Page 45 of Blood of Olympus

They snapped open to the devastatingly beautiful, but hauntingly sad smile of the man I had fallen in love with.

“Nyssa, I’d be an idiot to reject an offer like that.” He cupped my jaw, pressing a tender kiss to my cheek. “My cock would have to have been cut off to ever disregard you like that. You own every piece of me, Nightshade — body and soul. It’s all yours. It always has been.”

My reply was wordless. I pulled his face back down to mine, and tried to convey every ounce of love and every shred of desire I felt for him through our lips and down our bond.

He groaned again — an obscene sound that had my core clenching — and I gasped as he dragged the head of his cock — his bare, breeches-free cock — through my dripping centre, leaving it perched right at the entrance. He held himself still, pressed no further, and pulled back only to ask a single question.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

I nodded eagerly.

“Say the word and I’ll stop. Though this first time might hurt,” he warned.

“I’m sure. I want this more than anything,” I pleaded breathily, desperate to fill that throbbing ache.

“Are you⁠—”

“Caelus!” I laughed. “I might actually die if you don’t hurry up!”

He grinned devilishly, and pushed slowly in. So slowly, the ache was somehow both lesser and more intense.

My opening stretched to accommodate the thickness of him. He paused an inch deep, letting me adjust to the feeling — watching me intently the whole while.

I panted, completely unabashed, and lifted my head off the mattress to peer down at where we were joined.

A flicker of movement to Caelus’ right snagged my attention and I screamed; bloodcurdlingly loud.

“Fuck! Am I hurting you?” Caelus asked in clear distress, frozen in stark horror.

The lancing spear of ice that pierced my breastbone — his terror — was the only reason I was able to respond with a quick shake of my head.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” the ghostly figure of my best friend offered from where he hovered at the foot of the bed.

Caelus’ head snapped to the right as Charon spoke — brows furrowing and eyes darting wildly around. My own gaze flickered between Charon’s shade and Caelus’ evident confusion.

Charon’s semi-transparent face winced as he averted his eyes from our naked forms — Caelus still frozen an inch deep.

“I’d say I’ll come back at another time, but I’m not overly sure I can.”

“Charon?” Caelus asked, his eyes yet to locate him.

“You can’t see him?” I asked.

Caelus’ blinked back at me. “No.”

“But you can hear him?” The question came out as barely more than a whisper, terrified of his answer.

“I… yes. Nyssa, how can I hear him?”

“I don’t know,” I breathed, staring at the shade of my best friend that should be in the Elysian Fields right now, not here in the Underworld.

“I’m right here,” Charon moaned.

I’m not going crazy.

You thought you were going crazy? Caelus asked, something disgustingly like pity swirling in his dual-toned irises. He shifted his weight forward⁠—

And it was at that precise moment that I realised I was completely naked, with my soul-bonded’s cock barely inside me, with the ghost of my best friend cringing at us from the foot of the bed.