Page 66 of Stealing Mercury
He said nothing.
“I don’t know how to explain it right,” she said, the cold beginning to seep back into her. “I’ve always believed loving someone means ch-choosing to be only with them.”
His features were closed again, but he nodded, one sharp dip of his chin. “You love him.”
For one moon-drenched moment her heart stopped.
She loved Mercury.
Her heart pounded hard in her chest. “I do.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “I can’t believe I t-told you that. I haven’t even told him. I’m not sure I should. None of you realize how much things could change when we get back to civilization. When you get Hera back.”
“Dogs don’t often think of love or spend time trying to predict the future. We think of life and death. Mercury wants to spend whatever life he has with you and he knows you feel the same.”
“Presumptuous,” she said, but there was no heat in her voice and she nodded in acknowledgement.
He pulled her hand from his cheek and moved it to his chest, over his heart.
“You’re in both our hearts. I don’t have a whole heart to give you as Mercury does, but I have room there for you. I’ll keep my pledge. No matter what the future holds.”
Her heart ached for him. She wrapped her arms around his ribs and pressed her cheek where her hand had been. His skin smelled of the spring fed river and the night. His arms came around her, pulling her more tightly against his muscular frame and his warmth. They stood that way as she listened to the steady thud beneath her ear.
One of his deadly hands wove through her hair and the other stroked her back with more gentleness than she thought him capable. Her body responded to the heat and shelter he offered. She sucked in a breath. It filled her lungs and pressed her breasts more firmly against the wall of hard muscle. It sent a jolt of pleasure to her feminine core.
How could she want him so much when she’d just admitted she was in love with Mercury? She tried to will away her reaction, but she refused to push away from him, unwilling to shatter the peace they’d made. Her hands stroked the lean muscles of his back, fingers hesitating over the scars that told the story of a life lived in hell. They’d named him Diablo, the devil, but they’d failed in their attempts to turn him into his namesake. He had anger, but he also understood tenderness and loyalty. He’d never betray Mercury.
But Mercury wouldn’t see their having sex as a betrayal. He wanted her to take away Lo’s pain. He wanted them to bond. She wondered if Lo, with his heightened senses, could smell the arousal dampening her thighs. “You can’t possibly want me,” she whispered. “I’m not sure you even like me.” The words slipped out before she could think better of it.
His body stiffened in response. The hand in her hair fisted tight, pulling her head back as he gripped her ass to pull her off her feet and up his body. The evidence of his desire was hard and undeniable and pressed nearly where she needed it.
“I want you,” he said. “More than I have wanted anything since... I haven’t fucked a female for my own pleasure in a long time.”
She should probably be offended that he might want her just to ease his horniness, but her body responded to the longing and hunger in every syllable. And she knew behind his words there was a truth he was unable to speak. She wasn’t one of the greedy women who’d used his body with no care for the man. He’d chosen her. She was something he wanted for himself. The knowledge was intoxicating.
She wrapped one leg around his hip, instinctively seeking the pressure she needed to appease her heated core. His hands shifted and he adjusted her, drawing her legs more firmly around him and rocking his restrained cock against her aching pussy. He buried his face in her neck. Licked the pulse point. Growled deep in his chest.
Samantha moaned and ground against him.
Lo’s hands shifted again, pushing aside her shirt to squeeze her bare ass. He boldly traced the valley with the fingers of one hand. His hands were firm, but there was no prick of claws as he touched her. Her heart raced as one careful finger dipped slowly into her wet flesh, but in that moment, she trusted him with the most secret parts of her.
“I want to taste you,” he whispered. “I want to taste his seed on you.”
She shivered at the thought. Cringed at the reminder of the man she loved. Was she really doing this?
“Lo—”
He nipped at her lips, silencing her protests as he carried her across the clearing and to a blanket stretched across the ground.
When her eyebrows shot up, he explained. “This is where I went earlier when Mercury was fucking you.” He lowered her to the blanket then traced a finger across her forehead, easing the signs of a frown. “Don’t worry, he’ll be glad of this.” He grinned—the first happy expression she’d seen on his face. “He’ll be glad as long as you’re well pleasured and there is no doubt of that.”
She believed his boast. His face was all arrogance. He was sure of his ability, but there was no malice in that knowledge, no intent to use it against her. If her desire for him had been nothing more than lust she could have left him there and gone back to Mercury. But it was more than lust. She didn’t know if that made it less or more of a betrayal, but she let the tender feelings bubbling up inside her tug the corners of her mouth into a smile.
Lo dropped to his belly between her legs. Large hands gripped her thighs, pushing them wide and preventing any attempt to thwart his purpose. He turned his head and licked at the soft skin over trembling muscle—a long, wet lap of his rough tongue that had her squirming. He tended to the other thigh in the same way, lapping away the evidence of her earlier bout of lovemaking with Mercury and the cream of her more recent arousal.
“You taste as sweet as you smell.” His words rumbled up from somewhere deep in his chest. The next swipe of his tongue burrowed between the lips of her sex and stroked directly across her clit. Lightning shot through her, bowing her body. The next lick of his tongue followed the same path, sweeping aside all thought. The only thing in her mind was the wicked stroke of Lo’s talented tongue and the vague thought that she needed to talk to him about the proper pace of foreplay. But maybe not. She felt tender and swollen, needy and hot. Relentless, he stroked her to the edge of orgasm.
And then the pressure was gone. She wanted to weep at the pain of the loss. She blinked him into focus. He hadn’t gone far. He stood in the moonlight, fighting his way out of the tight pants to bare all of his beautifully masculine body. His cock stood up, hard and full. The tip shimmered with pre-cum and the length jerked in anticipation of fucking her.
He dropped back to the blanket. He turned her to her hands and knees then thrust into her. Already wet, her flesh provided no resistance. In that one stroke he was fully, deeply inside her. He withdrew and slammed home again. She screamed her pleasure. He wrapped his hands around her hips and set an unyielding pace, fucking her hard. He was wild and reckless and she didn’t want anything else in that moment. The hard pounding shook every cell in her body, without providing any hope of relief. It was as if he needed to fuck out his pent-up pain—something that could give them both searing pleasure, but not release. Release was not something he wanted for this tortured part of himself.
