For the Love of a God [Gods of Olympus] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (13 page)

Talia raised her eyebrows and stared him down. “That was a little too quick. Besides, I know there’s something you’re not telling us. You always bite your lip when there’s something you don’t want to say.”

Eros let his lip slid out from between his teeth. Crap. It had been thousands of years since he’d displayed that particular nervous habit. “Um, well, I didn’t influence your feelings for me. But I can’t guarantee my mom didn’t use some of
her
mojo to influence your feelings for me.”

That was it. All his cards were laid out on the table, but it didn’t look like either Neil or Talia were about to pick them up.

“Now what?” Talia asked.

Wasn’t that the question? He did something he’d never done before and retracted all of his influence from the two people standing in front of him. “I just removed all my influence. I was also able to take away any residual influence from my mother, too.”

Neither Neil nor Talia moved. They didn’t even blink an eye. “Okay. Well, I’m going back to Mount Olympus. Zeus has recalled me. He said if I haven’t convinced the two of you to love me yet, it’s not going to happen.”

He waited for some sign, any sign that they would make a move to stop him, but his heart shattered when they stayed as still as the marble statues Apollo insisted on having displayed in front of his temple.

Not that he should expect anything different.

Snapping his fingers, Eros made both of their cars appear. “Your cars are in the drive. Don’t worry about locking up behind you. My cousin, Ares, rigged the house with enough booby traps to stymie the CIA. But they’re set to only detonate when someone I haven’t approved of tries to enter.”

“Will we see you again?” Talia finally asked.

Eros bit his lip again, hard enough that he tasted blood. Rooting around in his bag, he extracted two cell phones. “Just press any number. They’ll ring straight through to me.”

Talia reached out her hand and accepted her phone, but Neil remained still, his hands jammed in his pockets.

Eros sighed and left the phone on the counter. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just wanted to have the two of you love me as much as I love you.”

Talia’s eyes were wide and sad. He couldn’t read Neil’s face. Tears welled in his eyes, but he refused to let either of his lovers see them. He had to keep some of his pride.

The room shimmered and Eros re-entered the workroom in his temple. He grabbed the first slip of paper he saw and glanced at it. A plea for love in England.

At least his first assignment would take him far away from Talia and Neil.

Too bad he couldn’t get away from his heartbreak.

Maybe Dion could spare some wine or something. Anything, even the mother of all hangovers, had to be better than dealing with the gaping hole where his heart used to be.

* * * *

Neil stared at the cell Aaron—Eros—had laid on the counter and then at the place where Eros had disappeared from. He was confused as shit.

He rubbed his hands over his face and glanced over his fingers at the woman standing in front of him. Tears were running down her cheeks, and her chest was heaving with suppressed sobs.

The vodka was calling to him, but he ignored it. He needed a clear head to sort through his feelings.

It was strange. Eros had sworn that he’d removed all his power of influence from them, but he didn’t feel any different. He still ached to pull Talia into his arms and dry her tears. He wanted to feel Eros brushing up against him as he passed by. He wanted to feel both Talia’s fingers and Eros’s lips tracing over his body.

He still wanted to spend the rest of his life with his two lovers. God, he wanted them to be more than lovers. He wanted them to be life partners.

But how did he know that his feelings were genuine or the product of experiences while he was being influenced by some kind of Cupid arrow?

Screw it. He strode across the kitchen, covering the space in only a few steps, and gathered Talia close. She tucked her face into his throat and cuddled in. “How do you feel?” she whispered.

“The same.”

“Me, too,” Talia said between sniffles. “So what do we do now?”

Neil stroked her back, holding her even closer. “Why don’t we go out on a couple dates and see if we’re still compatible now that Eros isn’t using his voodoo powers on us.”

Talia pulled back and narrowed her eyes at him. “Voodoo is not Greek.”

“Really? That’s all you have to say?”

She shrugged her shoulders and freed herself from his grasp. “What else do you want me to say?”

Shit. He wanted her to say that she loved him. He wanted her to tell him to pick up the cell phone and call Eros to come back.

He wanted to curl up in Eros’s huge bed with them and hold Eros on one side and Talia on the other.

“I don’t know. I just feel a little lost, that’s all,” he said around the sudden lump in his throat.

“Yeah, me, too. Listen, I should get home. I have a lot of work to do on my thesis before I present it next week.”

She stumbled over to the door and found the keys that had appeared on the hook.

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Neil asked.

She nodded and turned to face him. She wasn’t crying anymore, and he suspected that the tears had been more of a reaction to the shock than anything else. “I’ll be fine.”

Neil’s fingers itched to stroke her face, but he kept his arms by his sides. “Will you have time for dinner tomorrow night?”

The smile she gave him lit up the whole hall. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Hope, affection, and anticipation welled in him and he chuckled. Maybe the emotions he’d been feeling for the past few weeks weren’t at all fake. “That I am.”

“It just so happens that I’ve taken the next week off to prepare for my thesis presentation. And I took the week after my presentation off, too, just to unwind.”

He ambled closer until they were close enough to share body heat. “Do you think you can spare some time for me tomorrow?”

She looped her arms around his neck and tugged him down until their mouths were just a scant distance apart. “You don’t even have to ask. Name the time and the place, and I’m there.”

Relief flowed through him. “I’ll pick you up at six, and we’ll make an early night of it. Sound like a plan?”

Gentle fingers wound their way through Neil’s hair and tugged just slightly, just enough to send shivers down his spine. “As long as it doesn’t end too early. We may need to explore our…chemistry again. If you know what I mean.”

