Aphrodite (5 page)

“Mmm . . . still not going to allow you to put my name on something I don’t understand. Walk me through the contract over dinner?” I needed to know who he’d spoken with to arrange the convention. Did someone suggest the cruise to him, or did he come up with the idea on his own? Where did he advertise Model Madness?

More likely than not, the information would be useless. Melissa and I had managed to hunt down Adonis last year using nothing more than social media. Thanks to their distinctive features, demigods weren’t difficult to track down if anyone really wanted to find them. But still, there might be a chance I’d glean some detail important to my investigation.

“I’d be delighted. Tomorrow at seven? I’ll drop the contract off in your room in a few hours. You can look everything over, come up with any questions you like. In fact—” Narcissus paused, considering. “Why don’t you do a shoot with Adonis tomorrow to see if the job is to your liking?”

I glanced at Adonis. He rolled his eyes, but didn’t object.

I forced a smile to my face. “Why not?”

Chapter V

ADONIS KEPT AN arm in front of the elevator door until we were both inside. But not in a polite, “here, let me get that for you” way. No, he
held
the door back as if the heavy contraption could spring free and crush him at any moment. Once we were both clear of the track, he drew his hand inside in a flash and hit the button for our deck, his shoulders relaxing when the elevator rose without incident.

“Okay . . . why?” I motioned to his arm, then waved at the elevator door.

“I saw this movie once . . .” Adonis shuddered, moving his hands toward his neck before jerking them down as if he hadn’t realized they were in motion. “Elevators make me nervous, that’s all.”

“Must have been one hell of a movie.” I studied my distorted reflection in the silver door, unsure how I felt about the way my body stretched and contorted depending on how I moved. “Do you want me to set the record straight with your girlfriend?”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Adonis corrected as the elevator slowed to a stop. “And talking to her won’t help. She’s not upset because she thinks I’m with someone else; we both moved on a while ago.”

“Didn’t seem like it to me.”

“No, it’s not—” Adonis swallowed hard and held the elevator door back until we were both free of the metal confines of the apparent death trap. “She’s like me.”

I frowned. “Like you?”

“Whatever I am? She’s the same. I met her parents. They’re both demigods.”

I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. A demigoddess with Adonis’s weird lineage would have an insane amount of charm, and she’d be completely immune to mine. Could she be responsible for charming everyone on the other boats? No one knew the true extent of Zeus’s stupid science projects.

Adonis fell into step beside me as we headed down the hall. “That’s why we broke things off. I couldn’t get past what Demeter said, about Zeus having a female version of me out there that I’d . . .” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. “You know, be ‘compelled’ to breed with.” Adonis’s expression twisted, as if he’d tasted something foul. “So you can see how rooming with a goddess, after I dumped her because I didn’t want anything to do with gods, might set her off.” He frowned searching his pockets as we approached the door to the suite. “Where did—Right. They never gave me a key.”

“Here, I’ve got mine.” I slid my key card into the lock slit.

“Thanks.” Adonis walked past me into the room. “Helluva day, huh?”

“For you, too?” I laughed, stepping out of my shoes. “There’s an extra key on the counter. You can have that one.”

“I appreciate it, but I’ll need to get my own if I want to get on and off this ship when we reach a port,” Adonis reminded me. He moved to the fridge, opened the door, and stared inside it for a moment, as if the contents might have shifted while we were gone. After a long minute, he asked, “You thirsty?” When I nodded, Adonis grabbed two water bottles out of our fridge and tossed one to me.

I caught the bottle and sank onto the white couch, letting my shoulders unknot as I leaned back. Sitting down instead of investigating seemed wrong, inefficient, but I couldn’t think of anything else I could look into before Miguel gave me access to the computers. “I’ll have Miguel take care of it.”

The cushion dipped when Adonis sat on the opposite end of the couch, propping his feet up on the wicker table. He looked so dejected about his run-in with Elise that I took pity on him.

“You can do better.”

