by Marie Medina
Ares thinks his life will be simpler now that his affair with Aphrodite is over. However, he didn't count on finding out that Alala, his constant companion and best friend, has been waiting a very long time for him to end things with the love goddess. Alala, goddess of the war cry, has loved Ares all her life but never told him. Even when Aphrodite wasn't around, there was always another woman in his bed. Now she's taken a chance and allowed her feelings to show. Ares quickly becomes confused by his desire for her and his fear of losing her completely, if he makes the wrong choices. When a rival appears on the scene, Ares has to do something to make up for how blind he's been, or risk losing the perfect companion the Fates gave him so long ago.
Sweet Cry of Pleasure
Olympians, Book Four
by
Marie Medina
MF, SPANKING,
& LIGHT BONDAGE
Twisted E-Publishing, LLC.
www.twistedepublishing.com
A TWISTED E-PUBLISHING BOOK
Sweet Cry of Pleasure
Olympians, Book Four
Copyright © 2009, 2015 by Marie Medina
Second E-book Publication: August 2015
Previously Published 2009
Cover design by K Designs
All cover art and logo copyright © 2015, Twisted Erotica Publishing.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Chapter One
Ares slumped over the bar and pushed his glass back to Iris. “I think I’ve had enough.”
She put his glass in the sink and wiped the bar in front of him. “Two drinks aren’t typically enough.”
He tried to smile. “Tonight it is.”
“I know she’s my mother-in-law now, but don’t you think you can do better?”
Ares raised his eyebrows. “You think?”
Iris rolled her eyes. “Of course I do. And what I mean is you can do better than someone you’ll never love, better than someone who treats you like this.”
“Well, you have to admit, I treat Aphrodite as bad as she treats me.”
“Maybe.”
“Talking about mommy dearest, are we?”
Ares turned around to Eros sliding onto a stool near the end of the bar. He looked around and saw that except for one couple by the door, the restaurant was empty. Iris went over to her husband and kissed him on the cheek. They smiled at each other dreamily for a second.
Normally Ares would have laughed or made a joke about their cute couple behavior, but he didn’t feel like it. Before she’d married Eros, he had actually tried to seduce Iris several times. She was beautiful and feisty, and she had an amazing body. He’d found in recent months she was also a very loyal friend. Her father was a water deity, so she’d been close to his uncle Poseidon most of her life, but Ares had mostly considered her a pretty little thing to banter and flirt with.
Now, when he saw her with Eros, he felt jealous. He didn’t specifically want Iris, not really, though he certainly wouldn’t have turned the sexy, witty goddess down, but he wanted what she had to offer. That much he had come to realize. He had a certain bad boy appeal. His dark hair and eyes, strong features and good build combined well with his irresistible charm, when he cared to be charming. However, sex was all he’d ever gained. That wasn’t bad, but he’d been wasting centuries going back and forth between Aphrodite and random mortal women. If his suspicions were correct, he was in fact Eros’ father, but even that wouldn’t convince him to keep trying with Aphrodite. They’d been friends once, long ago, but their sex games had turned into mind games over the years, and they had both shown how cruel they could be. They could get along, but they would never really be friends again.
“You okay?”
Ares glanced up at Iris, who looked very worried. That was yet another charming thing about her. He was the god of war, and most people left him alone if he didn’t look completely happy, but she wasn’t going to let anything about him intimidate her away from reaching out to him.
“Yeah. Just moody. Too much on my mind.”
“Can we help?” Eros asked.
Ares looked at the young blond god. They had never gotten along that well. The biggest reason was the way Ares constantly teased him, not the question of whether or not they were father and son or even Ares’ constant off and on affair with his mother. Those issues were only part of it.
“I’m fine. Nothing new to analyze about me.”
“If you say so,” Eros said. “But it hasn’t been that long since I would have been sickened by the sight of so many happy couples.”
Eros referred to the fact that love had been popping up everywhere among most of the gods. Not just sex, actual love that seemed to be lasting quite well for all of them. Poseidon had married a very sexy woman named Layla who had been granted immortality by Zeus, Eros and Iris had found each other in the midst of one of Aphrodite and Hera’s schemes, and his sister Eris had finally managed to act on her feelings for Hermes and win his heart.
“You’ve got a point there, but you had more of an excuse. I have no doubt your job sucks a lot of the time.”
Eros shrugged. “I’ve managed to keep my perspective more lately.”
“Must be nice.”
Iris poured Ares another drink. “You said you didn’t want it, but oh well. You’re getting it.”
“And this will help?” He took the drink.
“All you ever do is wind yourself up. Getting laid is not the only way to relieve stress.”
He smiled and leaned closer. “And what makes you think that’s the only way I relieve my stress?”
She smiled back. “Wild guess.”
