Ares: (Gods of Old Book 1) (14 page)

“I’m glad you realize you need me in your life,” he chuckled. “I definitely need you in mine, Ava. You’ve given me more laughter and joy in the last couple of days than I’ve had, I think, in my entire life. You give me this sense of freedom, where I can just be me and not have to put on a pretense for anyone else. I don’t have to hide behind a shield; I don’t have to watch every word that comes out of my mouth. Thank you for that, darling,” he whispered pressing a kiss to her lips.

“I’m glad. This is what I want. I only want your happiness; I need your happiness,” she said with a smile. “I know that you certainly give me that peace, that happiness, and joy. We’re good together. We should forever be together.”

“And we will be, as soon as I figure it out. I have feelers out, but I have to tread very lightly and very carefully. If the wrong people figure out why I’m asking it could become an issue. I should know more by the week’s end, and then we can decide what you’d like to do given the information.”

“The only thing that I want to do is spend the rest of eternity with you. It doesn’t matter what it takes. I want- I need, this life with you forever. I will never give you up. You are mine, Ares.”

Smiling he hugged her tight, “And you’re mine.” Kissing her gently he eased them under the spray of the shower. “I don’t want to move from where I am. So I’m not going to set you down, I’m just going to keep my cock in your pussy, and we’re going to sleep like this tonight.”

“Then why don’t you flip the water off, dry us off and then flash us into the bed?” she suggested happily. “I would love for you to be able to sleep inside of me all night.”

With a chuckle he did just as she asked, kissing her as he flashed them to the bed. “You should probably be on top though, darling,” he commented rolling them over. “Otherwise, you might end up squashed. Especially since I’m a pretty healthy-sized, dead weight once I’m asleep.”

“Don’t worry; I love sleeping on top.” He adjusted them, and she lay her head on his chest, thighs on each side of his and sighed happily. “Now pull up the blankets and turn off the light and we will be able to rest. Just make sure we don’t miss the sunrise,” she whispered with a yawn.

“We won’t. I promised you an Olympian sunrise and I will deliver an Olympian sunrise.” The blankets slid up and over her body; the lights went out and his arms wrapped around her. “Sweetest dreams, my love.”

She relaxed right along with him, and with a sigh, gave in to sleep.

Six months later...

“Ava, are you ever going to actually move in here with me?” Ares asked her while they sat at the dining table of his Italian home. “You have bits and pieces here and on Olympus but the majority of your things are still in storage. I think you really need to move in with me, love. You live here with me all the time anyway. We’re together all the time and do everything as a couple. So what’s holding you back, sweetheart?”

“I-” she started and then stopped. She looked to him and put her fork down. “I love you. You know that I’m absolutely over the moon for you but-” She didn’t know how to explain it. “Right now, I love what we have, how we are together; I really do, but I feel like if I do move in-” She ducked her head and felt her blush. Rushing out the words so that they were practically on top of each other. “I feel like we will be living in sin.” There, she said it. Kind of.

“Uh darling, we’ve committed nearly every other sin there is, and you’re worrying about moving in with me?” He wasn’t laughing, he never would thankfully. Instead he was taking her comments seriously. Sitting up he leaned forward and took her hand. “You know I’m going to figure out how to get you to live with me right? I’ve nearly figured out how to keep you with me forever, and once I do that, I’m going to insist we marry; you do need to make an honest man out of me after all. With all this living in sin we’ve been doing, it’s the least you can do to save my poor, tattered reputation.”

She reached out and hit him, not hard, on his arm. “Not even funny.” She was blushing harder. “You know how I feel about marriage. You haven’t asked me, so I kinda figured that you didn’t want to,” she admitted to him very quietly. “I thought that you only wanted me for what we have now. I know it’s only a piece of paper, but it means something to me. The vows more than the paper.”

“Ava,” he slid from his chair and knelt in front of her. “Of course, I want to marry you. It’s important to you, so it’s important to me. I just wanted to do it right and was trying to figure that out. I’m a God, but I do not know everything there is to know, love. And women are the hardest people ever to figure out. You guys are way, way too complicated for us simple men folk.”

