by Tamara Gill
She sighed as he writhed and moaned beneath her, his hands stroking her hair in unvoiced pleading. She sat up and smiled then crawled up his body and took his lips. Eagerly he kissed his essence from her mouth. She rubbed herself against his member and moaned when it slipped to run along her wet folds.
“I love you, Chloe,” Cian said, meeting her gaze.
Chloe sat back and pulled off her cotton nightie. She stilled as she noticed a cotton shift she wore instead. At her hesitation, Cian sat up and removed it for her. That was when she noticed the room. She looked about and unease crept up her spine as nothing was familiar. Was this a dream or a memory? The sense of déjà vu was strong inside her mind and as loud as the drum of desire in her groin.
Cian clasped her chin and pulled her back to look at him. “Come back to me, Chloe.”
Chloe swallowed, pulled him into an embrace and held him tight. “Is this a dream or a memory?”
Cian’s chuckle rumbled against her breast. “No lass, it’s both.”
She shut her eyes not willing to believe what she was being told. Such things like gods, curses and magic just didn’t exist. A shiver stole over her skin when Cian’s hand clasped her buttock and squeezed.
Her breathing hitched when his cock twitched against her sex. “I want you. It’s time.”
Chloe hit the lounge floor with a thump. She sat up and rubbed her elbow that was no way feeling funny at this exact moment. She looked about the holiday cottage, glad to see the modern appliances yet knowing the era she’d just dreamed about wasn’t modern at all.
She pulled herself to sit on the lounge and gazed at the empty coffee cup on the table. “Okay, Zeus. If in fact you are my father show yourself to me. I have a few things I need to discuss with you.”
Chloe sat and waited for a minute or so, the sound of the coastal breeze the only whispering of noise. She shook her head at the absurdness of her behavior. She was going nuts. There was no other explanation for it.
She hoped.
Chapter Seven
Cian paced outside Chloe’s home his gaze sporadically flicking toward the door. He checked his watch for the millionth time. Seven AM. Too early to knock? Deciding it was not, he rapped on the door. A moment later heard a shuffling before the door opened and Chloe stood before him, her hair askew and wearing yellow pajamas. Never in his life had a goddess looked so beautiful.
“Good morning, lass.” Cian stepped over the threshold and followed the smell of coffee into the house.
“Come right in,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
“It looks like you slept well.” He smiled at the blush that stole up her neck and blossomed on her cheeks. She came to stand before him and unable to stop himself he placed a flyaway curl behind her ear.
Chloe pulled away. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay away from me.”
He sighed and leaned against the counter. “That’s impossible for me to do. I will always be involved when it comes to you.”
Chloe huffed out a disgruntled breath and walked to the pantry. “I am not this woman you talk of. This goddess Chloe you all have me confused with. If you are who you say you are and you are immortal, then you really should get over her. It’s been centuries.”
Cian reached over her shoulder and lifted the sugar Chloe was unable to reach from the pantry. “Love has no time restraint.” He met her determined gaze and smiled. “You are Chloe. My Chloe, and I’m determined to have you back.”
“Really,” she stated.
“Yes, really.” He watched her and she stepped away. Probably a wise move considering her defiant little chin was causing all sorts of problems in his pants. “You know the truth now; your memory will come back in time.”
“How many times have we loved one another?” she asked.
Cian stilled at her choice of word. “Love?”
“Yes love,” she said, flopping onto a stool at the breakfast bar.
A smile quirked his lips. “What makes you think I loved you?”
Her hands waved in dismissal. “Why else would a man live forever searching for the same woman? She must have had you wrapped around her little finger for you to continue to grovel at her feet.”
Cian chose to ignore the sharp tone of the woman he did love no matter what she thought of their feelings right now. “You are everything to me. The lifetimes I endured without you were the veriest torture. I love you, will always love you.”
“Stop looking at me like that. You can’t love me, we barely know one another.” Chloe poured him a cup of coffee. “This is absurd.”
“Come into the lounge,” he asked walking toward the three seater settee, inwardly laughing when she followed and sat across from him on a single chair. “Because Artemis told you your past, it has enabled me to also. Ask me anything. I am yours to command.”
“Wipe that sexy smirk off your face, Cian. This is hardly a laughing matter. I’m starting to think all you Scottish people are missing some screws upstairs.”
He chuckled. “Nay lass, just missing you, that’s all.”
Chloe lifted her legs up beside her and settled her cup of coffee on her knee. “When was I born?”
Cian shrugged. “I don't know, perhaps thousands of years ago. How old are the gods?” He shook his head. “No one knows.”
“What did we do that was so bad that this Chloe was cast out of Mount Olympus on her arse?”
The wind picked up and a tree branch scratched against a window. “You'll upset Zeus, Chloe. Be aware of what you say.”
She looked at him with disbelief. “I asked the great Zeus last night to show his face and he didn't. This is all absurd.”
“He hears everything,” he said, watching her features as his words sunk in. Zeus and his fickle temper was not something Cian wanted to prod, especially now, having Chloe back in his life. He would not lose her again.
“So, what did we do?”
