The Rivals

by Allen , Dylan

“She’s named after the Roman goddess of love. Myth says Venus was born from seafoam. She’s the goddess of love, victory, fertility and beauty. And even though she was married to Vulcan – she was in love with Mars, the God of War.”

  “What happened?” Her voice is rapt with curiosity. I glance at her from the corner of my eye and have to bite back a groan. She’s stretched herself out in a pose similar to mine, and her breasts spill out of the sides of her tank top tempting orbs of smooth brown skin that makes my mouth water.

  “They were lovers, in secret of course. Until her husband became suspicious and set a trap for them.”

  “A trap?”

  “He built a net out of a bronze chain so fine it was nearly invisible and hung it over the bed where they met to make love. When they were naked and joined, the net fell and ensnared them. They were trapped. Caught in the act and he invited all of the other gods on Olympus to come and bear witness to the couples’ humiliation.”

  An awkward silence descends, and I could kick myself. Of all the parts of Venus’s mythology I could have shared, why did I pick the part about her husband and lover?

  “So, is that why Mars and Venus are synonymous with male and female? Because he was the fire and she was the foam?” she asks.

  Grateful to her for keeping the conversation moving, I do my part, too, and it’s not hard. I love mythology as much as I love science.

  “Mars and Venus really represent one whole person. In the myth, they had a daughter named Harmonia, Greek goddess of…”

  “Harmony,” she offers when I trail off.

  “Bingo.” I wink. “In particular, she oversees the harmony of marriage and partnership. She’s the soother of controversy in all things. In mythology she tells us that the union between War and Love is cosmic balance. But when you think about them… they’re, in essence, polar opposites that couldn’t exist without each other.”

  The flash of her bright, effervescent smile is all it takes to make my heart skip a beat. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know anything with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream,” I quote Vincent Van Gogh in response because what I want to say is that I watched her fall asleep and wished I could know what she was dreaming.

  I laugh when I recall her friend’s joke about me fucking her feelings.

  I’m the one she should have warned.

  She has completely and utterly ruined me and being this close to her, when Venus is right there makes me desperate to sink into her body and claim her like I’m the pillaging god of war himself.

  Like she can read my thoughts, she says, “These clothes are stupid. Let’s take them off.” She stands up and slips her shorts off and pulls her tiny tank top overhead. She pulls her hair free of it and a cascade of dark ringlets spill over her shoulders. With nothing between her and the view, she appears to be rising out of the foam of the waves crashing behind her. Just like Venus in Botticelli’s famous paint - but so much more beautiful than a mere mortal could capture on a canvas.

  The underlying gold of her brown skin is set ablaze by the moon’s adoring light. I make quick work of shedding my shorts and grip my dick and stroke it. “Come here, my Venus.”

  “I like that,” she murmurs and then sinks down, so her knees straddle my thighs. She cups the back of my neck and she plants a soft, wet kiss on me. The scent of citrus whipped with sea and sky fills my nostrils and shreds my equilibrium.

  I grip her hips and pull her down, impaling her with my rock-hard dick. She unleashes a moan so guttural, I’m afraid I’ve hurt her. “Goddess, are you okay?”

  “I have never been better in my life,” she pants against my lips. We find a rhythm that’s as timeless as the universe and is ours, alone.

  I wrap an arm around her waist, cradle her head in my free hand and hold her flush against me while I lose myself her most exquisite pussy. She’s a tight fit, but so perfect. We barely move, but the rapid roll of her hips causes explosions of pleasure to every nerve ending in my body.

  “Regan,” I call her name

  “Call me Venus… be my Mars…”

  “You want me to go to war for you, baby?” I demand and she groans into my mouth as I grind my hips against her, pressing as deep, but not as deep as I’d like, into the softest wetness I’ve ever felt.

  She has always been my Venus. But instead of her cool easing my fire, every second I’m inside only makes me hotter, hungrier.

