by Hart, Allysa
When he finally withdrew a large piece of wood, painted white, about two feet long, a foot wide, and an inch deep. I didn't know whether to be scared or happy.
“You can still matchmake,” he continued, flipping the piece of wood over to reveal a sign. “You’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
The sign read Cupid’s Matchmaking Service in bright bubblegum pink lettering. I groaned. “You couldn’t have gone with something a little more masculine?”
“Nope.” Zeus grinned, and handed me the sign and I took it, because what choice did I have? It was either this, or give up my wings, resign from my rightful role, and shame my family name.
. “However,” Zeus continued, addressing my concerns about the sign, “if you would like to go by your more traditional given name while you are away from us, that would be amenable.”
“Fine.” I sighed. “I’ll do it. And I’ll go by Eros. Do we have a location for this,” I paused and looked at the sign again, “Cupid’s Matchmaking Service or do I have to figure out that too?”
Zeus opened his desk drawer again, his top one this time. I breathed a sigh of relief and waited. He handed me a scrap of paper. “This is the address for your shop, and the address of an apartment in the area that I have procured for you.”
I took the offered scrap and glanced at it. The address was not a local one.
“This is in the states!” I lowered my voice to an incredulous whisper. “You’re sending me away? I can’t matchmake in the states!”
Zeus ignored my protests. “You can open as soon as possible. You only have one year to complete your mission. Or else.”
“One year to find your perfect match, and fall in love.” My father added, softening Zeus’ hard-ass approach. “Just remember, you won’t have your wings, your bow and arrow, or your magic. You must fall in love the old-fashioned way.”
The idea of falling in love the old-fashioned way was daunting, but I couldn’t let him know that. I shrugged, keeping my expression confident.
With a curt nod, I handed over my bow and arrow, and waited for the wing stripping. Zeus made a twirling motion with his finger, and suddenly I felt about fifty pounds lighter. My wings were gone, and I guessed my magic was also.
My father wrapped his arms around me in a hug while Zeus watched from nearby.
“One year,” my father whispered.
“I’m Cupid. I won’t need a year.”
Rebekah
Left. Left. Left. Left. Left again. Disgusted, I threw my phone down on the seat beside me as I turned into the small lot behind my shop and parked.
What kind of professional matchmaker looked for dates on Tinder anyway? I was a fraud, that’s what I was.
Of course, my profession didn’t exactly give itself into my very own happily-ever-after. Sexy, successful men didn’t come into my shop wanting to hook up with the matchmaker.
“Oh, who am I kidding?” I said to myself as I stepped out of the car, grabbed my phone and briefcase from the front seat, and my coffee from the center console, and slammed the car door shut with my hip. Sexy successful men didn’t really frequent my shop these days. It was mostly women. Unfortunate, since it takes one of each to make a match. Well, in most cases anyway.
Without any thought, I went through my morning routine. I put on another pot of coffee, checked emails and phone messages, and thumbed through the pile of bills that had been accumulating. Cringing, I picked up my overdue mortgage bill. Business had been slow of late and things were not looking good for my little shop.
Understatement of the year.
Tinder and quick hook-up sites were stealing my business. Nobody cared about true love anymore. It was all about a fast fuck, and instant gratification. Dating was becoming a lost art.
The bells from the backdoor jingled announcing an arrival, and I , quickly shoved the paper in my back pocket.
“Hey!” I smiled as I greeted my best friend, Kimmy, who owned a bookstore two doors down.
“Morning!” She bounced in with all the pep and excitement of a kid in a candy store. “I brought you something to read between clients.”
The dirty book with the sexy man ravishing the young woman on the front of the cover was more the type of thing I wanted to read in the privacy of my own bedroom than at work where I might be seen reading it, but I thanked her anyway, tucking it into my purse.
“Looks like a good one.”
“I love that the dirty stuff is becoming more mainstream these days. I think that back shelf is fast becoming my favorite,” she quipped, referring to the shelf in the back of the shop where she kept all the books my Nana would have called “bodice-rippers”.
“So, what’s on your agenda today?” She poured herself a cup of my watered down coffee and grimaced when she took a sip. It was bad, I knew, but I was trying to save money. “Girl, this coffee is nasty. Let me bring you some of the good stuff from my place. You have to have good coffee at a bookstore, or the customers will riot.”
“Okay.” I chuckled before answering her original question.“Brittany is coming in for her fourth consultation.”
Kimmy groaned and we both cringed at the mention of my most difficult customer to date. “Yikes. You think she will ever be happy with a match?”
“She damn well better,” I mumbled. Kimmy left, presumably to get me coffee, and I took my phone to one of the meeting rooms so I would have privacy when I called the mortgage company and begged them for an extension on this month’s payment. One problem after another this morning. First the bills, and then Brittany. Brittany and her picky, high maintenance demeanor was a big problem, currently. My reputation was flawless and I wasn’t going to let one spoiled little drama queen ruin that for me. I had enough competition with social media and the Internet. I didn’t need any more.
