A/N: So, my fanfiction readers, I have news about this chapter. A good portion of it, at least 5-6,000 words, is NSFW. The same will be true for the start of chapter 28, which will be posted in two weeks. If you decide to read here, you'll be missing out on a lot of that good, smutty content that readers on AO3 get to consume.
If you are curious, and want to read, I welcome you to head on over to A03. This story is registered under the same name with the same author. If you do, drop a comment and let me know what you think!
Percy shouldn't be doing this.
That was the thought that kept repeating, rotating around and around in his head. I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this. But he was.
And damn him, he was enjoying it.
"~Mmph. Percy . . ."
The first time the sky bearer had heard Aphrodite make that noise, a half moan half purr deep in her throat, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had just become an addict. It was like stumbling into a cloud of smoke and emerging on the other side with a craving - Percy had been fumbling, inexperienced, overtaken with the hormones and the rush and just sort of . . . happened upon it.
Magic.
There was no other way to describe it. The sensation was stronger than desire, more than just a simple need. Every fiber of his being was dedicated to it. To her.
All it had taken was the loosening of his goddess' neckline, one flash of tan chocolate skin and the seductive curve of her throat. Percy had barely had time to think I want to kiss that and then kissing turned into sucking and then sucking turned into biting and then she had moaned his name and the young god couldn't just stop then, could he? Certainly not.
"Such a quick, ~ah, learner." Somehow, despite being the one pressed into the wall, Aphrodite still had complete control over the situation. Not that Percy especially minded, with his lips still attached to her neck and his mind completely enshrouded in her rose-petal scent. "So eager." The music of her tease was somehow only more beautiful when he could feel her breath hitching in her chest.
"You're one to talk." Percy's teeth let go of his current fascination to growl the words into the side of Aphrodite's cheek. The soft brush of his lips had the goddess' back arching sinfully, chest thrown out and face tilted back. He felt like a rabid animal had crawled into his brain and taken over. The young god's veins buzzed with every brush of skin on skin, the rushing of his blood urging and insistent.
"Touché."
The very real, very insistent hands buried in his curls only tightened with Aphrodite's pleased sigh. Like a blooming flower she opened before him with a tilt of the head, presenting every smooth inch of flesh all the way down to the barely covered tips of her breasts. The lack of clothing revealed just the start of a sinful gradient from tan to something darker at the swell of the love deity's chest.
The goddess hadn't stopped pulling him closer, not since they had first kissed. The fingers on his scalp led him around like a master puppeteer. Aphrodite's effortless guidance gave direction to Percy's fumbling need - touch here, kiss here, speed up, slow down. It was under her tutelage that the young god's shaking fingers had even pulled down the goddess' neckline in the first place.
Percy had done his best to return the favor, trading direction for dedication. First with his hands on Aphrodite's back, and then on her hips, and then underneath her ass. His goddess had gasped as he lifted her into the air, shoving them both against the master bedroom wall. The harsh impact of the love deity's shoulders had sent the paintings rattling in their frames.
The moan she gave then was fueled by anything but pain. Percy's bottom lip still stung from where her canines had dug into his skin. The sting was a dangerous delicacy. That might have worried Percy a bit, had he any room in his head for concerns about his growing list of questionable kinks.
Still, it wasn't enough. It was never enough. The yawning hole is his heart was never satiated, hungrier every second. It felt fit to devour them both - Percy somehow wanted more despite the fact that their entire bodies were touching already.
"Well?" Aphrodite teased, still half-breathless. Her hair splayed across the surface behind her back, deep russet and black and glowing. "Go on then, my silver fox."
Not one to ignore such an invitation, Percy willingly went. His brain was clouded with pink fog as he lathered the growing wet spot on her neck with his tongue, lips, and teeth. It was a struggle not to rip his goddess right out of her skinny jeans, especially with the way they had been teasing him all day.
The young god had to settle instead for pawing at his love's ass cheeks, molding the willing muscle under his hands until she made that sound for him again. A particularly rough squeeze scraped his fingers along the inseam of his goddess' inner thigh, the fabric burning hot to the touch. Her hips physically hitched up off the wall, seeking his hand even as he drew away.
