Mortal Temptations (18 page)

Andreas had done this, but with him it had been tingling, experimental, daring fun. Nico meant business. He filled her and pinned her, his strength letting her know that he could do whatever he wanted, and she couldn’t stop him.

But he never hurt her. As hard as he drove, as firmly as he held her down, it was nothing but pure pleasure.

Afterward, he carried her to a bathroom like the one in their Cairo hotel and laid her in a huge fountain with warm water running from its spigots. He washed her and himself, then he made love to her against the tile.

He tied her to one of the spigots and made her promise him all kinds of sexual favors to secure her release. Then he made her do them. They used the fruit and wine that loaded the two candlelit tables, he feeding her or eating from her as he liked.

When she was exhausted from this play, he carried her to the balcony and let her rest, watching the wind in the trees and the moonlight on the lake there.

Nico laid himself on top of her to warm her. “I never want you to forget me.”

She gave him a sleepy smile. “How could I ever?”

“You could. But I don’t want you to, even if you hate me. I know I never will forget you.”

“Because of the curse?”

“Because of you.”

The emptiness in his eyes hurt her. She knew she could never reassure him, and she also knew she didn’t really understand the curse of the goddess. Both he and Andreas had decided that whatever Rebecca or Patricia did couldn’t help them.

“If you’re
my
slave,” she asked, “why can’t I order you around? You’ve been pretty masterful all night.”

An interested light entered his eyes. “What would you do?”

“Oh . . .” She let her imagination go and began to smile with where it went.

He took her hand and wrapped her finger around his gold chain. “What would you do?” he repeated. “Command me.”

Excitement shot through Patricia. What would she dare? But they were in a place of magic, a place that didn’t really exist, and maybe anything she did here wouldn’t be quite real. It was a fantasy, and Nico was letting her live it.

“All right,” she whispered, then pushed him away. “Get your butt back in that fountain.
Now.
”

Nico suppressed a smile as he rocked to his feet and sauntered back inside, his beautiful ass moving as he walked. Laughing at her, was he?

Patricia stalked after him, and when she entered the chamber, she found a whip in her hand. She snapped it.

It flew around and hit her own bare skin, stinging like crazy. Nico started for her, concerned, but Patricia waved him off, her face flaming.

She practiced with the whip until she mastered it better, and Nico watched, unable to hide his grin.

“You asked for it, buster,” she said.

She cracked the whip again, loving that she had her own beautiful, naked, willing slave at her beck and call.

“You’re not in the fountain,” she said. “Stand in it, against the wall.”

Nico stepped into the fountain tub, putting his back against the blue-and-green-tiled wall. Water trickled from vents in the top, coating his body with a sheen of it.

She wanted to stop and salivate, but she kept up her persona. “Hands above your head.”

Nico lazily raised his arms, crossing his wrists. She wondered what she could use to bind him, or bind him to, when manacles suddenly appeared around them.

“You do a convenient fantasy,” she said. “I want your wings, too.”

They peeled out from behind his back, splashing water droplets all over her. He fluttered them, then settled them along his body.

There he was, a winged god, sleek and wet, his arms stretched above him and crossed at the wrists. Every muscle gleamed with water, his body tight and dark.

“You are so beautiful,” she said.

He only smiled at her, his eyes sin-dark.

He was giving her an incredible gift. She’d known Nico long enough to know he hated giving up control, that his bond to the curse chafed him. He turned it around by assuming mastery over the one who enslaved him, pleasuring her so well that she surrendered to him.

And here he was, surrendering to her.

His cock was already hard and tight, taunting her to do her worst. She sashayed forward, aware that his hungry gaze roved every inch of her body.

Patricia had never considered herself a knockout—pleasant in a subdued way was as far as she’d go—but Nico looked at her like she was the sexiest, most delectable woman in the world. She felt her power as he looked at her. He wanted her, and she could play with that.

First she came close enough to almost touch him, body to body; then, when his gaze blazed with need, she stepped back a few inches. Something dangerous flickered in his eyes, and she laughed.

Next, she slid the leather of the whip behind him and wrapped it around his hips, further pinning him. His cock poked through a crisscross of the leather.

She tied it off and stepped back, surveying her creation. Delectable.

Patricia sensed Nico’s god powers rumbling through his body, and him keeping them in check. If she dared lower her psychic shields, his aura would no doubt throw her across the room.

He was calming himself for her, letting her enjoy her illusion that she controlled him.

Patricia eased herself to her knees in front of him. Leaning carefully so that she didn’t touch him, she blew on his stiff, smooth tip.

