What a Goddess Wants

by Stephanie Julian

  “Suck it up, Tessa.” She straightened her back. “You need him.”

  After another deep breath, she knocked again, this time loud enough to echo in the surrounding woods. This part of Pennsylvania still had a few dark corners, and this man had found one of the darkest.

  Damn it all, was he ignoring her? Dead drunk? Or just dead? Salvatorus had told her all three were distinct possibilities.

  She sighed and glanced up at the sky, gray and nearly black. It would be dark soon, and she really didn’t want to be alone and unprotected out here after the sun went down. She’d be practically powerless. A shiver ran up her spine.

  Where the hell was this guy?

  Pressing her ear against the door, she listened. Nothing. Not a sound except for the ping of rain off the metal roof.

  Great. She’d finally decided to get help, and the man had the audacity not to be home.

  A steady stream of water dripped down her back, and when she shook her head, water flew from her hair. Well, damn it, she wasn’t going to stand in the rain and wait for him.

  Putting her hand on the doorknob, she felt the pulse of magic guarding the house through carefully set wards. They were such an odd mix of spells, none of which had the power to keep her out.

  She was a goddess, after all.

  Turning the iron knob, she pushed open the heavy door and tentatively stuck her head into the building.

  Forcing a smile, she called out, “Hello. Anyone home?”

  She couldn’t decide if she was relieved no one responded or frustrated. Maybe a little of both.

  With a sigh, she slipped through the door, feeling the tingle of Caligo’s wards as they slid off her without effect, and closed it tightly behind her.

  Surely this protector to whom Salvatorus had sent her wouldn’t be upset that she’d taken refuge in his home. She presented no threat to him. And not many men could resist her when she turned on the charm.

  Moving further into the room, she noted that this future protector of hers wasn’t much of a decorator. He had a couch, a coffee table, and a cabinet holding a flat-screen TV in the front part of the house.

  A kitchenette with apartment-sized appliances ran along the side of the house. The two open doors at the rear led to a bathroom and a bedroom.

  She yawned, catching herself off guard, and shivered as her wet hair dripped water down her front and onto the floor. In the bathroom, she found a clean towel and dried her hair as much as she could, sighing at her reflection.

  “Gods, I look like a drowned cat. I’ll probably scare the guy away.”

  Although, as she looked down at herself, she knew she’d be a shoo-in to win a wet T-shirt contest. Her purple silk top conformed to each and every curve. So did her denim shorts, but they were a bit more uncomfortable at the moment.

  Another yawn had her shaking her head as she moved back into the front room. Damn, she was tired.

  Sinking onto the surprisingly comfortable couch, she laid her head back on the cushion. Just for a second. She couldn’t let herself fall asleep. Charun—

  Her eyes closed and darkness descended.

  ***

  Cal realized someone had gotten through his wards the second he put his hand on the doorknob of his home. He felt the disturbance in the wards like a shiver running up his spine.

  Well, fuck. He didn’t need this shit.

  Closing his eyes, he put his ear to the door and could just make out the rhythmic sound of breathing. Someone was sleeping in his house.

  Cal shook his head. Who the fuck would be stupid enough to break through his wards and then fall asleep waiting for him to get home?

  Obviously someone who didn’t know him.

  Well, they were about to get up close and personal. Pulling the knife from his pants pocket, he got ready to fight.

  Turning the knob a quarter inch at a time so it wouldn’t squeak, he pushed open the door. When no one started shooting at him or screaming, he stuck his head through the opening.

  And spotted his very own Goldilocks passed out on his couch.

  Didn’t she know the real ending of Goldilocks and the three bears? Goldi became dinner. But what a meal she’d make.

  Easing through the door, he closed it behind him without a sound.

  The female continued to sleep, her long, wavy strawberry-gold hair spread along the ugly-ass plaid cushions and framing a too-pretty face.

  Too pretty to be completely human.

