by Anya Nowlan
Eloquent as ever.
“So I guess that was that then. Thank you for coming to my rescue,” Zaria said, her expression almost coy.
“Anytime. I’ll be looking out for stray buses and imagining them to be dragons all because of you,” he offered with a smile, noting that his hand was still close to hers.
She was reaching for her purse and Cupid knew it would be now or never. It was Friday and Valentine’s Day would be in two days. The city would fall into pandemonium and he was pretty damn sure that he wouldn’t have the luck to just randomly run into her again. Fate wouldn’t be that kind to him.
He was going to ask her why she didn’t mark him down, only to get it over with, so he would know and could put her out of his thoughts. But before he could say a word, she had turned to face him again and put her hand on his, squeezing his wrist slightly.
“I had a good time, Cupid. Though I’m still not entirely sure that’s your real name,” she said with a wink, making his body thrum with excitement.
There was that jolt of energy again, the arrow of desire straight to the heart. But wasn’t he supposed to be the hunter here?
Making up his mind in a split second, he pulled his hand back a little so he could entangle his fingers with hers, holding her hand on the table and looking into her eyes. Who cared why she hadn’t marked him down? She was there now and he’d been given another shot. He wasn’t going to miss this time.
“I had a great time too, Zaria. I’ll show you my driver’s license one day,” he said, a wicked glint coming to his eyes. “Tell me. What is a woman who hates Valentine’s Day going to do on it?”
She looked surprised and it made her lips turn into a kissable O that he wanted to sample right then and there. But through some measure of self-control that surprised even Cupid himself, he kept himself at bay. She didn’t pull her hand away and unless he was mistaken, she even squeezed back a little.
“Me? Probably sitting at home, eating popcorn and watching the Avengers or something.”
“Is the popcorn with extra butter?” Cupid asked, narrowing his eyes.
“You know it!”
“Good. I think I can make that happen.”
“What do you mean?” Zaria asked, skewing her head to the side quizzically.
“I mean I can make popcorn with extra butter. When you come on a date with me. Tomorrow. You’ll pack an overnight bag, I’ll show you a place far more beautiful than New York City, and we can watch a movie and have that popcorn together at the end of it.”
“But… Valentine’s Day isn’t until Sunday,” she said, arching a brow, though she was smiling now and definitely squeezing his hand back.
“So it’ll be a long date. Are you game?” Cupid asked, almost vibrating in his seat, hoping and praying that she would say yes.
“Do you promise that you’re not some creepy axe murderer?” she asked lightly, pretending to think long and hard about the option presented to her.
“Hey, I’m a prince. Princes are not axe murderers!”
That made her laugh and he loved the sound of it. Slowly, she let go of his hand, though she didn’t look to be enjoying it, and then reached into her purse to pull out her phone. She unlocked the screen and slid it over to Cupid, who picked it up. He could see the little SassyDate icon at the top left of the screen and it made him smirk. She wasn’t going to need that damn thing for very long if he got his way!
“Fine, Prince Cupid. Enter your details and we’ll talk it over tonight. What do I need to pack?”
“As little as possible.”
She groaned in mock irritation and he grinned like a wolf staring down a lamb. Okay, so maybe this time, Valentine’s Day could be fun. He would just need to make a few calls to his brothers to make sure it would really be perfect.
CHAPTER SIX
Zaria
“I can’t believe you,” Zaria said, looking around like Cupid had performed some sort of magic to make everything come together so well.
“Whatever do you mean, Princess?” Cupid asked, batting his long lashes as if he were completely innocent and beyond reproach.
“You brought me to Idaho. Suddenly there’s a perfect ice rink to skate on and not a single red heart in sight. Oh, and do I need to mention the airplane? How could you not tell me you were a pilot?!”
“I told you I’d show you my driver’s license one day,” Cupid said, tying up his skates and standing up on the clear, polished ice of the pond.
