Banished (8 page)

Chloe pushed away the prick of guilt she felt at his disappointed
and hurt face when she spoke to him last. But what did he expect. Daughter of a
god with a druid boyfriend was a lot to take in on one day. And so the thoughts
and inner turmoil continued until she fell asleep, book on lap and the lounge
her bed.

The hard lines
of a masculine body warmed along her back and legs. Chloe undulated and
welcomed the muscled arms that clasped her waist. She moaned into her pillow when
the clean scent of soap assailed her senses. Cian ran his hand across her
quivering stomach then ventured toward her heated core.

His ragged
breaths tickled her neck and Chloe looked at him over her shoulder. His eyes,
shadowed by the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen, looked down at her with
unbound desire.

“I want you.”

She pulled him
into a kiss. The glide of Cian’s mouth over hers sent her senses reeling. His
fingers delved between her wet aching folds and he fucked her with his hand. Chloe
broke the kiss on a gasp. His manhood pressed firm between her arse cheeks made
her all the hotter. Needier for him.

She pulled his
hand from her slick heat and pushed Cian back. Turned over and straddled his
hips. His shaft, fully erect sat against his stomach. She licked her lips, his
sex like the sweetest candy she wanted to lick and savor. Cian moaned when her
fingers circled his thick shaft and stroked downwards.

He was large.
Larger than she’d ever had and an excitement bubbled up inside her. Not usually
one for foreplay, she had already changed her mind because of his teasing. She
wanted to prolong this time, wring every ounce of pleasure she could.

Chloe wiggled
down his legs and licked the end of Cian’s cock. He shuddered beneath her and
she clasped his tightly beaded balls in her hand. The salty tang of him was the
sweetest she’d ever known. Cian’s hands clasped her hair and Chloe took him
deep into her mouth.

She sighed as he
writhed and moaned beneath her, his hands stroking her hair in unvoiced
pleading. She sat up and smiled then crawled up his body and took his lips.
Eagerly he kissed his essence from her mouth. She rubbed herself against his
member and moaned when it slipped to run along her wet folds.

“I love you, Chloe,”
Cian said, meeting her gaze.

Chloe sat back
and pulled off her cotton nightie. She stilled as she noticed a cotton shift she
wore instead. At her hesitation, Cian sat up and removed it for her. That was
when she noticed the room. She looked about and unease crept up her spine as
nothing was familiar.
Was this a dream or a memory?
The sense of déjà vu
was strong inside her mind and as loud as the drum of desire in her groin.

Cian clasped her
chin and pulled her back to look at him. “Come back to me, Chloe.”

Chloe swallowed,
pulled him into an embrace and held him tight. “Is this a dream or a memory?”

Cian’s chuckle
rumbled against her breast. “No lass, it’s both.”

She shut her
eyes not willing to believe what she was being told. Such things like gods,
curses and magic just didn’t exist. A shiver stole over her skin when Cian’s
hand clasped her buttock and squeezed.

Her breathing
hitched when his cock twitched against her sex. “I want you. It’s time.”

Chloe hit the
lounge floor with a thump. She sat up and rubbed her elbow that was no way feeling
funny at this exact moment. She looked about the holiday cottage, glad to see
the modern appliances yet knowing the era she’d just dreamed about wasn’t modern
at all.

She pulled
herself to sit on the lounge and gazed at the empty coffee cup on the table. “Okay,
Zeus. If in fact you are my father show yourself to me. I have a few things I
need to discuss with you.”

Chloe sat and
waited for a minute or so, the sound of the coastal breeze the only whispering
of noise. She shook her head at the absurdness of her behavior. She was going
nuts. There was no other explanation for it.

She hoped.

Chapter Seven

Cian paced
outside Chloe’s home his gaze sporadically flicking toward the door. He checked
his watch for the millionth time. Seven AM. Too early to knock? Deciding it was
not, he rapped on the door. A moment later heard a shuffling before the door
opened and Chloe stood before him, her hair askew and wearing yellow pajamas. Never
in his life had a goddess looked so beautiful.

“Good morning,
lass.” Cian stepped over the threshold and followed the smell of coffee into
the house.

“Come right in,”
she said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

“It looks like
you slept well.” He smiled at the blush that stole up her neck and blossomed on
her cheeks. She came to stand before him and unable to stop himself he placed a
flyaway curl behind her ear.

Chloe pulled
away. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay away from me.”

He sighed and leaned
against the counter. “That’s impossible for me to do. I will always be involved
when it comes to you.”

Chloe huffed out
a disgruntled breath and walked to the pantry. “I am not this woman you talk
of. This goddess Chloe you all have me confused with. If you are who you say
you are and you are immortal, then you really should get over her. It’s been
centuries.”

Cian reached
over her shoulder and lifted the sugar Chloe was unable to reach from the
pantry. “Love has no time restraint.” He met her determined gaze and smiled. “You
are Chloe. My Chloe, and I’m determined to have you back.”

“Really,” she
stated.

“Yes, really.” He
watched her and she stepped away. Probably a wise move considering her defiant
little chin was causing all sorts of problems in his pants. “You know the truth
now; your memory will come back in time.”

“How many times
have we loved one another?” she asked.

Cian stilled at
her choice of word. “Love?”

“Yes love,” she
said, flopping onto a stool at the breakfast bar.

A smile quirked
his lips. “What makes you think I loved you?”

Her hands waved
in dismissal. “Why else would a man live forever searching for the same woman? She
must have had you wrapped around her little finger for you to continue to
grovel at her feet.”

Cian chose to
ignore the sharp tone of the woman he did love no matter what she thought of
their feelings right now. “You are everything to me. The lifetimes I endured
without you were the veriest torture. I love you, will always love you.”

