Finding Cupid

by Daisy Dexter Dobbs

“Not yet, my eager little god,” Zeb teased. “Get up on your knees and hold onto the bars on the headboard. I want to see that sun-kissed ass of yours presented to me just as pretty and inviting as you can make it. And then I’m going to fuck you senseless.”

  Zeb watched the muscles bunch and cord as Cinnamus changed positions, getting to his knees. The man’s body was so beautiful, so exquisite, Zeb could be happy simply gazing on it and stroking it with his fingers, his tongue, his cock…luxuriating in the feel of sleek satin flesh sheathing firm, hard muscle. But time and circumstance didn’t allow him such lingering indulgence.

  No, that would come later if everything worked out tomorrow. But now…right now was meant for creating a memory so potent, so compelling and so long lasting it couldn’t possibly be fully erased.

  With loving strokes, Zeb smoothed his hands along Cinnamus’ stretched arms, over his bulging biceps and across his broad shoulders. He pressed his thumbs on either side of Cinnamus’ spine as he raked his fingers down his back, feeling his lover shudder beneath his touch.

  When Zeb’s hands reached Cinnamus firm cheeks, Zeb paused, squeezing handfuls of flesh and then massaging the area. Nudging Cinnamus’ thighs farther apart, Zeb continued his brief, quick massage, caressing Cinnamus’ thighs and calves before scooting his hands to his lover’s groin and cupping his sac.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” Cinnamus complained. “I want to feel you inside.”

  “Ask me nice, darling, and maybe I’ll comply.”

  “Please, Zebulon. Please let me feel your beautiful cock invading my ass.”

  “Mmm, yes, that was very nice.” With a kiss to each cheek, Zeb spread Cinnamus, skimming the inner length from above the small hole down to his balls with his wrapped finger. “Let me see you squeeze that little rosebud hole,” he urged. “I want to see how tight you can make it for me.” Zeb watched as Cinnamus’ ass cheeks constricted and the puckered hole grew smaller yet. He ringed the hole several times, teasing the pucker before sliding his finger, knuckle-deep, inside.

  Cinnamus bucked and growled. “More. Give me more.”

  “Patience, my love. Squeeze against my finger,” Zeb instructed. “Give me a preview of what you’ll do to my cock once it’s inside.”

  With a shuddering groan, Cinnamus did as Zeb asked. Zeb’s cock jerked in anticipation as Cinnamus’ tight channel clenched his finger. Probing deeper now, Zeb moved his finger left and right, in and out. When he added a second finger and massaged the area of Cinnamus’ prostate gland, Cinnamus gasped with pleasure.

  “Are you ready for me?” Zeb asked, kissing Cinnamus’ cheeks again, already certain he was clearly hot, eager and entirely ready to be fucked. “Are you ready to have me take you on a journey like no other you’ve had before?” He thrust a third finger deep into his hole and Cinnamus growled.

  “Gods, Zebulon, yes! Yes!”

  Zebulon positioned himself so the blunt head of his cock nudged Cinnamus’ opening. Guiding himself with his hand, he poked and prodded, increasing the intensity until he finally slipped past the tight inner muscle. Dear God, it felt good to have his cock squeezed so tight. It would be damned hard not to come before he fulfilled his promise to make Cinnamus scream.

  With a deep breath, he pushed harder and Cinnamus gasped, arching his back and gripping the headboard so hard his knuckles grew white.

  “You’re so amazingly tight,” Zeb said. “It’s hard to hold back…I just want to drive myself into you, Cinnamus, so hard we both see stars.”

  “Do it,” Cinnamus panted. “Do it! I’m immortal, I can take whatever you can give,” he added with a grunt.

  “Is that so?” That was all the encouragement Zeb needed. With one swift plunge, he was fully seated, balls-deep and filling Cinnamus utterly. After a wicked twist of his hips, he drew almost all the way out and drove in even harder than before.

  “Great horned son of a mountain goat!” Cinnamus growled through ragged breaths.

  “Perhaps you can come up with a better term of endearment,” Zeb teased, “because that one just won’t cut it.” He thrust hard into Cinnamus’ anus again, twisting and turning.

  “Zebulon!” He let out a long, heartfelt wail of tortured appreciation.

