Thanks T for the inspiration & beta read :)

- emma -

My head and my heart seemed to have become two entirely separate entities. The rational thought of leaving could not remotely compete with the sensation in my heart that being near him was the only thing that mattered. And so I stayed without thinking, talked without thinking, asked a thousand questions without thinking, said yes to spending the night without thinking.

I kissed him without thinking.

He paused a mere split second in surprise and uncertainty before his tongue pushed against my lips and I parted them, and I was lost in the kiss, engulfed in his gravitational pull - it felt like the very first kiss we had shared all those months ago, only this time I understood the source of its electricity.

But just as I fully gave into the excitement I felt the current fizzle and he pulled back, his inner glow having faded - he looked at me questioningly, appraisingly almost, and I saw him as I had up until a little over a week ago: Noah, not Ares - a man, not a god.

"Is this truly what you want?" he asked. Even his voice was flatter, I noticed now. I'd forgotten that his voice had gone deeper and richer once he had revealed his true identity.

I could think clearly now. It didn't matter. I wanted him.

I snaked my hand around his neck and pulled his head towards mine, his expression all the while almost bewildered, but the moment our lips met his godliness was back and I fell into the kiss even more than I had back then, because it was even more captivating, enthralling, galvanizing. I climbed onto his lap and wrapped my legs around his waist and when he pulled away again only to move his lips to my neck and suck lightly on my skin, I felt a twinge in my pelvis, a warmth that spread down and around and that only grew when I felt his pants tighten right against it.

"Yes?" he mumbled against my collarbone, and as soon as he felt my head nod against his, we were upstairs on his bed. He didn't pause, he entangled his fingers into my hair and slipped his other hand under my top, his fingers quickly and expertly undoing the clasp of my bra. He took off my top, then his own shirt - the scratches were gone, even those blotches of blood were gone - and I let the straps of my bra fall off my shoulders. He briefly admired the sight with wide eyes before diving his face forward into my cleavage.

I followed a sudden instinctual urge to grab his wrists and push him down with my knee against his chest, holding his wrists all the way down into the mattress over his head. My face hung inches from his, and I stared into his deep brown eyes in anticipation.

He smiled widely, hungrily and let the tip of his tongue pass over his teeth. "That's a first," he murmured, eyes gleaming with excitement, and although it seemed to cost him considerable effort, surrendered into my grip.

I traced a path with my lips from his jaw to his neck, his earlobe, then down, down until I had to let go of his wrists; he grinned and suddenly there was a silky rope around them, tying him to the bedposts. He threw his head back into a pillow as I made my way further down his body, covering as much of those magnificent muscles and that perfect skin with my lips and my tongue as I could - but then I heard something crack and I looked up.

He had already given up on submission and was pulling himself loose with so much force that the wooden bedpost was about to break - the rope disappeared and with a flick of his wrist the post was whole again.

Noah grasped my hips and in one smooth movement swiveled me onto my back. His hand was just sliding down my stomach when he caught himself and placed it onto the sheet next to me, and his divinity seemed to dim - he stilled and looked at me, his expression guarded, almost pained.

I moaned and pulled at his waist. "Don't hold back," I pleaded.

And hold back he did not, once he was convinced I meant it: he unleashed a rawness, a force that was pure and primal, an eagerness that in hindsight made me realize it might literally have been ages since he'd been able to let himself go like this. He took care of me first, initially with a painstaking slowness but then picking up speed and the shocks of my body started to match his pace. Whenever I came dangerously close to peaking, he would touch me just so and with a strange sense of calm my body would come back from it just enough for him to drive me up the hill again - and then over the hill, and again and again and again, far beyond the point where I thought I couldn't take it anymore.

And then he crashed into me, and every single sexual experience I'd ever had, even those with him, fell away. The entire world fell away. There was only him, there was only us.

I might have described it as animalistic fucking, but it wasn't, not really. His hands on me were gentle even when mine weren't, even when my bitten nails left reddish-gold scratches on his back. Underneath the hunger in his eyes was a tenderness. When I'd yelped in pain he had stopped instantly and waited patiently until I nodded for him to resume. I wasn't sure if maybe he was still restraining himself, maybe this was still not all he was capable of, but it was enough for now.

"Did you do that?" I asked softly afterwards, staring at the ceiling. I was exhausted in the best way.

"Do what?" He came out of the bathroom. I could hardly believe that that glorious naked body had just melted with mine. He looked like Bernini himself had sculpted him.

I tossed the wet washcloth he had provided back for him to put in the sink. "What I felt. Did you make me feel that way? The lust?" I swallowed. Had this been consensual? It sure did feel like it had all been of my own accord, and looking at him now I still felt it, but I couldn't know for sure if he hadn't somehow induced a desire in me that wasn't mine.

