Mortal Temptations (12 page)

Patricia tried on minute skirts and a dozen tops until Rebecca picked out a bright red skirt and a black sleeveless sweater with a halter neck for her. Nothing for it but they got thigh-high stockings and high black heels to go with it.

“Nico’s eyes will pop out,” Rebecca said as they walked out armed with shopping bags. “You make sure you wear it.”

“I’ll wear mine if you wear yours.”

Rebecca nodded seriously. “Bargain.”

They sealed it over a lunch of fish and chips in a nearby pub.

“I love London,” Patricia said, rubbing her fried potatoes in vinegar before popping the satisfying concoction in her mouth. “So much history, from the Roman outpost to yesterday.”

Rebecca only nodded. “I suppose.”

Patricia laughed. “I forgot; you’re used to working in 2000 BCE. This must all seem hideously modern to you.”

Rebecca smiled. “Somewhat. Why do you think Nico and Andreas let us go off on our own today?”

“You mean why aren’t they here protecting us from potential Dyon attacks?”

“Exactly.”

Patricia stared at her empty plate, wishing more chips would manifest on it. “They must think we’re safe for now. From what I gather, the Dyons are like dogs who have been trained to guard one thing and one thing only. If you get close to that thing, they attack. Otherwise, they ignore you.”

“In other words, we’re probably not on the right track,” Rebecca said glumly. “Or else these Dyon things would be all over us.”

“Something like that.”

“Why did they insist we come here, then?”

“I don’t know. They might have figured something out since we arrived and haven’t bothered telling us.”

Rebecca sipped her lager, making a face at the taste. “You mean they haven’t bothered telling you. Andreas won’t tell me anything directly if he can help it.”

Patricia peered at her, noting her blush. “Are you falling for Andreas?”

“Seems like it.” Rebecca drank more lager. “He . . .” She heaved a loud sigh. “He teases me, but I don’t think he’s interested in more.”

“Hmm.” Patricia waited to feel anger or jealousy that Rebecca confessed her attraction for the tall, sexy Andreas, but none came. She knew she would have burned with hurt if Rebecca’s target had been Nico.

“Have you told him?” Patricia asked.

Rebecca suddenly changed from a shy young woman interested in a sexy man to a resigned woman who knew what disappointment was.

“Men like that never want women like me,” she said in a dull voice. “I don’t know how to talk about anything but my job. He might be interested in having sex with me—getting the nerdy academic to let her hair down—but that’s as far as it goes. He won’t be moving in and helping me pick out a bathroom rug.”

Patricia couldn’t answer, because she wasn’t sure Rebecca was wrong. Andreas might be compelled to Rebecca by the curse, but that might be as far as it went.

The two women looked for more answers in another helping of chips but drew no conclusions. They walked off lunch by strolling through Green Park and admiring Saint James’s Palace, watching people teasing the stiff-faced guards.

They took the tube back to their hotel near the University of London and the British Museum and entered the front room of the two-bedroom suite. There was no sign of Nico or Andreas.

“Where’d they get to, do you think?” Rebecca asked, sounding a little cranky.

“In here.” Patricia’s voice was hollow as she froze in the doorway of the bedroom. Rebecca came to peer over her shoulder and gasped.

Nico and Andreas lay stretched out across the huge bed, Andreas’s head on Nico’s shoulder. Nico’s wings cushioned both of them, and they were very naked.

Nico smiled at Patricia. “We thought you’d like a little show.”

“That is, if you ever got here.” Andreas snorted. “What were you doing, buying up the whole town?”

“We stopped for lunch,” Rebecca said faintly.

“Hope you’re still hungry,” Andreas returned.

Patricia felt Rebecca’s hand on her shoulder, a faint clutch as the other girl held herself up. Patricia swallowed on her dry throat as Andreas rolled over and gave Nico a full-tongued kiss.

“Oh, my,” Rebecca breathed.

