by Rucker, Shay
She clutched the towel tighter and took a step back, which caused Zeus to take a step forward. Her heart beat faster than the black hearts of any of those demon-possessed rabbits lurking in the dark woods. The area between her legs had grown damp with heated moisture that had nothing to do with the tub of water she had just stepped out of.
Zeus took another step toward her, and she retreated another step back. They repeated the steps to that particular dance two more times until she felt the press of the sink against her butt. He took one last step and pressed the length of his hard body against hers. His arm snaked around her, and she felt its heat through the thick material of the towel. She closed her eyes, fighting the need to spread her legs for him. Her pussy clenched as his hand palmed her ass and squeezed. He ground his heated length against her abdomen. She groaned, her hips rotating to both ease the ache and seek out the erection that caused it.
Zeus lifted her onto the edge of the sink, his hips filling the space between her trembling thighs. The sink was cold against her bare ass. She wanted this. She wanted him, but she wouldn’t reward him for using her to clean. Reaching back to steady herself, her hand encountered the bar of soap close to the faucet. She gripped it like it was a blade and struck Zeus on the side of the head with it as his lips played along the side of her neck. The corner of the soap came back dented. Zeus pulled back, frowning down at her with confusion and lust.
“Back off before I shove this bar of soap up your ass.”
“You would sodomize me with my own soap? Is that how you like it, Bree?” he asked, tilting his head to the side in reflection.
She dropped the soap in the sink and pushed against his chest, scrambling back to steady ground tightening the towel around her again.
“What I’d like is to on put my bedclothes, eat, and go to bed.”
“Don’t you want to…finish? I’ll make it quick.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said, walking around him. “I’m not letting you screw me. Go jack off to your rugby game.”
She walked to his room, snatched up her suitcase, and walked past him again on her way to the smaller bedroom. Slamming the door shut, she locked it, though she knew if Zeus wanted to get in, he would. She put the overlong, spaghetti-strapped nightshirt on and slid into a pair of pajama bottoms so old they looked dingy even though they were clean. There was no TV, radio, or any other form of entertainment in this room. The bed was pushed up against the corner of the far wall. There was a squat, tired-looking wooden dresser, an older end table near the head of the bed, and a junkyard reject of a shadeless lamp placed on top of it. The naked bulb was covered with a layer of dust.
Sabrina’s stomach made a sound so fierce it reminded her of the wild animals outside. She put her hand against it, but it continued to grumble. She heard a screen door open and close. A few moments later it grumbled again as Zeus came stomping back into the kitchen. She moved to the locked door. The promise of charbroiled meat compelled her to open it and walk toward the large square table in the center of the kitchen and sit down, daring Zeus not to serve her.
“There are no sheets on the bed in that room,” Zeus informed her as he placed two sturdy terra-cotta plates on the table.
She ignored him, though he had her stomach’s full attention as he forked a slab of juicy meat onto her plate. String beans were doled out after he placed a foil-wrapped potato next to the steak.
“Where’d you get all this stuff?”
“Meat and beans were in the deep freezer. Potatoes in the yard,” he said, sitting down with the bottle of ale he’d pulled from the refrigerator. There was a lukewarm glass of tap water for her.
“Thank you,” she uttered, somewhat shamed. Okay, so he hadn’t helped her clean, but he’d cooked for her. It meant something.
“You really want to thank me, come over here, pull out my dick, straddle my lap and—”
“Stop.”
“Just saying. You really want to thank me…”
“You’ve gotten all the thanks you’re going to get, Zeus.”
As she cut into the steak and put the first bite into her mouth, she rethought her last statement. She wanted to climb on him and thank him from the deepest recesses of her inner sex. The meat was seasoned to perfection and as tender as love’s first kiss. She moaned, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy.
“And that’s how I fuck you without ever laying a finger on you.”
She ignored him. Smug bastard. But he was right. All her five senses hummed with satisfaction. She took a bite of her string beans and scowled at him. She did not get horny over food. At least not before Zeus had cooked for her. The man was nearly a stranger. A strange stranger, at that, but every time he touched her with his body or by proxy via food, she descended into a fit of arousal. She wasn’t shy about sex or her sexuality, but she’d had no idea how powerfully her body could respond until Zeus had shared his own brand of thunder.
Eventually she stopped inhaling her food long enough to notice he had not touched his. He watched her with that immovable gaze. Waiting.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her attraction to him was illogical. Even when he was pissing her off, or ignoring the fact that she was a woman capable of making the best decisions for herself, she wanted him.
“You want to know what’s really silly?” he asked, leaning forward.
“A grown man choosing to make me believe he was helping with the cleaning when he was really hiding away in a room watching some stupid game?”
“First, I wasn’t hiding. Second, rugby is not stupid.”
“So say all men about stupid games.”
“Only real men play rugby,” he said, dismissing her as he dug into his food.
“Do you play?”
“When I have the time. Learned when I was a kid living in Marseille with the nuns.”
“I can’t imagine you playing team sports.” She smiled.