He reached out a hand to Zaria and she took it gladly, getting up on slightly wobbly legs. He’d delivered on the driver’s license promise and it had turned out his name really was Cupid Frost. And he was a pilot. Who happened to have the biggest plane she’d ever seen, that apparently could take them from New York City to Shifter Grove, Idaho faster than it took for them to get through a decent conversation.
Though that might have had something to do with the fact that she loved listening to him talk and he seemed to find her both hilarious and enchanting, something that really got a girl enjoying a good talk! Zaria had been in some kind of a daze ever since she’d shown up at JFK, thinking that he was maybe planning to start a treasure hunt or something from there, something fun and light for their first date, but she’d quickly been packed on a plane and whisked off entirely.
The Idaho wilderness was beautiful under the cover of the snow, high peaks topped with white caps, and the serene woods. They were all alone at the lake, but it had obviously been recently cleared and polished.
Cupid skated backward, completely sure on his skates, while Zaria held on for dear life. They’d parked the truck he’d picked up at the airport—well, if you could call the tiny speck an airport!—a bit farther up and had trudged down through the snow to get to the lake itself, where skates had been waiting.
“What is this place? How’d you know about it?!” Zaria asked, finding herself in a constant state of question around this mysterious, sexy man.
“Oh, this little thing? It’s called Wolf’s Eye Lake. The local hockey team uses it for practice in the winter season,” he elaborated, pulling her closer to him and putting his arms around her as they spun, Zaria shrieking in surprise but Cupid’s sure arms keeping her safe even if she stumbled.
“The… local hockey team? This place seems completely deserted!”
“No, it might only feel like it. Shifters are hermits by nature and we don’t come together too much. But there’s a big community here, around Shifter Grove. My family’s been in the area for almost forever but it’s picked up a lot lately. The hockey thing’s new though. Not sure who got it going. I hear we even have rivalries already,” Cupid said, Zaria turning to face a long stretch of open ice with Cupid’s hand at her back.
Zaria bit her lip as the speed picked up, but she didn’t feel scared. Somehow, around Cupid, she always knew she was completely safe. In any other case, she would have never agreed to get on a plane with a man she barely knew! And even this time she’d sent Brittany a note on SassyDate and left the GPS on to broadcast her location if anyone on her friends’ list contacted her. Safety first!
“Shifters? So, um, you’re a shapeshifter?” she asked, looking at him in a slightly different way. “Well, I mean, I guess I knew. I think the whole point of that speed-dating thing was to match shifters with humans if they’re into that. But… I didn’t ask you.”
“I’m a shifter, yeah. A buck… or, well, a stag, as it were,” he said, and to Zaria it looked like he puffed up with pride a bit.
It made her smile, though the edges of the smile wavered a little as she thought about Brad for a fleeting moment. He was a lion shifter, something that he’d come to prefer to hide in the cutthroat world of corporate finance, but that she’d been very much aware of in their relationship. It was hard concealing his true, predatory nature, and Zaria figured that the fact he was chasing her so hard and heavy now had something to do with it too.
Still, she liked shifters. They were coming “out” more and more in society these days and
resistance against them was lessening. With a lot of the shifter men becoming valued soldiers, protecting their country against harm, it was hardly a surprise, too. Everyone loved a hero.
“A buck? ‘Deer’ me,” she quipped, grinning.
Cupid tried to give her a stern look but she could see his resistance cracking and he burst out laughing, grabbing her by the hand and spinning her around faster before tucking her into the safety of his embrace.
“Watch it, Princess. If you keep that up my family will love you more than they do me. We can’t resist a good pun,” he said, his lips suddenly very, very close.
Not close enough, though.
Zaria found herself reaching forward slightly, though she misjudged the skates she was wearing and ended up sliding backward instead of burrowing further into his grasp. Cupid grinned and grabbed her hands before she could drift away too far. She breathed a sigh of relief when he built speed and put them into motion again. Apparently she wasn’t so great at skating after only two times on the Rockefeller rink in the past decade!
