Bedeviled

by Sable Grace

  It took her longer than it should have to slip the flimsy triangles of the bikini over her breasts and secure them in place. Her hands were trembling too badly to make a success of the ties. It seemed her body hadn’t yet come to terms with the idea that her duty was done. She only needed to find and return Poseidon’s trident to him now, and she’d be able to focus on becoming the goddess she was supposed to be.

  And yet every inch of her flesh was still ready to hunt. To fight.

  Ryker was already waiting for her when she made her way out of the stall. He wore mid-calf trunks and a very nicely sculpted bare chest that made her silently praise the sport of surfing that kept him so tanned and toned. He leaned against the wall, his eyes half closed as he watched her. She felt his gaze rake over her, felt the heat of the trail that stare left behind, and quivered.

  Maybe her body wasn’t aching to hunt or fight. Maybe it was aching for something far more fun . . . more delicious.

  More likely her sudden burst of libido stemmed from the excitement of what she’d accomplished today. It was all she could do not to throw him down, tear his shorts off, and give her adrenaline an outlet.

  “Your masseuses are ready,” the manager said. Kyana jumped, her already erratic heartbeat stumbling into an all-new rhythm.

  “No,” she said. “No massage. Show us to the baths and excuse your employees.”

  Her gaze never left Ryker’s, and as his stare narrowed in question, she let herself show only the faintest of smiles before turning away.

  Ryker called himself every sort of fool when his feet disobeyed his brain and followed her to the baths. She’d managed to devour him with one quick stare, and his body was still trying to recover. Her intentions had been written all over her face. She wanted him. But more than that, she wanted to celebrate catching Haven and forget that she might still be sentenced to death. In other words, she wanted to use him.

  So sad that he was so eager and so willing to be used.

  Gods, he was a damned fool.

  He stopped in the doorway, swearing he wasn’t going to take another step inside. If he did, he was doomed. He was still recovering from the last time he’d made love to her.

  The door shut behind the stodgy manager, leaving him alone with Kyana as she tentatively touched a toe to the steamy water. His throat went dry and he could barely find the will to swallow as he watched her reach behind her neck and untie the thin strings of her bikini. She turned, her dark eyes glimmering as she watched him.

  He couldn’t move. He was hard as a damned rock, but he couldn’t bring himself to move and touch her as she was so blatantly begging him to. When she slid the bottoms from her hips to her ankles and daintily stepped out of them, a sharp throb pulsed in his groin.

  Stark naked and stunningly gorgeous, she was offering herself to him. Again. But this time, he was going to make her ask for it. This time, if he let her use him, if they used each other, she was going to have to work for it. Even if it killed him.

  “Getting in?” she asked, her voice low and much deeper than normal.

  She turned away from him before he could answer, and one by one, she descended the steps into the bath, coyly glancing at him over her shoulder. She submerged herself into the water and surfaced again, steam shrouding her in a faint fog. Her black curls clung to her cheeks and neck, draped over her shoulders, and teased him by barely veiling her nipples.

  “Are we playing another game?” he asked, finding the strength to push away from the door.

  If he took her now, there would be no tenderness. No gentleness. It was going to be hard and fast and wild as hell, and by the gods, it was going to be earth-shattering. She’d better be damned sure she knew what she wanted before he put even one toe in that water.

  “No games,” she whispered, standing straighter so that the water no longer covered her bare belly.

  Gods save him, he wasn’t strong enough to deny her.

  He’d been in love with Kyana Melek Aslan for a decade. She was his, whether she knew it or not, and he was certainly hers whether she wanted him or not. He’d seen her strength and her tenderness. He’d seen her love for her friends and her determination to right the wrongs done to them. And every bit of who she was made him want to claim her. Brand her. Mark her. Forever.

  “If I touch you, I’m not going to stop,” he said. His throat felt as though someone had torched it and left it to burn, turning it to rubble.

  “I sincerely hope not.”

  The steam sucked the air from his lungs as he stepped down into the water.

  Kyana watched Ryker take the steps slowly, his jaw set, his eyes dancing as he battled with himself over what she offered him. She knew he wanted her. He’d be a fool not to take it. She needed release. Needed to purge herself of all the tension that had been building inside her for days. And Ryker was the only one she wanted to lose herself in.

  Only him.

  That thought disturbed her immeasurably, but if she allowed herself to contemplate it further, she’d back off. And that was the last thing she wanted. All she cared about right now was walking toward her. Beautiful. Bronzed. A god and a man with the power to make her knees weak. She wanted to taste him, to feel him, and whatever that might mean to her would have to be worried about later.

  “You should probably feed, Ky. Ambrosia—”

  “I don’t need ambrosia.” She was tired of waiting. She walked toward him, wrapped her hand around his wrist and pulled him down the last step before gently pushing him to sit on the steps.

  She spread his legs and moved between them, leaning in to cup his face and nuzzle his neck with what remained of her fangs.

  “Then what do you need?”

  “You.” Blood rushing to all sorts of interesting places in her body, she slid her hand down his chest and let it rest between his thighs. “This.”

  His low growl made her purr, and when he grabbed her backside and lifted her, forcing her to straddle him, she didn’t protest.

