Nocked Over

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Nocked Over ISBN 9781419919688 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Nocked Over Copyright © 2009 Sam Cheever. Edited by Helen Woodall. Cover art by Dar Albert. Electronic book Publication February 2009 The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

NOCKED OVER Sam Cheever

Trademarks Acknowledgement The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Band Aid: Johnson & Johnson Corporation Boy Scouts: Boy Scouts Of America Gentlemen’s Quarterly: Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. Solstice GXP: General Motors Corporation Teflon: E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company

Nocked Over

Prologue Poor Cupid

I am Cupid. No I’m not a cute little chubby guy with a large bow and a quiver of arrows. In fact I’m not even a guy. But I am a Cupid. As were my parents and their parents before them, on and on throughout time, back through the millennia of our Greek ancestry. I’m not sure where the whole chubby little guy thing started. It’s probably because Cupid was represented as a guy in both Greek and Roman mythology. Of course in Greek mythology Cupid was called Eros. And Greek writer Hesiod once described Eros as the “loveliest of all the immortals” and said that Eros “makes…men’s bodies go limp, mastering their minds and subduing their wills”. Now I ask you, does that sound like a guy? Of course there are some men who are Cupids, though not one of them is chubby. They’re all devastatingly gorgeous in fact and they certainly wouldn’t appreciate being called “cute” in any way. As a whole the Cupid race is exceedingly good-looking and pleasing in every way. For all the good it does us. Our deepest, darkest secret is that we look like every man or woman’s dream but we’re destined never to find love of our own. Unfortunately, that part of mythology is correct. Cupids are like Teflon when it comes to attracting a love interest. We can give love to others but we can’t take any for ourselves. We tend to engage in loveless marriages just to keep the bloodlines healthy but it is the very rare Cupid marriage that contains any love at all. It really sucks let me tell you. But our jobs are so demanding that most of the time we don’t dwell on our loveless lives. Most of the time. My name is Daphne Charissa and I figured I was destined to live out my five hundred some years in a loveless state, having to take pleasure from what I could help others find. I had almost resigned myself to that fact. But then the strangest thing happened…

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Chapter One

Paperwork, Paperwork I bent closer to my computer screen and squinted. The couple was certainly attractive enough. Their interests seemed compatible. But I just wasn’t getting that zing that told me it was the right match. I sighed and hit Search again, rubbing my eyes with a knuckle. This subject had been a particularly difficult one to match up. On the surface he’d been a competent match with hundreds of women. Which was exactly my problem. But dig a little deeper and it always fell apart. I had no doubt he could make an agreeable relationship with any of the women whose files were spread out on my desk. But for some reason, I felt compelled to find him the “perfect” match. And it was proving difficult to say the least. A gentle knock on my door brought my head up. “Come in.” The door opened inward and a tall, slim god walked through. I smiled, “Hey, Christian.” He smiled back, showing two rows of perfect white teeth between soft, generous lips. His dark eyes flashed in mischief. “She’s here.” I groaned and dropped back into my chair. The firm’s most famous and difficult client was back for another try. My eyes flew to Christian’s, filled with a plea. “You take her!” He shook his head, laughing softly, “She’s been through the whole staff. Nobody will touch her.” He cocked his head, causing his shoulder-length, silky black hair, which reflected his Greek roots, to curl softly against one shoulder. I briefly wondered why he didn’t have it tied back as usual. “I thought you had a match for her?” I glanced down guiltily at the mess of files on my desk. Hers was buried somewhere under there. I sighed. “I might.” But somehow I was reluctant to give her to him. It didn’t seem…fair…somehow. To him. Rubbing my eyes, I started digging through the mess looking for her file. “Send her in.” I found it quickly. It had been flagged several times with the firm’s bright red heart stickies, proof of matches made. And it was about three times as thick as the rest of the files.

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While I waited for her to make her usual dramatic entrance I shuffled the files together into neat piles and pushed them off to the side. When I was done there were two files left. I pulled the slimmer file to the top and opened it. A dark face with angular lines and a strong, elegant nose stared up at me from a glossy photo. The intense graygreen eyes looked out from the photo accusingly, as if he knew what I was considering. “I’m just trying to find you the right match,” I murmured stupidly. Then, as I’d done probably a hundred times already, I reached a long, well-manicured finger to trace the outlines of his lush mouth and strong jaw. Stopping, as my door swung open with more force than was necessary, on the deep dimple in the center of the masculine chin. I looked up and fought a sudden urge to cry. She swept into the room in a cream-colored suit that probably cost twice what I made in a year. Her celebrated white blonde hair was tucked flawlessly into an updo that was her signature and had been called the Grace Kelly look. Her face, literally heart-shaped, was cream and pink and completely without lines, though she was in her mid-thirties quickly heading toward the end of that decade. The mouth that currently pouted in my direction was plump to the point of ridiculous and heart-shaped to match her face. Her body was long and lithe, with just a hint of softness around the breasts and hips. The media had christened her a goddess and she certainly looked like one. However, I knew that her personality lacked some of the better qualities that mark a god, not the least of which was an awareness that she wasn’t the only one in a room. I stood up, extending a reluctant hand. “Dema, I’m so glad to see you again.” Dema Pence gave me a queen-to-subject version of her array of smiles and extended a limp, cool hand toward me. “Daphne, how nice to see you…again.” She swept me with her cold blue gaze to let me know she blamed me totally for any previous failures and I gritted my perfect teeth before motioning toward the chair on the other side of my desk. “Please sit down, make yourself comfortable. Can we get you something? Tea? Coffee? Water?” Arsenic? “I’ll take a cup of my special Darjeeling please. Very hot, or I’ll send it back, with just a drizzle of honey…you put too much honey in last time…” And yet she’d sucked it down like a discount vacuum cleaner… “And I’d like two of those lovely shortbread cookies with it.” She sat back in the chair with the air of royalty awaiting the fulfillment of her commands. I glanced up at Christian, who’d been lounging against the doorframe awaiting the woman’s predictable demands. He chuckled silently at the slightly bulging quality in

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my eyes and bent deeply at the waist, swirling one hand in front of him like a palace slave, in acceptance of the quest for the perfect cup of ridiculously expensive tea. He turned away and left, leaving me alone with the woman. I swallowed and fumbled with a well-worn corner of the file on top, my mind racing for an alternative. Unfortunately nothing jumped to the forefront and I sighed inwardly, pushing the file toward her with an unprofessional reluctance. Dema eyed the file like a judge at Westminster and cocked her head. “I hope this one is a better match, the last five have been unmitigated disasters. I have to say I had hoped for better things from Cupid’s Arrow. I’d heard such good things about you.” Based on the fact that we almost never mismatched couples and had a ninety-nine point nine percent successful match rate. It had been one hundred percent until Ms. Dema Pence had walked through our doors. I gritted my teeth again, wondering if I’d have any left by the time I found Ms. Pence her perfect mate, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry we’ve let you down, Ms. Pence. But I’m very confident this match will stick.” I, of course, was no such thing but if it fell apart like the rest it certainly wouldn’t be the fault of that unfortunate man whose file she was fondling unopened in her lap or, for that matter, the fault of Cupid’s Arrow, the most well-known and successful relationship matching service in the world. She gave me an insincere smile and, taking a deep breath as if preparing for a dive into the ocean, yanked the file open. Her eyes and mouth grew round as his perfect face shone out at her. “Heavens,” she breathed. I noticed that her voice had gone from New Jersey rough to the sultry goddess version she used in all her movies. Just like that. I fidgeted and squirmed in my chair as she read through his stats. My discomfort at the match was alarming to me and I wondered at its cause. Going strictly by the book, the two beautiful people were a perfect match. Everything in those files, along with everything we’d gleaned from the two people by spending time with them, told me that they should work well together. Yet something wasn’t right. “I’ll take him.” I closed my eyes and moved my hands to my lap so she wouldn’t see how they’d clenched into tight fists. Fighting the urge to grab her fashionably slim shoulders and shake her until her perfect, white caps dropped out of her mouth, I unclenched my fists forcibly and opened my eyes. “I’m so pleased,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “I’ll contact you as soon as I get his approval for a meeting.” Her arctic blue gaze widened just slightly at the idea that she might be rejected. “What do you mean, his approval? Of course he’ll approve. I mean…look at me!”

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Putting aside the obnoxiousness of her assumption that the way she looked was all that could possibly be important to any potential suitor, the slightly shrill aspect to her voice told me more than anything how desperate she’d become to “mate”. I tried to use this knowledge to feel better about her. She didn’t make that easy. “I demand that you make him meet with me!” I had been shuffling the files on my desk in embarrassment. But at this my gaze jerked up to her again. The soft, pretty face was gone and in its place a fairly cute but scary angry space alien stared back at me. The cold blue eyes had a certain Medusa quality to them now. I swallowed. “I can’t make the man meet with you, Dema…” “Ms. Pence if you please.” I frowned, I’d let my professionalism slip. I hated when I did that. “Of course, I’m so sorry. I’ll do everything humanly possible to get you a meeting with him.” I didn’t want to…but I would. She sighed and the space alien dropped away. Her smile was breathtaking. I was once again reminded that she was a highly skilled actress. “Perfect.” She stood up, extending a soft, elegant hand toward me. “I’ll wait to hear from you then.” After Dema Pence left my office I sat for a few minutes with my head in my hands. After a while I heard my office door open and close with a soft thud. I didn’t look up until a cup of hot, fragrant tea was set gently under my nose. I inhaled and smiled. Dema Pence’s Darjeeling. Christian laughed at my expression of delight and dropped into the chair that had previously been occupied by Ms. Pence. He lifted his own cup of the expensive tea to perfectly sculpted lips. “How bad was it?” I set the cup down gently and groaned dramatically. “Oh my god, Christian, I so do not want to foist this woman on him.” Christian raised an elegant black eyebrow. “Him?” Then he smiled. I felt suddenly flustered and defensive. “Or anyone! She’s a monster.” Christian’s smile slid away. “Yes. That she is. And so you face the dilemma each and every one of us has faced here at Cupid’s Arrow. You know you gotta but you surely don’t wanna.” I laughed. “Succinct and exact as usual, my friend.” I lifted the dainty porcelain cup in the air and he tapped it with his. Then we drank a silent toast to doing what we didn’t want to do. Christian cocked his head at me. “So who’s the poor sap she’s gonna destroy this time?” I grimaced. “Oh, don’t say that. I don’t want to give her to him.” “Then don’t.”

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I met his dark gaze in a moment of blissful hope and then sighed, knowing I would do what I was expected to do in the end. “I have to. Their specs match up perfectly. Even though I don’t see how it can be, somehow they must be suited to each other. Who am I to decide otherwise?” Christian smiled at me. “Good girl. Now just make the call and let it go.” I nodded. “You’re right. Thanks for helping me justify sending another lamb to slaughter.” Christian laughed and stood up. “Hey, I’m Greek. I know a thing or two about slaughtering lambs.” I laughed again, feeling better. I watched him leave and then, taking a deep breath, picked up the phone. One of the things that makes Cupid’s Arrow better than basically every other personal matching service, aside from the fact that it’s run by actual Cupids, is our prescreening process. As part of this process, a Cupid’s Arrow representative spends a minimum of ten hours with each subject, getting to know him or her. We structure these meetings like actual dates, so that we can get to know the subject under the same circumstances that a potential mate would. We carefully document each and every nuance of the time spent with the subject and use this information to match prospective mates. The information is enhanced considerably by our non-factual but eminently useful special cognitive powers. After all, we are gods. I had only spent about half the allotted time with Bion Chronos. It wasn’t entirely unheard of to cut the pre-screening process short if a representative felt that he or she had everything needed from a subject in a shorter period of time. However, it was rare. I wasn’t sure why I’d done it. Except that my instincts told me I knew everything there was to know about the man, almost from the first moment I’d met him. It happens that way sometimes. “I insist on the full pre-screening.” I’d expected to bump up against trouble with Ms. Pence. It surprised me that Bion was giving me a hard time. “I don’t feel any further time is necessary, Mr. Chronos. I feel like I’m wasting your time.” He chuckled. “It’s Bion…and time spent with a beautiful woman is never a waste, Daphne.” I resisted the urge to smile. Flirtatious clients were not unusual but I knew it could never amount to anything. Although at times I wished it could. “If you could manage it, Mr. Chronos, I could expedite a meeting with Ms. Pence here at the firm next Wednesday.” A long pause, then, “I’ll meet with her on one condition.” 10

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I forced back a disappointed sigh. Part of me, it seems, had been hoping he’d continue to resist. “Good. I’ll pencil you in for Wednesday at four o’clock then. What’s the condition?” I could almost hear him smile. “You complete the pre-screening. You still owe me six hours.” “Five and a half actually.” Did my voice sound giddy? Crap. I sighed to let him know what a chore he was being. “I really don’t think it’s necessary…” “It’s in the contract I signed with Cupid’s Arrow. Ten hours of pre-screening time. I’ll enforce it one way or the other. You might as well capitulate now, Daphne, and save me the trouble of hounding you for the time.” I tried not to grin as I capitulated. “I certainly wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble, Mr. Chronos.” “I insist that you call me Bion. Is tonight at seven all right? I’ll pick you up at the office.” All I could do was smile.

***** I stood in front of the mirror and blinked. The face looking back at me had lost its healthy olive tone and looked pale and pinched. My violet-colored eyes, usually my most attractive feature, looked overlarge and filled with fear. I shook my head, angry with myself for the ridiculous emotion. Why would I be afraid to fulfill pre-screening with a client? It was ridiculous. I pushed my fingers through the thick, silky black waves of my hair, pulling it away from my cheeks. I shook my head and it swung around my face, landing in a more natural way across my shoulders. Reaching into my purse I pulled a red-brown lipstick from its cluttered depths and ran it over my lips, then rolled them inward to distribute the color more evenly. Having stalled for as long as possible, I sighed, tugged my short skirt down my thighs and headed out of the bathroom. I knew he’d entered the building as soon as his feet hit the foyer tile. I hurried toward my office, preferring to meet him under the professional aura the tastefully decorated room provided. I had just landed in my chair when I heard the elevator ding. The heavy doors slid open. I forced myself to turn away from my open office door. Peering at my computer screen without really seeing it, I visualized him as he stalked toward my office door, his long, elegant limbs moving with the grace of a large cat and his gorgeous gray-green eyes focused on me behind my desk.

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I studiously ignored him. He didn’t speak. It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten the impression he knew that I was able to sense his presence, even when I pretended that I couldn’t. I turned finally, unable to resist, and sucked in a breath before I could stop myself. Bion Chronos was not a god but he should have been. His long body leaned against the doorframe with a muscular grace that was inborn and unconscious rather than studied. One shoulder, amazingly broad, leaned casually against the polished wood and his long arms crossed his chest, bulging a bit under the tight white shirt he wore. The shirt was unbuttoned at the top, showing soft, dark curls across a broad chest, and had been left untucked. His ridiculously long legs were crossed too and were encased in tight jeans. One scuffed brown boot was tucked over the other on the shiny cherry floor of my office. My eyes caressed the entire picture, from the top of his head, covered in silky black hair that was cut short to frame a strong face, down the long length of him, to the heavy boots. Then, against my will, my gaze started back up, lingering a bit too long somewhere in the middle, where the jeans did some really nice things just under the loose tails of the shirt. I licked my lips and forced myself to look at his face, which wasn’t exactly a hardship. His eyes were a dark gray-green, surrounded by thick, black lashes. His jaw was strong and square, with a permanent dark stubble that he couldn’t seem to stay ahead of with his razor. His chin had a large dimple in the middle that I wanted to stick my tongue into. His skin was a dark and probably natural golden brown. I did a mental head shake and blinked, realizing how far I’d fallen beyond my professional and self-imposed restrictions. Gulping audibly, I focused my gaze on his gorgeous eyes. They had the longest, thickest lashes I’d ever seen. “Hello, Daphne.” His voice was husky and deeper than an exploratory well in the Sahara. I gulped again. “Mr. Chronos.” He shook his dark head and pushed himself away from the doorframe. He didn’t exactly walk toward me. It was more like he sauntered across the room, the casualness of the movement not hiding the firm purpose inherent in his steps. He stopped in front of my desk and placed both hands on its cluttered surface. He leaned toward me over the desk, his full lips slightly open, and gave me a slow smile. “I must insist you call me Bion.”

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His cologne swamped me in masculine musk, urging me into its sphere like a vampire’s call. I felt my eyes widen. I wasn’t entirely sure that the aroma came from a bottle. I suspected it was his own personal scent, pure male pheromones. I couldn’t help myself, I leaned away in self-defense and pushed my chair back a bit frantically, catching my foot on a slightly ajar drawer and nicking my soft, black leather boot. “Damn!” I muttered. They had been my favorite pair of boots. He lifted his hands from the surface of my desk and lowered himself into the chair that had previously contained Dema Pence. His eyes tracked me carefully as I moved around my office, pretending to shut it down for the night. I was really just stalling for time. Trying to figure out how I could get out of the appointment. When I ran out of things to do I turned to him and forced a smile. “I guess I’m ready.” He gave me a slow grin that melted the ligaments in my knees. “And you’re obviously thrilled.” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Shrugging, I grabbed my purse and headed toward the door. He fell in behind me, placing his hand in the small of my back. My skin, under his hand, tingled deliciously. “I am. I love my job, Mr…” “Uh uh uh.” He shook a long finger at me. The nail on the end was clean, square and nicely trimmed. Incredibly I think I blushed. “Bion.” “Generally I feel sorry for workaholics, Daphne. But in your case I’m pleased that your work forces you to spend time with me.” I did a mental head shake, deciding that Mr. Chronos and I would need to have an understanding. Obviously he wasn’t up on the whole untouchable Cupid thing. Not that I could tell him I was a Cupid. Humans didn’t know, nor would they believe if they knew, about my race. It was just better for everyone if we kept a low profile. But occasionally a human tried to breach the unspoken laws governing our two races. That would be fine except that, ultimately, they always rejected us for reasons that even they didn’t fathom. It had been declared by the gods. Cupids could not enjoy long-lasting love. An unbreakable rule. Yet, as Bion Chronos carefully handed me into his small, black sports car and leaned over me unnecessarily to click my seatbelt closed, I inhaled his wonderful musk and wished it wasn’t so. For about the hundredth time since he’d walked into my life.

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Chapter Two Over and Above

I watched the lights from the heavy traffic play across Bion’s face as he drove. He’d put Irish music on the stereo, my favorite, and my body melted against the seat in response to the beautiful, wrenching music. At least I think it was the music. His hands, large and capable-looking, tapped the throbbing beat against the steering wheel as he drove. He glanced over and caught me staring. A long, slow smile spread on his face. “You look edible tonight, Daphne.” I frowned and he laughed. “You know, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who takes offense when I tell her she’s beautiful. Why is that?” I shrugged and jerked my gaze away from him. “I don’t mind a little flirting, Bion, but my job is to find you your perfect match.” “What if I’ve already found her?” My gaze flew to him, eyes wide in panic. “Have you? I mean…I always wondered why you came to us. You certainly don’t seem to need any help…” I stopped, feeling my face burn with color. He laughed. “Oh but I do. I’m a man, I need lots of help.” I snorted before I could stop myself. Then grinned at him. “There is that.” He nodded, grinning. “Left to my own devices I pick all the worst kind of women. Sexy, outrageous, extremely naughty and always, always, always after my money.” He didn’t look like it bothered him all that much. I nodded, seeing an opportunity to return the conversation to business. “The candidate I’ve selected for you has lots of money of her own. She’s very sexy of course but she knows how to carry herself and works a room like nobody’s business.” My eyes widened, I couldn’t believe I’d said that. Bion laughed. “I’ll take her!” I frowned. He glanced over when I said nothing and saw my frown. “What did I say now?” Shaking my head, I tried to smile. “Nothing, that’s exactly what she said when I showed her your file.” He grinned, nodding. “See, we’re a perfect match. Now you can stop working and just enjoy your evening with me.”

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I sighed, I couldn’t help it. My life suddenly seemed so complex and off-kilter. And I wasn’t sure when it had happened. One day I’m a hardworking Cupid just doing her job and enjoying it, the next my head is completely turned by a gorgeous face and a sexy voice. The car stopped and I looked up, squinting at the large, low-slung building in front of us. “Why are we stopping here?” Bion’s grin widened. “Why not?” He unstrapped his seatbelt and got out of the car. My gaze slid around the busy parking lot, assessing the dozens of people who were excitedly milling around. They were all extremely short. Bion opened the car door and took my hand to help me out. “There’s nobody here who can drive yet.” He laughed. “Do you mind being the tallest girl in the place?” I looked at him and laughed, enjoying the way his dark eyes sparkled with fun. Then I shook my head, deciding it was the perfect way to serve out a couple of the hours I owed him. Good, clean, harmless fun. Boy was I wrong. The Roller Dome was chock-full of energetic, squealing pre-teens. They filled the halls and niches of the huge place with noise and boisterous activity. I stood behind Bion as he paid a very surprised-looking clerk for two tickets and marveled at the young humans. They seemed so full of confidence and spunk, totally unlike kids from the days when I grew up, a couple of hundred years earlier. Bion took my hand and pulled me toward the counter where they were handing out skates. A bored-looking retiree found us both skates that looked like they’d been around for a couple of hundred years themselves. Picking our way through a wild assortment of discarded clothing and school bags, we sat down on a long wooden bench to strap the skates on. Picking up the first skate, I peered into it carefully, grimacing a little before pulling it onto my foot. Bion laughed. “It’s probably best not to look too closely at them. Just close your eyes and strap ’em on.” I grimaced again. “I’m just praying that every single person who’s ever worn these over the last two hundred years has also worn thick, clean socks.” He threw back his dark head in a roar of laughter. I couldn’t help smiling with him. Bion stood up and pulled me to my feet as soon as I had the skates tied onto my feet. I shrieked in surprise, wobbled dangerously and my feet immediately shot out from under me. He’d been standing with his legs spread in a wide stance that I assumed helped him stay balanced on the surprisingly slippery skates. My legs shot through his and I landed on my back between his legs, blinking up at him. He still held both of my hands and his lips twitched as he looked down at me. “I take it you’ve never roller skated before?”

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Completely stripped of all pride, I looked up at him, trying to ignore the suggestive giggles of the little girls who surrounded us, and grinned. “What was your first clue?” Bion levered me up off the floor and took a firm hold on one arm. We headed toward the well-lit floor, Bion rolling along fairly easily except for having to try to help me stay upright, and me with my feet and knees bending out from under me on every other step and sliding in every direction but forward. He was almost carrying me by the time we reached the low, concrete wall that surrounded the huge, oblong skating area. If my incredible clumsiness hadn’t been so embarrassing the whole experience would have been thoroughly enjoyable, since I was basically draped all over Bion in an effort to keep my keester off the floor. If ever I could have used those little wings… The shiny wood of the skate floor looked intimidatingly slippery. I eyed it as we reached the end of the carpet and looked up at Bion, who had a fine sheen of sweat across his forehead from trying to keep me on my feet. “I’m not sure I’m up for this.” He swiped his sleeve over his brow and chuckled. “To tell you the truth I’m not sure I am either.” I let go of his arm with one hand to swat him on the chest and my feet flew away from me. I shrieked as my butt hit the industrial-style carpet under us and my feet and legs ended up inside the ring. A series of answering shrieks followed mine when a group of four little girls, skating happily along the wall holding hands, suddenly saw my legs in front of them and had to swerve violently to avoid them. Bion stood over me, shaking his head and grinning. “You can’t really be this uncoordinated.” I frowned and tried to push myself off the floor. He reached a hand down but I swatted it away in a fit of temper. My feet wouldn’t stay under me to allow me to pull myself upright so I finally turned over and got to my knees. As soon as I did I realized I was most likely flashing my pretty red lace undies to the room at large and I panicked, trying to get my feet under me more quickly. The damnable skates carried my feet away from me again and I went down, face first. I just lay there, wanting to cry. Suddenly a strong pair of hands slid around my waist and pulled me upright. Bion dragged me to my feet as if I weighed nothing at all and set me between his skates, holding my slithery demons with his own well-mannered skates so they couldn’t take off without me again. A boy and a girl who looked to be about twelve pushed past us and I heard the boy complaining to the girl about the old people clogging up the entranceway. I grimaced. I could use some damn arrows too.

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Bion held me firmly around the waist and rolled around me until he was pressed against my back. I stood there, nearly panting from the effort of trying to stand and the press of his hard, sexy body against me. He leaned close and spoke in my ear. “Relax. I’ve got you now. Just lean against me and let me do the work.” I shivered at the way his voice rumbled against my back and his breath danced softly against my ear. I managed a slight nod, afraid any further movement would send me to the floor again. Suddenly Bion’s muscles bunched and we were in motion. I gasped when I realized we were on the slippery floor, moving smoothly around the shiny wood oblong. I forced myself to take deep breaths and release my tense muscles and, after a few minutes, I started to enjoy the experience. Bion kept us close to the wall. He was apparently doing a really fine job of intimidating the little wieners who effortlessly shot around us. They were staying well away from us. Or maybe they’d seen my moves and were staying as far away from me as possible. Suddenly the music changed and the lights in the building dropped so that the skating rink felt like a dance floor. In the center of the space a giant ball flashed bright chunks of light around the floor and we were suddenly surrounded by dozens of very short couples holding hands. The floor felt relatively empty compared to the previous song. I sighed and laid my head back against Bion’s chest, finally giving myself up totally to his care. His arms slid more tightly around my hips and ribs and his body softened behind me, allowing our bodies to sway with the music. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced. Bion’s lips found my ear again. “This isn’t so bad, is it?” I smiled, “Mmm hmmm.” His lips touched my ear and my eyes flew open. He felt me jerk and tightened his arms. His lips made a warm trail down my neck and nestled into the sensitive place where my neck met my shoulder. I gasped as I felt his mouth open and he sucked gently. My body broke out in pleasure gooseflesh. “Bion…” “Shhhh. Don’t talk. You’ll fall.” I giggled. “Don’t be an ass.” I felt his lips bend into a smile against my neck. Then he lifted his head and rested his chin on top of my head and I went back to enjoying the skating experience, forcing myself not to think about the fact that we’d just broken every human-Cupid rule ever written. Just at that moment I didn’t care.

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I just didn’t want to stop skating. Because it felt really good to glide around wrapped in Bion. And because I never, ever wanted to cross that damn carpet again.

***** Bion stood and waited as I unlocked the door to my apartment. He felt large and warm at my back and his scent called to me. I fumbled with the key for an embarrassingly long time and then turned it finally and pushed open the door. Part of me wanted to push the envelope and try to invite him in. The sane part of me knew it would be a giant mistake. I really hated the sane part of me. I smiled at him. “I had a wonderful time. Amazingly.” He laughed. “I think you’re starting to show a certain aptitude for skating.” My smile widened, “Really? You think so, do you?” He took a step closer. “I do.” I took a step back but then realized that put me into my apartment and could be construed by someone who was willfully misconstruing everything I did as an invitation. I held my ground, clutching the doorframe with one hand and the knob with the other. He’d have to go through me if he wanted in. He smiled as if he’d read my mind and leaned into me. Before my mind registered what he was doing his lips were on mine. I gasped and tried to jerk away but his arms came around my waist and he pulled my body up snug against his. His musky heat flowed through me like sunshine on a beach and my body warmed and softened against his. I felt every inch of his body and reacted to every nuance of movement. From the way his lips pressed gently against mine to the touch of each finger splayed across my lower back. My body tightened and wetness pooled between my thighs. I sighed. His lips lifted from mine and his forehead lowered until it rested on top of my head. “Tonight was wonderful.” I nodded, unwilling to step away from him, though I knew I had to. I leaned against the doorframe and forced myself to say the words. “So. Shall I schedule that meeting for next week?” He frowned. “What meeting?” “With Ms. Pence.” He stared hard at me for a moment and then slowly shook his head.

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Joy shot through me. “I don’t think so.” I forced my face to frown. “You promised.” He shook his dark head again and leaned into me, nuzzling my neck gently with his teeth. I nearly wet myself. “I still have three hours left.” Tears of joy were gathering in my eyes as his teeth nibbled their way up to my ear and gently clasped my lobe. “I don’t really think that will be necessary…” He bit down on the lobe. I gasped. He licked the place he’d bitten me and stepped away. “You will accompany me to the Valentine’s Ball in two weeks.” I stood up straight, my back going rigid with surprise and horror. “That’s not possible.” He cocked his dark head, his dark green gaze fixed on my lips. “Why not?” “Because! Cu… I mean Relationship Gurus never go to Valentine’s events. We have to work that night. It’s the one unbreakable part of our contracts.” He reached a finger toward my mouth and touched my bottom lip, gently running it across the incredibly sensitive skin there. I fought the urge to lick his finger and draw it into my mouth. His mouth split in a slow grin. “Perfect. Since you’ll be completing my prescreening you will, technically, be working.” Then he leaned down, gently pressed his lips against mine and straightened. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I was so dazed by the idea of attending the Valentine’s dance with him that his words almost didn’t register. “What? Tomorrow? Wait…” He just grinned at me and climbed into his sexy little sports car.

***** My voice mail was full the next morning. In addition to the usual communications from my partners and clients, I had several e-mails from Dema Pence. The woman was more than desperate. If I wasn’t so worried about the match I knew I had to make I’d feel sorry for her. But I was worried. She was willing. He seemed not so willing to be matched up correctly. And the worst part was that I was definitely on his side of the equation. Not good when your Cupid is unenthusiastic about getting you your perfect match.

