The Fever and the Fury. Stephanie Draven

for him. He would have a hard time not just tearing those little red panties right off her. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t mind a little rough play.

      Yes, the girl was becoming more and more his type every minute, and when she twined her arms around his neck, he all but crushed her in his arms. He was going to fuck her. Right here. Right now.

      “I hope you’re not expecting any privacy,” the fury said, clearing her throat. “I’m watching every move you make.”

      Luke grumbled. “Whatever gets you off.”

      The shopgirl’s head jerked up, her eyes swimming with confusion. “What?”

      “Nothing,” Luke murmured, burying his nose in her bleached hair. She yanked at his shirt while Luke fumbled with his belt buckle, and when she put her hands on his cheeks to kiss him, the sensation of pleasure was so unfamiliar that it made him shudder because the skin of his new body had never felt anything but pain.

      He hoisted the girl up onto the counter, setting her just off balance so that her knees splayed open. A fire was building in him, warmth in his groin, but this time the heat would be all sexual pleasure.

      So, he’d let the fury watch. Maybe he could twist it into some kind of kinky fantasy. Didn’t every guy think about having two women at the same time? Not that he wanted to have the fury…but when his eyes slid away from the girl in his arms to his tormentor, he caught the slightly aroused parting of the fury’s lips.

      It surprised Luke to think that a creature like her could be titillated, but his ability to ponder such things was decidedly limited as all the blood rushed from his brain to his cock.

      Phaedra knew that her mistress—the chaste maiden goddess of battle—would have viewed this scene of carnal lust with complete contempt. What’s more, Athena would have expected Phaedra to feel equally disgusted by the lieutenant’s panting need for the Slavic seductress.

      But Phaedra was no cruel war goddess. She’d been set upon Luke Lazaros to torment him until he earned forgiveness or until his sanity shattered. But he wasn’t the worst criminal she’d ever encountered. He could be surprisingly courteous, consumed with some personal sense of honor, and because of this, in all the months she’d been stalking him, she’d become aware of a strange and unbidden emotion that tightened painfully in her chest. One that she could only identify as compassion.

      Maybe that’s why she wanted to allow Luke this small comfort, this moment of intimacy—even if it was lewd fornication upon a countertop next to a cash register and dusty bits of junk. Or maybe it was just that she liked the view.

      Luke was a spare-built man with lean muscles, taut, every extra inch of flesh having been burned away in the fire. Stripped to the waist, he was surprisingly beautiful to watch, even as his strong arms encircled a half-naked girl of easy virtue. The sight of unbridled lust between her prey and the shopgirl shouldn’t have mesmerized her this way; Phaedra was an avenger, born only to mete out justice. Punishment and redemption should have been her only concerns. But watching Luke about to claim this woman, about to sate his needs without inhibition, aroused her.

      Squeezing her thighs, she became aware of the warmth there. As Athena’s creature she’d learned to ignore such feelings. She’d learned to bite down on her lip until the iron tang of blood in her mouth drove these animal sensations away. But for some reason, here and now, Phaedra didn’t want to banish the swell of her breasts or the insistent throbbing between her legs.

      She was a fury, a relic of a forgotten age. An age of heroes and justice. Those days were gone now, and most of the old gods were gone too. But Phaedra remained, not as powerful as she once was, and increasingly numb. Maybe she just didn’t want to be numb anymore.

      Watching this man and woman, muscles straining, hands feverishly stroking each other, was a vicarious thrill. Luke yanked down the lace of the girl’s bra so that engorged pink nipples strained to meet his hands. The shopgirl’s glossy fingers skimmed into her already wet panties as if she couldn’t wait for Luke to touch her there, and then she moaned with pleasure.

      The urgency of Phaedra’s heartbeat as it pounded at her wrists and throat and cunt nearly forced her to moan too. Forbidden questions crowded Phaedra’s mind. What would it feel like to kiss someone? Wet and suffocating? Soft and alluring? Would a kiss cause her to gasp for air or pant or push her hand inside her panties to stroke the wetness there?

      Phaedra had never touched anyone—not even herself—except to inflict pain. She’d never used her hands to elicit a whimper of pleasure the way Luke did now when he squeezed the girl’s pendulous breasts. In only a few moments, she’d be watching the clench of his ass as he rammed the girl into the countertop. And at the thought of it, Phaedra’s mouth went dry, entranced by the carnal intimacy, half-imagining herself in the girl’s place.

      It was too much. She’d let it go too far. Long pent-up desires breached all the dams she’d built inside herself to hold them back. And her hand dropped to her sex, squeezing there as if to hold back the flood.