  While I worship her from the front, the rising sun crowns and veils her in the light of its first rays, from behind.

  Her expression is fierce with lust. Her hair is a wild mane of The vast sky seems to exist solely to canvas her untamed beauty.

  I don’t recognize the growls and grunts she pulls from me.

  I barely know my own name.

  I am undone by the sunlit goddess who just took me like she owns me.

  I know we’re just fucking.

  But damn, if it doesn’t feel like flying.

  I know we’re not supernatural mythological beings.

  But when we're together like this, I'm certain we could make the whole world bend to our will.

  I’m a fool. I know this deep in my bones because if my life depended on it right now, I'd say this kiss was flavored by portent and the promise of so much more.

  She drapes her sweaty, sexy body over me. And instead of pulling away, I let myself sink deeper into the quicksand and wrap my arms around her.

  “That was perfect. You are perfect,” I whisper into the crook of her neck.

  She sighs and nestles closer. "You’re a sweet talker.”

  “Can't be helped. I’ve been kissing a goddess with a mouth made of sugar."

  She peeks up at me through the thick tangle of her glossy lashes.

  “Don’t say things like that…you’ll make me want to keep you,” she says in a dreamy voice before her eyes drift closed.

  I laugh and ignore the way my heart gets a full blown hard on hearing those words.

  It wants to mate her as much as my dick.

  Thank God for my job and my unbreakable commitment to spending the rest of the year in Colombia.

  Otherwise, I’d be tempted to follow her home.

  Chapter 24

  Friends

  Regan

  “How did you end up in Colombia?” I prop up on one elbow, reaching over him, to grab a slippery, tender slice of mango from the small plastic container that was part of the lunch our guided tour provided.

  “You know, for someone who actually studied journalism, you ask imprecise and vague questions.” He shakes his head in amazement.

  “And here I was, just thinking how wonderful you are. Thanks for reminding me what a know-it-all you are.”

  His eyebrows shoot up, a cocky grin spreads from ear to ear, and his eyes dance with relish. “You were thinking I’m wonderful?”

  I scoff and curl my lip. “You have selective hearing. I said you’re a know-it-all.”

  “Ah, Regan,” he says, tssking in mock disapproval. “But you like know-it-all’s, remember?” He leans forward and nips at my bottom lip. They’re swollen and kissed nearly raw, and I wince, even as I open my mouth for his kiss. He swipes his tongue along the inside of my tender flesh, and I groan against his lips.

  “I only said that because you were ten years old and sad, but, really, I hoped you’d grow out of it.”

  He holds his hands up in the universal sign of surrender, as if this fierce, fearless man would ever give up on anything. But it's sexy that he'd pretend to for me. “You’re right, it’s a bad habit of mine. I know I started it, but let’s not fight. I’m sorry.”

  God, why can’t he stop being perfect? I wrinkle my nose at him. “Okay. But only because you asked nicely.”

  He blows out a breath as if he’s relieved. “Now, let’s get back to the part of the conversation where we talk about how wonderful you think I am.”

  Effervescent laughter bursts from a wellspring deep in my
soul. I am awash with delight. Being with him, laughing, arguing, teasing, it’s like stretching my legs after hours of riding in the cramped third row of an overcrowded minivan.

  He reaches one of his long, thickly muscled, arms over my body. He smells like me and mangos, and for a second my wits scramble.

  He plucks a slice of mango with his deft fingers. It’s perfectly ripe, the succulent flesh barely taut enough to contain the juice. My mouth waters.

  I reach up and take a tiny bite of the fruit in his hand.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good,” I groan at the perfect balance of sweet and sour.

  He swipes at my lip, catches a dribble of juice on the pad of his thumb and sucks it into his mouth. “Hmmm, It’s good,” he muses. “But your pussy’s sweeter.”

  I bite my lip, and heat suffuses my cheeks. I fan myself. “You could start fires with your mouth.” The smoldering unabashed hunger in his eyes makes my whole body tingle.