19

Sam Cheever

I sighed. Maybe I should do the mea culpa to Ms. Pence and excuse myself from her match. To me, it would be worth every penny of her fee to remove her from the books. But I knew there was much more at stake than just the fee. The reputation of the firm would be irreparably damaged if I failed this one, very vocal, very famous client so miserably. It would probably ruin us. I owed it to the other Cupids in the firm to do my best on the Pence match. I just wasn’t sure how I was gonna get both parties together long enough to get it done. Bion Chronos was not being very cooperative. Which reminded me. I had to talk to someone about the Valentine’s dance thing. I stood up and walked down the hall toward Christian’s office. He was always my first choice for heart-to-heart talks because he was the most open-minded of all the Cupids. His office door was closed and I could hear the murmur of voices inside. Then I remembered he’d been expecting clients that morning. He’d made a very successful match the previous week between a wealthy corporate lawyer and a well-known, selfmade fashion icon with little money but great promise in the fashion world. He’d been very proud of that match. Aside from the physical and emotional connection the couple had made almost from the first, the lawyer’s money and connections would go far toward making sure the designer’s business would thrive, creating for him a financially successful custom-made shoe business that would be seen as stylish by all the right people. Not a bad week’s work. I sighed, thinking I was overdue for one of these big, splashy matches. I used to pull them in on almost a weekly basis. Lately I’d been mired in mundane and, as far as the world was concerned, unimportant matches. But somehow they’d been much more fun and satisfying to me. Now I had a chance to do the Pence match up big. Wealthy, ragingly heterosexual and financially well-established, Bion Chronos was the catch of the century for any available female. And his astonishing good looks only added to his universal appeal. We’d been thrilled to land him as a client and I’d been searching frantically to find him just the right mate. I’d thought I’d found it in Dema Pence. The stats supported the match. Ms. Pence certainly supported the match. But my heart told me it wasn’t a good match. And I could feel it slipping through my fingers as I stood there in the hallway, not sure who to talk to and how to explain my concerns. That was when Bion walked in the front door of the firm. He was carrying a single lavender rose in one hand and wearing a smile. He walked toward me, past the receptionist and extended the rose. “Good morning.” Without thinking I took it. And then looked down at it in shock. A lavender rose, representing love at first sight. Damn! I tried to hand it back to him. 20

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He shook his head “Uh-uh. You accepted it.” I frowned. “I can’t accept this, Mr. Chronos.” He frowned back at me. “Bion.” I turned away. “Mr. Chronos, can you join me in my office please?” I nodded to Becky, our receptionist, who shrugged at me as if to say, “Sorry, I couldn’t stop him.” I didn’t turn to see if he was following me. I didn’t need to. I could feel every breath he took, every beat of his heart and every line of his hard body in my soul. I breathed deeply and his unique, knee-melting scent filled my head, making me dizzy with lust. I really needed to get a grip. I touched the doorframe as I entered my office to steady myself and then started moving toward my desk. I heard the door close and turned in panic. It wasn’t safe for me to be closed into the office with him. I opened my mouth to tell him to open the door but I didn’t get the chance. He was standing so close behind me my breasts rubbed across his chest as I turned. I gasped. He smiled. His lips found mine. My eyes popped wide and, to my extreme credit, I did try to push him away. For about three seconds. And then I succumbed to the drug that was Bion. My knees buckled and his arms snugged around my waist, holding me upright and so tight against his body that I couldn’t move. Couldn’t form a straight thought. I stopped breathing my own air and consumed his instead. It was a heady brew filled with sexual heat and untamed musk. I drank it down like fine wine. My head spinning with the kick from it. He pulled his lips from mine and I gave a little cry, throwing my arms around his neck to hold him close. He chuckled softly and took my bottom lip between strong, white teeth, nibbling until I thought I’d come on the spot, just from the sheer, unfocused pleasure. His teeth left my mouth and nibbled their way down to my jawline, where pleasure points I never knew I had exploded into life. I lifted a leg and wrapped it shamelessly around his waist, pulsing against him like a bitch in heat. Our kiss deepened into wildness, all thought stopped, only feeling remained. And what a feeling! I’d never experienced such unbridled pleasure from a kiss. My body was like one giant nerve ending and the sensations it was getting from the Bion stimulus were all good. So good.

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It was somewhere in the midst of this mindless enjoyment that I heard my office door open. My mind was in such a pleasure fog it didn’t register for a moment what I’d heard. But when it finally did my head jerked up. Christian stood just inside the door, looking like a stroke victim with his mouth all slack and horrified. All of the blood in my body that had, up to that horrifying moment, been rushing willy-nilly to my happy places switched direction in the space of one terrified heartbeat and rushed to my face. I was so dazed that I almost forgot to stop humping Bion. Bion finally noticed that I’d stopped responding and lifted his dark head from my cleavage. His eyes were unfocused, his smile soft, like a drunk. He finally registered my horror and turned toward the door. Christian looked like he’d just eaten a bug. Bion tried to step away from me but I still had my leg wrapped around his waist. I gave a little mew of embarrassment when Bion had to forcibly remove my leg from around his waist so he could step away and present at least a modicum of dignity to my outraged partner. I tried a weak smile. “Hey, Christian.” Christian’s mouth opened but all that came out was a gagging sound. He closed it and shifted his weight to the other foot, looking pale. I wondered if I could make myself small enough to fit in the bottom drawer of my desk. I thought that one had a key. I could lock myself in there for about a hundred years and then maybe someday somebody would rub the drawer and let me out. It seemed like a really good option at the moment.

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Chapter Three Face the Music

“Are you crazy, Daphne?” I had my face buried in my hands, my elbows resting on my desk. “Yes. I think I am.” Christian dropped his perfect, round butt into my client chair and stared at me. “What were you thinking?” My head flew up and I fixed him with a tearful gaze, “I wasn’t thinking, Christian! Obviously!” He sighed, shaking his head. “Oh Daphne. You know you have to stop seeing him.” I nodded. “I know that. But I’m afraid he won’t let me.” Christian’s head shot up, “What? Has he threatened you?” His beautiful face darkened in anger and he clenched the large, perfect fists resting on the arms of the client chair. “No! No, he would never hurt me, Christian.” My colleague frowned, “I believe he already has.” I shrugged. “I mean physically. He’s just very insistent that he get his full prescreening.” Christian unclenched his fists and sat back, crossing an ankle at a knee. “Well, that’s no problem, I can fulfill the rest of his time.” My head shot up and I snorted. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t go for that.” Christian got a mean smile on his face. “I’m not going to give him a choice.” I nodded, feeling tears flood my eyes. I should be relieved to have Christian step in and take care of my little “problem” but somehow I was just miserable. Seeing the unshed tears I was fighting to hold back, Christian cocked his head at me. “You know he would have turned away from you soon?” I nodded, pulling a tissue from the box in my bottom desk drawer as I lost the battle against tears. I blew my nose as daintily as I could and fixed Christian with a watery gaze. “My brain is telling me that but my heart and my body don’t want to hear it.” He nodded and gave me a sad smile. “I know exactly how you feel.” And he did, I realized with a start. Christian had once fallen in love with a mortal woman, only to have his heart crushed when she eventually forgot he existed and mated up with another human.

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“Listen, I know it sucks, Daphne. But unfortunately we have no control over it. It’s set into the fabric of fate.” I sighed and tried to smile. “Thanks for helping me, Christian. You’re a good friend.” He stared at me for a moment, realizing I wanted to be alone but unsure whether it was wise to leave me. Apparently deciding I’d be okay, he nodded and stood up. “If you need to talk…” I nodded. “Thanks.” After he left I cried silently at my desk for a few minutes and then dried my eyes and headed for the ladies to splash cold water on my face. It was for the best. Once Bion realized he couldn’t have me he would move in another direction and soon his mortal mind would push me out. Forgotten. Done. Over. But I wouldn’t forget the heat of his kisses. Or the way his scent made my knees give out. Or the way it had felt to roll around that darkened roller rink in his arms, under the fractured pulse of the lights from the huge disco ball hanging above us and the matching throb of the music. My phone rang and I picked it up. “Ms. Charissa?” I closed my eyes and silently cursed myself for picking up. “Hello, Ms. Pence.” “Have you set up my match with Mr. Chronos yet?” Damn! “Well, no, not yet, Ms. Pence. Mr. Chronos has requested that we complete his pre-screening before we set the appointment.” A long silence ensued. Then, “Why on earth would he do that?” I sighed, “I don’t know, Ms. Pence, but he’s been most insistent. In an attempt to expedite things I’ve asked my colleague Christian Kairos to complete the match. He has more time available on his calendar to accommodate Mr. Chronos’ pre-screening.” “No!” “Excuse me?” “I don’t want Mr. Kairos to complete the match!” I was shocked, I hadn’t expected this. I’d actually assumed Ms. Pence would prefer Christian over me, with the idea that she’d assume she could manipulate him more easily. I realized how cynical that made me sound but didn’t retract that thought. “Would you rather someone else take your match, Ms. Pence?” “No! I want you. I’m comfortable with you. And for some reason I have a feeling you are the only one who can help me.” Her voice, amazingly, was filled with desperation and held a pleading note. “I’m sorry, Ms. P…” “I’ll raise a stink if you don’t finish this, Ms. Charissa. I’ll call the press. And then I’ll call my lawyer.” Her pleading tone had turned dark and petulant.

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As always when dealing with this particular actress, I couldn’t help wondering which of the range of emotions she favored me with were genuine. Or if any of them were. “I really hadn’t meant to cause you any trouble, Ms. Pence. I’m trying to speed things up for you.” “Clear your calendar, Ms. Charissa. You’ll be completing my match later this week. You just let me know when you’ve set the appointment with Mr. Chronos and I’ll be there.” Click. I hung up the phone feeling slightly dazed. The irony of the situation was rich. I sat there for a few moments trying to think of a way around the dilemma. When I could come up with nothing I finally stood up and left my office. I found Christian sitting behind his desk, looking like I felt. He glanced up at me when I entered his office. His eyes followed me as I sat down in one of his client chairs. We stared at each other for a beat. Then he said, “Mr. Chronos’ lawyer will be calling me this afternoon.” I sighed, “Becky will be busy putting lawyers through. Ms. Pence’s lawyer will be calling if I give the match to you.” We stared silently at each other for another moment. Christian frowned. “So where are you and Mr. Chronos going for your last three hours?” I blinked. “Don’t make me tell you.” He swore. “How bad can it be, Daphne? It’s only three hours.” I laughed. “Believe me, it’s bad.” We stared at each other for a few beats and then I sighed. “He wants me to go to the Valentine’s Ball with him.” Christian’s mouth drooped open in shock. “You can’t do that!” “That’s what I told him.” “That’s our one unbreakable, no excuses except death, everybody works, no exceptions, duty day. Cupids never, ever, ever, go as invited guests to a Valentine’s event. The Fates will have a bleepin’ cow!” “I know.” Christian narrowed his eyes at me. “So how are you gonna pull it off?” I sighed. “I think Bion has found a loophole.” Christian grinned. “Do tell.” “I told him I couldn’t go because I had to work that night. He said that was fine because technically I would be working…completing his pre-screening.” Christian thought about this for a minute and then shook his head. “Damn! He’s right.” I finally allowed myself to smile. “I know.”

***** 25

Sam Cheever

I blurred my vision until I tapped into my special sight. I toggled the tiny arrow into place with my little finger, as I’d been taught to do since the tender age of five, and slowly began to put pressure on the slender trigger with my thumb. With a barely discernible click the arrow shot free and sailed across the yard to embed itself dead center in my heart-shaped target. I grinned. A perfect score again. As usual, I would pass this year’s exams with flying colors. I toggled another arrow into place and started to sight down my index finger. A gentle chiming sound behind me made me jump and I discharged the tiny arrow into a passing bird. Fortunately it was only a love arrow, not fatal but definitely effective. The little bird, having been focused on a big crow at the time my arrow hit its tiny blue chest, blurted out a beautiful song filled with ornithological passion and shot toward the crow, little birdy stars in its eyes. The crow took one look at its randy admirer and gave an ugly squawk, lifting into the air in a frantic attempt to escape. The little blue bird shot after it, singing happily. I shook my head in disgust. “You know I hate it when you sneak up on me, Clotho.” I turned to look into the old woman’s face. It was currently in its hag form, though she often came to me as a beautiful young woman. The hag form didn’t bode well for the coming conversation. It sometimes preceded a visit from the Furies. Clotho, the weaver of the thread of life, looked at me through filmy eyes accompanied by sagging flesh and thin, twisted lips. “Should I have jumped in front of your arrow while looking in your face? It would have been an interesting story to tell the gods.” I scowled and suppressed a shiver of revulsion. Having a Fate hag obsessing over me, even for a few minutes, was not on my list of things I wanted to experience. Being deities, the Fates don’t really succumb to my magic arrows but they would be affected by them for the few minutes it took for their incredibly efficient systems to throw it off. It would be an ugly few minutes. I slid the cupid sling off my hand, removing the contraption by slipping the gold band that looked just like a ring off my middle finger. The arrow nocking and firing contraption fit in the palm of my hand, where I could hold and prep it without a client even knowing it was there. I placed it carefully into the little red box made of garnet that kept it safe and locked away from mortal eyes when not in use. Pressing the pad of my right index finger on the little heart in the center of the box, I thought my password and heard the box snick into locked position. I turned to carry it back into my house. Clotho followed me, her hag feet and knees crackling almost musically as she walked. “You know why I’m here, Daphne.” I sighed. “Yes. I know why you’re here.” “I’d hate to see you get hurt, child.”

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I placed the red box in the safe hidden behind a beautiful, framed print of Psyche and Cupid and slammed it shut, spinning the combination dial and gently closing the print to hide it. Then I turned back to Clotho, a frown of frustration on my face. “Maybe you can tell me how to handle the situation. I’ve tried to distance myself from him…from the whole thing…but it just keeps dropping back into my lap. It’s as if the Fates have willed it.” I lifted an eyebrow at her meaningfully. Clotho just shrugged. “I’ve checked my weave, Daphne. There are no mortals in it. There is a small knot there, which I can’t remember weaving, and I’m not sure what it means but it isn’t a human male. I know that for sure.” I frowned at her. “You wove a knot you don’t understand. You’re killin’ me here, Clotho.” She shrugged bony shoulders and opened my refrigerator door. “Any of that pie left?” Clotho has a weakness for sweets. I usually try to keep something in the house for when she visits me. Which is more often than I like to think about. I shook my head. “I have cookies.” Her shrunken face blossomed into a toothless smile. “Cookies!” I pulled the cookie jar toward me and opened it. It was filled with freshly conjured, heart-shaped sugar cookies in honor of the upcoming Valentine’s holiday. I grabbed a small plate and arranged several on the plate for her. Being a deity, she didn’t need to count calories and being a hag, she had an enormous appetite…for everything. She perched herself on one of the tall stools at my marble-topped island and fixed me with eyes that were filled with childlike delight as I slid the cookies in front of her. I poured two glasses of milk and grabbed one cookie from the jar for me. Clotho happily ate her cookies, dunking them in the milk until it was filled with golden mush and then drank down the last of the milk, chunks and all. She sat back and belched, having come from a time when belching was the sincerest form of flattery to a cook. I winced and then nodded my thanks for the compliment. “You conjure up the best sweets, Daphne. Not like that loser Christian. His cookies taste like cardboard.” I nibbled my cookie thoughtfully. “If only I could conjure up a solution to this problem.” Clotho set her empty milk glass down and stood up. She looked at me with milk on her lip and a sly slant to her rheumy eyes. “Maybe you can, dear. You are a very talented Cupid.” She turned and walked away from me. I called out to her, “When you figure out what that damn knot is you let me know.” Clotho flung a hand back over her knobby shoulder and disappeared into thin air. Just before she ran full smack into my large picture window.

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I sighed. Why was my life always so difficult? I looked at the rest of the cookie and shrugged, stuffing it into my mouth. I could always magic the extra dimples off my thighs later. The doorbell rang and I went to answer it, trying to chew fast. I glanced at the clock in the foyer as I reached for the door, wondering who could be stopping by at that hour. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find Bion Chronos standing on my doorstep. I stood there, chewing, unable even to tell him to go away and leave me alone because my mouth was full. Or ask him how he’d known where I lived. I had to settle for frowning at him. He watched me chew for a moment and then reached toward my face with one hand. I winced, unsure if he’d come to bitch slap me because I’d tried to dump him on Christian. His hand stopped in mid-air when I winced and he grinned at me. Then he touched my top lip gently and showed me the tip. A granule of colored sugar rested on the finger tip. As I watched, he slowly lifted the finger to his mouth and his tongue flicked out, grabbing the sugar off the tip. I gulped. “Daphne.” His voice rumbled through my chest, sending my heart and lungs into overdrive and making warmth pool in my stomach like a swig of smooth whiskey. I gulped again. He took a step toward me and I panicked. Waving a hand in front of him, I put him in motion freeze and stepped away, tempted to slam the door and lock it. I paced my foyer for a good five minutes, wiping sweaty palms down my slacks periodically. I had no idea what to do. I knew if he touched me…hell if he even looked at me…I’d fold like yesterday’s clean laundry. I couldn’t resist him. But I had to. Finally, I realized I had to be a man about the situation and reluctantly returned to the doorway. I waved my hand in front of him again and he moved, blinking. He narrowed his eyes at me for a beat and cocked his head. But then he just shook his head and stepped toward me, forcing me back away from the door. “You need to go, Mr. Chronos. I don’t know how you found my home but this is highly irregular and even…probably…illegal.” Bion took a step closer, looking down at me through eyes that seemed to sear through my clothes and leave me naked to his smoldering vision. Dark lashes lowered over the passion-filled eyes, hiding the rampant lust there, and his hands dropped to his sides, fisting. I shivered. I knew the fists should have scared me but I saw them for what they were. A man struggling for control over feelings that neither of us knew what to do with. 28

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I knew my chance to diffuse this was quickly dwindling so I tried again. When I spoke my voice cracked with desperation. “I don’t want you here, Mr…” “Bion.” His face darkened and one hand came up. I gasped and jerked away. He swore and wrapped the hand around my upper arm, yanking me toward him and pulling me into a kiss that felt like it should have started my hair on fire. I tried to cry out and push away but he held me tightly, one arm around my waist and the other wrapped around my neck. I fought him as long as I could…at least thirty seconds…and then I gave in with a sigh. Tears trickled down my cheek at the pain I knew I was letting myself in for. But for once I didn’t want to think about that. For just this one time I wanted to let myself enjoy the uncontrollable passion that, against all odds, had flared between us. Even if only for a short time. I forced all thoughts of Dema Pence from my traitorous mind and pressed my body more tightly against his. Feeling as if I couldn’t get close enough, while at the same time feeling as if we fit perfectly. Heat built between us until all I wanted to do was get my clothes off. His clothes off. And my bones felt as if they couldn’t hold me up any longer. My knees buckled and Bion caught me before I fell. He drew away from our kiss and rested his forehead against mine. We were both panting. My hands wouldn’t stop tugging at his clothes and when the buttons on his shirt wouldn’t come free I gave an angry tug and popped one of them loose. We watched the tiny, white button skitter across the floor and land under the small table next to the door. He looked at me. I looked at him. Then he grabbed both sides of his shirt and ripped it brutally. Buttons flew around us, pinging against furniture and skittering into corners. We didn’t even notice. With a growl he was on me again. He hit me so hard I backpedaled to the wall and slammed up against it. My butt smashed up against the cool, smooth wall and my head slammed against his hand, which he’d jammed there just in time to keep me from banging my head against the wall. His lips devoured mine, pulling breath and heat and desperation from my body and giving back frantic need. He grabbed my hands, holding them above my head in one of his, and ground into me. I swore I could feel every hard line of his rigid cock against me, every engorged vein. His free hand held my chin as his lips devoured mine with an intensity that would have been frightening if I hadn’t shared it. Then he pulled away, staring hard at my bruised lips, and ran a finger over the tender flesh, sliding it through my lips and into 29

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my mouth. I nibbled softly on the finger and then sucked it into my mouth, sucking it suggestively. He groaned and pulled the finger free, gliding it over my lower lip and down my chin, creating a warm, moist trail through my cleavage and over the exposed tops of my breasts. That was the first time I realized he’d ripped my blouse open as well. As I saw the quivering mounds of my breasts, covered now only by a scanty lace demi bra that barely covered my nipples, moisture pooled between my legs and my need surged to a new level, beyond my control. He ran the finger down my stomach and headed for the place where my need throbbed the hardest. I spread my legs as his hot hand cupped me through my slacks and wished the cloth barrier away. But my slacks didn’t stop him from creating fire between my thighs. He pressed his palm against the oh-so-tender place that throbbed desperately for his touch and I cried out, grinding myself against him mindlessly. Then he ran that finger up the crease of my slacks, starting between my quivering buttocks, and pressed his palm over me again. I reached for him, placing my hand over the tight bulge of his jeans, and he growled, pressing against my hand. I rubbed him hard through the constricting material of his jeans, my body echoing the rhythm my hands created on his rigid flesh. My head pressed back against the wall in rapture. I moaned as Bion lowered his incredible lips once again to the jiggling mounds of flesh overflowing my bra. He kissed the top of each breast before he plunged the moist heat of a talented tongue into my cleavage and licked his way back up to the spot where the soft lace barely hid a painfully rigid nipple. As his tongue delved below the lace, my body convulsed in a shiver of anticipation. When he shoved aside the lace with that incredible tongue and pulled the nipple into his heated mouth I shuddered and came, screaming out his name and grinding myself against his very talented hand with mindless ecstasy. Before the last aftershocks of my climax had even finished, Bion was lifting me into his arms and carrying me toward my bedroom. I didn’t even stop to wonder how he knew which room to take me to. My lips were on his like a lifeline and my hands were busily pulling his shirt off his shoulders and my shirt off mine. We left a trail of battered clothing behind us and by the time he threw me on the bed, I was wearing only my slacks and one trouser sock. Bion quickly divested me of those. I fumbled at the button of his jeans and pulled them down his hips, licking my lips as he finally sprang free. I glanced up with a grin. “Commando man, eh?” He chuckled huskily. “At your service, ma’am.”

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I sat on the edge of the bed and he stood there before me, his dark eyes filled with need and something else that looked like fear. I filed that away for later. I had better things to do at that moment. Looking up at him, I let my lips curve into a devilish smile. He groaned as my tongue slid across my lips in carnal promise. Then I lowered my head and slid my mouth over his cock. I felt his growl of pleasure rumbling through me as I compressed my lips and slid them slowly down his length. His body convulsed on a shiver of pure, unadulterated joy as my lips started the slow journey back up to the fat head of his rigid cock. My tongue came out and I licked the tip, pressing my tongue gently into the little opening in the center and then running it around the tender crease under the throbbing head. He arched toward me and his chest rumbled on an endless purr. I smiled around his cock, knowing I had him when my lips touched his hard belly and he cried out at the feeling of his cock touching the back of my throat. I barely had time to slide him back out of my mouth before he grabbed my shoulders and threw me backward on the bed. I expected him to cover my body with his and take me immediately, but Bion had other ideas. I lay on my back with my legs dangling over the side of the bed. He stood looking at me for a few beats and then smiled, licking his lips as my eyes widened in sudden understanding. Payback time. I shivered in anticipation as he lowered to his knees beside the bed and spread my legs. Bion kissed his way up the tender flesh of one thigh, hesitating over the place where I pulsed with need for him but not touching and then back down the other thigh to my knee. His hot mouth closed over my kneecap and he sucked, making me giggle and look down at him. He lifted his lips and grinned at me. “Did I miss the spot?” I laughed and lifted a hand, the thumb and index finger barely an inch apart. “By this much.” His eyes sparkled up at me. “Let me try again.” He moved to the other knee and opened his hot mouth, lowering it over that kneecap. This time I shivered as he gently sucked that knee. When he lifted his head this time I shook my head. He frowned, “No? Well, let me try again.” I laid my head back on the bed, nearly shaking with anticipation, preparing myself for what was to come. But nothing could have prepared me for the incredible feeling of his hot, wet mouth on my cunt. As the heat lowered over my quivering pussy, I cried out and grabbed his hair, running my fingers through the soft silk as he gently sucked my very soul out through

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my throbbing mound. I screamed into climax after only about thirty seconds and Bion carefully carried me through a second and then a third orgasm. I lay like a limp doll as his mouth left my pussy and I felt him climbing my body. He wrapped an arm, like a steel band, around my waist and pulled me up with him on the bed. Then he lowered his body over mine and I felt the hard length of him against the oversensitized flesh of one thigh. “Did I find the right spot?” I moaned against his lips as he moved his cock to press against my throbbing mound. “Not quite. But keep trying, practice makes perfect.” I felt his lips curve into a smile against mine. “Music to my ears.” His hips shifted and his mouth lowered to mine. Lights exploded around me as he surged into me, filling my belly with heat and bringing every nerve ending in my body to full attention. He slid his full length into me and stopped, letting our bodies absorb the pleasure before sliding slowly out to the fat tip of his cock and then inch by inch, scraping his hard length over my G-spot. I arched into another climax almost immediately. His tempo increased as my body milked his, pulling his pleasure forward against his will. He drove into me with a new urgency, filling me completely and then sliding out quickly, only to surge into me again. Each plunge made me gasp with the exquisite pain of a quickly building climax. He paused, his hands fisting in my hair. I gasped, barely able to breathe with anticipation, until he started to move again with excruciating slowness. His fists softened in my hair, the fingers quivering against my scalp as he regained control and started to ride the wave of pleasure again. His hard length slid slowly, inexorably over the spot inside me that focused my pleasure and promised release. I reveled in the exquisite torture of the sensation until I felt myself tumbling over the edge into sweet release. For Bion, it was finally too much. My body clamped his frantically, pulling his orgasm out of him through waves of intense pressure, until he couldn’t take it anymore and surged into me one last time, growling his contentment against my lips, his body convulsing in the pleasure-pain of sexual release. He hung over me for several minutes, both of us quivering in exhausted pleasure. He held his weight on his elbows and knees, which had slid to either side of my thighs and pressed against my skin like a warm, muscular vise. Every few seconds he would twist his hips gently, causing the gentle aftershocks of our lovemaking to surge through my body anew, bright and lovely.

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Finally and reluctantly, he pulled out of me and rolled to my side. He pulled me tight up against his body and pressed his face into my hair, nuzzling my neck contentedly. His cock lay warm and wet on my thigh. Tears welled up unexpectedly and I fought them back. He’d probably forget about me in a few hours. Or if I was lucky, a few days. And with me out of the picture, I was pretty sure he would form a happy match with Dema Pence. The thought sent pain jolting through me and I took several deep breaths, trying to get my emotions under control. It was the right thing for him. Finding love with another human. But it was hell for me. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed the tears away. A couple slid down my cheeks despite my attempts to squelch them. The smooth heat of a work-roughened fingertip pulled a tear off my cheek. I opened my eyes and found Bion’s dark, worried gaze on me. “Are you okay, Daphne? Is something wrong?” I shook my head, forcing myself to give a negligent laugh. “It was incredible. I’m blown away.” A lesser man would have taken the ego boost and preened, forgetting my obvious distress in the pleasure of having his sexual prowess confirmed. But Bion was not your average male. His worried gaze stayed on me for a long moment, assessing, judging my reaction to our lovemaking. Then his soft lips lowered to mine and he gave me the most tender kiss imaginable. I lost my grip on my tears and as his long, hard body covered mine and his cock slid into me again, I gave a little sob that was filled with both pain and pleasure. He kissed my lips, my nose, my forehead and licked the salty tears from my face. As he focused this gentle assault on my emotions, his body continued to coax mine to join him in another wave of bliss. It didn’t take much coaxing. My body was a forgotten instrument coming to life under his careful and extremely talented ministrations. Together, our bodies found the perfect pitch and danced the ideal rhythm. His hips gently rolled, sliding the hard length of him across the core of my pleasure over and over and over again in a determined but tender assault. I felt my pleasure building along with his. The tears had long since stopped as my body warmed and melted into his, my heart finding the rhythm he gave it and happily joining with his to beat out the moments of pure joy our bodies were making together. I gasped every time his cock surged into me and nearly cried out in despair each time he slid away. My body clenched around him, pulling him with me and beginning the long, lovely climb to the top of my climax. My skin tingled and my body heated with sensations I’d never dreamed I’d feel.

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His skin against mine was a drug. His body claimed mine as if it had always been his. And as I fell over that precipice into a tender but earth-shattering climax, I realized it was true. I had always been his. I just didn’t know if I ever would be again.

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Chapter Four Time Stops

I watched Bion from the bed, unwilling to get up and face real life again. He smiled down at me as he buttoned the two buttons I’d left on his shirt when I’d ripped it off. I realized with a start that our time was probably all but over together. Our excuse for being together buried under the incredible events of the last few hours. I felt tears threatening again and it made me mad. Flinging aside the covers, I climbed out of my bed and went to my closet for a robe. I shoved aside the warm, frumpy fleece robe that covered me from neck to toes for the less warm but eminently sexier silk one that barely reached my knees. Pulling it on, I busied myself tying the sash and fought the despair that was trying to batter down my defenses and overwhelm me. I felt Bion’s warm presence well before his arms slid around me from behind. He kissed the back of my neck and I shivered, dropping my head to give him easy access. He sighed and tucked his head into my shoulder. “I don’t want to leave.” I squeezed my eyes shut and felt myself smile. “I don’t want you to leave.” We stood that way for a few moments, just enjoying the feel of each other’s bodies and the residual passion that coated us like an expensive lotion. But finally he sighed again and pulled away, giving me one last, exquisitely tender kiss on the back of my neck. I shivered at the loss of his warmth. Forcing a smile onto my face, I turned around. His face was dark with worry. He touched his forehead to mine. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem…I don’t know…melancholy is the word that leaps to mind.” I shook my head. “I’m fine. Really. My emotions are just roiled up.” I smiled at him, putting all of my feelings into my eyes so he could see them. “It’s a good thing.” He didn’t look as if he believed me but he put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “Walk me to the door?” I nodded and slid an arm around his waist. At the door he leaned down to kiss me and I wrapped myself around him, determined to pull every ounce of sensation out of the kiss I could. I knew it could very well be the last kiss we shared. Bion responded in kind and for a moment, I wasn’t sure he would actually make it out the door. But he finally pulled away and touched me on the tip of my nose with a finger, grinning. “You’re trying to keep me here.” I grinned back. “Is it working?”

