Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“It’s the pencil skirts. Every time you turn around, your perfect ass is right there and I’m fighting for my life to keep things proper and professional.”
“Apollo.” She raises her brows. “I am reasonably confident in how I look, but no one is going to look at my ass and label it perfect.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
She worries her bottom lip. “I guess not.” She stops in front of me, a few inches short of my knees. “I’ve looked at you, too.”
“Tell me.”
The blush beneath her skin deepens. For someone who can be so cool and collected while facing down any number of powerful people, it’s remarkably easy to make her blush. I like that. It feels like it’s just for me. Cassandra tugs at a strand of her hair. “You know you’re sexy as fuck. Don’t try to pretend you don’t. And you show up every day in these perfectly tailored suits. I’m human. Of course I’ve looked.”
I check her expression. She’s entirely focused on me now, not thinking about the scary things that happened earlier. Good. “Have you done more than look?”
She licks her lips. “It would be the height of unprofessionalism for me to finger myself the second I walk through the door of my apartment because I spent two hours in a meeting staring at the hollow of your throat after you loosened your tie.”
I lean forward and catch her hips, urging her closer until she stands straddling me. Better. This time, I keep touching her as I lean back, running my hands lightly down the outsides of her thighs and back up again. Her skin is so soft. It makes me want to taste every inch of her.
All in good time.
“Did you do that, Cassandra?”
“Yes.” She answers so simply. “More than once. It infuriated me every time. I didn’t want to want you.”
“And now?”
“I still don’t want to want you.” The words contain no edge, but they fall between us like stones. It’s going to hurt her when this ends, too. Maybe that should be enough to make me change course, but the truth is that we’ve gone too far to escape unscathed.
We had even before we kissed the first time.
“Do you trust me, Cassandra?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
It makes my chest ache in the most glorious way to hold the trust of this prickly, capable woman. I love her. I’ve known it for some time, but I can admit it to myself right now, in this moment. It’s going to break my heart when she leaves, and I’m not selfish or cruel enough to tell her how I feel with that deadline bearing down on both of us. She cares for me, but even if she felt exactly as I do, I won’t put her in a position of choosing between me and her sister. She’s suffered enough as the result of the powerful in Olympus.
“Go to the bed and lie down on your back.”
She blinks down at me. I find myself holding my breath as Cassandra considers me. She doesn’t make me wait long. “Okay.”
I make myself stay seated as she obeys. I get a flash of her pussy as she crawls along the middle of the bed and eases onto her back, and the sight has me fighting down a groan. Patience. I can have patience. Tonight isn’t about me and what I desire. It’s about giving her what she needs.
“What did you think about the last time you touched yourself?”
“I—”
“I would like to hear it. In explicit detail.” I push slowly to my feet and shrug out of my jacket. My fingers fumble a bit as I unbutton my cuffs and start on the ones down the center. I pause after two and raise my brows. “I’m waiting.”
She smiles faintly. “You like hearing me talk, don’t you?”
“It’s one of my favorite things,” I answer honestly. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, and I love your mind.” I smile. “I also love hearing you go breathless when you talk about what you desire.”
“What I desire is for you to take off your shirt.”
I tug at the third button…and then stop.
She huffs out a breath. “Okay, fine. The last time was after that meeting about Aphrodite—the previous Aphrodite.”
I remember exactly what she’s talking about. The last Aphrodite was exiled from Olympus some months ago, but she’s not the type to disappear quietly and leave everyone in peace. In the time she’s been gone, she’s attempted to launch no less than three smear campaigns against Psyche Dimitriou. At Zeus’s instruction, I’ve managed to catch all of them early and dispel them; he doesn’t want a whisper of scandal to touch his new wife’s family.
That particular meeting had gone long while we sat in on a video call with the team tasked to take down all the posts she’d managed to publish, along with a particularly damning interview scheduled to go live the next morning. Afterward, I was furious enough to have gone through the same song and dance three times that I ordered my team to find a way to plant a virus in her computer and erase everything, with a threat that her finances would be next if she continued on this route. “What was it about that mess that got to you?”