For the Love of a God [Gods of Olympus] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (10 page)

His body didn’t care, though. Eros came in long, extended waves, his entire body jerking with each new contraction. Everything went black with the force of his pleasure.

He must have passed out because the next thing he knew, Neil was leaning over him, unlocking the handcuffs from around his wrists. “You okay, boy?”

Eros didn’t even have enough breath to answer, so he simply nodded.

Neil pressed a soft kiss to his wrist. “Not even a mark. You sure you’re okay?”

He nodded again, but this time he attempted to speak. It took him a few tries, but he finally got his mouth to cooperate. “I’m fine. How’s Talia?”

Neil’s mouth quirked up at the side. “Asleep. Seems we wore her out.” Reaching down, Neil removed Eros’s condom expertly, making sure that none of his seed escaped. He tossed it in the trash can before removing his own condom.

Eros lowered his arms and rolled his shoulders as best he could without sitting up. Once the kinks were worked out, Eros rolled onto his side and gathered Talia to his chest.

Neil joined them a few minutes later, slipping into bed on Talia’s other side and spooning close. “Was that the first time you’ve been dominated?” he whispered.

“Yep. I didn’t know it could be so hot.” He hesitated. “But I don’t know that I want to be dominated all the time.”

Eros held his breath. Neil had clearly enjoyed being in charge. What if being a Dom full time was a deal breaker?

Neil smiled and reached out to stroke his hand down Eros’s ribs. “Don’t worry, babe. It’s not something I want to do all the time either. Let’s just see where everything lands, okay?”

Eros relaxed, feeling a little like an idiot. He was a freaking god. Technically, he was superior to Neil in every way, but somehow these two people made him feel…human.

He closed his eyes and decided not to think about it too hard.

Talia’s warm body snuggled against his own, and Neil’s softly crooning voice eventually lulled him to sleep. But not before a shaft of guilt speared through him.

This was fake. All of it. Their feelings for him, their feelings for each other, all caused by the manipulations of gods.

For the first time in his very long life, Eros wished he was human for real.

Talia buried her nose in the flowers that were sitting on her desk. God, she’d stumbled across two hot, romantic men.

Okay, Aaron was romantic. The man had taken pains to give her little gifts every day. Last week, he’d given her her favorite candy. Three days ago, she’d found a cute little hair clip in her apartment after she’d dropped him off at work. It was the same one she’d been admiring in the mall the day before. Yesterday, he’d given her a book by her favorite author.

Oh, Neil gave her things, too. A vibrator disguised like a tube of lipstick. A pair of edible underwear. A French maid’s costume.

The two of them had her so wound up, she didn’t know whether she was coming or going. But god, she loved being lost with them.

Dinner was almost ready, the roast simmering in the slow cooker along with the potatoes, carrots, and rich gravy. The guys were coming over tonight, Aaron to help her study for her finals and Neil just to hang out.

She gathered up her textbooks, her binders, several pens, and some loose-leaf paper and carried them out to the living room, where she set them on the table next to her laptop.

Her roommate had left for the weekend to visit her parents, so if Aaron deemed her ready for her exam, the three of them may even get to play with the toys Neil had given her.

A knocking came on the door, and she rushed to answer it, throwing the door open and grinning like a loon. “Hi.”

Aaron gifted her with a sweet smile, his beautiful blue eyes sparkling at her. “Hi, yourself. Ready to study?”

Before she could answer, Neil crowded in and kissed her soundly. She shivered as he explored her mouth with his tongue. She relaxed into him and let him pretend he was in charge.

Neil shifted, and suddenly his hands were cupping her breasts, tweaking, pulling, and rolling her nipples until they were standing straight up and pressing against the fabric of her thin shirt.

Something was prodding at her, but it didn’t feel like a dick. And then it struck her that they were still standing in the hallway for anyone in her building to see. She pulled away and glanced down, gasping at the sight.

Aaron had insinuated his hand between them and was cupping Neil’s denim-covered crotch, massaging the bulge that had grown there. Further investigation, which was a fancy way of saying she openly ogled them, revealed that Aaron was kissing the side of Neil’s neck.

“Hey,” Neil complained. “No quitting. Get back here.”

Her body screamed at her to obey Neil’s command, but her better judgment won out. “We should get inside before we’re arrested for indecent exposure.”

Neil’s mouth opened and closed. “Right. Sorry. I got carried away.”

She stepped back and let them in, Aaron throwing her a quick wink on his way past. “Getting arrested would look bad on his résumé. What smells so good in here?”

“Dinner. It should be ready. Why don’t we sit down and eat, and then Aaron and I can study.”

The men laid waste to the meal she’d prepared, and she glowed with pride. It was something so simple, being able to cook a meal for her men, but it filled her with pride.

Aaron finally pushed back from the table with a groan, rubbing his flat stomach. “That was delicious, Talia. Thanks very much.” He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“It was great,” Neil agreed. “But you didn’t need to cook for us. We could have brought some takeout.”

The thing was, she knew that they wouldn’t have blinked an eye if she had asked them to bring dinner. “It’s no problem. I like to cook, and it’s not very often I get to cook for more than just myself.”

Aaron was already on his feet, retrieving the messenger bag he always brought to their study sessions. “Well, now that we’re all fed and watered, let’s get down to business. We left off with theories behind the birth of Aphrodite.”

The smirk on his face told her he found the topic slightly amusing. Of course, when she stopped to think about it, some of the myths behind the birth of the goddess of love were amusing. She could only imagine being born because the severed penis of her sire spilled its seed in the sea.

She giggled and nodded. “Let me just clear the table, and we’ll get started.”

Aaron arched an eyebrow and grinned, a wicked twinkle lighting up his eyes. “No, you cooked, and I’m tutoring. Neil can clear the table and clean up the kitchen.”

