by Rosanna Leo
The blond man with the gold arrows laughed, and Maia could swear she saw little dancing suns in front of her eyes, twinkle lights which seemed to emanate from him and which almost blinded her. “We all take on an alias from time to time when it suits us. My sister here always laughs when I tell people to call me ‘Paul.’”
The woman rolled her eyes, but grinned. “It's just so predictable."
Maia sniffed. “Paul, as opposed to...?"
He looked her right in the eye, making the little dancing suns grow brighter. “I think you've already guessed."
"Enough of this conversation,” Eric interrupted. “We're making Maia uncomfortable.” He joined her on the couch, linking her hand with his. “That wasn't my aim."
"Who are these people, Eric? Tell me."
"If I tell you, will you suspend your disbelief for just a moment? Will you try to believe me, Maia?"
She stared back at him, her eyes stinging, wanting to believe, wanting to trust. And unable to do so. “I can't. I'm sorry."
He looked disappointed, but cupped her cheek to let her know he understood. He knew he was asking the impossible. “Well, then, we'll just have to show you."
Eric nodded at the others. As one, they stood and lined up in front of her. Eric frowned at her. “You'll need to shield your eyes. The room's about to get a little brighter."
There was a blinding flash, as if the sun had exploded right there in the room. Maia hid her eyes. Behind the insufficient shelter of her shaking hands, she saw only spots. It reminded her of the time she'd had mild sunstroke and had seen green dots beneath her eyelids. It took a moment for the feeling to subside, and even when it did, she was afraid to remove her hands from her eyes.
She knew it instinctively. Something had changed. Her world was changing. The air was crackling with tension all around her, and she thought she heard a faint buzzing sound.
Little by little, she pried her hands from her face, keeping her eyes closed. She finally opened one eye, then the other, and looked slowly up from under her dark lashes.
The sight which greeted her was so overwhelming she didn't know where to look first.
Beginning on her left, she turned to the dark-haired man. “I,” he said in a voice which seemed deeper, more penetrating than before, “am Dionysus. God of wine. Oh, and I like to think of myself as the god of sex, too. But then, they go so well together."
Maia's jaw dropped. His appearance had changed. He was still the same gorgeous man, but his modern clothing had disappeared. He was outfitted in gleaming white robes, and had laurel leaves entwined in his long, dark curls. And he was drinking from a seemingly ancient goblet which had materialized out of nowhere as well.
She gulped and turned to the blond man. His tanned skin glistened, as if lit from within. And there was plenty of it on display. His surfer attire had disappeared too, and he was only wearing a short toga-style robe that barely covered his golden assets. His feet were encased in gleaming, golden sandals, and his smile was the brightest she'd ever seen. He was beautiful.
Just as beautiful as the woman next to him, holding his hand. But where the man was impossibly fair, she seemed even darker and more exotic than before. Her perfect, strong body was garbed in a robe matching his, tied at the waist with a shiny silver braid. Her black hair was tied in bands that were so sparkly they could have been fashioned with moonlight. And her dark brown eyes seemed outlined in silver.
Maia realized they were the couple in the picture at Eric's condo. The heavenly twins. “Apollo and Artemis."
"God of the sun and goddess of the moon,” Artemis confirmed in her enticing, sing-song voice. “But then you already knew."
The biggest shock was still to come. Maia was afraid to look, but she knew she had to. Dragging her eyes away from the celestial brother and sister, she turned to the man she'd grown to love. As she looked at him, really looked at him, her eyes filled with tears and her heart palpitated.
He was incredible. More breathtakingly beautiful than the statue had ever been. He, too, was clad in Grecian clothing of old. His hair was blonder than blond. His eyes greener than green. Everything about him was enhanced, almost animated, he was so vibrant. His lips seemed fuller, his muscles more sculpted. The waves of his hair seemed to flow, as if blown by a non-existent fan. He wore sandals fashioned out of the softest of leathers and was carrying a copper shield, a reminder he was the son of Ares as much as Aphrodite.
And his face was full of love. For her.
"Maia. Say my name."
