Chapter Fourteen
God

I knew from the very start that this time staying with Eros was going to be extremely different.  There was no longer going to be that wall between us, with Eros acting like he was keeping something from me.  He was, although now that I know what that something was, I could forgive him for it.  Hiding the fact that he was a god seemed important enough, considering the fact that we did live in a day and age where someone claiming to be a Greek god could be tossed into a mental institution.  I would still be thinking Aphrodite was nutters if she hadn’t gone out of her way to prove she was telling the truth.  She seemed to be the sort to be extra dramatic, anyway, getting annoyed at me because I didn’t believe her.  Meanwhile, her own son seemed to understand how the real world worked now, and from what I could tell, he actually didn’t get out as much as some of the other gods.  Zephyrus had made a comment in the plane that a lot of the gods, like himself, had take on mortal personas, but Eros had never bothered.  But considering the fact that he could make himself invisible, there really wasn’t any need when he could walk around crowds undetected.

But it was nice to be in the know now.  All those secret little smirks Zephyrus was giving me made just as much sense as everything else, since he was laughing on the inside.  He had also told me that when Eros had sent him out to get me, all he said to do was stand in the airport holding a sign with my name, and he had thought it was a giant joke.  Like I was just supposed to know he was looking for me, despite the fact that Psyche wasn’t my name.  Except it was, and he was laughing at the fact that Psyche had been reincarnated into another girl named Psyche.  I was just glad that he wasn’t really laughing at me, but rather some obscure inside joke.

But it was extremely weird to think that I was a reincarnation of someone.  It did explain the dreams I was having – my subconscious drifting into the ancient memories of my soul.  But it was still a weird concept to turn over in my head.  I knew people often wondered if they were reincarnated, and to have it confirmed that you were was certainly an experience.  I kept wondering if Eros was either comparing me to his wife, or if he was looking for some traits that she had that I didn’t.  After all, with my soul’s memory wiped, she and I could be two totally different people.  And judging from the way she hurt Eros multiple times, I knew we were different people.  I would never ever consider hurting Eros, even after knowing him for such a short time.

I mean, if I were in her position, I wouldn’t bottle everything up, I was pretty sure.  But then again, I was used to explaining to people who miserable my sisters made my life, so explaining how miserable in my life I was probably wasn’t as much of a stretch for me.  The original Psyche, on the other hand, while she did have terrible sisters, probably didn’t have as much of an outlet to complain to, considering the fact that what they did was normal in their society.  People probably told her to suck it up or something, and she learned to do just that.  But still, I would have at least told Eros about my decision before going through with it.  It was just fair.

But I suppose I shouldn’t dwell on that too much.  What was done had been done, and there was nothing I could really do about it.  I’m sure some god or another had time traveling abilities, but that wouldn’t do me any good.  Nor would comparing myself to a girl who lived and died millennia before I was even born.  Things were different now – people were different now, and I was never going to be anything like my processor.  And I think I could see that Eros realized that, since the only mention of his wife he made was when he was describing what happened to her.

So I made a mental note to myself that the subject of his wife was off limits, and to enjoy my time with him without depressing him further.  After all, all I really wanted to know was if I was the other woman or not, and having conformation that I wasn’t was definitely a load off my shoulders.  I could proceed with this without any worries, at least in terms of my own moral code.  Obviously, I still had to worry about Aphrodite and what the hell she was going to do to me now that I defied her, but I had a feeling I was safe so long as I was with Eros, and under Persephone’s protection.

Although I wasn’t too sure what Persephone could do the protect me.  I’m sure there’re rules about messing with some other god’s object of revenge.  But I felt I could trust her enough to make an effort, and that’s all that really mattered to me.  And it was just so strange to understand why I trusted her even though I only just met her, but then again, she was a goddess, and I always had that strange ability to just know how a person was.  It was yet more proof that I was, in fact, the reincarnation of Psyche.  Her name meant mind, after all, and her realm of influence was the soul, which apparently manifested in my ability to be able to read people like a book after just meeting them one time.

Still, it was hard not to accidentally bring her up, because I was bursting with a million questions now.  But it was also easy in one regard, because most of my questions were for Psyche, not Eros.  Considering the fact that he didn’t know about how she felt about being immortal, I had a feeling there was actually a lot that he didn’t know about Psyche in general.  My main question, of course, was how she could have done that to Eros.  She supposedly loved him enough to go through all these tests Aphrodite put her through without complaint.  She really could have just walked away from all that, and I doubt anyone would blame her.