Patricia could say nothing. They were enjoying themselves, laughing together at Patricia and Rebecca standing stunned in the doorway. They didn’t expect Rebecca or Patricia to
do
anything; this was a show for their benefit.

The two men tangled on the bed were so beautiful, Nico’s wings providing a black, feathery background to their tanned bodies. Andreas’s white black hair mingled with Nico’s dark hair as they kissed, Andreas’s strong hand on Nico’s chest.

Patricia’s quim grew hot as she watched the male sexual play before her. Cocks were rampant, not touching, Nico’s lying against the curve of his thigh, Andreas’s straight out. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen.

“I can’t look,” Rebecca whispered, but when Patricia glanced at the younger woman, Rebecca’s gaze was riveted to the pair on the bed.

The two men broke the kiss, and Nico nibbled Andreas’s upper lip. They turned together to the women in the doorway, smiles wide. The identical chains around their necks winked in the sunlight that streamed through the window.

“What would you like us to do?” Nico asked.

Patricia opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. Rebecca was breathing fast, hot against Patricia’s shoulder. Patricia at least had grown somewhat used to the pair’s blatant sexuality, but Rebecca must have been floored by it.

“Anything you want,” Nico continued. “We’re yours for the afternoon.”

“Command us, ladies,” Andreas said in a hard voice. “I’m getting bored.”

Nico was laughing quietly; probably she and Rebecca were pop-eyed, their mouths hanging open to their chests.

Patricia cleared her throat, trying to dislodge the shock that had clumped in it. Her knees were shaking, but her nipples had pinched into tiny, hard buds. “Play with each other,” she choked out.

Behind her, she heard Rebecca gulp.

“Play how?” Nico asked. His gaze riveted to Patricia, and in it she saw joy that she’d accepted this gift he offered.

“Bring each other off,” she said. “Please.”

“That’s easy,” Andreas said in his growling voice. “He’s so hard he’ll go as soon as I touch him.”

“Speak for yourself,” Nico answered.

He reached for Andreas’s cock, closing his hand around the hard and heavy staff. Andreas arched his back, his eyes closing in pleasure. He swiped his tongue through Nico’s mouth, then he grasped Nico’s cock in his huge hand.

Patricia longed to go to them, to climb on the bed among all those soft feathers and be with them, but she also wanted to stay right where she was. Rolling around with them, she’d miss watching the ecstasy that made Nico give her a heavy-eyed smile.

They each knew exactly what the other liked. They stroked and tickled, dipped hands down to palm each other’s balls. Andreas moved closer to nestle against Nico, and Nico stroked Andreas’s back with his feathers.

Rebecca made a strangled noise behind Patricia. She saw the younger woman’s eyes go soft, her lips parted and moist. Rebecca’s hair had come down, and her cheeks were flushed, mirroring the heat on Patricia’s own face.

“Are you glad you came?” Patricia asked her.

“Hell, yes.”

Nico’s talented fingers stroked Andreas from base to tip, while Andreas wrapped his hand around Nico’s cock. Both men started to sink into the feeling, to forget everything around them but the touch of hands on each other.

Nico cupped Andreas’s ass, strong fingers indenting his flesh. Andreas kissed him, tongue working against Nico’s lips.

Patricia put her hand to her mouth, letting herself suckle her fingertip. Rebecca leaned against Patricia’s back, not a sexual move, but for support.

“I can’t take much more of this.”

“You can if I can,” Patricia said.

Of course, Patricia had the advantage of having participated in sexual play with both of them, of already having watched Nico suck Andreas for her. Even so, the waves of excitement that rolled over her were almost overwhelming.

Andreas swore as his seed spilled into Nico’s hand, and he sped up his assault on Nico.

“Come on,” he said hoarsely. “Come for me, damn it.”

Nico held it in for a while longer. He drew Andreas’s head against his chest, stroking his friend’s hair, kissing it. Andreas squeezed Nico’s cock and flicked his thumb smoothly over his tip.

