Hate

by Gemma Brocato

  When he finally slipped his finger in, and then another, tears of ecstasy leaked from the corners of her eyes, plopping softly on the pillow under her head. Finn’s mouth popped when he broke the seal around her breast. He drove his fingers hard and deep inside, stroking the one spot guaranteed to make the top of her head explode. He kissed away the tears, but kept up the relentless motion into her.

  Chest heaving, she gripped his wrist with one hand, and his dick with the other. She squeezed the hard shaft, then fingered his balls. “In me, Finn. Please don’t make me wait.”

  “I like that you’re so demanding.” Sitting up, he tore her pants off and threw them aside. The sound of tearing fabric filled the air as he jerked her panties over her hips. He studied her naked form.

  Erotic sensation cascaded within when he traced a finger over her smooth, shaved mound, then pressed kisses along the path his finger had taken. Heat seared from his lips to her bare skin, no hair to deflect the incendiary touch. She arched into his hand, tugged his hair, and pulled him up to cover her.

  Delicious, heavy weight settled on her, the hair on his chest tickling, the hair above his sex gently abrading her swollen flesh. The tip of his penis poised at her entrance.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  She held his gaze, watching his eyes glaze as he slipped past her barrier, stretching and filling her. Lifting her legs, she locked her ankles behind his back, digging her heels into the flexing muscles of his ass. Suddenly, she was lightness and color, as if her mind had slipped into the Hollow, but her body stayed anchored under his.

  “Princess, you are so tight and hot around me.” He claimed her lips as he rocked back, then thrust home again. “Want to be gentle, but I’m not sure I can. I just want to fuck you hard.” He rocked again, slapping against the cradle of her hips.

  She rose to meet him. “Whatever you want, I’m with you, Finn.” Gentle would be fine, but what she needed went one hundred and twenty degrees past sweet.

  Burying his face against her neck, he reared back, then slammed home. And again, and again. His urgency set the bed to motion, the headboard thumping against the wall rhythmically with slide of his hard body over her softer form.

  Aerie wrapped her arms around his shoulders, locked her legs tighter against his waist and held on. Each flex of his hips brought his pelvis in contact with her clit, and delicious, decadent electricity coursed through her. Sweeping over her head, higher with every thrust. Every sensation focused on the points at which they were joined, breast to chest, hips to hips. His dick buried deep in her.

  Breathing became difficult as passion claimed her soul. Her inner muscles rolled and clenched; lightning flared behind her eyes and she cried out his name as her orgasm crashed over her. He continued to thrust, punctuating each thrust with a grunt, his breath hot and humid against her neck. Digging her nails into his back, his muscles tensed as his body strained into her, his entire frame tense.

  Rearing his head back, he groaned, long and low as his release claimed him and he emptied himself within her. He punched up on his knuckles, arms shaking with strain, and pounded hard into her several more times. With one final howl, he collapsed back on top of her and buried his face in her pillow. His chest heaved against hers.

  Breath rushed out of her lungs, and she struggled to draw in enough oxygen to stop the dizzying swing of her brain. “This is what it feels like to be well fucked,” she breathed into his ear.

  Still firm within her, he pushed deeper as he turned his head to face her. He traced the shell of her ear with his tongue, his breath tickling her sensitive flesh. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  A laugh built in her belly, and she tightened her arms around him. “Not at all. For the record, I loved it.” Couldn’t wait for a repeat performance. But she held her tongue on that. She unlocked her ankles and let her feet drop to the mattress on either side of his hips.

  He lifted off her, then stilled as he slipped free of her body. “Fuck!”

  The distress in his voice claimed her roving thoughts. “What’s wrong?”

  He rolled off her, plopping back to the mattress. The space separating them yawned like an abyss. “We didn’t use a condom. Christ, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe what a dick move that was. I have no defense.”