  Sharp cheekbones, small round nose, and uptilted eyes in a heart-shaped face. Hair the color of the sun and full lips begging to be licked and sucked and…

  Maybe that last one was just him projecting. It’d been a while since he’d gotten laid. He’d had to lie low after that last job, which hadn’t been a job at all. Venus, that bitch— Hell. He needed to get over that one.

  Rubbing the back of his neck, he contemplated his unexpected guest. Had to be an immortal of some sort, which would make sense of how she’d gotten through his wards.

  Not one of the Greeks; she was too fair. Maybe one of the Romans, but he knew most of those by sight. Etruscan? Yeah, he’d have to go with Etruscan.

  She should know better than to let her guard down and fall asleep in a strange man’s house.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  Stalking to the couch on silent feet, he watched for any sign that she was waking up, but she was out cold. Or she was a damn good actress.

  He reached out and nudged her shoulder. No movement, nothing.

  Was she injured?

  Come to think of it, she looked… wet. Soaking wet, actually. Must have gotten caught in the rain.

  That still didn’t explain what she was doing here making a mess of his couch. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t good. Damn deities always brought trouble with them. And he was sick and fucking tired of trouble.

  Well, this little Goldilocks was about to find out what happened when the bear got home.

  Bending, he picked her up and turned toward the bed in the back corner of the one-room shack. She didn’t wake, and he barely registered the load. Hell, she couldn’t weigh more than one hundred ten pounds soaking wet, which she was.

  Wonder what she looks like naked and standing in the shower?

  Well, what do you know? His libido still worked.

  At the bed, he dropped her on the mattress. She didn’t move, didn’t groan.

  Shit. What the hell was wrong with her? And how the hell long was he going to have to wait to talk to her?

  Standing over her in the perpetual twilight of his cabin, he studied her, trying not to notice how damn pretty she was, but he couldn’t deny it. Her pale skin gleamed, and her hair shone almost copper against the dark sheets on his bed. She was too bright, too beautiful for his place.

  What the hell could this little bauble be on the run from that would force her to come to him?

  Oh, he knew there were ugly things out there, monsters in the shadows, in the dark. Hell, he was one of them, though he could be bought for a price.

  Had she come to pay for his services? What was she willing to pay? Maybe a little sex to go along with the gold?

  She wasn’t his usual type. Of course, the last one had been, and look how that had ended up. But something about Goldilocks made his libido, among other things, sit up and take notice.

  She was small, only five two, maybe five three. And skinny, all tiny bones and features. He liked women with more meat on their bones. More like Amazons. He was six two and two ten, his body honed by constant training, constant vigilance, and constant violence. He liked his women to be able to keep up with him, not look like they’d faint from his weight on top of them.

  He’d never been attracted to fey little blondes.

  Still, since he wasn’t exactly sure what she was, he wasn’t going to take any chances ’cause he was that kind of guy. Careful. Meticulous. And a prick, if you listened to a few of the women he’d been involved with.

  Yeah, yeah, tell it to the ch
oir. He’d learned not to make promises to women. He almost always ended up breaking them.

  And he certainly never trusted women. You never knew what secrets they were hiding. To that end, he stripped her naked—just to make sure she didn’t have any weapons stashed on her, of course. Besides, her clothes were wet, and he didn’t want her to ruin his mattress.

  Uh-huh.

  The scrap of denim she wore as shorts fell in a tiny pile on the floor. Her bright purple T-shirt followed, but not before he’d rubbed the material between his fingers. It had the texture of silk and caught on the rough skin of his hands.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her underwear consisted of little more than two strings and a triangle of satin.

  His heart wanted to race but he refused to allow it. This wasn’t a seduction. Maybe she’d come to hurt him. Mercenaries couldn’t be too careful.

  He grabbed the ropes he kept under the bed. A few slipknots later, he’d tied her arms and legs to the four corners of the bed frame.

  Spread-eagle on his mattress, pretty little Goldilocks gave him a raging hard-on. Small but lush, her body curved in all the right places. Her breasts sat high and firm; her arms and legs were long and sleek; and her sex—

  Hell, he didn’t know where to look first.

