Deep Water (28 page)

He explained how he’d met the sea god, and
Poseidon’s plan to find Apollo and have him cure the cancer. He wondered if he
should gloss over the sex, but if she was his other mate then she would have to
know about it. Hoping she wouldn’t be upset, he explained the reasoning behind
his going to bed with Poseidon.

“Divine seed,” she murmured, nodding. “Now
that I think about it, it does make perfect sense.” She paused, oddly alert.
“Did he give you a choice? Did you go to his bed willingly?”

He understood the reason behind that
question. “Yes, I did. I’m not really into blokes under normal circumstances,
but even I have to admit the big bastard is damned sexy. And then there’s the
whole
agapetos
thing. It took a bit
of time for me to get my head around the idea, but yeah, I genuinely wanted
him.” Griffin hesitated. “He told me everything about what happened with
Medusa. I dreamed about some of it, the first time she saw you, and he
explained the rest. I know he raped her, and she asked Athena to turn her into
a Gorgon to stop Poseidon from ever trying it again. He apologized to me, and
he swore by Gaia that he would never hurt me, or you, like that ever again. I
think thousands of years of being alone were enough to drive the lesson home. I
believed him. And I forgave him.”

Amphitrite took in a slow breath,
absorbing his words. “All right,” she said after a long pause. “Then can you
forgive me as well? If I’d told him about you from the start, none of this
would have happened.”

He could feel the wave of loneliness
cresting from her. Poseidon hadn’t been the only one to suffer over the years.
“If that’s what you need, then yes, I forgive you, too,” he said softly. “Even
though I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

“I do. But thank you, my love.” Her thumb
rubbed across the back of his hand. “Did he treat you well this time?”

“He did. He even got me to, um, come.”
With some embarrassment he explained his erectile problem. “I still don’t
understand how he did it, but I’m not going to argue with the results.” Suddenly
he grinned. “As for the blowjobs, turns out I really like making him beg me to
let him come.”

“You…” Her eyes went wide. “He
let
you do this?”

“He suggested it.” Griffin lowered his
voice. “Don’t tell him I said this, but between you and me I think he might
have a bit of a submissive side when it comes to sex.”

Astonished delight bloomed in her face. “Come
to think of it, that does make sense,” she said in a wondering tone. “Many
sexual
submissives
do tend to hold positions of power
or responsibility. I just never thought…” She laughed softly, and the light in
her eyes took on a decidedly wicked glint. “Well, well, husband. The things I
learn about you.”

Griffin had a sudden image of Amphitrite
standing over a bound and rock hard Poseidon, and felt a welcome twinge below
the belt. “Yeah, well, don’t go pulling on a leather
basque
just yet. I think he’s got his hands full with Thetis at the moment,” he said.
“What’s the story there, anyway?”

Amphitrite explained in greater detail what
had happened to her sister, as well as Thetis’s plan to take her vengeance on
the species that had disfigured her. “Her plans are growing alongside her power.
I don’t understand how she’s been able to do things like create ilkothelloi or
any of her other mutated creatures, and the fact that she can hide from
Poseidon is definitely worrying.”

“I can see that.” It was bad enough that
mankind was rampaging through the ecosphere like squaddies on leave. Having a
powerful goddess put the entire planet in her sights was a magnitude worse. “Is
there any way we can get word on what’s happening?”

“Possibly. I could try contacting Poseidon
or one of the boys directly, but if they’re busy I don’t want to distract them.
I think it’ll be best if I have the local tritons relay information as they get
it.” She closed her eyes, her expression going blank for a long moment.

Griffin wondered what she was doing, when
she opened her eyes again. “Commander
Kasos
said that
there was a sighting of a pod of mutated right whales nearby. The animals are
far too large for the tritons to handle on their own, even with weaponry.
Poseidon, Ian, and the boys are going after them.
Kasos
will keep me informed.”

“How is he going to keep you informed,
exactly?”