He sat back and looked at Eros. “So any tips on how you keep your mother from driving you crazy?”
“I avoid her when possible. I doubt you can do that. This is a little different.”
Ares shook his head. “That’s just it. There’s nothing to discuss or settle. Not as far I’m concerned. We’re over. End of story.”
Eros raised his eyebrows. “Really? Nothing at all to discuss?”
He knew Eros meant the question of his paternity. “That’s a different issue. She’s never going to tell us anyway.”
“Well, I’m sure you have more patience than she does, so she’ll come looking for you and you’ll have to deal with her soon enough.”
He couldn’t deny Eros was right. “Yeah. I know. It’s all this stuff with Hermes. Doesn’t help he hooked up with my sister and we got into a fight over it. It wasn’t any of our business anyway.”
Iris looked at him for a long time. “You can’t stop yourself from caring about anyone. Maybe you both should have stayed out of it, but you can’t change what you did. No one would blame you for defending your sister, even if you shouldn’t have been there to overhear the argument in the first place.”
Ares finished his drink. “I just need to go home.”
Eros turned on his stool. “Guess we weren’t much help.”
Ares shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that.” He kissed Iris on the cheek and began to walk away.
“Let us know what happens,” she called as he got to the door.
“I’m going home,” he called back.
“You never know who might be there.”
He groaned as he went out the door. Unfortunately, she was probably right.
* * * *
Ares wanted to disappear as soon as he had appeared in his living room. Aphrodite was indeed there, sitti
ng on the couch. Two things surprised him though. First of all, she was in his living room, not his bed. Second, she was wearing a long skirt and a top that did not accentuate her breasts.
“We were just talking about you,” he said as he walked around in front of her.
She didn’t meet his gaze. “You were?”
“I was at Iris’ having a drink. Eros was there too.”
After a moment she looked up at him. “You two were talking about me?”
She sounded uneasy, but he wasn’t sure if it was because Eros had been there or just because he had been talking about her at all. “Just a bit.” He sat down beside her. “We’re through, Aphrodite, and you know that. You must want something else.”
“I’m not sure if I want it or not. Hermes has convinced me to do something.”
He waited for her to go on, but she just sat there looking at her hands. She was twisting part of her skirt between her fingers.
“You don’t have to explain about him. You never loved him any more than you loved me. You were pretty obsessed, but not quite in love. Besides, you made no promises to me, and I didn’t make any to you.”
She blushed a little. He wasn’t sure if he should believe her embarrassment or discomfort to be sincere though. She was the best at manipulation, better even than his mother Hera, especially with men. She might still be after something.
“Come on,” he prompted. “I’ll stop being an ass if you’ll just tell me what you want.”
“I only want to tell you something.”
Ares couldn’t help holding his breath for a few moments. “Yes?”
“You know what I’m going to say.”
“Then bloody well say it!” The entire house shook, and Aphrodite actually made a whimpering sound.
He took a deep breath and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m a little tense tonight.” He tried to take her hands, but she pulled away. He folded his arms across his chest. “Please tell me.”
She looked into his eyes for a moment, and then said, “Eros is your son.”
After several moments of staring at the wall behind her, he looked at her again. “Why tell me now? Because you can’t have Hermes anymore?”
Her expression hardened, though he thought he saw moisture building in her eyes. “I thought you were going to stop being an ass if I told you?”
“Sorry. It’s just in my nature. No overriding it.”
“I came to tell you because Hermes convinced me keeping it a secret was silly. He showed me it had never done anything but cause pain and strife.”
“And why did you keep it a secret?”
She sighed. “I had more than one reason, you know.”
“Indulge my curiosity.”
“You’re an arrogant prick, first off. I didn’t want to have a child with you.”
Ares smiled. “You know we are born at the will of the Fates. If sex was all it took you could populate a planet.”
She scowled. “As could you.”
He rolled his eyes. “So, you didn’t want me gloating or thinking I owned you or any other macho crap. You also didn’t want to be stuck with me. Next.”
“I’m talking about the way I feel.”
“You never considered the way I felt, so I think you can give me just a bit of consideration at this moment. Did it ever occur to you I might have wanted to know my son was in fact my son for the past few thousand years?”
“I guess maybe I thought you wouldn’t care. Bit late to apologize now though.”
“You could still do it.”
“Well, then, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would hurt you.”
He had a hard time controlling his temper because he simply couldn’t believe that. No matter what she thought of him, she had to have known he would’ve wanted to know about being a father. “Became more of a dull ache rather quickly, another thorn in my side. Struck me as yet another sign you still wanted Hermes.”
She pushed her hair out of her face. “Fine. Okay, yes, I did still want Hermes. I said he might be the father to get him to talk to me again. It didn’t work.”