Cian smiled when his mind wandered to that long ago grove where they first met. “You came to me, appeared out of the woods like a magical nymph. Seduced me. What didn’t we do would be a more interesting question.”
Chloe met his eyes and the sexual tension that thrummed between them had his balls growing tight, and his heart accelerating.
“Are you sure it wasn't the other way around?”
He laughed and adjusted his seat. “No. At first, I didn't want anything to do with you. Magic all but orbed about you and I wasn't sure if you could be trusted. When it became clear you only wanted one thing, my base desires took over and I had you. I never expected for us to last. But we did. For many centuries.”
Chloe took a sip of her drink while she tried to block the image forming in her mind. Of a man, white silk and gold robes billowing about him, his face a mask of pain and fury. Her sentence. She met Cian's gaze. “He was so angry and hurt. Couldn't understand how I could love a human to the point I would bestow immortal life and live in this realm. A druid.”
Cian leaned forward. “You remember?”
“I don't know if I'm imagining it or it really happened,” she replied, placing her mug on the table and standing.
“What do you remember after?”
Chloe frowned. “Nothing.” She paused, her mind furiously working to make sense of what she was seeing like a movie in her mind. “You. I saw you. You were upset.” She turned to him and the truth of her situation came crashing around her. “I had only minutes to tell you. Then everything went dark and I cannot recall what happened after that.”
“Because you were reborn, Chloe. That’s why you cannot remember.”
A deep sense of belonging and love wrapped about her like a cloak. “I gave up everything for you. Risked everything to be with you.” She slumped back onto her chair.
“You regret it?”
The pain Chloe heard in Cian's tone warmed her heart. “No. Not once.”
Cian came and kneeled before her. “I've missed you,” he said, his voice deepening with desire
that shot somersaults through her belly.
Chloe clasped his jaw, the stubble prickling her palms. “How long has it been since I knew who I was?”
“Centuries. Every time I found you, you very rarely remembered. Of course I was able to make you fall in love with me so it didn’t really matter.”
Chloe chuckled at his knowing grin. “Were you always so full of yourself, druid and I know you use your Scottish lilt to full advantage at times?” She frowned. Cian was an immortal druid and she was not.
“What's the matter?” he asked, hugging her, the hard muscles of his chest flexing as his hold tightened.
“I'm going to die.”
His lips nibbled her lobe and a shiver of need sparked through her, fogging her mind to what her life would be like, growing old when Cian remained young.
“Not if we can help it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked pulling back and looking up at him.
“You must speak to Zeus. It's been centuries, Chloe. Surely he would forgive you now.”
“He won't.” She shook her head. “It's not in his nature to do so.” Zeus hated Cian with such abhorrence Chloe knew her father would never forgive them.
“Were you not his favorite?”
“Zeus really never had a favorite, no matter what I might have thought.” She paused, knowing she had thought the same. That Zeus’s love for her would save her when he found out the truth of her and Cian’s love. But it had not. If anything it had made him more angry. “Cian.”
“Yes.”
“Make love to me,” she asked, watching as his eyes widened and heated at her words.
Cian lifted her from the settee and carried her to the only bedroom in the cottage. He laid her down on her bed, still unmade and rumpled from her uneasy sleep the night before.
Heat stole over her cheeks as Cian stood before her and pulled off his jumper. Her mouth dried at the sight of his muscular body, wide shoulders and pecs to make any body builder jealous. Not to mention his bulging sweatpants.
She reached out, clasped the hem of his pants, and pulled him toward her. His eyes burned and a part of Chloe that had lain silent for so long awakened. She ran her hand down the front and clasped his large, erect cock. Gosh he was big. She’d forgotten how big.
She smiled.
“You’ll unman me if you continue to touch me like that, lass.”
Cian moaned as she tightened her hold and heat pooled at her center. Chloe kneeled on the bed and threw off her pajama top. “Can I leave my pants up to you?”
“Absolutely.” Cian pushed her back and Chloe laughed as she hit the bedding. He ripped her bottoms off and came down over her, his heat and weight only adding to her need. She wrapped her legs about his hips and pushed against him. Needed release, wanted him like she’d never wanted anyone in her life.
“I think,” Cian said, helping her take his sweatpants off, “I can’t make love to you, Chloe. It’s been too long for me to be gentle.”
She chuckled, the sound husky to her own ears. “I’m quite fine with that.”
Cian thrust into her and she moaned. Her fingers scored down his back as the friction inside, his size and length was everything she remembered.
His hands clasped her arse and he pulled her hard against him, deepening their contact. Her body begged for release and with every stroke, touch and thrust, Cian brought her closer to what she craved.
She kissed him and his frantic lovemaking slowed to an unhurried torment. “What are you doing to me?” she gasped, as he teased her, beckoned and loved her.
His lips took hers and the passion and need she felt in his embrace made her stomach clutch. “I love you,” Cian said, simply.
Chloe pushed against his chest and rolled Cian onto his back. She straddled his hips and impaled herself on his large, satisfying shaft.
