Whoa, Nelly! What was happening to me? Did the jackhole’s kiss have magic in it? What were these ridiculous scenarios bouncing through my mind?
“Come with me?” he whispered in my ear sending chills of delight all through my body.
“Literally or figuratively?” I shot back with a giggle.
“Both, Mermaid. Definitely both.”
I was in trouble.
Big trouble.
10
Cupid
I was in trouble.
Big trouble.
I’d lied to the Mermaid—told her I wouldn’t like her—wouldn’t love her. I fucking lied.
I was in love with an emerald green-haired goddess and she was going to be pissed.
Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought love felt as good as this. And if my head hadn’t been stuck in my ass, I would have recognized it fifty years ago. Half a century wasted.
No matter. The past was the past. It was the future I needed to focus on. Not to mention, my JMT was now in great danger. Misty aka Sally aka Mine kept her word. If I so much as uttered a word of love, my pecker was bye, bye, bye.
Not a problem. I was Cupid. Even if the job was now hers, I was still the original. I was the demigod of love. I would simply make her fall in love with me.
Or maybe not so simple…
“Okay, Stanley,” Misty said with a wide sexy grin. “Strip. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Her smile made my insides do funny things and my Johnson stand at attention. Gods, all she had to do was fucking look at me and I was ready to go. I was now quite cognizant that the damned butterflies in my stomach weren’t because I was hungry.
“Don’t you remember what I’ve got, Sally?” I asked as I slowly pulled my t-shirt over my head. “Have you been with so many others that you’ve forgotten?”
“Duuuude,” Misty said with an eye roll and an extended middle finger. “In fifty years, I’ve only been with you.”
With a shriek of horror, my mortified Mermaid slapped her hands over her mouth. She hopped around the room like her feet were on fire and then dropped to the floor and began doing pushups like a madwoman. My grin widened to the point I was sure it would split my face. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a difficult as I’d originally thought.
“Just forget I said that,” she huffed out as she went from pushups to sit ups. “I’m not thinking straight. I’m drunk—definitely drunk—wasted.”
Did I dare?
I did.
May the gods protect my JMT.
“I haven’t slept with anyone other than you in the last half century,” I admitted and then swiftly ducked as a lamp came hurling toward my head.
“Not true,” she yelled and sent another lamp flying.
“Sorry, but it is,” I said with a delighted laugh as I caught the lamp in my hand and placed it on the floor. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Look at you,” she snapped with an eye roll that should win an award. “You’re all muscle-y and boinkable.”
“Look at you,” I countered. “You’re fucking exquisite. I would guess that you have to beat men away.” The thought of another man even looking at her made me want to blow up the island. Of course, that would be seriously counterproductive, so I refrained—for now.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Misty shouted. “You’re the freakin’ demigod of love. There is no way in Poseidon’s ridiculously absurd man diaper that I believe you haven’t been busy.”
“Let’s remedy that.”
I snapped my fingers and the atmosphere in the room changed dramatically. Silver mist floated thick in the air and red rose petals appeared on every available surface. The ocean breeze mixed with the scent of the roses was positively intoxicating. Misty’s eyes grew wide, her deliciously full lips pursed and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“What did you just do?” she demanded.
“Cone of Truth,” I replied. “Kind of like the Cone of Silence, but much more fun.”
“What does it do?”
“The title describes it perfectly. Only the truth can be spoken in this room right now.”
“And what happens if you lie, Stanley?” she asked.
“I suppose you’ll just have to find out, Sally,” I replied with a wink. “Let’s start with you. Shall we?”
“No. We shall not start with me.” Misty stomped over to an overstuffed, very comfortable looking, velvet green chair and plopped herself down. “I don’t want to play this game.”
“Ahhh, but I think you do. You can ask me anything and get the truth. Isn’t that intriguing?” I inquired, taking the chair across from her.
“But you can get the truth out of me as well,” she pointed out with a raised brow.
“Correct. However, you can find out if I set you up…”
“Did you?”
“No. I didn’t set you up.”
She glanced around the room and waited for something to happen. Nothing happened.
“How do I know that was the truth if I don’t know what to look for if you lie?” Misty asked the logical question I expected f her.
“Fine point. Well made. That’s why I suggested we start with you. You can test it,” I told her.
“If I lie, will it hurt?”
“No. It won’t hurt you.”
Misty looked down at her hands and her shoulders slumped forward. “It will hurt you, won’t it? If I lie, something happens to you.”
“You’re a very smart little fishy. The one who creates the cone pays the price, which is why most don’t use it,” I said. “Shall we begin?”
Pulling her legs to her chest and resting her chin on her knees, she groaned. “I thought we were going to boink. And now it’s turned all serious. This sucks.”
“Trust me, beautiful Mermaid, boinking is not off the table. I just think we should get a few things straight before the action starts,” I said casually even though I felt anything but casual.
“Fine. Start.”
“Am I the only man you’ve been with since we met?” I asked, feeling the damned butterflies dance in my gut.
“Holy hell and conch shells, I already told you that,” she griped.