"~Ah. Mmph." Aphrodite groaned into Percy's hair this time, panting breaths washing across the sky bearer's forehead and the bridge of his nose. "Careful, love." There was absolutely nothing in her sultry tone that convinced him she meant it. "It's rude to tease a lady." The ghostly hands under his shirt scratched sharp nail lines down his heaving lats. "Six years, remember?"
Percy only grunted. He committed that particular movement to memory. It seemed like the kind of thing that would come in handy later.
Aphrodite's master suite was dark. It had been when they had entered, clinging and emotional and hungry for one another. Only light from the stars high above shone through the floor-to ceiling windows on the opposite wall. The bubbling of the inlaid hot tub was a distant white noise, now, drowned under the sounds of roaming lips and groping hands, Aphrodite's sultry purrs and Percy's rumbling growls.
The living beach-view mural overhead was quiet. The gentle swishing of waves was almost inaudible, even to Percy's enhanced hearing. The bed, huge and heart-shaped and red, was always in his peripheral vision. The color had never seemed so deep, so vibrant. So appropriate.
The courtyard far below the fourth floor was quiet, motionless as the rest of the manor. Not a whisper of wind even stirred the trees, contained as it was inside of Percy's glowing skin. The sky above was cloudless for the first time since his arrival. The unhidden majesty of the heavens was laid bare over Olympus, and yet somehow the infinite splendor of the universe paled in comparison to what was right in front of Percy's face.
In the midst of the sea of stars, the moon's illumination seemed to shy away from the house of the deity of love. For now, at least, Artemis remained hidden somewhere behind the roof. It only added to the feeling of secrecy, of some taboo isolation despite the very real engagement ring on the son of Poseidon's finger.
Percy was glad for it, even though he knew Aphrodite wouldn't allow them to be seen. There was no Peitho, no Sally or Annabeth around. For how quiet it was, the whole manor could have been empty. The love deity seemed to share the feeling - unlike the sky bearer's hopeless desperation, Aphrodite had been nothing but gentle and encouraging. Rather than dissuade him, her lack of hurry was actually a telling sign that she was sure that they had time, this time.
"I love you." Percy mouthed the words into Aphrodite's hot, fluttering pulse point.
The bedroom's lack of illumination wasn't a hindrance, not to two amorous immortals. Instead, the shadow amplified everything. Aphrodite was a specter of lust, a ghost of endless attraction, supernatural and yet so physically real all at once. Percy found himself appreciating the way her ears reddened with her blush. He painstakingly traced each flutter of her lacy eyelashes, committed to memory the feeling of her body under his hands.
For the sky bearer, the sight of a darkening purple bruise on his love's collarbone was the most satisfying reward for his ministrations that he could have asked for. Determined, Percy went to add another right above the hollow of Aphrodite's throat. Beads of sweat sparkled like a thousand diamonds on her skin. She tasted of salted dark chocolate, each bite better than the last.
"I love you." Aphrodite's breath whispered right into his ears, slithering all the way to his brain and down his spine like lightning.
Both the sky bearer's shirt and his pants felt rather restrictive at the moment. He wondered if his goddess felt the same. That seemed likely. The love deity had all but shimmied her shoulders out of those strange silly sleeves, and his belt lay discarded somewhere on the other side of the room. Percy hadn't even been the one to remove it, mostly because his fingers were shaking too much to get a grip on the buckle.
Aphrodite swallowed thickly as Percy latched on, lifting and fitting her own hips into his own in a way that had his entire vision spiraling with white stars. The friction was unbearable and yet also wholly unsatisfactory. The sky bearer welcomed the explosion of sensation, comfort be damned - Percy would take anything, anything at all to taste more of his love and forget the words tumbling through his mind on repeat.
I shouldn't be doing this.
To be honest, he wasn't even sure how things had escalated so quickly. Percy knew all the steps, of course, but moving through his memory of them was like flicking through a stack of scribbled post-it-notes. An approximation of movement, a veneer of reality, rather than something real. As Aphrodite used his hair to forcibly pull up his chin and lay an open-mouth kiss against his lips, Percy flipped through the cards.
Dinner had been a . . . unique sort of affair. It turned out that the smattering of tables he had seen were in fact some sort of eating area, attended mostly by the Greek campers. The sea of orange shirts reflected back the color of the fire in the center brazier in a way that made the whole space feel warmer than it really should have.
