Richer Than God - Amelia Wilde Page 0,16

A lap at her juices and she loses it, her body bending forward, hands wild on my hair. Her fists clench tight at the same time her pussy does, and if it weren’t for my hands, she’d be trying to crush my head with her thighs.

I’m stronger.

I’ll always be fucking stronger. It makes me feel very nearly tender toward her, this little desperate whore.

But it almost undoes me when she lets out a sob into the open air, and then a second, and then shuts her pretty lips tight to keep them in while she comes and comes and comes.

7

Brigit

I’m dead.

He killed me.

It’s the most pleasant, mortifying death I could have imagined, and now it’s over and I’m on the other side, if the other side looks like the ceiling of an unbelievably opulent office. It’s one of those tiled ceilings. It makes me think of Versailles, but I’m not sure why, since I’ve never been there, but I think I saw pictures of it once. Gilded patterns. Gold, everywhere. Gold on white on gold on white. Angels, singing. I can’t possibly be near an angel, because Zeus is still touching me, his hands warm on my thighs, and that tugs me down toward reality but doesn’t finish the job.

Still touching me.

And I’m still breathing, so I’m not as dead as I thought. Still alive, with heat in the air and an electric warmth between my legs, and I don’t know what the hell just happened, but it is like nothing that’s ever happened before. There are still tears on my face. They haven’t had enough time to evaporate.

Oh, God. What do I do now? There’s no good exit to this situation, no way I can primly put my legs together and climb down from the desk. Zeus is in the way. I can feel him there without looking down from the Versailles ceiling. Feel his hands on my legs. Still pushing them apart. He hasn’t let them close. And I know, deep in my soul, that if he wanted to hold them apart forever, then I’d have no choice.

Once, when I was out walking and walking—one of my father’s only approved activities—I went into a small, unassuming store with the name painted on the door. The Fates. It didn’t mean anything to me until I went inside, and I realized what it was—one of those new age stores, with things like crystals and cards. The whole space smelled like dust and the faint breath of sage. I almost went out, almost, but a woman there in a gray dress—it was beautiful, but I can’t remember exactly how, only that it was—offered me a reading. A single card. What was the card? I shut my eyes tight and try to remember it, try to center myself on it so I can catch my breath, but it’s hidden from me.

Zeus laughs, like he can see inside my head, and closes my legs for me. They come together in a wet slap that is so embarrassing I could cry, but crying out of embarrassment isn’t a good idea. Not here. I won’t.

He’s watching, eyes golden, eyes like fire. Where, in my life, did I go so wrong—or so right—that I’ve ended up here? Zeus wipes at his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve, and yes, I am dead. I don’t know how to come back from watching a man do that. His mouth was just on me. Between my legs. And now I’m on his sleeve.

I slide off the desk for lack of the strength to hold myself up any longer and put my feet unsteadily on the floor, shoving my dress down. It’s over. This is over, at least, and I can escape. The attic room looked so plain last night. It’s paradise. Or it’s hell. I can’t make up my mind.

There’s a charge in the air, like he’s about to speak, but instead, a door opens.

The sound yanks all the air into itself and pulls it out of my lungs and out of the room. I wish I didn’t have to look, but I do—I couldn’t stop myself if I tried.

It’s another woman in the doorway, not Reya. Younger than she is. Violently blonde. And angry. If a human could be transformed into a thundercloud, she’d be the one standing there right now, one hand on her hip, struggling to hide it. But her eyes are daggers, and they’re aimed at me. She’s there long enough for me to