Tall, Dark and Divine (12 page)

“It wasn’t mine,” Harry said with unflattering promptness.

Great. “Ross asked you to ask me out?”

Harry shrugged.

“How much did he pay you?” Enough for a hot dog and a Diet Coke?

“Nothing,” Harry said.

“Surely you didn’t ask me out out of the goodness of your heart.” He’d made his views of her pretty plain last night. God, how stupid did she have to be to have believed he meant what he’d said earlier? “What did you get out of it?”

If he’d said, “Dinner with you,” she might have forgiven him. When he said, “Dinner with Brita,” it was all she could do not to stop, take one of her shoes off, and stab him in the heart with the heel.

“I see.” Her voice was half choked. With anger, not tears; hopefully Harry realized it.

“Sorry,” Harry said without sounding it.

“I’m sure you are.” Although not as sorry as Ross would be, once she got through with him.

They reached the corner where they’d have to turn to get to her apartment, and Annie stopped. “I’ll walk the rest of the way by myself.”

“I’ll be happy to—” Harry began.

“Thanks for dinner.” Annie smiled tightly.

Harry didn’t answer, but he did look guilty, so maybe there was a small part of him that realized what a jerk he had been.

“Have a good time with Brita. I hope you’re nicer to her than you’ve been to me.”

“I will be,” Harry said, which just put the icing on the cake. Annie thought of a reply that would have reduced him to a puddle of grease on the ground, but it would have reduced her to tears at the same time, and she was damned if she was going to cry in front of him, even if they were angry tears, so she kept her mouth shut.

“Good night.”

She turned and walked away without giving him a chance to respond. After a half a block, when she threw a quick glance over her shoulder, he was nowhere in sight.

Probably couldn’t get away from me quick enough
.
Bastard
.

It wasn’t his fault, though. Or not entirely his fault. He’d made his feelings clear last night. It was her own stupidity that had allowed her to believe he’d changed his mind today.

That and Ross, who apparently had put Harry up to this.

If she should kill anyone, it should be him.

What the hell had he been thinking? He’d slept with her last night; where did he get off trying to fix her up with someone else today?

Talk about not being able to get away from her quick enough.

It was still early. She should go give him a piece of her mind right now. Along with a piece of her stiletto. Get right up in his face and tell him exactly what she thought of him and his misguided attempts to match make. Threaten to sue him while she was at it. For mental anguish. Take him for everything he and his precious matchmaking agency were worth.

Mind made up, she hobbled past the entrance to her own building and kept going.

Chapter Fourteen

Eros poured himself another glass of ambrosia, put his feet back up on the table, and toasted the photograph of his ex-wife, propped against the wine bottle, as the strains of Beethoven filled the air.

Sometimes he missed the old days, when everyone knew who he was and gave him the respect and worship he was due. There was no sitting alone at home back then. And he missed the old country, with its olive groves and sunshine and blue ocean. Fresh air to breathe and real dirt under his feet. None of that in New York.

Then again, the old country wasn’t doing so well these days, and the last few centuries had brought some pretty decent innovations, too. Air conditioning. La-Z-Boy technology. Surround sound. And Ludwig van Beethoven.

Life was good. He had all of the above, plus a bottle of very good wine. And he was getting over Psyche. He’d gone home and pulled out a couple of the old snapshots, just to see how he felt. Imagine his surprise when he realized he could look at them—at her—without wanting to kill her (or the Viking) and without wanting to get drunk. Another point in his favor: he wasn’t going overboard on the ambrosia. Most nights, he’d have polished off a bottle or two by now, while this was only his second glass.

Putting Annie and Harry together tonight had been a stroke of genius. After spending the evening with her, there was no way Harry would be back for his date with Brita tomorrow.

Sure, Brita was gorgeous. But she was far beyond Harry’s ability to handle. Immortal Cretan goddesses didn’t take shit from anyone. While Annie was sweet. Pretty. Soft and warm and welcoming. And as soon as Harry spent any time with her, he’d see it.