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He laughed. “No. But only because I have a very important meeting that I can’t miss.” He leaned to give me a small kiss that felt like a promise. “But I’ll see you tomorrow night?” Joy surged through me but I quickly squelched it. We’d see if he still wanted to be with me then. I knew it was just as likely he’d have moved on. I nodded and then realization hit me like a blow. “Wait…we can’t see each other tomorrow. We have no time left.” He grinned. It was a mischievous grin that somehow lifted my spirits. “We have plenty of time, Daphne.” He left, promising to call me later in the day. I closed the door behind him and leaned against it. With Bion gone despair washed over me again. I was sure Bion believed that I could just let the Pence match go away now that he and I had shared a few incredible hours together but he didn’t know what I knew. That our relationship, as amazing as it was, could only be a blip in his life and was destined to die out very quickly for him. As far as he knew we had unlimited time. But I knew differently. We had just used up the last of my excuse for spending time with him. Unbidden, my gaze slid to the small clock on the buffet table beside the door. My eyes widened. My heart sped up. I gave a little cry and grabbed the clock. It was impossible. My eyes must be blurry from sexual overload. I squeezed them tightly shut and opened them again. I pulled the clock up to my ear thinking it had stopped. The familiar tick tock of its inner workings met my incredulous ear. I dropped the clock back onto the table and ran to the kitchen. The clock there mirrored the one in the foyer. I ran to my bedroom and checked that clock. It said what the other clocks said. I ran back to the foyer and stared at the door. I was flummoxed. Totally at a loss. According to all of my clocks Bion had just arrived. No time had passed. We still had three hours of precious time left in his pre-screening. I shrieked with joy. The Fates had given me a gift. Twirling in the foyer, I hugged myself and laughed. I still had three glorious hours before I plunged…once again…into loveless mediocrity. I had three more hours to live.

***** I bounced into the office, throwing cheerful greetings at everyone I passed and determinedly ignoring the looks I got in return.

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It was the week before Valentine’s Day. The Cupid universe became fraught with stress and worry during these last days. The stress of trying to make those final matches before the fateful day had been enough to completely unhinge better Cupids than I. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from enjoying the short time I had left with Bion. Before entering my office I remembered a message I needed to pass on to one of my colleagues. I decided to stick my head in her door before going to my office. Backtracking a few steps, I opened her door and stuck my head through the crack. Athena Gooligos’ dark head flew up in surprise and something very small and very sharp whizzed past my head and embedded itself into the door by my nose. I looked from the tiny arrow in the door to Athena and gave her a shrug and a sheepish grin. She glared at me from behind her large desk. Across from her were two clients I knew she’d been working hard to match for the past month. The clients were speaking softly together, their heads dipped toward each other in happy oblivion. I knew they were under a distraction spell so Athena could perform the arrow ceremony. The arrow ceremony, though unrecognized as such by the clients, was the last leg of the matchmaking journey. It was the most important part and took some skill and planning on the Cupid’s part. Athena had a full schedule that day and wouldn’t thank me for putting a kink in it. But she quickly altered her expression as her clients turned toward her, their distraction spell broken by my appearance. She smiled at me. “Hello, Daphne. What can I do for you?” As I opened my mouth to speak, the clients turned to me. I watched the man jump and rub his thigh as Athena took the opportunity to blast him with an arrow. I grinned at Athena and she shrugged. One type of distraction is as good as another and since the man was still holding the woman’s hand the arrow would do its work just fine. Otherwise, the fact that he’d been looking at me would have been a problem. “I needed to talk to you about Thursday night.” The female client quickly lost interest in me and took the opportunity provided to check out her match’s fine buttocks as he turned in the chair to see what I was doing. She jumped too and rubbed an arm. Athena, seeing the end of another happy match, stood up and smiled at the happy couple. “I think we’re done here.” The couple stood, suddenly unable to look at anyone but each other. The initial effects of the arrow ceremony are a singular obsession with your match. This lasts for several hours and has been known to kick off a few families. It definitely has engaged some truly hot lovemaking episodes. The effects died down after that to become an ingrained but not at all monotonous warmth that was usually enough to keep the matched set enamored of each other for years. Some people, like Dema Pence, seemed to throw off the ceremony’s effects very quickly and, like a druggie searching for the next fix, come back to us for more. Fortunately for us those folks are relatively rare.

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I moved into the room and stood to the side of the door. Athena ushered her clients out of her office and closed the door behind them, leaning against it wearily. “I’ll be glad when this week is over.” Her beautiful brown eyes were shadowed with fatigue and her usual stately beauty was just the tiniest bit disheveled. I nodded only because she expected me to. Despite a huge backlog of work awaiting me, I was personally looking forward to the coming week. Or at least three hours of it. Feeling just a tiny bit guilty for my happiness, however fleeting, I went to the coffee pot Athena kept brewing at all times and poured her a cup, handing it to her. She gave me a tired smile. “Thanks, Daphne.” She sipped the hot coffee gratefully and headed for her desk, her long, competent strides eating up the space from the door to her large, cluttered desk quickly. She settled herself behind the desk and grabbed two files, which, I assumed, belonged to the two people who had just left. “Do you want to meet at O’Daniels on Thursday like we did last year?” Over the years, Athena and I had made it a practice to meet before the big Valentine’s dance and share dinner and a few bolstering beverages before heading out to work on the most important matchmaking night of the year. During this cherished outing, we talked about the matches we needed to get accomplished that night and gave voice to the feelings of loneliness and despair we weren’t able to share with other Cupids, the gods or the Fates. The annual Valentine’s Day Ball always brought those feelings to the surface for us. It was good to be able to talk about them with someone and it had become a treasured event for me, as I suspected it was for Athena. Which was why I really hated to tell her that I couldn’t do it this year. I sat down across from her in one of the recently vacated client chairs. I watched her drink her coffee for a moment and try to organize the mess of files in front of her and then gave a nearly silent sigh. She noticed the sigh. Looking up, her face crumpled. “What? Don’t tell me you can’t make it Thursday.” I made a face. “Sorry. I have to meet with a client for dinner.” She frowned. “A client? For dinner?” I nodded, feeling like I was perched on a bridge made of eggshells that spanned a killing precipice. Sharks circled the water below. “He’s threatened to call in his lawyer if I don’t finish the pre-screening and he wants Thursday night to finish it.” Athena’s gorgeous face darkened in anger. “What a jerk.” I just shrugged, biting back a sudden need to defend Bion. “Why is he insisting on the hours?” The anger faded quickly as realization replaced it. Athena had been on the receiving end of a few human male obsessions. She’d barely

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survived one of them. “Oh my gods, Daphne, he thinks he’s in love with you, doesn’t he?” I hesitated, if I told her she was right it would cheapen what Bion and I had shared. And even though I knew how this was gonna all play out, I wanted to ignore that for as long as possible and pretend, at least to myself, that I could be happy and in love. But her piercing brown gaze was relentless and finally I nodded. Athena let her breath explode as she sat back hard in her black leather chair. “I’m sorry, honey. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.” I felt tears flooding toward my eyes. Not because of my predicament with Bion but because of Athena’s assumption that it would all come to no good. I shrugged and let the tears flow. I couldn’t stop them anyway. So much for my good mood. I swiped at the tears and stood, sniffling daintily. “Anyway, I can’t dissuade him from the evening so I’ll be going to the dance with him.” Athena’s eyes widened, “You’re going to the dance?” I nodded, smiling stupidly through the tears. “Technically I’ll be working and Bion’s insisting…” “Bion?” Oops. She cocked her dark head at me, her beautiful eyes filling with pity. I wanted to slap her for that pity. “Daphne, please tell me you aren’t falling for this guy.” I turned toward the door, suddenly frantic to escape. “Don’t be silly, Athena, I’m not that stupid.” I almost made it to the door. “Daphne?” I stopped, hand on knob, reluctant to turn back around. “Yes?” “You know how these things turn out, right?” I didn’t trust my voice. I nodded and left.

***** I had three sets of matches on my schedule for the morning. My thoughts roiled as I performed the arrow ceremonies. In fact, I was so distracted by the time I reached my last ceremony that I missed my male match’s thigh with my little arrow and hit him right in the crotch. He squeaked and leapt from his chair holding his groin. His eyes never left the woman in the other chair, his gaze scouring over her like he would eat her right there on the spot. Interesting. Apparently if you hit them in the manly protuberance the reaction is even stronger. Good to know.

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Bad for any future, difficult clients of the male persuasion. Fortunately I got the arrow into the female match right away and the male’s socially unacceptable crotch grabbing activity was excused away in a haze of love and arrowinduced lust. She just thought he was hungry for her love. The newly matched pair left quickly, practically devouring each other on the way out. I hoped I hadn’t damaged anything he might need in the next few hours. Figuring I’d done enough damage there for the moment, I grabbed up two files that required my presence at a client site and headed out. I climbed into my car, a dark blue Solstice GXP, and headed toward the client’s place of work, a construction site for a new high-rise building downtown. Sometimes it’s all but impossible to get both matches into a room at the same time for the final arrow ceremony. We don’t like to do it but occasionally we are forced, due to a high volume of matches or a shortage of time, to perform the ceremony on the matches separately. This can be a tricky process and requires some creativity on the Cupid’s part. This match was a particularly difficult one. He owned a very highly regarded construction company and took an active role in every aspect of his business. He worked all hours and when he wasn’t working he was constantly on his cell phone giving instructions and putting out fires. She owned the largest and most prestigious preschool in the city. Maybe even the country. Her clients included the children of rock stars and politicians. Like her match, she was also a workaholic, catering to her high-powered clients’ eclectic time schedules and sometimes only returning home in the wee hours of the morning to grab a few hours of sleep and “her” time. The two of them had been unable to keep relationships in the past because of their need to put their jobs first above everything else. They had both wanted someone who would be there for those brief respites in their work lives and not want more. They were a perfect match for each other. However, they did present a challenge for me. I stopped the Solstice a couple of blocks away from the construction site and climbed out, locking it with my electronic key as I walked away. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t get hit by a flying brick or anything that far away. I clutched a file under one arm and swung my purse up over the other shoulder. As I walked I inhaled the smell of freshly cut lumber warming in the sun. I’d always liked that smell. It went well with the smell of hardworking male. The building that was under construction rose high above my head and was still growing. Its skeletal form buzzed with activity. It looked like at least a hundred men skittered across its bony face, pounding, sawing, welding or just observing.

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They all wore hard hats. Almost all of them wore jeans and short-sleeved t-shirts. Only one of them wore a suit—minus the jacket—and a tie. Always the tie. Chet Adkins ran a tight ship and he’d been known to fire workers on the spot for doing something he didn’t like on one of his projects. But he expected as much from himself. And he was admired by his men for that. Right at that moment it looked like old Chet was about twenty floors up, walking along a naked metal beam in his dress shoes and suit, looking like he’d just hopped out of Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine. Except for the hard hat of course. I sighed and touched the muscular biceps of a nearby worker. “Excuse me. I need to speak to Mr. Adkins.” The man’s sun-drenched face split in a grin. His hazel eyes slid upward, crinkling expansively at the corners from sun and what appeared to be a healthy sense of humor. “I hope you can climb.” He shook his head at my stupidity and turned away. Okay, that just pissed me off. I grabbed the hard hat off his head before he could get away and dropped it onto my head, turning toward the building. I could damn well climb. Damn him. “Hey!” the jokester behind me objected. I lifted a hand over my shoulder in dismissal. “I’ll bring it back in a few minutes.” I headed toward the metal skeleton with a healthy sense of determination and an unhealthy amount of bravado. I told myself I could do it. I assured myself I was up to it. I tried not to look up. I eyeballed a rickety-looking elevator that had been rigged on the side of the building and strode toward it. An extremely lean but muscular man with longish blond hair sticking out messily from under his hard hat was just climbing into the elevator as I reached it. I slid in behind him and said, “Twenty please.” He looked at me, his grizzled jaw dropping unattractively, and then slid his gaze meaningfully over my apparel. I was, of course, wearing a skirt. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps it wasn’t the smartest thing to ride to the top of a structure without floors in a skirt, with about a hundred men standing at different points beneath you. Some of my determination leaked away. But I just frowned at the guy holding the lever of the rickety elevator and waited. After a moment he shook his head and pulled the “door”, which was really only a piece of wood with a cheap-looking latch on one side, closed and shoved the lever back. We jerked into upward motion and I concentrated on willing my stomach to remain in the center of my body as we swayed from side to side and jerked from floor to floor. By the time we reached twenty I was pretty sure I was green.

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The construction worker pushed the wood barrier open and motioned for me to precede him out of the elevator. “Twentieth floor. Women’s undergarments and accessories.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. I gave him a weak, aha, aha. My feet suddenly wouldn’t move. The elevator had a floor. Maybe I could just stand there and call Chet Adkins to me like a dog. Here, Mr. Adkins. Come, Chet. Here, boy. I sighed, knowing he would probably be too far away to hear me. Especially, I realized as I took a cautious step out onto the makeshift floor of plywood someone had thrown across the beams as a temporary walkway, since the wind up at that level was pretty intense. I stepped onto the plywood, testing it carefully with my weight before emerging completely from the elevator, and was almost blown to the ground by a particularly rambunctious gust of wind. I tottered and, unfortunately for my dedication to my cause, looked down. I gave a little whimper and grabbed a nearby beam, wrapping my arms around it with unnatural fervor. I was suddenly unsure if I could go on. It was a very long way down. And there was very little holding me up. And I was wearing a damn skirt! Maybe if I just stood there clutching that beam long enough he’d eventually circle back to me. I mean, he needed to use the elevator, right? The wind whipped at me, seemingly from all directions at once, pulling my hair into a tangled knot on one side of my head and jerking my jacket and skirt around until I was pretty sure everybody on the nineteen floors beneath me knew not only what color underwear I had on but what size and style too. This was nuts, I decided as my self-protection instincts kicked in. I’d just get back in that elevator and go down to the ground. I’d wait to speak with Chet Adkins there. Having made the decision to take the coward’s way out, I felt a little better. That was when I heard a noise behind me and turned to see what was happening. I was just in time to see the little elevator car dropping below floor level. The construction worker’s eyes were somewhere below the hem of my skirt and as I met his eyes with my horror-filled gaze he smiled and gave me a thumbs up. “I love thongs!” he informed me. Oh lord! I clutched that beam in pure terror for a few minutes and then I heard voices. Even with the wind roaring in my ears they sounded like they weren’t too far away so I made a sudden decision to try to make my way to them. It took a minute for me to force my grip off the beam and another few minutes to get my feet to move. But once I started walking it got a little easier. I made my way toward the corner of the huge building and when I reached the end of the wooden walkway, I peeked around the corner.

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There he was. Talking to one of his men, probably a foreman since he held a clipboard and seemed slightly more intense than the other men I’d encountered. He was nearly at the other end of the building. Damn! I looked down and saw that the temporary flooring ended a few inches from the corner but picked up again a few inches from the edge of the corner on the other side. This left a gap of about twelve or fifteen inches where I had to either negotiate naked beam or jump. After giving this due consideration I decided I’d rather jump. Walking on that slicklooking beam in shoes with heels didn’t sound like a doable option. Before I could think too much about what I was doing and, most likely, freeze up totally, I grabbed the edge of the beam rising to my right and swung myself around, jumping to close the gap between the boards. A sudden gust of wind flailed against my back as I jumped, giving me a little extra push that I hadn’t been expecting. I squeaked as I felt the wind driving me too far forward and I landed on the walkway knees first, sprawling unattractively across the boards. I just lay there for a moment, embarrassed beyond words and trying to take physical inventory. I had a sudden moment of panic as I wondered if I’d dropped the file I’d been clutching. Without that all of the stupidity I’d just indulged in would be for nothing. Totally wasted stupidity. But, looking down, I saw that it was safely squashed between the dusty plywood and my once beautiful blouse. I expected at any moment to hear a deep male voice inquiring into my well-being. I both welcomed and dreaded it. A hand up would have been nice too. But when it never came I looked up, still clutching the edges of the walkway like my life depended on it. Which of course it did. They were gone. I gave a frustrated sob as I realized they must have gone around the far corner to the other side of the building. I lay there for a long moment, cataloging my options. I could either slither on my belly to the end of the building, thereby ensuring the complete loss of all my dignity and completely ruining a great little suit and an expensive pair of nylons. Or I could be a man and stand back up. It took everything I had in me to push to my feet and start walking toward that far corner. But finally I got there. Peeking around the corner, I saw Chet standing alone looking out over the city. His foreman was gone. I called out to him but the wind kept whipping my words away from me. It took me five tries before he heard me.

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He turned in surprise and his face folded in displeasure as he recognized me. He started toward me with angry strides. “Ms. Charissa, what the hell are you doing up here? Don’t you know how dangerous this is?” He easily leapt around the corner and quickly sized me up. I looked down and saw that the knees had been ripped out of my nylons, my skirt had a huge brown smudge across the front and my white blouse was filthy and missing a couple of buttons. My pretty lace bra was playing peek-a-boo from between the buttons. Trying in vain to pull the edges of my snug-fitting blouse back together while still clutching my file as well as a nearby vertical beam, I knew I was a pathetic sight. No matter. I just needed to do what I’d come up there to do and then get the hell out. I fumbled in the folder and pulled out a glossy photo of Chet Adkins’ match. Since I couldn’t get them together in the same room I had to go to Plan B. The arrow ceremony using a photo. “I…” The wind buffeted me and I clutched my beam tighter, “I wanted to show you this.” He frowned and looked at the picture I held out to him. The wind roiled around us, pulling the edges of the photo together so he couldn’t get a clear view of it. I fought to pull the edges apart but he finally stopped me with a large, warm hand. “Why don’t you give it to me?” His voice sounded a bit like he was dealing with a demented person. Maybe he was. I didn’t even know anymore. I waited until I thought his fingers had a good grip on the photo and then I let go. He held it close to his body and pulled it open. That was when I realized I’d forgotten to get my delivery system ready. I fumbled in my pocket and slid it on over my finger, cocking an arrow quickly. He frowned as he finally managed to pull the edges of the photo open and saw what I’d given him. He held it out to the side in one hand. “You came all the way up here to give me this? I’ve already seen this picture. It’s a good picture but…” I opened my mouth to respond just as a gust of wind took the picture and blew it out of his hand. Horrified, I watched it sail out into open space. My little arrow was nocked, with no place to go.

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Chapter Five

Cheating the Fates I hung my head and cursed the Fates as the photo dipped and swung in the swirling air currents, just out of reach. Then, as if somebody in the Fates’ office heard and responded, the photo suddenly swung toward the building again. I reached out a hand and grabbed it, willing the wind to stop blowing just for the split second I’d need to send my little arrow to its destination and held the photo up in front of Chet Adkins. “Look at this picture, Mr. Adkins.” I infused my command with just enough magic to bring his head around and his focus to the picture. As soon as his eyes lit on the face in the picture I sent my arrow flying. He slapped at his neck as it struck but didn’t take his eyes from the photo of his newly made and finalized match. I handed him the picture and wiped sweaty palms on my ruined skirt. “I wish you a long and joyous life together.” He didn’t even notice me as I left. He was transfixed by the pretty face of his new love. Now all I needed to do was get to her before he did. I quickened my steps as I headed back the way I’d come. I didn’t even care anymore if I fell to my death hurrying. I just wanted off that damn building. Next I had to go into a preschool filled with dozens of screaming, energetic little kids with sticky fingers and snotty noses. Compared to what I’d just survived it sounded like a day in the park.

***** I stumbled into my apartment and closed the door behind me, leaning against the cool surface and closing my eyes. Silence. Blissful, calming silence. And not one snotty nose in the place. I opened my eyes and dropped the two battered and sticky folders on the buffet table beside the door. I kicked off my shoes and headed into the kitchen for a cold beer, pulling my cell phone out of my jacket pocket as I walked. It was sticky too.

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I grimaced and punched auto-dial for the office. I spoke to Becky and told her I would not be back into the office. I’d had enough fun for the day. Glancing at the clock over the stove, I saw that it was four thirty. A good time to have a beer and a long soak in the tub. I took my beer into the bathroom and pulled off my clothes, flinging them directly into the trash. They were ruined, destroyed, beyond saving. When I’d gutted the condominium apartment I lived in and updated it, I’d added a claw-footed tub with whirlpool jets to the master bathroom. It was a ridiculous extravagance. But I loved to soak in a tub and the jets felt really good after a hard day. And let’s face it, I was a god after all, money wasn’t a problem for me. I stepped into the hot, swirling water and sank back, sipping my beer and thinking I’d maybe stay there all night. It felt sooooo good. My only regret as I leaned back and let the magic fingers of water massage the tension out of my body was that I hadn’t hit the play button on my CD player before immersing myself in neck-high water. Sighing, I briefly considered getting back out. But I decided against it and just waved my hand at the player. The beautiful sound of my favorite Celtic music filled the room. I tried not to use my magic any more than was absolutely necessary. But I figured I’d more than earned a little cheat. I leaned back again and closed my eyes, immersing myself in the healing warmth of the water and the soothing tones of the lilting music. I almost didn’t hear the doorbell over the music. And when I finally did I just ignored it. I couldn’t face whoever it was. With my luck it would be Dema Pence wondering why I hadn’t called her yet about… “Now that’s a truly stupendous sight.” I jumped and my head slid under the water. I came up sputtering and dropped my beer. Large, masculine hands caught it before it could hit the hard tile floor and shatter into a million pieces like my nerves. Instead of handing the beer back to me, Bion raised it to his lips and took a swig. His eyes closed in pleasure. “Ah. That really tastes good.” He sat down on the closed toilet lid and stared at me, still sipping my beer. “Wha-what are you doing in my bathroom?” He grinned and lifted the bottle, “Drinking a beer and enjoying a truly phenomenal view.” I frowned. “You need to leave. Right now.” He grinned again. I couldn’t believe it. “I’m serious!” He shook his dark head and took another sip. “I’m not leaving.” I surged upright, my hands going to my hips in total outrage. “Yes you are!” He frowned. “Don’t do that unless you want me to come in there after you.”

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I looked down and saw that my breasts had risen above the soapy water, my nipples halved by the quickly cooling water. They were so hard they popped the soap bubbles whenever they touched them. I started to slump back down but a surge of anger, most likely fueled by my heretofore god-awful day, kept me upright. Instead I straightened, even pushing my chest out a little. “You wouldn’t dare!” I knew as soon as I said it that it was a mistake. Bion stared at me for a moment with those intense, green eyes. Then he shook his head and set the beer bottle down on the countertop. Rising to his feet, he yanked the tight, navy blue t-shirt he’d been wearing off over his head. I bit back a gasp as pure, unfettered lust slid through me and warmth pooled between my legs. I clenched hard against the hot wave of desire. Bion’s chest was smooth, wide and tanned a warm golden brown. Soft black hair curled in the vee created by the perfect mounds of his pecs. His small brown nipples were already pebbled with desire and I fought an overwhelming urge to pull him down to my level so I could suck on them. Without moving his gaze from mine, he toed his sneakers off and unbuttoned his jeans. Any anger I might have been nurturing was long gone by the time those jeans hit the floor. I gulped. He grinned at me. “Be careful, you’re forgetting to be mad at me.” I forced my face into a frown. “I’m plenty mad. You better…um…you better…” He walked toward me, his long, hard cock bobbing enticingly as he approached. Then he leaned over the tub and took my bottom lip into his mouth, sucking it gently until I moaned. “I better what?” He pushed the drain lever on the tub and cooling water started swirling out. “You better get the hell into this tub right now.” He shook his head again. “Not quite yet.” He knelt down beside the tub and reached toward the nipple closest to him, which was now exposed because of the retreating water. He tugged it gently between his thumb and finger. I dropped my head to the back of the tub and sighed. I concentrated hard on that finger, which continued its journey down the underside of my breast to my stomach and then gently made a circle around my bellybutton. My stomach was covered in residual bubbles and quivered softly in anticipation. He brushed the bubbles off my belly and found the faint line of hair that trailed from my bellybutton down into the soft mound of dark curls that arched toward him. The adventuresome finger slid through the damp, soapy triangle of hair and I spread my legs, resting my knees against the sides of the tub to give him better access. As his finger reached my throbbing clitoris, I shivered in anticipation. He stopped and reached for the faucet. “We need more hot water.”

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I nearly screamed in frustration. “If you don’t touch me right now I’m calling the police and getting you arrested for breaking and entering.” He threw back his dark head and laughed. The sound inserted itself into the throbbing place between my legs and caused a minor explosion there before traveling up to make my stomach clench. “The door wasn’t locked. I’m sure I heard you call out for me to come in.” I lifted a single, dark eyebrow at him. “I didn’t call out and getting you to come in right now is exactly the problem.” He laughed again and I pressed my knees together, riding out the reverberations that the deep, rumbling sound had caused. He stood up, shut the faucet off and touched my shoulder. “Scoot forward.” I quickly complied and he slid in behind me. I gasped aloud as his cock pressed between my shoulder blades and slid down on a warm trail of water and bubbles to nestle between my buttocks. When he was seated behind me he reached under my thighs and lifted me so that his cock slid between my legs, jutting happily upward. I reached down and cupped the soft, puckered flesh of his balls and then slid my hand slowly up the length of him, using gentle but firm pressure that caused his toes to curl. He returned the favor by reaching around me and inserting a finger into my moist folds. I moaned and increased the tempo on his beautiful cock, reaching down to cup his balls with my other hand. His finger moved in and out of me in a matching tempo, allowing me to determine the intensity of our touches. As I neared climax I slowed the tempo of my strokes and he did the same. His lips touched my ear and I shivered. “Stand up.” I quickly complied. “Turn around.” I carefully turned in the tub. He directed my legs into a wide stance that put my feet to the outside of his muscular thighs and then pulled my mons toward his face. I felt the soft bristle on his cheeks as he pressed a kiss first onto one wet, soapy thigh and then the other. His lips touched my quivering belly in a featherlight kiss that made moisture pool between my legs and gooseflesh pebble my skin. I threw back my head and moaned as his hot mouth finally found me. Sensing my imminent climax, he didn’t bother trying to build the pressure slowly, his mouth closed over my throbbing nub and he sucked firmly. Between the heat of his mouth and the nearness of my climax it didn’t take long for me to fall, screaming, over the precipice into a mind-shattering orgasm. My whole body shook with the incredible sensations and Bion had to grab my buttocks to keep me from falling into the tub. My knees turned to rubber beneath me.

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As the last wave of pleasure drifted away from me, Bion’s incredible lips traveled upward, licking his way up to my bellybutton again. He placed a tender kiss there and then put gentle pressure on my hips for me to lower onto him. I shook my head. “My turn.” I told him and he frowned. “Stand up.” The frown drifted away and he smiled. “If you insist.” I dropped back into the water as he unfolded his gorgeous body and stood. I was suddenly eye to eye with that perfect cock. I grinned up at him. “This is gonna be fun.” He groaned in response, clearly beside himself with lust. I opened my lips and leaned toward him, placing a hand on each of his narrow hips to keep him still. Not that he was going anywhere. He waited patiently for the heat of my mouth to encompass him. I placed a kiss on the tip of his cock with slightly opened lips, allowing my tongue to snake out and give the glistening mushroom head a little lick as I did. He moaned and ran his hands gently through my hair. I slid the fat tip into my mouth and gave it a gentle suck. His hips rocked with the intensity of his pleasure. I pulled back until the tip of his cock was barely between my lips and then opened my lips wider and slid over him again, allowing the heat and pressure of my mouth to take an inch more. I did this until I was able to pull most of his cock into my mouth. When he was buried as far as I could manage in my mouth I stopped moving entirely and sucked gently and rhythmically on his cock, milking him with tender pulls of my lips. He groaned and used his hold on my hair to pull himself out of me. “No more. I can’t stand it.” He pulled me up so that our mouths could come together and I moaned at the intensity of the kiss. Our bodies slid together in warm, soapy ecstasy, the rigid length of him pressing hard against my belly. He tilted his head to encompass my lips more thoroughly with his own and wrapped a muscular arm around my neck, burying a fist in my hair. His other arm wrapped around my hips and his hand cupped a slippery butt cheek. I wedged a thigh between his legs so I could get closer to him and he humped my leg gently, growling against my lips. Then he pulled away and grabbed my shoulders, turning me away from him and bending me gently but firmly until I was forced to grab the side of the tub to support myself. I felt the hard tip of his cock against my pulsing slit. He slid into me an inch at a time, pausing between each thrust in a fashion that was an obvious imitation of my oral technique. I whimpered and moved my hips to try to force him more deeply into me but he stopped my movement with his hands. Then he gave me one more inch. And then another. 49

Sam Cheever

And another. And then, finally, he thrust hard and I cried out in delight as the whole, hard length of him filled me. I moved against him as he thrust so that our bodies slapped hard against each other when we met. Water droplets flew away from our frantically pounding flesh and the water in the tub rolled in little waves that splashed water out onto the tile floor. I barely noticed any of it. My eyes were closed in ecstasy and my hands clutched hard on the slippery edge of the tub. My body from the waist down was one big nerve ending, a giant pleasure center, building toward a release that I was pretty sure would bring about my last breath in pure, unadulterated pleasure. Bion reached a hand around me and found my throbbing clit, gently rubbing it as he slowed his tempo to control his own release. Between the gentle, circular massage on my clit and the dragging caress of deep, controlled strokes against sensitized flesh, it didn’t take long for me to fall over that edge again. I screamed out his name as I fell, urging him to come with me. Bion increased the tempo of his thrusts and covered my mons with the heat of his hand. He pressed against my clit with the palm of his covering hand as he built toward his own release, bringing me to yet another orgasm as he finally fell over that edge with me, collapsing over me with a final growl of pleasure and covering my back with tiny kisses that made me tremble with lust-tinged aftershocks. After a few seconds Bion slid back down into the cooling water and dragged me down with him. I rested against his warm chest with my butt in the cool water and it felt wonderful and strange at the same time. Finally he kicked the drain open and we climbed out. He grabbed my water-splashed towel off the floor beside the tub and started using it. “Hey!” I objected, making a grab for it. He let me grab the towel and then reeled me in with it, my body smacking wetly against his chest. Splatters of water sprayed everywhere, spotting the mirror over the sink and wetting the silk robe I’d hung over my vanity stool for after my bath. I barely even noticed. Bion’s lips were on mine again. He wrapped the damp towel around my shoulders and used it to hold me close. I nestled against his body and let myself melt into the kiss. He pulled away before the kiss could get too heated and rested his forehead against mine. “I need to get back to work. But I want to see you tonight. For dinner. I’ll pick you up at eight.” Just like that reality hit me between the eyes, with the force of a giant’s gnarly fist. I could barely breathe. Looking up at him, I reached to stroke the dimple in his chin. “I think we’re out of time and excuses, Bion. I’ve promised you to someone else.” 50

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He frowned and glanced at his watch. “It’s only four thirty, Daphne. We have plenty of time.” And then he kissed me on the nose and walked out of the bathroom holding his soggy clothes. I stood there stunned. His watch must be broken or something. In a daze I pulled the robe around my still damp body and headed into the hallway. He was completely dressed and opening the door. He turned and blew me a kiss. “I’ll see you at eight.” I just stared at him as he walked out. That was when I realized he hadn’t even addressed the second part of my objection. His commitment to Dema Pence. That was very strange. And wasn’t it about time for him to tire of me and turn to someone else? Someone human? Dread filling my every step, I forced myself to walk into the kitchen to look at the clock there. I lifted my eyes slowly upward, not sure if I was more afraid that it would say four thirty or the six or six thirty it should have been. I gasped as my eyes found the bright, happy face of my flower-shaped clock above the sink. Four thirty. Holy shit! What the hell was going on? Surely the Fates wouldn’t have given me another two hours gratis? But what was the alternative explanation? That time stopped when I was with Bion? I laughed, only half amused at the thought. Because I was more than half afraid it was true. And what did I do with that if it was true? Making a sudden decision to call the Fates, I picked up my phone and punched the number three. When the receiver clicked I said their names, all three of them, because I wanted to make sure nothing was lost to miscommunication. Then I hung up and waited for my call back. It rang quickly and I snatched it up. “Hello, Daphne, this is Gladys.” I frowned. Gladys was the Fates’ assistant. That meant that they were unavailable. “I’m afraid the Fates are currently unavailable. A demi-god has been busted in a serious infraction and I’m afraid they’ve had to release the Furies to deal with him. They asked me if you could pencil them in for tomorrow night, let’s say around seven o’clock? That should give them time to recover from their anger hangover.” I sighed. “Okay, that will have to do. But Gladys, can you tell them it’s important?” “Will do, Daphne. Have a calm and peaceful evening and a blessed tomorrow.” 51

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“As long as the Fates may will it,” I responded automatically. “Right back atchya, Gladys.” “Thank you, dear.”

