Mortal Temptations

by Allyson James

  The resident cat, Peachy, was large, gray, and orange-eyed, and supervised all proceedings with a bored air. She did, however, condescend to stalk to Andreas and rub her face against his leg. Isis and Red Kitty hovered around him, too, while they prepared to drive down to Cornell and interview Dr. Trimble.

  They met Dr. Trimble in a tiny office in a redbrick building in the middle of campus. Rebecca Trimble was younger than Patricia, maybe in her midtwenties, and wore her yellow brown hair scraped unattractively back from her face. Her clothes were shapeless and baggy, and she wore no makeup.

  Nico wondered if she deliberately tried to make herself unattractive, and why she would. She couldn’t hide the fact that her face was delicately boned or her eyes were soft and brown, but the frown she gave them was stern to the point of rudeness.

  “I don’t have much time,” she said. “What is it you wanted me to look at?”

  Patricia set the folder of photos on the woman’s desk and opened it. Dr. Trimble leaned over the desk, her sloppy blouse parting at the neck, and her annoyed look vanished. “Where did you get these?”

  Patricia described the ostracon, and Rebecca listened, her face animated, which betrayed her prettiness. Andreas’s ice blue eyes watched the woman’s every move with his predator-sizing-up-prey look.

  “I agree that the ostracon is Ptolemaic,” Rebecca said when Patricia finished. “But the text on it is far older. I see references to gods here that were pretty much forgotten by the time the Greeks took over. It was probably copied from an older source, and I’m betting the copier didn’t even know what it meant.”

  “How can you tell?” Patricia leaned forward, just as interested, her blond ringlets catching the sunlight from the room’s one window.

  “The inscriber got the names just a little bit wrong. A common mistake by copiers of the later periods. Some of the gods got changed into Greek-Egyptian hybrids, but these names would be familiar to the pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty and earlier.”

  “Can you read it?” Nico asked her.

  “I think so. It will take me a little while to study it and do the best translation possible—”

  “How long?” Andreas asked abruptly.

  Rebecca glanced at him, then immediately away, her cheeks staining red.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I have a lot of commitments, but I’d be happy to work on it whenever I have a spare moment. Perhaps by the end of this semester?”

  Andreas rose, his tall frame filling the office. “Drop all the other commitments and do this for us. We will pay you whatever amount of money you require.”

  Rebecca stared up at him, her pale mouth open. “It’s not that easy. I’m here on a fellowship, and I have obligations.”

  “Which you can fulfill after you translate this.” Andreas tapped the pile of photos. “How long will it take if you spend all your time on it?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on how much I have to look up. A week, maybe more.”

  “Good. Start now.” Andreas shoved himself away from the desk and out of the small room, anger rolling from him in waves.

  Rebecca stared after him, openmouthed. “Is he always like that?” she asked Patricia.

  Nico flashed her a smile. “My dear, you have no idea.”

  Rebecca swallowed and looked quickly at the photos again. “I probably can take a few days and see what I can come up with.”

  “Excellent,” Nico said, crossing his long legs. “We’ll wait.”

  Patricia stood up. “No, we’ll leave her to it.” She flashed Rebecca an apologetic look. “Don’t let these two bully you. You do what you need to do and take the time you need.” She sent Nico a glare. “I’m sure the rest of us can find something to do while we wait.”

  NICO insisted Rebecca stay at the inn with them, which Patricia took to be worry about the Dyons finding Rebecca now that they’d showed her the inscription. Patricia called their hostess and learned she did have an extra room available, then Patricia and Nico went with Rebecca to her apartment so she could pick up what she needed for a few days’ stay.

  Andreas had disappeared completely, but they found him waiting at the inn, the cats all over him.

  The four of them had a quiet dinner at the B and B, Patricia and Rebecca finding common ground talking about artifacts and the antiquities markets, legal and illegal. Nico and Andreas didn’t eat much and remained quiet, Andreas particularly tense.