Dryads flickered in between the tables, serving food and drink and even flirts with some of the older demigods. All while, younger children shoveled themselves full and scampered about underfoot. Annabeth, true to what Percy had unfortunately expected, had slipped somewhere into the crowd and quickly disappeared.
It wasn't as if the campers were pretending the evening was normal, at least as far as Percy could tell. Unfilled seats on a few of the tables received wide, respectful births. Some of the demigods, those streaked with dirt and soot and exhaustion, were given both first and second servings before anyone else. Touches seemed to linger longer than usual. Percy saw fingers pressed to arms and feet tapping beneath tables, as if the half-bloods were making sure that the recipients were still alive and breathing. And yet, somehow, despite everything?
It was the happiest looking group of people Percy had ever seen.
The son of Poseidon had felt choked up often enough recently to know when it was time to force his emotions down. And yet, spying Blackjack prancing about the edges of the tables and stealing scraps from unsuspecting plates had made the corners of his eyes feel wet. Katie had given him a wide smile from a table with a bunch of other blond-haired demigods, and even Pollux had waved a bit nervously from a back corner he occupied all by himself.
Aphrodite had been practically swarmed by her children, sans both Drew and Piper. The former was still sleeping, and Mitchell softly informed them that the latter would be taking her dinner in the Big House to watch over her. In her stead Valentina had taken up the leadership role, a touch airy but no less sincere than her missing Cabin Counsellor. That sort of familiar love was sweet, but not as sweet as the hug Percy's legs got from Eloise before the tiny demigod scampered away to chug a soda can half the size of her own face.
The son of Poseidon had made a note to check for cavities, later. Perhaps Aphrodite could let him know. Her tongue had been exploring his molars quite efficiently over the past several minutes.
Percy had found it a bit harder to locate Reyna, at first. Frankly, for how they seemed to generally outnumber the orange-clad Greeks, there weren't many Romans around at all. Eventually the fire's reflection off a pair of metallic canines caught Percy's attention. The daughter of Bellona had been lurking near the edges of the circle of columns, a praetor-shaped heart to a subtle gathering of purple-shirted campers.
When they caught eyes, Reyna had stiffened to attention. Before he could even lift up a hand to wave, the dark-skinned woman had given him as respectful of a salute as Percy had ever seen. Argentum and Aurum had even followed suit, robotic heads lowering in time with their demigod master. He hadn't really known how to respond.
Of course, the sky bearer's wavering emotional state did not exclude him from a set of crushing hugs, first from a dark pegasus' wings - I knew you could do it boss - and second from Grover - You need to stop scaring me like that, man - and finally from Thalia- you fucking heroic asshole. The daughter of Zeus had then proceeded to sock him right across the chin with enough force to break a mortal's jaw, but the sky bearer could only laugh with the joy of it all. That had earned him another less-than-effective punch.
I shouldn't be doing this.
As Percy surrendered to Aphrodite's lips, the repeating thought in his head sounded a lot like the whispers had at dinner. The love deity was allowing no quarter, not this time. Her kisses were wide, rough, searching. Aphrodite was a thief, a pirate out for plunder. Each nip, each swipe across his teeth was dominant in a way that threatened to make his knees give out. That would have been a real bummer, considering he was holding them both up at the moment.
The tradition Annabeth had mentioned was almost immediately made clear after Thalia had delivered her second right-hook and stormed off to grab some food. 'Almost', because it had still taken several minutes for the novelty of two Olympians showing up to fully fade away. Eventually, slowly, and one by one, Percy had watched something arresting take place.
The sky bearer had known that sacrifice had been key to his ascension. What he did not realize was just how much it would impact him. It, frankly, hit much harder than Thalia's mean right hook. Not that he would have said that out loud.
Before even the tenth demigod had scooped a portion of their food into the flames, Percy had been glowing so brightly that his exposed skin was webbed with neon teal veins. Chiron had actually stepped over, as if ready to shield him from the camper's view should the need arise. The centaur had been wearing an expression so perfectly split between grief and pride that it was wonder he still only had one face.
Percy hadn't really the time, nor metal ability, to dwell on it. Aphrodite, bless her, had stood by his side for nearly an hour. His goddess had simply held his hand as Percy just . . . stared. Stared and listened.
