Hera needed a minute to confirm that Dago was being serious.

“That’s perfidious.”

“Only if it comes to that.” He smiled nonchalantly. “If you earnestly fulfill your marital obligations, there will be nothing to fear, right?”

Hera didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. His suggestion was as horrible as it was sensible. Being in a relationship with him might not be easy, but it was still better than being obolless or, dream forfend, being his subordinate.

She couldn’t think of a better incentive for keeping the terms of the contract.

“That’s perfidious,” she repeated. “Even for you.”

“And yet you don’t protest,” he noted, taking a step toward her.

Her heart lurched, then started a strange pounding dance. She didn’t protest, indeed. Instead of stepping away when Midais released her wrists, she let him lift her hands and press them against the wall on either side of her head. Instead of turning away from him when he leaned in, she parted her lips and let his tongue inside.

Unlike when he’d kissed her for the first time on the moonlit island, she didn’t freeze, paralyzed by indecision.

Their tongues clashed. The sparks caused by their friction teased her skin, making it more sensitive. She felt warmth radiating from Dago’s body, but he wasn’t as close as she wanted. She tried to tear her hands away from the wall to pull him closer, but he only tightened his grip on her wrists, holding her in place. He must have understood her intention, however, because he moved closer so that her breasts were rubbing against his torso.

An electrifying wave rolled through her body. Her nipples hardened and the desires tingled her skin, tangling into a tight knot at the bottom of her stomach. She pressed her tongue against his as if to fight him. She attacked once, twice, but he didn’t want to submit, and eventually the lines between fighitng and dancing blurred.

Blood buzzed in her ears. Thoughts swirled in her head. A fire smoldered inside her body.

Fight or dance?

Never mind.

Just let him continue.

Just…

Dago tore away from her mouth. “What do you want?” he murmured. He brushed her jaw with his lips, then her neck. “What do you want me to do?”

Hera wanted many things, but there was one thing she wanted so badly that even shame couldn’t stifle the words that rose in her throat like lava in a volcano.

“I want to see you satisfying yourself.”

He went still for a moment, then straightened and looked at her carefully. Despite the blush burning her cheeks, she didn’t lower her gaze. She’d had enough of being the one to lose control. She wanted Midais to suffer as much as she did.

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Is that your biggest fantasy or the one you started dreaming of only recently?”

“That should be the least of your worries.”

His quiet laugh was as much of a surprise to her as the pleasant tickle of satisfaction in her chest. Candy dream, she didn’t like the sound of his voice, did she?

He released her hands and stepped back. “Lead the way, sweetpearl.”

At the sight of his cheeky smile, she was tempted to tell him to undress and kneel there. Instead she listened to common sense, which reminded her that the only thing separating them from the street was a door. Trying not to wonder what someone accustomed to luxury might think of her small, sparsely furnished house, she led him to the upstairs bedroom. She lit the lunar lamp in the corner with a spell and drew the curtains over the windows, then sat down on the only armchair in the room as if it were a throne. She gestured at the bed, which took up most of the space, and said to the man watching her every move, “Make yourself comfortable.”

His eyes didn’t lose even an obol of cheekiness. “If you want me to mess up your sheets, you could at least provide me a good view.”

“I thought that providing a good view was your task.”

He laughed and reached for the buckle of the metallic belt over his robe. “All right. I’ll wait until your gorgon mood passes.”

When the movement of his fingers caught her eye, the retort on the tip of her tongue slipped into oblivion. This wasn’t the first time she would see Dago Midais naked, but the first time he would undress for her and not despite her, which had happened several times during their school days when practicing his daimonic form was more important to him than civility. True, there had been that time a few weeks ago when she’d fallen for Dorian’s prank and gone into the bathroom while he was taking a bath, and then a few days ago when they’d been at the seaside, but that also fell into the “despite” category.

Dago unbuckled his belt and let his clothes fall to the floor, and Hera suddenly doubted the brilliance of her idea. She wanted to see the man lose control while maintaining it herself, but the tingling warmth spreading through her body betrayed her ideals just as the man’s stiffness betrayed his arousal…

“Irony of fate, isn’t it?” Dago spoke up. He wrapped his fingers around his lust and slowly moved his hand up and down. “When we were hormone-amped teenagers, we were at each other’s throats. Now, instead of being at each other’s throats, we behave like hormone-amped teenagers.”

Hera didn’t reply. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the hypnotizing dance of his hand.

“Though I might be wrong,” he said after some thought. “There is still a possibility I finish in your throat.”

She forced herself to look him in the eye.

“I didn’t mean today,” he added with a nonchalant smile, without stopping the intimate caress. His gaze wandered down her loose dress. “Today I will be content with the sight of your breasts, which I’ve imagined every day since I touched them.”

Hera hesitated. This wasn’t how she planned it, but she found no reason to reject his suggestion. Whatever put him on edge…

She reached for the round metal clasp on her left shoulder.

“I have a theory,” Dago said, following her hand with his gaze. “I think…”

Hera removed the ring clasp and slid the fabric of her clothes down her chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She hadn’t expected a visitor at this hour, after all.

“I think,” he took up after a long pause, his voice lower, “that if we had done what we do now as teenagers, our lives might have turned out differently.”

Unable to stop herself, Hera moved her gaze over his body, from his pronounced facial features to the hard muscles of his torso and the slender fingers stroking the equally hard line of his desire.

“You didn’t desire me then,” she said. For some reason her throat was dry, and her voice sounded hoarse.

“I didn’t desire you consciously until I started considering this possibility. Wasn’t it the same for you?”

She swallowed, struggling to tear her gaze away from the fascinating movements of his fingers. “Are you suggesting that we always desired each other?”

He’d said that once. That time he’d used his Charm on her to entice her to share information. She’d thought the lust she felt was magic, but he’d said otherwise.

My Charm only makes unconscious desires surface. You didn’t feel anything that wasn’t already inside you.

Back then, it’d scared her so much that she’d run away. Now… Now a lot of things made sense.

“I’ve met many women,” Dago said, looking her in the eyes, “but I’ve never wanted to marry anyone. How else can I explain that I’m now ready to lock myself in a gilded cage with you, if it wasn’t you who I really wanted?”

Hera swallowed again to moisten her throat. “I met with men who were your opposite,” she confessed, not knowing why she was doing it.

His hand stopped. “Did you find fulfillment with any of them?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“So back then, by the seaside, that was your first orgasm?”

When she nodded, a hint of satisfaction crossed his face. His gaze roamed over her breasts and his hand resumed its movement.

“Touch yourself,” he said suddenly.

Not thinking, Hera covered her right breast with her left hand. She massaged it, kneaded, teased a nipple with her finger…

“Touch them both,” Dago rasped.

Overwhelmed by sensations coming from the depths of her body, she unconsciously tightened her legs. She listened, but this advice didn’t bring her relief. Touching herself wasn’t the same as being touched…

When he told her to lie down on the bed, she saw no reason to refuse.