Electric Idol(Dark Olympus #2)(50)

“You’re the one who opened up negotiations.” He keeps up that featherlight touch, tracing over my wrists. “To be honest, though, you have me over a barrel. I want you too badly not to take you up on this.”

It’s a terrible idea to give him the green light to attempt to seduce me, especially when he’s already backed down. If I were smart, I’d capitalize on this, take my pleasure for tonight, and go back to keeping a careful distance between us tomorrow.

I don’t know what I want.

Liar.

I ignore the sensible voice inside me. Tomorrow is Future Me’s problem. Right now, I am buzzing in my skin, torn in a thousand different directions by too many emotions. I just want to feel, to forget, to cease to exist for a little while. All my problems, all the planning and plotting, will still be there tomorrow. I meet his eyes. “You have yourself a deal. For as long as we’re married, you can attempt to seduce me.”

He exhales slowly as if giving me a chance to change my mind. When I simply stand there and look up at him, he growls, “Thank fuck.” He grabs my hand and tows me down the hall to the master bedroom. “I love this dress. But if you don’t tell me how to get it off you in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to cut it to pieces.”

Shock and pleasure have me laughing. “Laces in the back. Please don’t cut up my wedding dress.”

He makes another of those delicious growling sounds and spins me around to face the dresser across from the bed. To face the giant gilded mirror that hangs over it. I stare at it, hardly recognizing the woman reflected there. She looks like a stranger, dressed in her crimson wedding gown with her cheeks flushed from desire. I watch Eros as he moves to stand behind me, his expression a mask of concentration and impatience as he gently tugs the laces loose until the dress sags away from my body. I should help, but I can’t stop staring at the picture we make.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s like one of those Russian nesting dolls.” Eros runs his hands over the corset, guiding my dress past my hips to the floor. Again, he goes to the laces, though this one requires a little more finesse because Persephone is a sadist and laced it up tight.

“You could just leave it on,” I gasp. The little jerking motions as he frees the laces are a strange sort of foreplay that I didn’t expect, but then I’ve never had a partner get me out of a corset before.

“No way. I want access to all of you.” The last row of laces gives, and he yanks the corset off me. I hear it hit the ground behind us.

I freeze, gripping the dresser hard enough to hurt. He saw me naked just a few hours ago, but I can’t help the stab of insecurity I feel. Corsets might look like a dream, but they leave press marks across the skin of my stomach. It’s hardly the sexy image I’d choose for tonight.

Eros meets my gaze in the mirror. The naked hunger on his face puts what few doubts I have aside. This man has no reason to lie to me, not about this. Which means he wants me just as desperately as I want him.

He wants to seduce me properly.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, closing the distance between us to press his body to my back. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

I expect him to go nearly feral the same way he did early today. But apparently my new husband isn’t in the mood to rush despite his determination to get my wedding dress off. He sinks his hands into my hair, removing the bobby pins that Persephone put into place one by one. It feels like there’s a thousand of them, and he goes after each methodically, dropping them on the dresser next to us. He’s barely touching me, his fingers carefully moving through my hair, occasionally pressing to the tight knots at the base of my skull, but it feels like he’s doused me in gasoline and lit a match.

I can’t stop shaking. I want to reach for him, but I also don’t want this slow seduction to stop. And it is a seduction, even if I doubt he’d label it as such. I open my eyes, not quite sure when I closed them, to find a look of utter concentration on his face. Every bit of Eros’s formidable attention is focused on me. The realization is one of the headiest moments of my life.

This man is mine.

Maybe not in truth, maybe not forever, but for right now.

Once my hair is free to fall down my back in loose waves, Eros moves it out of the way and presses a kiss to my neck. He drags his mouth over the slope of my shoulders, watching me in the mirror. Somehow, this feels more intimate than when he had his mouth all over me earlier today. I can see everything. My body. My need. His blatant desire burning hot enough to incinerate both of us.

His teeth graze sensitive skin, but he’s oh so careful not to mark me. I can tell even while completely overwhelmed with this experience. And that care, that thoughtfulness, only makes this moment more intoxicating. “Take off your pants,” I gasp.

“Not yet.”

Frustration adds spice to my desire. “Please, Eros. I need you.”

“Not yet,” he repeats. He cups my breasts with a rough touch, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say his hands are shaking. Surely not. Surely Eros Ambrosia isn’t so affected by me that he’s off his game. It doesn’t matter that the look on his face is downright reverent. But then he goes and blows my assumptions out of the water with his next words. “If I take off my pants, I’m going to be inside you, and if I’m inside you, this will be over too quickly. Don’t rush me.”