  Her nipples hardened beneath his stare, and she looked up to find his gaze darkened by desire, his chest heaving slightly faster than usual. She placed her lips on the curve of his shoulder and trailed them up his neck. Ryker pulled her closer, pressing her breasts against his chest and the tip of his cock against her belly. She moaned and moved her hips slightly. Teasing. Taunting. Demanding.

  Ryker gripped the back of her hair, tilted her head back, and devoured her throat.

  “To hell with consequences.” His words were muffled against her skin.

  Kyana couldn’t have agreed more.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kyana’s kiss was deep and thorough and hotter than Tartarus. She moaned into Ryker’s mouth, danced her tongue over his teeth, and lapped at the corners of his lips. He delved into the depths of her mouth, and she reached between them to cup him through his trunks, to stroke him, obviously enjoying the power her touch ignited, though it was burning Ryker from the inside out.

  She panted, clinging to him as he dipped her backward and lowered his mouth to her breasts. Lifting her out of the water, he watched her muscles quiver beneath the taut skin of her abdomen as he placed her on the rim of the pool and drank in the sweet scent of her. It nearly drove him out of his mind.

  “Ryker?”

  The silent plea in her eyes, the way her body tensed in anticipation of his touch, had him shaking with the need to be inside her. He couldn’t find his voice to answer. Instead, he dipped his head and trailed his tongue along her inner thigh, smiling when her muscles constricted beneath his touch. Her legs rolled open, offering him what he wanted, and he took it as eagerly as a god accepted a sacrifice. She tasted like warm honey and ambrosia. He traced his tongue along the soft skin between her legs, spread her folds, then gently lapped at her, drinking her.

  Loving her.

  Kyana arched, grabbed a fistful of Ryker’s hair, and thrust her hips upward. All worries and coherent thought flittered from her mind. Her pants became gasps as his tong
ue plunged and retreated, slid over her clit in rhythmic circles, then plunged again.

  She bucked, the pressure inside her building to an explosive climax, and when Ryker’s tongue slid once more over the sensitive nub and his finger delved inside, she came.

  She tugged his hair, pulling him up her body and out of the pool as she clung to him. As she struggled to remember how to breathe, his hands trailed lightly over her body, setting the simmering fires to blazing again.

  Cupping his face in her palms, she lifted his head to study his eyes. She didn’t want to hurt him by taking what he offered her, knowing she couldn’t give him more than her body. Unfulfilled need in his blue eyes spoke to her soul, and none of the questions or concerns dancing on her tongue mattered.

  “If we do this, you have to know I’m using you to forget,” she whispered. It was the lie she was telling herself, and the need for him to hear it, to maybe have enough sense for both of them and pull away, made her voice it aloud.

  “I know.”

  She read his face, saw he spoke the truth, then pulled his head down and captured his mouth before guilt could make her stop what was happening between them. She trailed her hands down his back to grip the waistband of his trunks. Smiling against his lips, she hooked her fingers in his shorts and slid them off.

  His muscles trembled beneath her fingers as he sprang free, throbbing and hot against her belly. She rolled him to his back and straddled his waist, and his gaze locked on hers. Kyana struggled to read the emotions filtering in his eyes, but he masked them before she could decipher a single one.

  Trailing her lips across his body, she used her teeth and tongue to taste and tease her way down him. She knelt between his legs and pressed a kiss to the tip of him. His moan was felt between her thighs in a single, painful throb.

  “My turn,” she whispered, lowering her head.

  “Not this time.”

  His fingers bit into her arms as he pulled her against his chest. His lips, hot and soft, claimed hers again, his five o’clock shadow chafing her cheeks and chin as he devoured her. His fingers danced across her skin, slipping between their bodies to plunge inside her, matching the rhythm of his kisses.

  Gently, he rolled them over and positioned himself between her thighs. She reached for him. With one long, slow push, he buried himself inside her. Kyana cried out at the heat of his possession. Tiny fireworks of light exploded behind her eyes as her climax stole her breath. Two strokes were all it had taken, but her satisfaction was just as short-lived. She wanted him more now than ever before.

  As she spasmed around his body, her legs tightened around his waist, forcing him to plunge more deeply inside. His moan against her ear sent a tremor over her arms and legs. He held still, giving her body time to adjust to the weight of him, the feel of him, and when her spasms slowed to a steady pulse, he began to move slowly—slipping nearly out of her body before sinking into her heat again, taking her on the ascending ride all over again.

  His dance drove her mad as she panted against his neck, sliding her legs down his hips, then closing them around his thighs. She pressed herself against him, her hands raking over his back and shoulders and ass in a fevered hunger of their own to discover every inch of him.

  It’s just a fuck. Just a good lay.

  Liar!

  It was more than that. He was truly inside her. Not just his body in hers, but his very essence had worked its way through her veins, consuming her, becoming one with her.

  Stop! You’re taking too much!

  But her tongue no longer worked. No part of her body seemed to belong to her anymore. It was all Ryker’s.