He moved slightly, a groan escaping his mouth. Patricia licked where she’d blown, rewarded by a louder groan and a shift of body.

“You’re killing me,” he said hoarsely.

“You’re a demigod,” Patricia said brightly. “You’ll get over it.”

He said something under his breath she didn’t understand, but she recognized swearing when she heard it. She felt a little glow of satisfaction.

Patricia got up and fetched the lube they’d used, then returned to smear it all over his cock. She rubbed it in, letting her fingers dance, sliding under his balls and playing with them.

He moved and groaned, straining against his bonds. She caught up a slim candlestick from one of the tables, sans candle, and slid it between his legs. He parted them, and she rubbed it over his thighs and balls and buttocks.

He was sweating, the water still trickling over him, his wings fluttering and flattening against the wall. He rocked his hips, helping her please him with the candlestick.

“I’m going to come,” he moaned. “Let me be in your mouth.”

“Not until I say.” She unwound the whip from him and cracked it in the air, pleased with her newfound skill.

“Please,” he begged.

“No.”

He glared at her, a divine being who didn’t want his wishes denied.

“When I’m ready,” Patricia said.

Nico growled, his wings slapping the wall. She knelt again and opened her mouth wide, taking his whole cock inside.

His groan rang through the room. She slid her lubed fingers between his buttocks and warmed his anal star before sliding one gently inside.

Her mouth never let up its play while she carefully caressed his ass. Beautiful Nico stood still and let her, even though he could at any time smash away the chains and take her to the floor.

She sucked him a little longer, then withdrew and looked up.

His hair was wet and plastered to his face, his eyes heavy, cheekbones flushed. His wings moved restlessly.

“Now,” she whispered. “Now you can come.”

She closed her mouth over him again, just as he cried his release and shot his seed over her lips.

She smiled up at him around his cock, her heart full.
I love you, Nico,
she wanted to say.

As though he heard the silent words, he roared. He ripped his hands apart, the manacles breaking and falling before they dissipated into mist.

He scooped Patricia from the floor and ran with her to the cushions of the bedroom. Still hard, he pushed into her, making love to her until her laughter turned to screams.

Then, when he’d come a second time, he held her against him, his heart thudding beneath his hot skin. The beautiful and strange room dissolved, and they were lying in the dusty tomb at Amarna, snug on their cot.

“Was it a dream?” she whispered as she slid into sleep.

“No,” he said.

REBECCA closeted herself with the inscription for the next five days straight. She slept down there, barely remembering to eat or drink.

It made Andreas crazy. He hovered over her, growling at her to take water or she’d dehydrate. Rebecca would drink, but absently, staring up at the hieroglyphs and jotting notes like crazy.

“She’ll kill herself,” Andreas said to Nico and Patricia where they liked to sit on the cliff side. Rebecca had told him pointedly to leave the tomb and stop interrupting her. Andreas hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, but her frazzled look told him he should give her some time to calm down. “She’ll kill herself for nothing,” he continued.

“She’s a trained archaeologist,” Patricia said. “She’s probably like this with all her finds. It excites her—like me with antiques.”

Andreas only growled back, “This is crazy.”

Of course Patricia would take Rebecca’s side, and Nico was so twisted around Patricia, he wouldn’t try to help. Andreas knew why he was crabby. He was worried about Rebecca, worried that the inscription meant nothing, worried he was about to lose her.

Also, Rebecca worked on the inscription until she fell asleep in exhaustion, and Andreas hadn’t had the chance to be with her. He snuggled down with her at night, but she was too far gone for sexual games, and he was too bound to her to return to Patricia for relief. He had to release himself before he boiled over.

Sometimes, when Nico and Patricia weren’t having sex, he’d go with them down to the ruins, and Patricia would tell them about the special kingdom that had been built there. Akhenaten had designed and built Amarna to give reverence to Aten, the god of the sun disc. He’d moved the capital here from Thebes, to the consternation of the powerful priests of Amun. Archaeologists still weren’t sure what to make of Akhenaten, and many conflicting theories abounded. He’d been married to the beautiful Nefertiti and possibly sired the famous Tutankhamun.

The ruins weren’t as romantic as the pyramids at Giza or the Temple of Karnak, far to the south, but Patricia seemed fascinated by the mosaics on the floor of Nefertiti’s palace.

During this time, they saw no one. No tourists, no farmers, no police. No one. Bes was protecting them well.

Andreas wasn’t quite as interested in the ruins as Patricia was, not caring much about how people worshiped long-ago gods. Most of the gods he’d known had been powerful, arrogant, obnoxious shits. Bes betrayed his lesser status by being nice. Gods of Andreas’s pantheon were only generous when they wanted something.

