Above

by Sotia Lazu

  The woman blanched but gave her a watery smile. “I’ll just leave this here.” She laid a robe identical to the one she wore on the bed, and pointed to the second door. “You can have a warm shower, if you’d like. Pr—Nerites will be back soon, but he said you should make yourself at home. No shoes around the... premises, though. Not that you’ll need them. The temperature is always perfect.”

  Make herself at home? Was he planning to keep her? “What’s with the matching outfits?” she asked. “I didn’t inadvertently join a cult, did I?”

  The woman’s laugh sounded real. “Nothing like that. Nerites will explain.” She left before Magda had time to ask anything else.

  So here was the deal—if this wasn’t real, she’d either died, and this was a weird take on afterlife, or she was losing her mind. With neither alternative exactly appealing, her best option was to go with it and see what happened.

  She grabbed the robe and padded barefoot to the bathroom.

  Chapter Eight

  “Circe,” Nerites bellowed, his voice bouncing off the council room walls. “Show yourself, witch.” Now that Magda was safe, he’d find out what the witch knew.

  Circe appeared between him and the nearest of the high-back chairs surrounding the large table Nereus seldom sat at when he met with his generals. She was close enough Nerites took a startled step backward.

  “Do you remember now?” She sounded almost timid, nothing like her usual, confident self.

  If she was looking for his pity, she’d be sorely disappointed. “She’s Aphrodite, isn’t she?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his glare daring her to lie.

  Circe searched his gaze, looking hopeful, more than intimidated. Not that much intimidated the daughter of Helios. “Do you remember?” she asked again.

  He huffed. “I remember loving her. Remember how deep it sliced to turn my back to our love, for the good of my people.”

  She licked her lips. Was she nervous? That was something else he’d never associated with the know-it-all who’d been around since before his birth. “Do you remember me, taking away your memories of her?” she asked.

  She jumped back, into the chair, and he realized his hands were clenched at his sides, elbows drawn back as if he meant to pounce. He forced his fists to relax. “Why would you do that?” Keeping from screaming was hard, but he needed answers.

  Circe turned away, busying herself with moving the chair closer to the table. She proceeded to nudge the next seat forward, and then the next one and the one after that. She kept going, imperceptibly correcting the positioning of chairs, until the table was between her and Nerites. “Because Aphrodite begged me. She waited for you as long as she could, but you never went to her.”

  She waited? But she left him. “No. She said we were done. That if I stayed in Vythos, she’d have nothing to do with me.”

  Circe’s look was full of disdain now. “So you gave up. You stayed here, wallowing in misery, while she wilted away. Typical male.”

  It was common knowledge in Vythos that Odysseus had claimed the witch’s heart and body, before sneaking from her island in the middle of the night to return to his wife. The witch never forgave him, and her distrust of men kept her from ever finding love again. But Nerites wasn’t to blame for that, and he wasn’t to blame for this.

  “Wilted away?” He sneered as new—old—memories rose to the surface. “She mated with Hephaestus. Bore his son.” The pain of that betrayal cut him as deep now as on the day he found out she’d moved on.

  “Zeus forced their marriage, but she never shared the coppersmith’s bed.”

  Aphrodite never slept with Hephaestus? Who fathered the boy? “Was it Ares’, then?” Were the rumors of Aphrodite’s affair with the god of war true?

  “She had your son, you bullheaded male. Eros is yours, and so was she, until the day she faded from existence.”

  His son? Eros. Nerites had heard the name time and again, but it always slipped through the cracks of his memory, like he wasn’t supposed to know it. Like magic was involved. “I have a son, and you made me forget about him too?” His voice boomed around the room.

  Circe scowled and planted her hands on her hips, her blue eyes all but shooting fire at him. “You never knew he was yours. You only forgot about him because Aphrodite had me swear to take away your pain at her demise. I couldn’t keep you from hurting unless I made you forget your feelings for her, including your sorrow and anger that she’d have a child with another male.”

