Goddess of Light (17 page)

“Pamela isn't silly,” Apollo said after the drowning sense of relief rushed through him. She was safe. There was nothing wrong with her . . . nothing except a fierce desire for him.

“I hope that the ridiculous grin on your face is because you will be taking the mortal to bed tonight—and ridding me of the burden of her invocation.”

“That is my intention,” Apollo said. He didn't bother to stop grinning. By all that was sacred, he was happy!

“I am exceedingly glad to hear it.” She gave him a disgruntled look.

Apollo linked his arm with hers as they walked toward the Great Hall of Olympus and the portal to the modern world. “Have I thanked you for making me visit the Kingdom of Las Vegas with you?”

“I certainly never intended for all of this to happen.” But she had to return her brother's smile. “Although I did sense that you needed a diversion.”

Apollo was silent until they faced the portal. Then he looked at her with eyes that held an expression that Artemis couldn't quite identify.

“I believe you have provided me with much more than a diversion, Sister.”

Hiding the unease his continued odd behavior made her feel, she said, “Just be certain that I'm unshackled. Soon.”

“Not to worry, Sister,” he said, voice and body fading as he stepped through the portal.

Artemis gazed after him, her smooth forehead wrinkled in consternation. She sighed in disgust. She was going to have to check up on him. His head was definitely in the clouds. He needed a push to make sure what must be done was actually done. She shook her head and glared at the portal. Sometimes she simply did not understand her brother.

 

 

PAMELA hadn't seen him yet, so he purposefully stayed in the shadow of the large column so that his eyes could devour her. She was sitting at the same table she'd been seated at the night before. She sipped from a crystal goblet of wine. She looked magnificent. Her dress was red, a rich, brilliant shade that complemented her dark hair and fair skin. Its design was simple and elegant. The sleeveless length of soft fabric hugged her body like a second skin, and it left a long, seductive length of leg exposed.

He smiled and shook his head. She had on those shoes again. Not the same pair as last night, of course. The ones she'd chosen to perch precariously on tonight were golden sandals melded to daggers. He could hardly wait to see what walking in them would do to her legs and her shapely buttocks. He felt his loins begin to become tight and heavy as he watched her. He wanted to take her right then—to sweep her away from the crowd and up to her room where he could show her what it is to be loved by a god. He even took half a step towards her before he stopped himself short.

No. He didn't want just to ravish her. He wanted more, and in order for him to have more, she had to know him, the real him. Whether she had been intoxicated by the invocation ritual or not, if all that was between them was sex, his relationship with Pamela would go the way of all of his other lovers. They would part when their bodies were sated.

Apollo thought about Hades and Lina and the happiness they had found together. He wanted his own happiness, and he would never find it if lust was his only focus. He stepped out of the concealing shadows, moving towards his future lover with strong, purposeful strides.

He knew the instant she saw him. Her eyes widened, and her luscious mouth curved up in a sweet smile of welcome. Apollo's heart thudded. What was it she made him feel beyond the white-hot lust and the yearning? Nerves? This petite modern mortal had the ability to make the God of Light nervous.

As he got closer to her, Pamela felt tension and excitement course through her. She was seriously glad she'd bought the new Chanel dress, and at that moment she didn't even care that it hadn't been on sale. At least she was sure she looked good. Now all she had to worry about was opening her mouth and babbling like a moron.

His eyes were more beautiful than she'd remembered; they were Paul Newman blue times five. And he was tall. So. Damn. Deliciously. Tall.

“Good evening, sweet Pamela,” Apollo took her hand and raised it to his lips. He made sure his lips lingered against her skin for just a moment longer than necessary, but not long enough to make her feel uncomfortable, and was pleased by the response that flushed her cheeks. He was inexperienced with falling in love—but the God of Light was definitely not inexperienced with making love. “You look as if someone should paint a picture of you, or write a poem in honor of your unique comeliness.”

