Awakened Love

by Skyler Andra

  “This connects our hearts,” I told him, caressing it lovingly in one hand. “But I have three of them. One for Rane and Mads too. I don’t know why they’re there because I’ve never read them. I promised Rane I would never look without his permission, and I’m too scared to read the other two.”

  Technically I’d read a little of Byron’s, but only in the heat of the moment, and to understand where he was coming from moments earlier.

  “For some reason I have a connection to all three of you,” I continued. “I can’t help that. Either this Cupid power has made my heart greedy, or I’m turning into a slut.”

  “You’re not a slut,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine.

  “Then what am I?” I asked, pulling away to search his dark eyes and hoping he’d have the answer…or that Athena might.

  “You’re you,” he said. “Each one of us speaks to your heart in a different way.”

  Yeah. I liked that. Sensible. Wise. Truth.

  “All I know is that I’ve got to find a way back to you,” I said, “or I’m going to go crazy.”

  Byron shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. You’re here. With me. And I want to enjoy you all to myself.”

  In my heart, I understood the depth behind his words. He wanted to fuck me. I desperately wanted that too. But how was that going to work if I was some sort of ethereal being, only present in solid form until the connection between our cords broke? Guess we’d find out soon.

  Chapter 3

  Locke

  I sighed as Byron’s hands rested briefly on my sides and then slid forward to cup my breasts. He supported me while squeezing my breasts with increasing strength, and I leaned back against him, aware of his power. When he started to pluck firmly at my nipples, I bit down to stop the soft cry in my throat, but he didn’t cease until they were hard.

  He wasn’t gentle with me, but I didn’t want that, not with him. Gentle was for someone else at another point in time. One hand dragged short nails along the side of my sensitive breast while the other drifted down to the fluffy hair between my legs. At his urging, I spread my legs and tilted my hips forward, giving him the access that he wanted. Two sturdy fingers slid along my slit until even I could smell how aroused I was getting, and it wasn’t until I was thrusting my hips against his hand that he brought those fingers to my aching clit.

  All it would have taken was a few deeper strokes before I’d be coming all over him. Instead, he pulled back, stepping away so quickly that I stumbled. I had barely righted myself when he knotted his hand in my hair, dragging me up to face him. I felt a chill of amazingly delicious fear rush down to my core before he spoke.

  “Do you want to come tonight, Locke?” Byron asked me, his dark eyes blazing with desire.

  “Yes!” I panted, reaching for him.

  “Then you’re going to do exactly as I say,” he warned with a firmness bordering on gruff. “Or I’m going to make sure that you don’t. I will touch you, and lick you, and finger you, but I’m going to keep you there all night unless you do what I say.” A slight and determined smile whisked across his face.

  I swallowed hard at his order, hungry for whatever it was he had planned. Byron liked to be totally in charge, and that was fine with me. The low thrum of heat deep in my body would make me listen extra carefully to his every command to make sure we both got what we wanted.

  “On the bed. On all fours.” His voice cracked like a whip, doing wild things to my body.

  Aching for him to touch me once more, I scampered into his bedroom and onto the bed, immediately taking my position just as he’d told me to do. Heat pooled in my core as I waited for him to enter. He took his time, strolling in slowly, gaze drifting along my waiting body. The bastard made me wait longer as he opened one drawer by his bedside, removing something.

  “So beautiful like this, Locke,” he said hoarsely, coming to my side and stroking my cheek. “I think you look your best when you’re bent and waiting for me.”

  An echo of him saying something similar to me trembled through me, and I quivered like a dog waiting for a bone. By Byron’s tone, he sounded as if he were commenting on a piece of art, and for some reason that objectification made me hotter than before. Gently, he spread my knees until they were set wider than my hips. Then he pressed a hand between my shoulder blades to push me down on my elbows, my forehead resting on my crossed wrists. It was an incredibly vulnerable position, open to him and everything he might want to do with me, but he seemed to like me this way. Back in the desert, he’d position me in exactly the same way for maximum pleasure for his cock to reach to my furthest depths.