  He wanted to rip Circe’s heart from her body. Tear her apart with his bare hands. End her, for causing him so much suffering.

  But she didn’t. She saved him from the suffering he caused himself when he chose to put his duty above his heart’s desire. Still... “It should have been my choice.”

  Circe nodded gravely. “It should have. She tricked me into promising to help her, and you can’t break a promise to a goddess. Believe me, I’ve paid a high price for it.” The waver in her voice said she was telling the truth. Not that it mattered what she’d lost, when she’d taken everything from him.

  “I don’t care.” He steeled his heart against the tears lacing her eyelashes. “You knew she still loved me. You knew she waited for me. You knew my heart was breaking. You could have told me. Could have saved us both the pain. Instead, you made me forget her, and now that she’s reborn she has no recollection of me.”

  Crossing the room with the speed of light, she stood toe to toe with him, anger emanating from every pore on her body. “I wasn’t the one who gave up on true love so I could inherit a kingdom.”

  Her words landed on him like a slap to the face. “It had nothing to do with that. I couldn’t let Father down to move above, just because—”

  “Nereus never asked you to sacrifice your happiness for Vythos. He has forty other kids. One of them would make as good a ruler as you would. If he ever decided to step down. No, you let her go because you were afraid to open up to love. You were afraid to be happy. To feel complete.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Nerites had the distinct impression she was no longer talking about him.

  No reason to explain how wrong she was. How he’d have given anything to take back that decision that cost him centuries of going through life without a heart. “You did this. Undo it.” He wanted everything back. Every memory he and Aphrodite ever created together. “And make her remember me.”

  “I can’t.” It came out a hoarse whisper. “I tried, when I realized she was Magda. Since she was no longer dead, my oath was void. But I couldn’t get your memories back. And if I force her to remember who she was, it may splinter her psyche. You must make each other remember.”

  His anger renewed, he grabbed both her arms hard enough his fingers dug into the yielding flesh. “And how on Chaos’ creation do you suggest we do that?”

  Circe’s body lost substance, until his hands closed over nothing. “Take her. Make her yours.” Her words hang in the air over his head for a heartbeat, before they too faded.

  Chapter Nine

  “Go with the crazy. Let the crazy flow through you. Go with the crazy.” Talking to herself under the warm water jet was no more nuts than the rest of tonight. She’d jumped in the sea well past midnight, in hopes a guy who might not exist would save her. Said guy took her to his... underwater lair. That might be a palace. And when he left her alone, what did she do? Strip naked and hop in the shower.

  “Be one with the crazy.” She raked her fingers through her short hair, massaging what looked like walnut-sized pearls into her scalp. This felt so good. She grabbed another handful of the shiny round thingies from what might be the soap holder, and rubbed them into the skin of her arms, up to her breasts, and then down her stomach. They looked like bath salts, but didn’t fizzle and dissolve in water, though they left behind a pleasant clean scent that made her think of starlit nights on the beach.

  She leaned over to massage her thighs, and sneaked a palm between her legs, to cup her bare mound. The maybe-pearls sl
ipped and rolled between her labia, doing delicious things to her clit.

  And now she was considering pleasuring herself in the lair of the mysterious stranger who, for all she knew, had kidnapped her.

  She was the crazy.

  One of the pearls slipped inside her. Shit. She pushed a finger in her pussy, trying to roll the thing out, but couldn’t get enough of a hold on it. And it felt fucking amazing.

  A cool breeze caressed her back, and she spun on her toes, finger still knuckle-deep in her pussy, to see Nerites looking at her from the doorway. The shower had no curtain or glass, to hide behind, but when she saw the raw hunger in his gaze, she didn’t care about hiding anyway. Heat swirled in her belly and spread up to make her nipples pebble under his scrutiny.

  Nerites swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  God, she wanted to lick his throat. “I... seem to have lost one of these.” She pulled her hand out from between her legs, to show him the two pearls still cupped in her palm.