  “Well, I didn’t really think about it either.” Flipping to her side, she shuffled closer to him, drawing the covers around her chest. “Finn, I’m a goddess. And even though my lifespan mimics a mortal’s, there are things it doesn’t repeat. I can’t catch an STD, and therefore can’t pass one on.” She laced her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest. “Also, I have control of my body, and won’t get pregnant. It’s not impossible; I can have a baby, but only if I choose to.”

  He huffed out a breath. “So we’re okay?”

  She hit him with a big grin. “More than okay.” She traced the stubble line on his cheek with her thumb.

  Wrapping a hand around her wrist, he drew her hand to his chest, then tucked his other arm under her shoulder and rolled her into him. Once her head was nestled against his neck, he sighed. “What do you mean, your lifespan mimics a mortal’s?”

  “Remember when I told you I’d lived over one hundred twenty lifetimes?” Had they only had that discussion less than eighteen hours ago? “I’m born, live and die on a human timetable. Each time I am reborn, I come back with my accumulated memories. Once I hit my awakening, I can start inspiring mortals again.”

  “I thought you said Phillip shared your lifecycle. He’s a partisan. If I am too, why don’t I remember past lives? Have I had them?”

  A good question. “I don’t know. Zeus granted the power of knowledge and the gift of rebirth to protectors assigned to his daughters. We didn’t know they even existed until this challenge began. If you weren’t tapped as a partisan, you might not have had other lifetimes. There’s really no way of telling.” She drew her hand over his shoulder and fingered the spot she knew held Mars’s crest. “Roll over.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose and then complied, turning to his other side to present his back to her. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, the outline of the mark glowed faintly. As she traced it, the image intensified, the shield turning bright blue for an instant. Finn jerked and sucked in a breath. She snatched her finger back.

  “What the hell did you do?” Finn tossed a look over his shoulder. “It felt like you were, uh…touching a different spot on my body.”

  “That’s odd. I’m not sure what happened there. But suddenly, there was color in the mark, not just a dull brown.”

  She daubed her fingertip to it again, curious to see if it changed further. But nothing else happened. She pressed her lips to the warm skin covered by the mark, licking her tongue over his salty flesh. With a deft move, she urged him to his back, then curled in around his side, resting her head on his chest. Shifting until he cradled her in the nook of his arm, he trailed his thumb along her arm. The motion was soothing, and peaceful. Almost as if he himself had the gift of inspiring love and calm in his fellow beings.

  She snuggled in closer and confided in a quiet voice. “It isn’t necessary for you to sleep in here. The whole house is warded against intruders, and the alarm system is wired to Olympus Security. They see everything and could be here in a flash if I needed.”

  “So, you’re telling me someone is sitting behind a computer monitor, watching everything we just did?” His chest rumbled, his tone aggrieved.

  “The Muses drew the line at cameras in the bedroom. So we’re okay there. But everyone, including my dad, will read the report that you entered my room at a quarter past the witching hour, and didn’t come back out for an hour.”

  “Are you kicking me out?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I was thinking maybe we could give them something worth reporting. You could spend the night here. I mean, I know that was your intent before we…”

  “I don’t have to worry about Zeus getting pissed at me?”

 
; “Finn, he is thousands of years old. I’m technically nearly his age. I stopped making decisions to please him in the third century, when Septimus openly used a savage army to put down a rebellion. The twenty or so rulers after him were all assassinated or killed in battle. Zeus wanted to let them fight, I argued a case for brotherly love. We had words and he put me in time out for a hundred years. That wasn’t fun.”

  A chuckle. “In all your years of existence, how many times have you been married?”

  “An odd question, curiously out of place.” She drew a breath, released it in a rush. “Many times. But all were marriages of convenience.”

  “Why weren’t they love matches? You’re the Muse of Romantic Love.”

  “How many times have you been in love, Finn?” She turned the tables to avoid the question. She’d never been in love. She wasn’t sure she knew how to be.

  He yawned. “Only once. I was twelve. She was ten. Her mother wouldn’t let her play with me because my dad was a bastard of the first order.” Bitterness edged his tone.