And as a shattered breath tore from her lungs, she tried. But her fevered brain refused to let her enunciate what she knew in her heart.
"You're ... Eric Lord!"
The moment the words were out of her mouth, her knees buckled and her eyes rolled back. Sweet darkness claimed her to give her respite from her strange reality.
Eric caught her as she fell, swooping her up easily, holding her weak body to his chest. The other gods clustered about them, curious about the mortal.
Artemis laid a cool hand on Maia's brow. “The little one fights hard, Eryx. I'm not certain you'll win her over. Perhaps it's best to erase her memory."
"No,” he uttered through clenched teeth. “I'll make her see. I have to."
"Sometimes mortals just don't want to know...” Apollo trailed off, his voice pained.
Eric glanced up at him. He knew Apollo had lost numerous lovers through the ages, women who had been terrified of his brilliance. Women who'd died, rather than accept him.
He wouldn't let Maia suffer a similar fate, and would certainly not let Nemesis get her either.
"I'll take her into the bedroom and see if I can revive her. Apollo, Artemis, guard the outside door in case Nemesis shows up. Dionysus, you take the living room."
"Always happy to help. Consider me your heavenly security detail. You kids run along and don't do anything I wouldn't do.” With a randy grin, he stood guard by the front door, while Apollo and Artemis transformed into a thin mist and disappeared under the door. “I never liked Nemesis anyway. See if I let her shrink my balls again."
After closing the bedroom door, Eric laid Maia down on her bed and sat next to her.
The poor thing. Her brain just couldn't deal with the bizarre information and had simply shut down. He'd seen it happen before, although not to him. Other than Chloe, there had never been anyone he'd cared about enough to show his true self to. And with Chloe, well, that had been another time and place. The people of ancient Greece were a more accepting lot. They weren't bred to be cynical and hard like today's people.
Maia wasn't cynical, nor was she hard. She was sensible and analytical, yet she still could not accept what was standing in front of her. And Eric only knew of a couple of ways to prove his godliness to her.
The first method made her faint. Revealing oneself in one's full glory had such an effect.
But there was a second method. He just wasn't sure she'd allow it. Not after all that had happened.
He caressed her cheek, loving its softness, and whispered close to her ear. “Maia. Wake up, sweetheart."
Before her eyes ever opened, she turned her face to his hand and kissed his palm. Her lips moved, but there was no sound for a few moments. Finally, her eyes still closed, she mumbled, “Eric. You shouldn't drink so much scotch."
He smiled. She was dreaming, and reliving the gala. Her mind had clearly thrown her back to a happier time. Before he'd destroyed her ordered world. He hated to wrench her out of her happy place, but knew they were on borrowed time.
He had so much to say, and so much to prove.
"Maia. Please wake up."
Her eyes popped open, but they took him in through a hazy filter. She looked confused and adorable and sexy all at once. Even if she did look ready to cry.
Apparently, she hadn't forgotten anything.
Her gaze darted all over the room. He leaned in closer, lying almost over her, seeking to comfort her with the press of his body. “The others are s
tanding guard outside. Baby, you're safe. It's just us."
"Er—” She closed her mouth. She'd been about to say his name, but clearly didn't know which name to use anymore.
"You don't have to say anything,” he whispered, more disappointed than he'd ever been. “Just let me be with you."
"I ... I want to believe. I do. I just don't know how."
Her face was so sad it broke his heart. He knew he shouldn't push himself on her. She was in too fragile a state. But he needed to end this to help her, even if it meant she walked away from him later.
"I can help you believe."
"How? Show me how ... please."
Fierce, angry desire swept through his body, telling him to take her, to claim her. His love would make a believer of her. By the time he was done, she'd be singing his name from the rafters. The last time he'd made love to her, he'd held back, knowing the full force of his love was too potent to be unleashed.
The time for niceties was over. As far as he was concerned, Eric Lord was dead. It was time for Maia to know the real Eryx.
With that one paralyzing, tantalizing thought in mind, he lowered his lips to hers.