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Chapter Six House Guests

I squinted into the mirror and rubbed off a smudge of mascara from under my eye. Then I leaned back and examined the result. My lavender eyes still sparkled from the afternoon’s activities with Bion and my cheeks had a rosy glow. Sex, apparently, was good for the complexion. Who knew? I rolled my lips to distribute the soft brown lipstick more evenly on my full lips and pulled my hair around my face with my fingertips. It fell in glossy, black waves around my shoulders, looking better than it had in months. I smiled. Despite the mystery of time passage…or lack thereof…I was really looking forward to spending an evening with Bion. Besides, if things didn’t change I could spend several glorious hours with him and still get in bed at a reasonable hour so I could get up the next day for work without being exhausted. The best of both worlds. I was frowning at this thought, because it still bothered me that I didn’t know what was going on, when my doorbell rang. I glanced at the slender gold watch on my wrist. It was only seven thirty. Bion was a half hour early. I tugged my snug, figure-hugging red blouse down and straightened my little skirt at my waist and headed for the front door. When I opened it my eyes rounded and my mouth followed suit. My lips flapped as I struggled for words. Had they published my flippin’ address on a billboard somewhere? The woman standing on my front porch didn’t wait for me to find my voice. “Ms. Charissa, I called your office and they told me you were gone for the day. I demand to know why you haven’t returned my calls or e-mails. What the hell is going on with my match?” “Ms. Pence… I…” She stepped toward me, catching me off guard, and I jerked back. She moved past me and into the house before I could stop her. I closed my eyes and prayed for the strength to say and do the right things and then pulled the door closed and turned. “Can I get you something cold to drink, Ms. Pence?” The woman had been looking around, most likely cataloguing and judging my humble home and comparing it to her own palatial estates. She turned cool blue eyes on me and nodded. “I’ll take a beer please.”

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I’m sure my surprise showed on my face. The woman was full of surprises. I swept a hand toward my formal living room. “Would you care to have a seat?” She nodded. “Yes, I would but not in there. I’ll come with you to the kitchen.” My eyebrows shot upward, another surprise. “Follow me then.” I led her into the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator. My palms were sweaty, I was oh-so conscious of the fact that Bion was due to arrive at any moment and if she saw him there she’d know that we’d been doing unethical things behind her back. On the positive side…at least she’d know why I hadn’t made her match yet. I suppressed a sigh and grabbed two icy bottles of beer from the fridge. I levered the caps off on a drawer pull and turned around. She was seated at my fifties-style retro table looking around as I crossed the room and handed one of the bottles to her. “You have a beautiful home,” she said to me as I sat down across from her. I almost missed my chair. “Oh! Why…thank you, Ms. Pence. I like it.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. I gave myself a mental shake and told my brain to engage. “How did you find me?” She gave me a small, secret smile. “I have friends everywhere, Ms. Charissa. I can get whatever information I need. And I needed to find you.” She leaned across the table toward me, her long, elegant fingers scraping nervously at the label on the beer bottle. “I really need to make this match, Ms. Charissa. And I need you to make it happen for me.” Her eyes were pleading and her voice was filled with desperation. I cocked my head at her, suddenly intrigued by this new, more vulnerable Dema Pence. Before I could stop myself I was asking her the question I really wanted to ask instead of telling her what she wanted to hear. “Why?” She sat back, surprise lighting her cool blue gaze. “Excuse me?” I cocked my head at her. “Why do you need my help, Ms. Pence? You’re a beautiful woman. You have wealth, acclaim, resources. Why do you need me to match up with any man? I’m just curious.” She looked appalled by my question, as of course she should be. But I was honestly curious. I wasn’t trying to be smart. “I know that’s an odd question coming from someone in my position but I am purely curious.” She stared hard at my face for a few beats and then, seeming to accept my words at face value, she finally relaxed back into her chair, sipping the beer delicately. “I meet a lot of people, Ms. Charissa. Most of them are eager to spend time with me. None of them cares one little bit about me. My persona yes, my money, my fame. But not me.” The blue eyes, when they lifted to me this time, were filled with pain. Still I withheld my pity. I knew she was an accomplished actress. I was reluctant to allow myself to be played. There was too much at stake.

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Apparently seeing what she needed to see in my face, she went on. “I see you don’t believe me. Thank you for that.” I blinked in surprise and she smiled. “You aren’t pretending. I’m so sick of everyone pretending around me. Pretending to think I’m smart, pretending to think I’m interesting…just pretending. I cherish a person who will speak straight to me. Even if the truth isn’t to my liking.” I nodded, starting to feel myself being drawn into her net. “I can respect your need for honesty, Ms. Pence.” “Dema, please?” I nodded. “Only if you’ll call me Daphne.” She inclined her head in agreement and I was reminded of a queen assenting to favor her subject with some small kindness. She was regal, I’d give her that. “You haven’t answered my question, Dema.” She laughed softly. “No I haven’t, have I?” She sighed. “I just want someone I can call my own. Mr. Chronos is perfect for me.” I ruthlessly shoved the rush of emotions that flooded me down and sipped my beer, playing for time. I set it back on the table and stared at it as I asked, “What makes you think he’s perfect for you, Dema? I mean…I know the stats say that he is but the last several matches looked really good on paper too. Why are you so certain this one will be different?” She smiled at me. “Because he doesn’t need me.” Okay, now that was not the response I had expected. She laughed at the look on my face. “I know, it does sound contrary, doesn’t it? But it’s exactly true. He doesn’t need me to succeed in his job, he’s already done that. He doesn’t need me because I’m pretty or famous. He’s always dated women like me. He is a secure male with everything he needs in life already…except for someone to love. Someone who will love him back. I want to be that woman.” I couldn’t meet her intense, blue gaze. I wanted to scream at her that I could be that woman, that he didn’t need someone to love him because he already had me. As shocking as that thought was I knew suddenly that it was true. For all the good it would do me. He would shove me away soon enough. It was this thought that made me swallow hard and look her in the eye. “Dema. I’m going to try to set your appointment with Mr. Chronos for next Friday morning if that’s okay with you.” She smiled and it was like the sun coming out from behind clouds. “You mean it?” I tried to smile back but it was impossible to do with my heart breaking in half. “I do.” She thought about this for a moment and then asked, almost tentatively, “Not Thursday?”

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Sam Cheever

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, that’s Valentine’s Day. I have appointments set all day and a work engagement that night. Friday is the soonest I can squeeze you in.” She nodded and stood up. “Friday it is then. I’m sorry to barge in on you, Ms—I mean Daphne. I admit I’m a bit desperate. And pathetic.” She blushed becomingly and I finally felt sorry for her. I didn’t even care if she was acting. If she was that damn good she deserved to fool me. “Not at all. Just as long as we don’t make a practice of it.” I smiled to soften the reprimand and she held up a long, elegant hand. “Scout’s honor.” Walking her to the front door, I chuckled, “Were you a Girl Scout? Really?” She laughed, “Oh yes. I grew up in middle America, with a perfect family that was wonderfully supportive. I wasn’t fat, I didn’t have acne and boys never made fun of me. I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout and my mother was a troop leader. I got good grades and had lots of friends. I’m afraid my upbringing wouldn’t inspire the masses and it would probably seriously damage my reputation as a movie goddess.” She turned nostalgic eyes to me and smiled. “But it was wonderful nonetheless.” Uh-oh, I definitely had a problem now. I was starting to like her. After she left I glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly eight thirty. Bion was late. I went into the kitchen and rinsed out the beer bottles, throwing them into my recycle bin by the garage door. Then I hit the ladies room and checked my hair and makeup. Bion still hadn’t arrived when I returned to the foyer to peek out the door. An hour later I started to panic. What if he had run into Dema on her way out and they had left together? What if whatever it was that made humans grow weary of us had kicked in and he’d walked away for good? What if something bad had happened to him? I thought of the Fates but remembered they were unavailable. Finally I got undressed and climbed into bed, fighting tears as I realized he was lost to me. It was over. A horrendous racket jerked me upright in bed just as I was starting to doze off some time later. It sounded like someone was clanking several pieces of metal together and it was coming from the street. I climbed out of bed, curious, and hurried to the front of the house, where a large picture window afforded me an excellent view of the street. A small car jerked and banged its way to the curb and then stopped with a horrible bang and thump. It looked to me like smoke poured from under the hood. I realized with a start that it was Bion’s car, though it was so mangled it was barely recognizable. I’m not sure how he managed to get it to run.

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Then he climbed out, looking like a refugee from the civil wars, and I forgot all about the car. I gave a little yelp of alarm and ran to the door. I was halfway to the street before I realized I was wearing only a semi-transparent nightie that barely reached my knees. The wind whipped it up over my naked butt as I ran toward the man leaning against the battered hunk of metal that once had been a truly fine car. “Oh my god!” I exclaimed. “Bion. Oh my god! What’s happened to you?” He was filthy and his clothes looked like somebody had run them through a campfire and then shredded them with scissors. His hair stood up on one side and was matted down with dirt and, I strongly suspected, blood on the other. His strong nose had a deep gash across the top and both eyes looked like they’d been blackened. His cheek sported a huge, purple knot and his forehead a gash. Blood had apparently run copiously from the forehead gash and dried all over his face. He held one arm across his middle as if it was broken and he limped as he moved toward me. I ran to him and wrapped myself around his battered body. Though he yelped when I hit him he wrapped his one good arm tightly around my waist and nestled his face in my neck. “Daphne. You smell so good.” I realized I was gripping him with hysterical strength and forced myself to release him, taking a step back so I could look him in the eyes. “Did you wreck your car?” He grinned. “Something like that.” “We need to get you to the hospital.” He shook his head, turning me with an arm around the shoulder so we were headed toward the house. “I heal fast. All I want to do is get cleaned up and then snuggle next to you all night. Can I do that?” I wrapped an arm around his waist and steadied him as he walked. He seemed barely able to stand. “You really should go see a doctor.” “I’m fine.” “You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve gone five rounds with a Bengal tiger.” He laughed. “That’s pretty close.” He wasn’t making any sense but I figured he was probably delirious from concussion or something. I vowed to renew my attempts to get him to the emergency room as soon as I got him cleaned up and feeling a little more comfortable. Somehow I got him into the bathroom and sat him down on the toilet. I unbuttoned his tattered shirt and pulled it off his chest. Tears sprang into my eyes when I saw his beautiful chest. It was splotchy and purple with huge bruises. Just below the rib cage on one side a deep puncture wound still bled and I thought I could see something embedded there. I examined it closely and then pronounced that I would need to get in there with my tweezers.

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He didn’t even flinch. “Do what you need to do, Daphne. I’m having erotic thoughts about Angels of Mercy and other nurse-type sex goddesses.” I rolled my eyes at him and went to my medicine cabinet, where I pulled out rubbing alcohol and my splinter tweezers with the sharp points. I grabbed a clean hand towel from the linen closet and carried it, with the alcohol and the tweezers, over to where he sat looking pitiful and damaged. I handed him the towel to hold and twisted the alcohol open, holding it over the sink and pouring it over the tweezers to sterilize them. Then I dropped the tweezers into a clean, plastic throwaway cup and poured more alcohol into the cup to keep them sterile while I cleaned the wound. I took the towel from him and held it under the wound. “This is gonna hurt like hell, do you want something to bite on?” He smiled up at me. “What I want to nibble on would be damaged if I wasn’t careful. I’d rather wait until I don’t have half my car sticking out of my side before I start nibbling.” I shook my head. The male animal was not to be believed. I held the towel tightly against his side just under the wound and poured alcohol over and, as well as I could, into the wound to clean it. I felt him stiffen under my hands but he didn’t move or make a sound. Then I set the bottle of alcohol down on the counter and grabbed the tweezers. It took a few minutes of careful probing but I finally pulled a one-inch-long sliver of metal the color of his car out of the wound. I finished up with another dousing of alcohol and then used the damp towel to clean the area and remove the fresh blood my probing had caused. I finished up by covering it with a clean gauze patch and taping it in place. My examination of the rest of his torso turned up only fairly minor cuts and scratches and a lot of dirt. “You look like you’ve been rolling around in the mud.” He nodded. “Just about.” Since he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate I moved away to fill the tub. I caught him checking out my cleavage as I bent over the claw-footed tub to adjust the water temperature. I stood up and glared at him. “You’re kidding me, right?’ He shrugged. “A guy can dream can’t he?” I snorted in a less than ladylike way. “Do you think you can get out of those jeans by yourself?” He grinned. “My prayers are answered!” “Idiot. Come on…” I helped him stand by grabbing him under one arm. Unfortunately I grabbed the arm he’d been favoring and he gave a little yelp of pain. “Oh sorry, sorry, sorry. What did I break?” He shook his head. “It’s okay, I think I might have sprained something.”

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Looking at the way the arm was all swollen and purple midway between his wrist and his elbow, I strongly suspected it was more than a sprain. Much more. “You need to have that break looked at and reset. I’m not taking no for an answer, Bion.” He just shook his head and started trying to unzip his jeans with one hand. “Here, let me do that.” Somehow we got him out of his jeans and into the hot water. I’d made sure to keep the water level below the bandage on his ribs but he still groaned in pleasure as he settled into it. “I feel myself healing already.” I grimaced where he couldn’t see me. “Uh-huh. I’m gonna try to get the dirt off you, okay?” He closed his eyes and murmured, “Thanks, Daphne. I’ll just rest for a bit.” He was asleep by the time I had his body clean. The water was a filthy brown color that was part mud and part, I suspected, blood. I drained the tub and filled it again with hot water. I had to wake him to wash his hair and then I helped him out of the tub and got him dried off. He leaned heavily against me on the way into my bedroom and I thought again that he should have had medical care. What if he had a concussion? Or internal bleeding? As if he’d read my mind he said, “Really, I’m fine. I just need to rest for a while.” He was asleep before I had the covers pulled up to his chin. I stood looking down at him for a while, shivering. I glanced down and realized my little nightie was soaked and stained with dirt and blood. I pulled it off over my head and dumped it on the floor behind me. Then I climbed in behind him, wrapping my arms and legs around his body to take some of his warmth. I was chilled to the bone from fear and damp. After what felt like a really long time I fell asleep still wrapped around him. My shivering had slowly subsided but the worrying thoughts hadn’t. As my eyes lost their battle to stay open, my last horrified thought was that I could still lose him. He could push me away and go on to Dema Pence. Or worse…he could die in my bed while I slept.

***** I awoke to the feel of hot sun across my face and an even hotter finger blazing a gentle trail down my body. It started at my throat, skimmed gently between my breasts, skated like a feather across my belly and slid…oh my! My eyes flew open and found Bion. He was grinning at me. “Good morning.” I grinned back. “You’re still alive.” He took a bow without lifting the lovely finger from where it had started to…oh my god!

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I started to squirm under the wonderful onslaught of that adventurous finger and my tongue came out to lick suddenly dry lips. “You appear to be feeling much better.” “I told you all I needed was some rest.” “Yes,” I said as I tried to sit up, and he pushed me gently back down, “you told me but I didn’t believe you. I was sure you had a concussion or something.” I peered at him through narrowed eyes. “And a broken arm…” He shook his head and lifted the arm in question. “Just bruises. Nothing broken.” I noticed that the gash on his forehead looked better. A lot better in fact. He hadn’t been kidding. He did heal fast! The finger continued its journey over the tiny bud of pleasure where it had paused so wonderfully and slid into wetness and heat. It stopped there and slowly…oh so slowly…went spelunking into a wonderful, tight place that quivered from the tender invasion. I gasped and arched my back to help the finger on its journey. Bion shifted on the bed and something long, hot and hard suddenly rested on my knee. I smiled and reached for it. “I like your friend,” I told him as I rolled to my side and slid my hand over the thick mushroom tip. He grinned. “He likes you too. A lot!” “He does?” He closed his eyes, making the finger do the hula hoop in its moist cave. I sighed my pleasure and increased the tempo on Bion’s cock. “How do you know he likes me?” I reached down to cup the soft sac underneath and he groaned. “He stands up whenever you’re around. He doesn’t do that for everybody you know.” I gave him a mischievous look. “He could just be very polite.” I reached a finger toward the spot just behind his testicles that I knew to be an erogenous zone and massaged it gently. Bion growled, “Trust me, he’s not that polite.” He flung a leg over my hips and before I knew it, I was on my back looking up at a very randy and very sexy man. “He definitely likes you though.” And then he slid into me and I felt pleasure, sharp and tangy, sizzling through me. His lips lowered to mine and I parted to let him in. His tongue danced against mine and found the same rhythm as our hips, plunging and nesting and then pulling out to test and tease, only to plunge again. Wrapping my legs around his butt, I quickly settled into the rhythm, pulsing against him as his body met mine and held, and twisting to increase the friction as he pulled away so he could plunge again. Heat suffused my face as my climax built, my skin tingling with the rush of blood that flooded the spot where our bodies joined. He fed on my building passion and met it thrust for thrust. The rhythm increased until the tempo we’d built overrode any

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restraint he’d wanted to embrace and he cried out as his hips pistoned over me, creating a friction within my body that was impossible to resist. I loosened my heels on his butt and threw my head back on a howl of sensual bliss. His lips found my throat and feasted there while his body kept up its impossible rhythm, driving me ever closer to a complete loss of control. The edge of that wave crept ever nearer until, at last, it broke over me and I tensed against him, my arms dragging his head down so I could plunder his soft mouth. I was nearly frantic with the release of sexual tension and my lips consumed his hungrily. He groaned against my lips and then went suddenly, incredibly still. As his orgasm rolled over him, he surged hard, once, twice, three times into my sated body and growled his release. Bion sagged over me, taking care to keep his weight off my chest, and rested his head next to mine on the sheet. His ragged breath tickled my ear and tossed tendrils of my tangled hair over my cheek. I panted beside him, too sated to move. Finally I laughed at the picture we both made lying there limp and huffing and he rolled to his side, laughing with me. He reached to push the tangled strands off my cheek. “You’re gonna kill me, Daphne.” I shook my head and rolled to my side so I could stare at him. “You’re killing me.” Then, without warning, tears flowed into my eyes and slid down into the rumpled sheets beneath me. He didn’t ask why I cried. Which I found strange. He simply reached up to capture a tear on one finger and then did the strangest and most wonderful thing imaginable. He took the finger to his chest, right over his heart and made an x with it there. “Yours,” he said. “Forever.” I sobbed, throwing myself into his arms. I knew it was an impossible dream. I also knew he was blissfully ignorant of the fact. And I was pretty sure I would die from heartache when he finally walked away from me. But for now I buried my face in his warm, fragrant neck and let my pain slide away from me in my tears. I had only now. And it would have to be enough. Bion just held me softly as I cried, secure in the knowledge that we’d have lots of tomorrows. Lots of chances to share love. Lots of days to work through our feelings. I knew there was too little time. Too little opportunity. Too much working against us. And way too much love built up inside for me to survive its loss.

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Chapter Seven Fates or Furies?

I watched the newly matched pair leave my office, closing the door quietly behind them, and looked at my appointment book. The afternoon stretched before me long and full. I had seven arrow ceremonies and three new prospects to interview and schedule pre-screenings with. Fatigue, barely held at bay all morning, took the opportunity to slide through me. I glanced at the clock on my desk. It was nearly noon. A cup of coffee might help me get through the next couple of hours. I briefly thought about lunch but realized I wasn’t hungry. There wasn’t really time anyway, my next ceremony was due to arrive in twenty minutes. I crossed my office and poured myself a hot cup of coffee from the fresh pot I’d made for the clients who’d just left. I had just about enough time to run to the ladies and tidy myself up. I’d felt like a frazzled mess all morning. Knowing that I had an appointment with the Fates that evening didn’t help. I had a guilty conscience where they were concerned. About Bion. As if on cue, a sensation passed through me and I straightened. My blood rushed a little faster through my veins and I could almost hear Bion’s soft footsteps as he approached my closed office door. I closed my eyes and the feeling increased. I swore I could smell him. The door slid open so quietly I almost didn’t hear it. I kept my eyes closed and smiled, knowing it was him. But they flew open as the lock on the door clicked. He stood just inside my office door, a single coral rose in his hand. He smiled at me and my knees nearly buckled. I set the hot coffee down before I spilled it all over myself. He walked toward me and pulled me close with one arm, handing me the rose. I took it with a slight frown, casting around in my memory banks for the meaning of a coral rose. “Desire,” he told me. Uh-oh. On so many fronts. “How did you…” He leaned forward and captured my lips with his. All thoughts fled under the onslaught of that kiss. My mind emptied of everything except the feeling of his lips on

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mine and his hard, insistent body pressed against me. My body melted into his, instantly adjusting itself to match his heat, his breath, his every touch. His hands slid down to cup my buttocks, pulling me more tightly against the hard length of him beneath his tight jeans. He rubbed against me and it felt as if the clothing between us was made of the finest silk, a flimsy barrier against the raging lust his nearness invoked. I barely felt its existence under the force of his touch. I sighed against his lips. Bion pulled away and smiled. “I’m here to take you to lunch.” My eyes drifted lazily open. “Huh?” His sensual smile turned into a grin. “Lunch? You know, food?” He laughed as I continued to stare stupidly at him, my mind all but melted by his kiss. He made eating motions and I suddenly realized I was famished. “I’m starving,” I announced. “Me too,” he said with a grin, “but we’ll eat first. I know this great Greek restaurant.” He grabbed my hand and started towing me toward the door. Realization hit me between the eyes as he pulled my office door open. I pulled back. “Wait! I can’t go to lunch, my schedule is full today. I don’t have time.” Bion gave me a slow grin and tugged me under his arm. “You have plenty of time, Daphne. Besides,” his lips brushed mine, filled with unspoken promises, “you need to eat.”

***** An undetermined amount of time later—since the hands on my watch hadn’t moved from the moment we’d left my office I didn’t know how long it had been—I sat back as the waitress placed a heaping plate in front of me. I closed my eyes and inhaled the incredible aroma of chicken roasted with fat cloves of garlic, accompanied by lemon saffron rice. I took a bite and moaned. “Oh gods this is good.” Bion grinned. “It is, isn’t it?” His intense gaze stayed fixed on my face as I chewed and swallowed. As far as I could tell he hadn’t touched his food. I wiped my mouth with the linen napkin from my lap and looked at him properly for the first time since he’d swept me out of my office. “Hey! Your face is completely healed!” He shook his head, looking down at his plate for the first time since the waitress had placed it in front of him. “I just have it covered up.” I grinned. “With makeup?”

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He chuckled, keeping his dark, handsome face turned down, away from my probing gaze. I didn’t care what he said, his injuries were completely gone. There was no way to hide the wounds he’d had the night before with a little makeup. I suddenly got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. Things just didn’t add up with Bion. I had been ignoring the little clues and oddities because I’d been so wrapped up in him and didn’t want to think too much about it for obvious reasons. But at that moment I realized I couldn’t ignore the little details any longer. I would have to confront him about some…things…that night. Having made that decision, I realized I’d lost my appetite. I ate a couple more bites just so Bion wouldn’t pester me about the wonderful food I was leaving on my plate but it tasted like rubber and went down just about as easily. I gave up trying to eat after a few minutes and sipped my water, looking around the restaurant. “Do you have your gown yet?” I turned to him with a jerk. “My gown? For what?” He signaled to the waiter for the check. “For the ball.” When I still looked perplexed he added, “The Valentine’s Ball.” “Oh. Oh no, I just thought I’d wear something I have in my closet.” He shook his dark head. “Not for this event you aren’t. You need a special dress.” He signed the credit slip and stood up. “Come on, you and I have some shopping to do.”

***** I tugged the bustier-type top of the elegant red gown up a little farther to hide at least a couple of inches of my boobs and frowned at my image in the mirror. The beautiful gown fell to my feet in a narrow column that hugged my breasts, waist and hips smoothly and frothed out slightly at the bottom, making me look like a movie star from the early days of Hollywood. The color went well with the midnight black of my hair and I thought, with a stunning pair of diamond drops in my ears and a matching necklace, I would look incredible. But somehow I knew the gown wasn’t quite right. Bion’s initial reaction when he saw the gown confirmed my suspicion. He sat on a circular cushioned bench-type thing in the center of a room that was lined with mirrors, one long, muscular leg crossed over the other ankle to knee, man style. There had been two other couples in the room when we’d arrived but now I saw that we were alone. I was glad everyone else had left. He stood when I came in and frowned, shaking his head almost immediately. “You look gorgeous, edible in fact. But that’s not the right dress.” I turned to the nearest wall of mirrors. “Are you sure? It’s beautiful.” “Yes, on both counts.” I watched him stalk silently up behind me. Watched in the mirror as his strong, golden brown hands slid around my waist and spread out across 64

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my hips, one over each hipbone. He pressed my body close to his with a gentle pressure from his splayed fingers. I gasped as his hard erection nestled between my buttocks. “As you can feel, I like it very much. But it won’t work.” I nodded. “Unfortunately I think you’re right. But I do love it.” The next dress was black satin, with very thin cream satin straps set very widely on an empire waist bodice. The skirt was split on one side and a frothy underskirt of cream-colored gauze spilled out from the split. Black and cream roses of satin created a small distraction where the split began, just below my right hip, and decorated the length of one long side to the ground. I could envision a yellow diamond tiara and a choker with a single, large yellow diamond teardrop dangling from the center, making me look every inch a Goddess from Mount Olympus. However, as I left the dressing room I knew what Bion’s reaction would be. The third dress was made of a pure white silk so fine and shimmery that I still felt naked when I slipped it over my head. It fell from my shoulders like air, molding itself to my body like a soft breath. I thought it would be too sheer but saw when it slipped into place that it was perfectly opaque. The dress had long, snug sleeves that flared out over my hands, brushing my knuckles and draping softly away from my wrists. The neckline was straight and high, sliding from one shoulder to the other and exposing only a thin line of skin below my neck. Turning to look at the back, I saw that it plunged to a spot just above where my buttocks curved away from my back. Crossing the plunge, at shoulder height, a single strand of pearls drooped from one side to the other, providing just the right touch of class to an otherwise daring backline. The bodice shimmered tightly across my breasts, displaying their larger than usual size flawlessly and completely without appearing gauche or slutty. The fabric tucked neatly under my breasts to skim across my narrow waist and over my slim hips, then flowed smoothly down the length of my legs to pool gently around my feet. I thought it might be hard to walk in but testing it out, discovered that the fabric flowed away from my feet like magic as I walked, creating a shimmery swing around my legs that made me feel as if anything was possible. I tucked my feet into a soft pair of satin slippers in a cream color that matched the pearl strand in the back and floated out of the dressing room toward Bion. I didn’t need his knee-melting smile to tell me the dress was perfect. I knew on the most basic level that it was my dress. Made especially for me. For just this special occasion. Somehow. Bion unfolded his long, lean body from the padded bench and strode toward me. He grabbed my hands and spun me around. When he saw the single, short string of creamy pearls his breath escaped him in a sigh.