“Umm, Bekah? I think you need to come see this!” Kimmy yelled just as I was about to dial the mortgage company. That’s unusual.
I set the bill and my phone on the table and went back out to the waiting room.
She was standing frozen at the front door pointing across the street, her mouth agape and her eyes wide with disbelief.
“What’s wrong with the Tillman Building? Did it finally get torn down? Are you o—”
I followed her gaze, and stopped dead in my tracks feeling exactly as stunned and confused as she looked. There, on the front of the old building across from mine, the one that had stood empty for the better part of a decade, was a giant white sign with bubble gum pink lettering. White curtains framed a window that just yesterday had been filled with cobwebs. The loopy scrawl across the front window proclaimed the new business to be “Cupid’s Matchmaking Service”.
What in the actual fuck?
I nudged Kimmy out of the way and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The entire front of the building had been updated with a fresh coat of paint and new windows. It didn’t even look like the same place.
“I didn’t know you could remodel an entire building in a weekend.” Kimmy followed me out the door and stood next to me. “Why would someone put a dating service right across the street from yours?”
“I have no idea, but you better believe I’m going to find out. Hold down the fort, I’ll be right back.” I stomped across the street not even bothering to take the crosswalk on the corner. It was early and traffic was slow.
As I approached the door, I pulled down the banner hanging from the awning.
“Grand opening, my ass,” I mumbled to myself as I ripped it down. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
I flung the door open as hard as I could, dissatisfied with the fact that it didn’t slam against anything. I needed a slam.
“Good morning, miss—”
“Don’t you good morning me, you business-stealing piece of shit. This is my neighborhood and business is not exactly booming to begin with. So I’m going to need you to pack your silly store up and move it to another building, preferably in another city because this,” I threw t
he sign on the floor in front of me and stomped on it, “this is not going to work for me.”
Out of breath I stopped my tirade and finally looked up.
Fuck my life.
The man standing there with a surprised smirk on his face looked like a fucking Greek god. His olive skin, dark brown eyes, and almost black hair gave him a mysterious and menacing look. Muscles rippled and bulged beneath the tight fabric of his form fitting shirt. My gaze traveled from his sculpted pecs to the rippled six-pack above his belt. And lower. The front of his pants were fitted, and bulging. This man was packing.
On a scale of one to ten, he was a hard fifteen. HARD.
My gaze dropped again to his crotch.
Hard.
One look at him, and I forgot that I wanted to punch him into the next town.
All of a sudden, all I could think about was wrapping my legs around those lean hips, riding his hard cock, and licking the crevices between each smartly outlined muscle.
Fuck. Me. Daddy.
Oh my god. What in the hell is wrong with me? Put a hot man in front of me and I take complete leave of my senses, and forget that he is a literal threat to my livelihood? My Nana’s legacy. Everything I’ve worked for.
Obviously, I need to get laid or something. This is not normal.
I had to force my mouth closed before I started drooling, or worse yet, gave voice to the things I was thinking.
He took a step toward me and extended his hand. “Hello, my name is Eros Adonis. Thank you for your… unique welcome to the neighborhood.”
His mouth quirked again and the cocky attitude snapped me out of my trance and back to the here and now and I was pissed again.
“Are you serious right now? That’s your opening line after everything I just told you?” I had to look beyond him, at the wall, to ensure that I didn’t stop yelling at him and start making out with him. Because dammit, his voice was as sexy as the rest of him.
My panties are wet. Fuck.
“Well it does seem you are better at grand entrances than I am, but if you would like me to burst into your store and throw things I certainly can do that.”
Words caught in my throat as I struggled to find a comeback, but nothing came to me. Very few things could set me so far off my game that I was speechless. It was maddening. I couldn’t even look at this man without thinking about him naked. I wanted to take my panties off and climb into his lap, and ride him like a coin-operated racehorse in front of the general store. It was seriously like a drug, or some bizarre chemical reaction. I had never before reacted to a man like this. Not even in my lustful, boy crazy, hormone riddled, angst-filled teenage days.
“I was here first,” I ground out between clenched teeth, my hands in tight fists at my side.
Greek god man— fuck, he even had the name of a Greek god—smiled. “It seems you were and I apologize for that. I was not the one who purchased the building, I was simply put here.”
“Put here? What does that even mean?” I made the mistake of jerking my gaze to meet his in confusion, and I was once again overcome with lust. Need and a desire to fuck clouded my judgment.
Stay strong, Rebekah. It’s not like you haven’t seen a hot man before.
“My investors saw a need and they seized it. I’m an innocent bystander.”
“Need? Need! A need for what exactly? There is a dating service ten yards away! My dating service!” I was yelling. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. Screaming like a banshee.
He held up his hands in a placating manner and it took all of my self-control not to deck him.
Or hump him. I wanted to do both equally.
“I can see that you are angry, but there has to be a simple solution to this. Some way we can coexist?”
Angry didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling at the moment. His calm and patronizing attitude was doing nothing to help the situation.
“Coexist?” I lifted a fist as if to punch him, and shook it in the air. “At a time when dating websites are booming and I’m barely existing on my own, you want to coexist?”
