Arrows of Desire: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 3

by Lynne Connolly

  A quizzical look entered her eyes and she tilted her head to one side. “I hadn’t thought of it. Yes, I will.”

  That was a good idea. It would give her more control. “The minute you feel any discomfort, tell me, move away. I’m extremely selfish, my love, and I don’t want to have to wait for days for you to recover.”

  Laughing, she leaned forward into his caresses. “There’s nothing selfish about you.”

  Little did she know. When she moved back and studied his cock, now as eager as the rest of him to consummate their union, hard and begging for attention, he had the leisure to examine the woman he’d given his life to.

  Smooth curves, soft skin and that hair, tumbling over her shoulders, most of the powder gone. After this, he’d take her into the private parlour, order food, and give the servants instructions to bring a bath and change the sheets. A bath would help any soreness and he’d love to help her wash. His mouth watered at the thought.

  Later.

  She touched his cock, swept her finger across the head, sending a trail of tingles right through him, and took the drop of lubricating liquid spilling from the tip. He watched her lift the glistening finger to her mouth and taste it. She closed her eyes in bliss, as if tasting the most delectable morsel possible.

  Avidity drove him, but what did he want? To continue his lessons in the delights of oral pleasure, or couldn’t he wait that long? He had no idea, didn’t know how he could decide, but she took the matter out of his hands when she bent and licked him.

  Edmund jerked up, his back stiffening, his buttocks clenching. “Oh God in heaven!”

  Her only reply was to chuckle. She was a fast learner, swiping her tongue over the unbearably sensitive tip and then closing her lips around him. To see it, to feel it, was almost more than Edmund could bear. He flung a hand out, caught her shoulder, and buried the other hand in her hair. A few pins fell to the sheet. They hadn’t bothered to take her elaborate hairstyle apart, but nature had taken care of most of that for them. Now her hair was in complete disarray. Parts of the style tumbled over her shoulders, and a stray curl or two was still pinned in place. Carefully ordered ringlets vied with wild curls to make a picture he considered adorable. When she grew more vigorous, a curl fell from its place, unravelling over his cock. He nearly came, such was the intensity of sensation.

  He bucked up, dislodging her, which was probably just as well, because he wanted more. “I’m a selfish beast. I want to be inside you. Now.”

  “Yes.” Tossing her hair back, she sat up, then went to her knees.

  “Take it in your hand,” he told her. “Put it in place. Then sit on me.”

  She visibly trembled, but he was firmly in touch with her emotions and he felt her excitement before he added his own to the mix. Together they achieved something they could not manage apart, a height of arousal that even astounded him.

  Her heat washed over his cock, and she soaked him before she took him inside. She was well balanced, her knees either side of his hips, but he still held her waist so she could concentrate on the all-important task of taking him inside her.

  When she eased her body over his, he closed his eyes in sheer bliss. “I am not leaving this room for so many days.” Except to let the servants in. Normally he wouldn’t quit the bed to let them do that. But although she’d abandoned her modesty with him, he suspected displaying herself with her husband to his servants might herald a return of the uncomfortable feelings. He didn’t want that.

  What he wanted was to hold her on to his cock and work himself deep, deep inside her.

  And never come out.

  He had the first of his ambitions when the tight ring of muscle at her entrance gave way and he slid inside to her heated depths. His low groan only began to express how he felt, but fortunately eloquence wasn’t called for on this occasion and he could concentrate on supporting his wife—his wife!—and helping her to bring them to what he’d heard described as a satisfactory conclusion.

  He let her set her own pace. She tried an experimental rise and fall, and his mind burst apart. With an effort of will he brought himself back. The sight of her concentrating, an adorable frown creasing her brows made him fall in love with her a little more. She plunged again, her quim wet against his groin when she sank down on him, releasing the aroma of their lovemaking every time she rose. Edmund worked hard to keep his mind on the task, not to leave her alone to work on her own.

  She spread her hands on his stomach. He doubted she’d done it consciously, but he tightened his muscles to support her efforts and let her drive him into sheer madness. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh added to his awareness, and he gritted his teeth as his arousal grew, every nerve in his body aware of her presence and what she was doing to him.

  From the expression on her face, she was enjoying herself. “Open your eyes,” he said, the words sharper than he’d intended. Her eyes snapped open. “I want to see you when you come. Stare into those gorgeous eyes and see when the moment comes on you.”

  That was where he drew his power, from a person at the height of ecstasy. In that perfect, ineffable moment, the mind opened and the seeker of strength could draw from it. This time he intended to do exactly the opposite. He would give instead of taking.

  It took no effort to sense her arousal, and the way it grew. It took much more to prevent his own following it too soon. This time he would make the magic happen. Last time he’d missed the moment by seconds, too far gone to do anything but go where his body led.

  She pumped up and down, and he helped as much as he could by supporting her waist, and her hands where they pressed on him. She levered herself up and released until the rhythm became innate.

  When she stopped thinking about what she was doing, her instincts took over. He helped her there too, adding his own arousal, his drive to hers, waiting for the explosion that would take her to the heights.