  After last month’s fiasco in Philadelphia and—more to the point—the cause of it, he’d figured a naked woman would leave him as frigid as a few hours in a deep freeze.

  He still couldn’t believe he’d been duped by that Roman bitch, Venus. Goddess of Love and Beauty, his ass. She’d been smart enough not to use tears on him when she’d begged him to protect her from the big bad blacksmith god. No, she’d played the strong but wronged heroine to Vulcan’s evil rapist.

  What Venus had failed to mention was the fact that she’d slept with Vulcan to steal his magic hammer. She wanted to use that hammer to off Mercury, who’d told her to take a flying leap when she’d tried to seduce him.

  Vulcan had gone easy on Cal. The coma had only lasted two days. And Cal was back to full strength now. But the fact that this little piece stirred his desire made him uneasy.

  Getting a clean towel, he pulled the only chair in the house to the side of the bed and watched her chest rise and fall at a steady pace, her breasts quivering slightly with the movement.

  Shaking his head, he lifted his gaze to her face before he did something really stupid. Like touch her. That would be really stupid.

  He noted color returning to her cheeks. Good. She should come around soon.

  He pressed the towel against her forehead, then her cheeks. Her skin glistened as if she was warm. He glanced at the thermometer on the wall by the door. Nearly eighty-five in here. Not that he could feel it, but she definitely could.

  Folding the towel over his fingers, he swiped at her throat, then between her breasts. As his gaze continued down to the pale gold hair trimmed tight to her mound, his brain short-circuited.

  Shit, that’s not good.

  With an effort, he dragged his gaze back up to her face. Minutes ticked by as he stroked her cheek with the soft terry cloth, careful not to let his skin touch hers, and watched for any sign of her regaining consciousness. But her eyelids didn’t flutter; her breathing pattern didn’t change; and her lips didn’t move.

  She barely made a sound, and he found himself watching her chest for each slight rise. That, of course, meant he was back to staring at her breasts. Full, round, beautiful.

  When he lifted his hand to cup her, they felt great, too. Soft and female and… everything he’d been missing all his life.

  Shit. When had he become such a sap?

  His grip tightened for a second, and she arched into his touch, as if encouraging him. He was probably just reading too much into an involuntary movement, but damn, he really wanted to believe she liked his touch.

  Her breast fit in his palm perfectly, and when he rubbed his thumb over the dusky pink nipple, it tightened into a firm point. His cock gave a hard throb against the confines of his pants, and he lifted his free hand to her other breast.

  It’d been way too long since he’d gotten laid if just her breasts in his hands brought him this close to coming. There was a warning in there, but he ignored it and continued to knead her, treating her more gently than anything he’d ever held in his life.

  Why? Hell if he knew.

  He released her breasts and brushed his fingers against the pale skin just below her chin. Her pulse beat strong, and her skin felt… warm.

  He pulled his hands back as if she’d burned him. That couldn’t be right. He hadn’t felt heat or cold since he’d been a teenager. Couldn’t remember the warmth of hot water or the brush of a cool breeze on a fall night.

  But he swore he felt the heat of her skin against his.

  How was that possible?

  He was Cimmerian, one of the legendary warriors immortalized by that bastard Homer in The Odyssey. Their existence had been a closely guarded secret until that fucking Greek had outed them. Good old Homer. Between Atlantis and the Cimmerians, the ancient Greek historian really knew how to fuck up history.

  Yeah, they were born in the mist and shadow between the planes of existence, in the land they called Cimmeria. The Cimmerians’ strength and resistance to pain were legendary. Their bravery was unquestioned and their ability to fight until they died a useful skill for those who bought their aid.

  What no one knew was that Cimmerians felt no pain, no heat, no cold. The lack of sensation made them fierce warriors, the kind of men most humans or immortals wanted at their backs if they were in serious trouble.

