by P. C. Cast
Chapter Twenty-Three
P ea's bedroom reminded Vulcan of her. It was soft and inviting - just as it had been the night he had watched through the thread of fire as she pleasured herself. The remembrance made his manhood grow even stiffer, and the blood that already drummed hot and thick through his body had his loins aching with need for her.
They hadn't spoken since she'd told him of her desire. He'd kissed her again hungrily. She'd broken the kiss, but only to take his hand and lead him to her bedroom. Now she was moving around the room lighting moon-colored candles that scented the air with the sweetness of gardenia. He watched her with a longing that had become a familiar, tangible thing. Then she stood before him, soft hair curling around her face and down her shoulders. It caught the flickers from the small, perfect candle flames so she appeared to be gowned in a veil of her shimmering tresses. He longed to sink his hands in her hair and pull her to him. He must have made an involuntary move toward her, because her whispered words caused him to halt midstride.
"I want to undress you. "
Vulcan felt a terrible clutching in his stomach at the thought of Pea seeing him naked. Rationally he knew his leg was not grotesque. It simply twisted in, and was much more noticeable when he walked than when he was standing still. But many lifetimes had taught him that even this slight imperfection was cause for ridicule.
"Un-unless you don't want me to - "
He pressed a finger against her lips. His hesitation because of his own insecurities had caused the budding self-confidence she'd exhibited that night to falter, and he couldn't bear to see embarrassment and doubt shadow her eyes.
"I want you to undress me. But I'm afraid my leg will make me unattractive to you," he said honestly.
She touched his cheek again, and caressed his lip with the softness of her thumb, as she had before when she had told him of her desire for him.
"Don't ever think that. I want you. Not some perfect version of you. "
No one had ever said such a thing to him. Unable to speak, he nodded his consent. First, she tugged at his sweater and then smiled up at him. "You're too tall. You have to bend down or I can't get this off. "
Her easy, sweet smile almost undid him. He hugged her briefly and fiercely, and then bent so that she could pull off his sweater. Under it he wore a dark, long-sleeved shirt of a style that seemed to be popular in this world. She began working the line of buttons undone. He wanted to rip the shirt from his body and press her against his naked chest, but that was unlike him. Then Vulcan drew a deep, surprised breath. Everything he'd done tonight was unlike him! With one strong, sure motion, he ripped open the confining shirt and pulled Pea into his arms. She groaned and returned his kiss, splaying her fingers across his back. Her touch made his skin feel ultrasensitive and he shivered under her caressing fingers. Then her restless hands moved down, finding the closing of the pants the Internet had taught him were called jeans. He kissed her deeply as she brushed one hand over the swell of his erection while the other played with the button above the zipper. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. Her lips tilted up, making her appear very nymphish. He smiled down at her, glad to see the teasing self-confidence had returned to her manner.
"I like it that you're already hard. " A blush bloomed over her cheeks at the wantonness of her words, making him smile down at her.
"It's you! Just thinking of you makes me desire you. "
"Good," she said softly.
She unzipped his jeans, freeing his erection. Her gaze found his once more, only this time her eyes looked a little startled.
"Going commando? I'm glad I didn't know that while we were eating. I don't think we would have finished the meal, and then I would have missed out on the lovely stories you told. "
Commando was a new word to him, but Vulcan was spared having to answer her because she'd taken his phallus in her hand and began stroking the length of him. He strained beneath her touch, feeling so hard and engorged that his skin should split. She took her hand from him long enough to skim his pants down his body. He stepped out of them and his shoes, and stood completely naked - in body and soul - before her.
Her eyes traveled the length of his body. He knew she could clearly see how his left leg turned in, how the brand of his father's anger marred the line of his body. He had to force himself not to shout a command that would instantly extinguish the small flames of the candles and plunge them into concealing darkness.
"You're beautiful," she said breathlessly.
Then, before he had time to recover from her words, she knelt before him. Her fingers caressed their way up his thighs - both of them. Her light touch caused his muscles to quiver and his phallus to throb with a bittersweet mixture of need and pleasure. She took her time, following her fingers with her mouth, licking and kissing a path up to his core. She took his sac in her hand, squeezing and teasing, and then both of her hands encircled him. . . stroking. . . pulling the length of him toward that beautiful moist pinkness that was her mouth. He shuddered and moaned when her tongue flicked out and licked the clear drop of liquid his arousal had caused to seep from the head of his cock. Then her tongue was back, swirling around his engorged head. At his hissing exhalation of breath she paused and looked up at him.
"I want to take you in my mouth, to love you with my mouth, my body, my heart. Will you let me?"
"Yes, Pea, by all the gods, yes!" he rasped.
Without any hesitation she opened her pink lips and sucked as much of him as she could take into the wet heat of her mouth. He couldn't stop himself from burying his hands in her hair as she sucked and withdrew, sucked and withdrew, each time flicking her tongue against the sensitive underside of his shaft.
