“Maisey,” he rumbled, drawing all of my attention. We were inches away from each other, our lips almost touching as he barely stayed afloat, too caught up in whatever drew us together. My nipples brushed lightly against his chest and I had to ball my hands into fists to keep from moaning.
“It’s the bond, right?” I said breathlessly. “This pull … the attraction. The bond is causing that?”
Cronus’ chest rumbled, and as it swelled it pressed harder against my bare breasts, sending the most delicious sensations through my body. My hands were moving toward him, but somehow, at the last second, I managed to stop myself.
“The bond ties us physically together,” Cronus said, his face unreadable but his eyes blazing. “Physically, and our life energies. But it has nothing to do with an emotional bond. I cannot manipulate emotions.”
That meant … this was all real. On my side at least. I had no idea what he was feeling, outside of a fairly obvious erection that spoke of his attraction. I mean, it was a good place to start, but my feelings went so much deeper and it scared me.
Suddenly I regretted playing this game with him, trying to lure him into sex with me, to have one night. One night wasn’t going to be enough for me. I wanted years. I was going to get hurt. I was going to get so badly hurt that I would cease to be the Maisey Hope Parker that I was now.
Could I risk that? Cronus was the riskiest thing I’d ever had in my life, and maybe, just maybe … it was too much for me.
I’d been through a lot of loss in my life. My mom, losing my dad to alcohol, then the actual death of my dad. It was too much. I jerked my face away and swam toward the ladder that led up to the docks. “Too tired to swim now,” I called carelessly over my shoulder, hoping he’d think it was exhaustion that caused the waver in my voice. “Time to get some sleep.”
I’d played with fire and I’d almost gotten burnt. Right now I couldn’t decide if it would have been worth the flames for one night with Cronus, or if I made the right decision.
Either way, I was going to bed wet and horny, and that had nothing to do with the ocean water dripping from me.