Oh, he knew what she meant. Neil’s cock twitched, and he let a groan slip out from between his lips. “Whatever the lady wants, the lady gets.”

“Good,” she whispered against his lips. “Because I want you.”

True to his word, Neil buzzed her apartment at exactly six o’clock. She’d gotten caught up in her work and had lost track of time, so she was still frantically drying her hair when her roommate let Neil in.

She stuck her head out of the bathroom door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Neil smiled and saluted her with the glass of water her roommate must have given him. “Take your time, Tal.”

Wrapping the towel around her securely, Talia made a dash for her room and slid to a stop in front of her closet. She stared at the contents of the black hole she called a closet and wondered what to wear. Taking her cue from Neil’s casual outfit, she threw on a pair of skinny jeans and an oversized striped shirt that hung provocatively off one shoulder. She tried not to think about what Eros might think of the outfit.

She grabbed her boots, sliding them on and zipping them up before examining her image in the mirror. Deciding she looked presentable, she left her room and promptly ran smack into Neil. “Trying to steal a peek?” she teased.

He didn’t answer. Instead, his large hands cupped her bottom and pulled her forward until their pelvises were even. He lifted her right leg until it was wrapped around his hip and ground himself into the cradle of her thighs. She moaned when the ridge of his already-hard cock rubbed against her pussy through their pants. “Neil,” she said on a sigh.

He kissed her passionately and shifted around until he had her pressed against a wall, still thrusting his hips against her. “My roommate,” she moaned, not really caring that someone could walk in on them any time.

“She left a few minutes ago,” Neil muttered and began attacking her neck.

Oh, thank god, because she didn’t think she could stop now.

Neil grabbed her other leg and urged it up as well, until she had both of her legs wrapped around his waist. He supported her with his hands under her ass as they humped frantically.

Oh, fuck, just a little more and she’d come without even taking her pants off.

As if he could read her mind, Neil scraped his teeth along the thundering pulse in her neck. That small edge of pain heightened the pleasure, and she screamed as every nerve in her body detonated in a line of cartoon explosions.

Her sex pulsed, clit throbbing and jerking as she came.

Before the orgasm was fully over, she unwrapped her legs from Neil’s waist and slid down the wall so that she was eye level with the huge tent in his pants. Unbuttoning something had never been so hard, but she managed to get the jeans unfastened and unzipped without doing any damage to either of them.

She yanked down his pants and boxers in one tug, sending them to pool around his ankles, cupped his already tight balls with one hand, grabbed his straining cock with the other, and closed her mouth over the bright-red tip of his dick.

Holy Hannah, he tasted good. Not sweet exactly, but definitely not bitter. More earthy than anything else.

He was huge and hard and there was no way she’d be able to swallow even half of him, so she concentrated on the flared head, using both her hands on his shaft to jack him off at the same time.

Stiffening her tongue, she concentrated on that little spot just underneath the edge and sucked hard enough that her cheeks hollowed.

Something thumped against the wall, and she looked up the length of Neil’s body to see his head tossing restlessly against the wall.

She cupped his balls and tugged slightly. That seemed to be what put Neil over the edge, and he shouted as he came in her mouth. She swallowed as much as she could but felt a drop ease out of the corner of her mouth.

She kept Neil’s dick in her mouth until it started to soften. Reluctantly, she let it slip out from between her lips and rested her cheek against the inside of his thigh.

Neil’s legs buckled, and Talia moved just in time for him to collapse on the floor next to her. She had to giggle at them. She’d come without even getting her pants down, and Neil was still wearing his shirt, pants still tangled around his feet. “I don’t think I can move.”

“Yeah, me, neither,” Neil agreed. His voice was hoarse, and Talia didn’t even bother to hide her triumphant smile. She’d done that to him.

They sat quietly, leaning on each other for support. But something was missing. “I miss Eros.”

Neil sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I do, too, but let’s just have dinner and see where it goes before we call Eros back, okay?”

It made sense, but she didn’t have to like it. Still, Talia could understand why Neil was being extra cautious. “Can we just order in? I don’t think I’m up to moving any farther than the couch right now.”

Neil chuckled and kissed her temple. “Is Chinese good?”

The loud grumbling of her stomach broke the quiet of the apartment, and Talia blushed. “I love Chinese, and I sort of forgot to eat lunch. I’m starving.”

Neil shook his head and stood up, pausing to pull up his underwear and pants. “I see I’m going to have to keep tabs on you. Eros forgets to eat, too, sometimes.”

It warmed her heart to hear Neil speaking fondly of their other lover, the Greek god. She didn’t mention it, though, since she didn’t want Neil thinking too hard about what had transpired.

He reached down and hauled her to her feet. They staggered over to the couch and plopped down. Neil fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number, placing a delivery order from a local Chinese place. “Order out often?”

The grin he gifted her with filled her with warmth. “I can cook, but it’s a chore to cook for only myself.”

Her textbooks were scattered all over the place, papers and files piled in one corner of the coffee table. “How did your presentation prep go?”

“Okay. I need to find a willing ear to listen to it before I present it though.” Something was poking her in the ass, and not in a good way. She reached under her butt and withdrew the new hardback of her favorite author, placing it on the table next to her civilizations textbook.

“I’ll listen to it,” Neil offered. “I may not understand it, but I’ll listen to it.”

He leaned forward and grabbed her book off the table. “Have you read this yet?”

“Sort of. I’m about halfway through. I have to be careful because I can get lost in a book and read the day away. So, unfortunately, I can’t finish it until this presentation is over.”