  Higher than before. She would share what he could bring her.

  Her body tightened around his, the first ripple of her orgasm, and he went to work. Ensuring she wouldn’t stop, he forced his mind into hers, the blinding power nobody could resist when they were in this state. He bathed her with joy, filled her mind and heart with his presence. He showed her the inner part of herself that reason usually covered.

  Light and peace waited there, but the peace part would come later, after the turbulence of the climactic act of lovemaking. The first spurt of his own orgasm flashed through him. Unabashedly he shared it with her, letting her into his heart and soul.

  She gasped and stared into his eyes, seeing the truth, as he saw it in her. For that moment they joined, nothing between them. Their bodies became one, their hearts and souls met, touched and kissed.

  And he gave. Edmund surrounded her with warmth, strengthening her, giving his own power to make her stronger. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened, but no sound emerged.

  Sitting up in one violent surge, he locked his arms around her and kissed her. As their bodies recovered, he held her in place and kissed her and kissed her, his essence and hers mingling.

  Shock arced through him when he saw her secret. Why hadn’t he guessed?

  When their mouths separated, before he could take her again, she gasped and drew back. He refused to let her go.

  “You’re Cupid,” she said.

  Chapter Nine

  Edmund’s mouth twisted, and a note of distaste entered his mind, clear for Portia to read. Right now she could read everything, see everything about him. With shock she read that his mother had kept him ignorant of his true self, and he’d had to go abroad to find out. The secret pathways were closing to her now. She felt him inside her, with her, giving her some of the awesome strength she’d seen in him, but the knowledge had come hard.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said, and then he smiled wryly. “Cupid is a little fat baby with a toy bow and arrow. I’
m Eros.”

  She couldn’t help her smile. “Then I won’t call you that.” She was sitting here with Eros? His body inside hers? “You really are, aren’t you?”

  Sighing, he dropped a kiss on her nose. When she would have broken away, overawed by the knowledge, he held her firmly to him. “Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself. Yes, I really am. It’s an accident of birth. No, that’s wrong. My mother deliberately put herself in the right place in order to harvest the essence of one of the gods when it left the previous incumbent’s body.”

  “It sounds complicated,” she said doubtfully. Sitting here naked with the man who had just made her his wife, it didn’t seem real. Immortal was one thing. Having a sea-god for a father, yes, that was difficult too, but it was something she’d grown up knowing.

  “It is. Your father could have been involved in that plot. Oceanus. I should have guessed.”

  Hence the disgust.

  “Not all Titans are the same,” she protested. “And you’re not supposed to know.”

  Slowly he lowered them both to the wreck of a bed. Her hair powder was smeared all over one pillow, which he tossed to the floor, finding another for her to rest her head on. His softening cock still rested inside her body. Despite her new knowledge, she didn’t want him to leave.

  No, not despite. He was Eros. “Did you do this to me?”

  “What?”

  She scrambled off the bed onto the floor where their finery from yesterday was heaped in an untidy pile. She saw her quarry, twinkling among the falls of lace. She grabbed it and before he could help her, climbed back in. Opening her hand, she showed him. “This.”

  The exquisite diamond arrow glittered accusations at him.

  He closed his mind. It had been drifting to its normal state, where she could sense him, but not go deep. Her gesture forced it the rest of the way. “It’s my symbol. I couldn’t tell you then, but I wanted you to have some idea. It was there if you wanted to see it.”

  “You married me without telling me, Edmund.”

  “And you didn’t tell me I was marrying the daughter of a Titan.”

  They stared at each other, their breath misting the chilly morning air. Although spring was coming, the mornings were still raw, and the fire had gone out hours ago. They’d been too busy to notice earlier.

  “It wasn’t my secret,” she said. “Papa asked me not to tell you.”

  “Why? When he assumed I was a minor immortal, why would he do that?”

  She paused, thought. Then gave him the truth. “Because he doesn’t want anything to do with the struggle between the Titans and the Olympian gods. The fewer people who know who he is, the better. That’s what he’s always said. So why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  “Because I was deathly afraid of losing you.” The answer came so fast and with such a lack of forethought that instinctively she knew he was telling the truth. Or the truth as he saw it.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you want me? What makes me so different?”

  He paused, running his fingers through his hair, tousling the fine strands to a worse state of disarray. “Do I have to tell you everything now?”

  She folded her arms under her breasts. Odd how she’d lost all modesty with him, or was that something he did to all women? “Yes.”

  “I’m new. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I’m learning, and I’m vulnerable. I have immense power, but until recently I didn’t know how to access it. Now I do, thanks to—someone I met abroad. Someone I went looking for. A mentor.”

  “Female?”

  He nodded. “She taught me what my mother didn’t. Who I am, what I can do, but she warned me to be discreet and only to reveal my identity to close friends.” He bowed his head. “That was why, at first, I didn’t tell you. That, and not knowing who your father is. Then I was in love and deathly afraid of losing you. I didn’t want anything to change. I wanted to be Mr. Welles of Kent. Just for a while.”