At night, after Rebecca fell asleep, Andreas would become too restless to stay put. He’d change to his leopard form and enjoy himself racing across the rocks, basking in the cool of the night. The stars were unobstructed by pollution here and stretched thick and white across the horizon. He longed to show Rebecca this beauty, but the damn woman wouldn’t come out of her tomb.

One night he returned from his nocturnal exploration and pulled on his pants, in case Bes, who turned out to be extremely modest, saw him. He wandered barefoot back down inside the tomb, annoyed that the lights were still on. Rebecca was still at work.

Andreas entered the lower room and stopped. Rebecca had fallen asleep over the inscription, her face childlike in slumber.

Andreas smiled, then went to her and smoothed back her hair. She made a soft sigh at his touch, then as her awareness returned, she jumped and woke.

Andreas knelt next to her, still stroking her hair. He kissed her cheek, trying to keep his impatience and raging lust in check. She smelled nice, warm and damp from sleep, her mussed hair exactly like it would be when she left his bed.

“Did you finish?”

Rebecca looked momentarily confused, then her face cleared. “I think so,” she said heavily. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. “All that work, and it doesn’t help you at all.”

Andreas gently pried the papers from her fingers. “Come to bed.”

“I want to check a few more things.”

“No, you don’t.”

Andreas swept her into his arms and carried her up to the antechamber where she and Patricia had their cots. Patricia was with Nico, he knew. Nico had taken her somewhere to be alone with her as he had done of late.

Rebecca, on the other hand, had kept on working. He carried her to her cot and laid her on it, wiping the tears from her eyes.

He knew in his heart that their mission was a failure. Whatever Bes was trying to do—infuriate Hera, or prove he was more powerful than other gods gave him credit for—he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He had known from the start that it was a long shot, and he’d kept going because he hadn’t wanted to give up the chance to be with Rebecca.

He stripped off her clothes without her either resisting or helping him, then he opened his jeans to show her how hard he was for her. Rebecca looked, her pheromones starting to stir.

She reached up and grasped his swollen cock, her light touch making him want to fuck her then and there. He resisted, letting her touch to her enjoyment.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be with Patricia?” she asked.

He’d wondered how much she’d known about the threesome. “That was just playtime, sweetheart. Now it’s all you.”

Her strokes on him grew bolder, and then she sat up and kissed the tip of his cock. “That’s it, baby. Do whatever you want with it.”

A hungry look entered her eyes. She studied his length, touching lightly as though learning him. She swiped him with her tongue a few times, and he held still and let her.

When she’d played a little longer, he eased her down to the bed.

“I want to suck on you some more,” she whispered.

He knew she did, and he craved it, too. He pulled his jeans and underwear off and got on his knees on the bed. He straddled her, then leaned forward so he could put his mouth on her pussy.

Lovely little blond curls met his tongue, and he flicked them until her legs opened for him. He breathed her scent, all female musk wanting him.

“Suck on me, Becky,” he said.

He felt her move his cock with her fingers, and then her sweet, hot mouth closed over it. She suckled softly, and he groaned.

He lowered to her quim again and licked it. He started to lap it, loving the taste of her.

She kept working on his cock, and he fit his mouth to her clit, sucking her at the same time she sucked him. Her hips shifted, excitement taking over.

He needed so much to fuck her. Her mouth was fantastic, but he wanted to dip into this pretty little pussy and feel it squeeze him hard.

He held back. Like Nico, he didn’t want to rush things and have them over too soon. He wanted to savor her, every minute of her, and then have an amazing climax with her before it was all over.

Andreas couldn’t imagine not having this pixie of a woman in his life anymore, but he knew it would happen. Sooner rather than later.

The despair made him growl. “Come on, baby, suck me.”

Rebecca doubled her efforts, her mouth and tongue doing wonderful things to him. In return, he kissed and licked and suckled her until her hips lifted from the bed, and she began to come.

Her sweet cream filled his mouth, hot and wet, and she writhed all over the place, her teeth closing around his cock. She sucked hard, too far gone in ecstasy to be gentle.

Andreas didn’t mind. He moved his hips, fucking her mouth, while he petted her pussy to bring her back down again. Soon he was coming, too, shouting his release as she pulled it into her throat.

Everything went black for a moment, his coming was so hard; then he found himself collapsed on the bed, with her smiling and snuggling up to him.

“Can we fuck?” she asked sleepily. “I mean, for real?”

He touched her face, her come still all over his lips. “An amazing climax isn’t good enough for you?”