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Chapter Fourteen
As his lips touched hers, red-hot liquid fire tore a path through her clammy body. Maia wanted to scream, even as he deepened the kiss, swallowing her cry.
What was happening? Was she dying?
No, she realized. It was his kiss. With each press of his warm lips, with each thrust of his delicious tongue, tentacles of molten lava reached into her and seared her. Seeking out the places in her body which no one had ever touched before. Hell, even he hadn't touched them before.
She felt her temperature climb. Sweat broke out on her forehead and back; at the same time a wonderful moisture seeped out between her legs. She'd never felt so hot. So ready. Her legs had already parted for him, and she was desperate to lose her wet panties.
He tore himself away from her lips and stared down at her, questioning. Obviously worried his attentions might be hurting her instead of arousing her. “Are you okay, baby?"
"Okay?” Maia laughed nervously. “I'm fucking fantastic! What are you doing to me?"
His lips curled into a sly, crooked grin. “This is how I make love."
"But I didn't feel like this before. So ... intense. I'm burning up.” She scrambled for words, concerned all of a sudden she might have offended him about his last performance. “I mean, last time was mind-blowing. The best I ever had. But this ... all you've done so far is kiss me."
His lips trailed a heated, tingly path from her ear to the hollow of her neck. “I'm going to do much more than kiss you, Maia."
At the feel of his lips, a tremor gurgled through her stomach, making it quiver under him. “Oh, God."
He looked at her again, clearly determined. “That's right. I'm going to show you I am a god. And I'll finally make a believer of you, my beautiful little skeptic."
She felt her face crumple a little, scared of what he would show her.
He ran a soothing hand over her hair. “Don't worry, my love. I promise not to dispatch you to the underworld.” He smiled. “When I made love to you before, I had to hold back. I couldn't show you what I could really do, or you would have known right away I'm not the average man."
Her eyelids fluttered in response to his words. “So, let me get this straight. Last time we had sex, which was the single most erotic experience I've ever had, you weren't even giving it your all?"
Again, he grinned, and she felt her flesh break out in a riot of goose bumps. “Exactly. But no more holding back.” He leaned down and traced her lips with his tongue. “And no more talking, Maia."
He lifted himself off her, and she shuddered. It was so cold when he wasn't touching her. Even if she had a dozen fleece blankets piled on top of her, she doubted she'd be as warm as when he held her. She wanted his heat back.
He stood at the side of the bed and smiled sadly at her. He seemed to understand the sudden chill gripping her. “Just a moment, baby. I can't make love to you like this."
He touched the shoulder of his robe, and everything he was wearing flew from his body and landed in a pile on the floor. Robe, sandals—even the copper shield.
Maia stared at his glorious, nude body. He'd never looked so good, not even in her dreams. She longed to explore him with her hands and her tongue, to thoroughly know each sculpted part of him. Her fears were gone. Her concerns were trying to disappear.
This was no normal man. Could it be...?
He glanced down at her. That was all it took. A mere, feverish glance on his part, and she was naked. Her clothes disappeared from her body and ended up in the same pile as his.
Maia didn't even feel it happen. All she knew was she was naked and wet for him.
As he crawled back on top of her, he once again grinned his “I'm-going-to-sex-you-up” smile, and it felt as if her body was bursting into flames. He chuckled, the crazy, sexy bastard. He was actually laughing at her now. “I bet your archaeologist never did anything like that to you."
"Um, no.” Lord, she couldn't even recall what Georgie-boy looked like anymore. “I just don't understand..."
"I'm the god of love, Maia. This is what I do best.” His hand cupped her breast, tweaking the nipple, and she arched against him, reacting to the sweet pleasure and pain. “Now, didn't I say we should stop talking?"
His mouth closed on her breast, gently licking the nipple he'd just pulled. A soft, devouring heat following the sharp, lusty ache. As his tongue swirled around her puckered skin, her head began to spin. Swirling, swirling pleasure which seemed to never end. A cyclone of sensation teasing her, whipping her, ripping through her to her very core. And always, a heat so strong she thought she'd died and gone to a heavenly hell.
