by Marie Harte
“We have limited time. The godhead can’t just wander around. We need to find it fast. Your partner said you were capable of guiding us through any traps.”
Still looking concerned, she unzipped her jacket, anchored her small fists on her hips, and huffed out a breath.
Big mistake. Big, big mistake. He clamped his fists together in front of his groin. Damn it. She had more than a handful. Much more. The tight black tee clung to her lush curves, outlining them beautifully for his hungry gaze. He just knew those melons would spill over his hands when he finally touched them. If he got his hands on them, he’d kiss the spot on her chest between them. He loved that tender spot on a woman. Or under the breasts. The flesh there always felt so smooth and warm. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to look as if his temperature wasn’t nearing the hundreds.
“Uh, well, you were mistaken. My partner said no such thing. We go, we get and we deliver. We don’t take, lead and hand over out in the field.”
He might be fighting his distraction because of the killer view, but her logic was damn hard to follow. His confusion must have shown because she sighed and shook her head, as if he were dim-witted. A grin threatened. No one ever showed such impatience with him, but then again, he never gave anyone a reason to. Obviously, this beautiful little witch felt he wasn’t quick enough for her brand of logic.
“We don’t guide. We go and find what you want, then hand over the goodies.”
The goodies. Ares help him, he glanced at her breasts. Shocked at himself, he shoved his eyes up to her face and kept them there. She didn’t appear to have noticed his ogling.
“Not this time.” This time, he would make her do the guiding. She shocked his system with colour and feelings. There had to be a reason for that. Had to be. Until he knew more, he was keeping her and her goodies close by.
He stepped closer to her. Immediately she moved away, eyes going a bit round when he moved closer. Did he alarm her? Maybe he was grimacing. His men always said he looked ready for battle.
“Uh, yeah, well—hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there.”
He paused, only then realising he’d been steering her backward by walking towards her. She was keeping a consistent distance between them. For some reason, that concerned him more than her refusing to take them to the godhead.
“We can discuss this.” Inside. He took a step towards her. He wanted to chat over drinks. Possibly get her more than a few and see if she felt anything close to what raged through him.
She took a step back and appeared to be assessing him from head to toe in concern. He doubted this small woman ever showed her fear often. He didn’t want her fearing him. He stood still and tried to appear non-threatening.
“Let’s go inside this place and talk.” Chat over drinks. He could barely smell her minty jasmine scent. He wanted to be closer, lean in, and perhaps feel her body under his hand as he guided her—
“Uh, no?”
Was that a question? He jerked his eyes up to her face and refused to let the heat rise above his collar. What in the name of Hades would she think of him if he blushed like some teenager? Or caught him eyeing her breasts like a hungry shark?
“I think it would be best to chat over this. We can go inside.”
“Not a chance.” She stood straight and tall, all five feet and a few inches of her, and faced off with him. “Sorry, don’t think so. There’s not much to discuss. We fetch, we carry. To you. End of story.”
End of story? He shook his head. “Not this time. No one can touch the godhead—”
She wiggled her slender fingers, catching him off guard with the endearing little movement. That little bit of mischief in her eyes sparkled brighter than any star.
“Guess what, Sparkie? I did once before. I can again.”
Sparkie? Hell, he liked that, but still. “Aeros, my name is Aeros. I am the captain of the Spartans—”
She rolled her brilliant eyes, obviously not impressed, and cut him off. Again. This might be the first time in his life someone had ever cut him off, and she did it more often than she listened—if she listened to him. And why the fuck did that amuse him and not frustrate him?
“Look, that’s cool and all, but guess what? It’s TMI. We’ll call you when we’ve got what you need.”
He hated to do it, really, he did, but there was no way she was going to walk off and leave him here. Not now. He had to figure out why, out of all the women he’d encountered over the centuries, he saw her not only in vibrant colour, but she made him harder than the damn concrete under his boots.
“Stop.”
She’d been in the process of turning but stopped so abruptly that her heavy curls bounced against her back.
