by P. C. Cast
Pamela woke up in small degrees. She stretched and then hugged her pillow, sleepily thinking that something wonderful was going to happen today, but in the place between awake and asleep, she couldn't quite remember what it was. She felt wonderful. Her body was well-rested, yet she was filled with a tight hum of anticipation. A finger of daylight broke through the thickly brocaded drapes that were pulled just short of completely closed. The light tickled her closed eyelids. It brought to mind golden rays of sun… heat… eyes the color of brilliant aquamarines…
Last night… kisses in the rain… Phoebus… Her eyes snapped open. Oh. Shit. How could she have forgotten? She was meeting him tonight at 8:00. She looked at the bedside clock and sat straight up. It was almost noon! She was a morning person, and she'd slept until noon?
Well, she was also a woman who had avoided men and romance for the past several years, and last night she distinctly remembered melting into a practical stranger's arms. Pamela hugged her knees to her chest, feeling her heart beat with excitement. She wasn't a dried up old hag—she was young and alive. She'd taken a chance, and it had paid off. Big time. A delicious shiver ran through her body as she thought about how it had felt to be wrapped within Phoebus' arms. And his mouth! His kiss had seared from her lips to her toes. If he was that good at kissing, she could only imagine what else he could do with that fabulous mouth—
Her phone rang, jarring her out of the erotic daydream.
"Hello, V," she said without looking at the caller ID number.
"Are you alone?" V asked, using her best stage whisper.
"Yes," Pamela bit her lip and added, "unfortunately."
"Oh, nuh-uh! Listen to you, doll!"
"V, I feel alive again. It's like I'd become a desert, and he's a warm spring rain. And let me tell you, I'm ready to lap him up." She sighed happily.
"You're be-friggen-sotted."
"You're right! You're right! I am besotted—in lust—giddy! And holy shit, it feels good! Oh, let me just get this out of the way right now. Aloud and without coercion, I admit readily that you were right," she chanted joyfully.
"Wait, I'm pinching myself. Yes, it hurts. No, I'm not dreaming. Damn right I was right! You aren't still drunk, are you?"
Pamela laughed. "I was never drunk; I was just tipsy enough to do what you told me to do. And, oit was wonderful!"
"Gory details, please. Tell me everything."
"We went to the Bellagio fountains. First they played some insanely romantic song from an opera, which Phoebus—"
"Phoebus?" V broke in.
"That's his name. It's Greek. Or Roman. Or Latin. Or something. Hey—did you know that Pamela means 'all that is sweet' in Greek?"
"Pammy, you're losing focus. Again. Snap back. His name is Phoebus and…"
"Oh yeah. So first they play the song from the opera. He knew the words. God, it was romantic…" She sighed.
"You already said that. Fast forward."
"Then it started to rain and we ran under a tree. And you won't believe this part—we're standing there and—V, did I mention how gorgeous he is?"
"Focus, please."
"Sorry. Anyway, we're standing there, and the fountain comes on again—and it's Faith Hill singing 'This Kiss.'"
"You've got to be kidding," V said.
"Seriously. And then we did it."
"You copulated right there on the street?"
"No! It was on the sidewalk, and we didn't do it; we kissed."
"Then you went back to your room and copulated like naughty heterosexual bunnies?"
"Again, no!" Pamela cleared her throat and had the insane urge to whisper the rest of the story. "But he did carry me up to my room."
"You mean like Rhett and scrumptious Scarlett?"
"Exactly like that. Only I'd twisted my ankle, and it was raining."
"So you fell off your stilettos…"
"Which shows how distracted this guy makes me, because, as you know, I can jog over a sheet of ice in three-inch heels," Pamela said smugly.
"He played a knight in shining armor—a cliche I know you straight girls adore, by the by, and you still didn't copulate with the poor tripod?"
"Not yet," Pamela said breathlessly.
"Yet? Give up the rest of the story."
"We have a date. Tonight. Ta da!" she finished with a verbal flourish.
"Ya don't say?"
"I do say."
"Okay. What's the plan?" V, the consummate date-aholic, got straight to business.
