“You do love to play the innocent.But I know better.”He walked her backward step by step, kiss by kiss, through the wide leaves and flexible branches until they found a wall in a jungle, steam rising around them.
Until her back hit a wall.
A resting place for lovely torments best unseen.
He skimmed his lips along her cheek, her jaw, her neck, not quite touching, his gaze as foggy as the early morning atmosphere.Pressing one palm into the wall just above her head, he tugged the sleeve of her gown down her shoulder with his teeth.He lifted his other hand—wicked hand that it had not touched her yet—and?—
Hestia.
He held the honey pot.
Nuzzling the valley between her breasts and breathing hard, he said, “Reveal yourself.”
Unable to look away from the thick drop of golden sugar sliding over the edge of the pot, Sybil twisted her arms behind her to loosen her gown.She shrugged one shoulder then the other out of her sleeves, shimmying the fabric down until it dropped below her breasts and caught at her slightly bent elbows.She worked the laces of her corset then.
And he watched with hungry eyes.
He dragged his thumb up and down the honey jar, the tip of it flirting with the sticky trail, and when her corset gaped, he said, “Stop.”
She paused, fingers frozen at the laces.Then she dropped her arms, and he bent over her.His teeth scraped her skin as he took the fine lawn of her chemise between them.He tugged, and the feel of the fabric, the slide of his teeth, the tease of his lips—unbearably wonderful.
She arched.She moaned.She welcomed the blast of warm air across her skin.As her nipples pebbled, she knew what to expect—his mouth, his tongue, her pleasure.
She got nothing.Nothing but cold air and disappointment.He wasn’t even looking at her.
His gaze had shifted to the honey.He slipped a finger inside the jar, lifted it, watched the slow drizzle of honey downward.He slipped his finger into his mouth as his gaze shifted back to her.
“Sweet,” he said, “but you’re sweeter.”
Her knees buckled.Thank Hestia for the wall holding her up.
“Would you like a taste?”He dipped his finger back into the jar, and when she barely managed a nod, he slipped his finger into her mouth.
She met it with a tentative tongue, then a greedy one, and her attempts to swallow down every last drop of the honey made his eyes burst from blue to gold.There was an audible pop as he removed his finger from between her lips, and his jaw ticked.
He seemed intent on devouring her as she had the honey.But he did not move to do so.
Instead, he carefully curved a calculated half grin into one cheek and lifted the jar.“Look up.All the way up.And tell me what you see through the glass.”
She swallowed, tipping her head back where it rested against the wall.Through the miraculously fertile branches and wide leaves of Apollo’s resurrected garden, through the spotless glass, she saw the sky—blue as Apollo’s eyes and not quite as gorgeous.No glittering gold there to tempt a sensible woman to disastrous ends.
He moved before her, raising an arm, and she tried to look at him, but his hand at her jaw stopped her.So did a vine that had crawled across her throat, holding her soft but steady, just as he did.
“Look up, Sybil.And tell me.”
Another swallow as she obeyed.Between his hand and the ivy, she had no choice.
Something warm drizzled across her collarbone.Then his lips were there, sipping at it.This his tongue, licking a long line.His rumbles of appreciation shot need straight between her legs.
“The sky,” she managed to say.“I see the sky, blue shot through with y-yellow.”
Another line of honey drizzled between her bared breasts.“And?”he murmured, lips settling against that honey, against her skin.
“A-and… no clouds.Not a single one in sight.”
He laved the side of her breast.More honey rained against her skin, a drop landing on her nipple.
She gasped, arched, jerking up her hand because her body needed more touch.But her hand wouldn’t move.A vine of ivy curled around her wrist, keeping her in place.And at the back of her knees, the leaves of nearby plants brushed her sensitive skin, trailed little whips of branches beneath her skirts and high up her thighs.