He dropped his hands and shrugged. “Other businesses do it all the time. I’m sure we will be just fine.”
Just as I had decided to punch him in the nose the door opened behind me. I turned heel and stared at the person who dared interrupt us.
Brittany. My client, Brittany.
“He’s closed.” I snapped, just as Eros walked around me with his hand extended toward her. “Don’t even introduce yourself to him. This is all one big bad joke. This shop does not exist. Go back across the street and we will discuss your next match.”
It was too late. I could see it in her eyes as she stared at his god-like physique. What was this drug-like effect he seemed to have on people? Were we really that shallow?
Brittany might be. What’s my excuse?
Eros took Brittany’s hand and I had to watch as she all but melted into a pile of pink glittery goo right there on the spot.
“Next match, you say? In my opinion, it should only take one.”
I was going to kill him. Right there in front of a witness, I was going to maim him. I looked around for something to grab but matchmaking shops run very short on objects that could be used as projectile weapons.
I saw Brittany giggle and lay a hand on his chiseled chest. Her shoulder lifted, and one foot lifted into the air behind her. I went from wanting to heave a paperweight at Mr. Greek god to wanting to gouge her eyes out with a letter opener for flirting with him.
What in the hell is wrong with me? Why does this hunk of a man-god make my pussy gush while simultaneously making me shake with homicidal rage?
I needed to get out of there before I did something I was going to seriously regret.
Like hurt him.
Or sleep with him.
I tossed a glance over my shoulder as I opened the door to leave, making sure not to make eye-contact with the damn wannabe love god. Brittany was glued to his chest, pressing her breasts against him with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.
I didn’t look to see what he was doing, but he was obviously an asshole, so I could only imagine what would happen next.
I should probably leave before they start going at it like rabbits in heat right there on the showroom floor.
If he wanted Brittany, he could have her. She was a pain in the ass anyways and I would be damned if another client walked through these doors.
Over my dead body.
Leave, and don’t say anything. Don’t let them know how angry you are.
Or how horny. Especially not how horny you are.
“Fine, you know what? I have more important things to do than stand here and argue with some cocky asshole that wouldn't know a match from a ham and cheese sandwich. I have work to do and real clients to tend to. Clients who actually want to find their happily ever after.”
That last shot was fired at Brittany as I pushed past the two of them and exited the shop the same way I came in, pissed the fuck off.
So much for not letting them know I was angry.
At least I didn’t let them know I was horny.
Chapter 2
Eros
The door slammed behind her, shaking the fake certificate I had just finished hanging on the wall. The flimsy frame fell to the ground, shattering the glass.
I barely registered the crash as I pushed the over made-up blonde in the designer suit off of me and stared out at the red-headed goddess that had just stormed out. She was petite, and curvy, with thick hips, and bouncing breasts. She had a little meat on her bones in all the right places. When she yelled, the golden flecks in her brown eyes had lit up, creating little rays of fire in her irises.
Her cheeks had been flushed and rosy, and when she wasn’t cursing both me and my shop, her mouth had settled into a perfect heart shaped pout.
She was the one. My match. The one I had been sent to find. I had known it from the moment I had laid eyes upon her beauty. When she opened her mouth, a
nd cursed me to hell and back again, I had heard only a melodic symphony.
And yet, she had seemed immune to my charms and my god qualities. I had never before encountered a woman who was immune to the effect of the pheremones that were an erote’s curse.
Or blessing. Sometimes they were a blessing.
The fact that she seemed more inclined to murder me than fuck me only made me want her more.
There was a moment before she turned and left, where the sun had streamed through the windows in such a way that seemed to cast a glow around her form.
She had looked like an angel, and in that moment, that brief and beautiful second, it had been as if the gods and goddesses of love were all smiling down on me offering their guidance and blessing.
She would be mine.
She was mine. And I didn’t even know her name.
“So, Eros, is it?” The desperate and perky blond in a tailored pant suit and designer shoes took a seat upon my solitary chair. She was pouting and batting her eyelashes at me. I got the distinct impression she was quite used to men falling all over her, and that my brush-off had been taken as a personal affront.
I knew the type. She would not rest until I gave in to her feminine charms. With my reputation and proclivity for buxom blondes, it would be quite easy to do. But I was on a mission, and I had to keep my eye on the prize. The voluptuous, drool-worthy red-headed prize that had just walked out my door.
“So you said it should only take one match?” Blondie leaned over the desk, giving a little shimmy so that her cleavage was generously displayed.
She’s trouble. I need to get her out of my shop, and out of my hair. And soon.
I hadn’t even put my open sign up, but it was go time.
Operation: Match The Busty Blonde is on!
“Yes, that would be me. Eros Adonis at your service.” I swept a hand in front of me, and gave a fake bow, careful not to make eye-contact. Avoiding doing so seemed to lessen the effect of the pheromones, if only ever so slightly.
Tomorrow I would make sure to use a pheromone blocker.
“I’m Brittany.” She smiled coyly, and extended a hand in my direction. I shook it briefly.