“Huh?” He didn’t even lift his head off the couch when he looked at me, leaving one cheek pressed against the thready fabric.

I shrugged. “Just saying. You could do better than Elise.”

“Thanks?” He leaned forward, hunching over so his elbows rested on his knees. “I know she didn’t come off great, but she’s not that bad. I actually—” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter
.
After I found out what . . . I couldn’t—Ah, never mind.” He leaned back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m not making any sense.”

“You are, though.” I took a sip of my water. “Being a living science experiment sucks, believe me, I understand. Even the most innocuous choices can feel . . .” I trailed off, unable to think of a strong enough word to capture what Zeus had done to us. Different methods, same result. We were both built to his specifications.

“Programmed?” Adonis offered, catching my eye.

“Exactly.” My throat went dry. He
got
it. He got me. I swallowed hard, dropping my gaze from his, feeling flushed.

Adonis opened his mouth as if he was about to say something but a knock at the door cut him off.

When he rose from the couch, I waved a hand, motioning for him to stop. “I’ll get it.” I doubted anyone who bothered knocking intended to whisk Adonis away into missing demigod land, but why take the chance?

“Miguel,” I exclaimed when I opened the door. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

Miguel stared at me with adoration and handed me a manila envelope. “This was to be delivered to Mr. Eros’s other room. It was marked urgent, so I went ahead and—”

“Mr. Eros?”

Miguel looked pointedly over my shoulder at Adonis and I blinked. Right. Last names. Humans had them. “Thank you.” I passed the envelope to Adonis. “Could you do us a favor? Adonis here needs a room key . . .”

It didn’t take long for Miguel to get everything settled. When he left, promising to return with Adonis’s room card before the night was over, Adonis thanked him, closed the door, and ripped open the envelope. “Contract,” he announced. “I’m gonna head upstairs and read this over.”

“Why?” The contract was for me, after all.

He turned the contract around, signature page on top. For a moment, I could only focus on the beautiful, calligraphy-styled signature of Narcissus’s name. Wow, Narcissus had gorgeous handwriting. Then the third signature line registered. Adonis’s contract must have changed to accommodate mine.

“I need to make sure my shoots didn’t change too much.” Adonis handed me a second copy of the contract before heading up the curved staircase. “Looks like your trial shoot is early tomorrow. See you in the morning.”

The morning? “Aren’t you going to dinner?”

Adonis reached the top of the staircase and shook his head. “I’ll call room service in a bit. Did you need anything up here before I get settled in?”

I nodded and grabbed my stuff from upstairs, taking the hint that I’d be sleeping on the couch. Not that it mattered. Gods don’t need sleep. We’re capable of it, of course, like eating, but it’s not necessary for survival.

When I returned to the couch, I paused to grab a notebook and a pen from my luggage. For something written in legal-speak, the contract seemed remarkably straightforward. I still took my time going over the paperwork, but either Narcissus was much more honest than he came across, or he was smart enough not to piss off a goddess.

Afternoon transitioned to evening with clouds rolling in with such subtlety, I didn’t notice how dark the room had grown until I found myself squinting at the notebook. The waves grew rough, sending the ship rocking back and forth in a way that made me glad I was immune to motion sickness.

Lightning flashed on the horizon, drawing me to the balcony like a moth to a flame. I pressed my hand to the sliding door as a crack of thunder reverberated through the thin glass. Then, without further thought, I opened the door and stepped out into the storm.

Chapter VI

RAIN SPLASHED against my upturned face as I stepped onto the narrow strip of balcony that wasn’t covered by the roof of the deck above. Laughing, I spun around, arms spread. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, but I didn’t care. I raised my voice, shouting back at the storm with wordless joy, and grinned, knowing that if it was raining where they were, Hephaestus and Ares would be doing the same thing.

“What are you doing?” Adonis’s voice brought me to an abrupt halt. He stood just inside the suite. The balcony had more length than width, so he couldn’t be more than a lounge chair and a half away from me. Still, the doorway magnified the distance between us. As if we stood in different worlds.