“Simple. That’s what I want. Something very, very simple. Not a great deal of people, just those that we still consider friends. A priest willing to marry us and we can do it here, at the Vineyard.” It was a beautiful setting after all. “At sunset on our hill overlooking the vineyards. What do you think?” But he still hadn’t asked.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he smiled at her. “And before you deck me again,” Ares rolled his eyes. He pulled something out of his pocket and looked up at her, completely serious. “Ava VonMaur, love of my life, keeper of my heart and soul, will you do me the honor of marrying me? Will you be my wife, my friend, my lover, and the keeper of my secrets for the rest of our days?” Then he showed her the ring.

She looked at the ring and gasped, “Wow.” She was shocked, very shocked. It was perfect. The stone was the color of his eyes, the diamonds surrounding it perfect and pure and the platinum was wonderful and just what she wanted. “Yes.” That was all she could say. Tears clogged her eyes, but she slid into his arms and nodded, “Yes, yes. Yes!”

Laughing, he hugged her tight. “I’m going to guess that that was the right way to do it?” he teased. Pressing kisses to her face, he finally found her lips and kissed her deeply. “Do you want to put the ring on now or should I just keep holding it?”

“Now,” she said with a nod. “Yes please, now.” Holding her shaking hand out to him she let him slide it on and smiled when she felt it adjusting to her finger. “Making sure I never lose it?” she asked with a grin. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on it, but thank you.”

“Just wanted to make sure it was comfortable for you.” Smiling, he kissed her deeply before moving them to his chair. She was draped in his lap, and he was holding her tight. “The only thing I won’t help you with for this whole wedding is the dress. That’s all for you, darling. You get to pick it out and I will stay away from it all, so it’s a surprise.”

“Don’t worry; the wedding dress is something that I want to pick out on my own. I want to be able to surprise you,” she said with a grin. “I think that it’s going to be wonderful, but I need time to find the perfect dress and get it fitted and- Oh God, I’m getting ahead of myself. However, I still want it small okay?”

“As long as you have the dress, I will find you a priest. We have the location, and once we know when we want to have this shindig, we’ll send out invitations to those we want here. Dion for sure and Apollo. I should invite my uncle too; don’t know if he’ll come but I’m hopeful he might.”

“Absolutely, I want Dion here for sure, especially because he has such amazing taste in dresses. The gown he sent to me for that ball was utterly amazing. He has great taste,” she admitted. “I did like Apollo too, what small time we spent with him.”

She grinned and added, “Do you think he’ll ever get over that woman telling him to go doodle himself?” Poor guy’s ego had been hit hard; they could all see that when he had walked up to a stunning redhead and asked her out with the worst pickup line on the face of the planet. After she’d tossed her water at him, they all watched her pick up her cane and nudge her sight dog to leave. It had been epic. Poor Apollo, with his amazing looks, hadn’t been able to pick someone up because he chose the one woman in the pub who was blind, to ask out.

“You should take Dion shopping; he’s always had an eye for fashion. And he likes you, so he’d do it for you. Though you may have to promise not to torture him during the trip. And keep it short, do your research ahead of time, or even ask what he might think you should get and where.” He looked at her with a smile. “Apollo will bounce back eventually. He doesn’t handle rejection well, but he never lets it get him down for long. I do have a feeling we’ll be seeing that redhead again, though.”

She snickered and shook her head. “Well, I don’t know about that, but it was truly epic.” She had never seen that look on the God’s face before; he’d looked baffled. “And don’t worry, I will shop as little as possible because I really, really hate shopping more than I can tell you. Shopping sucks ass.” Unless she was with Ares. She loved it then because that meant that she was able to spend lots of time with him moving from place to place.

“I distract you while shopping, but then that’s the fun of shopping,” he grinned. “I like shopping with you. It’s amazing the places one can find for a little fun. Adds to our encounters,” he said with a chuckle. “Dion loves to shop; he finds the whole concept fascinating even after all these years.”