Then again, the myth states that she was pregnant at the time, so maybe that had something to do with it.  It wasn’t until recently that having a child without a husband was considered socially acceptable, and even then, people gripe about it as though it was the most horrible thing a woman could do.  So if she had decided to just give it all up rather than put up with all that hardship, than not only would she have to deal with having a child out of wedlock, but also having the child of a god.  It was really no wonder she chose the easy route for her.

It was so strange to know that person I wanted to ask these questions to was locked inside myself, her memories of her past lives long forgotten.  I couldn’t ask her my millions of questions – was her sisters as bad as mine? – not unless I figured out some way to unlock all those memories.  It was frustrating, really, although being around Eros helped eased those frustrations a little.  How could I be angry at anything when I was around him?

We were mostly just happy to see each other, though, so for the most part, we just talked about nothing.  I loved the way it was so easy to talk to him, our stem of conversation never really ending.  “This is just so weird,” I admitted at one point when we were sort of lounging in the library, although I wasn’t sure how the hell we ended up there.  “I mean, you pretty much know everything about me and my life.  And yet, I know nothing about you.  But to hear you laugh and go ‘Ha, I remember that’,” I pitched my voice down lower to a bad imitation of him, causing him to laugh, “it’s just weird.”

“It’s not like there’s much to my life.  I’ve dedicated it to finding you for the most part.”

“Yeah, but come on, you’re millennia old, right?  So much has happened in your life that I doubt I’ll ever learn about it all, but here you are, already knowing all about me?  It hardly seems fair.”

“Well, you also have to consider the fact that you are only eighteen, Psyche.  That’s pretty much a blink of the eye to me, so there’s not all that much to know about you.”

I pouted at him.  “I’m plenty old,” I said.  “I’m considered an adult in most cultures.  An old maid in some.”

He chuckled.  “Oh believe me, I know.  Just be glad you don’t remember your time living as a medieval peasant, where they were marrying you off at eleven.  It was disgusting, really, what they made young woman do, acting like they weren’t useful for anything but having children and keeping the house.”

“Wasn’t that all your wife was good for?” I teased slightly.

“If you seriously think that any goddess around here would be happy to be only good for child rearing and housekeeping, then you’re in a for a world of hurt, I’m afraid.  The only two who’d be pleased to hear you say that are Hestia and Hera, and I’d still tread softly around Hera.  She tends to like to curse pretty young ladies for pretty much no reason at all.”

“I thought she only cursed those who Zeus, you know, hung around with.”

He shrugged.  “Pretty much the same thing,” he told me.  “I know he’s the king of gods and all, but the guy has really got to learn to keep it in his pants.  It was okay back then, I suppose, but now?  Yeah, not so much.”

“I didn’t even think it was okay back then, was it?” I asked surprised.

“Eh, sort of.  It was complicated back then.  See, the man was never at fault.  It was always the woman’s fault, even if she fought him off.  It was always the ‘well, she was too beautiful for me to stop myself!’ excuse.  Bah, I say!  I’ve seen plenty of beautiful women in my travels, mostly because of my job, and I was only once so overcome by her beauty that I had to have her.  And I married her.”

“So you’re saying you’ve seen a lot of beautiful woman?” I asked, annoyed for some reason.

He glanced down at me, a laugh in his lips.  “Seriously, you can’t be jealous, can you?  I can still judge beauty even if I happen to have my soul mate sitting right next to me.”  He snaked his arm around me and dragged me closer, and I felt my face heat up at the close contact.  “There are varying degrees of beauty, you know.  You have your outwardly beautiful people, who take pride in their appearance but are really terrible people.  And you have your inwardly beautiful people, who aren’t really much to look at, but are the best sort of people you know.  And then you have the combination people, who might be a little homely at times, but never take themselves too seriously.  Those are the best kinds of beautiful.”

“So you’re saying you have to look good to be a good kind of beautiful?”

He looked a little trapped.  “Nah, that second category is mostly reserved for the people who aren’t you, but are still a kind heart.  To someone else, they’re the third category as well.  I suppose the second category would be the eye of the beholder category.”

“Nice save.”

“I thought so.”

“So I’m guessing I’m the third category?  I mean, I’m not my sisters, but I never had anyone call me ugly before.”