Cian moaned as she played with his chest, his muscles bunching with every move between them. The smell of the ocean mixed with the scent of sex intoxicated her and she loved him the only way she knew how. Hoped beyond reason that she was enough woman for this larger than life man.
Delicious pressure built to an inferno inside. Cian clasped her hips and pulled her hard against him. It was too much sensation. Too much yet not enough. Never enough.
Chloe moaned never having felt this passion, heat and love before. She wanted to shatter around him, break into a million pieces of pleasure just to do it again.
Cian sat up and the calluses on his hands skimmed along her back. He kissed her neck before biting just beneath her ear and she came in a blinding rush. Her release went on forever. Delicious sensations spiraled about her body—a continuous line of pleasure she never wanted to end.
Cian rolled her onto her back and thrust hard once, twice before his own release followed. He gasped and watched her, his dark eyes burning with need she fully understood only added to her pleasure. She pushed back the locks of hair falling over his brow and sighed.
She had missed making love to him.
She had missed him.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
Chloe woke the next morning to the smell of coffee. She rolled over and noted Cian wasn’t under the blankets with her. She touched the pillow where his head had lain and smiled.
They had talked into the early hours of the morning, and with each hour that ticked by a little bit more of her past memory came back. Chloe doubted there was anything left to know of her previous life as a goddess.
She heard Cian in the kitchen and jumped out of bed. Walking into the bathroom, she stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t recognize the woman who stared back at her. With plain clothing and hair askew she hardly represented the god she was. Hundreds of years, a multitude of lives and here she was once more. In a life that she was never born to live.
Zeus had a lot to answer for.
Chloe turned on the shower and let the hot water run over her aching muscles. An ache she would welcome again if it meant she was able to sleep with her highlander. Memories of their night fogged her mind and an pain of a completely different nature thumped between her legs.
“Do you want me to wash your back, lass?”
Chloe smiled. “I’d love you to.” She turned around and watched Cian undress and join her. Water ran down his muscled chest and her body quivered with need. “You look delicious wet, Cian.”
“Whereas you just look delicious,” he replied before taking her up against the shower wall. Hard.
Chapter Eight
“It’s been a long time, my dear.”
Chloe gasped and turned at the voice that had a multitude of layers of tone. Her father stood before her in her lounge, dressed in regal silk robes. His eyes as old as time itself.
“Zeus,” Cian said, loathing all but dripping from his tone.
“Do not address me, druid.” Zeus turned back to her and smiled. “My dear, Chloe. You remember me. It seems my powers have worn thin over the many years or,” he shrugged, “the powers within you have grown restless and refuse to lay dormant any longer.”
Chloe opened her mouth to reply but no words formed on her lips as the memory of all the things she could do swamped her mind. Remembered all the tricks her father had taught the children of the immortal court when she was a child.
She imagined Cian’s Castle and within a moment was standing in the great hall. A startled maid screamed and dropped the pile of laundry she was carrying. A grin quirked Chloe's lips. Now this was more like it.
She stood and waited and was soon rewarded with Zeus’s presence. She walked around the god of gods and marveled at his grandeur and power. Pity she would have to fight him. No longer would she allow him to leave her in this mortal existence. For hundreds of years he’d played his game with her, made her a puppet while he held all the strings. But not anymore.
“I will not chase you for long, Chloe. Do not take me for someone to play with, for it will be yet another mistake of yours I shall have to remedy.”
&nbs
p; Chloe scoffed then laughed. “You are the keeper of Heaven and yet you have the blackest heart which belongs in Hades. Damn you for doing what you did to me.”
Zeus shrugged. “You would not listen and you put us all in danger. Humans have long lived oblivious to our existence. They no longer believe in the tales of old. We are a page in history to them and it is where I prefer our kind to stay.”
“With all due respect, old man. My relationship with Cian never put any god in danger. He would no sooner divulge our existence than he would his own. And yet by your decree you made him immortal.”
“Does that not bring forth questions about a man who never ages nor dies? You put him at risk of discovery in his own village and home. You did to another what you were scared of happening to you. You are cruel and blind.” She walked out through the grand doors of the castle and started to walk toward the village. Memories of her past flickered behind her eyes. Of her love for all things otherworldly. Her adventures in the past and the distant futures. Her love for Cian foremost in her mind.
“Halt.”
Chloe turned and shimmered into the clothes of a god. Power thrummed through her with every beat of her heart. With the thought of home she pushed off from the ground and within a moment landed in Olympus. She gazed about the hallowed halls and recognized everyone present. Artemis smiled then laughed when seeing Hera, Chloe’s stepmother’s enraged visage. The other god’s startled eyes gave way to fear when Zeus followed close on her heels.
“I commanded you to stop.” He walked up to her, his height and build dwarfing her in comparison.
“There was a time that I followed your every command. But I do believe when it comes to who I love, you have no say. That I long to live and be with a druid should not concern you. And nor will I allow you to any further create chaos in my life.”
The pillars shook and thunder rumbled. “You will, Chloe. You have no choice.”
“I feel sorry for you,” she said looking out over Mt Olympus. “The humans have so much more than us and I have learned a lot from living amongst them.”