Page 112 of The Devil and His Goddess

I quickly took a deep breath and closed my eyes in an effort to push the feelings back down. I couldn’t let them take over. I couldn’t let that voice grow louder. I wanted—no, Ineeded—to give another voice attention.

It was a voice that had been craving attention since it gained notice after kissing Perseus. Not only had I liked the kiss, but I cravedmore. Did I know what that “more” was? No, but I was eager to find out. I wanted to see if this part of my life was yet another thing Drake had stolen from me, or if I’d managed to hold onto it, to hold onto the desire I had for my demon.

“I want to try something,” I whispered.

Perseus didn’t say anything. He waited, seemingly for me to reveal whatever I needed from him. Rather than explaining it in mere words, I let go of his hand and waded back in the water, putting space between us. I grabbed the hem of my floating shirt and pulled it off. The wet fabric smacked against the water’s surface before sinking to the bottom.

The water where I stood reached just beneath my breasts, which hardened as the cold air hit the now bare skin. Perseus’s attention locked on my naked torso, and his chest rose and fell hard. Hunger clouded his eyes, and that look had my own toes curling, because he looked likemyPerseus again.

No sooner had the lust entered his gaze that he exhaled hard and turned his head away.

Frowning, I walked through the pool to get closer to him. He breathed harder, and his jaw ticked. Still, he didn’t move. He kept his gaze fixed on a distant mark as I stopped directly in front of him.

“Look at me,” I ordered.

The muscles in his shoulders tightened, but he slowly turned to look down at me, though his eyes never dropped lower than my own.

“You say I’m not broken,” I observed, reaching out to trail my hands up the sides of his neck. “Then don’t treat me like I am.”

I tugged him down and kissed him softly. His slight resistance was still there, but when I deepened the kiss, that rigidity left him. He kissed me as his arms wrapped around my lower back. I waited for that burst of alarm to form since our bare skin was touching, but that flare of panic never came. Whatdidwash over me was a fierce rush of desire, one so strong it nearly made my legs wobble. I needed him. I wanted him. That desperate hunger had my body pressing against his torso. His hard and muscular frame against my naked breasts made a small groan of delight leave my lips.

The sound seemed to encourage him, or maybe he could sense how much I liked what was happening because of his Incubus abilities. Regardless of the reason, he moved his arms from my back to cup my butt and hoist me up in the water, allowing me to wrap my legs around his waist.

The hard dick confined in his swimming trunks pressed against my parted legs. With a hard jolt, I froze and briefly left the swimming pool, finding myself back in that ballet room.

Perseus tensed under my legs and arms, which were now wrapped around him in a startled vice-like grip. He immediately broke the kiss to look at me. “Let’s stop. You—”

“No,” I cut him off with a firm shake of my head. That desire, that burn for him, was still there, dueling for dominance with the icy alarm of memories. “I want to do this! You can sense that, can’t you?”

He frowned and hesitantly admitted, “I can, but I can also sense your fear.”

“Exactly,” I whimpered, imploring him to hear me as my gaze bored into his. “And now I’m supposed to stop because of that fear? I’m supposed to give up onmypleasure,yourpleasure,ourdesires, because that nightmare is trying to resurface? I can’t do that.”

I ducked my head and shook it harder before looking at him again with desperate tears in my eyes. “If we stop now, he’ll win, Perseus. He’ll still have power over me. He’s dead. He’s gone. Yet he’s stillhere.” I placed a trembling hand on my head as a single tear rolled down my cheek. “I don’t want him to have power over me anymore. I don’t want him continuing to control me when I’mfree.”

He held my stare for many silent moments, and I refused to break that connection, not when I needed him to understand how much I needed this. Finally, he held me tighter as he walked us out of the pool. He set me on my feet by a cushioned lounger before sitting back on it and spreading his legs on either side of the chair. He fixed his heated stare on me.

“Take what you need from me,” he offered. “You control what happens right now. How much we do and what we do.”

Skin heating at the idea, I let my eyes roam over his wet bronze skin and taut muscles. The heaters warmed my own flesh, making it prickle, and my nipples hardened all over again. The bulge in his wet swimming trunks was impossible to miss, and I licked my suddenly dry lips in anticipation of seeing it.

I shed my underwear and stood there so his eyes could drink in my naked body. I was exposed, vulnerable, and baring myself to him in a way that had been abused by another. I expected the sense of shame and embarrassment to fill me, and perhaps, they did to some degree. I just couldn’t properly feel those ugly emotions, because another feeling was so much stronger.

Desire.

When Perseus’s sensual green eyes swept over me, every inch of that skin burned with a need for his attention. After being dormant all this time, the fierce want almost knocked the breath right out of me. Like a fish on a hook, I went to him and sat between his legs. Facing him, I opened my own to drape them over his thighs. He sucked in a sharp breath as my core spread, glistening with the evidence of how much I wanted this—wantedhim.

“Goddamn, Harper,” he growled, gaze transfixed on my pussy.

The husky words only made the fire between my legs intensify, and I bit my lip as I pushed them open wider. Part of me wanted to grab him and get him inside of me, but I worried that quick impulse would trigger unwanted thoughts, undoubtedly taking me out of the moment. Even though Iwantedthis, I had to be smart about taking it. I needed to work myself up to that point. And that was by doing something I hadn’t done sincebefore.

I kept my eyes locked on his handsome face and leaned back on one hand. My free fingers gingerly roamed up my leg and inner thigh. Shivers erupted along my body, and the deep sound of his groan only made that wicked desire spike inside of me, even as old feelings tried to wiggle loose in my head.

“It’s just you,” Perseus choked out, seeming to sense what was happening in my mind. “It’s just you here. Just us. You’re safe.”

You’re safe.

The words pushed back the visions of Drake’s hands on my thighs so that I could focus onthismoment with my own. My fingers brushed back and forth along my bare skin, and I held my breath as I became accustomed to the feeling of hands touching me, even if they were merely mine.

---