“I know. I don’t expect you to believe me, but this is just desire. No ulterior motives.” She exerts the tiniest bit of pressure, drawing me down, down, down to my doom.
“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” There’s a laughable amount of opportunity to step away, to put a stop to this, to remember all the reasons why this woman is the enemy. I don’t do any of it. Instead, I grab her hips and pull her flush against my body. “But I don’t want to talk, either.”
I kiss Circe.
23Atalanta
I am so tired of thinking. Of trying to be seven steps ahead of anyone around me. Years and years of existing as part of the world and separate at the same time I try to save it. Kissing Circe is damn near suicidal, but she tastes like bourbon and warmth and I can’t make myself be logical and noble right now. I just want tofeel.
I lift her, not remotely surprised to find her light enough that the move barely pulls on my injured shoulder. There’s a brief moment where the bed calls, but that feels unbearably intimate for what this is. I don’t like this woman. I want her, but I don’t like her. Instead of moving us somewhere more comfortable, I set her on the counter.
Circe breaks the kiss with a low laugh. “Pointed. Very pointed.”
“We don’t have to do this.” I want to. Gods, I want to. Just alittle window of time where I’m not thinking about Olympus or Hecate or the nebulous future that seems to get further and further away with every hour slipping past.
She drags a single finger down my sternum, to where the towel is starting to come loose. Just when I think she might free it completely, she shifts to trace around the bandage. To draw attention to the woundshecaused. “I could say I’m sorry if it will make you feel better about wanting me.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “Are you sorry?”
“I don’t make a habit of being sorry for anything. What’s done is done.” The words are right, delivered in that perfect cadence she uses to speak to the public. But the image falters and fractures when she nibbles at her bottom lip. “I’m happy not to have killed you, though. It would be a tragic waste of a beautiful woman.”
“I’m already willing to have sex with you, Circe. You don’t have to pour on the compliments to make it happen.”
Circe smiles slowly, a little crooked, her dimple once again making an appearance. “I don’t lie to my lovers, Atalanta. I certainly don’t attempt to manipulate them. There has to be some avenue in life that is free from duplicity.”
I have the strangest tightness in my chest as I stare down at her. I won’t pretend my bullshit meter is always perfect, but I’m not getting even the slightest hint that she might be lying right now. “I want you, but that doesn’t mean I like you, and I sure as fuck don’t trust you.”
“And maybe you want a little revenge for the hurt caused by…” She trails off, intentionally not putting Hecate’s name between us, but it’s there all the same. It will always be there.
She’s not entirely correct, though. The betrayal hurt, and deeply,but this is more a cumulation of being overwhelmed and needing a release, toxic though it may be. “Don’t tell me you’re a romantic.”
“Not anymore.” Her smile dims. “I’m not offering love tonight. Just pleasure.”
There’s no reason for the tightness in my chest to get worse in response to her words. Didn’t I just ruminate on the fact I don’t like this woman? “Then it’s a good thing I just want to fuck you.”
She reverses course and hooks her finger into the top of my towel. “A very good thing.” One tiny tug and it slides off my body to pool around my feet. Circe props herself back on her hands and justlooksat me.
I’ve had a handful of lovers over the years. Nothing serious, not when my heart always belonged to another, but something to mutually release some tension. They were always frantic encounters, fueled by the need tofeel, to escape. Just like this started.
Apparently Circe is changing the rules. She looks at me like she wants to consume me, bite by bite, relishing every taste and texture. She touches the scar just below my right breast. “What happened here?”
“A mission gone sideways. Stab wound.”
Her lips quirk, but her eyes are serious. “Are they still alive?”
I shake my head slowly. “I killed them.”
“Good.”
That prompts a laugh. “Don’t try to act protective.Youstabbed me. By that logic, I should kill you.”
“Do you want to?” She cups my breast, rubbing her thumb lightly over my nipple. It’s the tiniest touch, but a whimper presses against the inside of my lips. If I let her, this will be the tone of thenight, with her steering our ship right into the rocks of oblivion. It will be too vulnerable, too close to cracking open my rib cage and letting her see my beating, bloody heart. I can’t do it. This is a betrayal to Hecate, and no matter how angry I am at her, there are some lines I still can’t cross. I can’t give Circeintimacy, even if I share my body with her.
“Maybe in the morning.” I grab the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head. Even in the low light, I can see that she has scars of her own, more than I would have expected from a sweet-talking politician. But this woman also won a knife fight with me; there’s more to her than meets the eye. Getting this close is a privilege, and if I was even a little less desperate, I’d use this opportunity to end things once and for all. I should…
My body moves of its own accord, reaching past her to the knife block and snatching a blade. “Or maybe I really should do it right now.” I press it to her pale throat, our bodies so close that I swear I can feel her racing heart in my chest. “Give me one good reason not to kill you now.”
She stares at me, her green eyes filled with so much emotion it staggers me. “I can’t.”
