Chapter 13
I realize,in an objective sense, that what I am doing is extremely foolish at best.
Yes, I am an adult woman who is fully capable of making her own decisions, but if I described this situation to literally any other person, they would not advise me to get on a plane to who knows where when Apollo is clearly being blackmailed.
That’s the only thing those photos can mean. In the one I saw—there wasn’t a lot of light from the console in the SUV, and I don’t have Daisy’s eyes—there was a boy, sitting on a bed. I thought it might be Apollo.
And then I watched him see those photos and I knew it was. I don’t know what he was doing in those photos, or why they were taken, but I know it wasn’t good.
I’m no military expert, either, but I know that people don’t usually take and send aerial photos of places just for the thrill of it.
But even if I hadn’t seen the photos, I would’ve seen Apollo’s face. His expression was proof that something fucked up is going on, and there wasn’t any point in sitting down for a debate about it.
The facts remain the facts: the episodes are becoming unstable. They’re not happening on the usual schedule or at the usual intensity. They’re worse for Apollo now, but there’s no way to predict when or whether that might start happening for me. Our single method for stopping them is to be together.
At the risk of being morbid, Apollo can get on a plane without me over my dead body.
And if he did get on a plane without me and fly to a foreign country for a reason that is still very much unknown to me, then he could come home literally over my dead body. Or with both of us as dead bodies.
So I skipped it. I skipped the argument about involving our family, which would also mean telling all of them about the entire situation, and when Apollo said I have to go, I didn’t need a flashing neon sign to tell me that he meant now and not after we go home, explain things to our parents, who will not want us to fly to another country without an army’s worth of security and who will probably insist on coming with us, and there isn’t time.
I don’t have to know why there isn’t time to know that we don’t have much of it.
Our family can be mad at us when we get back. Because we will be back.
Apollo kisses me slowly, his lean, beautiful muscles gliding over mine, until he’s hard again, and then he pushes into me at the same leisurely pace, and I discover him all over again.
He’s gorgeous when we’re fucking—not this slow, considered worship but a fast frenzy of muscle and blood—and just as beautiful when he’s concentrating on every movement. I’m hypersensitive to everything. The solid throb of him inside me. The slide of him through my wettest, softest places. The tiny crease in his forehead when he changes his angle and hits a spot inside me that makes me gasp, and the way he works so hard to find that place again and again.
He pulls out before he’s come, kissing his way down my body, and I realize belatedly what his plan is and thread my fingers through his hair.
“Wait,” I manage, my singing with the marks from his mouth and the evaporation from his kisses. “You already?—”
“I don’t care,” Apollo answers. He pushes my thighs apart and licks between my legs.
I have to be a mess. A mess of me, and him—a mess of us. I’m lightheaded with how intimate and filthy it feels. It’s not as if I imagined sex with anyone else. I always imagined it with Apollo. I’ve never, in all my life, seen a man who was more beautiful. And if I did come across a man who had Apollo’s same perfect bone structure and the sea-blue of his eyes and even his body, that person wouldn’t compare. Nobody compares. That’s why my feelings about him were so complicated for so long. Not because of his flaws. Because he’s perfect, and there’s nobody in the world who can measure up to him.
If there’s anything complicated about my feelings now, it’s that this plane will land, and this will be over.
Nothing good can come from what was in that envelope. I can see its shadow move across Apollo’s eyes, over and over. I can see him bringing himself back from it.
Back to me.
Back to licking me until I come on his tongue again, my orgasm so deep and so electric that it borders on pain.
I have to pull his hair until he moves away from my thighs.
Instead of curling up at my side, Apollo kisses the inside of one of my knees, then pushes that knee up to my chest. Then he leans over me, his weight simultaneously reassuring and exhilarating, and watches my face while he strokes between my legs, his fingertips playing gently in what feels like pure oversensitivity.
I’m not even sure what he’s doing, and I still don’t want him to stop. I don’t mind feeling like this at all.
Except for that envelope hanging over his head. Over our heads.
Then Apollo drags a fingertip through the mess we’ve made together and goes?—
Lower.
To somewhere far more intimate.
I’d probably tense up if I weren’t so drowned in post-orgasm chemicals, but I am, and in this plane-bedroom, thousands of feet above the air, I can’t think of any reason to deny him anything.
Or to deny myself anything.
“What about here?” he asks. “What will you do if I touch you here?”
“Let you.” My voice comes out softer than I expected. “Like I’m already doing.”
“Hmm. Am I the only one to touch you here?”
“You’re the only one to touch me ever, Apollo.”
“I am?”
“You’re doing a foolish,” I whisper. “If you think there was anybody else.”
Something flickers across his face, gone before I can decide to act on it and replaced by proud heat.
“What about this?” He presses his fingertip inside that tight, tight spot.
“What about it?” I keep my tone exceptionally casual. “Do you think I’m scared?”
He lets out a low rumble of a laugh. “No.”
“Do you think I’ll like it? Is that why you’re doing it?”
“I think you don’t know until you try,” he offers, and pushes his finger in a little deeper.
My heart pounds like it’s trying to raise the alarm. This is the time we have. On this plane. Before we land. So if there’s anything I want to try with Apollo, it has to be now.
So I tilt my hips into it, putting more pressure against his finger, and it’s slick enough to slide in.