“Thank you, I think,” she said, trying to regain her equilibrium. “If being called uniquely comely is a compliment.”

“It is indeed.” He was still holding her hand.

“Then thank you for sure.”

“You are most welcome.” Reluctantly he released her hand and sat beside her. “You were never far from my thoughts today, Pamela.” His gaze slid from her lovely face down her body to the long legs she had crossed and cocked to the side so that their sleek length was clearly visible. “Your ankle must be fully recovered if you chose to balance on blades again tonight.”

She smiled and wiggled her foot. “It feels perfect. And these are not blades. These are this season's new Pradas, which cost me a fortune, but I fell in love with them, so I had no other choice but to take them home with me.”

“Fortunate shoes,” he said in a voice turned husky. Apollo reached down and caught her ankle in one hand, running a thumb across her skin while he felt for the bones and tendons he had healed just the night before, double-checking that all was well with her. But he was finding it difficult to focus on healing. Her ankle and foot looked incredibly sexy in the little slip of a shoe—and her toes had been painted a bright red to match her dress. There was something indescribably sexy about those almost naked feet and those scarlet-colored toes.

Pamela felt his touch travel from her ankle through her thighs to coil in the pit of her stomach like a long, intoxicating drink of expensive scotch. She was very sorry when he released her foot.

Apollo motioned for the servant to bring him a glass of wine before returning his attention to Pamela. “You already know what I did today—I thought of you. Tell me what you did here in Las Vegas while time passed slowly until we were to meet again.”

Good, she thought, conversation was good. They needed to converse, because she needed time and mundane talk to get her raging hormones under control. Please, please, please don't let her babble like a boob.

“First, I did something I rarely do. I slept late.”

He raised one quizzical, golden eyebrow.

“I'm definitely a morning person. I usually get up in time to drink a leisurely cup of coffee while I watch a beautiful Colorado sunrise.”

“You like sunrises?”

She smiled, relaxing into the familiar subject of the conversation. “I adore them! Actually, sunrises are one of my absolute favorite things.”

Her answer resonated within his soul. Suddenly he longed to bare himself to her, to tell her who he was and to share his world and his life with her. She loved sunrise. Didn't it stand to reason that she would love the God of Light? He actually opened his mouth to tell her his true name, but his rational mind caught up with his impulse. He didn't want her to automatically “love” him as a god. He wanted her to fall in love with Phoebus, the man inside the God. Still, he couldn't mask the intense desire that filled his voice when he spoke. “Sunrise is also very important to me. Perhaps someday soon you and I will experience the sun climbing the sky together.”

Pamela blushed and didn't know what to say. She couldn't even stutter. Hell, this was definitely more than just being out of practice with dating and flirting in general. He made her feel like she couldn't catch her breath. She wanted . . . she wanted . . . Bloody buggering hell! She wanted so many things when he looked at her like that. But she'd wanted so many things when she'd first met Duane, too. He had seemed to hold the key to the rest of her life within his firm, capable hands. Reality had shown that the only thing he'd held within his hands had been emotional ropes with which he wanted to bind her to him—to choke the spirit from her and to make her into something she wasn't, his ideal of a perfect wife. She could still feel the rope burns from that stifling relationship.

So, slow and easy . . . she needed to slow down and take it easy with Phoebus. He seemed wonderful, but her intuition kept screaming that things were rarely as they seem. Having fun this weekend was one thing. Getting tangled in the ropes of another relationship was certainly another.

Within Pamela's expressive eyes Apollo read her struggle and then her subsequent withdrawal from him, and it pained him more then he would have imagined. But he had no intention of giving up so easily. His smile was warm and open.

“Good,” he said as if he hadn't just issued an invitation that she had ignored. “It pleases me that we have the appreciation of sunrise in common, but you said you overslept, so you missed the rising of the sun this morning. What else did your day hold?”

Pamela met his eyes. They were so warm and so incredibly blue. They made her think of the summer sky over the Mediterranean Sea . . .