"Well, I thought we might go to dinner," Pamela said.
"Pammy, you're in Vegas. You can do better than that."
"Please don't tell me we should gamble."
V's sigh was long-suffering. "Of course not. Vegas is a Mecca for fabulous shows. Go see one, a sexy one."
"That's a good idea, except… well… shouldn't I wait to see what he has planned?"
"Pammy, you know I'm your friend, so please don't take this the wrong way, but do you really want another relationship where you let the man always take the lead?" she asked gently.
"No!" The word came out in a flash of anger. "I don't want anything like what Duane and I had. I'm not that silly young girl he married anymore."
"You weren't silly, Pamela. You were just young and in love. You made a mistake. It happens to the best of us."
"Well, it's not going to happen to me again," Pamela said firmly.
"Which part? Being in love or being young?"
Pamela opened her mouth to say both, but then she remembered the soft blue of Phoebus' eyes and the way he looked at her with equal parts of interest and desire. And she remembered something else that she was almost sure she had recognized within his eyes and his voice and the way he touched her—a familiar searching that tugged at her heart as well as her soul. Soul mates… the thought wafted like the fragrance of spring flowers through her mind.
"I'm not young anymore," she said. "And there's no way I can fall in love in a weekend."
Vernelle laughed. "Keep telling yourself that, Pammy."
Pamela frowned. "I'm going now. I have a lot to do before tonight."
"Such as…"
"Such as I have to sketch that awful fountain so I can have something to send to the Fountain Boys." The Fountain Boys were what Pamela and V called the brothers who owned a huge fountain wholesale business that Ruby Slipper had used several times to fill orders for all types of water features. "I am here to do a job, remember?"
"I thought Faust said you were to loll about soaking up the ambience of The Forum this weekend."
"That doesn't mean that I can completely ignore work. Which reminds me, are you meeting with Mrs. Graham today?"
"Yes, of course. The crazy cat lady and I have a date this afternoon. We're going to discuss the color of her shutters. Pray for me."
Pamela laughed. "I'll see if I can find a candle to light."
"Okay, enough about unfinished jobs. You're supposed to be lolling, not working."
"Well, I've definitely soaked up enough tacky pretend Roman ambience. The sooner I get going on this job, the sooner I can be done with it."
"Fantasy and fun, remember?" V said.
"Vernelle, tonight I'm going out with a gorgeous stranger named Phoebus. Isn't that enough fun fantasy for you?"
"Mix a little of that cheeky attitude in with this job without losing your sense of humor, and I think you'll have the perfect recipe for succeeding with E. D. Faust, as well as Phoebus. Have fun with both of them, Pammy."
Fun… her personal life had definitely stopped being fun. She was comfortable and secure, but fun… happy… joyous? No. Had her job stopped being fun, too? She liked what she did; it satisfied her. But when was the last time she had felt a sense of wonder or a rush of joy at the completion of a job? She couldn't remember… The thought brought her up short.
"Pammy? You still there?" V asked.
"Yeah, just thinking."
"How about this—you give the fountain an hour of your time, after
you give the concierge a call and arrange for your show tickets," V said.
"Okay, okay. You're right," Pamela said.
"And tomorrow I want a full report."
"You'll get it."
"Good. Bye-bye, birdie," V quipped before hanging up.
Pamela rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She just hoped she'd have something worth reporting tomorrow. Then, before she changed her mind, she dialed nine for the concierge.
An efficient-sounding woman answered on the second ring. "Yes, Miss Gray. How may I help you?"
"I would like to see a show tonight." She paused, drawing a deep breath. "An erotic show. But nothing too nasty," she finished in a rush.
"Of course not, ma'am. I highly recommend a show that's currently playing at New York-New York. It's by the same company that produces Cirque du Soleil. Have you heard of them?"
"Yes, I've been to a Cirque du Soleil show when they came through Denver."
"Excellent. This production is called Zumanity. It is erotic but tasteful. I've seen it myself and enjoyed it very much. Actually, it's been selling out lately, but the hotel does have access to a few hard-to-find tickets."