“Liked hitting people when I was a kid, and I could take a hit. Also liked how the game is organized.”
“So why not football? American football, that is.”
“Wasn’t born here. They had rugby back home, so I learned rugby. Plus, there’s stuff touching you in American football. Don’t really like to be touched.”
“For someone who doesn’t like to be touched, you sure do a lot of touching,” she said as she reached for her glass.
“I like touching you,” he said, waving the steak knife in her direction. “When something feels as good as you, makes sense to touch. Got the blades; also got you.”
She had to admit there was something intensely addictive about his touch. She had never felt the same intensity with any other man, and after the abuse she had experienced with Ernesto, she shouldn’t feel this way about a man who was so obviously violent.
“So, if you don’t like being touched, why would you play rugby? They touch a lot in that game too.”
He shook his head and looked at her as if she were denser than petrified oak. He stood abruptly and pulled her toward his bedroom, navigating her to the foot of the bed and forcing her to sit. He disconnected the headphones, and the sounds of the rugby match filled the room.
“Look at the players there. What do you see?”
“They’re dressed in all black?”
“Exactly. Not so hard to understand, is it?”
Hell no she didn’t understand, but him treating her like she was developmentally delayed didn’t prompt her to want to ask questions.
“I’m sure this all makes sense in the world of Zeus—”
“Zeus’s world. Mount Olympus. That’s what I should call this place.”
“Whatever. The point is, me recognizing one of the teams is wearing all black doesn’t help me know what you’re trying to have me understand.”
“I don’t like to be touched,” he said, then left. She heard him in the kitchen, finishing his meal, and not ten minutes later he was back in the bedroom.
“I don’t like things pressing on me, we
ighing me down. American football has too much equipment. Rugby, you got your uniform and your cleats and your cup. Everything else is optional.”
“I used to want to be a dancer.” The words exited her mouth before she’d realized they wanted to come out.
Shut it, Sabrina. You don’t share your life with anybody. Shut the hell up. She’d made the mistake of opening up a little with Ernesto, and he’d used every bit of knowledge about her to exploit, play on, or prey on her so seamlessly she hadn’t even realized that she was being manipulated.
“Break up? Break up for what, Brina? I was wrong, baby. It won’t ever happen again. You know I love you, would do anything for you. It’s you and me, Brina. I’ll take care of you and make sure you’re never lonely or alone. I’ll never abandon you like your mother and sister did, not even when the times are hard. I love you just that much, baby, and I never want to see you hurt again.”
Sabrina knew Zeus was waiting for her to say more, but she watched the television, watched the hard-bodied men running down the field in a formation she didn’t understand.
“I like that one dance move where they twirl down from the pole while hanging upside down. Did you ever learn to do that?”
It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about. When she did, she snatched a pillow from behind her and swung at him, connecting with nothing, he was so fast.
“I said dancer, not stripper, you idiot.”
“I prefer the lap dance, but Big Country swears the—”
“That is not dancing,” she gritted out, trying to regain her composure. “Jesus, men are such idiots. I said I wanted to be a dancer. For sane, somewhat well-adjusted people, that means a trained dancer—modern, jazz, ballet, West African, take your pick. A stripper takes her clothes off to music, and though some of them are good, even trained, stripping is not dancing.”
“You say toh-may-toe, I say toh-mah-toe. Who knew you’d be such a dance snob?” He leaned back on the bed. “You ever strip before?”
“No.”
“Not even for your man?”
“No, not even.”
“You ever want to? Strip for your man, that is?”
She shrugged. The only man she’d ever wanted to please so desperately had been Ernesto, and he hadn’t liked her taking too much control in the bedroom. To him, a little striptease would have been proof she’d been cheating on him. He would’ve said the only place she could have learned such behavior was in another man’s bedroom. He liked to believe she was some naive thing that needed to be kept away from the ugly desires of other men. A striptease for Ernesto would have ended in violence. Him accusing her and lashing out, and Sabrina, never one to be cowed, always defending herself. Toward the end there had been too many bloody nights sparked by his insecurity over her fidelity. The irony was that, for as long as they’d been together, there had been only him.
“Would you strip for me?”
She felt the familiar heat churn low in her belly. He was watching her in a cool, contemplative way, but his eyes, polished silver, gave proof of the desire burning inside of him.
If she extended her foot, slipped it between his legs, she knew she would find him hard and ready; she knew this.
“Possibly,” she dared. “If you asked me in the right way.”
“Strip for me,” he gritted out as if she were causing him physical pain.
She smiled and straddled the bed on her knees. She rolled her hips in a dirty wind, inching her nightdress up her thighs as she did. Then she cocked an eyebrow and plopped down on the bed, propping the pillows against the headboard and leaning back against them to continue watching the match, cutting the cord on whatever degenerate fantasy he was having.
“No, I won’t strip for you, because first you have to learn to ask.”
His jaw clenched and unclenched many times as she smiled over at him. He eventually broke eye contact and rubbed a frustrated hand over his face.
“Well, will you at least dance for me?” The way he said dance made it clear he thought little of the art form.