My world was more fun. “I’m celebrating.” I spun around again, raindrops flinging off my skirt. “You’d know all about this if you’d come on that road trip for longer than a day and a half.”

“Celebrating
what
?” Adonis’s eyebrows were at it again, morphing his expression from wary to confused to incredulous. “And how? By pissing off the people in the next room?”

“Our room is shielded. No one can hear us.” I leaned against the slick metal bars separating me from an eleven-deck drop into the choppy, cobalt waves. The boat lurched, plunging further into the storm.

“Would you—?” Adonis held out a hand, jolting forward in alarm.

“I’m not going to fall.” I laughed. “And what do you mean ‘what am I celebrating?’ Are you kidding?” Lightning flickered over the sea. “This!” My outstretched hand gestured at the entire storm: the wall of thick, black clouds dominating the horizon, the storm-tossed waves, everything.

“This?” Adonis didn’t seem to get it.

“Zeus’s symbol. His . . . his identity.” I tilted my head up, letting the rain drip down my body and drew in a deep breath. “Every storm, every flash of lightning. He took power in it.” My face hurt from smiling so much. “But not anymore.”

The thunder cracked in the sky, and I pushed off the rails and spun around, yelling again. “Because of us. We were a part of that.” I couldn’t contain the joy in my raised voice. “
We
defeated him.”

Adonis leaned against the glass door, crossing his arms, his expression dubious. “Yeah, but didn’t Persephone—?”

“We helped.” Water gathered on the teak floor beneath my feet, cool, but still not as cold as the A/C in the suite. My mind flashed back to the road trip—the farther away we drove, the more real Zeus’s death had become. “On the road trip, Ares”—I swallowed hard, unwilling to let my anger taint this amazing thing he’d done—“made us promise we’d never forget that Zeus might still be alive now, if not for us. That
we
did something good, no matter what else—” I kicked at the water beneath my feet, sending droplets back into the air with a blast of power, making them sparkle before they fell. “Every time there’s a storm, we celebrate.”

Adonis raised his eyebrows. “By getting soaked and screaming at the sky?”

“By dancing in the rain and shouting to the heavens,” I amended, refusing to feel embarrassed. “We’re gods. You’re surprised we like ritual?”

Adonis shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”

“Oh, punny.” I snickered.

Adonis rolled his eyes, and stepped back.

“Oh, come on, wait,” I called as he retreated into the room. “You should join me.” Beads of rain dripped off my outstretched hand. “This is your celebration, too.”

“Mine?” Adonis laughed. “All I did was knock you out. Not my proudest moment.”

I drew in a surprised breath. Didn’t he realize what he’d done? “Adonis, you saved our
lives
, and in doing so, you might have actually tipped the scales in Persephone’s favor. If you remember, it was kind of a close fight.”

Adonis looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think—”

I crossed into the sheltered portion of the balcony to grab his hand, desperate to get him to understand how he’d changed my entire
existence
. He’d given me the strength to resist Zeus. Hell, he’d given me a
future.
Back when Zeus walked the earth, I’d known my days were numbered. But now? I could do anything.

“Battles like that . . .” My voice lowered. “They look like they come down to one person or one action in one big, flashy moment, but they don’t. Major victories come in inches. Each action, each sacrifice, every small act of defiance adds up. Plus,” I ducked my head, tucking a strand of wet hair behind my ear, “even if you don’t want to take credit for what happened to Zeus, I’m alive because of you.” Water droplets clung to my eyelashes when I looked up at him. “This is your victory, too. Celebrate. You’ve earned this.”

An expression I couldn’t read crossed Adonis’s face. “Gods,” he whispered, reaching for me as if entranced. “You are so—”

He broke off and stared at his hand as if it had betrayed him. “Uh, have fun.” Adonis gave me a tight-lipped grin, and then stepped away, retreating into the room.