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“It is just as I envisioned it,” he murmured, so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. I turned around, “What?” He shook his dark head and gave my hands a gentle but firm tug. I suddenly found myself draped against him, his lips mere inches from mine. “Nothing. You are stunning.” I smiled. “You think?” He shook his head again and lowered his lips to mine. The kiss was gentle, tender beyond thought and…amazingly…possessive. As his lips gently consumed mine, his hands touched the fabric of the gown at my waist and where it stretched invitingly over my buttocks with a reverence that made me want to smile. I started to get the feeling that the dress meant almost as much to Bion as it did to me. Such a strange and intriguing man. Bion’s kiss deepened and my body responded. I wrapped my arms around his neck and dragged him closer. Tilting my head, I felt my body slip more tightly against his and marveled at the way we fit, perfectly, as if we had been made for each other…fated… I gave myself a mental shake to dispel all such thoughts. We weren’t fated, we couldn’t be. Cupids and humans didn’t mix. Ever. Bion’s lips left mine and found my neck, spreading a trail of fire and ice down the extremely tender flesh there, moving toward the thin line of skin the dress exposed at my neckline. I shivered in anticipation. My thoughts fluttered and faded and then returned with a start. What we were doing would end all too quickly. Although it felt perfect and right it was not perfect and, for me, for him, it was wrong. It was so… I inhaled on a sharp gasp. His tongue blazed a trail across my collarbones, just above the simple, elegant neckline of the dress. Heat, warm and supple, pooled between my legs and caused my nipples to stand at attention under the thin fabric. Bion lifted his head and grinned at me. Then he bent down and before I knew it, I was wearing only the soft slippers. The dress was a soft drape of fabric over the padded bench. He picked me up and carried me to the bench. I watched the two of us, duplicated a dozen times in a dozen different mirrors, approach that bench and thought I would come before he even touched me. My face was soft with lust, my eyes sparking with it. And Bion’s excitement was clearly visible in the protruding geography of his tight jeans. He settled me onto the bench and dropped to his knees. 66

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Like a shameless wanton I flung my legs wide as soon he touched my knees and he buried his face in my throbbing mons. His hot, wet mouth closed over me and I nearly screamed with ecstasy. His tongue swept out and pierced my soft folds, probing, tasting. I started to vibrate with pleasure. The very talented tongue flicked at my clitoris and slid through the moist heat of my outer lips, down almost to my anus and then back again, until I thought I’d die from the exquisite pleasure of it. Then the tongue plunged deep and my back stiffened, my head dropped back onto the soft padding of the high-backed bench and my legs quivered. I rode his tongue on the razor edge of my climax, willing myself to go over, but it wasn’t to be. My body waited. Bion suddenly withdrew his magnificent tongue and moved slightly north, toward the tiny peak where, at that moment, my entire existence was centered. His hot mouth closed over that tiny summit and my heart stilled. My body quieted into taut expectation and my lust teetered on that slim brink. He gave a gentle suck. And then another. And then a third, slightly stronger pull on the shameless bud and the wave hung over me, building, growing, waiting to crash against me. I was nearly there. I could feel it starting to crest. But then Bion altered his attack on my little peak and the wave faltered, waited, quivered on the edge. He began a slow and gentle torture in the form of small, feasting sucks, in a soft but insistent rhythm that had my toes curling beneath me. The wave wobbled, rumbled and then finally broke, bringing me screaming into a full-on climax that made my entire body contract in delirious pleasure. I screamed his name into that empty room and clutched his soft, dark hair to hold that glorious mouth in place. I no sooner found the bottom of the wave then Bion was pulling another one from me with those hot, talented lips and I was off again, my body thrashing helplessly on that soft bench. He pulled another several orgasms from my exhausted body before he lifted that gorgeous face from between my drenched thighs and stood up. I looked up at him with lust-glazed eyes and tried to rearrange my splayed legs and arms to regain some small portion of my dignity. He grinned at me as he quickly divested himself of the soft shirt and tight jeans he’d been wearing. Then, before I could even finish licking my lips in wondrous appreciation of his gods-given gifts, he was lifting me gently off that bench and spreading me out on the lush carpet beside the bench. Bion lowered himself over me, capturing my lips with his own before his body even touched mine. And then the full, smooth heat of his body lowered onto me and I felt his erection bouncing impatiently against my knee. His kisses stole my breath as his body

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stole my will. He centered himself over me and plunged, deep and hard. I gasped, my eyes shooting open in pleasure and surprise. He filled me entirely and perfectly as his hips picked up the rhythm of the wave, building with me to that superb crest. He devoured my lips, growling into them as the wave built inside him too, the combined weight of our passion threatening to crush us both with its intensity. My world narrowed down to that moment, my breath was his breath, my heart beat in tune to his, my body belonged only to him. We were filled with superb heat as the pleasure between us built and throbbed. I reveled in the feel of him against me. I lifted my legs and wrapped them tightly around his waist, drawing him in as deeply as I could and holding him there. His hips swung in a near savage rhythm as we built that wave above us, the power of a thousand unspoken promises, strengthening it, emboldening it. And then, just as my body found its way over the edge again, Bion cried out, a sound filled with exquisite pleasure, and threw himself under that wave with me, quivering and pulsing against its awesome power. He hung over me, our bodies still tightly joined, and shared my panting breaths for several long moments. He seemed reluctant to leave me. Finally, his body started softening into a gentle aftermath and he slid to my side, pulling me against his body in a near desperate way. I felt him tremble and wondered at the cause. But then his lips were on mine again and all thoughts fled. Whatever his worries, whatever was coming, we had these stolen moments in time, unstructured, unplanned and unclaimed by chronological existence. Ours alone. To do with as we pleased. And so we stepped into the wave again.

***** The Fates knocked on my door at just a few minutes past seven that night. I was shocked enough that they came to the door instead of just popping into my living room. The looks on their faces nearly made me close the door again. They wore beautiful, angry faces. I realized immediately they were a heartbeat away from succumbing to their fury state. I panicked and almost shut the door in their faces. Only the certainty that nothing would be left standing for blocks around me if I did kept me from doing just that. They were all dressed in long pastel dresses with plunging necklines. They wore diamonds in their ears and around their slender, white necks. On their tiny feet dainty shoes sparkled prettily. They looked as if they’d just come from a party. But their faces didn’t look festive at all. “Your Graces?”

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They heard the question in my voice and smiled. “Yes, Daphne. We are angered but not enough to call the Furies.” Lachesis’ perfect, heart-shaped face softened. “You know you’re one of our favorites but you are pushing us too far on this.” She tucked an errant strand of soft, auburn hair back up into her elegant chignon. I swallowed and ushered them in. “I made a cake,” I offered hopefully. Clotho’s pretty face bloomed. “Chocolate?” I nodded. She clapped small, white hands together, her long, blonde curls bobbing around a narrow face with huge eyes and pouty lips. “Chocolate cake, sisters.” Atropos tossed her thick wave of black hair off one elegantly clad shoulder and rolled startling golden eyes. The hair was held back on one side with a diamond clasp and flowed to her shoulders in soft curls. “The world could be ending and the promise of sweets would completely wipe her mind of all but sweet indulgence,” Atropos declared, giving Clotho a look filled with disgust. If only. I thought. They followed me into the kitchen. As I gathered plates and forks and dished up fat slices of moist chocolate cake my mind raced. How could I explain to them that what I was doing with Bion would harm only me? What words could I use to make them understand that, though it would probably tear my heart irreparably, I needed to take this one chance at love and run with it…if only for a few days. Or even hours. They wouldn’t understand. They weren’t susceptible to love as we knew it. They knew only fondness. And even that they doled out sparingly, because it was their unenviable job to judge the length and content of everyone’s existence. And—at some point—that also meant ending that existence. A difficult job when the heart is involved. Unfortunately, though we’d been fated never to know love ourselves, Cupids had been cursed with the ability to recognize and experience it. It was deemed necessary for us to feel what we were tasked with promoting in others. I suddenly wondered whose job was worse, the Fates’, who never felt love, or we Cupids’, who experienced it but could never have it. Sighing inwardly, I handed each of the three Graces a plate heavily laden with cake. I knew the gift would be enough to distract Clotho but I realized it wouldn’t work for her sisters. I had a pretty good idea what would distract them though. “Wine?” Atropos’ golden eyes lit up, “Sweet, pink wine?” I nodded, relaxing slightly. If they were drinking wine they wouldn’t turn the Furies loose. They’d be much too relaxed. I hoped. I poured them each a glass and watched as Atropos and Lachesis sucked theirs down in a less than ladylike way. I refilled the glasses. 69

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Clotho barely touched hers. She had chocolate frosting on both her cheeks. It looked like she’d picked up the wedge of cake and stuffed it into her mouth sideways. Still trying to distract them, I decided it was a good time to satisfy my natural curiosity. “So who’s the poor sod who had to deal with the Furies yesterday?” Atropos frowned. “A young demi-god. He forgets himself and dabbles in human intrigue.” Clotho nodded, her mouth full of cake. “He knows he’s not to use his powers to change the human sphere but he insists on doing it.” “For his own selfish reasons,” Atropos added, nodding. “What did you do to him?’ Clotho grinned at her sisters, showing brown teeth. It was such a strange thing in that pretty face. “We sent him back to his father in a funnel of air.” They chuckled and Clotho clapped her hands together in delight. My eyes widened. “His father the god?” Atropos nodded, licking the last of her wine from the glass. I refilled it. “What will his father do to him?” Clotho shrugged. “He’ll be made to stay on Mount Olympus for a human decade or so, to punish him for his folly.” I nodded, suddenly glad that I hadn’t brought the Furies into my home. I didn’t know if I could take a decade on the Mount. The gods were so arrogant and autocratic. And I’d have little to do there to interest me. Lachesis’ husky voice made me jump. “You requested an audience with us, Daphne. What is it you need?” I blinked at her. I’d been so worried about their reaction to my trysts with Bion that I’d completely forgotten I’d called them. “Oh. Well.” How did I go about explaining this without discussing the fact that I was spending way too much time with Bion? Not that they didn’t already know that. But I was reluctant to shine those very bright lights on it anyway. Sighing, I took a sideways tack toward the subject. “Have you ladies by any chance seen fit to weave a few extra hours into my thread lately?” Clotho, who had been in the midst of sucking her frosting-coated fingers, stopped sucking and threw Atropos a look. Atropos looked at Lachesis, who was the most serious of the three and generally served as their spokesperson in difficult matters. Lachesis looked at me. “Why do you ask?” Bleurgh! I so did not want to answer that question. “Um. Well. It’s just that…I noticed the clock wasn’t moving as quickly as it should at times.” Lachesis’ wide green eyes were piercing, unyielding. “What times?” 70

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Damn! I shrugged and started refilling their glasses, willing them to drink. I turned to Clotho. “More cake?” She nodded eagerly and resumed her finger sucking, watching Lachesis carefully. Knowing she had until the end of time to wait, whereas I had only a few hundred years, Lachesis knew she could easily out-wait me. Finally I blew out a resigned breath. “Okay, when Bion and I are together time stops.” I held my breath, expecting the worst. Lachesis kept her scary green eyes on me for a couple of beats, just long enough to make my palms sweat and then nodded once. “We had nothing to do with that.” My eyes widened. “But that’s impossible. Who did then?” Clotho, apparently feeling that the scary moment had passed, resumed stuffing her cake wedge into her mouth. Lachesis toyed with her wineglass. “When you test the Fates strange things happen.” Atropos threw her sisters a look and they giggled. I scowled at them. “But you just said you didn’t have anything to do with it.” Lachesis smiled. “We didn’t.” “But…” I expelled a frustrated breath. “You aren’t making any sense.” Clotho stood up and looked at her fingers. The chocolate smears that remained on them disappeared. “You have willingly pursued a relationship with this human. You know how it must end. Yet you continue on.” She stopped licking at the chocolate around her mouth long enough to slant her eyes at me intently. “Why, Daphne? Why do you set yourself upon this path when you know it will be your undoing?” I dropped my butt onto a stool at the counter. “I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t even understand it. If I didn’t know better I would think Bion and I were fated to be together.” The Graces shared a look between them that made me frown. “Are you sure we’re not fated?” Lachesis picked up her wineglass. “Did not Clotho tell you she saw no human on your thread?” I sighed and nodded. “Then I can’t explain it to you. Ever since the first time I saw him I’ve been drawn to him. No, it’s more than that, I’m not just drawn to him, I’m obsessed with him.” They shared another look. “I know he’s there before it’s possible for me to know. I sense him through walls, through doors, even through buildings. For the first time in my career I can’t make myself give a client to his match. I just can’t give him to her.” Tears slid down my cheeks. “The gods help me I can’t do it.” Atropos reached over and plucked a tear off my cheek with one finger. “It was a cruel twist to give you Cupids such large hearts, my child. But it is the cross you must

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bear. It is your battle to fight. In all things there is a right path and a wrong one. You must choose correctly in this. We have seen your future in your thread. It is not an easy one. But you will lead the way for all Cupids to come with your phenomenal strength. It has been recorded thus.” I looked up at her, viewing her from behind the moist curtain of my tears. “I don’t want to do what’s right. What’s right for the Fates is wrong for me.” Lachesis handed me her wineglass. “That is the dilemma, isn’t it, Daphne? You must find the path that makes it right for all. If you do not…all is lost for you.” Clotho handed me a tissue. I set the wineglass on the counter and wiped my eyes and nose. When I turned around they were gone. I sat for a moment at the counter thinking about what they’d told me, not liking it at all but, despite myself, feeling a bit intrigued. Then I cast aside my thoughts and pushed myself wearily to my feet. As I tidied up the dishes I realized that one of the wineglasses was missing. Sighing, I decided I’d need to buy more glasses the next time I had a chance. Between breakage and kleptomaniac tendencies, the Fates went through more dishes than a one-armed dish washer at a wine taster’s convention.

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Chapter Eight

Achieving Equine-imity The next morning, I lay in bed reliving the incredible moments with Bion in the elegant dress shop the day before. My mind studiously ignored niggling reminders of my visit with the Fates. There would be plenty of time for misery and regrets later, after Bion moved on with his life. Leaving me crushed and alone. I was not going to let the misery set in a moment sooner than it had to. After a while I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. As I stood under the blissfully hot water and went over my schedule for the day I kept getting distracted by thoughts of Bion. I finished up in the shower and stepped out, grabbing up a large, soft towel to dry off with. I heard my cell phone ringing in my bedroom, where I’d left it beside my bed. I hurried into the room and grabbed it up. “Good morning, sexy.” Warmth pooled immediately between my thighs at the sound of his husky voice. “Hey there.” “I think a little sundress and flats would be best. I won’t complain if you forget to wear those little lacy things underneath the dress.” My smile widened. “What exactly did you have in mind?” “And wear sunscreen, we wouldn’t want that beautiful skin to burn to a crisp, would we?” “But…” “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, wondering what the hell had just happened. I looked at the clock. I needed to be at my first appointment in an hour. And after that I had an incredibly full day ahead of me. But, with Bion, I had all the time in the world before I had to face that schedule. I decided to trust that the time thing would work itself out as it had been doing and decided to just go with it. Grinning like an idiot, I headed for my closet.

***** It was really big and really brown and smelled kind of interesting. The thing and I peered at each other doubtfully, each of us probably thinking the same thought. “What the hell am I gonna do with this?”

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Bion finished his brief discussion with the creature’s owner and shook the man’s hand. He headed toward me with a smile that set my blood to boil. Then the creature, standing a few feet away from me, snorted mightily. I jumped away with a shriek as warm snot sprayed my arm. The thing stamped one very large foot on the dusty ground in annoyance. I grimaced and twisted my arm to wipe it on my dress, grimacing at the green spot it left on the flouncy, light-as-air skirt. “You ready?” I gave him my best “You’ve got to be kidding me” look. “For what?” He chuckled and dragged me into his body with one arm, kissing me soundly. “For the adventure of your life.” I couldn’t help smiling. “That sounds promising.” I flicked a hand over my shoulder toward the snorting, stamping creature behind me. “As long as it doesn’t include that.” He threw back his head and laughed. Watching the way it flexed under the movement, I just barely resisted the urge to nibble the sexy, golden brown column of his neck. Something warm and soft touched my arm and I turned to find a huge brown nose nudging me. The large nostrils snuffled gently and, incredibly, a long pink tongue swept out to taste my skin. I gave a little shriek but Bion just pulled me more tightly against his body and reached to stroke the invasive nose. “He likes you. That’s good.” My eyes widened. “Bion, look, I don’t know what you’re thinking but I can assure you, whatever it is, I’m not into it.” He arched a dark eyebrow at me as he continued to stroke the creature’s nose. “You are Greek, right?” I frowned at him, instantly feeling my ire rise. I was oh so sick of all the clichéd, misconceptions of the Greek race. One of which was the whole abnormal relationship with animals thing. My hands flew to my hips with my indignant outrage. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He shrugged, favoring me with a slow, knee-melting smile. “I just thought you would understand the beauty and elegance of the horse. It’s all over your histories and myths.” I flushed, realizing that what I’d been thinking was pretty sick and understanding that he realized it too. When he laughed, I looked down at my pretty pumps, which were now covered with a fine, brown dust. “You have a very dirty mind, Daphne Charissa…” I flushed an even darker red. “And I like it.” He swept me up into his arms and, before I even realized what he was doing, plopped me gently onto the saddle. 74

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“Hey!” Then he stuck his left foot into the stirrup and slid into the saddle behind me. “Turn toward the front and put one leg on either side of the horse.” I shook my head. I was clutching the front of the saddle with my right hand and something that was covered in denim with my left. “Daphne, if you don’t let go of my crotch we aren’t going to have any fun later.” I squeaked and pulled my hand out of his lap. But unfortunately the sudden action unbalanced me and I started to topple forward. Bion reached for me just as my butt started to slide downward, toward the hard ground below, and somehow managed to heft me back up onto the saddle. My dress rode up to my waist, leaving me clutching frantically for the gauzy material and looking around to make sure the owner of the beast wasn’t around. Bion reached around me and grabbed an indecently exposed thigh in each of his big, hard hands, pulling them gently but firmly apart. I clutched his forearms and tried to resist the gentle pressure, experiencing a thrill as cool air wafted between my legs despite my best efforts to keep them tightly shut. “Gods, girl, your thighs are more tightly clutched than a Catholic novice in a nunnery.” “Please don’t make me ride this thing.” My voice came out in a panicked whisper that sounded so pitiful even I was alarmed. He chuckled, the sound rumbling from his broad chest to vibrate in mine. “You’ll be fine, Daphne. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you. Don’t you trust me?” I gulped. “Up until just now I did.” He laughed again and this time the sound traveled south and did some very pleasant things to my sensual core that I couldn’t believe were possible right at that moment. His lips found the back of my neck, just under my ponytail and he initiated a soft trail of tingling warmth from my hairline toward my bared shoulder, nudging aside the thin strap so he could give my shoulder a gentle bite. By the time he’d followed the bite up with a swipe of his hot tongue I’d forgotten to clamp my thighs together. He took quick advantage of my negligence. I soon found myself straddling the huge brown horse. Bion immediately snugged one arm around my waist and pulled me in close. “Now isn’t this nice?” “No.” I responded petulantly but it was very hard to ignore the fact that something in his jeans was poking me insistently in the back. “It will be.” And with those promising words he clucked gently at the horse and I felt his thighs flex behind me. The horse shot into a fast trot and I squeaked, grabbing at his forearm around my waist desperately. Bion laughed, his warm breath tickling against the still sensitive skin of my neck. “He likes to go, this one. I think he’s gonna give us quite a ride.” 75

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“Just awesome,” I mumbled petulantly as I struggled mightily to hold on to something…anything. “Why doesn’t this damn thing have any handles on it?” Bion did something with his body and the horse dropped into a reluctant and very fast walk. “It does have handles, you just need to know where to look for them.” I turned my head to look at him and almost slid off again. He grabbed me and shook his head. “Where?” “Hmmm?” His lips were on my other shoulder now. I shivered in delight. “Where are the handles?” He reached around me and grabbed a handful of thick, black mane. “Here’s one.” He stuffed the coarse, shiny hair into my stiff fingers. I clutched it like a lifeline. Then he took my other hand and wrapped it around the front of the flat, black, leather saddle. “This area here, where it rests above the horse’s withers, has enough room for your fingers to grab. See there?” I nodded. I felt a little better now that I had something fairly stationary in each hand. Bion’s head lowered until his lips were next to my ear. “But I prefer the third handle the best.” I shivered and felt my body responding to his nearness, warming and tingling for his touch. “Where’s that one?” Before I knew what he was doing he had reached around me and grabbed a thigh in each big hand. Then he lifted and swung me around in one smooth motion until I was sitting sideways in the saddle, with his arm supporting my back. Both of my legs rested on one of his denim-clad, muscular thighs. A gust of wind swept my skirt up and I grabbed it as it plastered itself to my face. I heard Bion gasp at the view. “I’m glad to see you took my advice and left the little lacy bits at home.” I managed to stuff the skirt between my legs and glared at him. “If I’d known what you had in mind I’d have worn armor and a helmet.” Bion laughed. “Which is why I didn’t tell you.” He clucked at the horse again and it shot into a trot, bordering on the next speed, whatever that was. I gasped and threw my arms around Bion’s neck, scrambling to get a leg on either side of him. When I’d managed it, with more than a little help from Bion, I looked up to find him smiling at me. “I see you’ve found the third handle.” I opened my mouth to tell him I wanted to get off and he lowered his mouth to mine. Very effectively shutting me up and making me forget I was bouncing along at a frightening speed with nothing but Bion to keep me from plunging to certain death on the rocky ground below us. His kiss wiped all thoughts of death from my mind. With a little moan, I tightened my arms around his neck and my lips opened to invite his probing, hot tongue to tangle 76

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with mine. My legs wrapped more tightly around his hips until I could feel every ridge and seam of his tight jeans through the soft fabric of my ridiculously inadequate dress. Bion held the reins in one hand and swept the other one up my back, leaving a warm tingling trail wherever he touched. He cupped the back of my head, holding me under the sensual onslaught of his kiss. My hands left his neck and I found myself ripping his shirt open to get to his smooth, golden brown chest. He groaned as my fingers found his hard little nipples and tweaked them gently. His stomach contracted with pleasure, highlighting the taut lines of a truly buff body. I pulled my lips from his and took his bottom lip into my mouth, sucking it gently and nibbling it just a little bit between my teeth before moving down to suck on his chin. As usual, the skin there was stubbly with the beginnings of a beard that seemed to spring perpetually from his face. I let my tongue rasp gently over that stubble for a moment, enjoying the way he shivered under the sensual assault. Then I started to nibble my way down the thick column of his neck and toward those beautiful pecs, which quivered in anticipation as I closed my lips over first one and then the other rigid nipple. The spaghetti-thin straps of my dress slipped off my shoulders and were replaced by the heat of Bion’s hands. He skimmed them down my arms until they slipped off over my fingers. Bion pushed me gently away from his chest and lowered his dark head to my breast. I moaned as his hot mouth closed over the first nipple and he sucked gently, bringing the tiny bud to a hard peak. My hands found his shoulders and my head fell back. It was then that I remembered we were sitting on a moving horse. Overhead the trees swung by at a steady and rapid rate, branches occasionally swept the top of our heads as the horse moved through the trees under its own steam, directionless. The rhythm of the horse’s movements made our bodies arch and settle, creating delicious sensations where we touched and adding another dimension to the sensual dance. I suddenly realized my body had been riding that rhythm for several moments without conscious awareness. It was a good rhythm. A natural rhythm. Bion’s arm flexed slightly and the horse slowed to a walk, snorting in the silent woods. The trees had thickened to the point where there was only a path about four feet wide where the horse walked and the sun was reduced to occasional plays of light on our faces and shoulders. In the distance I could hear water tumbling gently over rocks. Bird song filled the air around us. Bion’s lips found my neck and his hand found a naked thigh. “I want you, Daphne, like I’ve never wanted another woman.” I gasped as the hand moved upward, sliding easily under the worthless barrier of the thin dress. “Let’s find a patch of grass somewhere.” 77

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The hand closed over my throbbing mound. “We will. Eventually.” A thick finger slid into my wetness. I groaned and leaned backward to give him better access. I nearly slid off the horse as my back encountered nothing but air behind me and I remembered where I was. Bion’s hand caught my shoulder and the horse stopped moving. He lowered me down gently, until my head rested on a soft nest of mane. Though I could feel the horse quivering with excitement beneath me, he didn’t move. Bion’s finger took up a gentle rhythm and his thumb played across the tiny nub that was the seat of my pleasure. I moaned and arched into the hand, feeling his ministrations like jolts of electricity running up my body and through my limbs. He bent at the waist and took a hard nipple into his mouth, nibbling it between his teeth gently and then sucking it hard, just to the point of pain, before releasing it and repeating the performance on the other nipple. The finger increased its rhythm and my body met it thrust for thrust, mating with it enthusiastically. Suddenly the finger disappeared and I whined pitifully, opening my eyes as I felt Bion move. He grabbed my arms and lifted me into a sitting position. My eyes widened as I saw that he had unzipped his jeans and freed himself. Apparently he was sans underwear again. “You don’t believe in layers do you?” I grinned. He laughed, shaking his head. “Time for your first riding lesson.” His voice was husky with lust. He lifted me a few inches off the horse and then lowered me back down, gently skewering me with his hard cock. I cried out in pure joy as he filled me. His hands slid under my dress and clasped my buttocks, one in each hand. He lifted me again, sliding out of me almost entirely and then slowly lowered me back down, embedding himself so deeply that the soft thatch of hair around his cock tickled my skin. I closed my eyes and held my breath as he orchestrated each agonizingly slow stroke, feeling every inch of skin as the delicious friction set my nerves on edge and made my body shiver in delighted anticipation. I was on the edge of that precipice and knew it wouldn’t take much to bring me over. I was happy where I was. Delighted. But Bion wasn’t satisfied to leave me there. “Time for your second riding lesson,” he breathed into my neck. Then his body tightened and the horse took off at a gallop. I shrieked, both from surprise and from the incredible sensation of crashing down hard on his beautiful cock. My eyes bulged unattractively and I clutched Bion’s shoulders in desperation as the horse flew through the dappled woods at what felt like an impossible and dangerous speed. “Relax, Daphne. Can you feel the tempo?” I looked into his dark eyes and was amazed at the calm there. Our bodies were joined in the most intimate way and we were hurtling through space on the back of a creature that was unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst but he was calm and smiling at me. 78

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Lust rode his eyes like added flecks of color. We burst from the trees and sunlight covered us, instantly warming away the tightness of fear and bathing me in calming rays. My body melted into the cadence of the ride. And with that giving way came the awareness that my body was more than enjoying the experience. The pulse of the gallop was perfect. A moment of suspension brought me up, nearly to the tip of Bion’s cock, followed in perfect sequence by the moment when the horse’s hooves hit the ground beneath us, pounding me to the very core of Bion’s hard flesh and driving him deeply into me. Suspension, deep thrusting, suspension, thrusting…I threw back my head and smiled from the sheer delight of it. My body throbbed with sensual awareness. The very air around me warmed and pulsed and caressed my exposed flesh, driving me inexorably toward that point where the pulse of our lovemaking would overcome my natural resistance. The tempo built until my body couldn’t take it anymore. I threw my head back and screamed, falling into the abyss with complete abandon, my body convulsing under the blitz of complete and utter pleasure. Riding that horse for all it was flippin’ worth. Bion tumbled toward the edge quickly on the heels of my release, growling into my ear as his body drove into me hard…once…twice…a third time…and then he yanked hard on the reins, bringing the heated horse into an instant halt and driving his cock impossibly deep for a final thrust that drove me into a second orgasm and carried him over the edge hard and fast. I burst into delighted laughter as Bion clutched me against his chest, panting. He laughed with me, still fighting for his breath. When I could talk again I said, “I’ve decided I like horseback riding.” He dissolved into laughter again. Then he captured my lips with his and kissed me until I couldn’t breathe. “Me too,” he murmured around my lips. “Let’s do it again.” And so we did.