“I agree. I think that it’s wonderful to feel you at my side when we’re out; and yes, it adds to our encounters.” Their encounters were wonderful things, amazing things really. “Then why would you tell me to make sure to have a short list? I don’t understand. I figured you said that because Dion hated to shop.”

“He doesn’t like getting trapped by a salesperson, which he won’t be if you know just what you’re looking for. I guess I should have said he loves window shopping, seeing how things are displayed to catch the eye and how people react to the displays. Don’t trap him in a store or leave him at the mercy of anyone and he’ll adore you even more.”

“Gotcha. I will make sure that he doesn’t get trapped by anyone,” she promised. “But I do look forward to this shopping trip. If anyone can pick out the perfect dress, it’s him,” she said with a smile. “He will also be able to make the alterations that will be needed, and add the bling I’m sure he will demand.”

“He likely will insist on some,” Ares shook his head. “I don’t know where he gets it all from. No, actually, I do,” he muttered. “Though he likes the finer things in life, he’s also not afraid to get all knockdown and dirty when it’s needed.”

“Well, that’s a very good thing then. I’m glad that you will be entrusting me to someone that will be able to watch over me as well.” Not that she needed protecting, because honestly, who the hell would want her? Well, other than Ares, but the things he wanted her for were amazing things.

“Damn straight, I want you,” he said giving her a squeeze. “And if any other males had half a brain they would want you as well. You are one hell of a sexy woman. You’re generous, amazing and so open and loving that it startles me on occasion to realize you are mine.”

“Well, I’ve been waiting for you for my entire life,” she admitted to him. “No one else was even close to being you, so I’m glad that I was finally able to meet you. I’m happy that we’re together, and we have the life that we do, together. Now we will get married and maybe one day we will have children- Wait, can you have children?” she asked with a frown.

“Of course, I can have children,” he said sounding awfully offended. “Just because I never have doesn’t mean I can’t, woman. I’m not like my father, or various other Gods, who like to knock up anything that moves. I was waiting for you to come into my life.”

That had her smiling, and she nodded. “Good. I’m glad that you can, because I do want a family with you one day. Not this moment, of course, but one day, I would love to see a little Ares running around our home.”

Snorting at that, he shook his head, “You say that now, but you may end up regretting it. I was a holy terror in my early years. I won’t say childhood because we weren’t born as you would know it. We came into being as almost adults, so I don’t have childhood stories as you would.”

“Wait, I won’t give birth to a fully grown adult, will I?” She prayed not because if so she might have to kill him. “We will have a baby, right? When the time comes, we will actually have a child; one that we will be able to raise and teach and all that other fun stuff that comes along with having a small child?”

Laughing, he shook his head, “Where do you come up with this stuff? Yes, you will have a baby. Diapers, throw up and snot; all the fun things that come with kids. The child will grow up like a normal human child and, when he or she is at the optimal age, will remain looking that way for the rest of their very long life. They will be frozen into their immortality at some point the universe determines.”

“But they won’t have powers, right? I mean I won’t have to explain to his teachers that the flying crayons weren’t really from our child, right?” God, she hoped not. Homeschooling. Maybe that would be the best solution in the far off future. “Well, whatever happens, will happen, and we will deal with it, but we won’t have children for a while yet, right?” she asked hopefully. “Because while I love you to death, I want to have time where it’s just us for a while. If that’s okay?”

“Some children are born with them; others develop around puberty. Either way, we can bind them until they are of an age where they understand the responsibility of such things. Not a decision we need to make right now. We still have a wedding to get through with my insane family,” he told her.

“True,” she said with a grin. “See, this is the way of life. Getting married and then having a nice long honeymoon. Yes, I look forward to it.” She winked at him, “Do you think that Dion will be willing to go shopping with me?”

“We can ask him when we have dinner at his place tonight. Apparently, he’s in Vegas for some event, and we’re to have dinner there. He’s got a celebrity chef in for the big event and will have appropriate clothing awaiting us in the penthouse suite he keeps there.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said with a grin. “I actually look forward to that. If he has the right chef, we can get some truly amazing food. I love food.” As Ares had found out. “Besides, it’s always fun to be able to spend time with good friends, right?”