  Patricia was a little surprised that Nico didn’t try to follow her when she retreated for the night. He brushed a light kiss to her forehead before Patricia left the sitting room, but other than giving her a seductive smile, he made no indication he wanted to follow.

  She wasn’t certain if she was disappointed or relieved as she crawled into bed by herself. The four-poster was comfortable and warm, made more so by Isis and Red Kitty curled up on either side of her.

  She felt the cats leave as she began to drift to sleep, probably off to find Andreas, their new best friend. She wondered sleepily why the cats were so attracted to him. He did his best to be rude and gruff with humans and then let the cats climb all over him. Maybe cats had a secret snow-leopard fixation.

  “Patricia.”

  Patricia jerked awake. She tried to roll over, but Nico’s warm body nestled protectively alongside her, penning her in. His face was dark with unshaved whiskers, his hair disheveled from sleep.

  “What are you doing in here?” she whispered.

  The room was dark, a sliver of moonlight leaking through the gauzy curtains. The house was silent, outside equally so.

  “I like watching you sleep.”

  He skimmed his hands down her body and inched up the hem of her nightshirt. She hadn’t bothered to wear panties to bed. Anticipation?

  His hands were big and warm on her back. He slid his fingers to the cleft of her buttocks, making little circles there that drove her crazy.

  “Where’s Andreas?” she asked.

  “Hmm? Patrolling.” He paused a moment. “Do you want me to fetch him?”

  His eyes were unreadable in the dark, his fingers gentle.

  “No, I want you.” She touched his lips. “Why do I want you so much, Nico? I never think about sex like this. Not this constant wanting.”

  “Spells are like that.”

  “It has to be more than that.” She stopped, frustrated. “You say you’re drawn to me by the curse; you have to pleasure me until I’ve had enough. But I don’t want that. I don’t want you coming to me just because you’re compelled to.”

  He kept on stroking her back, fingers soothing. “It is more than just the curse,” he said softly.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t.” His eyes went darker still. “I want it to be more. It goes both ways, Patricia.”

  “And if we break the spell, what happens then?”

  He stroked her hair, his hand warm. She felt his wanting clearly through the fold of nightshirt that had slid between them, his cock hard and heavy.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know if it’s possible to break it. All I want is to be with you right now, in case I can’t ever be with you again.”

  Patricia went silent, watching the flick of his lashes as he looked at her, the moonlight making shadows of his eyes.

  “I’ve never believed in casual sex,” she said.

  “No? But it happens all the time.”

  “Not to me. If I’m not emotionally engaged, I can’t do it. I don’t want it.”

  “Patricia.” He touched her cheek. “Do you want me?”

  “I’m dying for you.”

  “Then let’s enjoy each other. We’ll worry about how we feel tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”

  He stopped her next words with a kiss, lips sliding over hers and driving out of her head what she’d intended to say. He slid hands down to pull up her nightshirt again, skimming it all the way up until he cupped her breasts.

  “Let me give you joy,” he whispered.
r />   She nodded, seeking his mouth again. His tongue and lips were masterful, and she thought she could kiss this man forever.

  He had other ideas. He pulled her up until he could suck her nipple into his mouth, and then he suckled, his teeth and tongue doing a wonderful dance. Hot tingles wove through her, and she cradled his head in her hand.

  “Harder,” she begged.

  He obeyed. He opened his mouth wide, drawing as much of her breast into his mouth as he could, then withdrew, clinging to the tip with his teeth until the last minute. He did it over and over, lavishing attention on each breast, licking and sucking like he couldn’t get enough.

  She pushed him onto the bed and burrowed her face against his chest, liking the way he groaned when her mouth found his flat, male nipple.

  She’d always heard that men liked being played with almost as much as women, but this was the first time she’d had the chance to test out the theory. She moved in between the areolas and sucked his skin sharply into her mouth, wanting to leave a love bite.

  He groaned and laughed. “You like me.”

  “I like every bit of you.”