"That sounds perfect," Pamela said, relieved that everything was falling into place so easily.
"And how many tickets will you require?" Pamela's grin telegraphed through the phone lines. "Two, please."
Chapter 12
Pamela shifted her weight and curled her feet under her, completely engrossed in sketching the fountain. Well, her version of the fountain. She kept its cloverleaf shape, but she shrank it and ignored the hideous statues of Artemis, Apollo, and Caesar, replacing them with pretty swirls meant to look like waves from the middle of which fish spouted water. She glanced up at the bulbous center statue and sighed. No matter how she "fixed" the rest of the gihugic thing, there was no way she could make Bacchus acceptable—especially if Eddie kept insisting that the thing be animated. Her fingers, which had been flying over the page of her sketchbook, slowed. She drew in the center pedestal, but left blank the area on top of it where Bacchus sat. Surely she could talk Eddie into something less… she frowned at the statue… less fat and hideous.
She checked her watch—three-thirty. Four and a half more hours until her date. She should get her camera and take pictures of the columns, as well as make notes about colors and textures. All this preliminary work would be needed Monday when she finally met with Eddie at his home. But instead of thinking about work, her mind wandered to thoughts of pleasure. The gilding of the overly ornate columns reminded her of the brightness of Phoebus' hair. Now that her concentration was no longer required to sketch the fountain, Pamela's mind circled back to him. The pretend sky from which fluffy clouds billowed reminded her of his eyes. Hell, even the tacky statue of Apollo was somehow beginning to look like him.
It was like he was one of those glowing bug lights, and she was a love-struck mosquito. She was obsessed. Pamela knew it, and was more than a little chagrined to realize that she really didn't care. On the contrary, she felt like she did when she was reading an exceptionally good book—like she was walking around in someone else's world and enjoying every second of it.
Her smile was self-satisfied and very, very sensual. Maybe she should gamble; she sure felt lucky.
As if echoing her thoughts, a slender young woman breezed up to the fountain, talking in excited little snatches to her friend.
"Can you believe our amazing luck? Oh. My. God. Stumbling into the Chanel sale of the year!"
A sale at Chanel? Pamela's ears perked.
"I thought I was going to faint when I saw how far that dress had been marked down."
Giggling and hefting their full shopping bags, the two women breezed past Pamela's bench.
It must be fate. Pamela gave the ugly fountain another look and almost laughed out loud. Or maybe it was ordained by the gods. She was going to buy a fabulous new Chanel dress to wear tonight. She was going to go to an erotic show with a gorgeous hunk of a man. And she might even have sex with him afterwards. Her stomach butterflied.
Okay, scratch that. She was getting ahead of herself. Big, deep breath.
How about… She might even make out with him afterwards. And heavy petting wasn't out of the question, either. She closed her sketchbook and slid it into her leather briefcase.
Red. She'd buy a red dress that showed just a little too much leg. She might even get a pedicure. Yes, she would get a pedicure. Red toes were definitely a necessity tonight. Humming softly to herself, she headed happily towards couture heaven.
Bacchus drummed his fingers on the top of the restaurant table. Things weren't going as he'd planned.
"Bring me another tequila!" he snarled at a passing waitress and then was instantly sorry when she cringed at the heat of the god's wrath and almost knocked over several chairs in her haste to get to the bar to place his order. It was bad enough that the young Olympians were annoying him. It was totally unacceptable that they were causing him to take out his annoyance on the innocent people in his kingdom.
And it was still his kingdom.
The waitress rushed up to his table with his tequila.
"I'm so sorry, sir. I should have been paying better attention to you. I didn't mean for you to have to wait for your drink."
Bacchus smiled kindly at her and touched her arm, transmitting a dose of magic into her body. Instantly her terrified look vanished. Her young cheeks flushed, and her lips parted seductively.