  All for Ryker.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at the raw desire lighting his eyes from pale blue to near white. She concentrated, desperate to find some sense of control, but the more she fought, the more her body betrayed her. She found herself arching again. Screaming again. Coming again.

  He drove into her over and over, sweat dripping from his brow as he rose up on his arms to stare down at her. She couldn’t take anymore. She bucked, desperate to throw him off, but he was too strong. Or maybe she wasn’t trying hard enough.

  When she opened her mouth to demand that he stop, she heard herself whisper, “More,” instead.

  Thrusting her hips against his, she quickened the pace. The cry of his name on her lips was muffled by his kiss as yet another climax seized her muscles.

  As his tongue dipped between her parted lips, he came, groaning into her mouth as she inhaled a bit of his soul.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kyana lay curled against Ryker, the frantic pace of her mind in direct contrast to the rhythm of her heartbeat. She’d had sex with him before, but this time, something between them had shifted. The usual need to bolt hadn’t come, neither had the normal urge to deny anything more than a fuck had happened. The balloon of protection she’d been carrying in her chest for the last couple of centuries had popped after her last orgasm.

  But try as she might, she couldn’t figure out why. This time, like the others, she’d used him for the relief his body could offer hers. Relief had come, instead, to all of her.

  Ryker began to lightly stroke the sensitive square of skin at the small of her back, and it hit her all at once. The difference. She’d felt, in his last kiss, the truth. He loved her. No man touched a woman as he’d touched her without love, and while Ryker had hinted at his feelings for a while now, she had always found some means to brush them off. The wall of duties and bloodlines between them had made it the simplest thing in the world to tell herself that there was nothing different between this tryst with Ryker and any of the others she’d ever had.

  A liar lies to others. A fool lies to herself.

  The time would come when her itch to roam would return, but she couldn’t keep trying to convince herself that she was in any kind of hurry for that to happen. Why push it away when it felt so good? Nature would take its course soon enough to break them apart, but for now, she was too exhausted to do more than hold him as closely as possible.

  The uncomfortable realization left her body cold. She nestled closer to Ryker, pressing her nose to his neck, breathing in the sweet, clean scent of his skin.

  “When I was fifteen,” she began, “my father sold me to Prince Mehmet and I thought it was the beginning of my happily ever after.”

  Ryker’s chest stopped rising, his breath stuck somewhere between his lungs and his throat. She felt him stiffen beneath her, as though he might be afraid to so much as twitch and risk scaring her off. But now that she had started, she was determined to finish. Determined to prove to him that she was able to give a little of herself to him—perhaps not her future, but a bit of her past.

  “His harem numbered more than eighty-seven women. The oldest and first wife, Azime, ruled us with a hard fist and an even more brutal tongue. But I suffered through her abuse silently. Mehmet was kind to me. He made my nights easier to bear after days of dealing with Azime. At least, for a while.”

  “Fifteen,” Ryker whispered.

  Kyana propped herself onto her elbow so she could see his face. “That’s not so bad. You were there. You know women marry much later now than they used to. The youngest of his harem was only five. Of course, she was untouched, but even she knew well what being one of Mehmet’s wives was going to mean for her one day.”

  Tracing the fine lines that defined Ryker’s abdomen, she tried to summon an image of Paulina, the youngest of the harem. But no image came. Just the faint memory of blond hair and a foreign accent. British, probably. Mehmet had liked his collection of women to be eclectic. He’d had wives from fifteen different countries in his household.

  When her gaze fell back to Ryker’s face, she found him watching her intently. “What?”

  His smile was faint as he rubbed his thumb over her chin. “That’s not enough tit for my tat.”

  “It was plenty of tit for a little tat.”

  Ryker exhaled, his golden ha
ir spreading out around his head on the cold bath tiles. “Ares came for me when I was ten.”

  “He told you he was your father then?”

  Ryker nodded. “Tit.”

  “I enjoyed being Mehmet’s wife until one night when we’d been married for nearly six months.”

  “What changed it?”

  Kyana dragged her leg off his thighs and sat up. How much did she really feel like confessing? A bit at a time, and when it became too much, she’d stop. Something was better than nothing, wasn’t it?

  “It was the first time he raped me.”

  Ryker’s eyes flashed, but no surprise marked his features. “The first time?”

  “Yes, though not the worst by far. He saved that for the last rape.”

  He watched her and she could read on his face that he’d guessed what happened next. But it was his turn, and he was going to have to earn the rest of her nightmares.

  “All right,” he said, finally taking the hint of her silence. “When Ares found me, I was nearly dead in my aunt’s stables. Tit.”

  “Bullshit. More tat.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes, and Kyana swallowed back her own secrets. She’d been ready to spill it all, and he didn’t seem any closer to trusting her fully than he had been two weeks ago.

  “Fine.” She rolled onto her knees and reached for the discarded bikini draped over the edge of the bath.

  Ryker grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “I was naked and bloody. My aunt was dead. My mother was covered in blood and the whip in her hand was in two pieces. Need more?”

  Her heart caught in her throat and she heard herself whisper, “Yes.”

  “She’d been trying to beat the evil out of me. My fangs . . . all demigods have them—a result of god blood mixing with non-god blood . . .”