Talia sucked in a breath and held it, waiting to see Neil’s reaction. She hadn’t quite figured the man out yet.

Neil shot Aaron a look that promised retribution, but his mouth quirked into a small smile. “I’ll clean up. I have to do something to earn my keep.”

“Just leave everything on the counter, and I’ll clean it up later. Thanks, Neil.” She led Aaron into the small living room and sat on the floor, close to the coffee table, where she and Aaron always worked.

Aaron plopped down next to her and rooted through his bag until he withdrew his own battered copy of the textbook they were working from. Then, much to her delight, he reached over and tugged her closer, shifting and wiggling until she was seated between his legs. She snuggled close, leaning back against his warm chest and running her hands up and down his hard thighs. “This is nice.”

He kissed the top of her head and opened his book so that it was resting on her lap. “Yes, it is. Now, let’s talk about Aphrodite.”

He quizzed her incessantly, for at least an hour, until Neil finally emerged from the kitchen. “What were you doing in there for so long?” she asked, instead of answering Aaron’s question.

This time, it was Neil who raised his brow. What was it with men and their eyebrows? And why could she not master the art of raising only one brow at a time?

“I was not about to sit here like a lump while you busted your ass studying and let you clean up a dirty kitchen when you were done. So I washed the dishes and wrapped up the leftovers. I left the clean stuff on the counter because I don’t know where everything goes. How is the studying going?”

“Slowly,” Aaron answered for her. “There’s a lot of material we need to get through tonight.”

It was true. It would probably be well past midnight before they plowed through all of the stuff she had to review. But it wasn’t a hardship really. She loved the subject, and sitting cradled against Aaron was wonderful. A little distracting, maybe, but the man was a slave driver when it came to her studying, and he never let her attention wander for long.

It made her wonder what he would do now that Neil was sitting down and flicking on her television set.

A look of pure mischief crossed Aaron’s face, and he grabbed his seemingly bottomless bag. “Here, Neil. I brought something for you to use while we study.”

He tossed a set of huge earphones to Neil, who looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

Aaron shrugged and smiled charmingly. “They’re wireless and should pick up the signal from the television. It’s so the noise doesn’t distract us.”

Neil smirked but put the headphones on, and Talia instantly dissolved into a flurry of giggles. The headphones were ridiculous. They had antennas that wobbled with every tiny movement Neil made. They were lime green and had alien faces painted on them.

A single look at Aaron’s smug face told her he’d found the craziest pair he could. “Now we can study without the laugh tracks to distract us.

Neil wore the headphones without complaint for the rest of the night, and she and Aaron made their way steadily through her notes. The clock ticked by the number one before Aaron finally declared her ready for her exam. “Do you have any questions?”

She stretched and rolled her head on her neck, wincing when the bones in her neck cracked with each rotation. “Actually, I was wondering about your opinion on the origin of Aphrodite?”

Aaron shifted his eyes away from hers and grimaced, looking decidedly uncomfortable with the subject. “Um, actually, I’ve never really thought about it.”

It was weird, Aaron’s reaction to any mention of the goddess. Either he’d blush and stammer, or he defended her furiously. He’d absolutely refused to discuss his thoughts on Aphrodite’s marriage to Hephaestus or the myths of her unfaithfulness.

“Look, why don’t we call it a night? Your exam is on Monday afternoon, right? We can go through this stuff one more time on Sunday but I think you’ve got it down cold.”

That sounded good to her. Neil had fallen asleep a couple of hours ago, the headphones slipping a little so that one was pressed to his cheek instead of covering his ear. And damn, she was exhausted. She was glad she’d let Aaron talk her into taking the next few days off work. All she felt like doing right now was curling up between her two men and letting their warmth and their breathing lull her to sleep.

“Okay,” she mumbled, dragging herself to her feet. Thank god her bed was only a few feet away. “Let me just wake Neil up.”

Aaron was up on his feet in a flash, that evil grin of his firmly affixed to his handsome face. “Wait for just one second.” He grabbed his cell phone and pointed it at the sleeping man.

The phone made a soft clicking sound as he took a picture. “Won’t Neil love to see this in the morning?” he whispered, stashing the phone in his bag.

She just shook her head and smiled.

Life with two men was going to be interesting.

Eros held Talia as she slept, nuzzling his nose into her fragrant hair as he studied Neil’s face. Thick, black lashes rested on chiseled cheekbones, which were flushed slightly pink with sleep.

Neil’s arm was draped around Talia’s waist and his hand was resting on Eros’s ribs.

Great Zeus, he was so in love with both of these mortals.

But instead of the warm fuzzies invading his stomach, Eros only felt the cold weight of dread and guilt. How much of their affection, both for himself and for each other, was real instead of emotions manipulated by both his and his mother’s interference?

He closed his eyes and shimmered out of the room, making sure that neither of them felt his absence, and materialized back on Mount Olympus. The street was lined with temples, each dedicated to a different god or goddess. There was even one in his honor, which he tended to avoid like the plague, mainly because he’d stopped doing his job, and he didn’t want to hear about it from anyone.

“Hey, Eros! Wait up!”

He considered pretending that he hadn’t heard his cousin Hermes calling him, but the man was as fast as hell, and there was no way he could avoid the man for long. “Hey, Herm. What’s up?”

“Look, man. Your mom is driving me nuts. Would you
please
go see her before I have to move? Crap, I know I’m a messenger, but come on.” Hermes kicked at a pebble and pouted.

Eros rolled his eyes. “I’m sort of avoiding her.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” Hermes rummaged around in his pockets, clearly looking for a message he’d stashed somewhere. “Yeah, here it is. Zeus says that you’ve been avoiding your duty for too long. He wants you to get back at it.”