  Sensing his rising irritation as he broached the subject of his dad, she pressed a kiss to his chest, nudging calm into him through the touch of her lips. She imagined him sleeping peacefully and sent the thought to his subconscious. He yawned again and gathered her close. His lips pressed against her hair, his fingers tangled in it and wrapped around the base of her neck, one finger on her pulse, while the other hand cupped her elbow. His breathing eased as he slid into slumber.

  She only wished she could conquer the problem of Hate and Pierus with such ease.

  Fifteen

  He woke curled around her, front to back, his hand in hers, both nestled between her succulent tits. Not more than a handful, but a perfect fit for his palm. His dick swelled and hardened against her curvy butt. He’d lie here forever, but he was afraid he’d get restless and disturb her sleep.

  He sure as hell didn’t want to leave the warmth of Aerie’s bed, of her body. Rolling reluctantly away from her, he eased off the mattress. His bare toes hit the cold floor and he winced and hopped quietly as he located the tactical pants he’d aggressively stripped off the night before. He couldn’t locate his shirt in the weak dawn light in Aerie’s bedroom. Grabbing his weapon and his phone from the nightstand, he then padded toward the exit.

  Pausing in the doorway, he battled the urge to go straight back to bed, gather her in his arms and make love to her again. And again. The tiny hump of her body under the covers, head barely protruding from the beneath the heavy comforter, was still and peaceful. But overnight, she’d been erotic, giving. She’d taken his hard, fast loving with a carnality that surprised him. She twisted under the sheet, let out a sighing breath, gave a cute snore and resettled. An unaccustomed smile pulled the corners of his mouth as he eased it shut.

  The sun rode low on the horizon, painting the sky cotton candy colors as Finn tiptoed into the kitchen. Even though Aerie had commented about how rude it was to hunt through someone’s cabinets, he knew she wouldn’t mind in this instance. Coffee was a priority.

  A slight breeze wafted in through the window he opened over the sink. The cool air caressed the bare skin of his torso. Leaning against the counter, pants slung low around his hips, he scrubbed his knuckles over his sternum. The motion reminded him of how Aerie had speared her fingers through his chest hair. She hadn’t stopped there. Her hands had swept up his neck, over his cock, and even danced on the mark on his shoulder. The spot still buzzed from her touch. And the residual hum traveled all the way through his body, pooling heavy in his groin.

  Her touch was incendiary. Bewitching

  The coffeemaker chugged next to the sink, the steady drip punctuating his thoughts. To help her win the challenge, he was supposed to believe in something. Find the answer to a what if question he still hadn’t figured out yet. Maybe he was fucking magic as well. So much of the mystery of his blackouts and hair-trigger temper had been explained last night.

  Outside, a stately oak tree dominated the back yard. Not a single leaf stirred on branches. Just how supernatural was he? Concentrating hard, he blew out a breath, imagining the tree limbs swaying in a breeze created by him. Nothing happened. Not a single leaf moved. With a snort, he scrubbed his palm over the crown of his head. The idea of him being magic crashed and burned. What an asshole.

  Impatiently, he strode to the table. He collected the dirty dishes still littering the surface from yesterday. He carried the stack to the sink and turned on the tap to run water over them. Not a chance in hell of keeping his thoughts from turning again to Aerie and her family.

  He was a descendant of the God of War. Fuck!

  The pressure in his skull ratcheted up, but for a change, he stayed calm. Now he recognized the compression as an inbound immortal, not an impending blackout. He angled into the corner between the sink and stove and swept his glance around the room, waiting for whatever deity was popping in. The pulse seemed alive, prodding and poking. Not understanding why, he sensed frustration in the movement. The squeezing sensation eased with a pop, but no one appeared in the room with him. That alone made him tense. Was the inbound company Pierus, or his ugly-ass bird kid, Hate?

  A tap sounded on the glass above the sink. He spun toward the sound, his hand automatically going to his side for his weapon. The one he’d laid on the kitchen table.

