by Erin Hayes
She gets to her feet, angry. “Go, dammit.”
“No. Not until we talk this out.”
She licks her lips, and my cock hardens at how sensual it is, even when we’re in the throes of this argument. There’s something so innocent and damaged about her, and I feel this overwhelming need to protect her.
Somewhere along the way, I fell for her. And I have to come to terms with it.
“Please?” Her voice comes out as a whine. “Because otherwise…”
And then everything changes between us.
She makes the first move.
She is Max, after all. The first move was always meant to be hers. Even when I was her boss, she was always in control.
Love and erotic love are my realms. And I let her show me how she does it.
I give her control. Let her take this where she wants to go.
Her mouth is on mine, wanton and possessive as her hand comes behind my head and grasps a handful of hair. Her other hand catches the door and slams it shut, locking the two of us alone in her room.
“I want you,” she whispers. “I don’t…”
“I want you, too.” There’s no way I can hide it now. Not with the taste of her in my mouth. Or these revelations coming to life.
She pulls me to her, even more ferocious than before. Like a beast starving. And I let her. The unexpectedness of it all makes me groan her name in pleasure, and I feel her smile against me.
“I always knew you were a woman who would take control in the bedroom,” I say
She stops and searches my face before a grin twists her lips. “Wouldn’t want to let you down now, would I?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” I nibble at her lips. “Because you’ve never let me down.”
She laughs softly before pushing my chest hard enough to push me onto the bed. “Sit down, Mr. Eros.”
I’m about to make a sly comment, to continue this banter that’s turning me on, but she peels off her blouse and lets it drop to the floor. She’s wearing a black bra that shows off her pert breasts and toned body.
So damned perfect. And she has no idea as she stares at me with those fey green eyes and wild hair.
She straddles me, and I nearly explode at the sensation of my rock-hard erection pressing up against her panties. I cup her ass trying to pull her even closer to me.
She unbuttons the top of my shirt, exposing my collarbone, and trails her fingers over the length, making my skin dance beneath her touch.
“You’re ticklish,” she says with a smug smile, meeting my eyes.
“Am not.”
“Uh-huh.” She sounds unconvinced as she unbuttons the rest, her cool breath leaving a trail of quivers down my body. I guess that doesn’t make for a very convincing argument, but fuck it all. I like it. It makes me feel like I’m pliable and moldable underneath her ministrations. That whatever happens, there will be a very different Eros waking up tomorrow.
And I’m okay with that.
“Does your ticklishness extend all the way down here?” she asks in amusement. My mind comes back enough to realize that she’s kneeling in front of me, unbuttoning the top of my trousers. “Or should I not even bother down here?”
She has me trapped. Either I admit that I’m ticklish or she doesn’t give me what I want oh-so desperately.
“You minx,” I breathe as she takes out my considerable length. I see her eyes widen just a smidge as she takes me in. Like it wasn’t what she had expected.
“Nadya lied about my size.”
Yes, I sound smug. I am a god after all. There’s a reason why we were notorious for being good lovers in Ancient Greece. I’m not too big, but certainly exactly what most women picture when they think of the perfect cock.
“I can see that now,” she says, recovering. “But you haven’t answered my question.” She gives me a long stroke, one that makes my hand clench into her bedsheets. “Are you ticklish down here? Or do you want me to focus somewhere else?”
Another slow, agonizing stroke. I gulp back the moan that threatens to escape my lips, as I lay my head back. The words are caught in my throat.
And then I nearly lose it as she licks the length of my shaft. “Are you ticklish, Damien?” Her voice is thick with passion.
I think a few more seconds and she would have caved in, but I can’t handle it anymore. “Yes.”
She takes me into her mouth, all at once, sucking and running her tongue around me. I let out a strangled cry at the sensation of her possessing me. Owning me.
How could I have not seen it before? How could I have considered her as “just” my personal assistant for so long? She’s perfect in every way. My match in every sense of the word.
I grasp the back of her head, guiding her up and down my shaft, and she keeps me in her mouth. My breath starts to catch in my throat, rough and ragged.
Damn, she’s going to make me come like an amateur.
“Not yet,” I say, pulling her up by the elbows. She looks a little disappointed as she allows me to sit her on the bed. “I want to come inside you for our first time.”
“You’re saying there’ll be others,” she says, and I kick out of my trousers and boxer briefs. She props herself up on her elbows to watch me, her eyes lingering on different places. “So, you’ll want more of me?”
“You’re too much for one man ever to handle,” I tell her. A man, yes. But not too much for a god like me.
I go to my knees before her, a god kneeling in front of the mortal he worships. I lift up her skirt and tug off her panties, exposing her bare sex.
Her breath catches as I blow on the sensitive flesh where her hip bone carves the planes of her body.
“You’re not the only one who can tickle,” I tell her.
“You’re not as good as me.” Always defiant. Always so hot.
I meet her eyes and raise my brows in mock-hurt. “You can tell that even before I really get started?”
Her lips pull up as she looks at me with half-lidded eyes. “I know these things.”
