by Tessa Cole
“What?”
I turned to face him, pressed my palms against his chiseled chest, and leaned in. He smelled of water and my lilac-scented bath-soap. It wasn’t a particularly masculine scent, but it was clean and fresh and delicious and—
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” I said, my voice husky. He was so close and strong and gorgeous. Yep, I didn’t want to wait for the shower. I wanted him right now.
“My bedroom,” I breathed.
“Goddess—” He glanced back at the others. I didn’t bother looking with him, no one else mattered in this moment.
Except he wasn’t doing anything and I was sure I gave him more than enough time for the guys to give him that macho manly hey-you’re-going-to-get-laid look.
“Take me to bed,” I insisted, sliding my hands down his chest toward his—
He scooped me into his arms before I could grab his fully erect cock.
“She’s unwell,” he announced and carried me into the bedroom, not bothering to nudge the door shut with his heel like Rion had.
Did he want the others to watch? An exhibitionist, was he?
Kinky.
He set me on the bed and I threw open my housecoat, spreading my legs for him. “I may not move too much, but I’m all yours.”
Del’s cock twitched and he groaned as his gaze roamed my naked body.
“Delphon, please,” Rion said, his voice gruff and distant, in the other room. “Don’t.”
“Ignore him, he’s had his turn,” I said, giving him my best alluring gaze, letting out all the pent-up desire thrumming through me in that one look.
“I ah… I can’t,” Del said. “You and Rion—”
I dropped my gaze to his cock, giving it a pointed look, before raising my eyes back to his. “It certainly looks like you can.”
Except what had he said about Rion?
I was sure there was something. Something I’d forgotten. But at the moment there was nothing in the room, nothing in the world for me, except this stunningly hot naked man before me. I had to have him inside me even if my body could barely move.
“Please,” I begged.
But he just stood there, his expression pained, his gaze shifting from me to the others then back to me.
“I’m sorry, Goddess Annie. I can’t,” he said and he turned away and left.
What?
The door closed behind him.
What the fuck had just happened?
I ached with a need that I had to have fulfilled, but the man who’d been promising to pleasure me since the moment we’d met had just walked out.
It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. I couldn’t breathe and could barely think. All I really knew was that I needed a release and wouldn’t get it, which left me throbbing and alone and confused and frustrated as hell.
Was this some cruel joke?
Get me all worked up and leave me hanging?
Well, fine.
I wouldn’t let him win… at whatever stupid game he was playing. Before Rion, I hadn’t had a man in three years and I didn’t need one now.
I reached over to the drawer in my bedstand and fumbled inside for my lucky vibrator, Richard. But the sludge in my head made the room spin and my arm was stupidly weak.
And when I finally — finally! — got ahold of the thing and flicked the on switch, nothing happened.
The batteries were dead.
“Fuck! Me!”
I threw the vibrator across the room. It hit the wall with a heavy thud and I curled up in a ball, feeling cold and alone and frustrated.
Which, if I was thinking straight should have shocked me, since I barely knew these guys and had just had the most amazing sex with Rion. But I wasn’t thinking straight, and I couldn’t move past my throbbing desire and the sense that Del had betrayed me.
Chapter 13
Kephas
After spending the night uncertain what to do about Goddess Annie, Aethan decided to make her breakfast. He found some eggs in the tall cold box and a frying pan, and had fussed with one of the large devices in the kitchen, but had been unable to get it to work as he wanted. So, he’d taken the bits of the wooden chair I’d crushed and searched for a reasonable place to put a small fire. Del had pointed out that the built-in basin in the cooking area had easily available water hidden in the wall, just like there’d been in the shower, so Aethan had started it there.
I marveled at the quick minds of my friends. On my own, I wouldn’t have known what to do with that shower. Del had shown me how to use it, turning the knobs to bring forth hot and cold water. And while I was among the smartest of the stone titans — one of the reasons I’d been chosen as emissary — that, unfortunately, wasn’t saying much. My kind were slow and ponderous — in mind and body — like the rocks from which we’d supposedly been spawned.
Except a few seconds after lighting the fire, a high-pitched, ear-piercing, constant beeping screamed through the common area.
“We’re under attack,” Aethan yelped, and the guys turned, back to back, creating a triangle, their fists up and their gazes sweeping over the room, searching for whoever or whatever was screaming its battle cry.
“Where is it coming from?” Del asked.
“I can’t see anyone,” Aethan replied.
Rion’s gaze jerked to the ceiling. “Above us?”
Then the door to Goddess Annie’s bedroom crashed open, and she stormed into the common area, that strange pink fuzzy robe tied tight about her small frame like armor.
She looked ferocious and beautiful, with her hands clenched into fists, her pale red hair hanging loose and wild around her small face, and the speckles on her cheeks dark against her fair skin like war paint.
There was fire in her eyes, but it wasn’t the good kind. It wasn’t the passionate kind that she’d had when we’d first met her. No, this was an angry fire. And that fire was directed entirely at us and not searching for any danger.
“What the hell is going on?” she yelled over the screeching.