It wasn't that every sacrifice had the same sort of impact. Sometimes the camper's voice would remain incomprehensible no matter how long they spoke, as if the sounds weren't intended for Percy's ears. Not yet, at least. But most of the time - and especially if his name was mentioned - it was like the demigod's words were being piped directly into his brain.
Something was different, though, about what Percy was hearing. It hadn't taken him long to figure that out. The first time he listened to tearful cries without seeing any actual, physical waterworks had been a pretty good clue. No, the sky bearer was instead treated to something much different.
For the rest of dinner, Percy had been torn between two halves, the real and the whispers. The sky bearer didn't hear what the demigod's actually said out loud, not really. His ears somehow caught something deeper. Something hidden. The voices of the demigods peeled back the veil of reality, laid bare the true emotion underneath for him and him alone.
With each flare of the fire Percy heard a veteran's war-torn grief. He listened to a young teen's desire to belong. He heard cries for mercy and rants for retribution. He heard hate and pain and joy and love and so much more that by the end his heart was fit to burst from the pressure at it all.
The young god hadn't known what to do. What to say. The sheer depth of emotion left him completely paralyzed. So, in the end, Percy hadn't really said anything at all. And, before he had known it, the moment was past and he had lost his chance.
I shouldn't be doing this.
It had taken Percy longer than he realized to recover his wits after his surprise emotional rollercoaster. Apollo's sun had been well on its way down at that point, the pressure of the sun god's gaze mere background noise. At some unspoken signal, the tables were cleared and the fire quickly smothered.
Dinner was over. The next point of business, unfortunately, was notably more somber.
The demigods moved like a river of humanity, out from the eating area and through the town and down towards the Sound. Percy had followed, floating as if through a dream. Purple bled into the mostly orange stream as if made of dark rivulets of paint, summoned from the surrounding buildings and the half-emptied trenches. Chiron herded the mass with expert precision, kind yet stern, as if a weight had been lifted from his equine back without Dionysus' presence.
Lupa had been waiting for them on the beach.
The great wolf sat, back to the trees, in a silent vigil. Despite her size, the Mother of Rome nearly faded into the sunset, so perfect was the color of her deep red fur. Nothing physically had changed about the canine, no, but when Percy and Aphrodite had rounded the corner there was something about her presence that was undeniably burdened.
In front of Lupa, arranged in a perfect row across the sand, were fifteen pyres. The number felt ominous. Percy could almost feel the Morai's strings, woven and invisible through the very gaps between the logs.
There was a pile of wood for each Olympian. Percy wondered which one was his.
By the time the crowd had finished assembling, Percy and Aphrodite had been allowed their own little space and the stars were beginning to peak out overhead. The love deity's children formed a loose circle near the two Olympians, a united front with Valentina at the front and Lacy at the center.
The normally unflappable beacon of enthusiasm was dim. Withdrawn, with downcast eyes. Even her pigtails drooped. The teen was clasping either elbows clasped in front of her chest - no purple-shirted boy stumbled out of the crowd to hold her hand this time. Percy could only hope that meant Bennet was in The Big House's infirmary with Drew, instead of on top of one of the stacks of wood in front of them.
A brush of flame brightened the darkness, and Annabeth had emerged from the mass carrying a lit torch. The campers parted before her sure, steady gait. The daughter of Athena, alone, lit the pyres.
One.
By.
One.
The flaming stick couldn't have weighed more than a few pounds, but Annabeth wielded it like the thing was made of lead. Still, not a single soul even offered to take over the burden. Not even Reyna. It was like everyone knew better than to argue, or perhaps that the argument had been had and lost a long time ago. Another tradition, perhaps, though this of the decidedly worst kind.
The daughter of Athena had taken her time, spending a long minute or two in front of the shrouded bodies with a straight, emotionless face. Each pyre went up in a whoosh of instant heat, engineered to be quick and controllable. The flickering flames somehow tinted purple or orange depending on the camper laid within - the colored flames reflected dully off of Annabeth's gray eyes.
The blond demigod hadn't seemed twenty-something, then. She had seemed a thousand years older than that. Once the stacks of wood were all lit, the sight had cracked something deep inside of Percy's chest.