Amphitrite tapped the side of her temple.
“It’s a kind of telepathy. As a goddess I can speak directly to a mortal’s
mind. In return, all a mortal has to do is pray to me and I’ll hear him.”

“That’s got to be handy—” He broke off as
a violet flicker of light shone through the windows, followed seconds later by
a low rumble of thunder. “That blew up fast. I didn’t see any clouds earlier.”

Amphitrite got that abstracted look on her
face again. “I believe this is Ian’s doing. They may be trying to direct a
storm to keep the whales from attacking coastal areas.”

As she spoke rain began to lash the
cottage windows, crystalline streaks that lit up white with the lightning.
“Looks like you’re here for the duration, then,” Griffin said. “Unless you need
to go.”

Amphitrite glanced down at their still
joined hands. “I don’t want to go anywhere, unless you want me to go,” she said
softly.

That was the last thing he wanted. “Actually,
I was wondering if you would like dinner,” he said. “I could make us something.
It won’t be as fancy as Aphros’s cooking, but I make a decent steak and baked
potato.”

This time her smile was brilliant. “I
would love that.”

****

Amphitrite used a bit of potato to sop up
the last of the rich, meaty juice on her plate, popping it into her mouth and
savoring the flavors. “This is delicious, Griffin. Thank you.”

“Thank you for the company,” Griffin said,
forking up a bite of medium rare sirloin. “It’s always a pleasure to cook for a
lovely lady.”

She felt her cheeks warm at the
compliment. Few males had ever cooked for her over the years. The most notable
was the
orisha
Olokun
, but
that was centuries ago. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought about the
handsome Yoruba deity.

“You look like you’re remembering
something pleasant,” Griffin said.

“You made me think of an old friend.”

“Yeah?” He leaned back in his chair,
giving her a cheeky grin. “You look more like you were thinking of an old
boyfriend, if goddesses have those.”

She chuckled. “There may have been
something between us at one point, yes. But ultimately his responsibilities
took him in a different direction. I still think of him fondly, though.”

“Do I want to ask if this was before or
after Poseidon?”

“After. But it’s over, and we’re just good
friends now.”

Griffin nodded at that. “I’m still on
decent terms with my exes. Although I think they get together for dinner now
and then and go over what was wrong with me as a husband.”

Two ex-wives had come as a surprise, although
upon reflection she didn’t know why. Griffin was an intelligent, handsome man
who had been healthy and gainfully employed until recently. It would have been
far odder if he’d never had a long-term liaison with a woman, or a man for that
matter. Amphitrite crushed out the little ember of jealousy in her heart and
schooled her thoughts to understanding. “You say that as if your marriages
failing was entirely your fault.”

“Looking back, I’m starting to think it
was. It seemed like I was always far more involved in my work than with either
of them. I can’t really blame them for leaving me.” His eyes widened. “I don’t
know if I should say this, but it just dawned on me. Both of them looked a lot
like you.”

Amphitrite felt a little thrill of
pleasure at that. “Perhaps you were more aware of your past life than you
knew.”

“Yeah, I think so. I wonder if I was
looking for you, and I found them. And it didn’t work out because…” Griffin
trailed off, shrugging. “They weren’t you.”

“That’s quite possible. But I’m still sorry
that your marriages didn’t work out,” Amphitrite said. “That being said, I’m
also happy that you were single when you came here. And I’m very happy that you
and Poseidon have gotten along so well.”

He played with the foot of his wine glass.
“About that. If the three of us are
agapetos
like you say, what exactly does that mean? With regards to bed?”

She appreciated his bluntness, helped
along by the wine. “It means that eventually the three of us will make love
together. When we do, we’ll be given marks on our backs by the Fates to show their
approval of our union.”

Dark brown eyes held her gaze. “Is that
what you want?”

“Having two handsome men in my bed?” One
corner of her mouth came up. “I would imagine that it would be quite
enjoyable.”

Griffin’s gaze turned wistful as he put
his cutlery down on a now-empty plate. “The idea of going to bed with both of
you—if anything could get me hard right now, that would definitely do it.”