“You have a big family?” she asked, as the moment of tense, hopeful silence passed between them.
“I do. Eight brothers. The Frosts get around,” he said, his voice dropping in tone as he mimicked some sort of a slogan, tilting his chin up.
“Is that actually your tagline?” she asked, laughing.
“It used to be, back in the Eighties when my dad and his brothers ran it. Now we don’t have one. My suggestion of ‘The Buck Stops Here’ has been met with lukewarm enthusiasm. Apparently it wouldn’t be right for a logistics company, but I think they don’t see the beauty in it.”
Cupid made a sad face and Zaria giggled. He was silly. Compared to Brad who seemed to take himself so seriously all the time, Cupid was a breath of fresh air. The fact that they were actually outside might have had something to do with it, too. Nothing quite as crisp as the Idaho wilderness in winter!
Led by his hands and the sway of his body, Cupid skated them back toward the makeshift bench made from piled-up snow they’d used earlier to put on their skates.
“Are we done already?” she queried, coming to a wobbly stop.
“Figured we could take a break and I could impress you more,” Cupid said with a waggle of his brow, reaching into the bag he’d brought with him and pulling out a dark green Thermos and two insulated mugs.
“What’s that?” she asked as he gave the mugs to her and she held them in her mitten-covered hands so he could unscrew the top.
“Hot chocolate. I’m being adorably romantic here, if you want to know,” Cupid replied, pouring them both a cup and then shoving the Thermos back in the bag.
He helped her take a seat and Zaria did so gladly, sipping at the lovely warm drink. It seemed that every one of their meetings had to be met with some beverage and they seemed to be getting sweeter with each one, at least for Zaria. She didn’t mind it one bit.
“I wouldn’t dare say otherwise,” Zaria agreed, smiling over the rim of the cup.
He leaned back, his blue eyes flickering over the scene and Zaria couldn’t help but look at him instead. Sandy-blond hair, strong, genuinely pleasant features, and a body made for whatever life wanted to throw at him, he looked every bit the prince they pretended him to be. Any lingering doubts about the decision to take the trip were quashed now and she had to suppress a private, wistful sigh.
So the preamble to Valentine’s Day was going pretty well so far.
She glanced onto the ice, catching a view of some rabbits running across it at the far end of the wide lake. Everything was so peaceful here. Quiet. Not at all like New York. She’d lived there all her life and had always assumed she’d hate being anywhere calmer, but for once, the idea seemed to have some appeal. Especially if it came with a man like Cupid by her side!
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Cupid said, making her look back at him, her gray eyes wide.
“I, um…” she stuttered, stunned.
“I’m not saying it because I want anything. I just needed you to know that,” he said, setting his mug aside and leaning forward.
“Thank you, you’re not too bad yourself,” she said with a grin, one that he matched.
She bit her lip, her eyes darting between his eyes and his lips, breath clinging to her lungs.
Is he going to…
“I’m going to kiss you now, Princess,” he said, matter-of-fact and straight to the point.
“Okay,” she whispered, Cupid giving her long enough to give him a response, to make up her own mind.
She was sure that had she said anything against it, he would have turned it into a joke and not pressed the matter. But she wanted that kiss, and when she moved closer to him the tiniest bit, he kissed her softly, like he’d been thinking about it for days now. Zaria almost dropped the hot chocolate, one hand pressing against his chest, wanting to feel the closeness of his body.
He tasted like mint and cinnamon and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was all from the hot chocolate. The kiss was just right, no awkward clinking of teeth or going left when he went the same way, but coming together perfectly. His hand went into her hair, pulling her head closer so he was holding her by the back of her neck, the kiss deepening with each second, while Zaria’s toes curled in her boots.
When he finally broke the kiss, she was in a daze, staring at him through hazy eyes, the drink forgotten and her whole world revolving around that kiss. That kiss!