  “You could start wars with that face,” he says.

  I roll my eyes at his over the top praise. I have zero make up on and haven’t tried to brush my hair for two days. I know I look a fright. But Stone looks at me like I walked out of the ocean like Venus herself.

  And I love it.

  Being with him is like having a decadent dessert for every meal. Indulgent. Expensive. Impossible to resist. “It’s a shame we’re not alone, hmmm?” I nudge his calf with my foot.

  He scans the riverbank that the rest of our excursion party is spread out across. We’re a small group made up of other couples and we’ve all retreated to private, shaded spots to eat lunch.

  “All I see is you.” He picks up another juicy slice of mango and lifts it to my lips but before I can bite it, he drags it down my chin, down my chest and draws it around my nipple through the dark green fabric of my bikini top.

  And then his mouth follows the sweet, sticky trail with hot open-mouthed kisses. I clutch his head and sink my teeth into my lip, to muffle my moan of delight when his lips close over the throbbing tip of my breast.

  The already aching peak swells, the heat of his mouth scorching even through the fabric. My core contracts in delicious anticipation.

  But we’re not even close to being alone and now that we’re off the island and making our way back to Cabo San Lucas, real life doesn’t feel as far away as it did yesterday.

  Reluctantly, I let go of his head, push at his divinely muscled shoulders and manage to snake out of his hold and scrabble backwards just in time to evade his lunge.

  “Stone, stop, not here!” I try to wriggle out of his grasp, but he’s so strong and he pulls me into his lap. The urgent press of his arousal nestles against my backside. His lips brush my ear and I giggle.

  “Promise you’ll sit on my lap on our way back, and I’ll let you go.” he draws and my shudder in anticipation.

  “I promise,” I whisper and press a kiss to his temple and draw in a lungful of his delicious sweat, and fresh air scented skin before I climb off his lap and sit cross legged next to him. I cross my arms over my chest when his gaze drops to the wet spot over my nipple.

  He straightens and mimics my pose. “Fine, let’s talk.”

  I chuckle at the way he says talk like it’s an expletive. “Okay. So, you were telling me why Colombia,” I refresh his memory.

  I’m impressed with, but not surprised by, my ability to refocus on the conversation when my body is still so distracted by aftershocks of his attention.

  Stone stimulates the most erogenous zone on my entire body - my mind. And when he’s talking to me while he’s inside me, it’s like having a full body orgasm.

  He takes his cues from me and leans away a little, his eyes darting the banks of the mangrove lined river.

  “I went to med school thinking I was going to be a trauma surgeon. Then I had my rotation in obstetrics. My very first delivery made a believer out of me. Babies are the only people in hospitals who aren’t there because they’re sick.”

  “Do you like kids?”

  He frowns and looks skyward, as if he has to ponder the answer to that question.

  “Ummm, that’s a pretty easy yes or no question,” I tease, but find my laugh constricted by the breath I’m holding.

  His chuckles. “Yes, I do. They remind me that there’s hope for humanity. As long they keep coming into the world, we have a future. You know?”

  “So, you want children one day?’ I ask, genuinely curious but acutely aware of the flutter of apprehension in my gut. I don’t know why his answer should matter to me. But it does.

  “I don’t know…. From the time I was ten until I was twenty-two, every decision I made was based on what was best for my brothers. I was in medical school and too busy trying to survive that to do anything I wanted. Now that I’m finally living just for me, I can’t imagine going back to being responsible for getting little people to school, and doctor’s appointments, and all that shit.”

  I feel so many things at once; Disappointment – because it’s another reminder of how discordant our pairing is. Admiration – that he not only survived an absent mother, but made sure his brothers did, too. But most strongly, I feel a sense of nostalgia.

  “I used to not want kids,” I admit.

  “I guess you got over that?” Stone says and I don’t begrudge him the teasing quirk of his lips. I often laugh at the irony of it myself.

