’t like they’d hung out in the Lux because of an actual date. Even if they had, no way would she have “grabbed his number for later”. He was imperious, intense, and committed to his cosmopolitan freedom. She was used to her own version of the same. But if they got naked and horizontal right now, both their safety gates would go up in flames.

The longer he locked gazes with the woman, who’d gone so noticeably still, he knew it. And then sensed, solely from her quickening breaths, that she did too.

Damn it, her lips.

And yeah, her breathing.

The way all that air shook her shoulders. Trembled in her chest. Dissolved even the strength in her fingertips.

Then the same fortitude from his body.

As soon as he dropped all the way to his knees, he forgot about imploring her for the kiss again. He went ahead and seized it for himself.

Yes, right then. Damn straight, right there. Precisely five-point-five seconds after he’d composed the don’t-touch-the-mortal treatise in his head then burned it with the match strike of his mouth on hers. The brush fire of his lips brutally parting hers.

Then the nuclear blaze of his tongue, finding and sliding along hers.

She gasped into his mouth. He groaned into hers. After digging one hand into her hair and wrapping the other around her ass, he claimed her even deeper. Yet not deep enough. Would it ever be? Her spirit . . . it had a taste. An essence, like the nectar crushed only for Acropolis ceremonies, that went beyond the physical sensations on his tongue. There was magic in her essence, musky rose and sensual cedar filling his nostrils. There was even more sorcery in her energy, despite its layers of yes-against-no conflict.

I know, sweet little Mothra.

I know, and I’m just as confused.

Because what if she hadn’t just been feeding him a line? The part about her attraction to him strictly as a man and not an Olympian?

What if they’d really just met at Eve and Aphrodite’s speed dating circus, and their bullets and arrows had been symbolic instead of real, and she did end up asking for his phone and punching her contact card into it? What if this connection had hit that fast and violently?

Just like a couple of mortals hit by spectral-level lust.

Just like the memo his dick took, in bold and beautiful ink, as they kissed harder and longer. Like every awesome affirmation his instinct shot out, rejoicing in her tightening nipples and groaning, accepting mouth, as the note got longer and lustier . . .

Zeus’s fucking testicles.

Screw that. He liked what the note dictated to his testicles instead.

It was erotic praise yet electric reprimand. Enticement and punishment, enervating yet crippling. But that was only where it began. The sensations were living things in his psyche too. In the spirit he’d shut down so long ago, having thought he was done with shit like this. Thousands of years into an existence, it didn’t feel safe to trust words like connection and magic and truth anymore. What had they gotten him but dreams he couldn’t have? Lovers who were forbidden or killed or both? Spreadsheets and business plans had become the safer—and seemingly sexier—choice, with his acumen earning him riches in every dimensional currency there was.

An equally empty paradise.

Gold drachma, Underworld soul tokens, newly minted dollars, or decades-old yen. So many names, all standing for the same shit that was cold company at the end of each day. So many damn days . . .

None of it ever worth the fight.

Treasures that didn’t come close to the sheen of this woman’s skin, especially as he laid her flat and pulled down the zipper of her tattered battle jacket. Pitch decks that didn’t rivet him by half this carnal concentration, split between the gorgeous curves he revealed and his inner order to take this as slow as he could. Savoring her beauty, but also trying to figure out his sanity . . .

Or was he already too late?

What the fuck was this baffling, beautiful mortal doing to him?

“Apollo.”