Bliss (3 page)

Sighing
, he realized getting home wasn’t going to be easy.
By Zeus! How can I rapture when I’m bound to that woman, whose snoring sounds like a sea lion in heat?

Then a soft, utterly feminine moan stilled his thoughts, causing his ears to perk and his shaft to buck. The woman was dreaming. Stealthily walking back into her bedroom, he chuckled. She’d kicked off the blanket and managed to wriggle out of her tight jeans, providing him with a view of a bright red thong – a tiny piece of fabric – the best piece of clothing ever designed by humans. He licked his lips, watching as she rolled to her side, revealing two perfect, velvety smooth cheeks that caused his knees to buckle. She had a small brown birthmark on her right
bottom cheek. His eyes were riveted to the spot. She looked entirely too sensual, too enticing and way too innocent—a complete package that jarred his senses. Taking stock of his hard and very aroused erection he growled.

A decade stuck in that book. A decade of celibacy.
No wonder I’ve got a raging hard on.
Hell, his body wasn’t equipped to deal with that. The idea of no sex for ten long years was such a foreign concept to him he couldn’t fathom it. He was Darius, prince of sex. He loved absolutely everything about it. And he’d had lots of experience doing it. Not just with Sirens, but with human women as well.

Grinning, he recalled more than a decade ago wh
en his father, King Sadok, had banished him to the land, stripping him of his Titan powers. He’d been depressed for days. Then he’d discovered that, as a human, he could have long nights and days of hot, wild sex with women. It was a perk not many of his species had ever experienced and he had loved it.

Now, however, with his powers back
, he knew no human woman could survive his lust.
Celibacy is going to be a bitch!

Grimacing in sexual turmoil,
the woman rolled over onto her back. Thankfully she managed to keep most of her shirt on in the process. One sight of those breasts and he’d be a drooling idiot. Hating himself for watching her, but powerless to move, he took a deep calming breath and tried to strop his heart from racing and his breathing from sounding like he’d run a marathon.

Another
sound from the woman and he stilled.
What exactly is she dreaming?
She turned again from her belly to back, trying to get comfortable. He hoped like
Tartarus
she ached, because he certainly did.

I’ve become a pe
eping Tom.
Darius froze on the spot. Even though part of him rebuked himself, the other more powerful and beastly part of him, the part that was bucking on its own in his hand, thought darker, more sinister thoughts, as his eyes caught the black silky, curly strands of her maiden hairs peeking out of her sinfully red thong.

A small taste couldn’t hurt, he mused, bending down over the bed. Trying hard to ignore the throbbing pulse from his own member, he leaned down, slid her legs open a fraction and moved his head lower, inhaling her unique
womanly scent. And he stilled. Her scent was utterly feminine. It wrapped around him like a wave that engulfed and enflamed all his senses.

Sirens
had no unique scent. Born as sexual creatures, their entire body radiated sex for all. Only a woman, and only once she let a man get intimate with her, produced an intoxicating scent that radiated from her to bewitch and ensnare. It was woman’s gift to man. By Zeus, he wanted more than to just sit on this woman’s bed sniffing her like a freak’n freshling. He wanted to taste her. He wanted to lap her salty, musky, scent into his body and suck on that small nub of pleasure so hard she cried out for more.

Placing one of his fingers between her legs he lightly felt the
material of the thong. She was damp. She was dreaming of sex. He watched for any sign of awakening on her sleeping face.

When her hand clamped over his
, forcing his hand to cup all that wetness, he couldn’t help but growl. His nostrils flared as her scent started to overtake his common sense.

What by
Tartarus!
Finally giving into the more powerful and sinister part of him that wanted to just do it, he moved aside the material and delved a finger into her opening. She was tight but wet and ready for him.

The woman
wriggled in pleasure against his hand. He grinned, knowing what she was silently communicating, but he wanted something more. With one yank from his teeth the sexy barrier was gone and her lower half was devilishly naked.

Without hesitation, he
placed his tongue at her opening and licked her for all he was worth. When her hand finally let go of his, he immediately pushed one finger into her and then another, all the while licking, sucking and grinding his face into her feminine essence. He couldn’t get enough of it. Like she read his mind her legs splayed themselves open even wider while her hand grasped his head tighter, pushing his face into her. She held him in a death grip, as if she feared he’d leave.