“It would be hard to, considering that you’re pretty much cursed with Psyche’s curse.”  I raised an eyebrow at him.  “Well, it’s sort of a curse.  But every time you’re reincarnated, your body ends up becoming so beautiful that people tend to compare you to my mother, which annoys her to no end, let me tell you.  But since Psyche started reincarnated after our power fell, she never took too much stock into it, because she figured no one knew what they were talking about anymore.  Its only when I involve myself that she intervenes.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” I said dryly.  “I always thought that she was a benevolent goddess, so to see her so pissed at me…well, it was something.”

“I think you made her even more angry with your acceptance,” he laughed.  “I think she wanted to really freak you out there, such that you wouldn’t want to see me thanks to coming from a crazy family.  But we can all see how well that worked out.”

“Well, once I got over the whole idea that, you know, gods existed and all, it just seemed so obvious that I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before.  Besides, I did have to know why you chose me, and what happened to Psyche.  Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he said, holding up his hand to stop me.  “I’m not that offended by the subject or the question.  It was something you were going to ask at some point anyway after finding out about me.  After all, it’s my most famous story, you know.”  He winked at me.

I winced.  “Well, it might be an awkward subject, though, you know?  You can’t really hide your emotions from me, you know.”

He grinned again, even though he admitted himself that my second sense of people was something he hadn’t seen in any of the other reincarnations, so he wondered if that’s what made me more trusting of him.  “Well, we can certainly change the subject.  What would you like to talk about?”

I thought about it for a moment, since there were still a million things I wanted to know.  “I feel a little sorry for Zephyr,” I found myself saying for a lack of direction.

“Zephyrus?  Why on Earth would you feel sorry for him?  Aside from the fact that, you know, he’s him.”

“Ah, Zephyr’s not all that bad.  But I mean, that whole thing with Iris and being kicked out and all.  I don’t know; I have to wonder why she did it, since he doesn’t seem like a half bad guy to me.”

“He mentioned Hyacinth, right?  You know that myth?”

“Er, yeah,” I said, blushing a little at the memory.  “And he said that she thinks he’s still sore about it.”

“That’s what Iris thought, but that’s because she never bothered to actually ask him about it.  He did get over it fairly quickly, as gods tended to do.  The problem was that Apollo didn’t, and I have a feeling Zephyrus would have done the same thing if Hyacinth had chosen him over Apollo.  He claims that he never meant to kill Hyacinth – he was actually aiming for Apollo, but the fact that Zephyrus did strike down and kill his lover never sat well with Apollo.  So he cursed Zephyrus in retaliation, so he can’t forget about it.”

“Cursed?” I asked, intrigued.

“He actually got lucky, all things considered.  He wasn’t cursed into the form of something or anything like that.  His curse is mild compared to what it could have been.  But Apollo’s got him chasing a discus whenever one is thrown in his presence, no matter what he’s doing.  The exception is when he’s actually playing a game with it, because Apollo didn’t want him ruining the game by constantly chasing after it.”

“So when you threw the Frisbee and he went after it randomly – it was because of the curse?”

“It’s useful at times, like when he’s annoying me and I just want him out of my hair for a moment or two.  The guy says I complain too much.”  He rolled his eyes.  “And then Apollo likes to exploit it like you wouldn’t believe.  The guy’s a little sadistic, in my opinion.”

“Apollo?  He doesn’t strike me as the sort.”

“We don’t strike anyone as the sort of people we are.  I mean, I’m the god of love.  Do you really think when people picture me, they picture me like this?”  He gestured at himself.

“A little,” I said, since Eros was supposed to be hot.

He gave me a sarcastic look.  “I mean someone living completely alone and in fear of his mother’s wrath?  Not to mention doing everything she asks him to without fail?  I highly doubt it, Psyche.  That’d be considered a loser by most standards.”

“Ah, who cares what anyone else thinks?” I said, waving him off.  “You got your looks; you could totally run with that, and be perfectly fine.”

He laughed.  “I wish it were that easy, Psyche, trust me.  But you act like you know from experience.”

“As long as you don’t let them know that you’re a loser Momma’s Boy, they’d be all over you.  Of course, hiding anything will completely blow up in your face, but at least you can enjoy it while it lasts.”