  Nerites gave her a feral grin. “Good thing I returned just in time to help you with that.”

  “Umm...” Words eluded her, as images of his long, thick fingers reaching deep inside her made her squirm. He stepped closer, and she was torn between shying away from the hunger in his eyes and closing the distance between them.

  He undid the sash of his robe and rolled his shoulders. Magda watched the material slide down his arms, to land around his bare feet—which were as gorgeous as the rest of him—before looking up at what it revealed.

  She’d seen his sculpted torso, muscular arms, and cut stomach before, underwater, but that made them no less drool worthy. His legs were thick with muscle, and the hard cock bobbing between them might be as thick as her forearm. The effortless grace with which he kicked the robe aside to come closer said he knew how hot he was. And how could he not?

  Magda licked her lips. Her womb clenched with the need to feel him inside her. Would he even fit?

  She shouldn’t be considering shower sex with the delectable stranger, but was he really a stranger when she’d been daydreaming of him her entire adult life?

  Nerites climbed over the short wall enclosing the spacious shower stall—well, not really a stall, just a part of the odd bathroom, encircled by a coral wall about twenty centimeters high—and slowly, holding her gaze, lowered to his knees before her.

  The pearls fell from her hand, and she followed them with her gaze, as they cluttered on the mother-of-pearl floor and swirled around the intricately carved drain, before slipping down with the water. With them gone, she had nowhere to look but back at him, kneeling close enough for his warm breath to tickle her belly.

  “Please...” she whispered. She didn’t know what she was asking—for him to touch her or to go away?—but he did. He ducked his head and nuzzled her mons.

  Startled, Magda almost slipped, but his hands closed over her buttocks, holding her in place while he buried his face between her legs.

  No. This was wrong. The angle wasn’t good, and she’d lose her footing if he—

  Nerites pushed his tongue between her labia, and Magda shivered. He was kissing her, down there. And she wanted more.

  Digging her fingers in his curls, she tugged so he’d look up at her. “Don’t tell me to stop,” he warned, his voice gruff.

  She shook her head. “Just to maybe move this to a horizontal surface? Like a bed? So you have better access to the pearl.”

  Nerites laughed, and the sound hit the walls and bounced back, to wrap around her bare body and trickle down her spine. Could she come by his voice alone?

  She wouldn’t have to find out.

  Nerites nudged her legs apart, so he could close his mouth better over her pussy. He sucked on her nether lips and tapped his tongue on her clit, and Magda’s head went light.

  “Don’t think you’ll find it like that.” She meant the pearl, and it was supposed to be a joke, but her forced chuckle melted into a moan when he pushed a slender finger inside her.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way.” He flexed his finger, and her hips angled into him, her head falling back. When he hummed against her clit, her knees buckled.

  Nerites chuckled, as he lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and crawled forward. Hot water sluiced down her face as they passed beneath the jet, and then the cold metal of the golden faucet dug into her ass. She shifted so she half-sat on it, but slipped forward as Nerites spread her wider, to push his tongue inside her. God, he had an agile tongue, rolling and flicking and mapping every square centimeter of her pussy.

  How was it this long?

  She’d ask questions later.

  Now, Nerites was wrapping his tongue around the pearl and pulling it out, to rub across her clit.

  How?

  She ignored the voice in her head and focused on the sensation of his fingers, pushing inside her. She always loved his fingers.

  Always?

  He found the bundle of nerves inside, rubbed the pads of his fingers into it, and she bucked into his hand.

  “You always loved this.”

  He couldn’t have spoken with the pearl in his mouth and his lips trapping her sensitive button, but she heard him loud and clear, and his words echoed her thoughts.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “I’ve made you come a thousand times.”

  She looked down. His blue eyes watched her as he grazed his teeth over her clitoris and pumped his fingers inside her faster. The openness and adoration in his gaze couldn’t be faked. And as her thighs quivered and her pussy fluttered around him, she believed him.

