Page 67 of Apollo

So screw the doubts. And all the what-ifs.

Unless it was the one assaulting her mind now.

What if this is your only chance to have your sun god all to yourself? All of him . . .

“Ah, my gorgeous little Gamera, what illicit ideas you stir in me.” The renewed grit in his voice only fired all the coals of her hopes, until the second he cocked his head with a pensive expression. “Except that does depend . . . ”

She rumpled her own features as answering dread tolled in her chest. “On what?”

He righted his head. And in those two seconds, ripped the clapper out of her inner bells—along with it, the breath from her lungs—with his sun-spirit-turned-seraph smirk.

“On whether you want to be spread out Beverly-Hills-Crashed-Chandelier style, or Underworld-Condo-While-Contemplating-Shower-Turns style.”

Oh, yeah. That did it for the bells, all right. In their place, she simply let the rain fall, the wind whoosh, and the air crackle with her palpable pull toward this man.

At last she murmured, in a rasp only for him to hear, “Depends on what you mean by all those qualifiers, Godship.”

She reveled in the new moment, watching his nostrils flare and his pupils dilate, before pushing her jaw against his hold and locking in on his attention.

“You saying you want me in nothing but a towel and some water?” she taunted in a rough rasp. “Or something more like broken glass and pleading moans?”

His brows ticked up. His lips parted. But as soon as he swallowed hard, he lowered self-imposed shackles back over the rest of his body. Well, the rest minus the bulge that throbbed against her center . . . holding her like she hadn’t just suggested getting bare, naked, and beggarly for him . . .

“Glow Worm?” she prompted. “Did you get all that, sir? Happy to repeat anything if you didn’t catch—”

A fresh clash of thunder and lightning broke overhead.

Wen gasped and swore, the rest of her words garroted by a new blast of freezing wind and rain—

And shock.

As she was lifted straight into the air, then flown across to the Zen garden area.

Within seconds, after Apollo muttered some sexy-as-fuck phrases in Greek, her arms were hoisted and her wrists lashed together, secured to a low-hanging pine bough. More invisible forces lifted her left leg then her right, securing them in spread-eagle positions atop two of the flat rocks.

But her lover wasn’t done yet.

As she blinked against the driving rain, more of the cold drops pelted down against her bare skin—as Apollo swirled his glowing fingers, directing every thread of clothing to shed itself from her body.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Why hadn’t he done this sooner?

The beratement was real and painful in every one of Apollo’s synapses, especially as he unveiled every new inch of the woman’s body with his careful ministrations.

Very careful.

Since he’d never tried this before, stripping a human by singeing the garments with intense light instead of his actual fingers, he proceeded with painstaking caution—and fixated interest.

“Now what was that you were saying, Little Monster?” he crooned. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

And she was all of everything else.

Drenched skin. Strained limbs. Stormy beauty. Open surrender.

A fantasy he’d never had, because even his imagination wasn’t this fucking good.

“W-What?” she blurted, almost as if she’d heard his musing, until she swung her dazed gaze over. Her face, dripping with rain and shadowed by the thunderheads, was also painted in dark hues that had nothing to do with the downpour. Holy shit. Did his freaky little beastie actually like his bold new move? Were her lips parting wider with desire? Did her lungs pump harder, struggling from more than just air, crowned by nipples that were almost gothic finials from passion?