Both men were incredibly sexy, but it was Nico’s face Patricia watched, Nico’s gaze she wanted to catch. Patricia swiftly unbuttoned her blouse and pulled up her bra, lifting her breasts in her hands.

“Nico,” she said.

He looked up at her, watched her flicking her thumbs over her nipples the same way Andreas played with his cock.

Nico’s gaze riveted to her a moment, then his body jerked, and he came, groaning hard.

“Fucking finally,” Andreas growled.

“Shut up.” Nico ground his hips, forcing his cock through Andreas’s grip. Andreas held him down on the bed, Nico’s wings moving restlessly with his ecstasy.

When both men finally wound down, Nico blew out his breath. “Damn,” he said to Patricia.

She pulled her bra down again, the fabric catching painfully on her hard nipples. Andreas laughed at her and at Rebecca, whose forehead now rested on Patricia’s shoulder.

“Enjoy the show?” he asked.

“Yes,” Patricia answered, heartfelt. “Yes, I did.”

“What about you, Becky?” Andreas asked her.

Rebecca looked up. Her face flooded with color, her eyes with panic. She squeaked, put her hand over her mouth, turned on her heel, and fled.

REBECCA refused to come out of her room the rest of the night, much to Andreas’s annoyance. He decided to take out his feelings by helping Nico pleasure Patricia. Two tongues, four hands, and the delicious memory of Nico and Andreas kissing each other on the bed made Patricia fall asleep very happy.

The next morning, the four of them went to the British Museum, and Patricia accompanied Rebecca to the basement to talk to the assistant in charge of the fragments. He was a small, fussy man who didn’t like female academics and told her that the two limestone fragments in question had been purchased last year by a smaller museum in Chelsea.

“So I’m afraid I can’t help you, dear,” he said, giving her a cool look. “Nothing much to interest you, anyway. Greco-Roman, nothing about King Tut.”

Rebecca stomped away with Patricia and joined Nico and Andreas, who were waiting by the stairs.

Andreas’s cold blue eyes flickered when Rebecca related what had happened, and Patricia saw a hint of claw in his fingers. “Maybe I should have a talk with him,” he said.

“No.” Rebecca sighed. “Let’s just find the damn fragments.”

Andreas nodded but walked protectively beside her as they left the museum. Another tube ride followed by a short walk brought them to a tiny, privately owned antiquities museum in Chelsea near the river.

In contrast to the snobby assistant at the British Museum, this curator was a weedy young man excited about the collection and its owner.

“Mr. Greeley truly
cares
about the past,” he gushed. “He’s not just trying to show off how much we managed to loot from the Near East a hundred years ago. Mug of tea, anyone?”

Rebecca relaxed and engaged the young man in conversation, while Patricia joined Nico and Andreas, who were wandering restlessly about the gallery.

Nico was quiet and subdued, Andreas boiling over with impatience. Nico slid his arm around Patricia’s waist, drawing her close.

“Can we get this over with?” Andreas growled. “What the hell are they talking about?”

“Leave her alone,” Patricia said. “She’s worked her butt off to get us this far, and this isn’t even her fight. She should be back at Cornell grading papers.”

Andreas rumbled something else but subsided. Nico leaned and brushed his lips over Patricia’s cheek. “This isn’t your fight, either.”

“It is, in a way.”

“No, you could have handed me the information and turned your back. Or called the police when you found me in your store. Or kicked me out without doing a damn thing.”

Patricia knew she couldn’t have. She’d been drawn to Nico the moment she’d seen him lying on the floor of her antiques store, spell or no spell. All she knew was that she wanted to take the slave chain from around his neck and see if what he felt for her was real or not. If it wasn’t . . .

She’d cross that heartbreak when she got to it.

On the other side of the room, Rebecca’s voice rose in distress. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Andreas was next to her before she finished the sentence. The curator only grinned. “I adore how Americans talk. I hear it on the telly, but it’s not the same, is it?”

“What’s wrong?” Patricia asked.

