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Pirithous
He followed Thalia to the hallway, listening for any sounds of Nikki stirring. Pirithous had no trouble imagining what her response would be, finding him here, realizing what Thalia intended.
And Thalia’s intentions, now, were more than clear. He smiled at her back, watching the horse-tail of her hair bounce between her shoulder blades. He gave it a tug, and she turned her head, flashing a smile over her shoulder.
He had not meant for this. He’d meant only to ask for her release from his promise not to defend her, that he might protect her if the centaurs came too near. He’d meant only to warn her of the danger, so she might grant him her promise in exchange. But he could not stop himself, when she looked to him with so much warmth, so much need. The rest would wait until morning, and at least while he lay with her, he knew she was safe.
From everything but him. His hand tightened around hers. He had forgotten his strength for a moment. One moment, lost in the glory of her kiss and the warmth of her body pressed against his. The crack of her back had cooled his lust at once. She was mortal, he reminded himself. No matter how long it had been since he’d had a lover beneath him, he must remember his control, or he was no better than the centaurs.
Thalia crept past the first two doors in the long hallway, then a third, keeping him close behind her. She pushed the fourth door open, waving him inside the room at the very end of the hall. He paused only long enough to listen again for any sign that Nikki had woken, but the house slept still and Thalia shut the door tightly behind them.
A lamp lit while he removed his sword belt and he grinned. Women’s rooms had not changed much, even in three thousand years. The bed was larger, to be sure, and more clothing hung about, from hooks on the wall and peeking out from a chest of drawers, but the bottles on another table spoke to him of perfumes and the boxes beside them, places to keep jewels and face paints. He traced the cut glass design of one such box. He had never seen glass put to the uses these people found for it, or made in such quantity and quality for such variety of purpose.
Thalia’s arms wrapped around him, her breasts pressed against his back and her cheek resting against his shoulder blade. She pulled up the edge of his tunic, her fingers finding his skin, and the ache he had tried so hard to ignore stole all thought of glass from his mind.
“Nikki is leaving in the morning,” she murmured, kissing behind his ear. Her teeth grazed his earlobe and he groaned at how hard it made him. “Will you stay?”
He gripped her arm, drawing her around so he might see her face. His fingers brushed the gold of the armband and he closed his hand over it, remembering her words that morning. “I would not insult you by sleeping in the woods when you offer me the warmth of your bed.”
Carefully, he reminded himself, fighting the desire to tear the clothes from her body and lay her naked on the bed, but for that gold on her arm. His gold. He slid his hand to her cheek, tipping her face up to claim her mouth. She sighed against his lips, her nails digging into his skin with a surge of need that matched his own.
He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands pulling at his tunic. He grunted, carrying her to the bed and half-dropping her in order to free himself of the fabric. And then she was beneath him, still clothed, but he didn’t care. He wanted her mouth, and the salt of her skin, and the softness of her body under his until she begged for more. She would not say tomorrow that he had forced her.
She would not say, ever again, that he took any lover unwilling.
***
THALIA CURLED AGAINST his side, her brown hair tickling his arm. Her head rested against his shoulder, her arm lying across his ribs where the shadows of Hades’s chair had left their mark. A soft smile curved her lips, her face smooth in sleep, innocent in ways she would never be awake.
No, there was nothing innocent about Thalia. Nothing innocent about the way she responded to his touch, or the way she had touched him in return. There was nothing innocent about the impatience that had flared in her mind just before he found himself flat on his back, with Thalia sitting astride his body.
Thalia, he had learned, did not beg. Thalia made demands. Wonderful, specific demands, which he had happily improved upon, until she could no longer manage to find any words beyond his name, cried in pleasure as her fingers dug into his shoulders and her body shuddered with release.
And then he had brought her there again, and again, and once more after that, before they had both collapsed into sleep, sated and satisfied.
Pirithous kissed her forehead now, roused himself by the sounds of activity in the kitchen. Thalia’s sleepy smile spread, her fingers twisting gently in the hair on his chest. He caught her hand before she could graduate from gentle to rough, having experienced both the night before, much to his delight.
“Nikki is awake,” he murmured into her hair, though he would have preferred to wake her with far different words. He would have preferred to wake her with his mouth on her breast, or his tongue lapping at the liquid heat between her legs, but he didn’t think Nikki would be pleased to hear them moaning through the wall.
Thalia sighed, arching her back and stretching her arms over her head. She still wore the gold armband, though she had stripped him of his. It took more discipline than he liked to watch her sit up and let her rise from the bed. Her hair fell halfway down her back in shining waves, and the memory of it spilling over her shoulder and across his chest as her body wrapped tight and slick around his for the first time made him groan.
She glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “Promise me you’ll stay right there, so when I’m done shoving Nikki out the door we can pretend I never got out of bed this morning.”
He chuckled and rolled to his stomach, reaching out to pinch the soft skin of her bottom as she bent to pull her shorts on. She squealed, slapping his hand away, then clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Thalia?” Nikki knocked on the door and she froze. “Are you up?”
“Yeah,” Thalia called back. She leaned down, her hair brushing his skin. “If she knows you’re here, she’ll never leave.” Her kiss made his heart race, then she threw the sheet over his head and he heard the door click closed.
“What were you doing?” Nikki asked.
“I found a spider crawling on my pillow,” Thalia’s voice drifted through the door. Pirithous chuckled again. He would not have thought her the kind of woman who squealed at spiders. Nor the kind of woman who squealed when pinched, but it was a delightful discovery.
He hoped it would be the first of many.