Having his hardess in her mouth was an erotic seduction that was both physical and visual. Watching his hard phallus slide in and out between her full pink lips as she moved her hand in a synchronized caress with her mouth was almost more than he could bear. He wanted to explode, but he didn't want the sucking and pulling and hot lick of her tongue to end. Somewhere in the middle of one of her strokes he felt his orgasm begin as a sharp, sweet agony he couldn't contain. He meant to shout a warning to her - he might have pulled out of her mouth, but she wouldn't let him. As his body tightened and the heat of his seed began to pump from him in hot, sharp release, she stroked and sucked harder, until he was dry and replete. When he was finally able to focus again, he was surprised to realize he was still standing. Hard to believe he hadn't collapsed. His hands were still trapped in Pea's curls and he caressingly untangled them. She looked up at him then, her eyes shining.
Victor's sensuous storytelling had excited her as no other foreplay had ever done. Leading him into her room, she'd already been wet and hot and ready. After bringing him to orgasm with her mouth, her desire for him throbbed through her body. She smiled up at him, enjoying every moment of his dazed, drained expression.
"My turn," she said, purposefully dropping her voice to a sexy tease. She began to slowly strip off her clothes, loving the hot intensity with which he watched her every move. She realized, of course, that he couldn't get hard again so soon, but she couldn't wait to feel his naked skin against her. . . his strong arms around her. . . his mouth on hers. . .
Naked, she lay back on the bed. Inhibitions totally gone, she opened her legs to him. And then watched in amazement as his cock began to swell.
"Let me inside you. I have to have you. I have to make you mine," he said huskily as he got on the bed and knelt between her open legs.
Disbelieving, she reached forward. Her hand closed around his stiff shaft, proving that she wasn't imagining his second erection. She stroked him, feeling herself liquefy with pleasure. He was simply amazing!
"You've already made me yours," she said, meeting his gaze, trusting that he saw their future in her eyes as she had seen it in his.
"Yes. " He gasped. "We belong to each other - for eternity. I love you, Dorreth Pea Chamberlain. I want to spend my
eternity with you. "
Pea felt his words wash against her skin as if they carried a palpable shiver of sensation with them, even though her mind said that it was impossible for words to carry physical sensation. She knew it wasn't rational, but it was as if by speaking words of love to her, he had somehow actually bound them together for eternity.
"Yes," she murmured. "I belong to you - always. "
She guided him to her and groaned as he tunneled slowly within her wetness. Then all gentleness and hesitation fled before the heat and the passion that filled them, and Victor began pumping, thrusting, pounding into her. She met him thrust for thrust, lifting her hips from the bed and angling her pelvis so that she fully accepted each of his thrusts. He rode her in the ancient dance of lust until she could feel her body gathering for orgasm. She lifted her legs, moaning. With a sound that was very much like a growl, he took her leg and raised it high, anchoring it over his muscular shoulder that was slick with sweat. The new position opened her more fully to him, allowing him to plunge deeper into her, bringing her to the edge of her release. She wrapped her arms around him and exploded, gasping his name. Then he followed her over that sweet edge and groaned his pleasure. She held his shuddering body close. . . .
. . . And something over his shoulder caught her eyes. She blinked, trying to focus and bring her breathing under control, and clearly saw that the flames of the little scented candles she'd lit earlier were shooting in a crackling whoosh all the way to her ceiling!
She cried out, but Victor was in the midst of his own ecstasy, and he must have mistaken her shouts for pleasure. She was tensing to push him off her so she could run for the fire extinguisher, but she realized that though the candle's flames were high and unnaturally bright, they didn't burn the room. They blazed with Victor's orgasm like benign flamethrowers absent of heat and made only of color. Pea continued to stare at the flames as Victor pumped his seed into her. And as his orgasm faded, so did the flames of the candles, until finally, when he collapsed against her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, their small, flickering fires had returned to normal. If she had had her eyes closed, she would have missed it. But her eyes hadn't been closed.
She hadn't missed it.
The truth hit her hard. It all fit. His sudden appearance coinciding with Venus's visit. His powerful aura. His odd, archaic speech patterns that could have been evidence of a good education and maybe a lot of foreign travel, but was really something else entirely. And, most telling, his knowledge of ancient mythology and storytelling.
Victor was nuzzling her neck and lightly kissing her while he whispered something sweet she could almost hear against her skin.
"Who are you?"
Her voice was flat and matter-of-fact. But postcoital Victor (or whatever the hell his real name was) didn't seem to notice. He kept nuzzling her and murmured, "The man who loves you, little one. "
"Bullshit. "
That got through to him. He pulled back and saw her rigid body language. Frowning with obvious worry, he rolled slowly off her. Pea ignored the sexy, wet feeling of his body sliding from hers.
"Pea?"
"You're not mortal. " It took her saying it aloud, and the shocked look in his eyes - not shocked as in What the fuck? but shocked as in How the fuck did she find out? - for her to know for sure her instinct about him had been right. He wasn't like any other man, because he wasn't literally a man.
