Page 43 of Blood of Olympus

When I woke hours later, we were both still coiled around each other.

“You didn’t move?” I asked quietly.

He grinned at me sheepishly, his cheeks tinted copper. “No. Every time I tried to wriggle out, you whimpered and latched onto me tighter in your sleep. I didn’t have the heart to leave you… though it was much to the dismay of my bladder, I’m afraid.” He winced.

I jolted upright, narrowly avoiding breaking his nose with my forehead as I rushed to move off his lap. “Shit — sorry! You should have woken me.”

“You needed the sleep, and I needed the reassurance of you being in my arms,” he said so earnestly, with a smile so sweet, that my face crumpled. “Hey now, don’t go breaking my heart again,” he teased.

“Again?” My brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know” — he shrugged, his tone casual, lips twitching from the effort of holding back a grin — “I took a blade for you pretty recently… which quite literally tore my heart open.”

My mouth dropped open.

Too soon, taser boy.

This time he couldn’t stop the smile. Crinkles appeared on his cheeks and in the corners of his eyes as he grasped my face between his large, beautifully scarred hands. “Listen carefully: I am completely and irrevocably in love with you, Nyssa. You can doubt anything else — you can doubt everything else — but not that. The realms could crumble, and still, I would love you. You could destroy them, and still, I would love you. You are my sole reason for existing, and I would gladly take any blade, blow, or poison meant for you. I would happily die for you, again⁠—”

“Don’t you dare,” I whispered, a heartbeat before falling into his embrace. My lips met his with a whimper, reigniting my entire body.

He set my soul aflame.

And I did not kiss him gently. It was a kiss that spoke of a feeling so deep no words could properly convey it. It was a kiss that reminded me I had so much to live for, and how badly I wanted to live for it.

Caelus groaned as he pulled away, both of us breathing hard, unwilling to let go. Until⁠—

“Don’t you dare move,” he whispered. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and stared at me like I was his favourite meal and he was a man famished.

“What?” I laughed, confused. “Come back here right now.”

But Caelus had already launched to his feet, barrelling towards the door.

“I mean it!” he called. “Don’t. Leave!”

“Where are you going?!”

“If I stay, I’ll piss my pants, and that would be infinitely more mortifying than finishing in them. Again.”

He dashed out the door and around to the right, footsteps fading as he fought the tenuous battle against his bladder. I cackled at the sight, throwing myself back against the pillows in unbridled glee.

An idea came to me as I waited, and my face split into a devious smirk.

I’ll take that as my cue to leave, Velira’s amused voice laughed through my skull as her large snout retreated. Her mental barricade slammed up between us shortly after.

And when Caelus bounded through the doorway a minute later, he skidded to a stop at the foot of the bed. Once his mind had caught up to his gaze, his mouth hung open, those stormy eyes were glued to my unexpectedly naked body — almost every part of me on display.

The air filled with the decadent scent of fresh caramel.

He swallowed roughly, and stared intently as I let my left hand drift down over my breast, toying with a peaked nipple.

He groaned as my legs dropped open — louder, when my right hand slid down my stomach, and passed through my soaked core.

His restraint visibly snapped when I moved to pinch that very swollen, very sensitive bundle of nerves, and dashed forwards, capturing my adventurous hand in his own. Caelus leaned over my body, slowly lifted my hand to his lips, and licked the wet pads of my first two fingers.

I inhaled raspingly as my entire body tingled in anticipation.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to play with food?” he rumbled.