Hell! She was doing it again—falling into his good looks like an f-ing teenager.

“Pamela?”

“Oh, sorry.” She took a sip of her wine. “My mind was wandering. Sometimes I lack focus. Not with my job,” she amended hastily. “There I'm totally single-minded. Like this afternoon. I started sketching my version of that horrible fountain. I thought I'd been there maybe twenty minutes or so, but when I finally checked my watch and took a breath, two hours had passed.” Pamela paused and squinted her eyes. “I just did it again, didn't I?”

“It?”

“Lost focus, shifted subjects.”
Babbled,
she thought.

“Definitely.”

“Sorry again, Phoebus.”

Apollo smiled. He enjoyed her bright thoughts and the way expressions danced across her face, especially when she spoke about her work. She wasn't a vixen trying to entrap the God of Light, nor was she a maiden, dazzled by his immortal powers. Pamela was real. Her responses to him were honest and true—and that was more of an aphrodisiac than he could ever have imagined.

“I don't mind. I like to hear your mind flitting about.”

“Well, that's”—she paused, watched him carefully for signs that he was being sarcastic or making fun of her—“unusual of you. Most men find it distracting.”

“Really?” He shook his head. “I think I have already said that quite often men are fools.”

“And I have already agreed with you on that point.”

They smiled at each other. On impulse, she raised her glass to him.

“To a man who is
not
a fool.”

“That is a toast I am pleased to join you in.” He laughed and touched his glass to hers. “Now tell me about this sketch you created. Are you an artist, too? Or is it like understanding architecture—you must have a working ability of it to properly do your job?”

His question pleased her—it showed that he'd actually listened to what she'd said yesterday—as did the attentive way he waited for her to answer.

“I love to sketch, and I'm even passable with watercolors, but I'm definitely not good enough to be considered an artist. But you're right. It is like the importance of understanding the rudiments of architecture in my job. It's also important that I am competent enough artistically that I can create mock-ups for carpenters or upholsters, or even sculptors so that they can get a tangible grasp of what my clients want.”

Slowly, both of Apollo's brows raised, and his gaze turned to the monstrous fountain in the courtyard before them.

Pamela followed his gaze, breathed a long-suffering sigh, and nodded. “Yes, you guessed it. This particular client wants a reproduction of
that
in the courtyard of his vacation home.”

“Are you quite certain you heard him correctly?” Apollo stared at the gushing monolith. His eyes kept being drawn back to the atrocious copy of himself.

“More than quite. Actually, what I was doing today was trying to come up with a more tasteful compromise, but he insists that I keep Bacchus as the center statue.” She shuddered. “I'm going to have to figure out some way to change his mind. I did manage to get rid of the awful side statues, though.”

Apollo looked quickly back at her.

“You mean the statues of Caesar and Artemis and . . .” His voice faltered on his own name.

“Apollo,” Pamela offered. “That one with the big head and the harp is supposed to be the Sun God.”

Apollo was careful to keep his expression neutral. “Actually, Apollo is more accurately called the God of Light, and the instrument he is holding is a lyre, not a harp.”

“Huh,” Pamela said, studying the statue. “I didn't know there was a difference. That's right, you're a musician, aren't you? All I know is that it glows neon green when the horrid thing comes alive.”

“Yes.” He tried not to cringe. “So I've heard.”

Eyes still focused on the statue, Pamela said, “I didn't know Apollo was called the God of Light. I thought he was the Sun God.”

“That is what the Romans insisted upon calling him, but to the Greeks he will forever be their God of Light, bringer of medicine, music, poetry and truth.”

“Truth?”

“Yes, truth was very important to Apollo. He was one of the few Olympians who found dissembling and subterfuge offensive.”

“I had no idea. I thought all of the mythological gods were supposed to be impulsive and self-serving. I think I remember one of my English teachers describing them as playboys and womanizers.”