The sky bearer had never wondered what fire tasted like before. That night, through his aura, he learned it tasted of death.
I shouldn't be doing this.
He could still feel it, that crack. A splintering deep in his core.
I shouldn't be doing this.
It hurt.
I shouldn't be doing this.
Maybe that's why Percy had pounced on Aphrodite the instant she had flashed them home. Perhaps that was the reason the sky bearer had picked her up and pressed her flush against the wall and desperately rutted his clothed hips into his goddess' own. It could be that he had been chasing her as much as he had been chasing any feeling in general.
I shouldn't be doing this.
Percy just didn't want to hurt anymore.
I shouldn't be doing this.
The image of those unmoving shrouds hurt. The sight of Annabeth's all-too-even face hurt. Grover's tears hurt. The way Thalia escaped into the trees and away from her grief hurt, and how Lupa and Chiron just stood and watched hurt and Percy hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt-
"You are crying, my love."
The sky bearer emerged from his head like a drowning man breaking the surface, breathing heavy and yet still not getting enough air. He could feel his own chest heaving, sense the tumultuous whirlwind he had spawned in the bedroom. His eyes burned, and his jaw ached from how hard he had been keeping himself from clenching down on his goddess' delicate throat. When he pulled his head back, Aphrodite's hair was whipping about her face and her eyes were glowing pink braziers of concern.
The love deity wasn't smiling like she was before. When one of her hands came around to swipe gently at Percy's cheek, the goddess' fingers came away wet. His tears glistened like the marble floor tiles on the pad of her thumb as they caught the refracting, starry light.
"Oh." It was all he could say. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" The pointed question had Percy flinching. Her gaze flicked between his own, hazy now with a filter that he recognized was his own brimming tears. "What could you possibly be apologizing for, mon cher?"
The atmosphere in the room had shifted, diminished with each breath not shared between them. The love deity's bare feet hit the ground with soft taps as Percy's arms lost the strength to hold her up. The goddess had abandoned her sandals at some point, probably while the sky bearer had been kicking his own off with his eyes closed and their mouths linked. Aphrodite's hands gripped his arms - where once the sky bearer had held them both up, now the love deity held him in turn.
"I . . . I don't know." Percy choked out a laugh that didn't sound genuine in the slightest. "Sorry for killing the mood, I guess." Aphrodite's face pinched. The sky bearer roughed one shoulder against his face, avoiding her gaze.
"Do you not want this?" The vulnerability in her tone nearly broke Percy's heart, voice more naked than her bare upper torso.
"No!" The son of Poseidon exclaimed, more than a bit too loudly. He cleared his throat, lowering his tone. "I do. Gods, I do. I've wanted it for a while, believe me." Percy had to close his eyes, just to keep all of his thoughts in some semblance of order without her puffy, half-bruised lips distracting his attention. "But we just attended a funeral, Aphy." Putting it into words just made what he was just doing sound even more disgraceful. He fought back the moisture under his eyelids. "I feel like I'm all messed up and I don't know-"
"Stop." Aphrodite's firm interruption was contrasted against the softness of the finger she laid across his lips. Her flawless face had become something more stern, the lack of a mask making her all the more breathtaking. "Is that truly your concern?"
"Yeah." It was simpler just to agree, especially when Percy didn't know how to put it all into words anyway.
Aphrodite's rainbow eyes saw right through him. She smiled at him a little, then. A small and empathetic thing that found Percy completely helpless. "Can I teach you something, my love?"
"Okay." Favorite word to the rescue.
"Merci." Aphrodite breathed, the word a first note on a growing musical scale. The finger on his lip drifted away, across his cheek and down his neck to alight on one shoulder. "If I have learned but one thing in my life, mon coeur, it is that mortals experience many kinds of love." Her smile widened, the melody of her voice growing. "Love from afar, love from up close, love unrequited. And yet, many often find themselves asking the same question."
Aphrodite's music slowly filled the bedroom as she pulled them both away from the wall. Her irises twinkled with rainbow swirls in the low light, discarded sleeves whirling about her bare shoulders. The hand on his arm had resumed its gentle guidance, pushing them both back towards the center of the room.
"What question?" Percy couldn't help but ask. He was strung along hook, line, and sinker.
