Mutinously, determined not to give in to his demand, at least not quite yet, Juliet remained motionless. Henry just gave her a single slow blink—of chastisement?—and jumped down when the wind blew in a few errant raindrops.
Traitor.
To Zeus, she said, “I should call you a brute, a beast.”
“You should’ve called Jacks,” Zeus chided, heaving a sigh. He came onto his knees, one on either side of her torso. “Called him long, long ago, and had me tossed out on my ear.”
“But I like your ears.” And that wasn’t all Juliet liked, she knew, given how she couldn’t take her eyes off the sight of Zeus’ erection. From the way he’d just knelt above her, the thick column swung heavily between them. So close she could reach out and touch it.
So she decided to, swallowing her apprehension, easing her arm forward ever so slowly. And in so doing, received an unexpected boon—avoiding that other place he’d requested.
Touch herself? Down there? Really! The bossy, beastly brute forgot himself.
Ladies hardly dallied and rarely explored skin typically blanketed by garments even during bathing. And that was under the cover of night and night rail! How could she fathom delving deep and discovering her own intimate parts—and in front of him no less?
“My lady?” His upper body was bowed, the corded muscles of his stomach rippling invitingly as he hunkered lower to look into her eyes. “Lady Juliet?”
She noticed how his voice had gone all raspy. His breathing all ragged.
She noticed more the unfamiliar weight of his glorious…prominence, brushing the backs of several fingers once she’d extended her hand.
A sharp flash of white illuminated the window side of him above her, bringing home how dark the sky and evening had grown. But more than that, it highlighted his nude thighs surrounding her. And how her hands had moved to either side and now rested firmly, solidly on each.
His strong muscles shivered beneath her untutored caress. His legs. His thighs.
No longer was she simply thinking or saying the taboo words designating his manly form. She was touching him, her virgin fingers mapping the warmly textured territory he’d only recently bared to her avid gaze.
Had that been just this afternoon? Then how was it that it seemed so long ago? As though she’d been yearning to clamp her fingers on these powerful legs forever?
Seeing the bare, usually gloved, hands that she knew belonged to her traversing over not marble but pliable, heated, flexing muscle brought home how very far she’d come in such a short time. All thanks to the man above her.
With a resounding hiss and crackle, lightning spiked in her periphery.
“Juliet…” The husky sound of his plea was answered by the dip in her stomach, by the outstretched arms that refused to lower.
The thunderous rumble that crashed outside didn’t faze either of them.
She was too busy scraping her palms up the coarsely soft hairs on his thighs and over the smooth, pale skin of his hips…
“Oh God.” And poor Zeus, he looked as though he was occupied trying not to keel over. “Are you…? Saints be praised, are you…about to intentionally touch my dirk?”
The undeniable pleading in his hoarse whisper encouraged her onward.
“I believe I am…” Juliet answered the question she wasn’t sure Zeus knew he’d asked out loud, given his stunned expression when she anchored her fingers deeper into his muscles instead of shying away.
The slight trembling of his legs as he straddled around her gave her the temerity to continue, loosening her grip on his thighs. She was startled when Zeus moaned, “Oh, God. Stop licking your lips like that.”
Stilling the involuntary motion of her tongue, she slowly inched her fingertips higher, furrowed them through the dense golden hairs at his groin. She stopped just before reaching his…cock. She thought it. Then she said it. “Your cock.”
“Oh, God. Juliet!” Shifting, he clenched his jaw, grasped his shaft in one hand, and fell forward on the opposite arm, bringing the reddened tip closer to her face. Closer to her lips.
“Could you?” he rasped. “Would you?”
It appeared so, because Juliet found her curiosity and desire to please him, as he’d pleased her in countless ways today, overrode inbred caution. Overruled years of repression.
“You don’t have to,” he said swiftly when she made no move toward him.
How could he know observing him from afar was vastly different from seeing him up close, where the heat of his body nearly poured off his skin, the searing allure of his erection simmering between them? Where the single sparkle of fluid emerging from the slit fascinated and entranced? She caught herself and just barely avoided licking her lips again.
But she’d waited too long.
On a harsh exhalation, he edged back. “I can wait. I did promise you patience.”
“You did.” She slid her hand around one hard thigh and tugged him forward.
“My lady? I meant it. You do not—”
“I now want to,” Juliet said, repeating what he’d told her about reading his character. “Need to, I am thinking.”
Zeus watched, awash in amazement, as she took the clear drop from his slit and wiped it across the upper swell of one breast. Her dainty hand returned and she closed it over his own white-knuckled death grip.
Both of them holding tightly to his dirk—his arm quivering and fingers cramping from the restraint he exuded, hers resting lightly on top—she brought him to her mouth.
Where she kissed him!
Placed the puckered bow of her lips to his crown with a barely audible smack.
Just when he wanted to howl, to bellow his dismay and disappointment for he’d been dreaming of so much more than a chaste kiss, she opened her mouth and her tongue made an appearance.
Zeus stopped breathing.
Hesitant at first, only an infinitesimal swipe. Then her tongue returned, licked again. Just the very top. Then the side. And once more, that tiny pink temptation leaving a path of wetness down the entire shaft exposed above their joined hands.
And then—thank God Almighty—a circular swipe round the crown that had his lungs remembering to inhale