It feels…bigger. Than I thought it would. I suck in a breath and let it out. Apollo studies my face, draws his finger out, and pushes back in.
“That’s…” Now I sound breathless. Surprised. “This is dirty.”
Apollo shakes his head. “You’re perfect.”
It feels filthily intimate, especially when his finger goes deeper and I clench down on it without thinking.
“Mmm.” Apollo bends to kiss my cheek and reaches with his thumb, getting the pad on my clit and rubbing until I relax. “Do you think you could come like this?”
“I—” He’s fucking me with his finger while his thumb traces circle after circle. “I think you could make me.”
“I think I could, too.”
He keeps his face close to mine, whispering nonsense into my ear while he brings me up to that peak again, slower this time, much softer, because he’s turned me inside out. He’s made me come so many times that everything tingles.
And Apollo makes me do it again, clenching hard on his finger, keening into his mouth. Keening. Like what I want is actually an escalation of this moment, though my body probably won’t stand up to much more.
It’s the filthiest thing anyone’s ever done to me.
Apollo guides my leg back to the bed.
“What now?” I pant, which makes him laugh.
“A shower,” he says firmly.
“Both of us can’t fit in there at the same time.”
“That,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me, “is a mindset issue.”
“Oh my God. You would make a dad joke at a time like this.”
Apollo wrinkles his nose. “Let’s not think about anyone’s dad. Let’s get in the shower.”
He’s right. It was a mindset issue. The plane bathroom is as luxurious as plane bathrooms get, but fitting two people into the shower takes coordination and commitment. We stand very close, Apollo hissing when his cock brushes against my skin.
“Sensitive?” I ask, and let soap drip onto him.
“Very,” he says, sounding strained, but he lets me wash him off anyway.
He washes his hair, and then mine, and takes his time gliding his hands over every part of me.
When we’re clean, Apollo helps me out of the shower. It’s easier to dry off in the bedroom, where there’s room to maneuver towels. He slings one around his waist, and I just watch, caught up in the sight, as he moves back to the bed.
I have just enough time to think this could be the best flight of my life when Apollo sways.
He turns at the last second and sits down heavily on the side of the bed.
“Apollo?”
“I’m fine,” he says quickly.
One touch to his forehead proves otherwise.
He’s burning up.
“Oh, fuck,” I say under my breath. I feel his cheeks and the back of his neck in case some other part of him is cooler, but it’s not. “But we’re together. We were just?—”
Fucking. And touching. And not apart for more than, what, twenty seconds? That’s not long enough.
I climb onto the bed behind him and press my chest to his back, slinging my arms around him.
“Just give it a minute, and you’ll be fine.”
Apollo shakes his head.
“Yes, you will. This is just a weird—a weird coincidence. You’re stressed about the flight.”
It’s not a weird coincidence. Apollo gets hotter. After a minute, he starts to list toward the pillows, so I help him lie down.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll be okay soon. I just need a minute.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Just—I’ll concentrate.”
“You can’t concentrate your way out of this.” I sit as close to him as possible and sling an arm across his chest. “I think we have to turn around.”
“Can’t.”
“Maybe not, but we can land somewhere else.”
Apollo’s eyes have gone glassy. He closes them. “Who else is going to fix this? It’s always been you and me.”
“Yeah.” My heartbeat hurts. “But we’re together now.”
Apollo doesn’t say anything else.
The fever gets hotter.
I wet a cloth in the bathroom and sprint back to the bed. Laying it on his forehead doesn’t do anything. When he starts shivering, I cover him with a blanket, but he kicks it off.
A few minutes later, Apollo jerks upright. I barely get a towel into his lap before he’s sick into it. Once. Twice. Then three times. I keep my hand on the back of his neck, which is so hot that the heat itself feels alive, like a throbbing pulse.
I toss some clothes on and rush to the front of the plane for ice. The attendant gives me a bucket, some plastic bags, and more towels. Apollo is lying down when I get back.
“Ice,” I announce, as if ice is the solution, and all this will be over quickly.
One makeshift ice pack goes behind his neck, and one goes on his chest.
I take his hand in mine.
“Apollo.”
He opens his eyes, struggling to focus. “Yeah?”
“I think you’d better tell me where we’re going.”
“Mociar,” he says, and swallows hard. “I don’t have a choice, Artemis.”
“You do,” I argue in what I hope is a soothing tone. “You do have a choice. We don’t have to go.”
“I do. Because I have to host a meeting. There are assets. And maybe…” He trails off, then startles. “I’ve done this before. Sometimes the negotiations go wrong.”
“That’s okay.”
“Not this time. I have to go. Do you understand?”
“If you’re worried—” I don’t know what to say. We’re on a plane. If this episode doesn’t end soon, I don’t know what will happen. “You don’t have to keep this a secret from me. You can tell me what happened.”
“Can’t.”
“Apollo.”
“Can’t.”
“Okay.” He shivers, his teeth chattering. “You should go home.”
“I’m not going home without you. I’m going to go to this meeting, whatever it is, and then we can both go home.”
He doesn’t say anything else.
A few minutes later, the fever begins to subside. It’s not nearly fast enough. It takes almost half an hour for Apollo to open his eyes.
“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, Artemis, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I promise.
“Was it bad for you?”
“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
I don’t want to tell him that I didn’t feel anything at all. He was the only one.