Page 67 of The Hard Way

I thought he might bite my nipples, admittedly one of my favorite things to have happen when fucking, but instead he held me tight to him. I pulled back just enough to look into his eyes, to gaze into his eyes, this man who’d do anything for me.

And I’d do anything for him.

“I love you,” I whispered, clinging to him, taking him in. We got into a rhythm that seemed to come from both of us and neither of us, like it came from the stars or from the valleys that stretched out so big and wide. Eventually he closed his eyes. That was Odin; he sometimes couldn’t go past a certain point, couldn’t let you see too much. I loved that about him, too. He shifted and hit a different part of me.

It was like he was spearing me all over again. I groaned with the pleasure of loving him, moving along with him until I felt my orgasm building, and I could barely wait.

I opened my eyes.

“No waiting, goddess. Take what you will.”

But I was already going, spinning, stars shattering in my head. I felt him vibrating and pulsing inside me. He cried out, gripping my back, pulling me into him so tight that I didn’t know where my pleasure ended and where his started.

We stayed joined for a long time, up there on that ski jump platform.

Lost together, alone together.

I brushed his hair aside. “I’m trying to remember the last time we had sex, just us.”

“Mmm.” Maybe he couldn’t remember, either.

“I’m going to…”

“Slow, baby.”

I pulled off of him as slowly as I could.

Even so he groaned, like it was painful for us to unjoin.

I smiled and collapsed next to him. He pulled a pair of handkerchiefs from his pocket and handed one to me.

“Aren’t we Johnny-on-the-spot.”

“Always.”

I cleaned up and rolled the handkerchiefs up and stuck them in a pouch in my bag, then I pulled my clothes back on. “Does my nose look okay? Is it on straight?”

“Miraculously,” he said, pulling his pants on.

I just straddled him again.

“What are you up to?”

“I missed you.”

He settled his arms around me. “Well, this certainly improves the view.”

“Are you being funny?”

“You’re the only view I need.”

“Butter me up all you want, you still don’t get to torture and kill Hank.”

He smiled, but it wasn’t the good kind of smile. This smile contained way more hate than happiness.

“I mean it,” I said. “Like what Zeus said—we won’t let you lose your humanity over this. There’s always another way.”

“There isn’t always another way,” he said. “Sometimes all you have is losing your humanity. Sometimes all you have is going dark. You don’t know. And I never want you to.”

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