Page 119 of This Divine Revelry

It feels, suddenly, like if I don’t kiss him the world might never resume its turning.

So I lean into that hand, tilt my face to his and our lips brush in one desperate, greedy inhale. My eyes fall shut and there is only him, not eternal or inevitable but fleeting and hesitant and now – a moment to grasp, to hold close, to cling to even as it slips.

His other hand glides to the small of my back, and he pulls me in even closer.

I run my palms over his chest, feeling his heart thrashing beneath. I curl my fingers into the fabric of his chiton, so tight it might rip, but needing to grasp him close.

My teeth catch at his lip and he groans into my open mouth, that hand on my back dipping lower, drawing more of me closer. He parts his lips to moan once more, tilting his head back, and I take advantage, kissing along his jaw, down his throat, right where that pulse jumps.

‘Ariadne,’ he breathes, a half-strangled sound. ‘If you tell me we need to go back to that party right now …’

‘No, I don’t think I’m welcome there.’

‘Excellent.’

He twists, his arm catching beneath my legs, and before I am aware quite what is happening, I am in his arms, my own flung about his neck, half screaming and half laughing from the shock of it all as he begins hurtling down the mountainside.

‘If you trip and kill us both,’ I start.

‘Then I’ll really regret not taking my father up on his offer.’

‘That’s not funny.’

I bury my head into his shoulder as he chuckles beneath me – but then I’m breathing in the soft earthy scent of him: ivy and pine and the sweet, heady hint of wine. I want to strip him of it all, the leaves twisted in a crown atop his head and the pine-teeth jewellery and everything else, and I want to breathe in deep and know what is him, beneath it all.

When we cross the threshold of our tent, he pushes me on to the table, his hands on my waist, at once tender and urgent, his lips on mine, my legs about him, drawing him closer.

‘Will you take your clothes off,’ I ask, voice a breathy whine. ‘Please?’

‘We don’t have to,’ he says, his hands running from my waist, along my hips and down to the outer edges of my thighs, like without touching the shape of me he might never know it.

‘I’d like to,’ I say, reaching for the clasp of my own belt. ‘If you do. If you want to.’

He groans, the sound lodging in the back of his throat, almost guttural and so desperately needy. ‘I want to. I very much want to.’

‘Oh, thank the Fates,’ I sigh, reaching for the ties of his own chiton.

He leans over to kiss me. Sitting like this, I have to arch up into him, pressing back on to my elbows. His kiss is dizzying, warm and desperate, and I have never wanted anything as much as him.

Need curls, hungry and voracious, and there is not an ounce of regret or fear or shame, nothing weighing me down, not any more.

Not with him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

IDO NOT WAKE WITH the sun but with shouting.

Dionysus and I are a tangled heap of limbs, our legs entwined, my head on his chest, his arms tight around me. His skin is so warm, flushed against mine, almost uncomfortably so, but I do not want to move, as though the only way to cling to this contentment is to never leave his embrace. So for a few glorious seconds, I convince myself the yells are simply returning revellers from the night before.

But there is an undeniable note of panic to the shrieks.

‘Dionysus,’ I say, scrambling from the bed.

He grumbles a protest.

‘Dionysus!’ I demand, searching through the abandoned pile of cloth for something to throw on.

He sighs into his pillow and pats the space on the bed where I’d just lain, scowling when he finds it empty. Then he opens his eyes, gaze darting around until he sees me holding a chiton out to him.