Accidentally in Love With a God (2012) (11 page)

Unable to solidify, he could not enter the physical world nor could he create the sound waves necessary to reopen the portal. And while humans didn’t have the necessary physical make up to open the portal, Emma had enough of their light that she should’ve been able to open the portal and not end up trapped herself. After all, she wasn’t bound to the cenote to create her form.

Dammit!
He’d been so sure this would work. Perhaps his mind had rotted with cursed water.

Guy screamed and struggled violently under the water, unable to make her hear him. His hand passed through her leg as if he were merely a ghost. They were both in the pool, but in two different dimensions. Emma would die in this horrible place, and Guy would watch helplessly, the memory forever branded into his essence. He’d lose the only being in the world he felt truly connected to.

“Emma! Emma!” he screamed, pounding his fists on the underside of the water’s surface. He knew his efforts were useless, but he couldn’t stop trying.

“Emma, if you can hear me, I am sorry, sweetheart. I never meant for this to happen.” He floated at her side, hoping by some miracle of the gods something would change, that she’d somehow sense him.
Useless.

He watched with intensity while Emma removed her shoes and chucked them at the cat he’d summoned to herd her into the water.

The cat, a lovely female jaguar, had been his only other companion these last years. Birds, toucans especially, and monkeys came to visit every so often, but were more interested in viewing him like an exhibit at the zoo. But the cat, who could hear his words like all other animals, loved to talk about philosophy and the art of the hunt. She was quite entertaining. Luckily, she’d agreed to take part in his back-up plan without eating Emma. Votan knew there was a solid chance Emma’s nerves would get the best of her and would, therefore, need coaxing to take the plunge. He’d been right about that, but not about anything else, and he hated himself for it.

He closed his eyes to send the animal away, but before he gave the instruction, Emma threw something else, and the cat yelped.

Suddenly, the water began to swirl into a liquid tornado, pulling him up. He flailed his arms and kicked with every ounce of anger and frustration stored in his human-like body.

Breaking free from the water’s grip, a scream of joy escaped his lips. Years of being unable to touch the air were suddenly over. His chest heaved. His lungs expanded. His skin tingled to life.

He gazed up to the sky and soaked in the now un-muted colors of the trees.
Green. So much lush, delightful, vivid green!

“You did it!” He frantically twisted his body, treading water. “Emma? Dammit, woman. Where the hell are you?” She certainly hadn’t left the cenote; the walls were too slick. But she was no longer bobbing along the surface. Where could she be?

Then the realization struck him. He glanced down into the dark water and cringed. “Son of a bitch!”

Despite the seventy years of constant pain from being imprisoned underwater, he sucked in a lung full of air and dove into the watery abyss. His fingers stretched and clawed, plowing through darkness. All light faded from view as he ran one hand along the jagged wall of the pool as a guide.

Hair.
Guy felt something fibrous and stringy.

He took hold of the tangled mass until he managed to get a solid grip on her waist. Guy battled his way through the water, kicking hard to reach the light above. As his head broke through the surface a second time, Guy took his first glimpse of Emma. His heart nearly stopped. She was exactly as he’d imagined. Every lash. Every freckle. Even the tiny dip in the curve of her ear. She was…a goddess.

There will be time for admiring her later,
he scolded himself.

He took hold of her wrist, and then gave a powerful kick, managing to catch the ledge of the pool with his fingertips. She felt like a heavy rag doll, completely lifeless. He gently slid her up over the edge and laid her down in the dirt. Her face, though cold and blue, was exquisite. He pressed his lips to hers (and tried not to think of how he wanted to kill the men who’d looked at them when he could not) then gave her a breath, then another. Her body still had life pulsing inside, but it was fading fast.

“Don’t go, Emma. Stay here!” he commanded, prying open her eyes with his fingers. “You can’t leave. Do you hear me, woman!”

He breathed into her again before turning her to the side. Using his two hands like a vice, he pushed the water from her lungs and then gave her one more breath before she coughed violently. She cracked opened her eyes.

Dark green—so lovely.

She stared directly into his eyes, and something inside him ignited, froze, stopped and started, all at once. He simultaneously felt rage for having been deprived of the vision of her his entire existence and gratitude for finally having her in his arms. It was all wrong. It was so right. This was not good.

Was Emma the woman from Cimil’s vision? Because she most certainly was the one from his, and he could easily see how such a beautiful, smart, feisty woman could “emasculate” him, as Cimil had put it.

Gods dammit. Yes, yes, throw in pining and groveling, too. I may never be able to let her go, now,
he thought.
Then, she will truly hate me.

Her long wet strands of copper curls clung to her face. He cleared them away and gathered her fragile body in his arms. She smiled peacefully, and the most luscious wave of joy washed over him at his realization. They’d done it. She would live, and he was free.

“I’m back,” he growled to the sky. “And there will be hell to pay for not coming to my aid. Do you hear me? Hell to pay!”

Chapter THIRTEEN

With his golden face beaming, the man smiled as he stroked my sopping wet hair and cradled me against his warm, smooth chest. “I love this dream,” I said with a breathy voice, then stretched my arms above my head, gazing happily into the most striking set of luminescent, turquoise green eyes I’d ever seen.

To boot, they belonged to a breathtaking, masculine face, a face one would expect to see on the cover of a magazine named something like,
I’m Way Too Hot To Be Your Man,
or
In Your Dreams, Honey.

Oh, yeah. Without a doubt, I’d topped myself this time. Sculpted cheekbones, thick dark lashes, chiseled jaw, and lips so full they simply had to be meant for kissing or eating something really juicy. He was way hotter than the specimen of perfection from my last dream, and bonus, he didn’t have that scary vibe. I reached up and ran my fingertip along the ridge of his hard-lined warrior nose.

