Page 117 of Creatures that Breathe

“They’re not important.”

“They’re important enough for you to permanently mark them on your skin.” I yank my wrist up before my own tattoo scrapes her, stare at the harsh band next to Themis’s scales of justice on the outside of her thigh. Black against black, hers beautiful, mine diseased.

“You don’t like the tattoos?” she asks softly. “I didn’t consider your preference when I got them. I just wanted to memorialize the things important to me.” Her fingers brush the scales. “Good should rise to balance bad.”

Such a concept must have felt abstract to her growing up in the palace, deprived of choice. “I love your tattoos. I really fucking love that you want to remember so fiercely. That you work so hard at it, and never accept failure. Your tattoos are breathtaking, mine …” I pause, cotton filling my throat.

“I love yours.”

I shake my head, tamp down the urge to claw at my neck. “No.”

“Yes.”

“They aren’t cherished memories.” I bury my nose in her thigh, leave it there, breathing her in, honeysuckle and hope. “They’re a stain of my failure. I wish you’d never have to see them.”

Her fingers stay in my hair, stroking. I feel her touch echo in the strangest places, writhing deep inside me. Twisting in my stomach. Scouring along my ribs.

“They’re not a stain,” she argues. “They’re a testament to the faith you had in your king. Evidence of your everlasting vow, a signal of your unwavering loyalty.”

If I look up at her, I’ll tell her I love her. I’ll ask her what she smelled in the Gorgon’s blood and bathe in it.

I press a tender kiss to her thigh, close my eyes. “What about this one?” I rasp. Numbers again, clustered tightly together on her calf. It’s binary. A puzzle.

“It’s what I desire most,” she says. “Choice.”

I trail fingers over it, mind racing. Bite the skin of her calf, the ink there, push my nose at the building on her ankle.

“The ancestral gardens of my people. It was burned to the ground. It’s a reminder to never return.”

As she opens up to me, her body gradually relaxes, and I can sense the tension melting away. I kiss her calves, her ankles, her feet and work my way up slowly, pausing each time she squirms or jolts.

Then, as she’s telling me why there’s a bouquet of waffles and pomegranates and tootsie rolls on the underside of her breast—her favorite foods—I get a moan.

And another. Soft and melodic, it sends shivers down my spine, electrifies every nerve in my body. I can feel my pulse racing, each throb resonating in my chest and my cock.

The plan goes to hell.

Gentle becomes a foreign word with lust raging through my veins.

I fight to breathe as my fingers move between her legs, as she leans back, spine arching, hair a blue waterfall on my sheets. She’s stunning spread out, languid, her mind working to explain the names of her ancestors, inked on a cypress tree at her elbow. Her eyes flutter shut and I stamp out the panic in my chest, the fear that she’ll forget who’s touching her, who’s holding her.

She won’t.

Not Leni. She refuses to, because I’ve become a game for her to play, a puzzle in her beautiful calculating mind, and she won’t free me until she’s won or turned over every piece.

A tremor runs through her voice when I make a necklace of her shirt and trace my tongue over the tiny flame bursting over her clavicle. I repeat the motion, and her focus constricts, stutters. She writhes under me.

I can’t wait any longer.

I am Tantalus, pinned between desire and restraint, as I lower my mouth to her core, as I indulge in the sweet and salty taste of her that ignites feral impulses.

Cock straining against my thigh, I proceed with her slowly, gentle, my muscles burning with the effort of control. Black shadows crawls up the windows, a tradeoff for my control.

“Sweet Hera.” Leni groans as my middle finger slides inside her, effortlessly, like a key finding its lock. So wet for me, so perfect. A savage sound rumbles in my throat. I thrust. Pull out, repeat. Gentle.

“Cross,” Leni gasps, back bowing to me, head thrashing side to side. A sharp intake of breath escapes her and my mouth gets a mind of its own. I suck on her, pull out my finger and plunge two in, deep. Hunger slams in my chest, as I swirl my tongue over her, feel her clench around me.

I am Tantalus, tempted to possess and seize, claim and indulge. Never satisfied with what I’m given.

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