Yes, Eros had done a good thing. Even if the idea of Harry spending any time at all with Annie—especially any time between Annie’s thighs—made his stomach clench.

He reached for the glass of ambrosia and took a sip to make himself feel better. And then another, for good measure. He was just about to take a third when a shrill buzz cut through the air and interrupted the dulcet tones of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Downstairs, a dog barked hysterically.

Who the hell came to visit at—he checked the clock—nine thirty at night?

Someone impatient, obviously. When he didn’t teleport downstairs to open the door, whoever was down there leaned on the buzzer and kept leaning.

“I’m coming!” Eros called over the sound of the doorbell and Beethoven as he made his way down the stairs in his sock-encased feet. “Just hold on!”

He expected Ari, since of everyone he worked with, they had the closest relationship. Maybe Brita, if Dionysus had done something to piss her off. Or Dion himself. It was Friday night and the bar would be hopping, but Dion might have left Silenus in charge for thirty minutes to come drag Eros out of what the god of debauchery thought of as sulking. In Dion’s opinion, drinking in private was a missed opportunity.

What he didn’t expect was Annie. A disheveled Annie, with her brown hair in disarray, her cheeks flushed, her lipstick gnawed off, and her eyes shooting daggers at him. “You!”

So much for soft and sweet and welcoming. He took an instinctive step back. “What?”

She followed him in and jabbed him in the chest with a finger. Hard. Good thing she didn’t have long nails, or it would have really hurt.

“How dare you bribe Harry to ask me out?!”

“It wasn’t really a bribe.”

“Yes, it was! He said you promised him a date with Brita if he’d go out with me!”

“It was more blackmail than bribe,” Eros said, and immediately wished he hadn’t spoken when Annie’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“It was his idea?”

“Of course it was.” Had she really thought Eros would sink that low?

Then again, from her point of view, he was the SOB who’d set her up with someone else—using bribery, no less—the morning after taking her to bed himself. If that wasn’t the behavior of the biggest jerk in the world, he had no idea what he could have done that would have been worse.

“I hate him,” Annie said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I hate you, too. You shouldn’t have done that.”

No, he shouldn’t. He should have realized Harry was too much of a moron to be able to pull off something like this. And now Eros had hurt her again, when it was the last thing he wanted to do.

She’d clearly made an effort to look nice for Harry, too, while the bastard probably hadn’t even noticed. She was wearing the red shoes again, and a black skirt with a little ruffle that swirled around her knees, and a silky shirt that draped over her breasts in a way that made his mouth dry.

She was swaying, which was as good an excuse as any to reach for her. To steady her, he told himself, nothing more. “Did you have too much to drink again?” His voice was rough, and he had to clear his throat. She still had her coat on, but he could feel the slipperiness of the soft blouse through the fabric.

“My feet hurt,” Annie said.

No wonder, when she wore those crazy shoes. “No Cosmopolitans tonight?”

She shook her head. She wouldn’t look at him, just kept her eyes on the second button of his shirt. “He took me to the dog park.”

What?

“And bought me a hot dog and a Diet Coke from a street vendor.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“No,” Annie said.

No? She still wanted the bastard? Even after this? “Why not?”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

Of course it was. Harry was supposed to show her a good time. Not take her to the dog park and feed her wieners.

“You shouldn’t have made him ask me out,” Annie said. “You knew he wasn’t interested. He said so.”

Yes, but— “I thought, if he could just get to know you, see how great you are…”

She shook her head. “He wants Brita, not me. Stupid idiot.”

No argument. And he wasn’t even sure whether she was talking about Harry or himself, but he agreed either way.

“My feet hurt,” Annie said again, so Eros did the only thing he could think of: lifted her and headed upstairs. This time she didn’t even argue about her weight and his ability, just let him.

He put her down on the sofa. “Let me take your coat.”

She peeled out of it—a bit awkwardly, since she was sitting on part of it. He tossed it on the back of a chair and placed her handbag beside it. Then he gave her his glass of wine—“You look like you need this more than I do”—before keeling beside the sofa and reaching for her foot.

She moved it out of his way, her cheeks warm. “What are you doing?”

