Goddess of Love (17 page)

Pea cleared her throat and looked over his shoulder at the closed door. “Yeah,” she called, trying not to sound entirely breathless. “Everything's great.” She grinned mischievously up at him.

“Good,” the voice responded. “Oh, it's last call. The bar's closing. And, just in case you have a fireman hidden in there with you, you should know they're loading up the trucks from the Midtown Station. Time to go!”

“Ohmygod, you have to get out of here!” Pea blushed at the thought of everyone seeing him leave and knowing that she'd just been serviced in the ladies' lounge.

He looked down at her, and she saw understanding in his eyes. He touched her cheek with his fingertip. “No one will know about this. What happened here belongs to us alone.”

“You won't go back and tell the rest of the guys at the fire station?” Pea knew she sounded like a little girl, but she was feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed by what had just happened between them.

“Your honor will always be safe with me.” He kissed her again. “Now go out first. I will follow.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Find me in front of the restaurant. There's someone I want you to meet.”

“I will find you, little one,” he assured her. He lifted her off the counter, and watched with proprietary eyes as she straightened her robes. He helped her tie on her mask, and then brushed the thick curls of her hair aside so that he could kiss the soft spot where her neck met her shoulder. Pea shivered and leaned back into him so that his still engorged cock pressed into the valley between the round globes of her ass. He whispered huskily against her skin, “If you don't leave right now I may keep you here with me for an eternity.”

She turned and smiled up at him. “That doesn't sound so awful.”

He touched her cheek again. “Go, little one.”

They kissed and she hurried out the door, glad of the mask that hid most of her flushed face. Pea joined the crowd making its way to the restaurant's front door. With a shaking hand, she tried to pat at her mussed hair and tug her costume more firmly into place. What in the hell had she just done? Now that she wasn't with him, Pea was filled with questions and second thoughts. Who was he anyway? And her next thought brought her to a complete halt. My god. She didn't even know his name!

The man behind her bumped against her. “Hey, ya gotta keep moving in this crowd.”

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered and forced her legs to move again. Mortified, Pea ducked her head and kept plowing toward the front door, hoping Venus was still outside, and not because she wanted to introduce the goddess to a man whose name she didn't even know, but who she had just let bring her to orgasm in the ladies' lounge. What had she been thinking?

She definitely needed the advice (or the absolution) of a goddess.

T
he door to the lounge closed and Vulcan began to pace back and
forth across the small space. Emotions he'd never experienced before had unexpectedly been awakened within him. When the dried flower arrangement on the little vanity table began to smolder he drew several deep, calming breaths in and out…in and out. It wouldn't do to set the place afire. But oh how he'd like to burn—to show outwardly the wildfire that was raging inside him.

He had shocked himself. His intention that night had simply been to be near her, to perhaps speak with her. Never in his wildest dreams and imaginings had he thought to ravish her! Yet something had happened within him just before the arrogant fool tried to force Pea to stay with him on the dance floor. Suddenly all of the need and desire and passion that had been simmering within him for eons had bubbled over into a full heated boil. He had wanted her before, but tonight he had found the will to act on his desire.

And it had worked! He had actually touched her and tasted her and brought her pleasure. His cock was still engorged with the memory of the sounds of her satisfaction. Would he ever get enough of her? He wanted more and more. He wanted to bring her back with him to Olympus and show her…

He stopped pacing. Show her what? How he was shunned and outcast amongst the glory that was Olympus? Then what would she feel for him? Pity? Contempt?

No. He would not take her to Olympus. He would woo her here, in the modern world of mortals, as a man would. Resolutely he retied his mask and walked to the door. She said to meet her outside the restaurant, and she would introduce him—

“Gods! What was I thinking!” He growled. There could only be one person to whom she wanted to introduce him. Venus! Had his mind stopped working entirely? He could only imagine the goddess's shock and surprise at having Pea present him to her. Not that the Goddess of Love would be angry at his infidelity—on the contrary. From the very beginning there had been no pretense of anything more than respect and a rather tenuous friendship between them. Their marriage had been an arrangement, intended to be mutually beneficial. They weren't in love. In actuality their passionless marriage had been the butt of many Olympian jokes. If she discovered he was Pea's lover, would Venus laugh at him? Just the thought made him shudder. No, the Goddess of Love was not cruel. She wouldn't laugh, but she would be shocked. There was little doubt that she would betray his true identity to Pea. Then he would no longer be her passionate mortal lover. He would be the pitiable God of Fire, who had been rejected by Love herself.

