Chapter 6 Maya #2
The memory hits me with unexpected force—Ares’s hands on my thighs, his mouth at my center, the way he’d made me feel both vulnerable and powerful at the same time.
“You trembled when I touched you,” he continues, voice dropping to a near-whisper. “Not from fear, though. From wanting. From needing. Your scent was so sweet, heady enough to get drunk on.”
My breath catches as heat pools between my legs, my body responding to his words as surely as if he were touching me. This is dangerous. This is exactly what I’ve been fighting against—the way my body makes me vulnerable, makes me need.
But he’s not coming in. He’s not taking. He’s just... offering.
“I remember how you tasted,” Ares murmurs, and I can picture him on the other side of the door, eyes closed as he recalls the memory. “Sweet on my tongue. The little sounds you made when I licked into you, like you couldn’t decide if you wanted to pull me closer or push me away.”
My hand moves of its own accord, slipping beneath the waistband of my loose-fitting pants. I’m already wet, already aching, and the first touch of my fingers against sensitive flesh pulls a gasp from my throat.
“That’s it,” Ares encourages, his voice a low rumble. “Touch yourself for me. I can hear how much you need it.”
He can’t see me, I remind myself. This is still my choice, my control. I can stop anytime. I can tell him to be quiet, and he would respect that. Wouldn’t he?
“Remember how I filled you?” he continues, seemingly unaware of my internal struggle. “How perfectly you stretched around me? You were made for taking Alpha cock, Maya. Made for taking mine.”
A moan escapes me before I can swallow it back, my fingers circling my clit in tight, desperate movements. I should be embarrassed—I am embarrassed—but the heat makes it hard to care. Hard to remember why I shouldn’t want this.
“That’s it,” Ares praises, his voice rougher now. “Let me hear you. Let me know how good it feels.”
I bite my lip, determined to stay quiet even as my body betrays me. Some stubborn part of me refuses to give him the satisfaction, refuses to let him know how much his words affect me. But my breathing grows heavier, more ragged, impossible to disguise.
“I know you’re trying to be quiet,” he says, a smile in his voice. “Always so stubborn. But I can smell you through the door, Maya. I can smell how wet you are, how ready. How ready you are to take a knot.”
My fingers slip lower, pressing inside where I’m empty and aching. It’s not enough—nowhere near enough—but it’s all I have. All I’m willing to allow myself.
“If I were in there with you,” Ares continues, his voice a seductive promise, “I’d lay you out on that bed. Spread your legs wide so I could see all of you. Kiss my way up those soft thighs until you were begging me to taste you.”
Another moan escapes me, louder this time. I’m beyond caring who hears, beyond worrying what he thinks. There’s only the building pressure, the desperate need for release.
“I’d make you come on my tongue first,” he says, and I can hear the strain in his voice now, the evidence that he’s affected too.
“Hold your hips down while you shook apart. Then, when you were soft and pliant and still trembling, I’d slide into you.
Fill you up the way you need. The way you’re made for. ”
My fingers move faster, my back arching away from the door as tension coils tighter in my core. I’m close, so close, balanced on the edge of release.
“Come for me, Maya,” Ares commands, his voice dropping low enough that I feel it echo in my bones. “Show me how good it feels.”
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave, intense and unexpected.
I cry out, unable to contain the sound as pleasure radiates outward from my core, leaving me trembling and breathless.
For a moment, there’s nothing but sensation—no fear, no anger, no complicated feelings about designation or choice or freedom. Just release.
Reality returns slowly, bringing with it a flush of shame that has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with what just happened. What I just allowed to happen. I withdraw my hand from my pants, wiping my fingers on the fabric as if I can erase the evidence of my weakness.
Silence stretches between us, heavy with unspoken words. I wait for him to say something smug or possessive, to claim some victory in making me respond to him. But when he finally speaks, his voice is surprisingly gentle.
“I know you’re angry with us,” he says quietly. “And you’re justified in feeling that way. We’ve given you every reason.”
I press my forehead against my knees, trying to steady my breathing, to find some center in the aftermath of release and the continued low simmer of heat.
“But whether you like it or not, you need us, Maya.” His words are soft but firm, a statement of fact rather than a demand. “Not just because of biology, though that’s part of it. You need protection. You need safety. And as much as you might wish otherwise, we’re the ones who can give you that.”
The truth in his words stings more because it’s the truth. Because he’s right, and we both know it. We’ve been declared traitors and fugitives from the king’s justice. Even now, the king’s guards are searching for all of us. I have nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to.
I need them. I just don’t want to need them.
“Rest now,” Ares says, his voice fading as if he’s standing up, moving away from the door. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”
The double meaning isn’t lost on me. He’ll be there if I need protection. If I need safety.
If I need more.
I practically crawl to the bed, too exhausted to care about pushing to my feet. The sheets are cool against my overheated skin as I curl onto my side, facing away from the door. Sleep pulls at me, the combination of emotional exhaustion and post-orgasmic lassitude too powerful to resist.
As consciousness fades, one thought circles in my mind, inescapable in its clarity: I might hate them for what they’ve done, for the choices they’ve taken from me.
But I hate myself more for still wanting them anyway.