“You said your feet hurt. I’m going to take care of you.” He didn’t wait for her to argue, just snagged a foot and slipped the red shoe off, then did the same with the other one.

Annie wiggled her toes, so she must feel relieved by the lack of footwear, even if she wasn’t about to admit it. And when he reached for her foot and ran his thumb along the arch, digging into the tense muscle there, she practically melted.

“Oh. Wow. That’s…”

“Just relax. Enjoy.”

He took her foot into his lap and went to work. She had lovely little feet. Plump toes, with nails painted the same glossy red as the shoes sitting next to him on the floor. Elegant high arches. Soft skin. With feet like those, she should always go barefoot.

“You don’t have to…” Annie tried, but it was a token objection at best, since she didn’t make a move to take her foot out of his hands.

“It’s the least I can do. It’s my fault you walked all the way to the dog park and back.”

“No, it isn’t.”

But she was snuggling into the sofa, both feet in his lap, her eyes half closed, practically purring.

Eros hid a smile. “Just enjoy, Gatoula.”

“Gatoula?”

“Kitten. You sound like one.”

“Oh.” She flushed but didn’t move. After a second, however, she stirred. “Where’s George?”

“George?”

“The dog. You said you’d take care of him.” There was accusation in her voice; clearly she thought he’d lied about that, too.

“He’s downstairs in the office. The stairs were too much for him, with his bad leg. And I didn’t want to upset him by picking him up and carrying him.”

She squinted at him. “Really?”

“Yes, really. He has a blanket to sleep on, and a bowl of water, and he’s warm and dry. We can go downstairs so you can see for yourself if you want.”

“No,” Annie said.

“No?”

“I trust you.”

She did? Good.

Eros busied himself by petting her feet and imagining how he could best kill Harry Mitchell tomorrow.

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” Annie murmured after a few minutes.

“I don’t mind. And it seems the least I can do, when it was my fault you went out with that jackass and got your feet hurt.”

He looked up at her from where he was sitting on the floor. She looked almost as boneless as she had last night, when he’d left her on her bed. She’d forgotten all about keeping her legs demurely crossed and was sprawled on his sofa with her eyes half closed and her skirt hiked halfway up her thighs.

The part of him he’d managed to keep in check until now woke up with a vengeance.

Want!

Can’t have
, he admonished himself.

Harry doesn’t want her
.

He would. Annie wanted Harry, so Eros just had to come up with the right incentive to make Harry want her back.

She’s here now. Harry hurt her feelings. She needs comforting
.

She did. Someone should comfort her. It just shouldn’t be him.

You comforted her yesterday. And received home-baked cookies for your trouble
.

Some trouble. Besides, that was yesterday. Today was…different.

Or—was it? She’d wanted Harry then, too. He’d known it. And he’d seduced her anyway. And she certainly hadn’t seemed to mind.

He ran a hand up her calf. Up to the knee and back down. Watching her face while enjoying the softness of her skin under his palm. She sighed a little and wiggled her butt deeper into the cushions.

No, she didn’t seem to mind.

He could comfort her again tonight. Take her mind off Harry for a bit. It was just sex, after all. Good exercise. He had some time and lost opportunities to make up for. And he could make sure she knew how desirable she was. He could sleep with her tonight and fix her up with Harry tomorrow. No problem at all. Wasn’t like he wanted her for himself, was it? She was mortal. He was done with mortals.

Just as soon as tonight was over.

Chapter Fifteen

Annie felt so limp and relaxed that at first she didn’t even notice what Ross was doing. His hand on her calf was just an extension of his hand on her foot earlier. Soothing, comforting, relaxing.

Until that hand slipped past her knee to her thigh, and then she was feeling a bit less relaxed. And so, judging by the look on his face, was he.

He was up on his knees now, his eyes glittering when he looked at her. His skin was flushed and his nostrils flared.

He was gorgeous. And—by the looks of him—very turned on.

Annie swallowed. “Ross?”

He smiled. “You can say no.” He pulled a condom out of the end table drawer and held it up.

Not in this lifetime
.