“But I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”
“I don’t need—”
Her own gasp cuts her off as I plunge two fingers deep into her folds. Her back arches off the bed, and I give a satisfied smile as I work my fingers inside her. She’s so damn wet, my fingers slide in and out easily. So wet and so ready.
“Seems to be doing the trick,” I say, trying to keep up our fun talk, although my voice is rough with need. My thumb finds that quivering nub between her legs, and I tweak her sensitive spot.
She doesn’t answer, not with words. She responds by forcefully grabbing my hair and forcing my head up, giving me a kiss that is both ferocious and passionate. Her tongue sweeps my mouth, and she possesses all of me.
Max doesn’t just have sex with her body. It’s with her heart and her soul and every fiber of her being.
I pull back, only just, and for a moment, we’re both sharing the same breath. I find that I’m afraid to say what I want to say, to give into this first before she does.
Because she’s Max. And she’s always in control.
Finally, I can’t handle it anymore.
“I want to be inside you.” Need to be inside her. Because I can’t imagine what would happen after this moment if she says no.
But she smiles at me—smirks, really, and says, “I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”
I could say something else to prove to her that I’m not giving in, that we’re both going crazy with lust. But that would take time away from being joined with her, and I can’t think of anything worse right now.
Her arm snakes over to the nightstand on the side of her bed, and without looking, she opens a drawer and pulls out a condom. Without taking her eyes off me, she tears the wrapper with her teeth and takes out the rubber.
Shit, she really does know what she’s doing.
I shift to the side so I can unroll the condom over my length.
“Hurry,” she say
s breathlessly. “Hurry.”
Sheathed in the condom, I position my cock in front of her folds, holding myself up on my elbows so that I can look down into her eyes. We’ve come to a point again where I’m back to being the one who’s in control. I lick my lips and watch her, wondering what she’s going to do.
I’m a god asking for permission to enter the temple of this woman. To give her the praises that she so clearly deserves. To give her everything I am.
She cups my cheek and kisses me, this time chaste. Telling me not to hold back.
I thrust my hips forward, sliding inside her, and she lets out a guttural sound that nearly sends me over the edge. I let out a chuckle, and she gives me a scowl that lasts only as long as it takes for me to pump into her again.
“Look who’s ticklish now,” I say, although I’m barely holding on myself.
She raises her hips to meet mine, not taking her eyes off me the entire time. “You really want to go there?” she breathes.
“Uh-huh. I do.”
Suddenly, I find that I’m on my back, looking up into her eyes and she’s astride my hips, riding me roughly. She smirks down at me. “How about that?”
“Keep going,” I say through gritted teeth. One of my hands goes up under her bra and tweaks her erect nipple.
She hisses a deep intake of breath, closing her eyes. So I found her weakness. I sit up, sliding my hands up the curve of her back. I kiss her as I undo the clasps to her bra, and suddenly, her breasts are free, heaving with the rhythm of our bodies.
“You’re perfect,” I whisper.
She blinks down at me, something akin to wonder in her face as she kisses me again, nibbling at my lips. I groan against her, not wanting this to end.
And then she sits up, leaning backward to where I have to grasp her hips to keep her with me. To keep our bodies joined. The movement presses against me in ways I’ve never experienced before. Suddenly, I’m breathing heavy and the scent of her is in my nose. She’s everything I ever wanted.
Our bodies rock together, building up a delicious friction that has her panting and me biting my own lip to keep from crying out.
And then she does cry out, leaning forward, her hair falling across her perspired forehead. She unfurls before my very eyes, vulnerable and so open for me to witness every bit of her.
“Good girl,” I murmur, and she gives me a heated look just before I come, too. I throw my head back onto the pillows, her name on my lips, her face in my mind.
I’ve been around for a long time, but it’s the most intimate orgasm I’ve ever had. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever been with, and suddenly, I can’t imagine an eternity without her in it.
She was my personal assistant. Now she’s my obsession.
I open my eyes in my afterglow and find her looking down at me with a curious expression on her lovely face. I reach up and brush a strand of hair behind her ear. A simple moment, but she turns her face and kisses the palm of my hand.
I pull myself out of her and hold her to me. I wrap the sheets around us, as she lays her cheek against my chest.
Just like this. I want to be just like this forever. I don’t want to be Eros anymore and have to worry about the state of the world. I want to devote every waking moment to this woman. I’ll never have enough of her, even if I have her for a thousand years.
If only she’ll have me.
I pray to whatever being manages the futures of gods like me that they’ll be kind when it comes to my own love.
“This changes things,” she whispers against my skin, reflecting my own thoughts.
I swallow thickly. “Is that a problem?”
A pause. And for a horrible moment, I think she regrets what we just did. But she sighs and shakes her head slowly.
“No. It’s just…different now, isn’t it?”
“It was different from the moment you agreed to be my fake fiancée,” I say.
She lifts her head to look at me. “Did you plan on that?”
I shake my head. “No. I respected you too much to jeopardize what we had.”
“And now?”
“I respect us too much to risk losing this.” And it’s the gods’ awful truth. The world could fall apart around us, and all I’d want is to have her with me.