She thought how wrong she had been to have ever considered him a terrifying, obese stranger. His anger wasn't palpable. And he wasn't fat. He was just a big man. She liked big men—really liked them. Heat coursed from his fingers into her arm and all through her body, tingling her nerve endings and causing her most private parts to become wet and ready. She stared into his dark eyes and leaned closer to him, wishing he would take his hand from her arm and slide it down between her legs and…
Bacchus chuckled and stroked the firm flesh of her young arm. "Later this night you will come to my suite. Just think of me, and your desire will lead you to the correct room." Only after he was certain that his command had been firmly planted into her subconscious, did he break contact with her skin.
The waitress shivered with intense pleasure. "Yes." She moaned the word.
"Now be off." He gestured slightly with his hand, and a veil lifted from her eyes.
She blinked and smiled hesitantly at him.
"Is there anything else I can get you, sir?"
"Later, perhaps," he said.
She walked away slowly, still looking dazed. Bacchus studied her well-rounded buttocks and let himself imagine how she was going to feel beneath him later that night. She would be delightful and young and fresh and completely enamored with him. He was a god; he could easily be certain of her adoration. Modern mortals needed to worship him. He was actually doing the young woman a favor by adding the intoxicating magic of wine and fertility to her otherwise mundane life.
But he was the only god who had a right to use his power amidst them. Las Vegas had been his discovery. HE WOULD NOT SHARE HIS REALM! He especially would not share it with the golden twins. He had always loathed both of them with their perfection and their nonchalant arrogance about everything. They hadn't been content to remain within Caesars Palace and gamble alongside the mortals. They had actually found their way to his special place—the fountain in The Forum.
Yes, he had loosed his immortal power through the nymphs. He had meant to shock the twins. He had purposefully targeted that repressed little mortal and caused her to drink just enough of his wine to set into motion the sequence of events that would allow the invocation to be completed. He knew Artemis' temper—all of Olympus knew it. He had been certain that the goddess would act to prevent the invocation, especially when he used the caricature of the vain Huntress in such a blatantly disrespectful manner. And in acting against him, the godlings would have betrayed themselves as immortals to the modern world. What an intoxicating specta
cle that would have been! Of course Zeus' anger would also have been great, but after the thunderclouds had cleared from Olympus, Bacchus could have slid through the discarded portal, alone once again in his magnificent Las Vegas to reign with no restrictions to bind his desires and no rules to follow.
But neither of the twins had interrupted the invocation, and the mortal had actually bound Artemis to fulfill her heart's desire. Apollo had begun wooing her! Bacchus had watched the two of them fawn over one another the rest of the evening. He was even fairly sure that the God of Light hadn't been using any of his immortal powers to seduce the woman.
Anger mushroomed within Bacchus. Apollo didn't need to use his immortal powers to seduce with magic. He had a muscular, golden body that held a masculine beauty far beyond mortal standards. What the God of Light had been gifted with wasn't fair; it had never been fair.
He'd coaxed the desert sky into sending a rainstorm to ruin the god's little tryst, but that hadn't worked. Then he'd nudged the unsuspecting mortal, causing her to catch her heel. The mortal should have fallen into traffic, and the golden god should have betrayed his presence to save her, but Apollo had managed to foil the accident Bacchus had orchestrated without the mortals of Las Vegas realizing there was a powerful immortal in their midst. It was insufferable.
He would not tolerate another god usurping his place.
Then Bacchus remembered the passionate kiss Apollo and the mortal had shared, and the way the God of Light had carried her through the rain as if he were her savior. She was what was keeping the god's interest focused on Las Vegas. Who could guess how long Apollo would enjoy toying with her? And what if, after Apollo tired of this particular mortal, he found he had developed a taste for modern women? Bacchus certainly had. He threw back the shot of potent liquor. No. That would never do. He would not tolerate Apollo's seduction of his mortals.
But how to rid himself of the God of Light? It would be difficult. He obviously wasn't going to betray himself as a god and bring down Zeus' wrath, and neither he nor his twin sister seemed to be in any rush to tell Zeus about the invocation rite he'd worked. Unfortunately, it was apparent that, after Apollo had begun the seduction of the mortal woman, he was, indeed, thoroughly enjoying himself. Bacchus ground his teeth together. Well, he had himself to blame for that, so it was up to him to discover a way to dampen Apollo's enjoyment of Las Vegas.