Had he sounded harsh? He swallowed past a dry throat and watched as she slowly turned to face him. Her eyebrows slowly rose to her cinnamon bangs. He merely stood there. What to say? He held up his hands and tried to appear reasonable.
“We can’t let you do that. We need a guide to the godhead. Once there we can take over, but we need assistance to reach our goal. That’s the way it has to be. If I need to, I will double our offer.”
She listened quietly for once, a thoughtful expression on her small face. As soon as he had finished she blinked, and before he knew what she was up to, she walked over with a grin and snapped her fingers right under his nose. Like a trained dog, his dick jumped. He held in a groan with more strength than he’d used against any battle with the Persians.
“That’s one hell of a deal, Sparkie. We accept. Doubled.” She stepped back, still grinning, and held her hand out.
Holding his breath, he took her smaller hand in his. What felt like an electric shock tunnelled through his body. He had to lock his knees to keep from closing the distance between them so he could haul her into his arms. What would she feel like? All that soft, female flesh pressed tight to his tortured muscles? A flash in her eyes indicated she felt something as well. Her face turned a rosy pink the longer they stood there, her small, delicate hand in his larger one.
Aeros tried to say something, but before he could, she tugged her hand free and stepped back, gazing uncertainly up at him, as if seeing him for the first time. After eyeing him up and down—lingering a bit longer than he liked on his groin—she slowly looked him in the eye. Her expression appeared confused as if she saw something about him she couldn’t understand. The blush was doing amazing things to her eyes and hair. Would she look so heated after sex, he wondered. Immediately he wanted to hit himself on the back of the head. She was much more than a quick fuck to him. Much more. He just had to figure out what the more was.
As if coming to some decision, she shook her head and took several graceful steps backwards.
“We have an agreement then?” He nodded, wanting to reassure her.
“Right. Right. An agreement, right.” Her voice came out breathless, almost hesitant for the first time. She looked him up and down again then backed up, keeping an eye on him until she reached her bike. “Right.”
He didn’t like the look of the bike, or her on it. She could be hurt, harmed on a bike like that.
She glanced up once more. “We have a deal. I’ll make the arrangements and someone will lead your little expedition.”
Before he could stop her, she roared the engine and sped off, leaving him with his mouth open and his dick throbbing in time with his racing heartbeat. Someone? Like not her? Fuck that. He’d triple the amount.
Determined, he pulled his cellphone out of his jeans pocket and started texting her partner in crime.
Triple? He could do a hundred times that and still not hit bottom. For a chance at figuring out whatever the fuck that little witch meant to him, he’d offer a great deal more.
Chapter Five
Tabithia stared around her empty home and wondered why it felt like her house was closing in on her. Smothering her. The blank walls, void of colour other than the eggshell white they’d been when she’d moved here years before, seemed too whi
te. Maybe they were simply too bright because nothing provided relief from the boatload of emptiness staring back at her.
She’d never bought furniture. There were no pictures, no cutesy items cluttering up shelves. Frowning, Tabithia fingered her knife. She didn’t own shelves, ergo no cluttered ones. Well, she didn’t really have furnishings, but hey, she didn’t spend any real time here, so why beat herself up over it?
Yeah, why?
Because for once in her freakin’ pathetic existence, she might have kinda, sorta thought of what it would be like to bring someone here. Only how could she do that? They’d take one look at her house and—bingo—know exactly how screwed up she was. It’d be like a magician sweeping a silk scarf off a bunny.
She slept here, sometimes hung out in the backyard, but never really lived here. As in ‘set up house’ lived here. The place was blank, yet when stress threatened to drag her under? She always came here. It usually provided some relief from the constant junk littering her brain.
Well, and her knife brought the relief she needed to find her balance.
Shifting her thoughts back to her aunt, she tightened her grip on her cellphone the way she wanted to grip her aunt’s neck. She swept the hair from her face and glared out of the window. There really were no options, were there?