A low, sweet heat began to glow between
her hips. She knew the male ego, how it could be so easily punctured. What she
was about to suggest was a massive gamble. But she had spent millennia
separated from the two other parts of her soul. She wasn’t inclined to waste
any more time.

Wiping her mouth with her napkin, she stood
and held out her hand. “Take me to bed, Griffin. Please.”

His breath caught at her request, and a
lovely flush crept over his cheeks. “Amphitrite—”

“I know. There are other things we can do.
I simply want to go to bed with you. I ... I need to touch you.” The flame
between her hips leapt into a scorching heat. “Please, beloved. It’s been so
long.”

Griffin’s expression cleared. He stood and
took her hand. “It would be my pleasure, love.”

Chapter Twelve

Griffin wasn’t quite sure how they got to
the bedroom. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Amphitrite had simply waved her
hand and
magicked
them there, goddess that she was.

All that mattered was that they were
together in a dark room with a bed, listening to the gentle patter of the rain
on the cottage roof.

A flash of lightning lit her face
momentarily, a study in light and shadow. She tilted her head up in silent
invitation. He took it, kissing her. The act was both familiar and wonderfully
new as he sank into the kiss, relishing the taste and feel of his goddess.

Her arms slid around him, pulling him
closer. He did the same, running his hands over her blouse and feeling soft
skin over rises of bone and the sleek play of muscles. The weight of her
breasts pressed deliciously against his chest. He smelled salt air and
something light and citrusy, thankfully different from her sisters’ perfume.

When the kiss broke he felt her smile
against his mouth. “I do believe that was worth waiting for, beloved,” she
whispered.

Griffin decided right then and there that
he was going to do everything in his power to give her an unforgettable night.
His cock might be out of the picture, but he still had fingers and a mouth.
Let’s see what it’s like to make a goddess
beg.

He kissed her again, reverent, as he slid
a hand into her thick hair and stroked her scalp. She made a little needy sound
and he ate it up, nibbling her upper lip, then her lower one. He brought his
hand down, massaging the nape of her neck. There was a little button at the
back of her neckline. He flicked it open.

 
“Let me take off your clothes,” he murmured.

Amphitrite nodded and held her arms up so
that he could strip off the silk shell. Reaching around, he found he still
remembered how to unhook a bra one-handed. He knelt, undoing the button and zip
on her slacks and tugging them down. The last to go was a lace thong that slid
down to join her slacks.

Griffin sat back on his heels, then,
gazing at her. Amphitrite embodied the beauty ideal of a past culture: sloping
shoulders, full breasts tipped with dark pink nipples, and a waist that curved
in before spreading again into rounded hips. A soft tangle of curls sat at the
top of her thighs, a smudged shadow against her creamy skin. He suspected she
could change her shape at will, remove hair,
do
whatever she liked to fit in with the current fashions. The fact that she stood
here looking like she had in Medusa’s day, however, was exactly what he wanted.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “My beautiful
goddess.”

Amphitrite lifted her chin in
acknowledgement, lips curving in a sensual smile. “Would you worship me, then?”
she said, her voice sweet and imperious at the same time. “Pay homage to me in
your bed?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then stand.”

Griffin did, wincing a bit as his knees
popped. It was her turn to take off his shirt and shorts, letting them fall
silently to the floor. He braced himself, wondering what she would think of his
diminished body.

Amphitrite ran her fingertips along the
line of his collarbones, tracing the shape of his sternum, the lines and
hollows of his abdomen, the jut of his hipbones. One hand reached down and
gently cupped his balls, as if cradling something infinitely precious. He
groaned softly at the heat of her hand.

She slid her fingers up, running the backs
of them along his cock in a feather-light touch, a promise more than an actual
caress, before toying with his crisp pubic hair. “Believe me, beloved, I find
no fault in you,” she said. “I see what you once were, and what you will be
again. You are a strong, vital man, and you please me deeply.”