  “Getting pregnant kind of forced me too.” wince at how that sounds. “I love my children, desperately. Having them is without any doubt the most selfish thing I’ve done.”

  He narrows one eye and frowns. “Selfish?”

  “Yes. It’s selfish. They don’t ask to be born. It was purely for me. But I’ll admit, when I found out I was pregnant, I thought my life was over.”

  “Why?”

  “My mother is brilliant. From what I heard; she could run circles around my father in intellect. When they met, she was working the concession at the basketball stand, waiting for her moment. She found it when my grandfather offered her a job. Then she fell in love with my father. She forgot her goals, forgot her ambition and got pregnant.”

  “With you and Remi,” he reminds me.

  I roll my eyes. “I’m just saying. I love my mother, but I spent most of my childhood thinking she didn’t love me. And, from my great grandmother on down, they’ve all fallen in love with a man who left them - whether by death, divorce, or prison – they spent their whole lives alone and brokenhearted. And even when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life professionally. I knew that I didn’t want to repeat that cycle.”

  “So, you were going to outrun your legacy by making different choices,” he says knowingly.

  I slant my eyes his way. “I see you’re familiar with this particular type of self-medication?”

  He smiles. “Oh yeah. I think most people who don’t have rosy happy childhoods grow up trying to avoid reliving their nightmare.”

  “My life isn’t a nightmare, just very different from what I used to hope for. But I chose it all.” I say.

  “Because Marcel swept you off your feet?”

  I laugh dryly. “Hardly.”

  “So why did you marry him?”

  It’s a Pandora’s box of a question. I can’t tell him the sequence of events that flowed from the night in the bakery and how it set the wheels in motion that led me to the altar. So, I settle for the bare bones, but still awful truth.

  “To make my grandfather happy.”

  “That’s a big decision to make just to please someone else.”

  There’s no judgement in his eyes or his voice. But I know what I sound like and no one can hear that without thinking it’s stupid or reckless or pathetic, or all three.

  “He raised us after my father died. Well, with my mom, but he was more maternal than she is. And he was such a dynamo.” I smile at the memory of him bounding off to work like he was twenty-five instead of seventy. Every day until his stroke stopped him.

/>   “Old Man Wilde was a legend, man.” His voice is heavy with admiration.

  “Really? Even in the Rivers household?” I eye him skeptically.

  “I don’t know about that. But I know he toppled the powers that be and upset the social order. That’s why the Rivers hate him.” I remember as a boy he made the distinction between the Rivers and the brothers he considered family. I wonder if that will change now that Hayes is back and in charge.

  “Yes, he was totally unpolished but rich enough to pay the cost of entry to their country clubs. He used to go to parties in off the rack clothes. And the old money set he was so desperate to be a part of would laugh behind his back,” I remember with a fond little laugh.

  My grandfather said he didn’t mind that they’d laughed at him. Now that he was too rich to ignore, it delighted him to see the same people who snickered knocking on his door to borrow money. He never said no. In fact, he was generous with his new friends - he shared everything, his cars, and boat and properties.

  And once, me.

  I’m so startled by the intruding thought that I bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood.

  In the ensuing pain, the thought disappears as if it had never been there. And I’m glad because it’s not true. He didn’t share me - yes, he encouraged Marcel, but in the end, I married him because I wanted to.

  “So, what happened with you and Marcel?” Stone nudges my shoulder.

  I peer at him, doubtfully. “You really want to talk about this?”

  He nods, his expression earnest. “Unless you’d rather not. But I want to know everything about you.”

  We share a smile that makes my heart do something strange and my pulse race.

  “So, it’s over?” he prompts.

  I realize I’m just staring at him. I touch my flaming cheeks and blink to refocus my mind on the conversation.

  But I can’t remember what we were talking about.

  “Is what over?” I ask and slap his arm when he bursts out laughing.

  “That’s flattering as hell, Regan…and makes me wish we weren’t talking about your marriage.”