  “Especially the wings?” he teased.

  “I’d like you with or without wings. Although, with wings is better. Can you fly with them?”

  He chuckled, his chest rumbling beneath hers. “Yes. They work.” He moved his mouth close to hers. “I’ll take you flying one day, sweetheart. I promise.”

  “Can you fly and fuck me at the same time?”

  His laughter cut off, his eyes going darker than ever. “I don’t know, but it would be fun finding out. Not tonight, though—too dangerous with Dyons looking for us. Plus I’d hate for some stray hunter to take me for an overlarge goose.” He pulled her closer. “But one day . . .”

  Nico skimmed his tongue across her lips, then took her hand and closed it around his hard, hot cock.

  ANDREAS, a leopard once more, could smell the sex going on in the bedroom next to him. Patricia was hot for Nico, and her rampaging pheromones made his fur tingle.

  Patricia would want Andreas soon. He’d glimpsed the inkling of it in her eyes, the unearthing of fantasies that she’d kept long buried. Her longings had flared when she’d bared her body for him in his and Nico’s bedroom, but she’d snapped the lid over them again.

  It wouldn’t be long now. Both he and Nico were stripping away her inhibitions, and soon she’d be ready for what she’d never dared before.

  Andreas had opened the window before he’d changed, and his big cat form easily slid out to the huge maple tree that spread across the side of the house. The branches sagged under his weight, but he quickly leapt from limb to limb to the ground.

  To his annoyance, he heard Patricia’s two cats springing after him. Not really the threesome he’d had in mind.

  He worried a little about Nico. Nico always tried to remain stoic about the women he serviced, but this time, he wasn’t. Patricia was cute, no denying it, and the woman had a certain something. But if they couldn’t unravel the spell, and Patricia dumped Nico—and she would—Nico was going to get kicked in the balls. Nothing Andreas could do about it, but he didn’t want to see his friend in pain.

  Andreas padded around to the ground-floor room Rebecca had been given. She was the most vulnerable of them, but she’d refused to switch rooms with Patricia.

  Rebecca’s room was the smallest in the inn, its only amenity being a little private porch overhung with vines. Rebecca had argued that she wanted to stay up late and look at the inscription, and tucked in the back of the house she’d keep no one else awake.

  Andreas had volunteered to watch out for her rather than have to explain exactly why they wanted her more secure. He approached the porch slowly, admonishing the cats to keep silent. They slunk about his ankles but obeyed.

  Rebecca was still up. She sat at a tiny desk at right angles to the porch door, the photos spread across the desktop. She’d loosened her clothes, blouse half unbuttoned as though she were trying to be comfortable. Her hair was still pulled back, but honey blond wisps had escaped to straggle down her neck.

  Rebecca would never be beautiful in the way that humans in this country in this time regarded beauty, but she had a solid earthiness that appealed to Andreas. The tilt of her head, the animation in her eyes as they flicked over the photos attracted him. A dangerous thing, this attraction.

  Dangerous, too, was the way she sat in full light without closing the curtains. She likely thought nothing of it; the inn was far off the road with no other houses around it. But Dyons were creatures of darkness, at their most powerful during the night.

  Andreas climbed to the porch and lay down just outside the door, the cats draping themselves around him.

  If Rebecca heard the soft thump on the porch floor, she made no sign. Nor did she hear the moan that came from the window above, where Patricia and Nico were starting in. It took all Andreas’s willpower not to climb onto the porch roof, put his paws on their windowsill, and watch them.

  PATRICIA’S face was in shadow, but moonlight outlined her breasts, which pushed up against the nightshirt, her nipples tight points stretching the light fabric.

  Nico straddled her on his hands and knees, excited and hard. He helped her tug the nightshirt up and over her head and toss it to the floor.

  She was so beautiful bare. He recalled what she’d looked like in her apartment when he’d told her to strip. Her body was slim and taut, breasts large enough for him to catch in his hands and enjoy the warm weight of them.