Shrugging off Adonis’s dismissal, I returned to the edge of the balcony. I was free. Zeus could never make me do anything again.
Except in my nightmares.

“You can’t hurt me.” Opening my eyes, I blinked the rain out of them. “Do you hear that?” I demanded louder, infusing my voice with determination. The thunder rumbled, and I grinned to piss him off that much more. “I’m free!” Lightning flashed and I whooped, spinning around, flinging rain water off me.

“If we’re going to do this—” Adonis reappeared at the sliding glass door and crossed the threshold, carrying his phone and a tray filled with shot glasses and two liquor bottles. “We’re going to do this right. No one can hear us?”

I grinned and shook my head.

He set the tray down on a small wicker table between the two lounge chairs. “Can you?” He made a vague waving motion around the table.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” I waited for him to press play on his phone, then cast a shield around the entire table, concentrating on keeping out water, not flesh or sound. Music filled the balcony.

“Thanks. Rum or tequila?”

“Rum.”

He poured me a shot. “To winning.”

I raised the glass to my lips. “To winning.”

The thunder rumbled and we both yelled then took another shot. I spun around, grabbing Adonis’s hands and taking him with me as I spun in circles, getting lost in the music and the rain.

An hour later, the storm raged on but our energy waned. Adonis dragged the two lounge chairs as close to the suite door as possible to protect them from any stray droplets, then tossed a couple of towels onto them.

I took the opportunity to flip on the light switch.

“
That’s
better,” Adonis cried as light illuminated the drenched balcony. He glanced toward the hot tub built into the corner. “Shall we?” he yelled, over a thunderclap.

“Maybe after the lightning stops.” I laughed. I could survive a lightning strike, but Adonis might get crispy.

“Oh yeah. Good point.” He collapsed into a lounge chair. “Okay then, your turn. You say ‘Never have I ever’ and—”

“And then say something I’ve never done.” I’d gotten the gist of the game the first ten rounds, but Adonis still seemed flabbergasted I hadn’t heard of this game before tonight, so he kept going over the rules.

“Yeah. And if I’ve done it—”

“You have to take a shot. Got it.” I swiped a puddle off the watertight surface and maneuvered a towel beneath me before perching on the edge of my seat. “Never have I ever . . . lied.”

“Aw, come on.” Adonis was forced to take another drink straight from the bottle. We’d long since forgone the shot glasses in this game. “Well,
I’ve
never charmed my way out of a speeding ticket.”

I swallowed a mouthful of rum as I tried to think of something else I’d never done before but was pretty sure he had.

Adonis smirked. “Come on, Aphrodite, you’ve only been alive two years. This shouldn’t be hard.
”

“Three.” But the man had a point. “I . . . never heard this song before today.”

Adonis took a drink. “This is a great song. I’ve never stolen a car.”

I scowled at him. I’d taken a shot almost every turn. “I’ve never hit a girl.”

Adonis swore and took another drink. “I never apologized for that.”

“I’ll never ask you to.” I laughed.

“I never . . .” His lips twisted in a knowing grin. “Shoplifted.”

Okay, seriously? “You
are
cheating,” I said, giving his shoulder a playful smack with the back of my hand. “You can’t get all of your ‘I nevers’ from stuff you already know I’ve done thanks to Melissa’s big mouth.”

Adonis snickered. “Oh please, Miss ‘I’ve never hit a girl?’ Knowledge is ammunition, no matter the source.” He tapped my bottle with his. “Drink up.”

“Okay, okay.” I took another shot and made a face. “Geeze, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were
trying
to get me drunk.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s my endgame. You caught me.” He dismissed my accusation with a snort. “Can you even get drunk?”

“Not with this.” I swished the rum around in the bottle. “Gods can get drunk off divine drinks, but run-of-the-mill human stuff won’t do the job.”