“Just checking,” I said with a smug grin. “Do you like me?”
“No,” she snapped.
The searing electrical shock that went through my body would have sucked ass if I didn’t like her answer so much. I was thrown to the floor and the convulsions took about sixty seconds to stop.
“Oh my Gods,” Misty squealed as she hopped over the coffee table and came to my aid. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” I grunted, slowly got back into my chair and continued. “Why don’t you believe in love?”
“Umm, I think it’s my turn,” she said, still a bit pale from watching the results of a lie.
“Be my guest.”
My Mermaid paced the room and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. She was deep in thought and not pleased with the game. She was so beautiful, it stole my breath and her concern for me getting shocked warmed what I’d always thought was a cold dead heart.
“Were you telling the truth about being only with me,” she asked, looking incredibly uncomfortable.
“I have been with no one but you since the moment we met,” I admitted.
Misty waited with baited breath for me to be shocked right to Hades and back… but nothing happened. Nothing happened because it was the truth.
“Why?” she whispered.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you probably don’t want the answer to that… yet.”
Running her hands through her wild and sexy hair, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. I shouldn’t have asked anyway.”
“I’d be more than happy to answer, but I’m quite fond of my Johnson.”
She nodded and paled even more.
“My turn,” I said, ignoring her deer in the headlights expression. “Why are you so dist
rustful of love?”
Misty paused for so long I was sure she wasn’t going to answer me. Sitting back down, she placed her hands in her lap and took a deep breath. “Because my mother died of a broken heart,” she told me with a sad smile. “My father thought chasing adventures around the world was more important than my mother and me and my sisters. One time he never came back and she died of a broken heart.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear that. Shit.
“He sounds like an ass,” I ground out, wanting to harm the man that had colored Misty’s perception of love.
“Actually,” she said thoughtfully, twisting her curly locks in her slim fingers as her emerald eyes filled with tears. “The faint memories I have of him are good ones. It’s so opposite to what he did to us.”
Clapping my hands, the Cone of Truth disappeared. The mist faded and the rose petals floated away on the wind. Pain for her wasn’t the result I wanted at all. I wanted Misty to know she could trust me. This had backfired and I was furious with myself.
“Can I hold you?” I asked. I crossed the room and took her into my arms as she nodded her head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for the game to end like this. I’m an ass.”
“Actually, you’re a jacknardhole,” she said with a weak smile as she swiped the tears from her eyes. “But I do like you.”
“I like you too, Sally.”
“Call me Misty,” she said as she rested her head against my chest and I felt it tighten with something new and unfamiliar.
Gods, there was so much pain with love. No wonder I’d avoided it for so long.
But now? Now I wanted to embrace the pain, the happiness and every other odd malady that came with it. However, I needed the gorgeous, brilliant, strong, sexy woman in my arms to want it too.
“Should we boink?” I asked.
Glancing up at me with her huge sparkling eyes, she smiled. “Can we take a nap first?”
“You’ll let me hold you?”
Nodding her assent, she took my hand and led me to her bedroom.
Nothing had ever been so right in my life.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” an excited voice asked as we woke with a start.
Three Mermaids stood at the end of the bed with wide eyes and delighted expressions on their lovely faces. They were literally bouncing in their toes with excitement. One had purple hair and eyes, one had pink and one had blue. Other than the hair and eye color difference, they looked very much like the shocked to silence Mermaid in my arms.
“Umm… don’t you freaks know how to knock?” Misty choked out, trying to pull away from me.
I was having none of that and pulled her closer. The sister with the purple hair noticed and gave me a covert thumbs up. It was good to have an ally—at least I hoped it was.
“He’s really hot,” the pink-haired sister said, clapping her hands with joy. “Does he have a name?”
“No, he doesn’t have a name, Madison,” Misty snapped and tried in vain to escape me again.
“Archer. My name is Archer. I’m Misty’s boyfriend,” I said with a grin.
The happy squeals of her sisters made me want to clap my hands over my ears, but there was no way in Zeus’ Universe I was letting go of my prize. She would very likely remove my JMT and we still hadn’t boinked yet. I needed my pecker to boink.
“Sweet chicken of the sea!” the blue-haired sister screamed. “This is so awesome. And dude has some impressive pecs.”
I liked the blue-haired sister.
“Don’t you dare look at his pecker, Ariel,” Misty shouted and zapped her sister.
“Ouch,” Ariel squeaked as she zapped Misty right back. “I said pecs, not pecker. Get your mind out of the shallow end.”
Thankfully, Ariel of the blue hair had excellent aim and missed electrocuting me. I’d been through the wringer today already. I was grateful for a reprieve.
“Soooooo,” the purple-haired one said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “When did this happen?”
“Fifty years ago,” I said.
“Tallulah,” Misty hissed. “This is all kinds of embarrassing and weird. All of you will get the heck out of my bedroom. NOW—or I will zap you all the way from the Bermuda Triangle to Florida. I’ll meet you in the living room in a minute.”
“Bring Archer,” Madison said with a wink. “He’s awesome eye candy.”