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Chapter Nine The Other Shoe

Dema Pence’s voice on the other end of the phone line was the worst thing I’d heard all year. My mind raced in an effort to find the right words. Words that would allow me to keep my professional reputation but would without a doubt break my heart in half. “Ms. Charissa?” Uh-oh, we were back to Ms. That couldn’t be good. I jerked. “I’m sorry, Ms. Pence. I was just checking my schedule.” I gulped, fighting back tears. “I’ve had a little trouble locating Mr. Chronos to set up the appointment.” I could almost feel the chill through the phone line. “Ms. Charissa, you’ve had nearly a week to get this appointment set up. I’m starting to feel like you don’t want to make the appointment. Could that be possible, Ms. Charissa?” I swallowed hard. Despite my best efforts tears had started flowing down my cheeks. I cleared my throat. “Of course that isn’t the case, Ms. Pence. Mr. Chronos is just very hard to pin down. He’s a very busy man and his schedule doesn’t have a lot of stretch in it.” I thought guiltily of all the time he and I had spent together the previous day, lunch, shopping…other things. “I have it on my list to try contacting his assistant again for an appointment. Can I reach you at the usual number once I’ve made the appointment?” There was an extended silence during which I assumed Ms. Dema Pence was trying to decide if she was being put off again. I bit my lip and held my ground. She who talked first lost. Finally I heard a tiny sigh and she said, “Yes, you can reach me at this number. Please let me know by the end of the day if we have an appointment.” “I’ll do that.” I hung up feeling as if I’d been kicked in the stomach by a bull. I sat for a moment, thinking about the hell that was my life and how I was going to fix it. A soft knock sounded at my door and I looked up. “Come in.” Christian opened the door and grinned through it at me. “Do you have a minute?” I motioned him in, sitting back in my chair, and watched him saunter across my room. He was a gorgeous man. In a race of beautiful people he was definitely at the top in terms of looks, grace and charm. Not for the first time I wondered if Christian and I could make something work between us. If I wasn’t going to have love maybe I could at least have something with a friend. Someone I liked and trusted. Why did that thought make me want to throw up? 80

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Christian crossed my office and slid gracefully into one of my client chairs. He sprawled comfortably, checking out my office as he always did, his dark eyes sliding around the walls, assessing, cataloguing. Finally he turned to me and said, “It’s about this Valentine’s Ball you’re going to next week. I wonder if you could do me a favor.” I sat forward and started shuffling files around on my desk. I didn’t want him to see how the thought of that final evening with Bion affected me. “Anything. What do you need?” I glanced up and he smiled. I could tell by the look in his beautiful, long-lashed dark blue eyes that he saw right through me. For just a moment sadness swept through that gaze and was quickly squelched. I understood that he was thinking I was heading for a tsunami of hurt in the near future. I knew he was right. But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. “I have a couple of clients who will be attending that ball and need the arrow ceremony performed. Unfortunately, I have five other couples who need to be completed that night and they’re spread all over town. I thought if you could take the ones at the ball for me I could manage the other five and still get to bed before dawn.” I nodded, making a notation on my calendar for Thursday of the following week, Valentine’s Day. “I’ve been lucky enough to get all my ceremonies scheduled during office hours so all I have is the Ball on Thursday night. I’d be happy to take care of your couples for you.” I jotted down the names of the two couples that Christian gave me and then closed my book, looking up at the long, lean man sitting across from me. He had his dark, wavy hair pulled back in its usual ponytail at the back of his muscular neck and a single diamond stud sparkled at me from his right ear. He studied me carefully for a long moment before saying, “Are you okay, Daphne? You look…tired.” I forced a laugh. It didn’t fool either of us. “I’m fine. I’ve just had a bit of trouble sleeping lately.” Because I’d been rolling around on every available surface with Bion rather than sleeping. And when I wasn’t sleeping I was being tortured with worries of how long I had before he moved on, forgetting me completely. Christian pursed his perfectly sculpted mouth and stared at me. I could tell he wanted to say something but he didn’t quite know where to begin and I didn’t really want to help him so I just stared back at him. Trying for innocent. Finally he shook his head and stood up. “Thanks for helping me out with my clients. I’ll owe you one.” “No problem. Don’t worry about it.” I watched him glide toward the door. The view from the back was every bit as good as the view from the front. I really wished it affected me more than it did. He turned at the door and caught me off guard, “When you need a shoulder, I’ll be here. Promise me you’ll come looking for me.”

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I frowned. Not if I need a shoulder but when. I inclined my head in the slightest of nods and he left, closing the door softly behind him. I did a pretty good job of avoiding the call to Bion for a few hours, allowing myself to get caught up in the pile of new matches that had hit my desk over the previous week. I forced myself to focus on the work in front of me, ruthlessly shoving the guilt to the back of my mind whenever it managed to make an appearance. As it neared five o’clock I knew I was running out of time and excuses. I listened to the rest of the office saying their goodbyes and leaving for the night and realized I couldn’t put the call off any longer. I sat with my head in my hands for a few minutes, brooding darkly, and then shook it off and picked up the phone. I dialed Bion’s office and his assistant answered as usual. “Hi, Kathy. It’s Daphne Charissa from Cupid’s Arrow. How are you?” Kathy Dupres had apparently been Bion’s assistant for twenty-five years. She was the most polished and professional woman I’d ever met. And she was very protective of him. I’d been aware since the first time I shook hands with her at our initial prescreening appointment in his office that she didn’t approve of Bion’s use of a professional matching service. But despite her resistance to the firm, she’d always been unflaggingly kind to me. I really liked her. “Hello, Ms. Charissa. How are you today? It looks like it’s going to be another beautiful day.” I smiled. I’d barely noticed that there was a sky above me and dirt below me when I’d come into the office that morning. “Yes it is beautiful, isn’t it? I was wondering if Mr. Chronos had any time on his appointment schedule for Friday, the fifteenth?” The line hummed with silence. Then, “What is this in reference to, Ms. Charissa?” Despite the suspicion in her voice, or maybe because of it, I smiled. I sent negative thoughts across the phone line, silently imploring Bion’s assistant to tell me he was booked up all that day. Maybe she could save me from myself. “I need to set up the appointment for him to meet his new match.” The older woman cleared her throat delicately. “I see. Well, I wish I could help you, Ms. Charissa…” I did a mental happy dance. A reprieve! He was too busy to meet with Dema Pence on Friday. His schedule was full! Now I could delay the inevitable for at least another weekend. My heart soared. I flew above the clouds. My feet danced around under my desk… “But Mr. Chronos has had to leave town suddenly. I don’t know when he’ll be returning. It was very strange really. He just called last night and told me he’d be gone for several days and that I should cancel all his appointments. I’m sorry but I didn’t have an appointment with you on his calendar or I would have called you.”

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The words shredded my heart like a fist of sharp knives. The blood drained from my face and I suddenly thought I might pass out. My stomach clenched and I couldn’t breathe. It was all I could do to hold onto the phone with my suddenly clammy hand. It had happened. He’d moved on. I was alone again. Rejected. Forgotten. My lungs pinched closed and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth and struggled to draw breath into my body. Dimly I became aware of Kathy Dupres’ concerned voice coming to me from far away. I looked down at the phone lying on my desk. I couldn’t remember dropping it but my clammy hand lay beside it, the fingers bent into claws that clenched and unclenched as if I’d lost muscle control. I felt as if somebody had injected me with drugs that numbed my body and clouded my brain. I forced myself to reach for the phone and pull it up to my ear. It weighed at least twenty pounds. My hand shook so hard I could barely hold the phone to my ear. Kathy Dupres’ voice was filled with concern, teetering on panic. “Ms. Charissa, please answer me. It sounded like you dropped the phone. Should I call 9-1-1?” I opened my mouth to speak but nothing would come out. My throat had clenched closed around the words. I swallowed hard and managed to drag my voice to the level of a whisper. “I’m sorry,” I choked out in a barely audible voice. And then I hung up the phone. And everything faded to black.

***** Something hit my cheek and swung my head sideways. Then my other cheek was assaulted and my head swung the other way. I reached up to slap away whatever was attacking me and encountered a thick, slightly hairy wrist. Hope soared though me. But when I opened my eyes Christian’s dark, worried face was the only one I saw. “Daphne, are you okay? What happened? He helped me sit up and I groaned as pain shot through my head. I pulled my knees up and laid my head on them, wrapping my arms around them and forcing myself to breathe through the pain of Bion’s loss. Christian folded his tall form and dropped down on the floor beside me. He reached an arm around me and rubbed my back. “Talk to me, Daphne. You’re scaring me.” I couldn’t speak. My throat had nearly closed with panic and my pulse throbbed at a terrifying rate. I felt like I would throw up if I raised my head. So I stayed wrapped in a fetal position and just shook my head.

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Christian rubbed my back for a few more minutes and then stood up and went to my office door. He called out to someone and within minutes, I had a hot cup of Dema Pence’s expensive Darjeeling in my hand. Christian all but poured that first sip into me and I grimaced at the overwhelming sweetness. “You need the sugar. I think you’re in shock.” He took the cup from me and pulled me to my feet, walking me over to the couch. Tears fell from my eyes. I barely noticed. Christian stuffed a huge wad of tissues into my hand and went to retrieve my tea. I forced myself to drink several more sips. Finally, after several more minutes, I felt myself reviving. I looked up at Christian and he gave me a sad smile. “He’s moved on, hasn’t he?” I nodded and mopped at my face and nose with the tissues. “No surprises, Christian. We knew it would happen. But…damn…it hurts.” “I know, sweetie. I know it does.” He pulled me into a hug and I burst into tears again. We didn’t speak for several long moments. He just held me and let me cry. And cry I did. Until I thought my eyes would swell shut and I’d never be able to pry them open again. My phone rang and Christian got up to answer it. He looked at caller ID and his gaze swung to me. I saw her name in his eyes. “Go ahead, Christian. Let’s pretend this is a Band Aid and we’re pulling it off in one, very painful tug.” He sighed and reached for the phone. “Ms. Charissa’s office, Christian speaking.” He listened for a moment and then shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Ms. Charissa’s out sick today. Uh-huh,” he glanced at me again, “yes. Okay. I’ll tell her. Thank you.” He hung up the phone and stood looking down at it. His large, perfectly manicured hand patted the nested receiver a few times before he turned back to me. I took a bolstering sip of the cooling tea and set it aside. Pulling air into my lungs, I steeled myself. “Give it to me straight up, Christian.” He shrugged nervously. “She heard from Bion and wanted to thank you for all your hard work on her behalf.” I stared into space for a few beats, letting the pain wash over my body. It was done. He was gone. I nodded and found that I was completely cried out and numbness was starting to set in. I knew it wouldn’t last but decided to go with it for the moment. I stood up. “I’m going home. Can you have Becky divvy up my matches between everyone? It shouldn’t be too bad, I’ve gotten most of them done already this morning.” “Of course.” I nodded and grabbed my purse off my desk, then headed for the door.

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“Daphne?” My hand reached for the door knob but I didn’t turn it, I didn’t look back at Christian either. The pity in his pretty eyes would be my undoing. “Yes?” “Are you sure you want to be alone right now?” I nodded, “I have to be. I’ll be all right…eventually.” I could feel his pitying gaze on my back as I hurried out of my office and down the hall. I prayed I’d make it to my car before the numbness wore off and I descended into complete despair again. As I made my way quickly toward the outer door, several of my colleagues came to their doors and watched me leave. No one needed to tell them what had happened. Cupids have sensitive radar to the pain of others. And when one of us gets his or her heart broken we feel the pain like the true empaths we are. I kept my head down and didn’t acknowledge the murmured words and pitying gazes. I nearly ran out of the building. My drive home was a blur of tears and wretchedness. I barely noticed the blaring horns and enraged glances of drivers I cut off and hindered as I made my way home in an automatic, unthinking haze. I felt no relief when I pulled into my driveway without having died in a fiery crash. In my current mood I would have welcomed death. I did spare a moment of relief that I hadn’t killed anyone else, however. I wasn’t quite that far gone. When I got into my house I locked my doors and climbed into bed, barely stopping to remove my shoes before pulling the covers up to my chin and succumbing to the misery that wanted to swamp me. I’d give myself a couple of days to mourn. Then I would need to pull myself together. The following week was the Valentine’s Ball. I needed to have myself pulled together by then. If I didn’t it was going to be an ugly night. Then I caught myself. With Bion out of my life, it was going to be an ugly night no matter what. I pulled myself into the fetal position and let my emotions swamp me. There was no one around to witness my total collapse. So I let it all go. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

***** When I emerged from my home two days later I was feeling a bit better. A couple of hours of ice packs and some special remedies I’d once been lucky enough to get from a goddess on Olympus who’d had more than her share of love life mishaps had done the trick with my swollen eyes and face and I looked almost Cupid-like again. On the outside I looked normal. But my insides were strained mush.

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I pulled the long, zippered dress bag through the door behind me and, sticking my chin into the air, stalked purposefully toward my car. Flinging the bag into the backseat, I closed the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. I started the car and pulled out of my driveway, thoughts of beautiful dresses and ruined balls rushing through my mind even as I tried to squelch them. Pure, unadulterated self-preservation kept thoughts of Bion buried for the moment. In comparison, the depressing thoughts that were running across my mind like a bad movie reel were soothing. I pulled up to the front of the exclusive shop where Bion and I had purchased the beautiful white ball gown and jumped out of the car before my emotions could get the better of me. I stalked into the shop, hauling the dress behind me like a forgotten banner. The woman at the front desk smiled at me after glancing at the bag I’d thrown over my shoulder. “Can I help you?” I flung the bag over the counter. “Yes. I want to return this.” The pretty young woman reached for the bag and zipped it open. I kept my eyes straight ahead, knowing that if I looked at the beautiful gown again I’d burst into tears. My control was perched on the head of a very small pin and wobbled dangerously with every reminder…every memory. “Ooooh, I remember this dress. It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. I know someone who would love this dress.” She looked up at me with bright, happy eyes, obviously completely clueless as to my fragile mental state. I tried to give her a small smile in answer but my mouth just wouldn’t bend. “I just want to return it please.” “Daphne?” My shoulders stiffened and my heart thudded once, twice and a third time—hard— in my chest. I closed my eyes and prayed she’d go away. “Daphne? Is that you? How are you feeling? Your office told me you were really sick.” I opened my eyes and expelled the breath I’d been holding as quietly as I could. Then I forced myself to turn around. “Hello, Ms. Pence.” The elegant woman smiled. “I thought we’d agreed to a first-name basis. After all, you are the woman who helped me find the love of my life.” My entire body convulsed in a shudder. Dema Pence reached out a perfectly manicured hand as if to catch me when I pitched forward onto my face. “Are you all right? You look very pale.” I nodded. “I’m fine. I just have some residual weakness from my…illness.” She nodded. “The flu can be a nasty business. I’ve been lucky to have been born with good genes. I rarely get sick.”

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Bully for you, I thought uncharitably. I forced myself to smile. “What brings you to this part of town?” Although it was a very nice shop, Dema Pence’s usual shopping haunts were far on the other side of town, where the ultra-rich plunked down millions of dollars every year for handmade clothing in designer styles. I’d never in a hundred years expected to run into her at the shop where we both faced off. “Bion suggested I come here. He said they have a fabulous selection.” Another shudder racked me. “I see…well, it was nice seeing you…” I lost her. Her beautiful face turned as she spotted my dress, which the young clerk had removed from its bag and was hanging on a stand nearby. “Oh my god! That is the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen!” The clerk turned to her with a smile. “I was going to bring it back to you. I knew you’d like it, Ms. Pence.” Panic filled me. It was suddenly very important to me not to allow the woman to have my dress. She’d already stolen my man, I’d be damned if she’d have my dress as well. “I’m sorry!” I blurted out. The young saleswoman and Dema Pence both turned to look at me. “I’ve decided to keep it.” The young woman standing by the dress frowned at me. “But you said you wanted to return it and Ms. Pence would like to try it on.” I shrugged. “I’ve changed my mind.” I turned to Dema Pence. “I’m sorry. But the dress has sentimental value to me. I’ve just realized I can’t part with it.” Dema Pence’s eyes met mine and held for an intense moment. I could see the intelligence there and began to suspect she understood my feelings all too well. Then she just smiled at me and touched my arm. “I understand. I don’t blame you for keeping it then. I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with something that’s equally stunning for the Valentine’s Ball.” My mind registered the clerk’s angry jerking movements as she stuffed my dress back into its bag. But my emotions swirled around me like a rabid, bitter wind. The Valentine’s Ball…she was going to the ball with Bion. I suddenly felt a bit faint and grabbed the counter for support. Dema Pence’s flawless face swam in front of me and I could see her lush, perfect mouth moving but I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the roaring in my ears. The edges of my vision were turning gray and I knew I had to pull myself together before I hit the ground. I shook my head and pulled air into my lungs, feeling the gray pulling back away from my vision. When my head finally cleared and the roaring receded I looked at her and smiled, “It was nice seeing you again, Dema.” I grabbed the dress bag, which was lying across the counter again, and hurried out of the store.

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I scurried to my car and threw the bag into the backseat again. Then I slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door behind me, locking it immediately. I sat there for several minutes, my eyes closed and my head back and focused on just breathing normally. I was so glad I wouldn’t have to attend the Valentine’s Ball on Thursday. I had all my clients scheduled for earlier in the day. When I was reaching for my keys I suddenly remembered I’d promised Christian that I’d handle his two couples at the ball. Panic brought blood into my face and made my heart thud painfully in my chest. Reaching for my purse, I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Christian’s office. To my surprise Becky answered his line. “Becky! Hi, it’s Daphne. Is Christian around?” “No, I’m sorry Daphne, he’s been called back to Olympus unexpectedly.” “He what!” I realized with horror that my voice had achieved an uncomfortable shrieking tenor. Becky said nothing for a moment, the silence seemed to cruelly accentuate my shriek. Then she spoke as if talking to a mental deficient. “His mother needed him. It seems she’s going through another relationship crisis with Zeus.” “Shit!” “Is there something I can help you with?” “When will he be back?” “I’m not sure but we’ve distributed his workload among all of the Cupids. He thought it might be awhile.” “I need someone to take two of his clients on Thursday night.” “Ooh, that might be a problem. Between losing you and Christian, everyone’s overbooked to the max. I’d hate to ask anyone to take on any more work.” Hope crashed around my feet. “Just two more clients?” “They’re all booked for fourteen hours on Thursday and Friday. And I don’t have anyone who’s even close to that end of town during the ball. I’m sorry, Daphne, but I’m afraid you’ll have to cover those two yourself. You can handle two ceremonies, can’t you?” There was a hint of annoyance in the woman’s voice. If I hadn’t been in a fullblown panic I wouldn’t have blamed her. I’m sure I looked like a first-class wimp to her at that point. “Sure,” I said in a raspy voice filled with terror. “I’ll handle those two clients. Thanks, Becky.” I hung up and folded toward the steering wheel. I rested my forehead on the hot leather encasing the wheel and closed my eyes. My world had crashed around me and I’d barely survived it. Now, when I was hardly healed from the first crash, I was going to be confronted by the reality of Bion’s loss face-to-face, in the most painful and direct way. It appeared I was going to the ball. Alone. And I would have to negotiate the painful appearance with minimal loss of dignity and emotional equilibrium. 88

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An impossible task, I knew. Seeing Bion with that woman would tear me into little pieces. But worse, seeing him look at me with disinterested eyes would bring me to my knees. I’d be lucky to survive the encounter.

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Chapter Ten

Memories and Dreams Clotho was waiting for me when I got home. I cringed when I opened the front door and walked in to find her sitting at my kitchen counter, eating the last slice of chocolate cake. She looked up when I entered. “Daphne. You look like hell.” She was a hag today, which was just as well. Her wrinkled, ratty appearance fit my mood so much better than her gorgeous young goddess persona would have. “Thanks,” I said as cheerfully as I could, which wasn’t cheerful at all. I threw the dress bag over the back of a chair and went to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. I leaned back against the counter, sipping my icy cold water and watching Clotho scarf down the cake. Waiting. Eventually she shoved the last bite into her mouth and looked up at me, smiling to show me chocolate-coated teeth. “I was just wondering how you were holding up.” I shrugged. “I’ve had better days…weeks…years.” She stared at me through rheumy eyes of a faded gray color. Behind the faded aspect the occasional spark of intelligence and latent power could be seen if you looked closely enough. Like many things in life, the hag persona of the Fates was pure mask. Used by them, I was convinced, to cause the unaware to underestimate them. I never underestimated them. I knew exactly what they were at all times. And what they were capable of. “So your human has gone missing?” I forced my face to remain clear of emotion. My voice was a more difficult lion to tame. “Y…” I cleared my throat, “Yes.” She nodded. “How are you dealing with that?” I shrugged. “Not so well. But I’ll survive.” She nodded again. “Of course you will. But what if you have a choice in the matter?” Hope surged through me and I quickly and ruthlessly shoved it down. I knew better than to fall for one of the Fates’ traps. They spun them as easily as they breathed and were pitiless in their use of them. When one lives forever one apparently will do anything, to anybody, to avoid boredom. I shrugged. “You and I both know I have no choices here. You told me yourself you saw no human in my thread.”

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She nodded, peering at me for a long time. Then she stood up and smoothed down the ratty, wrinkled tunic she wore over what looked like a long burlap skirt. Chocolate clung to the wrinkles in her thin lips. “I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, Daphne. I’m going to show you your thread.” I shook my head, terror filling my eyes. Nothing good could come of seeing the thread of your life. “I don’t want to see it.” She ignored me as only a hag of Fate can do. Lifting her hands, she began writing symbols in the air, her gnarled-looking old fingers agile and almost graceful as she built the magic on the air between us. I wanted to run away and hide. In fact I did take a step toward the door but somehow I couldn’t do it. Curiosity clutched at me and wouldn’t let me go. A shimmering line of magic began to form itself at the tips of the fingers of her right hand and, as she continued to describe the magic in the air, built toward her left hand. Along the shimmering length of it knots and ridges began to appear at random. These areas pulsed with energy and sparked with color and I realized they represented the highlights of my life. I watched, fascinated as Clotho continued to build my life in the air between us, all the while praying that I’d find the strength to walk away before she revealed its secrets to me. The line had grown to fill the space between her hands when she stopped building it and frowned thoughtfully. Then she licked the tip of her finger and tapped the air once, twice and three times at the end of the thread before looking at me. My life hung there between us, waiting for her to illuminate it for me. “That’s it?” I asked her in a voice that barely had the strength to rise above a whisper. She shook her head. “I didn’t scribe the whole thing. There is no need and I wouldn’t want you to bear the burden of what will be until the end.” I closed my eyes with relief. Nodding. “Thank you for that at least.” She nodded. “What I have provided is enough.” She touched the first knot in the thread and a picture popped out of my parents and me when I was an infant. My mother was holding me in her lap and staring down at me with a wide, happy smile on her face. My father stood behind her, looking at us both with contentment. Tears filled my eyes at the picture. Clotho’s gnarled finger moved along the thread, easily passing some ridges by and hesitating over others until she found one she thought should be illuminated and she tapped it.

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I was about sixteen years old in this one. And I was trotting down the steps of the Building of Judgment, where all the laws were made and carried out on Olympus. I was clerking for Zeus at the time and was very full of myself. I remembered that time and smiled. Suddenly something rammed into me and the papers I had been carrying flew everywhere. I tumbled sideways and would have fallen down the steps if a strong hand hadn’t reached out to grab my arm. My papers flew everywhere and tears of panic filled my eyes, making me angry at being caught crying over such a small thing. I looked up into a handsome face and swiped at my tears, preparing to scream at him for ramming into me, but just then the trees in the courtyard rang out with Zeus’ summons and I had to turn back. Leaving the papers strewn over the steps, I ran back up the stairs, immediately forgetting the clumsy young god who’d bumped into me. Clotho flicked a finger and that segment of my past disappeared. She ran the finger down the thread until she found a larger knot and tapped it. My mother was crying. I was in my early twenties and leaving Olympus, coming to Earth to join Cupid’s Arrow. I was excited but afraid to show her because she seemed to be in so much pain over my leaving. It was time for me to leave and I was nearly vibrating with the need to go but my mother had hold of my hands and I could tell she wanted to say something to me. She seemed to be struggling with how to start. Finally I said, “I have to go, Mother.” She looked at me and nodded, tears flowing down her cheeks to drip onto our joined hands. She reached down and ran a fingertip through the moisture and held it up in front of my face. “My tears protect you and make you strong. Ever will my heart follow you in your journey. You were meant for greater things than would seem possible to you now. In your hardest hour remember this…within you runs the blood of gods, it is special blood as you are special. Never doubt it. Never doubt yourself.” Then she touched my forehead with the tear-tipped finger and warmth suffused me, originating from the moisture on my forehead. I walked away from my mother then. Heading toward my new life away from her. But her words would always stay with me. Though I never really understood them until right at that moment, when a hag of Fate showed them to me again on my life thread. The next place Clotho tapped on my thread was near the end of the segment she’d drawn for me. It was a knot of some size and sparkled brighter than the others. But as 92

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she tapped it the knot simply pulsed and gave off bright white light, never opening to show me what it contained. “Why won’t it open?” Clotho looked at me, her masked gaze showing glimpses of its true fire as she pursed thin lips still caked with frosting. “It is still playing out, this knot. Sometimes it happens this way. The knot won’t reveal its contents until the occasion it represents has found a conclusion.” She stared at it, frowning. “But something’s different about this knot, isn’t it, Clotho?” She threw me a sharp glance. “What makes you say that?” I shrugged. “You. You’re not at all happy with the fact that this knot won’t reveal its contents, are you?” She flicked a gnarled finger at the thread and it disappeared with a pop. The smell of roses momentarily filled the air around me and then dissipated like the thread. “Normally it wouldn’t be a problem but in this case I am concerned, yes.” “Why?” She took a step closer to me and peered hard into my face, making me wish I could step back without losing some of the hard-won respect I enjoyed from the Fates. I held my ground and Clotho lifted that gnarled finger and touched my forehead with it, in the same spot where my mother had infused me with the power of her tears all those years ago. I felt an insidious probing power and forced myself not to jerk away from it. Clotho probed my mind for several seconds and then withdrew the finger and stepped back. “Well?” She scratched the matted gray mess on the top of her head and then examined her fingernails like a monkey in a zoo. I prayed she wouldn’t stick the finger into her mouth. For a moment it looked like she was considering it. Her mouth opened slightly. I grimaced. “Clotho?” She turned back to me, apparently forgetting about the contents of her fingernail for the moment. “You’ve been interfered with. That’s obvious. I just don’t know who, how, why or when.” I shivered. “Interfered with?” That didn’t sound good at all. Clotho rubbed her fingertips on her burlap skirt and focused sharp eyes on me. As I watched she let the mask slip and a red flame filled the center of each gray eye. “Here’s the crux of the problem, Daphne. I didn’t create that knot. If I had created it I would remember what it represented and I don’t. Since it won’t open under my command I am even more certain that it isn’t one of my weavings.” My mouth fell open. “But that’s impossible. I’ve never heard of that happening. I thought you had complete control of the weaving of all life threads.” “I do.”

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I blew out a breath of frustration bordering on real terror. “Well then how is this possible? Who else could have woven it?” Clotho shook her head. “There’s no question about it, this is interference from the gods.” My eyes widened in surprise. “They can do that?” She shrugged. “Of course. They aren’t supposed to of course but very rarely they convince themselves that the ends justify the means and they interfere in my work without telling me. I went all ethnic on their asses once about a thousand years ago and destroyed a third of Olympus over one particularly revolting interference. I’ve only caught them at it one other time since then, aside from your knot that is. And that’s what makes this fascinating.” She frowned thoughtfully and tapped her frosting-coated lips with a bent finger. I opened my mouth and then closed it. I opened it again and cocked my head, lifting a finger toward the hag. Then I closed it and cleared my throat. Where the hell did I start? Finally, I just dived in. “First of all, I need to hear about all of that at some point but not right now. Right now I need to know about the last time you caught them interfering. Was it recently and who was it? And why did they do it?” She looked me straight in the eye and said, “That’s just it, it was mere months ago and you know him. Why they did it I still haven’t figured out. But I’m closing in on it. And when I do, I’m gonna give them such an ass kickin’.” My heart rate sped up and all the blood drained from my head. My knees buckled under me and I sat down hard in the nearest chair. Suddenly I knew. I knew who the other person was. “It was Bion, wasn’t it?” Clotho peered at me for a long moment and then said, “I gotta go.” And she was…just…gone.

***** The dream felt so real. I was sitting in the Garden of Life listening to the trees whisper secrets to me about the gods, something that rarely happened when I lived on Olympus but was lots of fun when it did. The trees always told such deliciously outrageous secrets. I was leaning against a cherry blossom tree, listening to a tale about Aphrodite and her latest lover when I heard a footfall behind me. My head jerked around and I saw him standing there. “Hello.” I frowned. “What are you doing in my dream?”

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He shrugged. “I guess seeing the thread brought me back into your consciousness.” It was the boy from the steps, the one who’d bumped into me. Only he looked several years older. At least I thought he looked older. He was blurred a bit around the edges and his face didn’t quite focus. I squinted to try to see him better but wasn’t overly concerned. I mean it was just a dream. I got the impression of dark, curly hair and dark eyes. But those were fairly common features in a Greek. His tall, well-muscled body certainly wasn’t blurry. He wore tight jeans and a silk shirt in a vibrant blue color that shimmered under the soft Olympus sun. I gazed down the long length of him and fought to keep from licking my lips. Feigning indifference, I slumped back against the tree. “Well, go away. I’m busy.” He stood there for a moment and then shrugged. I heard the slide of silk over smooth muscle and suddenly he was next to me on the ground, one leanly muscled shoulder touching mine. I turned and scowled at him. “Do you need remedial lessons on the meaning of Go Away?” He grinned. “Look, it’s a dream. I’m here, you’re here, we might as well have some fun.” I shook my head, still scowling. “Just like a man. I’m not interested in having fun with you. I’m in the middle of a great story here. I just want you to leave.” He turned to face me. “I can tell you how the story ended.” I picked up a fallen blossom from the ground beside my legs and held it to my nose. The scent of it filled me with intense pleasure. Every flower on Olympus smelled of the finest perfume, larger than life and impossible to resist. In fact everything on Olympus was larger than life. I smiled at this thought and glanced toward the man beside me. He grinned at me as if reading my thoughts. Despite the flower’s intense fragrance, his scent overpowered it. He smelled male and sexual and completely intoxicating. I nearly snorted the small blossom into my nostril in my efforts to pretend indifference as his lips moved to my ear and he began to whisper the story he’d promised. I surreptitiously reached up and plucked a flower petal from my nostril and fought against the urge to turn my head and meet his lips. Then I remembered it was just a dream and thought, “Why the hell not?” As he whispered the finale to the now totally uninteresting story, his lips touched my ear, his tongue rimming the sensitive ridge at the top. I gasped as the sensation of warmth trailed along the top edge of my ear and he sucked my lobe into his mouth, gently nibbling it until I moaned. His hand found my knee and he rubbed it in a gentle motion that made the muscles go slack and my legs 95

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drop open on the ground. The hand moved to the hem of my flimsy sundress and beneath, heading north toward hallowed ground. I knew I should stop him but the tongue had found its way to a part of my neck that was incredibly sensitive and I was buried in incapacitating sensations. Then the soft invasion of his lips stopped and I turned my head, finding myself face to face with Bion. I was startled at first but then his lips met mine and all thoughts of reality and reallife drama fled under the onslaught of that kiss. Strong arms pulled me into a familiar embrace. Strong hands lifted me onto his lap. Strong emotions made me putty in his very capable hands. I sat facing him, legs sprawled to either side of his body, throbbing for his touch. Bion’s hands flew over my back and arms as if he were memorizing me, devouring the feel of my skin under his fingers. His lips captured my breath and made it his own. My heart was beating so fast I thought I might pass out. It was as if we’d never parted from each other. Like he’d never walked away. I choked out a cry of pain and tried to pull away, suddenly afraid that my heart would be ripped from my chest again, that it would all go away, leaving me devastated and alone. Bion wouldn’t let me go. His hand lifted to the back of my neck and held me there as he deepened the kiss to the point where it felt almost frantic in its hunger. I realized suddenly that I was naked. He was naked. And I still straddled him. Bion placed his hands at my waist and lifted until I could feel the fat tip of his cock at my throbbing entrance. He slowly lowered me and slid inside. I threw my head back and screamed my pleasure as he gradually filled me. Above us the Tree of Life vibrated, showering us with flower petals that smelled of love and sex and pleasure. We sat unmoving for a moment, forehead to forehead, panting softly, with Bion deeply embedded in my body and me throbbing in anticipation around him. And then Bion wrapped an arm around my waist and stood up, pulling me up with him. He lay me down on the fragrant petals, still embedded inside me. The petals made the softest bed I’d ever experienced and encompassed us in a magic scent that seemed to lift the real world away from us until we were lost only in the emotions and the sensations of our moments together. His lips touched mine and drifted away like a feather. He softly kissed first one eyelid and then the other and moved on to float a kiss to each temple, inhaling my scent as the pulse there beat a lustful rhythm against his lips.