He laughed delighted.  It was kind of strange how he could go from somewhat depressed to happy – genuinely happy – like someone was flipping a switch on and off.  I suppose it was just a trait he picked up over the millennia, not to allow anything to really get to him, because it certainly wasn’t worth the effort.  I tried with uphold the same philosophy, although it was extremely difficult when my sisters were constantly trying to make my life a hell.  But still, I always figured I could have taken the whole situation the wrong way, and turned out to be someone who complained to them about what they were doing, which I knew would make things a million times worse.  It was one thing to complain about them to someone who understood, and it was another to be a crybaby about the situation.

“I am curious about these statues,” I said once we managed to get out of the library and started roaming the grounds again.  I was studying one of the ones with the arrows through its head again, although I realized that the arrows didn’t actually look like I had remembered them.  They seemed to have morphed into arrows with a white shaft, pink feathers, and a pink heart instead of an arrow head.  It was sort of funny to think of Eros shooting anyone with such a girly arrow, but considering these were love arrows, it made sense.

“Oh?  I thought I explained them.”

“Oh, no, I get why you’re pissed at them,” I said, glancing back at him.  “I mean, once I figured out who you really were, it didn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to pick up on that.  No, I mean, why are they even here?  Why don’t you just remove them?  You’re a god, after all.”

“And that’s exactly the problem.  You really think, given the choice, I’d let these onto my property?  Whenever a statue is created in honor of a god, it just…appears around his or her mansion.  Well, sort of.  A representation appears.  And we can’t get rid of them for that reason.  And it annoys me because do you really think I want a bunch of babies in my gardens?  It’s a little questionable if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but everyone knows what they are.  They’re not going to think you’re interested in them because their babies.  The little wings and the bow and arrows sort of give them away.”

He grumbled something.  “Whenever I see a new one, I just feel compelled to ruin it,” he said, glancing at me.  “It’s great stress relief.”

“I’m sure you’re pretty much the only god who would actually desecrate a statue erected in his honor.  Most, as far as I can tell, are rather egotistical about things like that.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said, smiling.  “Even Zephyrus can get a little possessive of his statues.  But I guess it makes sense.  I mean, I guess I would hate it if someone came through and smashed all the statues actually representing myself.  I tend to keep care of those.”  He gestured to the few statues that depicted him as an adult.  “But I always explained that away as being the few that actually represented me.”

“I’d understand that much/  I’m just saying it’s sort of funny that a god would willing destroy a likeness of himself, that’s all, even if the likeness is, well, a little on the erring side.”

“A little?  Even as a baby, I didn’t look like that!  I didn’t actually start learning to use the bow until I was, like, five or something, and that was at the insistence of my father.  At the time, they all thought I’d inherit his powers, not Mama’s, since I was a boy and all. And you know, boys dealt with wars, girls dealt with love.   Or some such nonsense.  My father’s a bit…wrong in the head.”

“Wait, your father is Ares?”

“Unfortunately.  Something about the union of love and war, or feminine and masculine, or some other such nonsense.  I don’t pay attention to it.  Not all guys are complete meatheads about fighting like my father is.  But that’s the main reason he pretty much disowned me when my powers manifested themselves.”

“That’s terrible,” I said, trying to imagine having a horrible relationship with your father.  I mean, sure, his father was Ares, who wasn’t exactly the fatherly sort, but considering the fact that Papa built a multi-billion dollar electronics company from the ground up, and still had time for whatever nonsense I was sprouting up, it still seemed rather sad.  But I guess my own father was a poor comparison, considering the fact that he was completely unlike any other father clawing his way to the top.  Most ignored their children, from what I understood.

He shrugged.  “I try not to dwell on it.  I mean, it could be worse – I could have both parents acting like my mother and getting all into my business for no real reason other than she can.  I never understood it – why was it such a terrible thing for me to marry Psyche while, meanwhile, she’s having affairs left and right and marrying the one disfigured god.”

“Well, didn’t it have something to do with Psyche being compared to Aphrodite?  I mean, isn’t that why you found her in the first place, because she set you as her errand boy to make her fall for some homely nobody?”

“Ah, Mama’s vanity,” he said, glancing to the forests in mock remembrance.  “She actually tended to do that a lot, although it’s never actually mentioned.  Mortals liked to compare themselves to the gods, especially when someone was remarkable about something.  Most took it as a compliment, but of course my mother would take it as an insult.  ‘No one can be more beautiful than me!’  I’m like, you’re a goddess, Mama, it’d be hard to do.  But whatever; I just did what she asked because that is what I did, at least until I met Psyche and saw what effects her jealously really had.”

