The Deep End of the Sea (23 page)

“There is something you need to understand about the gods,” he says softly in my ear. “I know you think us flighty and subject to whims of fancy, but the solid truth is, we are the most consistent creatures in the universe. I love you. Do you understand that?
I love you
. That is not going to change, not ever. When we finally fall in love, it’s forever love. Even if you decide one day that you do not love me anymore, I will still always feel this way for you. I will let you go if it’s what you desire, but Dusa ... please do not worry about such trivial things such as whether or not our happiness together depends on what you think the Assembly might think. I can easily deal with them—I’ve had loads of practice over the years.” He kisses me again, hot and slow. “I want to spend my life with you, if you’ll let me.” His tongue traces my jaw line; passion stirs in my belly once more. “I want to spend forever with you.”  He gently bites my earlobe; I moan softly. “I don’t care if you are mortal, immortal, or a so-called ex-monster. I just want you.”

I hate to say it, say anything, especially since his hand is sliding in between our bodies, down to where we are still joined, but I have to. “But, Athena—”

He cuts me off with another kiss, his fingers making contact with my pleasure point, and all of my argument goes flying out the windows. I gasp, arching into him, lost to anything but he newly swelling ecstasy his fingers bring about. His mouth lowers to close around my breast; I moan, bucking as he sucks greedily. I twist strands of his hair around my fingers, reveling in how I can feel his length harden in me. I squeeze tightly around it, needing him to move within me once more. He groans that delectable groan of his, and our bodies once more dance in perfect synchronicity.

Athena and her threats be damned. If he’s willing to risk it, so am I.

“I’ll be back in an hour, tops.”

I laugh, straightening the collar of his green button down shirt. Apparently, when Aphrodite had bought my dress, she’d bought him a matching shirt and suit. He’s criminally gorgeous in it, sleek and handsome, like he could be the world’s most famous movie star. I pity all of the women downstairs, for the swoons they’ll try to ward off when they see him, and for all the men who will realize they’ll never be as desirable as he is. “Don’t you dare. You promised me at least two.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

I pat his cheek and press a quick kiss against his lips. Except, he’s in no mood for anything quick, because his mouth reclaims mine for long, scorching minutes that threaten my already tentative balance until a knock sounds on the door. “I don’t have to go,” he whispers against my mouth. “I can stay right here with you and be perfectly content.”

It’s completely tempting, but I know how important his presence is there tonight. Anybody who’s anybody in Olympus will be there, and he’ll be expected since his close relationship with his uncle is well known. I reluctantly lean back and smooth the lapels of his smart black coat. I love that he has no tie on. “Go. Have fun. Believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to that bath and then snuggling up with Mátia while we watch a movie. You need to hang out with your family.”

“You say you want me to go, yet you tell me that?” He half-laughs, half-groans, dropping his forehead in the crook of my neck. “You must realize I’ll have a very vivid image of you, naked and delectable in a bathtub, in my head for the rest of the evening now. Everybody will know what I’m thinking, because it will be hard to hide it.”

I can feel what he means, pressing up against my belly. My own image of Hermes, naked in a bathtub with me, has me seriously reconsidering my urging for him to go to the party. I drop my hand and cup his hard length, eliciting another one of those delicious moans and a knee-knocking lick on my neck. “Maybe—”

The door swings open to reveal an atypically nervous Aphrodite, flanked by two Automatons. I drop my hand, my cheeks bursting into flame. Hermes sighs and glares at his sister.

“I was just—oh!” She turns pink—a lovely pink, unlike my own tomato red—when it’s obvious what she just interrupted.

“Most people at least wait until the door is answered before inviting themselves in, Dite,” he growls. “There’s normally a reason people shut them, you know.”

She blinks and then blushes harder, which would be amusing to see on the Goddess of Love if I weren’t so embarrassed at her catching me feeling up her brother. “Nobody answered when I knocked. Just wanted to see if you were still coming downstairs, brother. People are asking for you.”

There’s a question in his eyes as he looks down at me. “I think I’m going to stay—”

“Yes.” I nod, giving her an earnest smile while rubbing her brother’s back. “He was just about to head on down.”

Aphrodite drifts closer. She epitomizes all the legends about her tonight, with her hair perfectly styled yet sexy, her makeup and jewelry minimal (she has no need of it, obviously), and the dress she’d bought in Paris fitting like a glove. Wait. She’s still wearing the python print dress? Invisible hands massage my heart. “I also wanted to see how you’re doing, Medusa.” She reaches in between us and hugs me tightly; the overpowering scent of roses nearly swallows me whole. I’m instantly transported back to my roses on Górgona, and of how those plants helped me get through life one day at a time. And here I am, smelling them on this goddess after she went and saved me from her own sister.

Life is funny that way.

“I’m so sorry, friend,” she murmurs into my hair. “So very sorry I failed you.”

Hermes is unhelpfully silent as he continues to glower at his sister, hands stuffed in his pants pockets. I love him, but he cannot think to blame her for this.

I squeeze her back before we let go. “What are you apologizing for? If anything, I ought to be thanking you for saving me.”

She smoothes a stray hair away from her cheek. “If I hadn’t insisted we go to that particular boutique, none of this would have happened.”