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His feathery kisses trailed down my hairline, to my chin and down my throat. The soft kisses were interspersed with delicate nips that made me shiver and caused me to arch hopefully toward him. I wanted him to move inside me. My body nearly begged him to do it. But he held perfectly still and lowered his head to my breast, pulling a rigid nipple into the soft heat of his mouth and sucking gently as my body arched against his in frantic need. I cried out as the gentle sucking pulled fire through my body that brought me teetering on the edge of climax, breathless for his next touch. Bion’s soft, heated lips moved to the other nipple and pulled it in, holding it in motionless heat as his body held mine, leaving me throbbing for release. As tears of pure frustration fell from my eyes to mix with the fragrant petals on the ground around us, Bion finally gave one strong pull on my breast and lifted his hips slowly, making me gasp in anticipation. Then he drove into me, hard, just once and I exploded into climax, my body racked by wave after wave of uncontrollable pleasure. Bion kept his hips still and rode it out. His eyes were closed and his head thrown back. A bulging vein in his neck was the only indication of how hard he was fighting to retain control as my body pulsed around his, threatening to pull him over with me. But Bion held on and as the aftershocks of my orgasm died down to a soft clenching of my womb, he started to move. His hips dragged the thick length of him slowly, oh-so slowly out of my grasping body, scraping a thousand engorged nerve endings as he went, and then slid just as slowly back in, stopping only when our bodies touched and he was buried as deeply as he could go. As he tortured me with slow, gentle lovemaking, he held himself above me on his forearms, his lips resting softly on mine and his chest pressed against the soft mounds of my breasts. He breathed heavily, bathing my face with warm, musky heat and then pulling my breath back with his like a drowning man. His dark gaze was taut with passion and his heart beat against my breast, telling me much better than words that he was teetering on the edge, fighting the need to jump. “Enough!” I gasped. I grabbed his hard buttocks with both hands and urged him to drive deeper, faster, harder into me. He happily complied. I wrapped my legs around his waist and used them to force him into the rhythm we both craved. Bion threw back his head and cried out as our passion turned feral. I braced myself with my hands on both sides of my hips and pulled him into my body hard, fast, deep with the strength of my thighs, dragging him toward that precipice with me, wildly, thoughtlessly, breathlessly toward that peak. He built the fire with me until it roared through us, burning us with the heat of our lust. He rode the rampaging heat until he found its apex and he stopped, hanging suspended on the edge, unmoving within me, as the passion pulled at him, radiating

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from my body and into his, until he couldn’t breathe from the pressure of his need and he let himself fall, screaming my name to the gods. I fell with him, clinging hard to his hips with my legs and whispered his name as I felt Olympus and my wonderful dream falling away from me. I woke to a body flushed and tingling with a sexual aftermath that was too real to have been a dream. But it had been a dream. An incredible dream but a dream nonetheless. Not real. Not true. Not really mine. Reality, like acid, burned through me. I was still alone. Still unloved. And still living in a world without Bion.

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Chapter Eleven Valentine’s Bash

I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom and smoothed my hands down the gorgeous, shimmering material of the dress. Tears swam in my eyes and flowed down my cheeks. I quickly dabbed at them with the tissue I held clutched in my hand before they could stain the beautiful dress. The beautiful dress that Bion had picked out for me. The beautiful dress that was supposed to be for him. The beautiful dress that he would now never even notice. I sighed and forced my mind away from Bion. No easy task. Grabbing the small, white clutch purse with my quiver and arrows in it, I headed for the door with determined steps. I would get this over with and come home. Then I would try to start rebuilding my life.

***** Orchestra Hall, the huge, elegant building where the Valentine’s Ball was being held, was packed with people who had stars in their eyes and a flush in their cheeks from excitement. The ballroom was football stadium sized. The ceilings soared over well-coiffed heads in wide arcs that were etched with elegant frescos from another, more elegant, era. Roses of every color adorned the balconies and lined the walls in fragrant garlands. Candles burned and danced in softly scented drifts from authentic wall sconces around the large room. Classical music, played by the city’s symphony orchestra, floated through the room and formed a soft background score for the conversations of the thousands of people who packed the huge space. To me, the crowd was both a chore and a balm. I figured it would be easy to hide from Bion in the mess of people. I pulled the photos Christian had given me out of the clutch and studied them one last time, until I had my victims’ faces firmly etched in my mind. Then I stuffed the pictures back in my purse and snapped it shut. I plastered a blank expression on my face and started weaving my way through the mass of

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sparkling people, my eyes scanning all the happy faces for either one of my two couples. I found half of the first couple standing outside the women’s restroom, glaring at his watch. Before approaching him I reached into the little clutch purse and slipped the sling over my wrist. A little magic made the sling look like a diamond ring that went well with the diamond heart on my necklace. I took a deep breath and headed for the impatient-looking man waiting outside the ladies room. He glanced up at me as I approached, his deep-set hazel eyes barely acknowledging me before he looked back down at his watch. He had dark blond hair that curled just the tiniest bit at the ends and a square jaw that was clean shaven but gave the impression of having a shadow on it. He was quite good-looking. If you could discount the frown on his handsome face. I stopped in front of him and smiled. “You look like a man who’s lost something.” He shook his head and frowned a little more. “My date went in there fifteen minutes ago. She’s been complaining about not feeling well. I’m starting to get worried about her.” “Would you like me to check up on her for you?” The frown dropped away as the hazel eyes widened. “You’d do that for me? Thanks! I’d really appreciate it.” I smiled at him, thinking of the contractor-preschool teacher fiasco. It would be easier for me if they were together. “It’s no problem at all. I was going in anyway.” I started into the ladies restroom but he grabbed my arm. I turned in surprise. “Don’t you want to know what she looks like?” I gave him an impish smile. I was feeling just a little mean around all the lovebirds I guessed. “I already know.” His handsome face folded into a frown again, the hazel eyes sliding to the door as if he was having second thoughts about sending me in after her. I relented with a smile. “I saw the two of you standing here a few minutes ago, before she went in. I was thinking what a handsome pair you made.” The worry fell out of his eyes and he chuckled. “Oh. Okay, you startled me there.” I gave him an unconcerned laugh and pushed the door to the ladies open. The sound of retching met me as I pushed into the plush, brightly lit room. There was only one stall that was occupied. I guessed everyone had made a hasty retreat when they heard all the commotion in that one unfortunate stall. I stood there for a minute, listening to the very unladylike sound of throwing up and wondering what I should do. It would be impossible to perform the arrow

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ceremony if the female was in the stall puking her guts up and the male was standing outside worrying alone. Sighing, I scrubbed a hand over my eyes and thought quickly. Nothing was ever easy. The stall door opened while I was standing there and a small, pretty woman with curly dark hair and a very pale face emerged. She jumped a little when she saw me and a slight flush ran up the long, pale column of her slender neck and into her cheeks. She pushed the back of her small hand against her mouth and looked for a moment as if she was going to turn back into the stall and commence throwing up again. I had to act quickly. I moved toward her, plastering a look of concern on my face. If I could just touch her. I must have startled her because she darted away, toward the sinks. I dropped the hand I’d been reaching toward her and bit my lip. I appeared to be lacking my usual tact that evening. “Are you okay? You sound like you’re really sick.” She leaned over the sink and took a couple of deep breaths, then reached to turn on the cold water. “I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I took a step toward her. “I’m a doctor. Do you mind if I take your pulse?” Large green eyes widened and the hand reaching for the cold water stopped. Then she sighed and nodded. I covered the remaining steps slowly, giving her time to accept my approach. I knew from reading her bio that she was a bit skittish around strangers. She was a fairly well-known romance writer and a bit of a recluse, used to spending an inordinate amount of time alone writing. As I reached for her pale wrist she sighed. “I’ve actually been feeling a bit off for a few days now. I must have some kind of bug.” My fingers encircled her wrist and I sent out my power. I forced my face to remain expressionless as I found the tiny life nestled happily in her womb. Pregnant. I wasn’t a moment too soon on this match. I looked at my wrist and realized I wasn’t wearing a watch. Damn! Before she could notice I dropped the wrist. “Things seem all right there. But you do look a little pale. Do you mind if I feel your forehead?” She shook her head. I reached up and placed a cool palm on her pale, clammy forehead. I sent a soothing flow of magic into her mind and watched as the discomfort left her pretty green eyes. Then I gave her an extra jolt to smudge her memory of my interference. I stepped quickly away and pretended to wash my hands. She stood there a second, then gave a pretty little shake of her head and reached down to lay her hand flat across her stomach.

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The protective instincts kick in even before the conscious mind is aware of the need. She looked at the sink and frowned slightly, then turned on the water and washed her hands too. I smiled at her in the mirror. “Is this your first time at the ball?” She returned the smile, dipping her head shyly. “Yes. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I nodded. “It surely is.” Straightening, I messed with my hair until she started out the door and then followed her. She pulled a mint out of her purse and slid it into her mouth as she opened the door. Her anxious boyfriend hurried to meet her. Before he could say anything to me that would confuse her I shot him with an arrow and then sent one into her. I left them gazing happily into each other’s eyes. Totally oblivious to me or anyone else. One pair down and one to go. The next hour was fairly uneventful. I tried to melt into the crowd and look like I belonged to someone. Apparently I wasn’t completely successful because I was on the receiving end of some fairly blatant come-ons by obviously uncommitted men. But I was usually able to dispatch them fairly handily with a mixture of an icy demeanor and a brisk, uncompromising tongue. Unfortunately, I did eventually come up against one who was Berlin-wall-like impermeable to being shut down. I was just getting ready to give him a really nice case of backside boil when someone touched my arm and removed the problem for me. I turned to see the bright, happy face of Dema Pence. “Ms. Charissa, what a nice surprise! I didn’t know you were coming tonight.” I turned my back on Mr. Berlin Wall and forced a smile onto my face. What I really wanted to do was puke. Dema Pence’s happy face was only second on my list of things I didn’t want to see right at that moment. “Ms. Pence. How delightful to see you. Are you having fun?” She threw her head back on a delighted laugh, clapping long, elegant hands together like a child. I briefly thought about giving her the boil but reined myself in before doing it. Just barely. “I’ve never been happier. Bion is truly my knight in shining armor.” My lips felt like they’d been rolled out into razor-thin lines and then rolled in cement before being plastered onto my stiff face. “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

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She grabbed my arm before I could turn away. “No! You must come with me and meet the love of my life.” I frowned. What the hell was the woman talking about? Was she daft? I put them together. I had certainly met him before. But, unfortunately for me, my worst nightmare happened right at that moment and all thoughts of Dema Pence’s sanity fled my mind as Bion emerged from the crowd to grasp the movie star’s elbow. He looked at me with cold eyes and tilted his head slightly. “Ms. Charissa. How are you?” I gulped and opened my concrete lips but nothing would come out. Finally I settled for a tiny nod. Despite my supreme pain I knew I couldn’t run screaming from the room so I settled for turning away slightly until I could manage to pull some air into my clenched lungs. My legs felt as if they would totally give way. On some level I was aware that Dema Pence was speaking to me but I couldn’t hear the words. They were just so much babble floating among the strains of romantic music and the rhythmic rise and fall of excited voices in that crowded room. All I could see was Bion’s cold gaze, burned into my mind like acid and all I could hear was his voice…icy, distant, uncaring. I suddenly couldn’t breathe and my knees started to buckle. The next thing I felt were hard, masculine hands under my arms, lowering me gently to the floor, and a deep voice, deeper than a well in the desert, commanding people to move away so I could breathe. I grabbed one of those hands and squeezed it feebly. I was surprised when the hand squeezed back. I tugged ineffectually at the warm, masculine hand as my vision started to fade and I felt warm breath on my cheek as Bion leaned over me. “I…” I licked suddenly dry lips, praying I’d get the words out before darkness took me. “I’m so sorry…” I could have sworn I heard him curse at me before I succumbed to the black heaven of oblivion. I woke up in a disoriented state. My eyes popped open and I realized I was on some kind of velvet divan. I could hear a fire crackling in the room and, in the distance, the sound of music and merriment. I sat up, wincing as my head throbbed with the sudden activity. I really should have eaten something that day…or the day before… I suddenly realized with a shock that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Unlike humans, Cupids won’t die from not eating but it seriously messes with our systems, causing us to…oh I don’t know…fall to the ground in a dead faint when we meet up with the love of our life and realize he obviously hates us.

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A sound across the room drew my gaze toward the fireplace. A tall, lean form stood before it, staring down into the flames. He had both hands on the mantel and seemed oblivious to the rest of the world, apparently deep in thought. I enjoyed how the well-made tux caressed his perfectly rounded buttocks and the way the stark white of the shirt contrasted with his dark skin. His beautiful hair looked just the tiniest bit disheveled, like he’d been running his hands through it. I realized he’d taken off the coat of his tux and looked down, finding it draped over me. No wonder I’d been smelling his scent. I’d thought I’d imagined it. “Bion?” His head jerked up and he straightened away from the fireplace. He didn’t approach the divan, though I got the distinct impression he wanted to. “Daphne. Are you okay?” I nodded, feeling my heart rip in two at his standoffish manner. “I’m fine. I just haven’t eaten much lately. Stupid. It was stupid of me not to eat…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know what to say to him. How to act. I had a sudden urge to run away and pushed myself off the divan. My knees wobbled a bit but held. Suddenly he was there, beside me, a supporting hand under my elbow. Just as he had done with Dema. I handed him his coat without meeting his dark gaze and turned away. “I… I have to go.” “Wait.” It was one word, spoken softly but it was like a chain around my ankles, holding me rooted to the spot. I stopped but I couldn’t look at him. Silence surrounded us. I forced myself not to meet his eyes. I was terrified of what I’d see there. Finally he just said, “Why?” The word was filled with such incredible pain it brought my gaze around and I nearly gasped at what I saw. Pain…every bit as deep as mine…etched across his handsome features and buried deep within his eyes. “I don’t understand…” I frowned, reaching for his face before I could stop myself. He grabbed my wrist and his face turned hostile. “Why did you tell them to get rid of me? Why did you run me off? I loved you.” My world shifted and righted all in one smooth motion. He loved me! He said he loved me! But wait… He was really mad and hurt. Why? “Bion, I don’t understand. Who got rid of you? Who are you talking about? I would never have sent you away. I lo—”

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He yanked me into his body hard, knocking the breath out of my lungs and the word “love” off my lips in one shot. He lowered his lips toward mine but stopped within an inch of touching me. “They said you didn’t love me. They said you wanted me gone. I fought it but I can’t beat them by myself. We need to fight them together. But you were gone.” I shook my head. “Bion, I wasn’t gone, I was grieving. I thought you’d left me.” I heard the quick intake of his breath and suddenly his lips were on mine. His arms pulled me in and locked me tightly against him, holding us together while his kiss melded us into one being, one heart, one soul. I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. How could this be? What the hell was going on? Bion pulled his lips from mine and dragged me even closer, tucking my head against his wide, hard shoulder. “You’ve always been mine,” he whispered. I lay there on his shoulder for a moment, just savoring the feel of him against me. But then I had a thought that tore my happiness away. I pushed on his shoulders so I could look him in the eye. “Bion. What about Dema?” He frowned. “What about her?” Doubt speared me like a knife. Could the man I loved really be this heartless, this cold? “How can you just discount her feelings like that?” He shrugged. “Her feelings aren’t my concern, yours are.” I stiffened and stepped away from him. The love of my life was a cad, the worst kind of monster, he would break poor Dema Pence’s heart just like that…without a thought. Son of a bitch! Could the Fates have dealt me a harder blow? To finally find my one true love, despite the Fates’ and the gods’ interference, and then discover that he’s not half the man I’d thought he was? My knees buckled again and I found myself back on the divan, staring at the floor in a hopeless daze. I couldn’t take any more pain. I just wanted to die. The door opened and Dema Pence’s melodic voice floated into the room, “How is she? Oh good, she’s up.” I looked at Bion, my eyes filled with hostility, but he was smiling at Dema and didn’t notice. Horrorstruck, I turned and saw…Dema, holding another man’s hand and hurrying toward us. “Daphne, we were so worried about you, weren’t we, Andre?” The handsome man she was towing along in her wake tore his love-saturated gaze from Dema and focused it briefly on me. “Yes, terribly worried,” he said with a thick French accent, “but it appears you are well, though still a little pale I think.”

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Dema sat down next to me and frowned, grabbing one of my hands. “Your hands are like ice.” She turned to Andre. “Darling, would you get her some tea? I think there’s a pot warming over there.” Andre bent low and placed a gentle kiss on Dema’s lips and she smiled radiantly. “Of course, my love.” The beautiful actress fairly vibrated with excitement as she watched her new lover walk across the room. Then she turned to me and bent close to whisper, “Isn’t he yummy? I’ll forever be grateful to Bion for introducing him to me. He’s truly the love of my life.” I frowned. “Bion?” My head was still a bit fuzzy from the shock. Dema giggled and patted my hand. “No, silly, Andre.” She lifted her elegant head and winked at Bion. “A blind woman could see that Bion only has eyes for you.” I looked at Bion. “She could?” Dema laughed. “Bion, I think you should get her home, she’s obviously not herself.” Andre returned and handed me a cup of hot tea. It smelled wonderful and tasted even better. I looked up at Dema’s new love and suddenly had an urge to give him a hug. Bion wasn’t Dema’s knight in shining armor…the wonderful Frenchman in front of me was. “Thank you, Andre…for everything. I owe you my life.” He smiled and nodded at me like I was a madwoman. “Uhm, it was just tea, mademoiselle, but of course you are very welcome.” He glanced at Dema and she curled her lips as if she was trying not to laugh. I wondered how much she knew or had guessed about Bion’s and my situation. I really didn’t care at this point. All I knew was that I had him back. And, amazingly, he apparently loved me! My gaze slid to Bion and I felt the tears starting to fall again. Nothing else mattered. I barely noticed when Dema and Andre left. Bion took the cup of tea from my hands and sat down next to me on the couch. He took both of my hands and looked at me with such intensity I wanted to look away. But his words stopped me. “Daphne, I need you to tell me why I was sent back to Olympus.” My eyes popped wide in shock. “Olympus!” He nodded. “The Fates told me you didn’t want me anymore. They forcibly sent me back and told my father to keep me there.” He stood up and started to pace the room. “I was devastated at first. The idea that, after what we’d shared, you would just send me away like some unnecessary servant.” He looked at me, pain throbbing in his gaze. “It nearly killed me. For a while I just walked Olympus in a daze, not seeing or hearing anything, talking to no one. Then the other night I had this dream…” I gasped, “The Garden of Life?” 106

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He returned to the couch and pulled me to my feet. “It was you!” I had known that dream felt too real. My poor, feeble brain was reeling. How could this be? Bion was… I suddenly remembered the Fates telling me about the demi-god who was using his powers to change things he shouldn’t. I looked at Bion. “You’re a demi-god.” It wasn’t a question. He nodded. “You control time, don’t you?” He grinned and I was reminded wonderfully of my old Bion. “I wanted every moment with you to last as long as possible.” I grinned back. “That night you came to me all battered up…” “The Fates knocked me around pretty good that night. But they couldn’t catch me. I kept changing time so that I was behind them. It really pissed them off.” He chuckled. “Oh my gods, Bion! They could have killed you!” He shrugged. “I had you then. Together we’re invincible. Didn’t you know that?” I blew out a frustrated breath. “No! Dammit! I don’t know anything. Nobody has told me anything, Bion!” My mind raced. Suddenly so many things made sense. The way he’d healed so quickly. The way I always knew when he was nearby. Well, that might not have been magic, just pheromones. He put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me into his body. “Okay, calm down, calm down. I’ll explain everything to you.” One of his big, warm hands smoothed over my back soothingly. The other lifted and he tucked a finger under my chin, tilting it up so that we looked into each other’s eyes. “Right after I give you this kiss.” His lips captured mine and my brain shut down. I allowed the wonderful sensations his kiss engendered to consume me completely, giving over every ounce of pain and despair I’d suffered over the past weeks into his tender, healing touch. Bion pulled me into his lap and tipped us over so that we were lying on the divan. His hands smoothed over my face, my neck, my shoulders and then down the length of the beautiful dress he’d bought for me to the juncture of my thighs. He pulled his mouth from mine and took my bottom lip gently between strong, white teeth. “Gods, Daphne, I’ve missed you so much.” I sucked in a breath as his hard, warm fingers probed me gently through the dress. Like a shameless hussy I started tugging on his tie, his shirt, his zipper, frantically trying to rip everything off him at once. He chuckled and grabbed my hands. “I’ve got it, hold on.” He sat up and ripped the small, black tie from the neck of his shirt and then deftly slipped his fingers over the buttons. Within seconds the shirt draped open, baring his beautiful, lightly browned chest to my frantic gaze. I reached up and smoothed my hands lovingly over the firm flesh of his chest, running my fingers down to dip beneath the waistband of the sexy black slacks. “Off!” I ordered. 107

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“Happily.” He stood up and started unzipping the slacks. Voices neared the door and it started to open. Bion and I both swung a hand toward the door as it cracked open and the door slammed shut so hard the wall shook. Silence fell like lead on the other side of the door and then the voices picked up again and drifted away. Bion stood before me in all his naked glory. “Your turn.” He waggled his eyebrows at me and I laughed, sitting up and turning around. “Help me with the zipper?” I looked at him over my shoulder and he moved in, dropping down on one knee behind me. He pushed me gently down onto my stomach on the divan. He bent over me and his hands circled my neck from behind, kneading gently before sliding over the tender flesh of my shoulders and down my arms, pulling the resilient fabric of the dress down as he went. With my dress now gathered around my elbows, his lips found the smooth skin of my exposed back and burned a trail across my shoulder blades, causing me to shiver with pleasure. His tongue dipped under my arm and licked a trail down my side, then slid across my lower back and suddenly left my flesh. I gasped as the zipper started to slide down and I realized he’d grabbed it with his teeth. I saw the extreme wisdom of this maneuver when the zipper stopped moving and his tongue plunged deeply into the crack at the top of my buttocks. I gasped and surged upward, warm liquid running from between my thighs to soak the divan beneath me. “Oh my gods!” Bion’s warm hands slid down my sides, deftly pulling the beautiful dress off with them and shimmying it over my legs, leaving me completely naked beneath him. “Mmm,” he murmured as his tongue returned to the warm, quivery crack between my buttocks, “no undies, my favorite.” I quivered beneath him, my body opening with the incredible sensations his tongue was causing in my very surprised nether regions. He reached for my hips and lifted my buttocks into the air. Cool air met the wet trail his talented tongue had created in my tender flesh and I shivered. His tongue returned to its work, licking from the dimple at the top of my buttocks, over the puckered flesh of my never-before-breached flesh and through the dripping folds of my throbbing sex. “Please,” I begged him in a voice that was drenched with need. Bion probed my wet folds with his tongue, imitating the in and out motion of sex to bring me as near to orgasm as possible without pulling me over. I shoved my butt at him and groaned, “Oh gods, Bion, finish this!” He flipped me over and lowered his head to my pussy, flicking my engorged clitoris once, twice, three times with his tongue. I shuddered with each touch of the intensely sensitive flesh. Then his incredibly hot mouth closed over the tiny bud and he sucked gently, pulling me screaming over that peak into mind-altering orgasm. Before I’d finished riding the last incredible wave, he moved between my legs and plunged, burying himself deeply inside my still pulsating core.

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I cried out and immediately fell into another shattering climax, screaming his name and rearing back to lay my head on his shoulder and capture his lips with mine. Bion grabbed my breasts in both hands and pulled me tightly against him, his hot, wet mouth moving from my mouth to suck on that most tender of areas below my ear. He swirled his tongue over the quivering flesh there and sucked gently while he plunged firmly and deeply into me. As he nurtured the sensitive spot on my neck and pulled me inexorably toward another screaming climax, he laid a hot, strong hand over my mound and rubbed me in a circular motion until I gave in to the swirling waves of pleasure that were pulling at me and screamed out his name as I went over. Bion came with me, surging one last time into me and capturing my lips with his as he growled his release, his body plunging helplessly into mine. We collapsed together onto the divan and lay there gasping. I felt so good. So happy. Bion was mine. It didn’t seem possible. The couch vibrated under the onslaught of our combined panting. Bion’s chuckle of contentment brushed against my ear and I smiled. Then he pushed himself upright and dragged me up too. Our lips came together in a touch so tender I almost didn’t notice the fact that the room was moving around us. When the roaring started a few seconds later we finally noticed. Bion broke the kiss on a curse. “Hurry! Get dressed. We need to get the hell out of here now!” I grabbed my dress. “What’s going on?” Bion pulled his slacks on and dragged his shirt over his arms, not stopping to button it as he stepped into his shoes, sans socks. He grabbed my hand as soon as the dress slipped down over my hips. “Let’s go!” The pictures on the walls started to hit the floor, and across the room the air was thickening and throbbing. “My shoes!” Bion let go of my hand just long enough to allow me to grab my shoes and then I rejoined him and we flew toward a door on the far side of the room. I was hoping it wasn’t a door back into the ballroom, where thousands of people would see us running away from gods knew what in a severely disheveled state. We reached the door and Bion jerked it open. It led to a dark, quiet hallway. Behind us an explosion rocked the room and something that sounded like a wind tunnel surged toward us. Bion yanked the door closed and we tore down the hallway. I followed as best I could while clutching the hem of my dress in my hand along with my shoes.

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Behind us the door we’d just come through exploded outward and the wind surged into the hallway. We dug in and ran faster. I didn’t know what we’d unleashed or what would happen when it found us. But whatever it was, I suspected my world was about to change in a serious way.