“Emma,
what
in the name of the gods’ creation are you doing?” he scorned. “We really don’t have time for your immature little fantasies. We’re in the middle of a crisis. Do you not remember?”

I blinked and slowly moved my eyes from side to side.

Jungle? I was in the jungle. And my clothes were wet. Come to think of it, for a dream, I didn’t feel so hot. My lungs burned, my body felt like it’d been chewed up, and my head was throbbing. So, aside from the perfect man with long, damp, wavy black hair holding me in his arms, none of this felt like a dream. It felt…

“Holy Mother!” I pushed myself away and rolled into the dirt, pointing in disbelief. “Wha—you—you—?”

“Ah...so eloquent as always, my sweet. It is astounding; you actually have a college degree, yet cannot find better words.” He pushed himself up off the ground.

As he rose, my heart stopped, started, then went into overdrive. His legs and spine straightened into a towering mass of unforgiving muscles. With shoulders like a lumberjack and thick, powerful thighs, I didn’t know if I wanted to run away or climb him like a tree. He was utterly enormous. Jolly Green Giant enormous. Except, obviously, not green. More golden brown. He was a gorgeous, towering mass of golden brown perfection.

No. Definitely not a cave-dwelling, wart-infested troll. Great. Just great.
Now I knew I wasn’t crazy—Guy was definitely real—but now I also knew I was way over my head. He was gorgeous.

I stood in awe, my mouth gaping as my eyes attempted to register every rope of muscle, every capacious curve packed with power. Christ, he had to be at least seven feet tall.

“Six nine, actually,” he said, guessing my thoughts.

“This can’t be possible,” I whispered, my eyes continuing to dart up and down the length of his body, stopping right on dark trail of hair that started just below his navel and continued down, down, down to his enormous beast of a—“Oh! You’re naked.” I turned sharply, but only to stop myself from reaching out to touch it. No man could be that…that…endowed. Wow. “This can’t be happening.” I covered my face.

“Emma,” he moved behind me, placing his powerful hands on my shoulders. A jolt shivered its way through my body.

I was wrong about the vibe. Way wrong. This man, or whatever he was, radiated hazard. He should come equipped with a set of blinking lights or flares. He was…“Bad. Very, very, bad,” I mumbled, pinching the bridge of my nose.

And pathetically, after everything that had happened, all I could think about was this naked, hard-bodied, glorious “man” who’d just permanently seared his image inside the storage compartments of my female DNA. All men, from this day forward, would have to survive a mental side-by-side comparison against him. They’d all lose.

Then a part of my brain, which was now marinating in a pool of whatever hormonal overload he’d triggered, was trying to tell me something important. It wasn’t ready to capitulate and hand over the keys to the Emma-kingdom.

Ah... there it is.
“Don’t touch me!” I swiveled sharply, pushing his hands from my body, pointing one angry finger in his face. “I asked you for
one
simple thing! One!”

The corners of his delicious lips curled as he arrogantly flipped his dark, wet hair over his bronzed shoulder. “Exactly. You asked.” He took one bold step forward, well within my personal-space bubble. Clearly, he was trying to intimidate me with his endless ripples and naked body. How sad. It was totally working, which made me even madder.

He bent down to meet my glare, his nose inches from mine. “But I didn’t agree. Did I? In fact, my exact words were, ‘I. Will. Not. Promise.’ Sharp emphasis given on the
not
, little girl.”

He so had this coming. I lifted my knee, thrusting squarely in his groin. The almost-seven-foot brawny male fell to his knees cupping himself.

“I am not a little girl. Emphasis on the
not.
And you lied to me! You’re eyes
are
turquoise.” With the darkening sky, I couldn’t see the exact color, but I saw they were in that ballpark. They were also beacons of heaven I wanted to lose myself in. The bastard.

Then I had an extremely poignant moment of lucidity. What was I thinking? This man, only he wasn’t a man, could snap me like a twig with his pinkies. He looked like a walking, talking, killing machine, designed to tear me limb to limb…

Right after he makes hot, steamy love—bad hormones. Stop that,
I scolded myself.

I hated him. He was the embodiment of male pig. And best not forget that someone out there thought he was dangerous enough to imprison him in an ancient Mayan pool, and I had just freed him. Sure, he’d said they were “bad”, but that could have been a lie.

Understanding what an idiot I was, I did the only thing I could think of.

I ran.

***

The darkness had swallowed the jungle whole, leaving me scrambling over vine-covered branches, rocks, and anything else my bare feet could stub a toe on. I really missed my shoes. Damned kitty. I wasn’t going to get far, but what other option was there? Guy was…he was…there were no words for him. But now I knew why he wanted me to see him first. Bastard likely thought he could switch from using his guilt trips and voice on me to simply flexing his biceps or swinging his gargantuan penis in my face.

Why the hell had I set him free in the first place? Oh, yeah. Because he said he might be able to find out what happened to my grandmother, and he was slowly driving me insane. And, I’ll admit, a tiny part of me wanted to know who or what he really was. Was he a demon? The ghost of gladiator past? I still had no clue.

For certain, he was more beautiful than any living creature should be, which was sufficiently dangerous on its own. Making matters infinitely more perilous, something about him overrode every rational thought in my mind while igniting every female impulse my body was capable of. He was concentrated with an abundance of raw male power, and his body turned me into a dim-witted moth, hell-bent on getting warm and cozy in that nice bright flame.

I don’t know how I found the power to pull away from him, from the need to wrap my legs around his waist, but I was glad I had. He wasn’t good for me when he was just an alluring voice in my head, and he wasn’t good for me now.