  Thighs strong, belly tight. The tuft of hair between her legs glistened with moisture. She gave him a lazy smile, her ringlets of golden hair haloing around her face. Did she know she was driving him insane? Breaking his heart?

  Probably not. She was caught up in wanting, and for now, that was fine.

  He caught her under her knees and lifted her legs, opening her for him. The slit of her pussy shimmered in the moonlight, the golden hair surrounding it glistening with her dew. His penis wanted to slam inside that intriguing dark opening, to pound until he came.

  That wasn’t what he was here to do. He had to pleasure her, never mind his own needs.

  Patricia smiled and reached for him, and his body warmed. She still didn’t really believe in the curse, though she would in time. She didn’t understand what it was to have an all-powerful creature at her mercy, as Hera wanted him to be. Patricia just wanted Nico.

  He knew what else she liked. He closed his eyes in pleasure as he let his wings break free, and she laughed as she caught feathers in her hands.

  “Yes,” she whispered, clutching the black feathers tight, then she cried out as he leaned down and began to pleasure her with his tongue.

  REBECCA woke with a start. She had fallen asleep at the desk, her head resting on her bent arm, the pencil still in her fingers. She sat up, rubbing the stiffness in her neck.

  A snow leopard sat at her feet, watching her with unblinking blue eyes.

  Rebecca went very still. The creature’s face was white with patterns of small black dots, while his legs and back bore the large, circular spots common to leopards. The fur on his chest was nearly pure white, and his eyes were like chips of blue ice.

  The two cats Patricia had brought with her wove around his feet, and the inn’s cat sat on her haunches just behind him. All three cats were purring, but the leopard remained silent.

  Interesting dream. “Hello, you,” she said. “You’re pretty.”

  The leopard’s eyes narrowed. Maybe a male leopard didn’t like to be called “pretty.”

  “Handsome, then,” she amended. “Can I pet you?”

  The leopard lowered his head toward her hand. She laid it on his fur, marveling at how sleek it was. He turned his head into her palm, and she rubbed behind his ears, enjoying how his eyes closed in pleasure.

  He put his paw in her lap. She flinched at its weight, but his claws were sheathed. He hoisted himself to half rest on her thighs, his breath warm through her s
hirt. She continued to rub his head and scratch along the side of his face, and he let out a little whuff of contentment.

  As she rubbed, he leaned forward until his large nose pressed the opening of her blouse, his breath hot on the bare skin beneath.

  “Stop that,” she said, but she couldn’t help laughing.

  Her laughter ended abruptly when his hot tongue lapped between her breasts, catching in the lace of her bra. She tried to push him away, but he was too heavy.

  “All right, this is too weird, even for a dream.”

  The leopard looked up at her, a smug look in his eyes. You like it. His words, tinged with a growl, rang in her brain.

  “No, I don’t. I draw the line at leopards.”

  You have needs, Rebecca. I feel them. You’re burning up with them.

  His voice sounded so like Andreas’s, that strange white-and-black-haired man with the same blue eyes. Dear God, was she manifesting him in her dream as a leopard? Was she that desperate?

  She put both hands on his chest and pushed, but it was like trying to move a brick wall. “I have rules.” She panted. “No animals.”

  He rumbled in his throat. I’m different.

  He pushed her back, and Rebecca found herself falling from the chair to the soft carpet, the leopard on top of her. Her gasp was cut off when he licked her face with a broad, hot tongue.

  His breath was surprisingly sweet, much better than she’d expected from a wild animal. But then, this was a dream.

  His weight on her was warm and dense, and made her feel . . . protected. He licked her again, his tongue lingering on her lips.

  “Really, you have to stop it.” She pressed a shaky hand to his face, and he playfully nipped her fingers, keeping his razor canines in check. “I wonder what Freudian kink makes me dream about being licked by a leopard.”

  It depends on the leopard.

  He licked her once again, slowly, and she let him. His whiskers tickled her throat, his breath so comforting and warm.