Rebecca’s eyes sparkled, the young woman angry enough to forget her shyness. “He says the owner returned the fragments to the Egyptian Museum. You know, the one in
Cairo
. In Egypt.”

“Well, they weren’t ours, were they?” the curator said, his grin still in place. “The stones were looted early in the nineteenth century by treasure hunters. One thing Mr. Greeley intends to do is send stolen artifacts back where they belong. He’s all for returning the Rosetta Stone.”

Rebecca made a frustrated noise. “I just wish he’d waited a little longer to be so gracious. Are you certain the fragments went back to Cairo?”

“Have the receipt and everything. I helped pack them.”

“Why would they want them back, when they sold the third one to dealers?” Rebecca demanded.

“Who knows, love? Things go back and forth, round and round, or go missing like so many things did in the war. Had a good chat with the Egyptian archaeologist who came to retrieve it. Nice fellow.”

“Do you happen to have the nice fellow’s name and phone number?” Patricia asked.

“I do. And his e-mail. Hang on, I’ll get them both.”

The young man was so helpful, Patricia didn’t have the heart to be angry at him, though both Andreas and Nico waited in stony silence.

They took the phone number of the archaeologist and the museum in Cairo from the curator, declined several more offers of tea, and left him alone with his treasures.

“NOW what?”

Rebecca asked the question from the middle of the suite’s sitting room, her hands clenched. She wore her shapeless pants and shirt and sneakers, as dowdy as the first day they’d met her.

Andreas was angry and restless as well, but strangely, Nico only leaned quietly on the windowsill.

“We go to Cairo,” Patricia said. “We’ve come this far. Why not?”

“I can’t go to Cairo. I have classes to teach. I’m not supposed to go to Egypt until December.”

“Think of it as a jump start on your research,” Patricia suggested.

Rebecca frowned at her but stopped snarling. She knew, as Patricia knew, that they’d go, and that was that. Arguing was a formality.

“Neither of you are going,” Nico said quietly. He remained where he was, but his night-dark eyes glittered. “You’ll return home. You’ve done enough.”

Patricia expected Andreas to snap something at him, but surprisingly, he kept silent.

“You two talked about this,” Patricia said, suddenly understanding the signals.

“We did,” Nico answered. “And we decided that if things didn’t work out here, you two were out of it. You have your own lives, and we’re not part of them.”

“You are now,” Patricia said.

Nico shook his head. She sensed troubled emotion deep inside him. “We dragged you into this and didn’t try to stop ourselves. We discovered the inscription in the first place. We’ll take it from here.”

“And who’s going to translate it for you?” Rebecca demanded, hands on hips.

“I’m sure we can find someone in Cairo. They have experts, too.”

“And leave us behind?” Patricia asked.

“The Dyons will follow us, not you. They haven’t attacked us here, because they sensed London had no answers for us. But if the answer is in Cairo, they’ll be there. You’ve given us enough to help; it’s time to back off.”

“Screw that,” Rebecca said vehemently. “You can’t seriously think I’d get this close to an answer and abandon it before I know what it is? I’d go crazy.”

Andreas’s lip curled. “I thought you had classes to teach.”

“I do, but I can take a week off. Tell them I’m on a hot lead on a lost artifact; people like that.”

“I have to agree with her,” Patricia said. “I want to know, too.”

“No.” Nico rose, rage blazing. The dangerous spark in his eyes gave Patricia a glimpse of the demigod inside, the immortal being with plenty of power. “It’s too damn dangerous. The Dyons could kill you. I’m not about to let you die because you wanted to satisfy your curiosity. Go the hell home, Patricia.”

“Like a good little girl?” Patricia asked, wide-eyed. “If Rebecca and I want to go to Cairo together, we can. We have passports and money, and we’re grown women.”

Andreas’s eyes flared with heat. “Why don’t we show them how we deal with disobedience?”

Patricia saw Nico’s arousal expand inside his jeans even when his eyes still held anger. “Spankings, you mean? I don’t know. It might be too much fun.”