Another knot in his gut unraveled. “Thank
you, love. I’m sorry for being so ridiculous about it, but—”

She put fingers across his lips. “How we
are seen by others matters to us. How we are seen by the people who love us
matters even more. I see you, beloved, and you are beautiful to me.”

He kissed her fingertips.

With a soft chuckle Amphitrite stepped
backwards and turned to the bed, climbing onto it. Griffin groaned at the
sight. The ivory curves of her ass were everything he’d dreamed of, deserving
artwork to make them immortal.

She stopped as if hearing his thought, smiling
back at him over her shoulder. Even in the dimness of the room her eyes were
lit with blue flame. “Come to me, beloved.”

“God, yes.” He followed her onto the bed,
skin sliding over hers as she turned over and stretched out with a soft sound
that was almost but not quite a purr. Underneath them, the plain cotton
coverlet felt like the finest velvet.

Griffin began to kiss her again. Her
mouth, dipping inside to taste wine and goddess and magic. Her cheekbones,
feeling the smooth curve of bone underneath the petal soft flesh. Her eyelids,
the tip of her nose, her chin. He took his time nuzzling along her jawline,
taking note of the audible and silent cues that indicated when he’d found a
sensitive spot. He memorized those as he went, gently sucking her earlobes and
running the tip of his tongue around the whorled shell of her ear.

He bent down to whisper, “I’m going to
kiss every inch of you tonight. I’m going to worship you the way you deserve to
be worshipped, and I won’t stop until you give me permission to do so.”

He felt the muscles of her cheek rise,
indicating her smile. “I approve of this plan, beloved.”

“Good.” Licking and kissing his way down
the long tendon of her neck, Griffin pressed his lips into the hollow where
neck met shoulder. Pausing there, he considered his options.

He could continue down and pay attention
to those marvelous breasts. The palms of his hands itched to hold their weight,
and at that moment he would have cheerfully killed or died to take one perfect,
erect nipple into his mouth. But he said he intended to kiss every inch of her.
And he was a man of his word.

He shifted sideways instead, paying homage
to her sleekly rounded arms. Laying kisses in the crease of her elbow and
wrist, he laved the skin with his tongue before biting the plump mound at the
base of her thumb. She shivered at that, and he kissed between her fingers,
sucking each one into his mouth and relishing their weight on his tongue.

He gave her other arm the same worshipful
treatment before shifting his attention to her chest. Each breast was firm, but
held a soft malleability that felt lush in his hands. He took advantage of this
by pressing her breasts close together, deepening the cleavage between them. He
kissed and nibbled a wandering figure eight between the two. Finally, he allowed
himself to take a nipple in his mouth, nibbling it. Her back arched as she
sucked in a quick breath, pushing soft flesh against his mouth.

“You’re very good at this,” she said,
breathless.

Griffin lifted up to lick a circle around
the areola. “I like making my partners happy. I fully plan on making you
ecstatic.”

“I know.” Her hand threaded through his
short hair, rubbing it. “You could perhaps step up the pace just a bit, though.”

He growled against her skin. “I said I was
going to kiss every inch of you, woman, and I meant it.”

She sighed. “I know, beloved. But it’s
been a very long time since I’ve gone to bed with someone. And your goddess
would very much like to have your hand between her legs right now before her
head explodes from sexual frustration.”

“Well, in that case.” Griffin brushed his
hand across the softly rounded plain of her stomach, enjoying the way the
muscles jumped under his touch. He ran his palm over her pubic curls, letting
one finger slide teasingly through the silk before touching her outer lips. She
was warm and wet already, so much so that he could hear the moisture as he
played with her.

It was clear his
agapetos
required a quick orgasm to take the edge off her need. Griffin
began tracing tiny circles over her clitoris, stretching up so that he could
mouth her breasts at the same time. When her hips began to pump under his hand
he slid a finger into her, keeping his thumb on her clit as he felt for the
hollow behind the pubic bone that his second wife had been so kind to reveal to
him. He found the spongy pad of flesh and began rubbing it in a slow circular
motion.