“Oh, run of the mill, huh?” He shook his head. “Gods, talking to you is mind-bending. I’ve known my entire life that I’m a demigod. I mean, finding out I’m one of Zeus’s crazy science experiments was news to me. But my day-to-day stuff is grounded in the normal. You don’t even know where normal lives.”

“Oh, I do,” I joked. “Far beneath me.”

“No, I’m serious. We’ve got to like . . . educate you or something. Everyone alive knows this song. Who knows what else you’ve missed? We could—” He broke off. “What are you doing?”

I bounced up and down, brimming with impatience. “I have a good one!”

“Go on then.” He laughed.

“I never . . . “My voice sounded thick with self-satisfaction. “Kissed a demi-deity.”

Adonis grinned. “I can fix that.”

I waited a beat for him to remember his ex-girlfriend, whom he’d surely at least kissed. “Elise,” I prodded when he leaned toward me.

“Holy—” Adonis exclaimed, lurching forward as if the memory had slugged him. “How did I—Augh. Fine,” he groaned, taking a shot.

I laughed. “Maybe we should call it a night.”

“Uh-uh, my turn.” Adonis stood, taking the liquor with him. “Never have I ever”—he frowned as though articulating his thought took effort—“been arrested.” His frown deepened. “I think.”

“Okay, you’ve had enough.” I rose to my feet, reaching for his bottle, but finding only air when Adonis held the tequila over his head.

Thunder rumbled, shaking the balcony. Adonis and I hollered back at it as the boat skipped over the choppy water. He lowered the bottle for a fraction of a second when he yelled, and I snatched the tequila from him, giggling at the startled look on his face.

“Give it back.” Adonis reached for the bottle, but I danced backward, out of his reach, laughing.

“Make me.”

He snickered and started to reply, then stopped, his mouth going slack as the ship emerged from the storm clouds, revealing a clear night sky. I turned to see what could possibly render the demigod speechless and gasped.

Quicksilver lined the midnight blue sea, shimmering like magic. The moon rose from the waves in a slow ascent, sending light scattering through the water in a way that could only be described as ethereal. We watched in utter silence as the light gathered into a ball of white-hot, molten silver and rose above the tide, casting a gleaming path in the water leading straight to us.

The ocean went dark as the ship plunged into another set of clouds. Spell broken, Adonis cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I wouldn’t have either, if not for you.” Swallowing hard, I set the tequila down on the deck and studied the way the moonlight hit his skin and the rain dripped off the contours of his face, committing every feature of the man who’d saved me to memory.

“What?” He shifted under the intensity of my gaze.

“I never thanked you,” I realized.

Adonis looked down at me, his golden eyes darkening with an emotion I didn’t recognize. “I’ll never ask you to.”

Somehow, we’d drawn closer together, pulled like the tide. We hovered there for a moment before his hands gripped the railing on either side of me. I tilted my face up to touch my lips to his. I’d intended to tease. A soft, simple kiss before ducking away with a breathy one-liner. Always leave them wanting more and whatnot.

I wasn’t prepared for his reaction. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me against him. When his warm lips pressed against mine, they chased away all the cold rain dripping between us.

But there was no chance I’d allow myself to be outdone by a demigod. My hands grabbed at his shirt, pulling him to me with the same desperate fervor he’d used to pull me to him. Gathering the material, I yanked his shirt up. The soft fabric gave way to firm flesh.

He let me go to undo the buttons before they could break or strangle him. The shirt dropped to the soaking wet floor. Adonis lifted me up above the bars of the balcony and onto the flat railing. He kept one hand wrapped around me tight, solid and sure as he backed me against the railing off the ship. I bumped against my shield as his other hand slid across my skin, pushing my dress off my shoulders.

I wrapped my legs around him. As my dress rode up my thighs, my hands explored the paths the raindrops took down his golden flesh. There was no give to Adonis; he was all muscle. He tasted like salted lime and rain. His mouth moved away from mine and I cried out in objection, but then I felt his breath against my skin, kisses, featherlight, working their way down my throat to the hollow in my neck, burning away the cold.