He could feel her pulsing around his tongue
, but he didn’t want her to come just yet. He wanted her to beg for more. With two fingers sliding rhythmically into her opening he grazed her nub with his teeth. Her entire body jerked with pleasure. A part of him was afraid she might awaken, but at that precise moment, he really didn’t care. Grasping her cheeks tighter gave his tongue more leverage as it snaked into her opening.

When she came, she
fisted his hair in her hands as waves of pleasure rode her body. All the while, Darius kept his tongue deep inside her, letting her climax fill his mouth. He felt the sigh of contentment course through her body as she went languid against the bed. Giving one final lick he eased off of her.

His body burned
with insatiable need. His erection begged for release. A quick drawn breath and he cursed. Instead of being satisfied with pleasuring her, he wanted more than anything to ram his rod deep into her. The beast within ached to turn her back onto her belly, raise that plump ass up, force her to her knees so he could rock her world.

Running his hands through his hair, he backed completely away from the bed. From the woman. From temptation itself. There she was, her lower half bare to the world, her arms now sprawled blissfully above her head and by Zeus, she was snoring.
Snoring! Again!

The gall of her
. He wanted—and almost wished—she would wake up. Scream! Be terrified! Run.

By Hades he felt that’s exactly what
he
should be doing. Running as if Hades’ pets Tartahounds were after him, getting out of this place. Out of her life. And never once looking back. Because now he knew he would never be satisfied with what she could give him as a human woman. Now, as a Titan, he wanted the one thing he couldn’t have. And what terrified him more was knowing he was bound to her and that blasted book until Rylan, or someone else, figured out how to release him.

Darius shook his head and tucked the blanket once again around her, knowing full well
that he was going to have to learn to deal with being rock hard and hungry for sex, wanting to pleasure the woman senseless and all the while knowing full well he couldn’t.
They might as well have castrated me!

Kassandra stretched. Her body felt good. Really good. So good, in fact, she stretched again, curling her toes and extending her arms, cat-like, above her head to flex her fingers. It was then that she heard it. The soft, pounding of running water.

Someone was taking a shower
, and she bloody well knew that someone wasn’t her. But who? She was ninety-eight percent sure that when she’d left the bar she’d been alone. But that left two percent of
what if
. She remembered getting home and vaguely recalled she’d been looking at the antique book she’d smuggled out of the library. But something fuzzy and strange was starting to nudge at her conscious. Something eerily weird that didn’t fit in with the night.

She sighed, realizing she must still be dreaming
, and tried to close her eyes again. But even with her eyes closed, her other senses were awakening and screaming at her that all was not right. It caused her to clutch the blanket up to her chin like a lifeline.

If she could have
, she’d have crawled under the blanket, but that was the cowardly way of dealing with the
what if
. Taking a deep calming breath, she opened her eyes and uncurled her fingers from the blanket to flex her legs over the side of the bed. It was then she noticed that her lower half was naked.

Oh my
god, what did I do?
She fought with herself to not give in to the scream raging around inside her head. Eyeing her jeans on the floor and her ripped thong, she groaned again.

She wanted to beat herself up for being so stupid, but
she decided a calm approach was best as she shimmed into the jeans minus the underwear. The blasted things were tight. Not her style. But hadn’t that been that the point of last night?

She recalled giving into her friends who
’d insisted she wear the tight-ass jeans, as they called them, to show off her best feature.
Best feature, my ass!

She looked
around for her favorite navy blue sweats and didn’t spot them. Clothing was a good weapon, she thought, realizing the water had stopped and she was about to come face to face with the person in her bathroom.

With her heart pounding in trepidation
, she forced herself to appear calm and moved a few steps away from where she’d been standing. The last place she wanted to be near was the bed. After all, she wasn’t sure what had happened in her bed. As the person emerged from her bathroom, she wanted to be anywhere other than here.

“This has got to be the smallest towel I’ve ever seen,” growled a rough, whiskey-soaked voice.

Kassandra screamed. From what she could see, standing about four feet in front of her was the weird thing that had been nudging at the base of her consciousness. It was the Greek warrior come to life. A very naked warrior. Naked except for the wee towel she’d used yesterday.

He tackled her to the floor and placed his hand over her mouth. She attempted to kick him where it counted, but he kept her pinned in place.

‘I’m not going to hurt you. If I remove my hand you must promise not to scream. It hurts my head. Do you understand?”

Kassandra nodded, even as the feel of him caused her to flush with heat.

