Maybe it was the heat that did it. It had a mind of its own, after all. Always did.
It crept, it sank, it sighed, it chased Kiku into shorts and a barely-there striped camisole. For once, she threw away her worries about having too-skinny legs or being immodest or not good enough or –
it was the heat that told her to do it. Really.
She was visiting Herakles, and all day, they'd been sluggish and listless, slow as syrup in the middle of December. It was too hot to go down the beach, to go out to eat, to do anything but eat cheap Cherry popsicles and wander aimlessly around the island.
The sun stained Kiku's neck a delicate pink but it was too early for her to feel the sting. She could feel the heat of the stone road through her cheap rubber flip-flops and wondered: if she poured her water bottle out, would all the water turn to steam before it could hit the ground?
Nothing was right; the heat made sure of that. When Kiku hesitantly asked that they take siesta together once they returned to his home, Heracles must have passed the abnormality off as a side effect of the heat and jetlag and accepted her into his bed with a smile. She was glad for it then, but only then.
He was such a gentleman… perhaps even more so than usual. He didn't try to take her hand as they walked side-by-side. There were no sweet little kisses, other than those in greeting and celebration. Kiku ate her popsicle messily on purpose, trying to get him to lick away the juice once they sat down to rest in the shade, away from everyone, but he didn't even notice it. When they crawled into bed together, he fell asleep without even a questionable glance in her general direction.
It stung; she wanted him. It had been so long and … she wasn't as … solitary … as she seemed. Kiku beat back thoughts of inadequacy and figured that he was just tired, so like a cat in that he preferred to nap, instead of wait out the boiling afternoon temperatures, but that made her want him no less. Just a touch would suffice; a not-so-innocent brush of the hands, a kiss strayed down to her neck. Anything.
It was embarrassing, but what could she do? By now, she would have thought that they'd be naked and happily romping around, instead of napping until dinnertime, and then what? But, she reasoned, at least they were together. And he was stretched out on his side, absolutely perfect for admiring, and so deeply asleep that she didn't even have to bother trying to be subtle.
Wearing only a pair of loose jeans, she saw that Herakles was thinner than … than the last time they had … he was … he was thinner. A little less proud, a little more worried, a fraction heavier with the weight of guilt and memories and too many books and not enough carefree company. She instantly felt bad for thinking of burdening him with the task of pleasuring her… not that she would have ever voiced it in the first place.
He was perfect, though, despite his worldly distractions. The broadness of his shoulders, his chest, the muscles that would never atrophy no matter the state of his economy, his elegant fingers, thick feminine eyelashes, the dip of his neck and collarbone. She loved every atom of him, from the tip of his errant double curl to his long tan toes, no matter how oddly she tended to show it.
After a good long while, she became bored with just looking – not that she couldn't stare all day – and something compelled her to move forward, to touch him, to see if he was real and there because she wasn't, generally, that lucky a person. She reached her arm up, out, carefully, and brushed his shoulder. He was warm to the touch, pleasantly so, and didn't move at all.
Good, some lonely part of her encouraged. Good.
"Herakles." She tried next, exhaling his name on a soft, hesitant breath. He stirred and she froze, but when he went back to being still she melted and grinned impishly. She was about to move in closer when she realized –
with a too-loud squeak, what she was doing -
what was she even doing?
Kiku, blushing petal red, rolled over to the other side of the bed and tried not to let herself unravel into a mess of raw horny panic. She pressed her hands over her mouth and stared at the sterile white wall. It was pleasantly nonthreatening and very unsexy.
After a while of laying completely still, wondering the same thing over and over (what came over me? What came over me? What came over me?), Kiku rolled over onto her back. She was still a considerable distance away from Herakles who, to her knowledge, had slept through the whole thing. She was still red and unbelievably ashamed, not to mention confused, but … ah …
She snuck a glance back at him. As soon as she realized what she was doing, she snapped her gaze back up to the ceiling, willing all of the stir-craziness and arousal away. It was tough, though, sharing a bed – a weekend – with him without any romantic contact whatsoever. She was a charged up creature, usually took care of herself just fine but he just didn't seem to be interested…
He slept on, beautiful and sexy and they fit together snugly like puzzle pieces and she just couldn't help it.
The heat; Kiku couldn't breathe. She wasn't thinking straight. She should have been drinking water. Maybe that's what lead her to justifying it.
She lifted her hips, wriggling slowly, ever so slowly, out of her bold blue shorts. Those she tossed down to the side of the bed; she could put them back on once she was done. Easy. He would sleep right through this, he had to sleep right through it. He couldn't not.
Taking a deep breath, clearing her mind of all possible objections, she slid a hand down the creamy skin of her stomach, she ran her thumb along the cheap lace waistline of her red panties, she delved below and oh, it had been too long …
While Kiku tried not to move too much, lest she disturb Herakles, eventually she lost herself to the heat and rolled her hips, smooth and gentle, but then it wasn't enough, she wasn't close enough, not by a long shot… She wanted more, so she turned onto her stomach, legs spread, knees digging in for support, toes curling, and rode three fingers, slowly, breathing hitched, up, down, forward, back, and she lost herself completely, there was nobody but herself and this euphoria, it built and –
"When were you thinking of inviting me?"
His voice, smooth and sleep-heavy and right in her ear.
He'd woken up.
He'd woken up to her.
He'd woken up to her. In her panties. In his bed. Masturbating. Furiously.