“So tell me that again? I have to go with the big bad boy and you can’t?”
The mere thought of being alone with the handsome Spartan had her hand edging down to the knife hilt strapped to her thigh. No one had ever affected her as surely as Aeros had with his dark, brooding eyes and big, warrior body. He had focused on her with an intensity that had her itching to check if she’d not left crumbs from her Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich on her chin.
And Trouble thought she could spend hours, possibly days with him? The witch was nuts—absolutely certifiable.
“It’s only for a few days,” Trouble had said.
Why did Trouble make that sound so freakin’ reasonable?
There wasn’t a chance in hell of Tabithia kicking back for days with the big, sexy Aeros, captain of the Spartans. Just remembering his deep voice had her fidgeting with her knife hilt again. She closed her eyes, trying for some calm in the storm, but her traitorous mind flooded her with images of Aeros, naked, sweaty Aeros pressing down on her in a way she’d never thought she’d enjoy. Shivers rippled up her stomach almost as intensely as last night when she’d come home and pleasured herself twice. And yeah, that had helped so much! Heat blasted her cheeks as though she were standing next to a burning forest fire.
What was happening to her?
Trouble laughed quietly into the phone, knocking Tabithia out of her mini-meltdown.
“Come on, Tabbie-cat. A couple of days, that’s it. Piece of cake. You can do it.”
The little Rob Schneider accent was so not cool. Heck, Trouble simply shouldn’t mess with her rockin’ South African accent in Tabithia’s opinion. The Schneider thing just sounded wrong.
“Yeah, so not funny! You realise I don’t have good people skills, right? That I need my own…like, alone time.” For once, Tabithia’s thoughts weren’t on spending time alone to ease the darkness. Nope, she didn’t crave the cool kiss of steel. She wanted to imagine hot, scalding kisses from a tall, sexy Spartan.
And that would so not work. There would be no kissing. No touching. Yep, definitely, totally no touching.
Tabithia stared out of her kitchen window into the bare backyard, trying not to panic at the length of her no-no list. Frowning, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat outside and soaked up the cool darkness of the night. The peppermint had taken over the flowerbeds lining the brick path to her wrought-iron bench. The minty aroma always soothed her whenever she ventured out to the little bit of nature. The bench she’d found abandoned on a deserted country road. She’d sprayed the rusty scrollwork with some black Rust-Oleum, ripped the rotten wood off, and replaced it with new. She could remember the handful of times she had sat out there and let the quiet of the backyard surround her.
She tapped her knife and considered the little bench. Yeah, it looked sweet under the big oak tree shading her yard. Maybe she could buy some stuff, make this place look good. She’d done okay with the bench. Glancing around the kitchen, she considered her apartment. Maybe a few things would be nice.
“Tabithia?”
Focusing on her aunt, she turned away from the backyard. Maybe she could do this mission.
“Look, I can’t come with you. I have something here. I would if I could, but you can do this, Tabbie-cat. Just take them down, get the relic, and hit it. Right? Easy peasy.”
Anger burned her stomach. Easy peasy? Easy peasy for her to say. Trouble didn’t have Tabithia’s issues. She could just picture needing to cut herself with the gaggle of Spartans watching her every move. No way, José. Her aunt had to go with the Spartans.
She smacked her head with her palm. Hadn’t she just decided she could do this?
“What the hell? No, actually, it is not easy peasy. He…” She stalled out on voicing her biggest concern.
Aeros had done something. There was more here than her unwanted attraction to the big lug. She’d been ready to leave his sexy butt standing in the parking lot. He’d barked out an order, and she’d obeyed. She’d been walking away, leaving him behind, job a no-go, problem solved. Then she’d stopped. A shiver trickled its way up her spine at the memory. But she couldn’t tell her aunt that. What would she say? ‘Uh, well, you see, Aeros told me to stop, I didn’t want to, but I did.’
Oh, and her aunt wouldn’t be all over that.