”On the count of three, I will release you, but if you lie to me I will not be happy.”

That certainly sounded like a warning. Kassandra wasn’t usually one to scream but he’d surprised her. Now that she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, case in point, he could easily have done so already, she’d quickly kick him out of her apartment.

“
One. Two. Three.”

He released her mouth and jumped back from her.
Smart man!

Kassandra gulped nervous
ly and fought the hysterics that threatened to sweep through her as she watched the most magnificent specimen of a man reach down for the towel to cover himself with. She forced herself to look up.
Bad, this is bad.
She took in the full effect of him in one heart-wrenching oh-my-god, bone-melting, toe curling glance. He was drop-dead yummy and a man who radiated sex. A good six and a half feet of solid, bronzed muscle stood before her. Long black curly hair flowed well past his shoulders and every cliché in the book jumped into her head as she eyed his abdomen which looked like he did about two hundred sit-ups a day. His actions to attempt to use the small towel were almost comical but there was nothing remotely funny about the cold stare he sent her way.

“I’m Darius. And you are?” he asked, giving his hair a good shake.

It was then she realized she’d been staring, actually gawking with her mouth wide open.

“Kassandra,” she squeaked. “And you’re dripping all over my floor. Did we...did we...what exactly did we do?” she forced the words out, not caring
that she sounded out of breath.

The man smiled a lazy
, feral smirk at her, while he arched his dark eyebrows in amusement. “Do? You don’t remember?” He advanced a foot closer to her. She was not about to scurry onto her bed, so she stood ramrod stiff and locked eyes with him. It was a military pose that would have pleased any of her commanding officers.

Another serious mistake, she thought. His e
merald eyes, so green they were sinful, flashed at her. His face was the stuff of dreams. Okay,
her
dreams. A strong masculine nose, square jaw and dark black eyebrows framed mysterious eyes. How horrible. He had the longest silkiest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man, and that wasn’t fair. He was drop-dead handsome.
This isn’t good at all.

Then
she noticed his tattoo and shook her head. His upper torso was covered with the most amazingly intricate body art of a sea dragon. It was mesmerizing. The tattoo artist who did it must have been the best. The body of the sea dragon draped itself over his right shoulder and, she assumed, down his back.
How low does it go?
she wondered silently, fighting back a hysterical giggle.

H
eat pooled to her face, flustering her.
How on earth can I be thinking lustful thoughts about a guy I don’t know?
She was not pleased at herself.

Licking her lips she broke the silence. “No....I mean, I’m sure it was good....I mean...
Oh, I don’t really know what I mean,” she confessed, bowing her heated face to inspect the carpet on her bedroom floor. She bit at the inside of her cheek to come back to reality. This was not what she had expected. It wasn’t every day one woke-up with a hunk of a man who looked like a Greek warrior or who looked like he made a living modeling for GQ.

His fingers gently forced her head up to look at him.

“We didn’t do anything, sweetlips. The day I do something like what you had in mind, trust me, you’ll remember it.”

Kassandra knew a threat when she heard it and that thought caus
ed her stomach to do flip-flops, because it was a warning she welcomed. And that was weird.

He
moved away from her. She couldn’t help eye him as he tried without success to keep the towel from concealing his very obvious arousal. Her brow furrowed. Why did that evidence of his desire please her so much? Maybe turning twenty-five made you instantly horny.

“We need to talk.” He
grasped her duvet and used it like a towel to cover his lower half and then plopped down on her bed like he owned it. She knew he did it to make her feel more at ease, and it did exactly that. She fought not to smile.

“This is going to sound weird. Because it is weird and I’m still getting used to it. But here’s the
gist of things. We’re going to be together, kind of joined at the hip for a while,” he stated, crossing his arms over his chest, looking less and less pleased as he eased up toward her bed’s headboard.

Kassandra shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Okay lady, you asked for it. I was cursed into that book and you released me. Only catch is that now we are bound together. And in case you are wondering what that means, I will lay it out real simple. It means I can’t leave you and you can’t leave me because we will both die. Got it?”

She giggled. Then chuckled. And then collapsed into hysterics on the bed. “Ooohhh that is sooo good. I’m going to get them. I mean you had me going for a minute. But I get it. I really get it. They are sooo going to wish they died,” she laughed, groping around for the phone at the bedside table.