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Chapter Eleven Running from Fate

Bion pulled me through a door and we were suddenly outside, standing at the top of a wide set of concrete steps that led into a pretty garden and then into the park. We flew down the steps just as the door we’d shut behind us exploded outward. We ducked as the door roared by over our heads and crashed into a large tree in the garden. “This way!” Bion’s hand closed painfully over mine, forcing me to keep up. I dropped my shoes so I could run faster. We left the arc of light that illuminated the pretty garden and ran into the park, which felt very open and dark compared to the area around Orchestra Hall. I suddenly felt very exposed. All around us trees, bushes and flowers swirled under the impact of the tunnel of air that roared after us. I felt a thousand little stings as the flying debris sliced against my skin. Bion kept looking back over his shoulder and the look on his face was a mixture of fear and, amazingly, amusement. We ran on through the park until I thought my chest would burst. Gradually the sound of destruction behind us receded until it sounded as if it was a couple of blocks away. I kept thinking Bion would slow down and let me catch a breath but he didn’t show any signs of stopping. Finally I yanked my hand away from him and stopped, doubling over as my chest heaved in an effort to drag air into my lungs. Bion stopped when I jerked my hand away and turned, his handsome face filled with immediate concern. “Are you all right?” I looked up at him, my face covered in sweat and my mouth gaping in an effort to breathe. Hunks of my hair, which had managed to escape my formerly tidy chignon, tumbled over my face in annoyingly clingy swaths. I blew a strand off my mouth and glared at him. “I don’t know what the hell is chasing us but whatever it is I think I’d rather stand and fight than run one more step in this dress.” Bion’s gaze jerked back the way we’d just come as something exploded in the distance. The sound of whistling followed the explosion and we looked up to see some kind of pillar sailing through the air way over our heads. Bion grinned. “There goes the pavilion.” I straightened up, clasping my roiling stomach. “Bion, what the hell is chasing us and why?” 111

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He turned to me and the smile slid from his face. “It’s the Furies.” My eyes closed and my knees felt as if they would buckle again. “Oh gods no.” Bion’s hand clasped my elbow. He led me to a concrete bench and I sat gratefully. He hovered protectively nearby, rubbing my back. I looked up at him when the dots stopped swirling in front of my eyes. “Why?” He shrugged. “My father did a little, shall we say, manipulating of our life threads. Clotho is not happy about it. She wanted him to change the threads back but I begged him not to.” Bion looked down at me, his intense dark eyes filled with sudden tenderness. He traced a gentle finger down the side of my face. “I’ve loved you ever since that day you bumped into me on the steps of the Building of Judgment. Ever since you touched me with your tears.” I thought back to that day. I’d forgotten I’d been crying then. Zeus had yelled at me for mixing up a couple of legends that had him sending Poseidon, God of the Sea, to the Sahara Desert and Set, God of the Desert, to the Mediterranean Sea. Things had gotten pretty ugly after that. I briefly related the story to Bion. Bion laughed and I shrugged, grinning. “Sure it’s funny now…” He leaned down and kissed me tenderly. “We need to keep moving.” I cocked my head at him. “How’d you get rid of them anyway?” He grinned. “I changed time so that they were back at Orchestra Hall. They’ll be back here soon enough and they’ll be pretty mad.” I laughed, scrubbing a hand down my face wearily. “Just what you want to do to a Fury…irritate them even more.” He reached for my hand. “Let’s go.” I sighed. “We can’t run from them forever, Bion.” He shook his dark head. “No but we need to keep moving awhile longer yet.” He pulled me off the bench and we started running. “Where are we going?” He glanced down at me. “We need to get to my car.” My eyes widened. “Back to the Hall?” He shrugged. “We have no choice.” “Can’t you change time so that we’ve already escaped?” He looked down at me and grinned. “It doesn’t work that way. Besides,” he lowered his lips and touched mine softly, “I wouldn’t want to miss a minute of my time with you.” I grinned like a dope. I couldn’t help myself. “You’re such a liar.” He nibbled my bottom lip and then pulled me into a kiss that would have melted my shoes if I’d been wearing any. When he pulled back he kept me tightly pressed against his body. I could feel the long, hot line of his cock against my belly and it made my knees wobble with lust. “Did that feel like a lie?” 112

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I opened my mouth to speak just as a tree in the near distance exploded upward and shot toward us like a huge, jagged arrow. Bion looked up and frowned. “We just ran out of time.” I made a sudden decision that I hoped I wouldn’t regret and grabbed his hand. “Well damn! I guess we’re gonna have to do this the hard way. Hold on.” I closed my eyes and concentrated and we slid into total stillness. When I opened my eyes a few moments later we were standing on Mt. Olympus, with the Building of Judgment towering above us. We stood, I realized, on nearly the same spot we’d been when we’d first bumped into each other. Literally. Bion looked around and smiled. “Why, Daphne Charissa, you continually surprise me.” I shrugged. “I have talents…skills.” He threw back his gorgeous dark head and laughed. Somewhere out in the distance, high over the mountain peaks beyond Olympus, the wind started to build and I grabbed Bion’s hand. “We have to get to my mother. I think she knows something she hasn’t told me yet.” Bion nodded. “Lead the way.” As we turned toward my mother’s house a scream of fury erupted in the distance and when I looked up I saw that the sky had darkened to black and purple, with arrows of lightning spearing through it in violent jolts. The air swirled in three perfect funnels. The Furies were coming. “Come on!” I pulled Bion down clean, perfect streets made of golden brick. Past towering homes built of shining onyx and shimmering mother-of-pearl and trimmed in gold and silver and occasionally, for a lesser god or goddess, bronze, until we reached my parents’ house deep in the heart of Olympic City. I threw open the front door and we ran inside. My mother was waiting for us in her meditation chair. “Hello, my darling.” I smiled and knelt in front of her, placing my head in her lap. “Mother. It’s been too long.” She stroked my hair back from my face and looked up at Bion. “You’ve found her at last.” Bion knelt beside me and took my mother’s hand. “With your help, goddess.” My mother smiled. “You know me?” I lifted my head and frowned at them, suddenly feeling as if I was the stranger in my parents’ house rather than Bion. He nodded. “I dreamt of you throughout my childhood. You told me what I needed to do to find my love.” He touched his forehead. “You touched me with your tears…here.”

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My mother reached to place a fingertip on the same spot on his forehead where she’d touched me with her tears. “I knew Daphne was the one to break the fast. The Cupid race could not survive forever in its current, loveless state. It was necessary to interfere with the Fates.” I frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother, but the Furies are only a few steps behind us now. I need to know how to calm them.” My mother turned her face to me. “There is so much you need to know, daughter. I had hoped to school you in it over time, with gentleness, but necessity breeds brevity I fear.” She sighed and lifted her arms. The air around us changed and thickened and the sound of the Furies outside died down. “That should hold them out while we have tea.” Unbelievably, my mother stood and headed toward the kitchen. “Lemon?” she asked us over her shoulder. I looked at Bion and lifted my eyebrows. He grinned and shrugged. It appeared we would have tea. With the Furies banging…literally now…on our doors. The whole, huge house was shaking under the onslaught but my mother worked calmly over her tea tray. I decided she knew what she was doing and sat down at the beautiful obsidian table in the middle of the huge kitchen. It was a kitchen made for a castle, which the house definitely resembled, and was meant to be filled with servants, which my mother rarely used. She always said she preferred her privacy. And with magic at your fingertips household chores were certainly no biggie. When we were settled with our tea my mother looked at me. “Your father and I had hoped you could come into your legacy without all this drama. But the Fates have been very stubborn and they forced our hand.” I frowned. “Do you mean you had something to do with the altering of my life thread?” She nodded. “It has been set into prophecy for millennia that the Cupid race would have one chance, and one chance only, to be released from its loveless state. But in order for that to happen a Cupid would need to be selected from the race to fight the Furies for his or her own chance at love and win against them. The selected one was to be chosen against certain traits and genetic conditions. One of which is that he or she was to have been created in a moment of love,” she looked up at me with tears in her eyes, “with a human.” I stared at her for a moment, trying to get my mind around what she was telling me. I told myself that she wasn’t saying what it sounded like she was saying. “But Father is a Cupid.” She shook her head, her eyes filled with pain. “Your blood father was not.” I stared at her, my mouth gaping open in shock. Bion grabbed my hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing it in gentle support.

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My mother swiped at the tears on her cheeks and went on. “I met him during my stint on Earth and we fell instantly, incredibly in love. I knew it couldn’t last but I held on to him as long as I could. When he turned away from me I wanted to die. By then I knew you had been conceived and I already loved you. Your father offered to take us both on and I agreed, knowing that he was a good man and he would take good care of you. I didn’t care at that point if I lived or died.” I glanced at Bion and bit my lip. I knew exactly how she had felt. “Does that mean I’m not a full-fledged goddess?” My mother shook her head. “Technically yes but you’ve been infused with my tears so you are for all intents and purposes a goddess, though a lesser one by birth.” “She’s a demi-god like I am?” My mother smiled at him. “You are so like your father you know.” Bion walked around the table and knelt before my mother, taking her hand and bowing over it to kiss it reverently. “I owe you my life,” he glanced at me, “in so many ways.” “You were chosen the day she touched you with your tears. Your father and I merely ensured the link would be completed. You owe me nothing.” He nodded and stood back up. I just sat there, feeling a bit shell-shocked. The house shook so hard that some of the crystal in the cabinets broke. My mother stood up. “The Furies will have to be dealt with.” I stood too. “How am I to do that?” My mother smiled. “It is not so difficult a thing, my love. You and Bion, together, are a force to be reckoned with. You are bound by your tears and your fate has been set in the thread. The Fates would like to change that but they can’t. Once the thread has been made it can only be unmade by its maker.” She smiled at Bion. “And I don’t think Zeus will undo the changes to that thread.” My eyes widened. “Zeus!” I turned to Bion. “Your father is Zeus?” He shrugged, grinning at me. There was a massive explosion and my mother frowned. “Unfortunately it won’t do anything to help my house. Let us go meet your fate.” I reached across the table and grabbed my mother’s arm. “How can Bion and I possibly beat the Furies back on our own? What must we do?” My mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry, as long as you’ve given them no weapons to use against you you’ll be fine. They can’t really harm you. All you need to do is stand steadfast, joined by your love for each other, and they’ll eventually have to back down.” I frowned. “Weapons? What kind of weapons could I possible give them?” Above our heads a large part of the roof sounded like it was being ripped off.

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“You haven’t given them your tears, have you?” I started to shake my head but then a memory drifted across my mind that drained the blood from my face… a soft, white finger pulling a tear off my face, a missing wineglass. “Oh my gods…” My mother’s face paled too. “Daphne!” “I didn’t exactly give them a tear but I think they might have stolen one.” My mother dropped into the nearest chair as if her legs could no longer hold her. “Oh my gods!” Beyond the door into the kitchen we could see wood and stone and bits of cloth whirling around and crashing into walls. The thunderous, spinning wind had hit the beautiful, ornate staircase that wound down from the upper levels and was working its way down to us, ripping to shreds everything in its path. My mother suddenly stood. “You must go to the peaks. Where your magic is strongest and theirs is weakest. I pray you will find a way, my daughter. Whatever you do, don’t let Clotho weave your thread for you. With a tear in their possession they can undo the knot. But they can only do it if you agree to the change. “I’ll go to Zeus. Perhaps the way they acquired the tear will give us something to work with…if it was not freely given…” The stairs beyond the door exploded and chunks of wood ripped through the kitchen. Bion threw himself on top of my mother and me and took the brunt of the damage on himself. My mother shoved him aside and stood, dragging us up with her. “Go now! Bion, take her to the safety of the peaks. I’ll bring your father as soon as I can.” Bion nodded and grabbed my arm. Suddenly the noise and commotion of my mother’s kitchen was left behind and we found ourselves standing in a different kind of wind, a natural, caressing wind that smelled of lush grass and softly perfumed meadow flowers. We stood looking down on the twinkling lights of a human world far below, so peaceful, so utterly ignorant of the power and destruction brewing above their heads. Night had fallen and it was completely silent at the top of the mountain. We dropped to the ground and lay on our backs in the fragrant grass, trying to catch our breath before the next circle of Hell descended on us. My mind raced as I struggled to make sense of everything that had happened to us over the previous few hours. Between the onslaught of the Furies chasing us and my mother’s revelations, I didn’t know where to turn first. Above our heads the stars twinkled and flashed, seeming so normal in the midst of the chaos that was our current predicament. Bion lifted himself onto one elbow and looked down at me. “Are you okay?” I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “I’ve never been better…how about you?” He grinned at me, shrugging. “I’m in my favorite place in all the world and I have my beautiful Cupid lover beside me, what could be better?”

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I laughed again. “Oh…let’s see…maybe if the Furies weren’t trying to kill us and we had some idea how to stop them?” Bion’s grin widened. “I consider all that just added flavoring to a perfect stew.” “Stew is right,” I snorted. “None of that takes away from the fact that you look just beautiful in that white dress I picked out for you.” I arched a brow at him. “You picked out?” “Of course, I was planning on asking you to marry me tonight. The white dress was symbolic.” I sucked in a breath, I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “Marry you?” He nodded. “Now, of course, it will have to wait until we kick the Fates’ gnarly asses.” “Of course,” I whispered, nodding stupidly. He jumped up and grabbed my hand. “But before we kick ass, I want to show you something.” He pulled me to my feet and we started off through the thick, fragrant grass of the meadow. In the near distance I could see the rocky face of Olympus’ tallest peak. In the dim light it looked dark and forbidding. That, of course, was the direction Bion was heading. We ran hand in hand toward the dark wall of rock and toward an even darker arch in the side. Bion pulled me into a cave and, as soon as we entered, flipped a hand to ignite several sconces that lit the narrow tunnel leading into the mountain’s core. We walked for several moments before the faint sound of falling water teased my hearing. As we moved more deeply into the mountain’s core the sound of water deepened until, when we emerged into an enormous cavern deep in the bowels of Mt. Olympus, I saw the source of the thunderous sound. Several hundred feet above the floor where we stood, a river opened into the cavern and fell in cascading colors of iridescent pinks and blues and pale greens, sliding over age- and water-smoothed golden rock to crash into a deep pool of sparkling water at its base. From there the water funneled out in shallow tributaries, dividing the huge space into several areas that were carpeted in lush green grass and richly painted with a bright mix of flowers, dancing softly in a soft breeze from above. Thick tree trunks formed the foundation for hundreds of densely flowered and fragrant trees, standing sentinel around the perimeter of the huge cavern and spreading their abundant arms to the sky above. Above our heads the sky was blue and bright, with fat clouds lumbering across to give the occasional, perfect shade from the sun’s intense heat. As I stood gawking, a deer walked by, totally unconcerned by our presence, and its beautiful fawn wobbled past with legs bumping clumsily against each other and huge ears tipping to and fro as it walked. 117

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Bird song competed with the majestic drone of the waterfall and somehow rose above it. Their music made my breasts heavy and my core clench with need. My thoughts ran to Bion’s soft lips, his hard body and his talented fingers. And I gasped, my face flushing with sudden, unstoppable need. I looked at Bion and his face held the same rapture. Sudden realization hit me. “The Garden of Love.” He nodded. “The Garden of Life will always thrive amongst Olympus’ gods. But the Garden of Love, ’gainst harsher odds, nurtures love amongst the rocks.” “I thought it was just a myth.” Bion shook his head. “Like many magics, it comes to those who need it most.” He turned to me, his impossibly handsome face filled with tenderness. “I came here that first day, after your tears touched me on the steps of the Building of Judgment. I was miserable with the certainty that you could never love me and I was just wandering aimlessly when I found this place. I never dreamed I’d bring you back with me. Or that I’d get to make love to you with Lover’s Fall as a backdrop.” Tears filled my eyes. “Bion…” I reached for his face and touched his cheek. He leaned into my hand and then turned, kissing my open palm. Then he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in for the real thing. As our bodies met, the sound of the falls receded and the song of the birds rose, throbbing around us. My pulse picked up the rhythm of their beautiful song and my senses became more acute, more attuned to Bion’s every touch, his every breath. His kiss made my heart pound and my knees weaken and when he broke the kiss I cried out, frantic for his touch, his heat. Bion lifted me off my feet and carried me toward the pool at the bottom of the towering, magical fall of water. A balmy mist from the waterfall settled over our skin, making it tingle with magic. When he reached the pool he kept walking until he was standing knee deep in the sparkling liquid. The breeze that wafted across the cavern touched me in places I shouldn’t have been feeling it. I looked down and saw that our clothes were gone. Bion kept walking until the warm, magically enhanced water settled over my feet, my knees and my waist. Then he allowed my legs to drop into the welcoming wetness of that shimmering pool. A wave of pure sensual pleasure spread through me as my feet touched the soft, silky sand at the bottom. Bion’s body pressed against mine, his cock hard and firm on my belly. He lowered his dark head and breathed my name against my lips. I gasped under the resulting wave of pure lust, swamped under the sensation of needing him. He lifted and turned me so that he could slide his full, hard length into my welcoming heat. I lay my head on his shoulder, reveling in the feelings our joining created. Bion lowered me onto a smooth, flat boulder and pressed more deeply into me. His carefully controlled strokes scraped wonderfully against my exquisitely inflamed

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flesh, his heated body bumping against my tender bud at the end of each wondrous stroke. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the rock, allowing myself to become mesmerized by the powerful drone of the waterfall and the magically enhanced touch of mist against my sensitive flesh. Bion’s body tightened above me as he fought to keep the rhythm slow and his strokes deep. Gradually, as the magic-infused atmosphere started to eat away at his control, Bion’s strokes came a little faster, a little harder, until he growled under the passion of his feelings and gave in, driving hard and deep into my body with an almost frantic need. My orgasm built with Bion’s intensity. It grew steadily inside me with every powerful stroke, fed by every need-charged moan, until finally it grew beyond what I could withstand. Bion’s last, powerful strokes threw me screaming over the edge, my tight, throbbing flesh pulling him relentlessly with me. As my flesh still pulsed with aftershocks, Bion jerked into a violent orgasm that left him pale and shaking and whispering my name against my lips. I lay panting on my back, my legs still wrapped around Bion’s waist, but he wasn’t done with me. He reached down and wrapped his big hands under my arms to lift me off the rock. I came up limp and saturated with pleasure. He set me on my feet and turned me around and I thought I knew what was coming. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Bion sat down on the rock and pulled me over him, easing me down onto his stillhard cock with a gasp of pleasure. The sudden invasion of his hard cock in my still throbbing pussy made me fall shuddering into another full-blown orgasm. As the stunning sensations slid through me, I sucked in a breath and leaned back into his hard, supporting chest and let his lips kiss a trail down the side of my neck. I shivered and thought I would die from pleasure. Bion lifted my thighs with his hands and pulled them wide, opening me up to the swirl of the magical water around us. At first all I felt was the tingle. It was nice. Very nice in fact. And I lay back in his arms and enjoyed it, letting my legs float on the surface of the water and taking the healing power it provided. I allowed the magical water to rejuvenate my pleasure-saturated body. But slowly, steadily, the pressure of the water began to increase until it was more pulsing than soothing. Bion began moving in and out of me, stimulating me internally

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with his hard cock, even while the water swirled and probed and focused a gentle, tingling pressure on my hard little clit. The combined sensual assault was nearly overwhelming. Pleasure swamped me, filled me, swept me into a maelstrom of feeling that I almost couldn’t stand. Every surface on my body throbbed and tingled, every sensation was heightened to the point of pain. My legs quivered uncontrollably, my arms trembled. The internal fire built and grew until I thought my insides would combust, while on the outside the soothing, magical mist kept my body cool, comfortable and on constant sensual alert. It was an incredible, indescribably wonderful feeling and one that I knew would change me…change us…irretrievably. Behind me Bion moaned and twisted under his building orgasm. His strong arm around my waist trembled and his legs vibrated under the effort of his driving thrusts into my welcoming body. I knew the moment he reached his peak, the water in the pool increased the intensity of its focus on my body at the same moment. Bion stiffened suddenly, tightened his arm on my waist and stood straight up in the pool, yanking me up with him and driving his cock deep into my body as he threw back his head and climaxed violently into me. I screamed as he surged into me and joined him, shuddering violently into my own, powerful release. We sagged down into the soothing pool, laughing and holding each other close. I nestled into him and sighed, wishing we could stay in that soothing pool forever. Bion leaned against the large rock at our backs and held me tight against his chest. I listened to the soothing rhythm of his heart and closed my eyes, lost in the peace of being together. Unfortunately our idyllic moment was not “fated” to last. The first sounds of the Furies’ arrival came to us in a building wind within the cavern. Bion sighed and kissed my forehead. “Let the games begin.”

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Chapter Twelve A Fight for Life

We dressed quickly. The winds in the cavern grew rapidly from a heavy breeze to a thunderous swirl of wind and debris. We stood together in front of the pool, our legs spread against the pounding gales. Our hands clasped tightly. My hair whipped around my face, stinging my cheeks and eyes. Remembering that the mountain was the seat of my magic, I reached up and gathered my hair with my hand and locked it into place with magic at the back of my neck. Rocks and dust blew from the tunnel opening and the opening burst apart as three violent funnels of wind spewed into the cavern, one after another. The funnels swirled in place for a moment, clustered together at the tunnel’s mouth. They looked for all the world as if they were assessing the area. Then suddenly they surged upward, off the wind-battered grass and spread out around the cavern, leaving trails of destruction in their wake. One of the funnels headed directly toward the largest tree in the cavern and engulfed it in a murky, debris-saturated whirlwind. A horrendous ripping sound filled the cavern as the funnel wrenched the huge tree right out of the ground. I watched in horror as the tree lifted and turned and was flung at Bion and me like a huge spear. We flew apart, leaping away from each other as the enormous hunk of wood crashed into the spot where we’d been standing. I hit the ground and rolled, coming to my feet and lifting my arms. With a thought I armed myself with a magic-enhanced crossbow. Pulling back on the lever to cock it and releasing my first bolt within a fraction of a second. The bolt hit the center of the funnel and I heard a cry. I followed up with several more bolts in quick succession, set in a triangle, wide at the top and narrowing toward the bottom of the funnel. With each bolt the funnel sputtered until, as the last one hit its mark, the wind tunnel died away, leaving a very pissed off Fury in its place. Clotho. Her torso, both shoulders and both thighs had crossbow bolts sticking from them, blood seeped from each and every wound. Her Fury persona was beautiful but scary. Her long blonde hair floated around her head on wings of air and her long, pretty face was pale gray and pink, like a stormy sky in April. Her pretty white gown swayed away from her lean body and left her slim ankles and feet, clad in soft gray silk pumps, visible just above the battered ground.

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She held her arms out to her sides, palms up, as if she waited to call the wind again and frowned at me, her full mouth twisted into an arrogant pout. “You have bled me, girl!” Her voice boomed around the cavern, bouncing off the rock face and sending the sound of the falls to the background with its power. The bolts flew from her torn flesh, leaving behind unblemished skin and a flawless gown. I ducked and leaped to the side as they sailed toward me. Something crashed behind me and I turned to find another tree lying on the ground where Bion had been. I gasped but quickly found him standing in the center of the pool, on the large flat rock that had so recently served as our bed. He was smiling and I followed his line of sight to find a fat, red-faced baby rolling on the ground, howling angrily amidst a ripped and battered patch of ground that was littered with debris. As I watched in fascination, the baby stretched and grew and became Lachesis, naked as the day she was born and as mad as hell. Her heart-shaped face was nearly purple with anger. With a thought she was fully dressed in a long gray gown. Pristine white lace formed her sleeves, draped the backs of her hands and molded over her softly rounded cleavage. She lifted her hands like Clotho and floated there, her long auburn hair drifting behind her as if she floated beneath the ocean. Her gown swung gently around her feet. Atropos, still in her funnel form, ripped through the pond at our backs. Heading straight for Bion. I screamed and started to run toward him. But I hit a Fury-manufactured headwind and struggled against it. Bion flew across the room, the funnel wrapped in his long arms, driving him inexorably toward the wall of rock at the perimeter of the canyon. I screamed as he hit the rock wall hard, his dark head snapping back, and then he slid bonelessly toward the ground. The wind tugged mercilessly at me, dragging me closer to Clotho who, I now saw, held her hands toward me with the fingers bent inward, toward her palm, as if she were pulling me toward her with her powers. I fought against the pull of her incredible power, my gaze locked on Bion’s lifeless form across the cavern, streaming with tears. Hopelessness swamped me. He was dead. They’d killed him. And it was all my fault. With a sob I stopped fighting and allowed Clotho to pull me close. When the wind stopped dragging me I stood just a couple of feet away from her, my head hanging low in defeat. Tears dripped from my eyes and landed on the ground below, dotting the torn and newly bared earth. In a rush of wind, Lachesis and Atropos joined Clotho, until all three Furies faced me, their hands outstretched, palms facing upward, an invisible breeze continuously tugging at them.

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The thunderous sound of the falls behind me was a muted drone beyond the power of their continuous windstorm. Clotho slowly reached out a hand and I lifted my head. She extended one finger toward me, a single, sparkling tear nestled on its tip. “I have the power to re-form your thread, girl, and I will do it.” I shook my head, my gaze spinning toward Bion, who was still lying on the ground. Unmoving. “You have no say in this, Daphne.” Lachesis’ husky voice boomed across the windswept cavern, making me shiver. “That’s not true,” I whispered into the dense wall of wind. “What did you say?” Clotho’s face darkened and the wind picked up again, pulling at my hair and clothes but, amazingly, doing nothing to the single tear that was perched on her outstretched finger. I forced myself to stand upright. I was a goddess. I would act like one. I cleared my throat and glared at them. “I said that is not true. And you know it. You cannot rewrite my thread unless I allow it.” The three Furies exchanged glances, their dark and angry faces carefully blank. Then Atropos turned toward Bion and I watched in horror as his limp body began to lift from the ground and float toward us. “He is not dead, Daphne. But he soon will be if you do not allow us to re-form your thread.” I closed my eyes, calling out to him in my mind, and clenched my fists in impotent fury. Either way he was lost to me. I held his life in my hands. My decision came down to loss of love or loss of life. For me they were one and the same but for Bion… Bion’s limp body dropped suddenly, just a few feet away from me. He lay in a crumpled heap. I could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. Thank the gods. They hadn’t lied to me. He was still alive. “Attend me, child.” Clotho’s voice had softened now and when I glanced at her, her cheeks were slightly pink again. All three of them suddenly dropped their hands and the nerve-jangling roar of the wind died down to a soft hum. Behind me the magical fall of water resumed its majestic song. My heart hung lifeless in my chest. If I lost Bion I would die. I knew that I had lost. I would not have my love. But I could save the man I loved from a terrible fate. “Do you agree to have your life thread re-formed?” I sobbed and dropped to my knees, my legs suddenly unable to hold me. I hung my head and lifted my clenched fists. I would lose all. And the Furies would win. Slowly I lifted my head and glared my hatred at the three abominations before me. Tears ran freely and copiously down my bloodless cheeks. But my lips opened and I said the word I never dreamed I’d say. “Yes.” 123

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Clotho nodded once, her pretty face tinged, amazingly, with sadness. But she stepped up to me and reached out a hand. As before, her fingers danced upon the air, creating the complex magic that would illuminate my life thread so that it could be viewed and re-formed. I waited despondently, my eyes locked on Bion and my heart barely beating in my chest. As soon as it was over I would end my life. I couldn’t bear to live without him. My life thread hung before me now. Clotho searched it for the knot that held my love for Bion. A chirp of delight told me she’d found it. She touched the finger that held my tear to the knot and the knot flickered and pulled the tear in, throwing off a single red spark as it was consumed. Clotho glanced at her sisters and they shook their heads. Then she turned back to me with a new urgency in her expression. Her fingers on the air became more frantic, moving so fast I could barely see them as she crafted the hideous magic that would rip my heart from my chest. I waited quietly, already succumbing to a hopeless condition. Then something flared and Clotho jumped away from my thread with a cry of pain. I looked at her and one of her fingers was smoking and scorched. My thread had disappeared. Suddenly pain engulfed me and I fell to the ground. I cried out and folded into a fetal position, writhing in exquisite agony. I was dimly aware that Clotho had stepped back and that the three of them were huddling, discussing something with frantic movements and worried faces. Tears filled my eyes and pain racked my body. I realized I would get my wish. If I was going to lose Bion I wanted to die. Suddenly Bion was there, bending over me, looking terrified. “Daphne, talk to me. What have they done to you? I’ll kill them…” But as he touched me the pain disappeared. I lay there in wonder for a moment, afraid to move for fear that it would return. “What is it, Daphne? Are you okay?” Bion’s handsome face was inches from mine and his strong hands caressed me. I nodded and struggled to sit up. “I’m okay. I just had this awful pain here…” I reached to touch my chest, just over my heart, and Bion’s hand covered mine. I gasped as a sudden throbbing warmth radiated from the place beneath our hands. “By the gods! Look at the ground.” Atropos’ husky voice came from somewhere behind me. Bion helped me sit up and we turned to see what the Furies had seen.

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All three goddesses stared at the spot on the ground where I’d been standing. On that small piece of land, in the midst of a larger ripped and barren spot, had grown a thick circle of lush grass with bright spots of color where flowers dotted its surface. “It’s from her tears!” Lachesis proclaimed. I looked at them and saw that the Furies were gone. We had only the Fates to deal with now. The three Graces. Bion helped me to my feet. “The circle of love has been completed. We are too late,” Clotho murmured almost reverently. Bion frowned. “The circle of love?” “It appears that you have won against the Fates, son,” a booming voice rang out over the cavern. “You and Daphne have been blessed by the Garden of Love.” This proclamation was followed by the happy sound of small, soft hands clapping in delight. “You have been given the gift of love!” We turned to find Zeus and my mother striding toward us across the funnelravaged ground. In their magical wake, grass sprouted and flowers popped, creating a vibrant walkway through the chaos that the Furies had created. They walked arm in arm, looking every inch the elegant gods of mythology. My mother, lithe, shapely and breathtaking as always, had a sparkle in her violet eyes that I hadn’t seen for years. Zeus was impossibly tall, easily eight feet from the bottom of his feet to the top of his heavily jeweled head, and he was the breadth of two normal men across the chest. His hair was glossy, dark brown and flowed in smooth waves across his shoulders. A bright, hot sun followed their progress across the cavern, glinting off the jewels in their hair to create vibrant sparks of color. They stopped several feet away from the three Graces and Zeus cast a glower at the three frowning goddesses. “It appears they’ve bested you, crones.” Clotho sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “It would appear that way, yes.” I shook my head, my mind not able to wrap around what I was hearing. “I don’t understand. What’s going on here?” Bion wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Let me explain, if I may?” He looked at his father and Zeus inclined his head in regal agreement. Bion turned to me. “You and I joined in true love in the pool at the base of Lover’s Fall, in the Garden of Love. As the happy result of this activity, we’ve fulfilled the prophecy. Forever breaking the loveless cycle for the Cupid race.”

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The three Graces scowled and scuffed their pretty pastel slippers in the thick grass that continued to spring up around them as the Garden of Love repaired itself and returned to normal. My mother threw back her head and laughed with delight. “You’ve done it Daphne. You’ve beaten the Fates and rescued our race from a loveless existence! You have fulfilled the prophecy.” I turned to Bion and smiled, finally understanding the enormity of what we’d done. “We did it? We can be together?” His answer was to drag me close and claim my lips with his own. Driving heat into my body and life into my poor battered heart. And as we lost ourselves in the wonder of being together, finally and forever, I felt a warm tenderness in my heart, secure in the knowledge that I would never again live without love.

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About the Author Sam Cheever writes about feisty, fun characters who move quickly from one disaster to another in a world that is filled with unique problems and the constant threat of disaster. Sam’s characters meet these threats and challenges with humor, bravado, and a realistic mix of human (and non-human!) frailty and good old fashioned belligerence. A long-time writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, Sam has found her strides with fantasy and paranormal romance. Her fantasy worlds brim with hot devils, cool Angels, sexy dilemmas, and dangerous situations. To pay the bills, Sam started her writing career as a freelance writer and has worked as a business writing consultant for medium and large organizations for 10+ years. However, she is much more comfortable in her fantasy world, and plans to stay there as long as the medication holds out. The author welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

Tell Us What You Think We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at [email protected].

Also by Sam Cheever Check out the author’s books at Cerridwen Press (www.cerridwenpress.com): ‘Tween a Devil and His Hard Place ‘Tween Heaven and Hell

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

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