Her body trembled with fury, but there was more emotion within her than just rage. I didn’t think she’d slept well. She seemed tired and there was… a resentment or frustration behind her anger. I might not have been as quick of mind as my friends, but I’d always been good at sensing how others were feeling.
Annie stalked over to the cooking area, turned on the water and put out the fire. “There’s a perfectly good stove, right there!” She pointed at the device Aethan had been trying to work earlier.
“Goddess,” Aethan said, “I’d suspected as much, but—”
She glared at him. “You couldn’t have just waited for me to get up and asked?”
“We thought you might be tired and wished to have a meal ready for you when you woke,” Aethan replied.
“Well, you’ve fucked it up now.” Annie left him there and moved to the two large windows in her common area and pushed open the strange see-through shutters, letting in cold gusts of air, causing Annie to repeat that word fuck over and over again.
After a few moments, the screeching stopped and she turned to face us, her expression hard, but I could still sense her frustration.
A tirade was coming, and while I was brave and could face her anger, it stung knowing I’d disappointed her.
“And now I’m freezing,” she ground out as she moved back to the windows and reclosed the see-through shutters. “I don’t know what I was thinking letting you all come here. It was a mistake. I’d send you all back now, but I have a wedding to get ready for. So, here’s the deal. You all just stay here, and don’t do anything, don’t touch anything, don’t fuck up my life more than you already have. Then when I get back from the wedding, I’m sending you all back.”
“Goddess—” Del tried, but even I knew that was a mistake.
She spun on him, the look in her eyes even harder than before. “What? What is it you cold-hearted bastard? Do you want to get me all worked up again then leave me sad and alone? I’m not f
alling for that twice. I can’t recall all of what happened last night, but I remember that much.”
Rion spoke, hope in his voice. “Does that mean—?” Sadly, another mistake. The goddess had not been kind to him, and that deserved an explanation, but not while she was so upset.
“Shut up. All of you.” She turned to Rion, and an odd mix of emotions played over her features mixing with her fury: lust, joy, sadness, grief. “I don’t want to be seduced again. I don’t care how sexy you all are. Once was enough.” I could sense a duality in this, a confusion.
But then, we were all confused. The bonding kiss was a sacred thing and yet she’d discarded it so easily.
She hadn’t seemed like herself when she had, but still, that had really hurt Rion. Trying to give herself to Del had been a slap in the erinai’s face, a sword to his soul. I didn’t know much about how the bonding kiss might work in her world, but it seemed it was not treated with the respect and honor as it was in our world.
Annie put a hand to her head, running it through her tangled hair. “I don’t know what you guys did to me last night, but it was cruel.” Some of her anger fled from her and she just seemed tired and hurt now. I didn’t fully understand this. She claimed we’d been cruel, when she’d been the one to crush Rion’s heart. There must be some vast misunderstanding here.
I didn’t know if now was the best time to speak, but I had to try. “Goddess—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Annie,” I tried again, and she didn’t immediately stop me. That was a good sign. “I think there is a misunderstanding here.”
“I’ll say,” she huffed.
But before I could go on, Del interrupted me. It seemed he’d grown angry as well. “Misunderstanding? Is that what you call luring me into your bed after you’ve bonded with one of my closest friends?”
Annie gaped, her eyes wide. “I lured you? No, you were the one… weren’t you?” She looked away, confusion flashing across her expression.
Ah, so there was definitely confusion and misunderstanding there. They’d both thought the other to be attempting seduction. I didn’t see how Annie could think that’s what Del had been doing, but she had seemed quite disoriented at the time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Annie snapped, and with that, I felt a solid door slam shut on this argument. She wasn’t going to hear any more. “What matters is I have a wedding to get ready for. And after that, you’re all leaving. I can’t take any more of whatever this is.” She turned and marched into the bathing room, slamming the door behind her.
I sighed, that was that.
Del turned and leaned heavily on the counter between the dining and cooking areas. “I don’t understand any of this.”
I wanted to help. I knew there was more, a mystery of emotions to solve, but I’d needed more information to get to the heart of it. Now it seemed I wouldn’t have a chance.
Rion went to him. The bond between those two friends had strengthened last night when Del had denied the goddess. Even I knew that must have been hard for the triton. We were all taken with Goddess Annie, more than a little captivated by her and her strange ways. Del had been one of the first to see her and had remained desirous of her. She had offered herself to him and he’d refused. Rion had greatly appreciated that. Though I was also fairly certain the goddess hadn’t been in her right mind last night. Coupling with her would have been wrong, even if she’d been asking for it.
“I don’t know what to make of any of this,” Rion said. “She seems so erratic and has been ever since we arrived in her world. Perhaps it was a mistake to come here.”
“No, we need to protect her,” Aethan said, firm.
I hadn’t heard what the seer had said about Annie and the darkness, but Rion had been greatly concerned for her after he’d heard the proclamation. Perhaps the seer was wrong and there was no danger to her, but I didn’t think any of us wanted to take that chance.