She didn't know where to look or where to turn. She wanted to reciprocate, but couldn't seem to find her lips or legs or hands. She was as good as a jellyfish, with not a single bone left inside her. All she could do was lie there and receive him.
He didn't seem to mind.
It seemed his sole aim in that moment was to give her the greatest, most voluptuous pleasure she'd ever known. He couldn't kiss her enough. His hands could not stop roving over her goose-pimpled skin. He seemed bound to stamp his image on her body, on her heart, and deep within her soul.
As his lips wandered toward her sex, as his hands gently spread her legs, the heat within her grew to a fearsome crescendo, building to such a height she feared it might consume her.
He slid his tongue through her wet, inner lips, pausing to taste her, and then licking again. He hunkered down, caressing her bottom as he devoured her. And as he stretched her with a finger, and then with two and three, Maia began to see the visions.
They were unclear at first, as if seen through a filter. But as he stroked her, they grew more distinct. A grassy meadow. A beautiful mountain. A temple in the distance, one decorated with ionic columns. People dancing and singing, offering prayers to a lost god. Worshipping before a marble statue.
A statue she knew, oh, so well.
And yet Maia felt removed from the pictures before her eyes. He was still fondling her, eating at her, sucking at her swollen pussy. Giving to her and taking nothing in return. She'd never felt so cherished or so alive.
"Maia,” he murmured against her slick sex. “My beautiful Maia."
And then he glided back up her body, feeling and touching the whole way. Still spineless, with ancient images cycling through her head, she watched as he positioned himself atop her, making her burn even hotter than before.
Surely she'd burn to a crisp at this rate. She'd be as charred as every batch of chocolate chip cookies she'd ever tried unsuccessfully to bake.
As the head of his cock pressed against her opening, he whispered to her. “You see it, don't you? You see my home."
And unable to deny it any longer, she nodded.
"I'm going to take you there."
Yes. She nodded again. She wanted to go to that lovely place.
"Say my name, Maia,” he urged, more desperate than before. “Say it."
His cock continued to tease her slit, sliding in an inch, and then sliding back out. In. Out. In. Out.
She wanted him inside her. So badly. “Please.” To hear her own shattered voice crying out with such desperation was disturbing and sensual at the same time.
"Say it."
In. Out. In...
"Oh, God,” she cried. “Oh, God. You're Eryx!"
He sank inside her, gasping, sinking in as deep as he could go. Thrusting, pounding momentum which made her body shake and sizzle.
And as Eryx claimed her, they took flight. Maia held onto him as they seemed to fly up into the sky, winding, spinning into the clouds, reaching higher and higher into the blue expanse of sky. Her apartment was long gone. The city, itself, seemed to be disappearing.
Still joined, his cock thick and throbbing inside her, they continued to soar. Past the clouds. Past the stars. Into heaven, it seemed.
She clung to him, as he did to her. Feeling no cold, no wind. Knowing only each other.
After what seemed to be an eternity, Maia opened her eyes on a sigh. She blinked and looked around. She was in a bed, an enormous silky bed which looked out through a huge picture window. In the distance, she thought she saw bits of a dazzling view.
And he was lying next to her. Eryx. Son of Aphrodite and Ares. The beautiful god who'd loved her in a way no man could. His fingers playing with the tangled strands of her hair.
"Eryx."
His smile was made even more beautiful by the shining tears in his eyes. “That's me."
"Where are we?"
"Come.” He took her by the hand and led her to the open window. “This is my home. Olympus."
Maia stared, first at him, then out the window. She'd never seen anything like the sight before her. It was breathtaking in its beauty. They were up high on the mountain, looking down onto miles and miles of verdant fields and olive groves. She could spy waterfalls and rocky paths. The sky there was the clearest blue, a heart-wrenching blue, and the lakes dotting the never-ending mountainside were even bluer. There were flowers there, the likes of which she'd never seen, the colors as opulent as glittering gems. Even the songs of the birds there sounded sweeter than any earthly melody she'd ever heard.