It was starting to feel like she might have actually felt the right Cupid and he’d used his arrow on her! And she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, either.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zaria
“Take your shirt off,” Zaria heard herself saying, her voice trembling but a happy hitch to it.
It had taken them a good few fumbling minutes to rip the skates off their feet and put on their boots when they’d figured out that kissing just wasn’t going to be enough. Cupid had practically thrown her over his shoulder and carried her up to his family’s huge cabin in the woods, all high ceilings and pristine wood paneling and exquisite taste.
But none of it mattered because Cupid still had his clothes on and she didn’t want any of that. There was a trail of jackets and scarves and hats following them to the bedroom, a big room with a large bed and crimson sheets, the only bit of festive touch she’d really noticed. She was sure it wasn’t intentional.
“You first,” he growled, throwing his cardigan off and revealing the black T-shirt he had underneath.
For the first time, she could see the makings of tattoos on his arms and the top of one poking out below his V-neck shirt. She grinned feverishly, pulling off the long purple sweater she was wearing, and then the tank top underneath. Zaria was rarely the kind of girl to throw herself into something like that, but at that very moment, there wasn’t an ounce of self-consciousness to her. She wanted him naked as much as she wanted to be naked for him.
They pulled their shirts off in unison and while Zaria had to stop and stare for a moment, her hands fumbling with the button of her jeans, Cupid was already shucking off his, revealing a perfect, chiseled, mouthwatering body. He did have tattoos: loops on his arms and the image of antlers growing out of where his heart was, spreading across his chest and then twisting around his arms and upper back. A buck in soul and heart.
“Pants, Princess,” he said, his voice low and rumbly.
She did as she was told, throwing them off and her socks as well, now standing only in her underwear. The outline of his thick cock pressed against his briefs, demanding her attention as much as his ridged abs and the flat planes of his chest, inviting her eye and making her poke out her tongue to lick over her lips. He looked ridiculously good and the way he stared at her, blue eyes ablaze, she knew he thought the same way of her.
It brought a blush to her cheeks and a wild smile to her lips. He snarled at the sight of it and crossed the few steps over to her that had separated them, putting two hands on her cheeks and kissing
her hungrily. She groaned into the contact, her knees going a tiny bit weak. Zaria had no intention of sleeping with him that soon, maybe at all, but everything just seemed to work.
He was cute, kind, funny, and he could read her like a book. The way he lit up when she looked at him made her feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy inside. But the way he kissed her and then the way his hands traveled down her body to tug down her panties and undo the clasp of her bra were far from nice. He was all man, Alpha and demanding and she loved it that way.
His rough hands grabbed her ass, squeezing the cheeks and pressing her against him tighter. She was violently aware of how wet she was for him, her pussy more than ready to take his hard, long, delicious length.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” he whispered, laying kisses on her neck, trailing down slowly.
“I thought I was beautiful,” she said teasingly, her hands traveling down his sides, loving the curves of muscle and the bunches of sinewy strength beneath her fingertips as she traced over him, learning his body.
“You can be both. You are both,” he said, biting her neck lightly and making her squirm underneath his touch.
A moment later, he had grabbed her and practically thrown her down on the bed, sending her hair flailing out like a halo around her head. She watched him take off his briefs now and the guttural moan she let out was pure honesty. He was big and the glisten of pre-cum at the tip told her that he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.
He was on top of her in a flash and her hands were tugging him closer, her lips kissing him where she could. Cupid parted her legs roughly and she gave into it with all the eagerness she could imagine. Her body burned for him, hummed with need for his touch, and everywhere their skin was in contact, she felt herself on fire with lust. Zaria rocked against him, his muscled thighs against hers, his cock thrust against her pussy so she could rub herself against it, spreading her wetness over him.
“Cupid,” she whispered, or almost panted, really, as he dipped down and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, his teeth grazing the delicate skin.