  More than that, she saw him pleasuring her to completion. Her body shook with the force of her oncoming orgasm, but the tears pouring down her cheeks weren’t fresh. They were from last time she saw him. When she asked him to follow her to Olympus, where she was to reside on Zeus’ orders, and Nerites refused to abandon his kingdom and his birthright.

  She left, but he was the one who abandoned her, and with a child on the way.

  And she wasn’t Magda, but a goddess. The goddess of beauty. Aphrodite.

  None of this made sense. She was losing her mind. And it had something to do with Nerites.

  “No. Stop.” Magda kicked her legs and pulled on his hair, until he sat back on his heels.

  His eyes were glazed over as he allowed her to lower her leg.

  “I want to go home,” she said. “Now.”

  Chapter Ten

  Leave? She’d never leave again. This time he’d keep her. Forever.

  She was half-turned away from him, trying to wedge past his body. The water pelted the floor and misted, filling the room with the scent of the ocean and her sex.

  “Home isn’t a place,” he said. These were her words, from that cursed night when he threw his life away. “And your home is with me.”

  Startled blue eyes, paler than his, looked up at him through short strands of blonde hair. “What did you say?”

  Folding his arm around her waist, he held her in place and leaned to trail his tongue along the shell of her ear. “You belong by my side. I let you go once. I won’t be making that mistake ever again.”

  She turned in his embrace to face him fully, palms flat against his chest. “When? When did you let me go?” There was a note of pleading in her voice. Like she yearned for his answer. Should he tell her the truth?

  The witch had said Magda would remember when he claimed her, but he’d felt her access her memories from when she was Aphrodite when he tasted her. Maybe she’d believe him if he told her the truth. “When you were Aphrodite,” he whispered.

  Magda faltered, and her nails dug into his skin, as she scrambled for purchase on his wet body. “No.” The word was barely audible under the sound of rushing water.

  Nerites tightened his grip, and tapped the faucet with his free hand. When the water shut off, he leaned down to tuck that arm behind her knees, so he could lift her to him. “Relax,” he said, trying to access her mind.

 
; Her eyes glimmered silver, as she scowled at him. “Has that ever worked? Has anyone in the history of the world relaxed because they were told to?”

  Many, many mortals, when the order was issued by a god. But she was a goddess, and his compulsion didn’t work on her. Nerites chuckled, as he made his way back to his bedroom. “Then I guess I’ll have to help you.” He nuzzled her neck, where it met her shoulder, and watched her nipples perk up.

  His mouth was already wrapped around one pebbled peak when he gently placed her on the bed. He sucked and nibbled on it, before letting it slip from his mouth, then raised his face to capture her gaze. “I first laid eyes on you as the waves retreated from your prone form, on the shoreline of the island now known as Cyprus.” The memory took shape in his head as he described it. He lay beside her and trailed his fingertips along her jawline, down her neck, and over one perfect, creamy breast.

  Her cheeks and chest were flushed, and goosebumps broke across her skin, but her eyes were clear, silver speckling the irises. “I’ve never been to Cyprus.”

  Nerites ghosted his touch down her soft, smooth stomach, and drew a trail down to her mons. “Not in this lifetime.”

  “Then when?” she asked.

  He slipped his hand between her legs, to cup her mound, and she swiveled her hips. “When you were first created,” he said, sliding his middle finger over her clit. She shivered, and he repeated the action with a little more pressure. “As Aphrodite.”

  “I can’t— This makes no sense.” Magda stiffened, but he’d expected that.

  Holding her gaze, he pushed two fingers inside her tight pussy. “I first met you as the goddess of beauty, born to Zeus by the Oceanid Dione. You were bare and looked lost, and every single curve on your body was breathtaking. I wanted to trail my fingers through your long locks and claim you as mine. Be your home.”

  She glared, but her body betrayed her, her hips pumping to meet his thrusts. “You’re crazy.” The whispered accusation melted into a moan as he pressed his thumb to her clit and twisted. The sound went straight to his cock, hard and pressed against her hip.