“How could you have known that one of Athena’s girls worked there? Along with your godliness, do you guys also know every single person who works in Olympus and where? Because if not, Dite ... you need to stop feeling bad. The truth is, I was happy to be there. I’ve never gone shopping for clothes before in an actual store, so it was a treat. I’m genuinely disappointed I didn’t get to pick the right pair of jeans yet.”

“We’ll go again. As soon as you want.” There’s that wide smile of her again, and it feels good to see it again. “In Paris even.”

“You’ll have to wait to take Dusa to Paris until after we go for the first time.” Hermes’ hand rests on my lower back. “I’ve been dying to take her for years.”

Stars above, I love this man. He remembered all my chatter of Paris?

His sister smiles knowingly at us. “It’s a deal then.”

I’m in a scalding bubble bath a half hour later, eyes closed while relaxing to soft music flowing over the bathroom’s built-in speakers. I let the heat sink into my muscles and then my bones until I’m a content blob of jelly. I’ve got so much to be thankful for right now, so very much. I’ve got my life back, real friends, the love of my best friend, and a loyal kitten. And, as uneasy as I am about Athena carrying out her promises, I’m choosing to look ahead at the life I get to build. For a long time, my life never felt like it was
mine
. Worse yet, I stole lives from others. These last few weeks, I’ve stopped trying to rectify that. I can’t bring any of those brave yet misguided souls back, but there must be something I can do in their honor, to balance the karmic scales and ensure that their lives were not snuffed out too soon in vain. Maybe I can ask Hermes to help me get into my bank account, so I can start sending donations to my favorite charities again. Maybe there is charity work here in Olympus I can get involved in.

I wish I could talk to Mikkos about all of this. For all the wonderfulness I’ve embraced recently, it hurts more than I can articulate that I never got to see my old friend again. He died on vacation in Corinth, never to know the extent I valued his friendship, or how he saved my sanity more times than not. And as much as I appreciate my new friends, I also mourn the loss of the only other person, outside of Hermes, who stood by me when I was a pariah.

I wonder if his son buried him, gave him a place of respect and peace. While I know he’s now roaming the Elysian Fields, I yearn to visit where his body lies in rest. I bet if I ask Hermes, he’ll take me there. We could go there together and—

“Pardon the pun, but if this isn’t a wet dream come to life.”

My eyes startle open, only to find someone worse than Athena sitting on the edge of the tub, inches away from where I lay.

Poseidon
.

He’s dressed in all black, eerily resembling one of the Automatons, except where they are all bunchy muscles, he is lean and sculpted, his hands laced together and dangling in between his knees like he’s been here all along.

Like he belongs here.

I jerk upwards, water sloshing out of the tub and over his pants; but then, realizing how I’m naked and vulnerable to his piercing eyes, I immediately slide back down into the dying bubbles in terror. What is he doing here? How did he get in? There’s absolutely no way that he was invited. Hades claims he hasn’t spoken to his brother outside of Assembly meetings in at least a decade—the Seas and the Underworld are not close, nor have they ever been. Plus, I happen to know there are two Automatons stationed outside my door, and at least two-dozen patrolling the grounds tonight.

I grab a nearby washcloth and clutch it at my chest. “What—how—” But it’s no good. He’s got me over a barrel and the bastard knows it. His smile, so unfairly genuine, grows as his bright blue eyes—so disconcertingly similar to Dite’s—caress the length of my body and then back up again to linger where the skimpy washcloth desperately tries to cover my breasts.

The urge to vomit nearly strangles me.

“Do you know,” he says softly, his voice just as familiar to me in this moment as that horrible night so long ago, “that one of my greatest pleasures is reliving the day you became mine?” His fingers dip into the tub, swirling a path through the bubbles until they close in on my knees. I jerk away; more water sloshes out of the tub, but he acts like I’m not cringing at all.

His?
His
?

I scoot back in the tub, away from his fingers, not caring that the pressure of my foot against the porcelain edge as I push myself sends spikes of pain throughout me. But the pain is good, because I use it to seethe, “I am not, and never have been,
yours
.”

Genuine concern and hurt reflects back at me in the bright blue of his eyes. “Pretty girl, I’ve tried to give you time to get used to things. I gave you space. I indulged your whims by not making a scene when you were clearly brainwashed into staying here.” He runs a wet hand over his face, sighing quietly as I gape in horror at how he comes across as so blatantly sincere in his beliefs. “But ... it’s time to come away from this nonsense. I’ve missed you.” Despite my knees up as I cringe in the corner, he reaches out and strokes his hands across my bare, wet flesh.

Bile rises in my throat. My skin crawls. I am in a nightmare, I have to be, because there is no way that this bastard is putting his hands on me again. And yet he is—he’s here, I can feel him, and all I want to do is scream and throw up and beat him with my fists. I hiss, “Don’t touch me.” but his touch has shaken me. Shaken my words.

Shaken my confidence.

Because now my voice is tiny, just like it’d been when he’d raped me that rainy night so long ago.

“Sometimes,” he says quietly, “I wonder how we got to this place.” The corners of his mouth lift just a tiny bit. “Remember how easy it was between us in the beginning? How many hours we spent together, just ...” His fingers skim up past my knee, onto my thigh. My tremors turn into convulsions. “Talking,” he continues, acting like he’s oblivious to my disgust. “Being ourselves with one another. I’ve never been able to be just me before, not until you came along. Stars, am I grateful for stumbling across you in my niece’s temple.”