Ares made a face. “You mean to get him to fuck you again. You two never stopped talking.”
“He refused to talk about us. I wanted to force the subject, but it didn’t work. He didn’t care. He didn’t even try to deny it even though he knew without one doubt it couldn’t be true. He knew he wasn’t the father and apparently that was enough for him.”
“And Hephaestus?”
For a moment, Aphrodite looked very angry. He could see her biting the inside of her lip.
“What?” Was she angry with him or Hephaestus?
She took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “He dumped me too, okay? I thought he’d be more jealous of Hermes than you, seeing as how you’ll sleep with anyone.”
“As will you, sweetheart. I think he knew that before you two started.”
“He laughed.”
Ares didn’t get her meaning. “When?”
“When I told him that after our fight I spent the whole night with Hermes. He laughed. He said I was too shallow and superficial to interest a man like Hermes for more than a few couplings.”
Ares almost laughed too. She hadn’t spent the night with Hermes. She’d spent it with him, riding him hard and saying no one fucked her the way he did. They’d always had amazing sex when she was angry. “No, you weren’t with Hermes that night.”
She glared at him. “Do you care about my feelings at all?”
He searched her face. She wasn’t angry, but she wasn’t crying either. Her anger had faded, and she sat looking at him sadly.
“I’m not good with feelings. You have more feeling in one hand than I do in my whole body. That was always part of our communication problem, but you have to admit your feelings for me never outstripped mine for you. You can’t deny that. We knew it wasn’t love and never would be.”
“You have feelings, even if you don’t like to admit it. You didn’t hesitate to threaten me when I tried to hurt your sister. You’ve never been afraid to tell Zeus you’d make him pay if he ever really hurt your mother when they used to fight so much. And no matter how much you hate me, you’d have no mercy on someone who really tried to harm me.”
He started to touch her again, but held back. “I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t like me.”
“That’s our fault. We’re both to blame.”
“Well, it’s good our son is grown up then. Who would want us as parents?”
“Stop this.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not doing this to gain something.”
“No. I mean stop feeling so sorry for yourself. Hephaestus said what he said to hurt you, Hermes was fated to love another, and you and I were never, ever meant to be.”
“You can’t tell me to stop feeling all of this just because you can’t feel anything but anger and ire. Your heart is too hard to feel anything for anyone.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He wanted to point out she had just seconds earlier been arguing the exact opposite in regard to his feelings, but he let it go. Had anything they’d ever done in bed been worth this? He couldn’t say it had. He’d fucked her over and over again because she was good and because every time he hoped he’d feel what he needed to feel. But he never had, and neither had she. They both might as well have been using sex toys. It might’ve saved them and those around them a lot of pain and frustration.
“I don’t hate you. Thanks for finally telling me the truth.”
She sat quietly for a minute. He knew she probably found it hard to believe he didn’t have more to say. “I guess it’s stupid to ask if we’re okay now. I’m sure we’ll never have complete closure.”
He looked at her for a moment. “Why not? Time can do a lot of things.”
“You’re right, but I’m trying to be realistic.”
He knew she was right, but he felt like he had quite a bit of closure. Even when they’d been t
alking about other things, he had always expressed his frustration concerning her secret because it was the deception, not the subject, that bothered him. Now, he felt there was nothing left to say about it. “Let’s just see what happens. I’m glad you told me. Let’s go from there, okay?”
She nodded. “I have to tell Eros. I don’t know what he’ll say to me. Or to you.”
“Let’s worry about that later.”
“I’ll tell him tomorrow morning.”
“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
She laughed nervously. “You can believe me or not, but I’ve never felt so out of control.” He could hear the strain in her voice.
“It’s understandable. Go see Hera.”
She looked hurt. “You want to get rid of me.”
He sighed. He had to admit closure was a long and drawn out process with Aphrodite, no matter what the issue. “I can’t help you. Even though I got angry, you’re more upset than me. You’ve known all along I was Eros’ father, but keeping it a secret put a lot of stress on you, though I’m sure you enjoyed it a lot of the time.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I didn’t. It backfired. Hermes didn’t care. Hephaestus didn’t care. I didn’t get anything I wanted. I hurt you and my son.”
“You got a son who didn’t turn out half bad. Maybe you didn’t want him then, but you obviously wouldn’t trade him for anything.”
She smiled a little. “See? That helped.”
“Maybe a little. You know what I mean. Go talk to Hera. You’ll feel better than if we keep going at each other.”
She stood up. “Don’t be surprised to see Eros in the morning.”
“I won’t.”
Aphrodite disappeared, and Ares sat back on the couch. He groaned. Conversations with Aphrodite always took a lot out of him. He wished more women could be like his mother or his sister.
The back door slammed, and Ares listened for a minute. He heard humming.
“Alala?”