"What is love?" The goddess giggled, as if the question itself was silly. Aphrodite used her grip to pull them into a slow spin, eyes still locked together. "Or something similar. Why is love? When is love?" She shook her head, fox-tail hair swaying in time with their steps. "That rather misses the point, I think."
"You lost me." The sky bearer murmured.
Aphrodite side-eyed Percy a bit, feigning bashfulness. "Let me put it this way: Do you know who love is for, dearest?" She pursed her lips, the half of her smile he could see turning mischievous. "Or, rather, do you know who sex is for?"
Percy nearly stumbled over his own feet. The young god could feel his neck heating again just under the power of that one word alone. He had been doing his best not to think about it, to be honest. That was harder than it would sound, since the topic had been on his mind rather frequently as of late.
"I don't know." Percy eventually answered, voice low in his chest to match the soothing piano of his love's tone. "I don't think I've ever had any." He coughed, cheeks red.
Gods, saying such a thing out loud was way more embarrassing than he thought it would be. The words almost stuck in Percy's throat - compared to Aphrodite, the young god was more like a flailing babe than a novice. He didn't even really know how to kiss, except for what she had taught him.
Even just hearing the word 'condom' or 'sex' had him blushing! The fiancé to the goddess of love, everybody! What a joke. Percy fought down a self-deprecating grimace. Maybe all of Ares' vulgar showboating had bothered him more than he liked to admit.
"Peu importe- no matter." Aphrodite brushed off Percy's ashamed admission without a second thought. "You've proven adept enough to learn." The son of Poseidon sighed, shattered ego repairing itself a bit with her confident declaration. "Besides. Experience alone would not reveal the answer to my question."
The mural overhead rotated leisurely overhead with Aphrodite's pace, her gentle touch pulling Percy along for the ride. There was a comfortable ease to this. A flow. With her hands on his arms and his grip on her hips, the slow sway of his goddess' body felt like . . . dancing.
Percy blinked at that thought.
The more he paid attention, the more right it seemed. Without him realizing it, the love deity had swept them up into a sort of wandering, informal waltz. Her leading was as effortless and graceful as ever, despite the height difference. As they crossed the distance between the bed and the jacuzzi, Percy couldn't help but lean into her touch and time his motions to her movement.
The rest of the bedroom seemed to fall away. He and Aphrodite completed another orbit around each other, a pink and a green star circling in the depths of space. Alone, yet together.
"I still don't know, though." The sky bearer shrugged one shoulder. Percy bent down, resting his forehead against his goddess' and closing his eyes. "I just didn't want to ruin my- our first time by being like this." He whispered. The quiet nearly swallowed his words right from his lips.
Percy had ruined a lot of things. If the great chalkboard of tally marks in his mind wasn't evidence enough, then the way Sally sometimes got a horribly wistful look on her face certainly was. Or the way Annabeth had looked at him and Aphrodite back at The Big House, or how Grover had to try so hard to pretend they weren't still half-strangers. The son of Poseidon would be damned to Tartarus if he made this another one of those.
What was happening here was far too precious to him to risk. The ring around Percy's finger felt heavier than stone.
"Ruin?" Aphrodite pulled them both into an arcing spin, back away from the bed and towards the bathroom door. "Such a strong word, mon amour." When Percy opened his eyes again, her questioning expression was as gentle as her voice. "To ruin something implies you are breaking it. Using something in a way it wasn't intended." Her hands were firm against his shoulders, aura comforting on his skin as they danced together.
"I guess." Percy wasn't quite sure where this was going. He couldn't help but run his fingers along the dip of her hips, caressing the intoxicating curve where his goddess' legs met her torso. The sky bearer felt raw, bristling with a thousand insecurities like exposed nerves.
"Here is my first lesson of the evening, then." Aphrodite's lips quirked up, her smirk daring him to lick it off of her face. The love deity's dainty steps tapped perfectly between Percy feet, in and out in time with her music. "Sex is not just for the happy, my love. For the honeymoon couple or the rebellious teen." Another sweeping orbit had the starlight spinning across the polished floor. The love deity's eyes held his own captive. "It is for all forms of love."
Aphrodite stressed the word with her whole body. Her whole being. Percy's goddess was glowing, then, not with the pink of her aura or the power of a goddess, but instead with the breathtaking surety of a woman with millennia upon millennia of personal experience.