She snorted. “Oh no, poor man. That’ll require even more good behavior than a striptease.”
“Tease. That describes you perfectly.”
She continued to smile. It was nice seeing him disgruntled. And he hadn’t reached for a single blade during the entire discussion.
“What’s so special about dancing, anyway?”
She rolled to her side and hugged the pillow against her head as she spoke to him. “Lots of things. Like when you dance, you feel strong, but you also feel fluid. You flow. But mostly, most importantly, when I danced, I never felt alone. It was like being connected to everything by rhythm and movement.”
“That’s what it’s like with my blades.”
“Blade dancer,” she teased.
He pulled her knee over his thigh. “I like that. Blade dancer. Me and my blades dancing to the tune of the blade’s spirit.”
It was probably a bad call on her part to indulge his delusions, but she had to admit there was a certain divineness to how he could work his blades.
“So are you going to train me on how to use them tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow we’ll dance together. With the blades.”
“You better not cut me, Zeus. I’m serious.”
“Woman, I’m not some green boy. I cut only when I intend to.”
The stadium went into an uproar, and Zeus sat up and surged toward the television.
“What happened?”
“Try.”
“Try what?”
Again, he looked at her as if her name was Idiot. “Big fucking hit. Turnover. Try.”
“Is that good?”
“For the All Blacks it is. That Wallaby half-conscious on the ground, he’s done in. He won’t think it’s so good. ”
“So why are they holding the guy up by his shorts like that?” she asked later as one guy’s teammates lifted him in the air by the shorts to catch the ball.
“Not a good time for questions.”
She huffed and leaned back into the pillows. She intermittently watched the game and watched Zeus watching the game. He wasn’t one of those animated fans. He sat on the edge of the bed silent, still, and engrossed.
Sabrina closed her eyes after a while. The game was interesting and fast moving, but she didn’t know enough about it for it to keep her from resisting the pull of sleep. Maybe my exhaustion also comes from the fact that my body is still healing, she thought.
“Hey.”
The word drifted to her from across an ocean of darkness, but the utterance might as well have been the anchor dragging her to the deepest fathoms of sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Zeus leaned on his side as he watched Sabrina sleep. He’d turned the television off, and her features were submerged in shadow. She was curled in a fetal position on top of the bedcovers, a section of the comforter folded over her legs. Zeus reached down, flipped the comforter off her, and dragged his hand from the knobby part of her ankle all the way up to her hip. Her skin was melted chocolate beneath his fingertips. When would the need, the pleasure, from touching her skin cease?
He brushed a twist of hair away from her face, only to watch it spring back to its original position. He played in the soft mass just because he liked the feel of it against his rough palm. When playing in her hair wasn’t enough, he rose from the bed and stripped. Naked, he paused, experiencing another rush of pleasure. She was sleeping in his bed. His. He got hard, his dick straining to claim her. She was in his bed, was his to satisfy. Confident with that knowledge, he left the room and took a quick shower. As the water ran over his skin, he felt as powerful as the god his mother had named him after. He was rich with possessions that he could use to tempt Sabrina to remain with him. She wasn’t used to having much, so she’d be grateful. He would share what he had to get what he wanted, which was her body, available for his use for as long as he wanted to use it. And if being the benevolent god didn’t work,
he had no problem embodying the demons the priests had accused him of being possessed by.
Returning to his bedroom, he saw Sabrina hadn’t moved from where he had left her. In his shower fantasy he’d imagined her awake and naked on her back, legs bent and spread wide, liquid ready for him to climb up and push into her. He watched, mesmerized by the rise of her breasts as she breathed. She was deeply asleep, beyond this world, but he was talented enough to bring her back and send them both to a place they would inhabit together. And like Adam and Eve, they would be the human inhabitants, and the only snake the one dangling between his thighs. Leaning over, Zeus slowly turned Sabrina onto her back.
She made a sound somewhere between a moan and sigh, and he froze in the process of angling his knife toward her shoulder. He remained still, not wanting her to wake up. He hadn’t gotten to play yet, and he suddenly wanted to play.
Once she’d settled, he resumed cutting the strap of her nightshirt. He spread her arms and cut the sides, from beneath her armpits to the hem. He removed the top piece, humming with pleasure. Her breasts were ripe and waiting to be squeezed and sucked, but he tuned them out, diligently cutting the ugly drawstring pajama bottoms from hip to ankle. When he made his way to the inseam between her thighs, he closed his eyes and rested his head against her pelvic bone, shaking with the level of restraint needed to go slow. All he wanted to do was bury his face in her crotch and suck her essence straight into him.
Soon. I will wake her soon, he thought as he finished cutting away her clothing. Perfection. He reached out and squeezed her breast, playing with it before lowering his head to the puckered nipple, sucking. “Wake up,” he commanded.
Sabrina writhed, her body undulating beneath him as her gaze locked on to his, silently pleading for more. He sucked so hard on her nipple he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d drawn milk. Trailing kisses from her solar plexus down to her navel, he moved toward the springy curls that veiled his heaven.