Page 79 of Apollo

“N-No. Not at all,” she rushed to say, even hoping he’d fixate on her mouth because of it. “It actually . . . sounds nice.”

Way to go and blow the effect, turning into the loser panting after the god who wanted to be her boyfriend. Well, if that was indeed the case, she might as well get every second of the salivation out of the way now.

“But in the interest of full disclosure, buddy, I don’t know how I’ll pass muster as a girlfriend.”

The sharp inward V of his tawny brows, while expected, would’ve had her making excuses to sprint for the bathroom and forget the whole subject. But since they didn’t have a choice at seventy meters above Eastern Awaji Island, she might as well honor him with the whole truth of her personal mess.

“I don’t get it, I guess,” she admitted, shrugging with blatantly forced nonchalance. “Apparently, the perfect girlfriend gene passed me by. For a while, I tried blaming it on the day job. Chasing derelicts and dickheads across continents doesn’t give a girl time for Netflix-and-chill or cooking anything beyond boil-and-eat ramen.”

His gaze tightened. “And that’s what you think I want?”

She flung her stare away once more, barely avoiding a full grimace. Well damn, this place also had a cool Neuschwanstein replica. Not that this moment, newly incised by the scalpel of his scrutiny, was the time to mention it.

“Isn’t it?” she rebutted. “I mean, most guys want what they want, right?”

“I’m not most guys, Irowen.”

“I’m glaringly aware of that, Apollo.”

“Apparently not.”

As he slowly stressed every syllable as if just conceiving the sound, the maddening male tripled—quadrupled—on his disarmingly smooth energy by flowing his free hand through the air. With gentle energy that bordered on eerie energy, he began working his thumb and pointer finger together. Not more than a few of those strokes later, the top two buttons of her dress bodice detached from each other.

Wen swore beneath her breath. The sound was her best effort at a protest, since another invisible force already snuck its way beneath her bra, swirling toward her left nipple.

“A-Apollo . . . wh-what . . . ”

“After five days together in the guest bedroom of that villa, I thought you already knew me better, Monster.”

Her heart skipped too many beats to even think of what to swear at him. Was a girl expected to actually form words when an arrogant god thought it’d be fun to hike up her skirt from several feet away?

Not fair, Glow Worm.

But even attempting to phrase it as a glare across their compartment was a lesson in futility. The air co’s breeze against her thighs: shiver-inducing. The touches that came just after, running up from her knees to her panty edges: scream-seducing.

“Apollo!” With her voice back, she surely had more to generate now. A warning. A censure. A lecture about the utter stupidity of teasing her there on a rural island where hand-holding was scandalous. She could do it. She knew the context. Now she just had to fight clear of the fire in her blood and the tingles in her every skin cell . . .

“Hmmm?”

And yes, past his utter delight—his exquisite exultation, so much better and worse than his slickster strut when she was first gasping and helpless beneath him—to find her damn words.

“Th-this isn’t . . . you can’t just . . . ”

“Just what?” He worked his hands beneath her underwear, quirking the edges of his lips in time to the small burst in his fingertips. Within seconds, he’d totally dissolved the thin scrap of fabric.

“Ohhh.” His searing strokes to her ass, along with the fresh rush of air across her bare mound, again stripped every cognizant word from her brain. But she swallowed hard, knowing she still had to try. “Listen. Listen to me, Glow Worm.”

“To every note of your cries and whisper of your sighs, my love.”

My love.

Her heart throbbed for him too. Until it resounded in the deepest part of her eardrums and the remotest sands of her soul.

“I—I love you too.” She framed his gorgeous face with her hands, digging her fingers into his hair, and lifted a thorough kiss to his sexy mouth. “I really do. Even before you trusted your treasure to Jun, I knew it.”

Yet as they pulled apart, his features were dark. “But?” he pressed, filling her telling pause.

“But I was scared,” she confessed. “And . . . I still am.” A breath shuddered out, having nothing to do with how he trailed his touch back in toward the depths that craved him the most. “Which has nothing to do with the ride technician we’re going to face in five minutes n—ohhh!”