Her eyes get heavy as she regards me. “Then don’t.”
“I won’t. I don’t know where we go from here. But I do know that I want to hold you tonight.”
She smiles. “We can do that.”
She curls up against me again. And sometime later, I hear her even breathing, even a snore every so often. Of course Max would snore—she’s not perfect, but it’s those imperfections that make her a force to be reckoned with.
I underestimated how far under my skin she would go. And now I know that I don’t ever want to let her go.
16
I am not a good cook, as is evidenced by my attempt to make breakfast for everyone the next morning.
I could blame it on not getting any sleep last night, because I just lay awake to spend every possible moment with Max in my arms. I didn’t want to miss a moment of being with her, because with a life as long as mine, a decade with her would feel like a blink.
But, then again, I’ve never had the need to cook as a god. I either ate ambrosia and drank nectar up on Olympus or went without. And living as a mortal, I’ve always had my food prepared for me, either at restaurants or catered by professional chefs.
So when the smell of burning eggs hits my nose, I know that something’s wrong. And then the hashbrowns turn to hashblacks in the pan. And the oil catches fire, setting off the alarm in the house. I spend a full twenty seconds in a panic trying to find an extinguisher to put out the blaze.
So much for the surprise breakfast.
Luckily, Max is prepared for everything, and I find it underneath the sink. I spray the white foam over the pan, ruining everything I’ve tried to cook.
“Dammit,” I mutter, turning on the vent for the smoking mess. The alarm is bleeping like some infernal cricket from Hades. “By Hestia, this should be easier than it is.”
I flip a kitchen towel at the smoke, coughing as I do so.
Blissfully, the alarm stops, leaving my ears ringing in the sudden silence.
“What the hell are you doing?” Max asks from the hallway, a look of horror on her face. She looks wide awake from the alarm, but her hair is tousled and she’s wearing a plush, cotton rob. “And why are you wearing my apron?”
Suddenly, I feel embarrassed and incompetent in front of her, the exact opposite of what I wanted. I want to impress her, not wake her up in a fright.
“Cooking you breakfast.” I look down at the flowery apron that I’m wearing. “And I thought the apron was a requirement.” That’s what they do on television at least. Everyone wears an apron on the cooking shows that I’ve managed to catch snippets of.
Not that I have a lot of time to watch television.
Max sighs, then shakes her head. “Take that off and go sit over there.” She points to the table. “You’re not cooking, you’re trying to burn down the house.”
I want to assure her that I know what I’m doing, but I see the smile tugging at her lips. She’s amused. And maybe that’s enough.
I untie the apron and hand it to her, which she just loops through the handle of the oven, not even wearing the thing. At my questioning look, she waves me away again. “Sit down. You made a huge mess.”
I know I did. I cracked an egg and spilled it all over the place, and bits of food are cooked to the bottom of the pans and the stove.
A huge failure.
In defeat, I sit down at the table and watch as Max moves about the kitchen, cleaning up the mess and then starting breakfast from scratch. I watch the robe tighten around her breasts and pay particular attention to how light she is on her feet. There’s a confident grace to her.
We make small talk, peppering it with playful banter. We’re easy around each other, even after baring ourselves last
night. She’s still the same Max she always was, if not a little more forgiving.
I guess that’s the difference between a boyfriend and your boss.
Am I her boyfriend? Or fake fiancée still? That line is blurring even further, and I don’t know where it stops and ends. Or how to even broach that subject with her.
I’m the god of love, dammit. I should know this shit.
“Mommy?” Gotham says from the doorway, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. “What was that noise?” Then he looks over at me and grins. “Morning, Mr. Arrows!”
“Hey, buddy. Sorry about the fire alarm earlier.”
“Mr. Arrows was trying to burn down the house.” Max gives me a pointed look.
Gotham giggles. “So he was cooking like Grampa?”
“Worse,” Max whispers with a wink.
He looks back at me with wide eyes. The only thing I can do is smile back. “Thankfully, your mom saved the day.”
Max gives a snort as she turns back to the stove, cracking an egg over the lip of the pan. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes. Are you ready for school?”
Gotham grins. “Yep!” With a stiff, awkward gait, he comes over to sit next to me at the table. He’s wearing his leg braces but is without his crutches. He takes a seat and puts away the homework papers we did last night. Seeing him again this morning, I’m happy that I helped.
“What the hell was that?” Hector joins us in the kitchen. He’s still wearing his threadbare robe, and I get way too much of an eyeful of him again. He glares at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Having breakfast,” Max says sharply, giving her father a look that says to not ask too much in front of her son. “And that was just the fire alarm.”
“It’s enough to wake the dead,” Hector mutters. “And I should know because I’m the closest to death here.”
Actually, I’ve been to the Underworld and know that there’s nothing there that could be worse than that fire alarm, but I don’t mention it. It would make a strange breakfast topic.
Hector grabs a chair in a huff and peppers Gotham with questions about how he slept and what he plans on doing at school and more. The kid seems to be used to these kinds of mornings and obliges his grandfather.