When he sucked hard on her nipple, her
pelvis bucked and she gasped, clutching at the coverlet as she exploded around
his fingers. Feeling delightfully evil, Griffin kept massaging her until she
had a second, weaker orgasm. Only then did he slide his fingers free and bring
them up to his mouth, licking them clean. She tasted like salt and woman, a
rich flavor that flirted with sweetness.

And underneath that, he tasted the same
thing he tasted when he went down on Poseidon. If electricity could have a
flavor, he thought, it would taste like this, potent and powerful.

He laid a kiss between her breasts. “How
was that, my lady?”

She gathered herself enough to give him a
blissed-out smile. “You lovely man.”

That’s what he liked to hear. “Want me to
stop?”

“No.”

And that was what he
really
liked to hear. “Good.”

****

I
should have taken him at his word.
Amphitrite panted at the ceiling, feeling
the aftershocks from her third—no, fourth—orgasm ricochet through her body.

Her third orgasm hadn’t come until after
Griffin finished adoring every bit of her legs, growling into the sensitive
backs of her knees and making her squeal with laughter. He’d kissed the tops of
her feet, nibbling at her toes until she begged him to stop. Then he worked his
way back up, easing his shoulders between her thighs and prompting them to fall
open.

And then he still wouldn’t put his mouth
between her legs, choosing instead to nuzzle and nip the tender flesh of her
inner thighs until she felt sweetly molten inside.

“Please, Griffin,” she begged.

“Please what, my lady?”

He wanted to hear the words. She could do
that. “Lick my clit. I need your mouth on me.”

“As you wish.” Then and only then did he
gently part her folds, using the tip of his tongue and his lips to toy with her
clitoris.

As it turned out, her
agapetos
was utterly magnificent at oral pleasure. He savored her, using
his fingers and mouth to drive her up and down peaks of sensation, easing her
back before she could quite tumble over into orgasm. When he finally did make
her come, her entire body locked at the sheer, pure ecstasy cascading through
her.

And he didn’t stop. He kept lapping and
licking, fingers working their magic inside her while his mouth played with her
clit, her labia,
every
soft part of her. The orgasm
never faded completely, dying down to a trembling hum under his conducting
before he brought it back roaring to another crescendo. She screamed joyfully, anointing
her
agapetos
’s
talented tongue with more of her fluids.

When she finally came back to herself his
head was resting on her thigh. She could feel the warm gusts of his breath
across her wet flesh and shivered at it. “You’re amazing,
Ammie
,”
he murmured.

She allowed herself a small, exhausted
smile as she reached down to stroke his hair. “I’m fairly sure I should be
telling you that, beloved.”

“I mean it. The way you respond, how you
feel to me, how you taste. You’re everything I ever wanted.”

She glanced down at him. “Everything?”

He grinned. “Well, almost everything.”

She waited until he pulled himself up to
her side, mirroring his curled shape. “I won’t be upset if you say you want
Poseidon, as well,” she said. “You’re supposed to. You’re his
agapetos
as much as mine.”

“I know. And I do want him. But this is
your time. I don’t want anything interfering with that.”

The pleasure her body had just experienced
held a faint candle to the joy that now glowed in her. “Right now, you couldn’t
do anything to upset me. I want you to love him.” The truth she’d held locked
in her heart for so long slipped through its bonds. “I still love him. I always
have, even when I was furious with him. And now that I have you back, perhaps I
can finally have him back as well.”

“You have no idea how much I want that,
Ammie
.” Griffin pulled her into his arms and she snuggled
close, breathing in the warm scent of his skin. “I want both of you. I need
both of you. I love him, and I’m already falling in love with you.”

She kissed his chest. “I’ve never stopped
loving you. The only difference between then and now is, I finally get to find
even more things about you to love.”

“I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

“You never could.”

A soft rumble of thunder echoed her words,
as if in blessing.

****

Griffin felt it first. He opened his eyes,
blinking against the darkness.
Someone’s
there.