Darius watched
, partly amused, as she punched in a number. Things weren’t going exactly as he’d planned. The last thing he had expected was laughter. She thought he was a joke. Some prankster. She
wished
, he thought, moving in frustration from her bed to her living room.

Through clenched teeth, he muttered, “Rylan, get your ass here now!”

He could still here Kassandra laughing and chattering away in the bedroom and realized it was only a matter of minutes before she’d realized he wasn’t a joke. And more than anything he wanted clothing. Anything to hide his friggin’ erection. Seeing her in those tight jeans again did strange things to his body. Besides making him hard as stone, it made him mad.

“You called.”

“What are you eating? No, don’t tell me. Any luck on releasing me from the book?” he asked, eyeing Rylan as the teen finally materialized in front of him, eating what looked like a powdered jelly donaught. He was making a mess all over himself, not that he seemed to care.

“Nope. But, don’t look so glum. Things could be worse. She seems to be taking it okay,” he said, shoveling another bite into his mouth.

“She thinks I’m a joke. And any minute she is going to come in here and probably call the police. Not that I blame her. But before that happens, get me clothes. Now!” he grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and gave him a rough shake, like a mother dog chastising a pup.

Rylan only rolled his eyes.
“Don’t get sooo testy. Back in a flash with clothes.”

With that Darius was left holding the donaught. Rylan’s ability to pop anywhere at any
time was usually a nuisance, but for once he was thankful for it. Better one man than two in the living room when the woman came storming out of that bedroom.

Again he w
ished he’d never met the half-god kid who was now a twenty-something annoying immortal. Ironic Rylan was his only help. Wanting to shake his head clear from that horrific thought, he calmly eavesdropped on Kassandra’s telephone conversation. Even in human form his hearing was a hundred times more acute than an actual human’s. He could hear the nervous pitch in her voice as her laughter faded away.

“Aww, come on. Enough pulling my leg. Just admit it
, Melissa. I promise I won’t be mad.”

“For the umpteenth time. I did not send a GQ guy over to your pad. And I’ve got to go. Look
, call me later. And please do anything, absolutely anything, I would with him. He sounds delicious.”

Darius liked the sounds of this Melissa chick. The click on the other end of the phone meant his minutes were up. Soon it would be confrontation time.

“Here. I had to guess your size. And I didn’t have much time. I’ve been summoned by my uncle and I’ve got to go,” said Rylan, his words a mad rush, as he dropped the heap of clothing at Darius’ feet.

Darius knew he was wrinkling his nose. The clothes, if he could call them that
, weren’t something he’d normally wear. More than anything he wanted to scream at Rylan and demand he go to Armani or Hugo Boss and grab something, anything from them. But with no other choice he shimmied into the faded jeans, amazed that they fit. Then he grabbed the pink t-shirt and forced himself to not rip it to shreds.

He could hear Kassandra talking to herself. Realizing she was mustering her courage to confront him, he grinned as her words penetrated his brain. She was mumbling while brushing her teeth she’d be okay, cause he, the great hulking warrior was not going to be in her living room. She was finally going to confront
him and not have it be a delusional birthday breakdown.

Darius wanted to laugh at that one. So that was why she had been drunk last night. She’d celebrated turning
twenty-five and from what little he’d overhead, her friends had set about getting her laid. Only it didn’t work. Why that thought made him happy gave him pause.

The last thing he needed was to think about her feelings, because the truth of the situation made things bad. Capital bad for her. If she found out he was a
Titan, he’d have to kill her. That was the number one law of the sea. A harsh law, but necessary. If humans found out that Titans actually existed, their way of life would end. How he was going to explain things to this woman boggled his mind. Before he could think of some plausible explanation, in walked Kassandra still muttering to herself.

“You’re still here. Look mister, I’m not sure what game you’re playing but I’m not in to it. I’m giving you five minutes to leave.”

“I’m not leaving. Like I said...we’re joined at the hip,” he said, looking around for shoes and socks. When they didn’t become apparent he rolled his eyes. Go figure, he thought, giving his body a good stretch in his new clothes.

Kassandra knew she was staring. Who wouldn’t? Clad now in tight jeans that outlined the most gorgeous ass she had ever seen or dreamt about, he looked almost better now than he had naked. Her eyes kept getting distracted by everything. His tight abs, his long dark hair that fell gracefully past his shoulders, and those emerald eyes of his. They were sinful. Mysterious. And they screamed bad boy.