"It is for the silent to speak without words." The sky bearer could feel the movement of her breathing, synced perfectly to his own. "For the chained to feel free." Aphrodite slid a hand down to tap a finger into the center of his chest. "For the grieving to be comforted."
Percy swallowed. His heart was suddenly thick in his throat. His goddess' eyes were soft, peering right through him and seeing everything. When Aphrodite took her next deep inhale, the space between them was filled with something vulnerable. Intimate, like secrets shared.
"I have lived a long time, my love." Aphrodite's whispered melody was pianissimo, soft as a butterfly's wings against his ears. "And yet, in all my thousands of years, in you I have found something new. Something vrai- true." The finger on his chest lifted only to be replaced by her palm, digits spread wide across the front of his silk shirt. "I may have more experience, Percy, but not with this. Not with a man like you." The love deity's voice wavered, thick with her own emotion. "Not with a love this pure."
When next the son of Poseidon blinked, he was struck dumb by the sight of his goddess. There was nothing but open, unashamed honesty on the love deity's face. The Olympian in Percy's arms, underneath all the divine glow and flawless skin, was bare to him, and the person he found inside was somehow more stunning than before.
Aphrodite spoke again as she effortlessly twirled them around one more time, putting his back to the mattress. "You may find that we are both a bit new to this, ce soir." She laughed, then, the chiming sound ringing triumphantly through the bedroom. "It could be we are both nervous. Maybe we laugh, fumble, bump noses and teeth a few times." Her tone was picking up strength, the crescendo building. "Perhaps we should."
Her next smile was as strong as it was nervous. Percy nearly kissed her right then and there - it was the one that made him fall in love with her in the first place. Aphrodite's next words took the breath right out of his throat.
"But that's beautiful too, don't you think?"
"Yes." He didn't even have to think about his response. "But not as beautiful as you."
Percy wasn't sure who kissed who next. All he knew is that his mouth was finally occupied once again, Aphrodite's breath rushing across his upper lip. His eyes crashed closed. Strong hands pushed on Percy's chest, and then suddenly he was tipping back off his feet. For a moment he flailed, weightless. At the last moment, right as he went over, the young god grabbed at his love.
Percy's back hit the comforter.
The sky bearer lost a bit of breath when Aphrodite landed directly on top of his abdomen. Her legs tightened instantly like a sprung bear trap, thighs encasing him on either side. The goddess' hands raked at his face, at his hair, down his neck. In turn, her mouth opened wide and her tongue swiped across his lips, demanding an entrance he was more than happy to provide.
The energy from between them was only building, growing stronger as their mouths met over and over and over again. Their tongues danced around each other, a motion first full-body but now contained between their lips. Percy would pull away and Aphrodite would chase with little nips and flashing teeth, and when the roles reversed the sky bearer would lunge from the bed like a man possessed.
He kissed and sucked on every inch of her he could reach - cheeks, eyelids, the curve of her jaw, the hollow of her throat, the swell of the tops of her breasts. One particular spot on her chest had the goddess' spine shooting straight, her jaw open and eyes rolling with a wanton moan that turned into frustrated panting.
"Enough of this."
Without any preamble, Aphrodite reached down and literally tore Percy's shirt open right down the middle. The shocked sky bearer wasn't given any time to truly digest how unfairly attractive that was - holy shit - before her fingers were pulling at the bottom hem of her own top. A flash of fabric found the garment flying far enough away to literally hit the window.
Percy could only watch, spellbound. His mouth flash-dried, and his brain was suddenly lacking any and all blood flow. He was sure Aphrodite could feel where it was all going, trapped beneath her seat as he was.
"Couldn't you just have teleported that off?" Of course, his brain chose that moment to spout the most idiot thing he could think of. His voice came out several degrees higher and breathier than normal.
Aphrodite threw her head back, a laugh ringing from her throat. The sound of it was so sinfully attractive it had Percy twitching in his pants. When her face came back down, she was grinning wide enough he could see the light glinting off her canines.
"Now where would the fun in that be?" She purred.
Percy did not have an answer.
This is where the NSFW content begins. ;) Head over to A03 if you want to get your fill! Otherwise, thanks for reading, and I'll see you all in two weeks.