"You know, Emma," he grinned, "I think that was all you." He slid back under the covers and his face turned earnest. "There's something I want to talk to you about. I should've done it weeks ago, but then with what happened last week..."

Where was this going? I glanced at him sideways and waited for him to continue.

"I mean on Friday night. With that man." His eyes were cautious when he met my glance.

Daniel. I hadn't forgotten, I would never forget that. But so many outrageous things had happened since then that he wasn't at the forefront of my mind. Fortunately.

"I want to teach you to defend yourself properly."

- ares -

I didn't know what I had expected her to do. Maybe I had hoped, naively, that after a week of introspection she had come back to me, that she would be able to forgive me for what I'd said during our fight, and that she would accept me for who I was. Maybe I had thought she would ask me to bring her home after all those questions and then need more time before she'd come back again. Maybe I had expected her not to come back a second time at all.

But I didn't expect what she ended up doing. I didn't expect her to want any intimacy. I certainly didn't expect her to take delicious control like that, to take my breath away like that, like no other mortal woman had done before her.

Least of all did I expect her to want me as me. I tried to be careful, I tried to make her comfortable by dulling my divinity. But she really did want me for me and she gave me the best night I had had in centuries. And yet I knew she didn't accept me. I knew she was avoiding any subject that pertained to my life in a less abstract sense than she had dared ask about.

It didn't make any sense! Why did she stay, why did she want me, when for all intents and purposes she was still not okay with who I was? When she was ignoring the core reality that I was Ares?

I could ask her. I could ask her why she was skirting the obvious. I could force the conversation. I could risk everything blowing up in my face to figure her out.

But I could also acknowledge and appreciate what we had now. Even if she didn't accept me yet, at least she knew the truth. At least I didn't have to hide myself anymore. At least we had rediscovered some of that ease and joy we'd had before. At least we seemed to have found a hint of happiness together again. Couldn't that be enough?

- emma -

"Around, tighter, again. Knuckles. No, go back - yes. Across. Thumb. Around." He fastened the end of the wrap around my wrist. It was Tuesday evening, and we were in a dojo-like room in the back of his house that I'd never seen before setting foot in it five minutes ago.

"Why do I have to wear these? I'm not wearing them when I walk home at night," I said while he tied the other wrap around my right hand so quickly that his fingers became a blur.

"Because you need to learn the basics first and I don't want you to hurt your hands any more than necessary. Okay. Left foot forward. Balance your weight evenly. Fists up, by your chin." He barked the words like commands.

He held up his own hands in boxing pads and spent the next twenty minutes teaching me basic strikes, uppercuts and footwork. I marveled every now and then at his featherlight feet - it was like a dance - but he would snap me back to reality by clapping the pads together and order me to do yet another round.

"Were you — a gym teacher — before this?" I asked between gasps for breath, though I didn't manage to laugh at my own joke while I rested my hands on my knees.

He took off the pads and threw them in the corner. "Men's vulnerable places," he announced without answering my question. "Eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus, balls, knees. Ears if you do it properly. Hit me in the face."

"What?" I frowned. "I'm not going to hit you. Can't you just teach me how to escape someone's grip?"

He sighed. "Emma, this is part of it. Come on. I want to see your intuitive movements." With his left foot forward he sank into a defensive position, and when I finally did throw my fist at him his automatic reflex was to block it, but he stopped himself in time for my fist to land lamely on his cheek.

He straightened. "Okay. We have some work to do." It didn't sound judgmental; I heard a hint of a laugh in his voice.

We went through a number of self-defense moves, just the choreography as it were, because I was still reluctant to hit him. He laughed with pure joy when I managed to escape from his tight bear hug with an elbow to his chin. Then with impossible grace he sprang back into his lunge and beckoned me with his hand, all the while beaming widely but backing away in a nimble flurry of feet when I came closer. I followed him around the room, "Come on, Emma," he said with a jubilant smile, "Hit me," and eventually my frustration grew enough that I did - I slapped away his defensive left hand and punched him on the cheek.

Its impact on my knuckles was bigger than I'd anticipated and I now understood the importance of the bandages - my hand was held together solidly, my knuckles and fingers were fine.

Noah rose from his low stance, unperturbed by the blow. "You can do better than that, Emma. Come on. Throw your full weight into it."

"But I'm exhausted!" I yelled and lunged at him. I did throw my weight into it now in exasperation, but I hadn't tightened my fist and my flat hand fell into his nose with full force.

He staggered backwards and stared at me, first in surprise and then with a widening grin. He wiped the liquid gold from his upper lip and pinched his nose for a second - it seemed to have lost a bit of its shape but was already reforming itself - and then nodded in delighted approval. "Looks like you've earned your break, Emms."