“Stop looking at
me like that. You can’t love me, we barely know one another.” Chloe poured him a
cup of coffee. “This is absurd.”

“Come into the
lounge,” he asked walking toward the three seater settee, inwardly laughing
when she followed and sat across from him on a single chair. “Because Artemis
told you your past, it has enabled me to also. Ask me anything. I am yours to
command.”

“Wipe that sexy
smirk off your face, Cian. This is hardly a laughing matter. I’m starting to
think all you Scottish people are missing some screws upstairs.”

He chuckled. “Nay
lass, just missing you, that’s all.”

Chloe lifted her
legs up beside her and settled her cup of coffee on her knee. “When was I born?”

Cian shrugged. “I
don't know, perhaps thousands of years ago. How old are the gods?” He shook his
head. “No one knows.”

“What did we do
that was so bad that this Chloe was cast out of Mount Olympus on her arse?”

The wind picked
up and a tree branch scratched against a window. “You'll upset Zeus, Chloe. Be
aware of what you say.”

She looked at
him with disbelief. “I asked the great Zeus last night to show his face and he
didn't. This is all absurd.”

“He hears
everything,” he said, watching her features as his words sunk in. Zeus and his
fickle temper was not something Cian wanted to prod, especially now, having Chloe
back in his life. He would not lose her again.

“So, what did we
do?”

Cian smiled when
his mind wandered to that long ago grove where they first met. “You came to me,
appeared out of the woods like a magical nymph. Seduced me. What didn’t we do
would be a more interesting question.”

Chloe met his
eyes and the sexual tension that thrummed between them had his balls growing
tight, and his heart accelerating.

“Are you sure it
wasn't the other way around?”

He laughed and adjusted his seat. “No. At first, I didn't want
anything to do with you. Magic all but orbed about you and I wasn't sure if you
could be trusted. When it became clear you only wanted one thing, my base
desires took over and I had you. I never expected for us to last. But we did.
For many centuries.”

Chloe took a sip
of her drink while she tried to block the image forming in her mind. Of a man,
white silk and gold robes billowing about him, his face a mask of pain and
fury. Her sentence. She met Cian's gaze. “He was so angry and hurt. Couldn't
understand how I could love a human to the point I would bestow immortal life
and live in this realm. A druid.”

Cian leaned
forward. “You remember?”

“I don't know if
I'm imagining it or it really happened,” she replied, placing her mug on the
table and standing.

“What do you
remember after?”

Chloe frowned. “Nothing.”
She paused, her mind furiously working to make sense of what she was seeing
like a movie in her mind. “You. I saw you. You were upset.” She turned to him
and the truth of her situation came crashing around her. “I had only minutes to
tell you. Then everything went dark and I cannot recall what happened after
that.”

“Because you
were reborn, Chloe. That’s why you cannot remember.”

A deep sense of
belonging and love wrapped about her like a cloak. “I gave up everything for
you. Risked everything to be with you.” She slumped back onto her chair.

“You regret it?”

The pain Chloe
heard in Cian's tone warmed her heart. “No. Not once.”

Cian came and
kneeled before her. “I've missed you,” he said, his voice deepening with desire
that shot somersaults through her belly.

Chloe clasped
his jaw, the stubble prickling her palms. “How long has it been since I knew
who I was?”

“Centuries.
Every time I found you, you very rarely remembered. Of course I was able to
make you fall in love with me so it didn’t really matter.”

Chloe chuckled
at his knowing grin. “Were you always so full of yourself, druid and I know you
use your Scottish lilt to full advantage at times?” She frowned. Cian was an
immortal druid and she was not.

“What's the
matter?” he asked, hugging her, the hard muscles of his chest flexing as his
hold tightened.

“I'm going to
die.”

His lips nibbled
her lobe and a shiver of need sparked through her, fogging her mind to what her
life would be like, growing old when Cian remained young.

“Not if we can
help it.”

“What do you
mean?” she asked pulling back and looking up at him.

“You must speak
to Zeus. It's been centuries, Chloe. Surely he would forgive you now.”

“He won't.” She
shook her head. “It's not in his nature to do so.” Zeus hated Cian with such
abhorrence Chloe knew her father would never forgive them.

“Were you not
his favorite?”

“Zeus really
never had a favorite, no matter what I might have thought.” She paused, knowing
she had thought the same. That Zeus’s love for her would save her when he found
out the truth of her and Cian’s love. But it had not. If anything it had made
him more angry. “Cian.”

“Yes.”

“Make love to
me,” she asked, watching as his eyes widened and heated at her words.

Cian lifted her
from the settee and carried her to the only bedroom in the cottage. He laid her
down on her bed, still unmade and rumpled from her uneasy sleep the night
before.

Heat stole over
her cheeks as Cian stood before her and pulled off his jumper. Her mouth dried
at the sight of his muscular body, wide shoulders and pecs to make any body
builder jealous. Not to mention his bulging sweatpants.

She reached out,
clasped the hem of his pants, and pulled him toward her. His eyes burned and a
part of Chloe that had lain silent for so long awakened. She ran her hand down
the front and clasped his large, erect cock. Gosh he was big. She’d forgotten
how big.

She smiled.

“You’ll unman me
if you continue to touch me like that, lass.”

Cian moaned as
she tightened her hold and heat pooled at her center. Chloe kneeled on the bed
and threw off her pajama top. “Can I leave my pants up to you?”

“Absolutely.” Cian
pushed her back and Chloe laughed as she hit the bedding. He ripped her bottoms
off and came down over her, his heat and weight only adding to her need. She
wrapped her legs about his hips and pushed against him. Needed release, wanted
him like she’d never wanted anyone in her life.