  Zeus popped up below the window, a frown pinching the skin between his brows. Pulling his mouth to the side, he tipped his head toward the door.

  Not Pierus, but not as awesome as say, the pizza delivery guy. Feet filled with lead, Finn plodded across the room. He swung the door open, then stepped to one side to allow Zeus to stalk past him.

  “My daughter has her home much too tightly warded. Her own father barred.” There was no happy smile on his face to gentle his words. Far from it.

  Zeus went immediately to the cabinet and jerked out two mugs. They clattered on the granite when he deposited them on the counter none-too-gently.

  “Careful,” Finn cautioned. “You’ll wake Aerie.”

  “Son, I know you are new to this whole pantheon idea, but one does not shush the king of gods.” The corner of Zeus’s mouth quirked up for an instant, them he pursed his lips back into a tight seam.

  King or not, he wasn’t going to let the man wake Aerie. “She needs her rest. Yesterday’s riot was rough on her. Plus she didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. She, uh spent a lot of time…explaining this whole immortality thing to me.” Dumb shit! Why didn’t he just tell her dad they’d fucked all night long? Finn clenched his hand to keep from smacking his palm on the forehead.

  “Yeah, okay.” Zeus directed a pointed gaze at Finn’s bare chest, smirked and handed him a full cup as he passed on the way to the table. Pointing his finger at the chair, he levitated it two inches and flicked his wrist and silently swept it back from the table, before lowering it back to the linoleum floor. At least he heeded the caution to be quiet.

  Damn if Zeus didn’t smirk again as he did the same for the chair across from him, then nodded toward it. Finn remained standing when Zeus settled. The god slurped his coffee, a sound that surprised Finn. But hot coffee was hot coffee regardless of whether you were the king or not. Could a deity burn his tongue?

  Finn studied the man while he waited for whatever Zeus had to say. Dude’s sense of fashion seemed to come with a healthy dose of mountain man. He was dressed as a cross between lumberjack and wilderness guide. A plaid wool shirt gaped open over a faded Beatles concert T-shirt. Khaki cargo shorts had at least five bulging pockets. Awful heavy wool socks, the kind Finn reserved only for hunting in the coldest part of winter, rose out of battered hiking boots. His Australian bush hat, one side fastened up, the other slouched down over his ear, had several tiny fishing flies hooked into the brim.

  Zeus snapped his fingers, drawing Finn’s attention, then pointed to the gun lying in the middle of the table. “Can you do something with that?”

  With the accompaniment of birds chirping in
the trees in the backyard, Finn pushed away from the counter. He retrieved the weapon then laid it on top of the refrigerator. Carrying his mug, he finally claimed the seat across from Aerie’s dad. “What brings you here this early?”

  “What? A father can’t have breakfast with his daughter?”

  “Sure, but that’s not why you’re here before sun up.”

  Zeus crossed one bony knee over the other and slouched in the chair before answering. “Finding out you are not what you believed yourself to be and then thrown into a challenge to save the world doesn’t happen every day. I wanted to give you some time to come to grips with it, then make sure all your questions were answered.”

  Toying with the rim of his mug, Finn thought about what he needed to know. “Are you certain I’m the one to help? Have any of the other men who partnered with your daughters been immortals?”

  “First you should understand you aren’t really immortal. You are the descendant of one of the major deities. Unlike me, or your ancestor, Mars, you will die. I only ask that you take care to avoid that final fate while working with my daughter.”

  Finn lifted a shoulder, but said nothing.

  “To answer your question…as Aerie’s challenge was beginning, you shared a kiss. That was the action to start the entire affair. You had no option but to help at that point.”

  “We live in a free will society. I am not obligated to help.”

  “But if you don’t, Aerie would face Hate on her own. I don’t like the way Pierus structured the challenge, requiring the help of a mortal man, but according to Dice, we must abide by the terms he set forth.”

  Finn wracked his brain, trying to recall the Greek mythology units he’d sat through in middle school history. His head throbbed a little and the mark on his shoulder pinged with a sizzling current. “Dice?”