“No!” he cried. Their relationship was too new. Perhaps later, after they had had time to build a foundation between them, then he could tell her his secret. Now the only thing he could do was to return to Olympus and make plans to come back to her another day.

He would also pray that she would forgive him for leaving her tonight.

With a deep sigh of despair, the God of Fire closed his eyes and willed himself back to the portal, leaving only a shimmer in the air and the heat of his passing as evidence that he had ever been there.

 

Griffin hadn't returned to her.

Venus couldn't believe it. It was ludicrous, really. Who stood up Love? Again she considered following him and confronting him and blasting the goddess-be-damned, insolent, arrogant fool into nothingness.

But she couldn't. It was humiliating enough that she was sitting out there, drinking alone (and eating both orders of chocolate dessert). If she went into the restaurant after him it would be an outward acknowledgment of what he had done, and the inner shame of it was enough.

When the bright red trucks pulled up to the curb, Venus ignored them and the costumed, masked men pouring out of the restaurant. If he came up to her she would pretend not to know him. Then she'd blast him with—

“Venus! There you are! I'm so glad I found you.” Pea hurried up to Venus's table.

“Hello, darling.” Venus smiled absently at Pea, trying to refocus her mind from thoughts of revenge. “I hope you've been having a lovely time.”

“Well…”

Pea's odd tone finally got the goddess's full attention. Venus frowned and really looked at the little mortal. Yes, all the signs were there: flushed face, rosy, bruised looking lips…“Pea.” She gasped. “Have you just orgasmed?”

“Wow, you're really good at figuring out love stuff, aren't you?” Pea flushed an even brighter pink and looked like she was on the verge of tears. “Yes,” she whispered, and then mouthed the words
oral sex
.

“I'm such an idiot.” Pea hid her masked face in her hands.

“Darling,” Venus began reasonably, completely confused at why Pea should appear so upset by such good news. “There's nothing for you to hide your face and be ashamed of—it's lovely that you had a delicious sexual encounter.” What in the ancient world was wrong with the girl? Then realization hit Venus. There was nothing wrong with having a delicious sexual encounter unless the man behaved in a boorish or unsuitable manner, as Venus could, unfortunately, attest to knowing entirely too much about. Venus pulled Pea's hands from her face and forced the mortal to meet her eyes. “Pea, with whom did you have sex?”

Pea sniffed. “His name tag said God of Fire.”

Venus felt a sickening jolt. “By Cupid's bright pink ass, that does it!” The curse exploded from the goddess. “Griffin performed cunnilingus on you?”

“Griffin? No, I said his name tag said God of Fire, not Griffin. I only wish it had been Griffin. At least I know him.”

“Darling, I'm confused. You're telling me that you allowed a man, whose name tag read God of Fire, but whom you don't know, not even his name, to perform oral sex upon you?”

Pea bit her lip, nodded, and started to cry, all the while throwing furtive looks over her back at the crowd still streaming out of Lola's. With a sob, she said, “I told him to meet me out here, and now I don't know what I was thinking. I imagined this big connection between the two of us.” Pea paused, pulled off her mask and wiped at her face. “But I don't even know his name, so how ‘connected' could we have been? And he was definitely a fireman. What if Griffin finds out I let a stranger do
that
to me in the ladies' room? He'll never, ever even look at me,” Pea said with a wail.

Venus blanched. It was more likely that Pea would never ever speak to her again if she found out that while she'd been having sex with a stranger, her friend and mentor had been fornicating under a tree with the man with whom Pea was obsessed. By the genitalia of all the gods, how had she made such a total mess out of this night?

“Let's get out of here,” Venus said, grabbing Pea's arm and beginning to steer her toward the parking lot.

Neither of them saw Griffin rush out of the restaurant and stand, hands on hips, scanning the crowd until he, too, was finally pulled reluctantly aboard one of the fire engines just moments before it drove away.

 

“Darling, drink your hot chocolate,” Venus told Pea. “And wipe your face. You're done crying now.”

“That's right, sluts probably don't ever cry over their…their…” Pea struggled with the vocabulary. “…their numerous nasty illicit encounters.”

Venus tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile. “Pea, having
one
sexual encounter with a stranger does not make you promiscuous. And besides that, it's worse than archaic to believe that women can't take their pleasure as they will. It's restrictive and smacks of double standards. Doesn't the modern world allow women more freedom than that?”