In the ideal situation, any number of things would have happened. The bed might have been sucked into a huge, endless void, taking her (but not him) with it to be punished forever in the so-professed fires of Hell. There would have been a knife placed conveniently near the bed, perfect for an 'honorable' death via the spilling of entrails. She would have woken up from this dream, he wouldn't have woken up at all, she wouldn't have been doing any of this in the first place.
None of those happened. Of course not. Kiku was not, in general, a lucky girl.
She stopped – didn't freeze, just stopped, hand still in her panties, eyes still pressed shut, lip still caught up in her teeth, arm trembling from taking her weight for so long. A heartbeat passed in silence. Kiku might have believed that she was hallucinating, if he wasn't right there, warm, heavy, suddenly kissing her just below her earlobe in just the way that made her crazy.
"H-hera, I –" she began, removing her hand, feeling tears of ultimate humiliation prick at her eyes. Before she could choke out the resulting apology, he interrupted her by trailing a finger over her lips and nudging her until she was facing him. His grin bordered on a smirk, a smolder, something – something that –
her heart stopped for the sight of those sea-green eyes.
She tried to speak again and he kissed her, gentle at first, but by the time they surfaced for air and dove back again he was rough, hungry. He must have missed her too. She indulged in him, tracing his lower lip with her tongue before she startled and pulled away, sputtering and red.
"I'm sorry, I just-" Kiku attempted, but again she was stopped.
"No more words, okay?" Herakles asked, tracing the line of her ear with the tip of his tongue. A shudder ripped through her when he started nibbling and then that voice – "I rather liked the show, anyway..."
"Show?" Kiku squawked, immediately inching away from him with her last shred of dignity intact. "You were watching? I thought you were asleep! A-and completely uninterested! You hadn't touched me all day." She narrowed her eyes as he chuckled to himself and lay down on the pillows, a king in his castle. He was no selfish lover, certainly, but his measure of confidence when it came to sex (at least with her) was sometimes a little infuriating.
"…you dog." She finished lamely, staring at him as he tipped his head back and recited –
"I like my body when it is with your body …"
Kiku shook her head. "Don't you dare." He knew what a sucker for poetry she was.
"It is so quite … a new thing. Muscles better, nerves more … I like your body. I like what it does, I like its hows …"
Being humiliated, with nothing left to lose, was one thing. She could handle it all on her own. But being taken advantage of like this? He must have been planning this all along, the sneaky …
She crawled back over as he spoke, mounting him and staring down with a feigned glare as he delivered those lines so easily, so perfectly, it was as if he had been created just to speak them to her, to seduce her, to make love to her. So smug, but – irresistible. When she silenced him with a firm kiss she could feel his grin and nipped him for it.
"May I?" he asked softly as he toyed with the hem of her camisole, after they broke. Could she deny him? Never. Every last bit of her ached. She nodded and he pulled it up over her head, removing it with a little of her help and quickly sending her bra the same way. She watched the way his muscles moved, his ways, his hows –
He made a poet of her, it seemed. A slut, too. Perhaps it was sad how quickly she let go of her ideals once sex and literature were involved, but it didn't matter one bit once he rested his hand on her back, the other on her hip. She smiled lightly and kissed him again, again, again.
And again – but he was losing interest in kissing, she could tell by the way the muscles in his neck drew taut every time they broke away and she was bored, too, and already so close to her peak but it was nice, languishing in their own heat rather than the earth's. She experimented with her hips, dipping low to roll them against his, grinding down slowly, powerfully once she realized what exactly was making him groan so loudly, so suddenly, into the soft skin of her shoulder.
She tired quickly; Kiku offered no protest when he lifted his chin to press his lips against her neck, instead biting back a moan as he nibbled up to her jaw, back to her ear, both calloused hands holding her hips now. Every spare part of her was pressed to him. His breath was hot on her skin, he was as warm as his land but oh, it was so good; he was tense, ready, at any second, to take control.
"H-hera, ah, what a-are you -!" she gasped as she was suddenly hugged close and flipped, gently, onto her back, thighs spread to accommodate him. Two layers of clothing separated them and as he rose to shove his jeans down to his knees and she kicked free of her panties, it became nothing and they were free –
He flashed a grin at her, charming her, making her fall in love all over again, because no matter how many times they made love he still looked as thrilled as the first time, like he couldn't believe his luck. In the same slow, practiced motion, he pushed into her and drew her into a long, distracting kiss, took her soft groan and tasted the luxury.
After a moment's pause for her to adjust, he experimented with rhythm and found the perfect pace, made Kiku dig her nails into the scars on his back. Herakles hated to part with her skin for too long; he balanced breathing and kissing with little nothings begged of her jaw, her neck – I love you, forgive me, please, yes, thank you, yes, yes –
Kiku, for her part, arched her back and cried out softly, trying not to bother him, but she couldn't help it after a minute of shallow thrusting. "Please… oh gods harder!" He obeyed, grunting, resting his forehead against the sweet juncture of her neck and shoulder, hands running down the gentle curves of her sides as the moments wore on.
Gripping the sheets – toes curling – biting her lip – Kiku tossed her head back, arched high and screamed, in touch with her animal self, too overwhelmed by the pleasure to care about courtesy. He made a sound quite like a snort, rolled his hips, crushed down on her with a sudden kiss and followed suit.
Suspended in a temporary lull dedicated to catching breath back, Heracles moved only to roll off her, landing so close they practically overlapped anyway. Then to his side; he grinned at her, breathless and thrilled. He always looked so alive after sex. A mirror of the look flitted on Kiku's lips but didn't last long, she was just plain exhausted.
"Let's take a nice cold shower…" he began, soft, in her ear.
"The heat's starting to get to me."