  Slowly, he inched my dress up my back, exposing my skin.

  “No underwear,” he murmured, and I peeked back to see him sucking his finger before running it along my clit. “Just the way I like it.”

  A whimper welled in my throat and I let it out.

  “Look,” he said, holding a small purple object in front of me. It was shaped like a cone, but the wide end shrunk suddenly to a narrow neck before flaring out again into a wide disk.

  My belly clenched with fear and lust, and I nearly pressed my legs together again.

  “Do you know what this is for?” he asked.

  My throat was so dry I had to swallow twice before I could force out a reply. “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  I liked the way he made me answer him. It sent an extra pulsing flush of heat to my core when I forced the words out of my mouth.

  “It’s a butt plug,” I responded dutifully.

  I’d worked a phone sex line before all of this god stuff had started, and I knew my way around a few sex toys.

  “Very good,” Byron praised. “And what am I going to do with it?”

  I swallowed hard. “You’re going to put it in my ass.”

  “Why?”

  God, did he get off on hearing me spell it out for him? To talk dirty? Well, I had plenty of practice at that. Plus, I was willing to do anything to feel him inside of me again.

  “Possibly to get me ready for you to fuck me there,” I replied. “Or because you want it there while you do other things.”

  His chuckle was deep and full of promise. I wasn’t about to resist unless I knew it was something I didn’t want to do.

  “Clever girl,” he said, patting me on the ass before rubbing the plug over my soaking wet slit, gathering up that moisture until it was almost unbelievably smooth and sleek.

  In anticipation of what he was about to do, I grabbed at the sheets, bracing to be filled and fucked and made to come over and over again until I forgot my own name. Then he pulled it away briefly, and I whined with disappointment, making him laugh again.

  “Be patient…” he purred.

  The tip of the plug rested against my anus, lubricated with my own wetness, and I groaned as he pressed it forward. A burning sensation accompanied the plug’s descent inside me, and I breathed as deeply as I could. I appreciated that he wasn’t rough, but he was not going to stop unless I called a halt to things, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. For a moment I was sure I couldn’t take anymore, and just when the stretch of the plug hurt too much, my body closed around it and the disc at the end, preventing it from sliding any deeper.

  “Tell me how that feels,” Byron ordered, and I could have smacked him for sounding as cavalier about it as if he had been inquiring about someone else’s lunch.

  “How do you think it feels?” I snapped, and he laughed even as his hand landed a hefty smack on my rear. It stung for just a moment, but I wanted more.

  Byron landed another blow, and then another. Each one jostled the plug inside me, making me clench my legs and rock against the bed. The sting on my flesh prickled, but so did the warmth rising from deep inside me. I didn’t have to think when I was with him. All I had to do was please him because he would please me.

  He paused for a moment, resting his hand possessively on the back of my neck. “Try again. H
ow does it feel?”

  “Tight,” I muttered at last. “Full. Like it’s almost too much.”

  Byron ran a firm hand along my spine. “Is it too much?”

  “No, it’s not,” I replied. “And now I want…”

  “What?”

  “You know,” I whined and then yelped at another blow to my rear.

  “I don’t.” He was the type that liked to play little games to extract what I wanted out of me.

  “I want you to fuck me,” I blurted out, and he sucked in his breath.

  “I’m going to,” he assured after a few moments. “But first I want something else.”

  He returned to his bedside drawers and removed what looked like a whip with few long strands.

  “What the hell, Byron?”

  “Believe me, this isn’t a punishment.” He smiled like a cunning fox about to dine on a chicken, and I was his prey. “If it was, you would know it.”

  I whimpered a little, imaging what a crack from it might feel like.

  “No, this is for me,” he said, gripping the whip end with his other palm. “Because you’ll be even more beautiful when you are squirming about.”

