Ares

by Heaton, Felicity

  He wouldn’t.

  “Do you want me to heal them?” she whispered, her breath a soft caress against his bloodied back that tempted him to surrender to her.

  Her question caught him off guard and his instinctive answer only brought confusion and he struggled, torn in two by it.

  What did she expect him to say to that?

  Yes, please heal them so he would be more indebted to her?

  That would be a declaration of weakness. This was punishment that he had to endure tonight and carry into battle if that was what the Moirai had in store. This suffering was as much a part of his penitence as the lashing had been. He had to bear it until the shallow cuts healed in several hours’ time.

  “No.” Ares forced the word out and stepped away from her, away from the temptation to change his answer.

  Megan moved around him and settled her hands on her hips, drawing his gaze to her flimsy dark pink camisole and the way her breasts jutted upwards when she did that. When she huffed, he dragged his eyes back up to meet hers. The determined edge to her expression warned that she wasn’t going to accept that answer.

  “It was my fault that someone did this to you. It’s because you said that funny Russian line... because I hurt you.”

  “Hurt?” He laughed. “A bang on the head is nothing. I don’t hurt so easily. This is pain... and it wasn’t Russian that I spoke.”

  He turned with the intention of heading for the safety of the bathroom but she blocked his path and pressed her palm against his chest. A jolt of white-hot pleasure rippled through him. His gaze met hers again.

  “Please, Ares. Let me repay you the only way I can. It was my fault they hurt you. Let me heal you.”

  He stared at her mouth, entranced by the sound of his name on her soft lips, his mind on the more pleasurable ways that she could repay him.

  Ones involving that mouth.

  He shook his head to clear it. Her eyes held a weight of hurt that hadn’t been there a moment ago and she lowered her head and turned away. He caught her arm, holding it gently, and stared at his hand. She felt so soft and supple.

  So very tempting.

  “Wait.” He drew in a deep breath and expelled it. This was going to be a mistake, but the sight of her eyes filling with pain, the thought that she believed he had rejected her offer and it had upset her, ripped through his defences. “Fine... but there’s something you have to know first.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him, her shoulder-length brown hair masking part of her face, and her expression open and eyes full of warmth again. Full of hope and something he pretended didn’t exist.

  Caring.

  He smiled through the pain stinging his back, gunning for charming and succeeding judging by the way her cheeks darkened.

  “I’m ticklish.”

  A smile broke out on her lips, lighting her whole face and brightening her eyes. Gods, he wanted to say more things that made her smile like that, that filled her with light and made her glow with happiness. She took his hand, sending another hot shiver up his arm, and looked up into his eyes.

  “I’ll be gentle.”

  He raised an eyebrow and followed her lead as she turned with him towards the bed, a slave to his hunger and desire, lost in the thoughts racing through his mind. She could be gentle with him all she liked. He would be a kitten for her in return. He could do that for Megan, and the fact that he could touch her wasn’t the only reason he would refine his rough edges and do whatever it took to keep her close to him.

  He hated to admit it, but he couldn’t deny it as she led him to the bed, her hand soft and warm in his.

  He was falling for her.

  Fast.

  He had been around for centuries, had been with women in that time, but not one of them had the fire, the determination, the warmth and tenderness that Megan had. Not one of them could compare with her beauty, not just her physical appearance, but her heart and soul too. She had made him go from desiring her in the alley, to wanting her on waking to find her in his apartment, to needing her only a few short hours later.

  This was dangerous.

  He knew it.

  Duty and desire waged war inside him, pulling him in two directions at once.

  He wasn’t sure which would be the victor.

  “Lie on your front.” She released his hand and motioned for him to obey.

  His eyebrow rose higher and he followed her command, stretching out on his front on the dark red sheets. The bed depressed beside him and the next thing he knew, she was straddling his hips and sitting on his backside.

  “What are you—” He twisted to see her and pain ripped across his back.

  He gritted his teeth, grinding them hard, and closed his eyes as he fought the overwhelming fire that licked across his skin. Her hand gently came to rest on his shoulder, soothing him, and the pain eased, chased away by her tender touch.

  “Lie down,” she whispered.

  Gods, she would be the death of him like this.

  The weight of her on him already had him stirring. And he could touch her. She was lucky he was on his front or he would be trying to get inside her. He could imagine what it would feel like to plunge his hard cock into her hot wet core and hear her scream his name.

  “Ares?”

  It wouldn’t sound as tentative and cautious as that.

  He cracked an eye open and focused on her and he could feel the nerves flowing through her. He took a deep breath, shortly followed by another, and nodded to let her know that he was ready.

  “Just relax.” She smiled and sucked in a breath of her own. “I used to be a masseuse.”

  He closed his eyes again. What he wouldn’t give to have her as his full time personal masseuse.

  Wait.

  Masseuse?

  She touched other men like this?

  A sudden urge to hunt them all down and kill them swept through him. He shifted on the bed, restless with the dark hunger for violence, trying to tame it but losing the battle as he thought about her delicate little hands rubbing across another man’s body.