  “So this isn’t permanent? You mean to move on?” Even now her heart hurt when that eventuality occurred to her.

  “As permanent as I can make it. Us, this, I never expected.” He seized her hands. She let them lie in his, passively. Waiting. Because he was right, he had immense power. “I came here to establish somewhere I could be safe. The house on the cliff was perfect. It’s difficult to get here, and you can see coaches coming from a long way off. It’s ideal. I planned go to Scotland and confront my mother. She’s very powerful. I don’t know what or who she is, but she could be anything from a witch to a Titan or even an Olympian. I wasn’t ready. She’s had centuries and I’ve had thirty years.”

  “Then we met.”

  He swallowed. “Then I saw your father on a run.”

  “And me.” She watched until the truth dawned on him, triumph at being able to plant one surprise on him warming her chilled heart.

  “That boy? He was you?”

  She nodded. “I wear men’s clothes for convenience, not disguise, although it helps to allow me to blend in. I order some parts of the run. So does Anthea, and Millicent used to before her marriage.”

  He shook his head, disbelievingly. “Your father said you helped him, but I had no idea you dressed like that. Damn. If I’d known—” He swallowed, and she sensed the undeniable tinge of arousal in his mind. Glancing down, she noted his cock had shifted, and although not erect, it wasn’t completely soft either. So her boy’s clothes excited him? Maybe that gave her a weapon. She might need it. If he didn’t leave her. She was only a nymph, after all.

  “You’re my nymph and I adore you.” She might have known he’d pick that thought up.

  “Did you—” She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. “Did you enchant me? Did this powerful love come from a spell?”

  He paused, and her heart sank. “Partly. At the time it seemed like a good plan. A mild version, a gentle attraction, not this full-bodied passion.” When she would have pulled her hands away, he grasped them more firmly. “I don’t know which is the spell and which is us, but I tell you this—that first night, when I stole a kiss from you at the assembly, there was no spell. That was just us.”

  She felt cheated. So he’d taken that from her, the falling in love? He’d replaced it with something false. The feelings she had towards him overwhelmed her. She felt helpless in their grasp. And this was his doing.

  This time she did pull away. Climbing off the bed, she grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around her. “The servants will be up. I’ll order a bath and breakfast. They will need to come in here.”

  She was the wife of a wealthy man, so she might as well behave like one.

  When he would have climbed down to join her, she held up her hand. “I need time, Edmund. Let me think. So much is whirling around my head, I can’t possibly understand it all. Give me a chance.”

  With a jerk of his head, he agreed. Before she could answer the stricken look in his eyes, go to him and soothe him as all her instincts screamed at her to do, she left the room. The sheet swept behind her as her train had done the day before.

  “There’s a carriage coming, ma’am.” The maid bobbed her head and waited for Portia’s response. She was one of a family who served most of the families hereabouts, including their clandestine night-time activities. Not that anyone admitted knowing anything about the runs, of course, but Portia and Mary had shared duties in the caves before now.

  Lady of the manor today, Portia gave Mary a gracious nod. “Have tea prepared, please, and some refreshments. Nothing too elaborate. Serve them upstairs and please let my husband know.”

  Never had she felt less like entertaining, but bride-guests wouldn’t wait until a propitious time to call on the new bride and groom. Some would be agog to see the house. Well, they would be disappointed. They would only see the hall and the drawing room today, and not for long, if
Portia had anything to do with it. She wanted to think, to try to absorb what she’d learned and cope with it.

  If the visitors included her father, would she tell him? Oh, not the spell, but who Edmund was? He’d asked her not to, but her father had asked for the same thing and Edmund had read it anyway. It could have been his whole reason for seducing her in the first place—before his plan had gone awry and he’d enchanted himself too.

  Did it matter? He loved her now, didn’t he?

  Yes, it mattered. She’d chased her own tail all morning and this was the only conclusion she’d reached. It mattered. Reason had no dog in this fight. What he’d told her hurt, that it had taken an enchantment to make him fall in love with her.

  She needed to learn more. To think. With that in mind, she decided not to tell anyone anything. If they learned new information, it wouldn’t be from her. Except for one thing. She had to tell her father that Edmund knew who he was. To do anything else would be to betray the man who’d always treated her well, with the greatest care imaginable.

  Unlike Edmund’s own surviving parent. He’d mentioned once that his father had died when Edmund was a baby. At least he hadn’t lied to her that she knew about, only by omission. By not telling her things like—he had a sister.

  After checking her appearance in the mirror, she twitched her tiny lace cap into place, adjusted the lappets draped on her shoulders and went upstairs to the drawing room. Would her husband join her? If not, she’d gently point out to their guests, whoever they were, that they weren’t expecting visitors today. Really, didn’t people have the sense they were born with? Visiting a bride and groom the day after their marriage was the outside of enough.

  Just as well she’d bathed and dressed. She found the room designated as hers, a pretty bedroom decorated in blue. The maid Edmund had obtained for her saw nothing strange in her mistress wanting to dress and be about her duties. The neighbourhood, once it heard, which it would, would probably approve of her actions. Marriage should not interfere with domestic duties.