“OUT,” Misty yelled, zapping all three of her sisters with green glittering magic as they ran from the room squealing with laughter.
Misty dropped her head to her hands and let out a pained laugh. “You’re my boyfriend?”
“Yep.”
“Since when?”
“Since now,” I replied and took her chin in my hand so she had to meet my eyes. “I should have made you mine fifty years ago. I just didn’t understand.”
“Ohhh, Archer,” she whispered. “I’m not capable of what I think you want from me.”
“And I think you are.”
Misty shook her head and eased herself off the bed. “I can’t deal with this right now. However, you said you were prepared to kill and die for me. Do you want to expand on that statement?”
“I do.”
“MISTY,” a voice yelled from the suite. “If you don’t get your sorry ass out here, we’re coming back in and taking pictures.”
“Hold that thought,” she said as she hightailed it to the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Alone?”
“Definitely alone. I didn’t get my boink yet,” she said with a giggle as she left the bedroom.
Smiling, I laid back on the bed and laughed. Misty might not get it yet, but she was very capable of giving me what I wanted and I would spend the next half century or twelve convincing her of it if I had to.
Patience was not my best virtue, but I was in love.
Who the fuck knew Cupid would find love?
I certainly didn’t, but I was happier than hell that I did.
11
Misty
“Wait,” Tallulah said with a look of disbelief on her face. “You were boinking a demigod for fifty years and didn’t know it?”
“Umm… yes,” I admitted sheepishly. I’d thought the events of the last few days were bad. However, this was freakin’ painful. My sisters were positively over the moon at my life as of late—not good.
“Is boinking a god all kinds of awesome?” Ariel asked, grinning like a fool.
“Demigod,” I corrected her while avoiding the answer to her question. The answer was yes—a million times yes, but for some reason I didn’t want to share.
Madison had gathered snacks and was handing out Piña Coladas all around. My sisters made themselves comfortable in the living room of my suite and apparently thought we were having a party. Shit. I had an appointment for a fabulous boinking. I didn’t have time for a sisterly cross-examination.
“So, correct me if I’m wrong—and I’m usually not—though this is a messy little story,” Madison stated with an evil smirk, twisting her long hot pink hair into a messy bun on top of her head and securing it with a sparkling seahorse clip. The move meant she planned to stay for a while… “You boinked a smexy demigod for half a century without knowing his name. He sprayed you with some glittery shit that got stuck on your skin—which, by the way, looks terrific on you. And that led to Poseidon of the scary man-diaper seeing the sparkle crap while you were trying to talk Pirate Arsehole out of wearing what amounts to a fucking dress for his wedding. Moving forward… Poseidon hired you to be the new Cupid. Then the soused God of the Sea fired the original—the nameless hot dude you’ve been boinking—and lo and behold Archer aka the former Cupid shows up here to kill you? And then Wally, along with your new BFF Thornycraft, threatened and tortured him and decided he was cool. Yet somehow you ended up in bed with him?”
“That sounds really bad when you say it like that,” I muttered, wanting to become one with the couch.
“Is there another way to say it?” Madison asked with
a laugh.
“Gods, this is fabulous,” Ariel sang as she stirred up a second round of drinks. “Plus you made your first human match as the new Cupid! Aaaaaand they’re getting freakin’ married on the island next fall!”
“They are?” I asked, shocked yet secretly proud of myself. “For real?”
“For realsies, for real. Great for business,” Madison confirmed. “So hot ass doesn’t want his job back?”
Did he? I wasn’t sure. Was all the lovey dovey stuff just to get his position back? My stomach lurched and I felt a little light-headed.
“Umm, not sure,” I admitted, glumly. “I hope not.”
“You like him,” Tallulah whispered with so much hope in her tone I winced.
I said nothing.
All three of them stood and approached me. It felt like an intervention on a bad reality TV show.
“You love him,” Madison said, carefully watching my every move and expression.
“I don’t love any man,” I snapped, grabbed the Piña Colada from Ariel’s hand and downed it in one swallow. Groaning and pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose, I winced as the brain freeze set in. Balls, every move I made today was wrong.
“Why are you so against love?” Tallulah asked as she took the glass from my hand, and gently seated me on the couch.
“Yeah,” Ariel added. “Love is the best. Keith is my every dream come true. I mean, he’s an idiot and all, but he’s my idiot and he’s a freakin’ rock star in the sack. I’m keeping him even though he does his laundry naked in a pot over an open flame.”
“TMI, Ariel,” Tallulah said with an eye roll and a slight gag. “Besides we’re discussing Misty’s love life—not yours.”
“Or mine,” Madison said with a pout. “Because I don’t have one.”
“If you’d stop mooning over a certain human, you might,” Ariel pointed out and then ducked for cover as Madison shot a blast of pink sparkles at her.
“Cakehole. Shut it,” Madison warned.
I glanced over at my beautiful pink-haired sister in surprise. If I wasn’t so embroiled in my own shitshow, I would be getting to the bottom of hers. However, the time wasn’t exactly right to add to my own poop pile.
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