"Who are you?" she repeated, crossing her arms over her bare breasts - not that she wanted to hide from him. She didn't. She was, quite simply, thoroughly pissed at him.
"Why are you asking me that? Why would you believe that I'm not mortal?"
"Okay. Please. While you were coming the flames on the candles were shooting to the ceiling like miniature flamethrowers. That. Is. Not. Normal. " She spoke each word separately, enunciating carefully.
Clearly distressed, he sat up. "The candles did that?"
"Oh, and did I mention that they flamed way up the side of my wall to my ceiling, but they didn't burn anything?"
He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder at the candles, as if he didn't want her to see him looking.
"And that's not normal, either?"
"You know it's not. "
"I didn't know they were going to do that. This" - he gestured from her back to him - "has never happened to me before. " Then he attempted a smile. "But I'm glad they didn't burn anything. "
Pea ignored his attempt to lighten the tension between them. "Do you think I'll believe that you've never had sex before?"
"Of course not. I didn't mean that. I meant that I've never been in love before, so I had no way of knowing that any fire in my presence would. . . ur. . . respond to the intensity of my emotions. "
"And just exactly why would fire respond to you?" Pea asked. Even through her anger at him, she was intrigued to discover who he really was.
He drew a deep breath. "My name isn't Victor. I'm sorry I misled you to think so. I'm just not used to all this and I - stupidly - hadn't thought things out past seeing you again. " He wiped a hand across his face. "I hadn't even thought about what I'd say when you asked me my name. "
"And your name is?" she asked impatiently.
"Vulcan," he said.
"V. Cannes. "
"I'm not a very imaginative liar. "
She snorted. "You could have fooled me. "
"But I didn't fool you. In truth, I didn't want to fool you. " He reached for her, and she jerked away from him.
"Please don't pull away from me," he said.
"Don't you dare tell me what to do! I don't give a damn if you are a god. I won't be bullied. " Pea realized she was actually more confused than angry, but she couldn't seem to control her pissedoff reaction. She was in love with an ancient god. Just the thought caused a weird ringing sound in her ears, and she was afraid if she stopped being mad that she would start being sad - or worse, scared.
"I wouldn't bully you!"
"Ha! So you'd just lie to me? And badly at that. Why not bully me? Why not zap me into. . . into. . . into a tree or something if I make you mad!" Isn't that what the gods did who seduced mortal women? Why hadn't she paid closer attention to mythology in school? Didn't she have a copy of an old Edith Hamilton mythology text somewhere in one of her bookshelves?
Jeesh, she hoped so. She had some serious reading to do.
"A tree? Why would I want you to be a tree?" He looked honestly shocked.
"How would I know! For that matter, how would I know anything about you? Hasn't it all been a lie?"
"No!" he shouted, and the flames in the candles flickered wildly in response.
"See there!" She pointed. "You just made the flames act weird again. "
"I'm sorry. I won't let them harm anything. "
"Why do you have control over flames?"
"Because I'm Vulcan. "
She let out a big puff of frustrated breath. "I've been out of school for a long time, and I didn't really pay much attention to mythology even then. "
His brow furrowed in confusion.
Pea rolled her eyes. "I don't know which god Vulcan is. "
"Oh. " He didn't look offended, as she thought he might. He just shrugged and said, "I'm God of Fire. My realm is deep within the bowels of Mount Olympus. At my forge I keep the fires of the ancient earth burning. I also work in metal - things you would normally associate with a forge. "
"Then it was a lie. " Pea felt sick.
"Stop saying that!" He glanced at the candles to make sure they were behaving before he continued. "I misled you about my name, but nothing else. I do work with fire. I have been watching you. I do love you. "
Pea shook her head. "I don't mean that. I mean you lied about being an outcast, about not belonging. You're a god! One of the immortals. I know Venus - I know how amazing you Olympians are. " She bit her lip, determined not to cry, and pulled the sheet up over her body. It was bad enou
gh he was seeing her naked emotions. She wasn't good at covering them, but at least she could cover her naked body. "It was mean of you to pretend to be like me. "
"But I am like you! I wasn't pretending. Look at me!" He stood up, naked beside her bed.
"Really look at me. My leg is twisted; I am lame. Compare my imperfections to Venus's blazing beauty. I am far from physically perfect. That makes me an eternal outcast amongst the golden immortals of Olympus. "
The buzzing was back in her ears. "But that doesn't matter. " She reached out and touched his imperfect leg.
He took her hand and knelt beside the bed, burying his face in her palm. "It matters to the immortals. I know how it feels not to belong, and now that I've found you, I know how it feels to be accepted and loved. I can't lose you, Pea. Not now. I couldn't bear it. "
And then Pea gasped as Venus's words rushed from her memory, all of a sudden making sense. He's not physically perfect, so he's an outcast in Olympus. He thought by marrying me he could gain acceptance.
"Oh, no. . . You're married to Venus," she said faintly.
"Yes, but - "
The rest of his words were lost when Pea burst into tears.