  “I can’t hear you, Cinnamus.” He reached forward and grabbed Cinnamus’ jutting cock, wrapping his fingers around its impressive girth and pumping it hard, fast, mercilessly.

  “By gods, Zebulon! Zebulon!” Cinnamus screamed so loud Zeb feared the marble walls would crack.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Zeb said a moment before he cried out Cinnamus’ name and they collapsed together into a limp, sated, boneless pile.

  “Great Jupiter, man, you almost killed me,” Cinnamus muttered, his arm slumped across Zeb.

  Zeb chuckled. “That’s not possible. You’re immortal, remember?” He kissed Cinnamus’ fingertips. Sex had never been so much fun before, so rousing, so immensely satisfying. Fucking Cinnamus was more than just mindless mechanics as a means to orgasm, it was an experience, an event of cosmic proportions.

  “At least I thought I was until I tangled with you, my bold, spirited lover. Never have I been taken to such grand heights. Never have I experienced such strength of emotion. Such a fine mix of physical pain and pleasure. As my seed coursed hot through my cock while your hand pumped, I thought surely my soul would fly right up and out of my body.”

  “Are you saying that you’ll never, ever forget what we shared tonight, Cinnamus?”

  “Never,” he breathed. “It was the best night of my life.”

  “Good,” Zeb said. “Because I swear to you, Cinnamus, I’ll never forget it either. Ever. No matter what.” He hated that his chin trembled just then.

  “Oh my love,” Cinnamus said, capturing his soul mate’s lips in a kiss and cradling him in his arms as Pachelbel’s Canon in D wafted around them. “My sweet, sweet love.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I feel like I’m in a museum,” Dake said, with a new understanding of feeling like a fish out of water.

  “Habitats here do differ greatly from those on Earth,” Lula said, nodding thoughtfully. “But why a museum?”

  “I don’t know.” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Dake gave an uneasy shrug. “There’s expensive-looking stuff all over the place. Everything’s marble, silver, gold…and, Jesus, there’s glass everywhere. I’m afraid to breathe too hard ’cause I might break something.”

  Lula laughed. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I’m the clumsy one, not you.”

  Forgetting his discomfort with the posh surroundings, Dake turned to look at Lula, drawing her into a hug and scraping his chin through the curls on top of her head. “Honey, you are not clumsy. Maybe a little absentminded. A tad impulsive. And just a smidgen reckless.” He chuckled as Lula’s mouth gaped. “But I’d never call you clumsy.” He captured her lips in a soft kiss.

  “Do you truly think I’m reckless?” Lula asked, gazing up at him all wide-eyed and innocent-looking.

  “Oh yeah,” Dake assured her. “Definitely. But,” he added when she opened her pretty mouth to protest, “I wouldn’t want you any other way. I love you for who you are, Lula. All of it. The whole tamale.”

  “Tamale…” Lula frowned. “I fear it will take a lifetime for me to learn the curious meanings of all your favorite expressions, Dake.”

  “Well, if everything works out the way we hope, we’ll have that lifetime, sweetheart.”

  “From your lips to Jupiter’s ears,” Lula whispered, clapping her hands against her belly and chuckling when her stomach growled. “It appears I’m quite famished. Cinnamus said there would be a palatable repast awaiting us in the garden. Would you like to partake?”

  “Uh…” Scratching his head, Dake grinned. “Looks like you’re not the only one who’s got to learn about foreign expressions. If you’re asking me if I’m hungry and want to eat, the answer is yes.” He followed along as Lula led him through Cinnamus’ gar
gantuan house. “This place is so big, you could get lost just getting to the bathroom and back.”

  “It is immense,” Lula agreed. “And this is only the east wing. There are three others. Cinnamus and Zebulon are at the other end of the house in the west wing. I’m somewhat familiar with the design plan because Cinnamus has graciously hosted brunches and dinners here for all of the students on several occasions. He loves to entertain and is a marvelous cook.”

  “Looks to me like he can afford to hire a whole five-star restaurant staff to do his cooking for him,” Dake said with a low whistle as they walked through the huge, elaborate kitchen. He paused, studying the hardware on the kitchen cabinets and drawers, which in itself was really weird because he couldn’t ever remember finding anything in a kitchen even the least bit interesting before, except for the food that came out of them.

  The ornate hinges, door pulls and knobs were brass, or maybe they were gold. Each was carved into the shape of a different mythical creature. Damn.