“It was wonderful—better than wonderful, but . . .” She gave him a wistful smile. “I want you inside me. Then I’ll believe that you’re really mine.”

Andreas fingered the gold chain around his neck. “I am really yours.”

“I don’t mean that.” Tears filled her eyes. “I mean that you might like to be with me, not just responding to the whim of some goddess.”

Andreas tried to keep his heart cold, but pretty Rebecca was tearing a hole in it. “I do want to be with you, sweetheart. That’s why I want to save it.” He hesitated. “The inscription has nothing on it that will free us, does it?”

She looked mournful and shook her head.

“That’s all right, darling,” he said. He pulled her against him, resting his cheek on her hair. “I didn’t really think it would. So I’m going to savor you as long as I can, all right? And keep on savoring you, until the end is the best both of us will ever have.”

NICO cradled Patricia against him as they listened to the disappointing news. Bes had made them all coffee, looking proud that he’d mastered the art. It was thick, syrupy Egyptian coffee, but Patricia and Rebecca drank it without comment.

“It’s a story,” Rebecca said. “A homily, if you will. I don’t think anyone’s seen this wall except Bes until we got here, but I’m betting this story was known in other places, and the Greeks copied it onto what became our ostracon because it’s a moral tale. Egypt’s power had waned; even the tales of their gods were starting to be forgotten. Some of the names got changed or superimposed on Egyptian ones or hybridized to make entirely new god names, which is why it was hard to figure out.”

“Never mind the history lesson,” Andreas began. Nico shared his impatience, but Patricia stopped him.

“Leave her alone. She worked her ass off on this.”

Rebecca scrubbed her hand over her tired face, distracted instead of angry. “What I’m trying to explain is that the priests started to use Egyptian stories, but this story came from even more ancient times than Amarna—before there was much civilization in Greece at all, back when legend says the gods walked the earth without restriction. What this wall shows is the story of Nico and Andreas. Or Nikolaus and Andrei, as they were then.”

Patricia sat forward, while Nico tried to hide the bite of disappointment. Rebecca’s face was drawn, and he knew they’d reached a dead end.

“What does it say?” Patricia prompted.

Rebecca looked over what she had written. “It’s long and flowery, but to summarize, the sons of the gods, Nikolaus and Andrei, were wild and untamed. Nikolaus had wings of softest sable; Andrei took the form of a beautiful leopard, and together they pursued and seduced as they liked.

“One day they abducted a priestess of Hera. She fell in love with them and did whatever they wanted, then they abandoned her for their next conquest. The priestess, spurned and angry, prayed to Hera for vengeance. Hera devised a potion for her, which the priestess sprinkled on Andreas and Nico as they slept.

“When they awoke, they again pursued the next maiden they saw, but suddenly, instead of wishing only to fulfill their lust, they became her slaves and found chains around their necks. When the maiden was finished enjoying them, she banished them from her, and they had to leave with broken hearts. When they spied another maiden, they sought to regain their lustful ways, but the same thing happened. As it will to eternity.”

Rebecca sighed and pushed aside her scribbling. “The point of the story is that pursuing lust for its own sake will only return to punish the lustful, while true love will be rewarded with happiness. It uses the tale of Nico and Andreas, our Nico and Andreas, to drive the point home. That’s all.”

They were all silent for a moment. Far outside in the night, a bird cried, but except for that, all was quiet.

“That’s it?” Andreas asked.

“Afraid so,” Rebecca answered.

Andreas got abruptly to his feet and stalked to the entrance, looking sightlessly through the dark opening. Nico slid his hand into Patricia’s.

“It’s a story to teach the evils of lust,” Rebecca said glumly. “Nothing about how to free yourself from the curse. I’m sorry.”

Patricia was frowning, not in disappointment but in confusion. “If the inscription means nothing, why were the Dyons so adamant about us not finding it? They didn’t need to pursue us so hard if it doesn’t help us.”

Nico shrugged. “Hera is tricky. She could have sent them to keep us on the path, to drive us this way when the answer—if one exists—lay somewhere else. Or as Andreas suggested to me, it’s just another way to twist the knife.”

“Torturing us, you mean,” Andreas said without turning.

“Something like that.”

Rebecca stood up. “Well, I’d like to talk to her. Ask her right now what she hoped to obtain by keeping you trapped for centuries. Sure, I’d have been pissed, too, if you’d made love to me and dumped me, but I mean, keeping you trapped for eons is insane. I think you learned your lesson.”

Nico tried to keep his voice neutral. “Maybe the spell is the only thing that’s keeping us nice. Perhaps if the spell is broken, Andreas and I go back to what we were, learning nothing.”