“Did you actually fall for Psyche, or was it the arrow?  I always hear that you fell for her because she startled you, and you accidentally nicked yourself instead.”

“I did nick myself, but my arrows don’t have any effect on me,” he explained.  “I’m the only person that don’t, because I weld them.  I have no idea how the hell that ended up in the myth, since it didn’t really have any impact on the outcome.”

“I always used to laugh at that part, because it was just like…he stabbed himself with one of his arrows?  How ironic is that?”

He chuckled slightly.  “Well, I suppose it was left in for a good laugh, or else to make the mortals feel better about being hit by one of my arrows.  ‘See, even Eros fell in love because of one of his arrows’ or some such nonsense.  I don’t take too much stock in any of it, anyway.  They got the basics down, and that’s all that really matters to me.”

“Still, it’s to be rather embarrassing.”

He chuckled.  “Just a little.”

It got to the point where the sun started to set, which reminded me that I hadn’t really eaten anything since breakfast, save for the sandwich Eros had forced me to make.  I got forgotten about lunch in my haste to get ready, and then forgot about it in my excitement about seeing Eros again.  Eros didn’t say anything, but he gradually gravitated back towards the house and to the kitchen.  He no longer really needed to impress me, I think he realized, since he didn’t make a show of setting us up in the dining room and have food magically appear.  Instead, he just sort of rummaged through the pantries and the fridge until he manage to gather something that looked like a meal.

“My sisters would be appalled at this,” I grinned when he dumped the food on the counter, looking proud of himself.  “There’s no fancy plates, fancy dinnerware, or servants to wait on them.”

“Well, I figured this would be a little more suited to your tastes.  Plus, I wasn’t exactly prepared to entertain guests this evening, unfortunately.”

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t just make that food appear,” I accused, putting a hand on my hip.  “I mean, I think Zephyr is great and all, but even as a god, he isn’t that superhuman to do everything around here for you.  He told me all he did that entire week I was here was chill out in his room and wait for me to storm out of the house, demanding to be brought home.  Don’t lie to me, Eros.”

“I’m not lying,” he insisted.  “It takes a certain amount of magic to do that, and I have to be prepared in advance to perform it.  You showing up out of the blue like that caught me off guard.  A lot of what made your last visit so special is sort of not in place right now.”

I raised my eyebrows at him.  “You do realize that I wanted to come back to see you, not your damn house, right?”

“That’s not what you told your parents,” he teased slightly.  ‘I only like him for the village.’

“Shut up, and maybe you should stop spying on me so much.  And maybe it’s your own damn fault for hooking me up with Felipe.  The guy is creepy, and I’m sure you know it.   Ugh, I can’t believe I have to pretend I like the guy!”

He was outright laughing at me now.  “It was the easiest excuse I could come up with, Psyche.  I didn’t need your father freaking out and ruining his own vacation worrying about you when you were perfectly safe.  It was the only other option that made sense, and you saw how well they accepted it.”

“Yeah,” I said, nibbling on some chips he had set out.  “But now Mom thinks I’m secretly in love with him, or something.  It’s disgusting, is what it is, Eros.”

“Ah, well, I’ll suppose one day you’ll have to introduce me and we can clear this whole thing up.  You know, when enough time has passed for us to tell your father the truth and not have him hunt me down and murdered brutally.  I might not be able to die through mortal means, but that doesn’t mean that the whole process isn’t uncomfortable.  I’d rather not experience it.”

“Well, then, you’ll have to wait a while, I think,” I pointed out.  “I mean, I’m my father’s koritsáki.  You could tell him fifty years from now, and he’d still want to hunt you down and murder you for inadvertently kidnapping me.  Time would make no difference.”

“Ah, yeah, I suppose you have a point.  I suppose I can just tell him and get it over with quickly, so I don’t have to live in fear my entire like.  Or at least his entire life.  And from what the Moirai tell me, your father’s got a pretty long thread of life.”

“And how would you know that?” I asked, surprised.

He looked a little sheepish.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I get bored sometimes while I’m waiting until I can reveal myself to you, and I happened to be visiting them, and decided to ask about your family.  I could tell you how long they live, if you want.”

“Pass.  There are some things mortals just weren’t meant to know,” I sighed. It was tempting, but it might depress me.  “But speaking of letting Papa know about you, I was wondering.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve been spying on me long enough to know about Maddie.”