  The only other time he’d seen anything so lavish was when his parents took him and Zeb to Newport, Rhode Island, years ago to see a bunch of amazing waterfront mansions that the rich people called their summer cottages. He’d seen fancy hinges in one of the houses there too, maybe one of the Vanderbilt places, but nothing that could compare to what Cinnamus had.

  “He does have a full staff, but he still enjoys preparing gourmet meals on his own,” Lula said. “It’s one of his…what would you call it?” Lula nibbled her bottom lip as she thought. “A hobby,” she said with a bright smile. “He also enjoys painting and working in the garden.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t mean house painting with a gallon bucket, a roller and a ladder.”

  “I do believe he said he used a ladder to create the mural on the opposite wall.” Lula gestured to a striking, museum-quality painting of a picnic under a bank of lush trees that spanned one entire wall.

  “Whoa…Cinnamus painted that?” Dake asked incredulously.

  “He painted half of it. Cinnamus likes to provide visuals for his students, believing that a picture is worth a thousand words. The portion from the left corner to the center of the room is solely by Cinnamus’ hand. His art students painted the portion from the right corner to the center. Cinnamus taught them so well, it’s a seamless meeting of paint and styles, don’t you agree?”

  Filled with a whole new respect for Lula’s teacher, Dake nodded and walked closer to the mural. “I’m not an art lover. Hell, I don’t even claim to understand it. But even I can tell a work of pure genius when I see it. It looks like da Vinci or Michelangelo could have painted this.”

  “If you look close, there in the middle of the right portion, you can make out their signatures.”

  “Fuck.” Dake gasped, leaning close and spotting the signatures. “Are you shitting me?” he said, staggered by Lula’s revelation. One quick glimpse at Lula’s red-cheeked, bewildered expression had him backtracking. “Oh jeez. Sorry, Lula, that just slipped out. I just meant to ask if you were serious. I mean, you’re talking about the guy who painted the Mona Lisa and the guy who did the Sistine Chapel, right?”

  “None other. They were students of Cinnamus during the Renaissance. Oh, the tales Cinnamus has told of those days!” Lula laughed. “You see, Leonardo and his younger rival, Michelangelo, did not get along very well. One was always trying to sabotage the other.”

  Dake plowed a hand through his hair and swore beneath his breath. “Cinnamus taught them how to paint?”

  “Mmm-hmm. And how to sculpt and cast and understand perspective and, well, basically everything else necessary for the success of an artist and craftsperson.”

  Lula’s stomach growled again. She took Dake’s hand and tugged. “We can come back and look again later. Let’s go eat.”

  She led him toward a colossal wall of glass, showcasing the magnificent garden beyond. It was so clean and clear it was barely visible. While Dake watched, she did some sort of waving motion with her hand and then Lula proceeded to walk right smack dab into the glass with a loud thud.

  “Ouch!”

  “Lula!”

  She reeled back, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand as Dake put his arm around her. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Glass will do that,” Dake offered helpfully, determined not to bust a gut laughing at the ridiculous sight of Lula meeting the huge panel of glass head on. “Mind telling me what you thought you were doing?”

  “Walking through the glass partition to the garden,” Lula explained matter-of-factly as she massaged her nose with her fingers.

  “Um…” Dake was quickly losing the battle not to guffaw. “Maybe if we opened the patio door instead…” he suggested through his laughter.

  Lula shot him a heated glare but after a moment she joined him in laughter. “Oh dear, I do suppose that did look rather curious. You see, Cinnamus has glass panels throughout the house set up to dissolve with a particular hand command. And I, well, I…” She nibbled her bottom lip.

  “Let me take a wild guess. You forgot the special abracadabra hand signal, right?”

  “Let me try another,” Lula said with determination, clearly concentrating as she made another grand flourish with her hand. This time she reached out for the glass instead of walking into it. “Ouch,” she complained, nursing her hand after banging it on the solid partition.

  “Maybe Cinnamus has some leftovers or something in the fridge,” Dake said, looking around. “Where is it?”

  “Behind the unicorn,” Lula said absently as she fluttered and waved and brandished her hand to no avail.

  Dake rummaged around the kitchen, coming up empty handed. “What unicorn?”