Tabithia was. Oh yeah, was she all over that. Tabithia had a curse hanging over her head. Literally. An old hag named Sirmila had predicted that an immortal male would someday walk into Tabithia’s life and control her by some sort of talisman or charm. So freakin’ not cool. The curse had been annoying her like a hangnail for years, and now? Now she just might have met the immortal. And oh, man, Hecate help her if Aeros was the man she’d feared all these years, because she might enjoy his orders.
“Tabbie-cat? Tabithia? What’s going on? He? He who? Aeros?”
Trouble sounded worried. Not a good sign.
Tabithia had to get her guts out of her boots where they’d hit bottom. Or felt like it. There really was no other way around this. She would have to do this. It was that or spill her dirty little secret about Aeros and have the posse swarm to the rescue.
That wouldn’t do. She fought her own battles. She nibbled on her cuticles and considered her options.
I can ignore him. Stay away from him. It’s a big jungle after all. Maybe he isn’t the male. Maybe I’ve finally met someone who caught my eye. All her Wiccan friends said someday she’d meet someone.
None of them know my dark side, though. But I do, so why is the crazy butterfly-in-the-stomach attraction to him continuing?
Bridget save her. She was talking to herself. Freakin’ carrying on a big pity party for crying out loud!
She hung her head, ashamed. She was so screwed up.
“Fine, I’ll do it, but you’d better make as much or more, or I keep the double and we split the original offer.”
“Dayam. You are getting wicked, witchette.”
Tabithia snorted and focused on breathing. “Damn right.”
“Fine, that’s great. Three days, then we’ll see who has more dinero.”
Three days? Was that enough time? Panic had Tabithia tightening her grip on the phone.
Trouble exhaled heavily through the line. That was so not a good sound.
Tabithia managed to ease her grip before she crushed her phone and said, “What else is up? Spill it.”
“Uh, yeah, well, Aeros the Sparkie has been texting like crazy. I’m texting him your number, cutie pie. You deal with the Spartan, I have my own project.”
Now that didn’t sound good. “What’s up? Just what are you doing—?”
“Just text me if there’s a problem, Tabbie-cat.”
<
br /> Huh. So only the intel on some jobs. That was cool. Trouble was always in trouble. So what was new with that?
“Duh. Three days.”
“May the Three watch over and keep you safe.”
“And may they guide your way,” Tabithia responded automatically. Now to get through this night and three more like it. Easy peasy, right? She would just stay as far away from Sparkie as possible.
“Later, sweet. Behave, ‘kay?” Trouble disconnected with one more laugh.
Tabithia’s heart fluttered. Her mind revolted against her decision to keep Aeros as far as possible from her by imagining Aeros naked. Not just naked, but on top of her, his big arms flexing by her head as he held himself up, his lean hips thrusting between her thighs as she urged him on until he hit the depths of her soul.
Goddess save and protect her, she needed some more alone time. Behave? A whoosh of chills raced along her skin. All of a sudden, she so did not want to behave. Not at all.
Aeros utilised a travel spell he’d bartered off a witch to shift from his friend Dominic’s hidden castle to the Spartans’ mansion in LA. The LA location wasn’t very convenient for his work with the London-based Immortal Council, but Aeros preferred his privacy. And his home in the Italian Alps.
The trip to Dominic’s had been reassuring. The mage had been happy, and Aeros admitted he was glad his old friend had found his bonded, the one woman who completed him. He’d been surprised to feel a surge of jealousy at Torque’s obvious happiness. He’d also felt fear the like of which he’d never experienced before simply through asking Dominic if the Spartans shared this gift of an immortal pairing. The cocky mage had dragged his hand through his shaggy hair and grinned before shrugging.
“Why not? The Spartans are just as likely as a mage like me to find a life bond. If you’ve found someone you can’t resist, my advice? Don’t.”
Dominic’s response had felt like Aeros’ entire existence had shifted. He’d stood there flat-footed for several long seconds before he’d been able to speak. Unfortunately Dominic hadn’t been able to answer any of his questions.