  The only problem? After years of battle, the lack of physical sensation bled any and all humanity from the Cimmerians. Conversations usually ended in fights to proclaim dominance. Sex became nothing more than a release. Mates were for procreation, not affection.

  Emotion of any kind made you weak, according to Cimmerian thought.

  Still… if he and his visitor were both naked and he spread his body over hers, would he feel that warmth all over? Would he want to?

  He took a deep breath… and put his hands on her cheeks.

  Holy shit.

  He drew in a sharp breath at the pure bliss that lit up his nerve endings and zipped through his body like a lightning strike.

  He ripped his hands away. This changed everything.

  No. Hell, no.

  He was crazy. He had to be. What he was feeling was some aberration or a trick. An illusion. But as he stared at her body, he couldn’t quite seem to care.

  Her skin was completely free of tan lines or imperfections, sun-kissed peach except for her nipples. Those were a ruddy raspberry, puckered and erect. He wanted to bend down and take them in his mouth. Lick them, nip them, suckle until she arched into him.

  But first, he had to know if what he’d felt had been real or imagined. He lifted one hand… and stopped centimeters above the indentation of her navel.

  Idiot. Just touch her.

  Slowly, he laid his hand flat on her stomach to find her skin as soft as… Well, hell, he didn’t know what to compare it to. Or the heat of her body as it soaked into his skin.

  He sucked in a deep, almost painful breath. God… damn, that felt incredible. Even though it shouldn’t be possible.

  Well, fuck that. Possible, impossible, who the hell cared? Every nerve ending in his body had suddenly fired to life.

  He’d never realized how much he didn’t feel until this very moment. And now he wanted to revel in it.

  He put his other hand next to the first and closed his eyes, blocking out every other distraction except the feel of her. His body tensed, his balls tightening to the point of pain, and his cock hardened with a fierce throb.

  Who the hell was she?

  Fuck it, he didn’t care.

  Sliding his hands up and over her ribs, he felt each bone covered by warm satin skin. So delicate, so easily harmed. Sliding further, he let his hands touch the underside of her breasts. Soft and smooth,
her skin warmed even more as he brushed his thumbs back and forth.

  Had he ever taken the time to caress a woman there? Why would he have bothered?

  Why are you bothering now?

  He stuffed his internal censor back into its box and took the full weight of her breasts in his hands. They weren’t huge, but they filled his palms, her nipples pebbling even more as he ran his thumbs over them. So warm, so tight.

  He had to taste her.

  Chapter 3

  Tessa struggled out of a much-needed sleep because she felt someone close.

  Someone desired her. Ached for her so badly that his need brushed against her senses like a cat rubbing against her leg and begging for a caress.

  How long had it been since someone had truly needed her?

  She took a deep breath, her eyes still closed, and caught the scent of a male. Oh my, he smelled good. No, he smelled wonderful—a little sweat, a little spice, a whole lot turned on.

  He wanted her. She felt his desire like a blanket of heat on her skin.

  Forcing her lids to open, she found herself staring into moonlight-gray eyes, half hidden beneath midnight-black bangs.

  Those bangs nearly reached the tip of a slightly crooked nose that’d been broken at least once in his life. Possibly more than once, if the scar on his left cheekbone and the one under the cleft in his chin were any indication of the life he’d led.

  She followed the line of his jaw back up to his ear, noting that the rest of his hair wasn’t as long but clipped tight to his head. She lifted her hands to brush the bangs out of his eyes—and realized he’d tied her to the bed.

  She glanced down.

  Naked.

  Hmm.

  Closing her eyes for a second, she took stock. She wasn’t injured. But sweet Mother Goddess, she was horny as hell.

  She ached. For him.

  At the second she realized what she was feeling, her lungs constricted and her lips parted to try and draw in more air. Her nipples tightened into unbearable points of heat and her sex moistened, making her ready.

  The man watched her through slitted eyes, his expression unreadable. But his labored breathing told her he was just as aroused.

  Then he bent and took her nipple in his mouth.