“Madeline Douglas?  I know you’ve told her about me, in a sense.  Why, are you hoping that I’d let you tell her everything?  You know, I didn’t even let my wife Psyche tell her family about me, and she hadn’t even seen me yet.”

“Yeah, I know,” I muttered, “I just figured, you know, that I’d ask.”

He shrugged.  “I don’t see why not,” he said, surprising me.  “I mean, provided she believes you.  I do know Maddie pretty well, actually, and if you feel like you can trust her with the true, that I can as well.  Besides, I feel like if I tamper with that sort of sisterly best friend that it’ll just end in disaster for me somehow.”

“Really?  I can tell her?”

“You can tell anyone you believe can handle it,” he amended.  “It’s sort of hard not to trust your judgment knowing as much as I do about you.  You’re never wrong about anyone, Psyche.  So if you think a person’s trustworthy enough not to tell anyone else about it, then I’ll think that as well.”

“This is, like, going completely opposite of what I expected, I have to admit.  I mean, you revealing yourself, you letting me go without a fight, you allowing me to tell anyone I feel I can trust.  So not like what happened to the other Psyche.”

He grinned.  “I learned my lesson with her,” he reminded me.  “Like I said, a lot of what happened to her probably could have been prevented if I had just manned up and showed her what I was rather than allowing her to guess.  She would have understood the situation better, I think.”

“I know I certainly do,” I told him.

We stayed up a little later than I was used to, distracting out conversations with the little bit of homework that I had to do in order to just get it done and over with.  It wouldn’t do to start spending my weekends on Mount Olympus and have my grades start declining.  Then Mom and Papa would never let me come back.

After all that was revealed, I do have to admit that I was a little surprised when Eros sent me to bed by myself.  I suppose it was to be expected, but I found myself a little disappointed at the fact.  Which surprised me, considering the fact that I never had those types of thoughts before.  But it just seemed natural that we’d at least share the same bed, and I was berating myself about it once I was alone.  I had known him for a week.  Why would I be thinking about sleeping with him, even in the literal definition of the term?

Still, I found myself unable to fall asleep right away, which wasn’t all that unusual for me.  Most night, I couldn’t shut my brain off right away, but that night seemed especially horrible.  After about two hours of tossing and turning, at least according to my watch, I gave up trying and decided to see if Eros happened to still be up.  After all, he was a god, and it wasn’t like he really needed all that much sleep.

Unfortunately, I was proved wrong when I crept into his bedroom, which was behind the large elaborate doors at the end of my hallway.  I wasn’t that surprised that he had placed me in the same hallway as his own room, actually, but I was surprised to find him actually curled up asleep.

Something compelled me forward, and I wasn’t too sure what it was.  He was sleeping peacefully, and that’s when I noticed them – a pair of glossy white wings, just like in the myth.  I suppose he kept them concealed from me because he didn’t want them to freak me out, since it wasn’t like I was used to seeing people with wings or anything.  But they didn’t, actually.  I smiled at the further proof that he was, in fact, who he said he was.

But seeing him sleeping there brought out another strange desire in me, probably inherited from the first Psyche.  I crept forward until I was close enough to him that I was able to brush my lips gently against his own, expecting him to be too asleep to even notice what I was doing.

Except that he wasn’t.  The next thing that I knew, he had wrapped his arms around me and dragged me up so that I was straddling his chest, having real, hot kisses pressed upon me.  I wasn’t sure if he was still asleep or not, but I didn’t care in the least.  This was what I wanted, after all, and I was enjoying every minute of it.

It was sort of strange, though, considering the fact that I had no experience kissing anyone how my body just seemed to naturally respond to his touch.  I sort of went on autopilot for a moment, and my subconsciousness just sort of sat back and enjoyed the ride.  Eros, not surprisingly, was a fantastic kisser.  Not like I had much to compare it to, but that didn’t matter – I was enjoying it immensely, so that I took that to mean he was a good kisser.

Things were going perhaps a little too well – I felt his hand slip under the tee shirt I had worn to bed and gentle caress my back – until I leaned too far over and had to correct my balance.  Unfortunately, the thing I put my hand on happened to be one of his wings, and when I inadvertently shifted my weight to that hand, I heard and felt the crush of bone.

He winced slightly.  “Ow,” he said, still grinning slightly.

Before I could even let out of breath, Eros disappeared from under me, and I found myself in a place I had never been before, completely confused as how I got there.

Chapter Thirteen

Modern Day Cupid Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen