Chapter 117 Pretty and Exposed
(Apollo & Adelaide)
Adelaide felt the bench beneath her vibrate as if it were a living thing. Not sentient, not aware—but responsive all the same. The obsidian carried memory the way skin carried scars, holding the echo of every body that had ever been bent here, every vow broken, every plea whispered into heat.
The obsidian didn’t just hold heat—it breathed it. Slow waves of warmth pulsed through the sloped surface, radiating into her ribs and belly as she lay draped over it, her bare chest pressed to the padded incline. Her wrists remained bound by glowing chains of smoke. Her palms were flat on the floor, and every faint movement caused the runes beneath her hands to flare brighter. Each flare arrived with a sound—soft, metallic, like distant bells ringing under stone—marking her motion as if Hell itself were counting her breaths.
Her body trembled. Part fear, part excitement, and partly from the lingering, molten echo of what she had done on her knees.
Her wrists still tingled, phantom-burned from the moment she’d accidentally destroyed the restraints. Her throat still felt raw from him. Her mind still felt too loud, too full, humming on the edge of something she couldn’t name.
Thoughts slid against one another without settling, as if her consciousness were floating just above her body instead of fully inside it.
And behind her— He moved.
The air shifted first. A ripple of scorching heat swept across her back, followed by the faint rustle of wings being positioned with deliberate slowness. She felt it more than heard it—like a storm cloud gathering directly above her skin.
Apollo.
Her breath snagged as his shadow fell over her again, swallowing the bench, swallowing her.
His presence flooded the room, saturating the air so thickly she felt it pressing into her lungs.
“Good,” he murmured, voice a molten growl that rasped along her exposed spine. “Aren’t you pretty, bent and exposed for me. Exactly where you should be.”
Her pulse skittered. Her fingers curled instinctively into the stone. Her foot slipped on the floor, legs trembling beneath her. She hated how much her body reacted to his voice. She hated how much of her wanted to respond to it.
But she also hated the alternative—being left hanging, helpless, forgotten on that cross again. Memory struck her ribs like a bruise pressed too hard. She tried to steady her breathing, but every inhale felt too thin.
Her heart thudded against the bench. Her thoughts twined into chaotic knots.
“What—” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “What are you going to do?”
Behind her, Apollo’s exhale washed over her like hot smoke, making her shiver.
“Only what you asked for,” he said. “What you need.”
“I didn’t ask—”
“You did,” he growled, leaning over her until his scaled chest brushed her back. “With your mouth. With your hands. With the way you begged without speaking.”
His words landed with weight, not accusation but certainty—the kind that did not care whether she agreed. Heat surged over her skin. Her cheeks burned. Shame and desire tangled viciously inside her.
His hand slid up along her spine. His scaled palm was surprisingly smooth. He traced the line of each vertebra, one by one, with almost reverent precision.
Each draw of his fingers, each gentle touch, drew a faint shimmer of warmth across her nerves, as if her body marked his path internally.
When his claws drew a line along her sensitive flesh, her back arched beneath the touch before she could force it still.
Apollo hummed approvingly.
“Your body remembers,” he murmured. “Even when your tongue lies.”
The hand stopped at her neck, claws framing her pulse point without pressing.
Her throat tightened.
“Do you like this kindness?” he whispered.
“This isn’t kindness,” she hit back.
He chuckled and spread his fingers through her moist lips. Pulling a surprised gasp from her. The sound startled her—too sharp, too exposed—like she’d been caught speaking a language she didn’t know she knew.
“Your body says different,” Apollo crooned.
Her defiance was intoxicating. Her fear was exquisite. Her need—raw, barely restrained, humming through the bond—was the sweetest torment he’d tasted in centuries. He could feel every frantic thud of her heart through their connection. Every tremble of her thighs. Every tug-of-war between shame and hunger inside her. She didn’t understand what she’d awakened in him—not truly.
But she would.
“Say you like it,” he whispered.
She shook her head hard, her hair falling over her shoulders like a curtain. “No.”
Apollo’s grip tightened around her neck—not enough to hurt, but enough to make her feel owned.
“You will,” he said. “Before I’m finished, I'll have you begging for more.”
He placed one hand on her hip, the curve fitting so perfectly beneath his palm that possessiveness clawed up his spine.
“This body,” he murmured, squeezing lightly, “belongs here.”
She let out a strangled breath. Her hips tilted involuntarily. Her fingers curled harder into the runes.
He smiled. “Hold on tight, Little Flame.”
He shifted his stance behind her—deliberate, predatory—and guided the massive heat of himself between her thighs until the thick weight settled against her slick heat.
The sudden contrast of scorching flesh against her swollen, tender skin sent a tremor up her spine. Her breath caught as the heat radiating from him bled through every nerve ending, her thighs instinctively clenching, trying—and failing—to escape the overwhelming press of him.
He heard the tiny noise she made. Half fear. Half anticipation. Entirely addictive.
A fragile, trembling sound she didn’t even recognise as her own slipped free, her chest tightening, her lungs fighting the dual shock of dread and desperate want.
Her breath hitched. “Apollo—”
“Hush,” he said softly, almost tenderly. “Feel.”
The word wrapped around her like smoke—warm, dark, inescapable—command and comfort twisted together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
The head of his scaled cock split her lips. Her already seeping lips. He moved it. Rubbing it around her entrance, pressing it against her clit. Coating it in her love juice.
The friction was unreal—slick and maddening—each slow drag sending sparks racing across her skin, pooling deep in her belly like molten gold. Her body betrayed her, hips giving a tiny jolt forward, seeking more of that unbearable glide.
Then he pushed. His head edged in.
The moment he entered her, her body bowed like a drawn bowstring.
Her spine arched so sharply she felt the tendons pull tight in her lower back, the breath ripping out of her as if he’d carved the air from her lungs. Heat erupted inside her, searing and consuming, her pulse kicking into a frantic staccato.
Her breath shattered. Heat ripped through her belly, up her spine, into her throat.
She gasped—sharp, desperate—her chin dropping, her head hanging off the end of the bench, as she tried to breathe around the overwhelming stretch.
Her vision flickered at the edges, white-hot and dizzying. Her toes curled hard, scraping against the warm stone as pleasure and shock collided in brutal harmony.
He stilled. Didn’t push, didn’t thrust, didn’t take.
Was this kindness? Letting her feel him, little by little?
His stillness was worse—infinitely worse—holding her open, suspended, her body pulsing around the intrusion while her mind scrambled to catch up. She trembled with the effort not to beg. Not to plead.
She panted from under him. Her walls quivered around him. Then nothing. He didn’t move. He didn’t press forward. It wasn’t enough.