  “Am I hurting you?” she said.

  “No. Why would you be?” He settled his palms flat in front of him, one hand over the other, rested his chin on them and glared out of the windows at the city swathed in night, his mind on the many ways he would kill the men she had touched.

  “Nothing... just thought I might be a bit heavy.” She muttered something else about pounds.

  She wasn’t at all heavy. Her weight against his backside felt pleasant, driving his hips into the bed in a way that rubbed his now aching erection against the mattress whenever she moved. He was finding it hard to bite back his desire to groan whenever she did that.

  “You don’t weigh a thing.” He mentally begged her to sit a little harder on him and give him some sort of pleasure to focus on so he could block out the pain and images of her with other men.

  She was his now.

  “Liar.”

  Something had put a bee in her bonnet. He shrugged it off and closed his eyes.

  She was definitely his.

  What was he saying?

  It was useless. Pointless. Even if she did like him, there was no future for them. As soon as he got his powers back, it would be game over. He wasn’t the kind of man who could stay like this, no matter how tempting it was just so he could be with her. He had sworn to do his duty no matter what and that meant retrieving his power. When he retrieved his power, Megan would realise that he could no longer touch her and she couldn’t touch him without hurting herself.

  She would leave him.

  If she found out before he recovered his power, would she ask him to let it go?

  He couldn’t sacrifice it for her. That sacrifice would come at a price.

  If he failed to regain his power and the gate fell because he wasn’t strong enough to protect it, the Underworld would merge with this one, and millions would die.

  Ares cursed the Moirai and gritted his teeth.
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  Over two hundred years alone had been torture, but one he had endured and come to live with. This was worse. Being able to touch Megan, to have such a beautiful woman so close to him, to know that if he pursued her, he might have her, was more painful than the one thousand lashes and all of his previous punishments rolled into one.

  It tore at his heart.

  He had wanted this for so long, had ached to have someone in his life that he wouldn’t harm by laying a hand on them, but he had never thought it would be temporary when it came. He had waited so patiently, had longed for so many endless nights, and watched so many couples in the streets, and even seen his own brothers in relationships. Why were he and Daimon cursed to suffer? Why did it have to be this way?

  They only wanted what others took for granted.

  “Ares?” Megan whispered and leaned forwards. Her hands pressed into the mattress on either side of his waist. “Are you okay?”

  No. He wasn’t okay. How could he be?

  He wanted her with every drop of blood in his body, needed her with all of his heart, yearned to have her in his life, and yet it all seemed so impossible. Whatever pleasure she could bring him, whatever happiness they could find, would be snatched from them the second he regained his power and he would be plunged back into a Hell far worse than the two hundred years that had come before it.

  He swallowed his pain and nodded.

  Even if it was only temporary, even if she left him when he regained his power, he wasn’t strong enough to resist her pull. He could only hold fast until she made a decision.

  If she came to him, if she made a move, he wouldn’t be able to resist her.

  He would seize whatever small happiness she offered him.

  Even if it was only temporary.

  Even if she broke his heart.

  “I’ll try not to hurt you.” There was so much more to those words than just their surface meaning.

  His heart interpreted them differently.

  He had never realised before tonight what a weak feeble thing it was in his chest, or how much the past two centuries had hurt him.

  Before he could say a word, she placed her hands on his lower back. The inferno of her caress started in the arch above his buttocks and worked slowly upwards, a careful exploration that had half of him addled with lust and the other half wondering if she was enjoying touching him. Her pace seemed very deliberate and he had caught her staring at his body countless times since waking to find her in his apartment.

  An overwhelmed and heavy sigh broke the silence. Her entire body heaved with it and he could feel her sorrow as though it was a tangible thing.

  “Was what you said really so bad? Does a little curse need such horrible punishment?”

  Ares stilled beneath her, her soft voice and the gentleness of her touch quietening his lust until he was calm and back in control.

  Her hands reached his shoulders, fingers dancing over his flesh, and the fire in his blood instantly reignited as they brushed the nape of his neck, sending a shiver through him. “If I said what you did, would they punish me too? I mean... for speaking that funny Russian language.”

  “It’s not Russian.” He didn’t go any further. He shouldn’t have cursed around her and it wouldn’t happen again. “And, no, they wouldn’t punish you for speaking it.”

  “So... why do this to you?”

  Her hands pressed into his shoulders. The masses of cuts covering them stung but the pain subsided as her touch warmed him and then began to disappear completely as he healed. It amazed him. He had never met anyone who could heal.

  “It’s different when I speak it.” He left it at that and she didn’t question him as he expected.

  He craned his neck so he could see her out of the corner of his eye while she worked on his back. Beads of sweat spotted her forehead, concentration written in every beautiful line of her face.

  “Do you always straddle your clients?” He needed to break the silence to keep his mind off the sensual feel of her hands against his skin.

  His body yearned for her touch, ached to be buried deep in hers, so much so that the pain was nothing to him. It had been too long.

  Megan shook her head, causing the strands of her dark hair to sway.

  Not quite the conversation he was searching for.

  “Is it like malpractice?”

  “I’m not a doctor.” Her lips tugged into a strained smile that faded a heartbeat later.

  Getting there. He just needed to get her to expand.

  “So, you could straddle clients?”

  She frowned and worked her hands lower, towards his middle back. “Why would I want to do that?”

  His eyebrows rose. “You’re straddling me.”

  She blushed. He liked that colour on her.

  “To keep you still.” A pant for air. “And because I’m... healing you. Easier this way.”

  She swallowed and moved her hands down. Her eyes fixed there but her pupils dilated and contracted, as if she couldn’t focus.

  “Something wrong?” He tried to get up but she pushed him back down.

  She shook her head and her hands pressed harder against his back. She was supporting her weight on them. She paled and shifted them lower. Her eyes closed.

  Alarm zinged through his blood.

  “Megan?” He pushed himself up onto his elbows.

  She swayed and then slumped onto the bed beside him. He quickly pulled her to him, cradling her gently in his right arm. Her shallow intermittent breathing sent a cold prickly wave crawling over him and he patted her cheek to rouse her and then stilled with his hand against her. She was freezing.

  “Megan?” He shook her and his heart lodged in his throat.

  It didn’t come down even when her eyes fluttered open.

  “Are you alright?” He searched her eyes and they focused on him.

  He tilted her towards the light, studying them. Her pupils contracted and then dilated again when he tipped her back towards the darkness. A normal response. Her skin was warming beneath his hands too.

  She inhaled and dazedly looked at his hands where they touched her and then the bed. “Did I finish?”

  Cuts still stung his lower back but he didn’t have the heart to tell her, not when healing him had clearly taken so much out of her, enough that she had looked close to death. He pulled her nearer to him, until her breath skated across his bare chest, unable to tamp down the need to feel her in his arms, safe and sound.

  If he had known that healing him would drain her, he never would have agreed to it. She had risked her life to heal a few stupid cuts that would have closed in a handful of hours.

  “I’m fine now,” he whispered and brushed the damp strands of hair from her forehead. “Are you?”

  She gave him the thumbs up. “Peachy.”

  She didn’t look peachy.

  He wasn’t sure how Carriers used their powers or the effects it had on them. Was it always like this for her or was it because she was trying to heal a god?

  “I’m feeling a little tired.” She yawned so wide he could see her lack of tonsils. “Can you take me home now?”

  Ares shook his head and told himself that he couldn’t because paying penitence had taken most of his strength and he needed to conserve the rest in case something happened in the last few hours of darkness.

  It had nothing to do with the fact he didn’t want to take her home.

  “Tomorrow?” she whispered, fading fast in his arms, and gods, it felt good to have her pressed against him, falling asleep in his embrace.

  Too good.

  He wanted to stay right where he was and hold her while she slept, watching over her, but she would get cold even with his body pressed against hers.

  He slid his other arm under her knees, shut out the pain in his back, and lifted her. He carried her up the length of the double bed and settled her with her head on the pillows.

  “Wait.” Her hand skimmed over his chest, kittenish in strength, and fell ba
ck to her stomach. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  He smiled. “It’s my bed.”

  He waited for her to mention sleeping on the couch. She didn’t. She huffed and he watched, bemused as she moved all the pillows and stacked them down the middle of the bed, creating a wall between the two halves. It was going to take a lot more than pillows to stop him if he got another urge to hold her.

  There was a smile on her face when she settled down again, pulling the wine covers up and tucking them under her arms. Within seconds, she was breathing light and even, fast asleep.

  Ares stripped off his jeans and headed towards the bathroom. The smell of pizza made him detour to the coffee table. He crammed one slice into his mouth, gathered his t-shirt, weapons and vambraces, and chewed as he took them and placed them back into the cupboard in his bedroom. He grabbed another slice on his way through the living room, eating it as he walked to the bathroom.

  Penitence always made him hungry.

  He paused just short of the door and looked back at Megan where she lay in his bed, and grimaced. Her hands were dirty. He should have cleaned up before letting her heal him. She shouldn’t have had to touch him when he was a mess. He finished the pizza slice, wet a cloth in the bathroom sink, and went back to her.

  He crouched beside her and carefully cleaned the blood off her hands, making sure to remove every speck. She didn’t stir once. When he was done, he stared at her, tempted to stroke her pale cheek and savour how good she felt beneath his fingers.

  Instead, he tore himself away, stalked into the bathroom and tossed the bloodied hand towel into the white sink. He switched the shower on, stripped out of his underwear, and stepped into the cubicle. It was hard to resist touching himself when Megan had fired him up so he made it a quick shower, just long enough to get the blood off his skin, and then towelled off and put his black trunks back on.

  His feet felt heavy as he exited the bathroom and approached his bedroom.

  Sleeping on the couch would be the honourable thing to do.

  He pulled in a deep breath and flexed his fingers.

  Gods, he hadn’t felt this nervous in a long time.

  His palms sweated and fingers trembled.