“I suppose,” Pea muttered into her mug. Then she glanced up at Venus. “I just feel like a fool.”

“Why?”

Pea sighed. “I imagined this huge connection between him and me, and I got really, really intimate with him. But the truth is I don't know him at all. I mean, I was there to try to connect with Griffin, the man I've been thinking about for over a year, but I end up with another man's face between my legs.”

“Tell me why you felt you had such a connection with the man,” Venus said hastily, purposefully sliding the conversation away from Pea's Griffin infatuation.

“It's going to sound silly and romantic,” Pea said.

“Which means I'll be able to understand perfectly. Tell me,” Venus coaxed.

“Well, I just felt this incredible connection with him. It was like I could look into those amazing dark eyes of his and see his soul. And, somehow, it seemed like he and I were the same. It sounds stupid now, but then it felt like we had things in common—important things like not usually fitting in.”

Venus raised a brow at that. “Really? How did you two meet?”

“He just appeared all of a sudden. It really was sweet. He thought he needed to rescue me from this jerk who didn't want to take no for an answer.” Pea smiled for the first time since she'd left the restaurant. “He asked if he could buy me a drink, and I said okay. Then we talked and talked. He was sensitive and romantic and sexy. One thing led to another, and we were suddenly alone, and all I could think about was how amazing he felt and how much I wanted him.” Pea finished in a rush, blushing furiously.

“Darling, you did nothing wrong. Well, except not learning his name,” Venus said.

“But what about Griffin and—”

“Griffin wasn't the one who pursued you, this man was,” Venus said slowly, studying Pea. Was now the right time to tell her that her supposed beloved Griffin had fornicated with and then discarded the Goddess of Love herself?

“I know, and I know it's probably wrong, but I can't help but still feel this
thing
for Griffin.” Pea's eyes started to shimmer with tears again, and Venus realized that now was definitely not the right time to tell her.

“Is this
thing
you feel actually for Griffin or for the idea of what Griffin represents to you?” Venus asked gently.

“I don't know,” Pea said.

“You are interested in the man you met tonight, aren't you?” Venus redirected the conversation again.

Pea nodded. “But I don't even know who he is.”

The goddess smiled. “Of course you do. You said he's a fireman.”

“Yeah, but there are like a zillion firemen in Tulsa.”

“Well, darling, then we had better get to work.” Venus sat up straighter, the seeds of a plan beginning to grow. Perhaps all Pea needed was to see this mystery man again, especially if she could compare his obvious interest in her with Griffin's obvious disinterest. Unless the rogue pretended interest in Pea so that he could use her and cast her aside, too. Then Venus knew what she'd do with him, and it wouldn't be pretty.

“Get to work? How?”

“I've been considering that.” Venus tapped her fingernail against the mug. “In battle it is often best to engage one's enemy on one's own territory.”

“Huh?”

“You need to see your fireman again.”

“Griffin?” Pea perked up.

Venus frowned. “I meant your
other
fireman, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to see them both again.” She lightened her tone. “It's always good for a woman to have choices.”

“That does sound good.” Pea nodded. “But how?”

“Your job.”

“My job?”

“Exactly. Your job. You are in charge of educational and recreational instruction for the community. Am I correct?”

“Yeah.”

“The firemen who were at the masquerade were all from the Midtown Fire Station. Correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Then consider this—what if all of the men from the Midtown Fire Station were commanded to take instruction from your university.”

“It's really just a community college,” Pea said.

Venus waved her hand dismissively. “That is inconsequential. What is of consequence is that the firemen must come to your place of instruction—your place of power. And
there
you can learn more about both men and choose between them. Here's what I have in mind….”

 

Joe Daniels, training deputy chief for the Tulsa Fire Department, thought he'd died and gone straight to heaven when the blond beauty walked into his office the next morning. He shot to his feet, fiddling with his tie and sucking in his stomach.

“Deputy Chief Daniels, my name is Venus Pontia.”

When he held out his hand for her to shake, she simply bowed her head slightly. He cleared his throat and wiped his sweaty, unshaken palm on his slacks.

“P-please, have a seat.”

“Thank you, Chief Daniels.”

She sat in the leather chair situated in front of his desk and crossed her incredibly long legs. He tried not to stare or stutter.

“Please call me Joe.”

Her smile illuminated the room. “And you may call me Venus.”