Patricia’s throat went dry. The easiest way for Nico and Andreas to turn an argument in their favor was with sex. If Nico tied Patricia with the silk scarves he liked to used and spanked her bare ass . . .

She ripped her thoughts from that delightful path. What he’d likely do was subdue her with sexual play, and then when she was sound asleep, he and Andreas could slip away, leaving her and Rebecca high and dry.

No way in hell would she let that happen. She had to keep control here . . . somehow.

She slanted Rebecca a look. “How about
we
show them just how grown-up we are?”

Rebecca gave her a puzzled look. “What? Oh, you mean . . .”

Patricia caught her arm and dragged her into their bedroom before she could blurt out what Patricia had in mind. They hadn’t modeled their new clothes yet; Patricia had intended to keep the clothes for a surprise, perhaps a celebratory dinner out, but it looked like celebrations would be a long time coming.

Patricia closed the door on Andreas’s outraged expression and locked it. Then she and Rebecca brought out their new clothes and changed into them, ruining her declaration that they were mature, adult women by giggling through the whole procedure.

Patricia admitted to herself that she enjoyed getting pretty for a man. She hadn’t for so long that she’d forgotten how good it felt to slip into slinky clothes and put on a little makeup. She made Rebecca wear some, too.

While they admired themselves in the mirror, Rebecca unbent so far as to hug Patricia and plant a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you.”

“For the makeup?” Patricia stepped back and rubbed off the lipstick Rebecca left on her cheek. “It wasn’t much.”

“I mean for making me do this. I never think about what I’m wearing, because my mind is on so many other things. I don’t realize.” She gave herself a big smile in the mirror. “You’ve made me pretty.”

“You were already pretty. The right clothes bring it out, that’s all. Now let’s see if we can make their eyes pop.”

Nico’s and Andreas’s eyes stayed intact when Patricia and Rebecca walked back in, but both men went still. Nico’s gaze roved over Patricia, and so did Andreas’s, then Andreas’s gaze was pulled to Rebecca.

“Don’t do this to me,” he muttered.

Patricia smiled at them both, while Rebecca blushed, unused to the attention.

“So, while we’re still in London,” Patricia said, “why don’t you take two sexy girls out on the town?”

IN spite of his frustration and anger, Nico liked the feel of Patricia’s waist under his hand as they wandered the London streets, deciding which club they’d try. She was absolutely beautiful and sexy, and if he didn’t get free of her, he’d spiral down into mindless slavery until one word from her, no matter what it was, would be enough to sate him, and a kick would be a caress.

He could already feel it happening, the need to please her more and more, no matter what he wanted. And as he mired in desperate need, she’d become more and more indifferent, until she shoved him away in disgust.

He would be left humiliated and broken, in despair and heartbreak, and he’d hear Hera’s laughter. He’d recover slowly, painfully, maybe taking years, until he was caught in another woman’s net, and the same thing happened again.

With Patricia, he knew, it would hurt more than it ever had before. Something else lay behind the compulsion of the curse, something he’d never felt in his long life. He didn’t understand it, but he knew it would devastate him all the more.

They finally found a club that met with Andreas’s approval and got themselves inside, immediately hitting the dance floor. Patricia smiled up at Nico and twined her arms around his neck. She thought her tight red skirt and black sweater made her sexy, and it did, but he was dying to tell her that sexiness radiated from her whether she wore a designer dress or sloppy jeans.

He loved that she’d dressed herself up for him, and that the skirt let his hand slide smoothly over her backside as they danced. Nearby, Andreas showed Rebecca how to dance, she rocking awkwardly on her new high heels.

Patricia laughed up at Nico and kissed him, her lips warm and soft. He was in far too deep with her, and he knew it.

The song came to an end, but they danced through another, and then another, then the four broke off and sought the bar. Patricia declared the need to visit the bathroom and grabbed Rebecca to drag her off. Rebecca looked confused and said she didn’t need to go.