Page 27

“What?”

Athena, smiling widely yet, planted another wet kiss, this time right above her belly button, and asked again.

“On my porch, just then. Why didn’t you knock?”

Aphrodite flopped back onto the bed and closed her eyes in exasperation. Perhaps this was the punishment for almost breaking Athena’s heart.

“Darling, can an explanation about my irrational—as they turned out—fears that you wouldn’t want me, and my legitimate—as it has been confirmed—hope that you would forgive mewere warring inside me, wait till you just make me come already for crying out loud!”

“Oh, really?” How could one woman draw out two words into what surely was a whole paragraph that lasted way beyond Aphrodite’s ability to listen? So she reached out and closed her fingers around the gorgeously messy hair and pulled.

The surprised and no longer smirking mouth stopped an inch or so away from her own. It was Aphrodite’s turn to grin as she whispered, “That is so, but since you are inclined to play games, darling, allow me to show you one of mine and how well I can play it.”

And then she was running her fingers along the length of her own slit. Goddess, Athena had gotten her so ready, she could hear the almost obscene sounds of wet flesh parting under her touch. Athena could clearly hear it too, because her surprise turned into shock and then hunger, hot, and burning, as her eyes darted between Aphrodite’s face and her fingertips now dipping gently and circling her own opening. Somehow under that raw, fierce gaze, it was even better to touch herself, and so she moaned. It was the moan that undid Athena, who reverently glided her own palm along Aphrodite’s and then there were two fingers inside her, in perfect sync, aligned and doing marvelous things to her.

When Athena’s lips closed over hers, they lost themselves in each other. And it felt better. It felt as if they had made love for centuries, as if they had known each other forever and would love each other til the end of time. Lovers. Equals. Free to love and free to make their choices.

Granted, Aphrodite thought, those choices mostly consisted of mouth or fingers or toys for the next ten hours or so. Athena had fantastic taste in toys. Athena had fantastic taste in most things. And Athena tasted best of all. So they had a lot of options. But they were free, and they’d decide unencumbered byanyone’s opinions or power plays, unless it was Athena’s making Aphrodite come seven times in a row, simply to prove a point.

They were together and even if, by some cursed happenstance Fates might still throw their way, their happily-ever-after did not endure, it was certainly a happy-for-now. And a very very long ‘now’ at that. A centuries-long ‘now’ if Aphrodite had her say. A til-the-end-of-time one if they asked her. And ask her they better, since she was the Goddess of Love and it was finally her turn to get some of it too. All of it, actually.

EPILOGUE

WHERE THERE IS SOME SMALL MEASURE OF COMEUPPANCE (AND SABINE GODDARD WINS AGAIN. AT EVERYTHING)

On a massive yacht that resembled a spaceship rather than an actual boat, Sabine sipped a convoluted version of a mojito and squinted at the sun reflecting off the waters of the Mediterranean. In the distance, off the aft, she could catch occasional glimpses of her wife splashing in the waves. In a two-piece swimsuit. Aredtwo-piece swimsuit. Askimpyred two-piece swimsuit. Goddess, how lucky was she?

For all intents and purposes, this was indeed what winning at life was like. And it was good. In fact, it was so good the hulking, muscular shoulders and a long gray mane of hair that suddenly darkened her sight before settling in the recliner next to her, couldn’t spoil it.

“Zeus…”

“Goddard…”

They toasted with their respective drinks, Sabine smirking at his ridiculously colorful and frilly one.

A woman who could have been anywhere between twenty and twenty and a day, but absolutely not older than that, sauntered past and jumped into the sea right in front of them with exaggerated showiness. Zeus sighed. Sabine laughed before throwing a sarcastic question his way.

“Yes, yes, how hard is your life?”

He joined in her laughter but sobered up relatively quickly.

“Have to say it was a bit harder, with Hera practically living on whichever boat I chose to party at, just to nag at me to get her boy back into Aphrodite’s good graces.”

Sabine gave him a sideways glance, but he had already reclined in his chair and closed his eyes to the early morning sun.

“So you caused all that kerfuffle in Vegas half a year ago to what end? To get Hera off your back?”

“Like I’ve not done much more to appease that woman.” He scoffed and took a long sip of his concoction.

“True, and it turned out so well for you, too. Aphrodite is blissfully shacked up, maybe not with Ares, but that doesn’t really matter to you since one way or another Hera backed off, and is now probably trying to convince Hephaestus and Apollo to give her grandbabies. A win-win for you, for sure.”

He sighed, reached for the drink once more, then reconsidered and sat up, looking like what had happened was the farthest thing from a win.

“Listen, I can’t really take any high roads here. Aphrodite has plenty of grudges to hold against me. And I can’t even say I wasn’t playing with her at stake again?—“

“Because you absolutely were.” Sabine sat up too, looking at him now, refusing to back away. “She’d have either accepted your will as she always did and got on with that foolish God of War, or been spurred into action, pushed by her zealous cupids, and found love somewhere else, making her unavailable to the above-mentioned fool, thus solving your problem. Am I right? And to call what you have been doing to Love for ages ‘grudges’ is to minimize the sheer amount of crap you’ve put her through… I can’t even...”

They stared at each other for a few heartbeats before Zeus slapped her shoulder hard enough to send a lesser cupid tumbling.