  After his last words, he brought the whip down across my rear, making me yelp. As with the spanking, the sting was fast, the heat spiking on my backside. This time, he let the fire build before he drew back his arm to strike once more. I cried out again.

  When I grew up, I had suffered a lot of different pain in my life because people tried to hurt me, tried to make me talk, or were just being careless with me. This was different. This was pain that was happening solely because Byron enjoyed spanking, and there was nothing wrong with that unless he wanted to hurt me.

  Hands knotted in the sheets, I wiggled from side to side, causing my body to contract around the plug. Suddenly I was even more aware of how wet I was, how much my desire from earlier had turned into something that blazed through me. I was ready to beg him to tear off his own clothes and come stand behind me, to place his rough hands around my waist and drag me back towards him.

  “Take off the shirt,” Byron ordered. “Show yourself to me.”

  That was harder. I liked my body well enough, but I knew I was nothing much to compare to the beauties of the ages. I was on the short side, curvy, with brown hair that curled slightly to my shoulders and was badly in need of a trim. As I slid the silk slowly off of my shoulders, I felt aware of my body in a way I hadn't been before—aware of the heaviness of my breasts, the slight hang of my belly, the way the cold caused goosebumps to rise on my skin.

  I turned my head to find Byron watching me with a hungry smile on his lips, like I was good enough to eat, and it made my breath hitch slightly. His desire sparked mine, and if it wasn’t quenched, I might explode.

  If he were Rane, I would be pulled into a rough and tumble embrace, and Mads would have teased me forever. Byron...well, my beloved Byron loved to be in charge, but there was something yielding in him as well, something that loved both ends of the whip so to speak. Passion ran deep inside him, only roaring to the surface when he allowed it to do so.

  In seconds, he was free of his clothes, his gorgeous, toned body on display, his cock standing to attention. He crawled onto the bed behind me, teasing me with his cock, prodding it against my slick lower lips for just a moment before sinking inside me with a groan. The feeling of utter fullness and possession made me moan. Briefly, he cupped his hand over the back of my neck again, but this time the gesture was oddly sweet, almost apologetic. Soon Byron was pushing into me, driving deeper over and over again with a single-minded purpose that drove me right out of my head. Pleasure crested higher and higher, and soon I forgot everything as my body tensed, chasing after the climax that he had promised me. But I stretched it out, resisting just a little to make it even more intense. I think he could tell what I was doing, and with a growl, he reached around my hip and down, finding my clit with a crude touch.

  “I want you to writhe on my cock,” he growled, and another rough swat on my backside was all that it took.

  A gasping wail escaped my throat at how good it felt, and then it was abruptly too much for my body. I felt as if I had been hit by lightning. Everything was shock and pleasure, and I cried out while seeing stars. Byron tensed, roaring as he came inside me as well. My pleasure was so intense that I think I blacked out for a minute. When my awareness returned, his body was resting against my back before he gently pulled away from me, even as I complained.

  “Come on, Locke,” he said, lifting me.

  I muttered a protest, but he carried me to the bathroom where he pulled me into the shower with him. Under the warm water, he pushed me to lean against the walls with my back to him, and I winced as his strike marks burned on my rear. I shifted a little as he pulled the plug out and dropped it on the floor. His tender kisses on my shoulders and the back of my neck almost undid me again as he washed me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked finally, and I turned to face him.

  Hell, if he hurt me, I’d have let him know. All he wanted was for us both to have a good time.

  “I’m good,” I replied, running my fingers along his chest where it was flushed red from his orgasm. “I feel like I should be asking the same of you.”

  He smiled a little at that, shrugging with one shoulder. “Are you sure you want to be asking that of someone who just beat your ass red?”

  I waved off his question. “That was then, and we’re not playing right now.”

  Byron gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead as he switched off the shower then dried me off just the way he liked it, with gentle dabs of his towel.