  Lula turned and pointed to the small stone unicorn perched atop a waist-high marble column. “Tug on its horn.”

  Dake did and the wall opened, revealing a huge walk-in refrigerator. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed as he spied a roasted hog’s head, two deep shelves of what appeared to be prime fillets of beef, three separate cases containing wines and cheese, four full suckling pigs, trussed and ready for roasting, and endless other edibles.

  “And a partridge in a pear tree,” Dake muttered. A sheet of paper taped to one of the shelves caught his eye. As soon as Dake read it, he laughed. Whisking it from the shelf, he brought it to Lula.

  “Master Cinnamus asked me to place this here for you, Lula,” she read aloud. “Regards, Hercules.” Beneath the note was a sketched diagram outlining the proper hand gesture to dissolve the glass panels. Lula gave forth with a small, embarrassed laugh. “Cinnamus knows me too well.”

  “So Hercules…” Dake began. “Is he…”

  “No,” Lula smiled, patting Dake’s arm, “he’s not that Hercules. This one is Cinnamus’ manservant. He’s a lovely and very efficient older man who’s been with Cinnamus for years.”

  “Centuries, probably,” Dake mused, surprised at how quickly he’d come to accept all this mystical, magical fairytale stuff.

  “Most likely,” Lula agreed, studying the paper and practicing. “Okay, Dake. I have it now. Take my hand and we’ll walk through the glass together.” She beamed a smile up at him, only to pout when Dake hesitated. “Dakin, don’t you trust me?”

  Aw, damn. She looked so cute and sweet and determined that Dake figured it was worth a good bang on the noggin to show her he believed in her. “Yeah, of course I do, honey. Let’s go.”

  Bracing himself for a clunk as Lula gestured, Dake mumbled, “Well, I’ll be damned,” as they walked right through the glass. Or the glass dissolved. Or…well, whatever the hell just happened.

  As soon as they stepped outside, the sweet floral fragrance assaulted his senses. “Reminds me of Zeb’s shop,” Dake noted. “Hey, look,” he added as they turned the corner, “there’s a swimming pool too.”

  “And a hidden waterfall just over there.” Touching her temple to Dake’s, Lula pointed a short distance away.

  “Oh man, I can think of lots of s
queaky-clean fun we can have in there, babe.”

  “Me too,” Lula gushed. “But that comes after we eat.” She skipped to a table and chairs positioned on the stone patio near one vine-covered wall. Lula sniffed the air. “Mmmm! I smell coda alla vaccinara!”

  “Coda whoda?” Whatever it was, it did smell mighty good.

  “Roman oxtail stew,” Lula clarified and Dake couldn’t help sneering. “Oh it’s delicious, Dake. It’s made from true oxen meat, not beef. The tails are combined with pine nuts, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, raisins and other wonderful ingredients, all simmered together for hours in red wine with plum tomatoes. Cinnamus is so sweet. He knows this is one of my favorite dishes.”

  Dake lifted the linen napkin from a basket and licked his lips. “Crusty bread.”

  “Perfect for dipping into the coda alla vaccinara,” Lula said, plunking down into a chair and setting a napkin in her lap.

  His smile grew wider when he spied a small plate stacked with pale yellow pats. “And butter! Cinnamus didn’t let me down, either.” He took a seat, realizing he was hungrier than he’d thought.

  “You’ll praise his name when you have your first sip of the wine.” Lula held up her glass, tilting it this way and that as she admired the deep red liquid. “It’s from Cinnamus’ own vineyards. Shall we make a toast?”

  Dake wasn’t all that eloquent, but he could tell by the expectant look on Lula’s face that it would mean a lot to her if he tried stringing a few romantic-type words together. “To the only woman who’s ever heard me use the L word directed at her,” he began. “My Lula, the sweetest, most incredibly beautiful nymph I ever laid eyes on.” And then he figured it wouldn’t hurt to add, “May we live long and prosper.”

  “Oh Dakin,” Lula trilled the words out on a sigh. She was all dreamy-eyed, so Dake knew he’d scored. “That was so romantic. How did you know Spock is one of my favorite fictional characters?”

  Dake chuckled. “I, uh…I made it my business to find out,” he lied. If a little white lie got her looking all gushy and lusty at him, what was the harm? “See? Bet you thought Zeb was the only one in the family who could spout great poetic lines.”