Even with what had happened last night to Rion and how upset she was at us at the moment, we still wished to protect her. But I got the feeling she’d insist this time and send us back.
“We can at least protect her until she sends us back,” Aethan said, as if reading my mind.
“I don’t think she wants us at this wedding, though,” I said, and from the corner of my eye, I caught the door to the bathing room jerk open.
“That’s right. I don’t,” Annie said from the doorway. She must have overheard us, not that we’d been trying to be quiet.
Del didn’t turn, didn’t look at her, but his voice was firm when he said, “We need to protect you, wherever you go, even if you don’t wish that of us. Even if we are… frustrated with you, and you with us. It doesn’t matter. We’ve made a pact.”
“Fuck your pact. You’re not going to the wedding. I couldn’t bring all of you if I wanted. I’m only allowed a plus one. And frankly I don’t want to bring any of you.”
Aethan piped up. “But you can bring one of us?”
“I can, but—”
“Then we shall select one of us to escort you,” Del said, still not looking at her. “Or you can select one of us if you wish.”
“No.”
Del spun then. He wasn’t angry — although even with my usually good sense for emotions I couldn’t tell exactly what he was feeling — but his voice was raised. “I’m sorry, goddess. You can banish us back to our realm if you wish, but even while you’re angry at us, we’ll still protect you for as long as we can.”
She glared back at him. “No.”
“It will happen. We’ll find a way. So, either you allow us or we’ll do something on our own, and as you’ve already seen, that doesn’t seem to go well in your world.”
Annie’s eyes narrowed and Del held her glare as if daring her to say no again so we could follow her on our own.
Which was something that even I knew was a terrible idea. Her world was strange and terrifying and everything we did seemed to cause problems or upset her.
Annie jerked her gaze to the ceiling. “Fuck me,” she hissed. “You’re— You have to be—” She let out a long growl then slammed her fist against the door beside her. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
She hit the door again. Then her look turned sour, her frustration deepening with the realization that she was trapped and had to let us go with her. “Fine! One of you can come. But God help me, this is a mistake!” She turned, slamming the bathing room door shut behind her again.
We all stared at where she’d been, no one saying anything for a long moment.
“Well—” Del said, but Annie burst from the bathing room again and stalked over to her bag, muttering something about how this was going to end badly.
She pulled out a small device and looked at us. “Rion can come. I have a friend with a husband who’s about his size. Hopefully she can lend me a suit for him to borrow.” She jabbed her finger repeatedly against the device before putting it to her ear and heading back to the bathing room, slamming the door for a third time.
There came a loud, drawn out cry of, “Fuck!” from the bathing room, then a softer, “Oh, no Margie, sorry, that wasn’t for you.” After that I couldn’t hear anything else.
This was it. Rion would go to the wedding and after that the goddess would return us to our world.
None of this sat right with me. I knew there was more going on in the underlying emotions, some confusion causing this mayhem. But I didn’t think I was going to get the chance to set it right.
Chapter 14
Kephas
Goddess Annie left with Rion. The three of us remaining in her home had watched through the windows as they’d walked down the street before finally turning a corner and stepping out of sight.
I still felt unsettled, but knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it for now. I only hoped that when Annie returned, she might be in a better mood and willing to listen and talk.
That’s what was needed. A conversation not confused by heated emotions.
Yet I feared that wouldn’t happen.
The other two paced the small area, while I remained seated. I’d already broken one chair. I didn’t want to move around too much for fear of breaking something else. The table or counters, even the walls, who knew what else might crumble under my great weight. Luckily the ceiling was high enough that I wasn’t at risk of accidentally poking my head through it if I stood, though it was close.
Aethan’s pacing was hard to watch, his every movement was frenetic and twitchy. Every now and then he’d seem to skip from one spot to another, a blur in between. He seemed to be having some inner conversation with himself, arms moving as if making a point to someone, but he didn’t say anything out loud.
Del’s pacing was more sedate. He was sad, distressed, head shaking from time to time. He knew we’d messed up our time with the goddess, but like me, he didn’t really know why or how.
After the argument that morning, Annie hadn’t given us much more to go on. She’d showered, then ordered some food for us all, something called ‘breakfast burritos.’ They’d been quite good, though not enough had been ordered for my appetite and I was left hungry.
Annie had wolfed down two of them with a drink she’d called kah-fee, and Aethan had had some of that dark liquid as well, loving it, while the rest of us had opted for water from the tap.
It still amazed me that water could come when called, simply by turning a knob. But there were many wonders in this strange world. The walk to Goddess Annie’s place had been a feast of marvels, so many people, buildings reaching high into the sky, and those fast-moving beasts upon the roads. Cars Annie had called them. It didn’t seem right to me that something so large and dangerous should move so fast. I was large and potentially dangerous, but I remained slow. It seemed a balance which these strange metal devices ignored.
After the morning meal, Annie had disappeared to get ready, first doing her hair and applying something to her face, covering the beautiful speckles on her cheeks, making her look even more pale. Then she’d put on an alluring red dress.
