And at that word, Apollo knew all was well and again, he smiled.
Chapter Ten
How He Treasured It
I felt warm and cozy, except my nose, which was cold but there was something tickling it. I also felt motion all around me. Finally, the sun bright against my eyelids slid through my burgeoning consciousness and for a second, things didn’t seem right.
Then I remembered.
I was out in the cold elements of Lunwyn in a sleigh with Apollo.
More precisely, I was in Apollo’s sleigh with Apollo, a huge fur blanket over our laps, wrapped up tight in my cloak (the same one as yesterday; after my emotional upheavals of the morning, I didn’t have it in me to dig out one that matched my outfit better—and by the way, I had four). I was snuggled up to Apollo, my arm resting across his stomach, my cheek to his chest and what was tickling my nose was the fur inside his cloak.
Oh God.
I was snuggled up to Apollo.
Crap.
I didn’t move or open my eyes. Instead, I faked still sleeping.
I did this because I couldn’t face him, not yet. I had to get my shit together before I attempted that.
He’d been cool this morning, actually really sweet and very understanding. I’d spent the time since he left the room torturing myself about what I’d done, but the way he acted, the things he said totally made me feel better.
About that.
But this did not negate the fact that he’d been kind to me (in his way) since I’d gotten there and I’d been a bitch to him.
And it definitely did not negate the fact that last night I’d f**ked his brains out, he’d f**ked my brains out and this all commenced when I threw myself at him.
It was clear this all came about because I drank that tea.
But still.
It was embarrassing.
He, however, seemed not to have a problem with this. Not at all. It was almost like it didn’t happen. Then again, men could often separate life from sex. It happened, you moved on. And maybe some women could too.
But I couldn’t.
And definitely not what we did last night.
God, I burned with humiliation just thinking about it.
I’d had one lover before Pol. And then there was Pol and he was good in bed, actually great. We never had a problem with that. In fact, that was one of the reasons why, in the beginning, I held on to hope. If he could be that generous, and sometimes even sweet and tender in bed, I thought he could, and would, eventually bring that into our everyday lives.
I’d even talked to him about it. Until I did it too often, it started to annoy him, and for obvious reasons I did my best not to annoy Pol. So I quit.
But he took care of me every time, and once, the time I liked to think was when we created our daughter, he took care of me twice in one go.
That was, he took care of me until I started having to fake it because I couldn’t stand his hands on me and if he knew that, that would really annoy him.
However, I’d never had anything like what I had with Apollo last night. The hunger. The heat.
The freedom.
I didn’t think of anything I did. I wasn’t in my head at all. I just went for it.