  “You know, we can’t stay here all day,” he said all of a sudden, bringing me crashing back to reality.

  And just like that, as if reality bowed to his command, the scenery around me dulled. Byron’s form blurred as if he were about to float away.

  “Shit, Byron,” I snapped, angry at him. “Why’d you have to say that?”

  “What’s the matter?” His voice was sharp, like he hadn’t noticed everything change around us.

  “What the hell? You’re fading!” I threw my arms around him in a sudden panic. “Byron… Byron! Don’t you dare! You stay right the fuck here you…”

  I had just barely found him again with the assistance of my Cupid powers. Fate couldn’t be so cruel to tear us apart again. Not my best friend, my lover, the one I trusted most in this world. I refused. Despite clinging to him as hard as I could, he still faded away, yanked from me like some sick joke. Then I was alone, and a tight sob welled in my chest. It was too much. I knew that no matter what happened, I loved Byron, possibly had for years. What the two of us had went back beyond this idiocy of the gods, and I could not, would not, lose him.

  Right then, my cord flung me back into my bed and I bounced on it as if I’d been shaken awake from a dream. The silkiness of the pillow caressed my cheek while the chill of one hand outside of the covers drew my attention. For one brief and horrifying moment, I thought that I had had a stroke or something; at least, I couldn’t move any part of me. Then I woke up fully with a start, sitting up in bed to candles flickering on my bedside and a fire lit in the hearth of my fireplace.

  There was no trace of anything out of the ordinary. It was the same room that I had been given when I’d arrived. I shook my head, refusing to accept that it had been a dream. It was too vivid by far for that. Byron had felt too real in my head, but that meant…

  Oh god, that meant that he needed me.

  A month ago, I had come to the underworld because I’d thought it was the best thing to do to get Byron, Mads, and Rane and all the others to safety. Locke Casey wasn’t one for heroic sacrifice, but we’d been seriously running out of options, and the drastic measure had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Foolish me had thought that once I’d gotten them out, that would be the end of it, and they’d all live happy and secure lives.

  But what if my sacrifice hadn’t saved a damned thing?
Byron said he was still asleep on a cold slab. Where the hell was he? Were Mads and Rane under threat too? At the same place as Byron?

  Fire snapped through my veins. Had Hades tricked me? Told me he was going to make everything right and then kidnapped me as a plaything? Was he that desperate for company after his love had left him? Did he think I might make a suitable companion? He hadn’t made any untoward gestures to me. Or did he just like to collect souls?

  My hands fisted and punched the bed on either side of my legs. There was a reason they always said you could only rely on death and taxes. The former was sleeping down the hall. I didn’t want to imagine the lord of the dead as some low-level demon who fudged on the rules and made you damn yourself. But I couldn’t help it.

  Mads had warned me about Hades—said he didn’t care about anything. Now I finally understood what Mads meant. I wanted to kick myself for not being clearer regarding our bargain. My deal with Hades was to get my men safely out of the catacombs. Idiot me had left out any mention of them being protected after that.

  Now something else was going on, and I was trapped in the underworld while it did.

  I curled up in the bed and tried to go back to sleep. Perhaps I would get another visitation with Byron, or maybe I would meet Rane or Mads. Who knew? With the powers I was still discovering, it was possible.

  At first, I was so tense that I tossed and turned for a while. I had always been just a little bit of an insomniac, but the stress of the situation coupled with the sheer not knowing wasn’t helping whatsoever. Of course, it would have helped if I could go to sleep at all. I had a big day of exploring tomorrow. So, I lay in bed keeping my eyes resolutely closed until the light returned to the white sky outside as I prepared for my escape from the underworld.

  Chapter 4

  Locke

  I rose early in the morning, dressing in my old clothes that I’d worn into the underworld with a feeling of grim determination sinking in my bones. I was going to have to run fast in order to escape the sleepless servants drifting through the palace or the eye of Hades.