Tall, Dark, and Divine Page 2

  “I think I saw Silenus out there when we walked in.”

  “I’m sure you did. Randy old goat.” But Ari sounded fondly amused rather than judgmental. “Don’t worry, Brita. It’ll be all right. Just focus on Dion.”

  “I’ll be happy to,” Brita said, with a smile in her voice.

  As the door opened and closed behind the two of them, Annie sat up straight. She’d always been told that eavesdropping was wrong, but you sure did learn some interesting things sometimes.

  Sounded like somebody was in need of a little no-strings recreational sex. Somebody else, that was. Someone other than Annie.

  Ross?

  Maybe they could have no-strings recreational sex together? She wasn’t looking for Mr. Right tonight. It was more like she was looking for Mr. Right Tonight. And a recently divorced “Greek God” in need of a confidence boost sounded like just what the doctor ordered. All she had to do was go out there, find Ari and Brita—navy blue with black pumps or hot pink dress—and then deduce from there who the “Greek God” might be.

  And then pick him up.

  All right, so that part might be a bit more difficult. It wasn’t like she had much experience. But it wasn’t impossible.

  She could do this.

  Determined, she opened the stall door and headed out into the restroom. A quick look in the mirror, a fluff of her hair—boring brown, but nice and clean after that drenching with rainwater earlier—a last check that her dress covered her butt the way it was intended and that there was no toilet paper stuck to her kick-ass shoe, and she headed out the door into the bar.

  Operation Greek God was officially launched.

  Chapter Three

  Damn, the place was loud.

  Eros looked around the inside of Dionysus’s bar and wondered what had possessed him to agree to come here tonight. All he wanted was to go home, put his feet up, and drink in peace.

  And then he remembered. Ariadne. Brita. And the fact that there was nothing to drink at home.

  Right.

  That wasn’t the case here. Ever since he’d walked in, Dion had kept his glass filled. Every time Eros took a drink, the glass magically filled itself up again. He had no idea how Dion did it, because he’d swear the other man’s hand was nowhere near the glass, but every time he looked, there it was: full to the brim.

  Oh, well. Wasn’t like he’d get drunk, after all. It took a lot more than a few glasses of mortal wine for that, even ones liberally laced with ambrosia.

  So he just lifted the glass, toasted Dion, and tossed back the entire contents. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.” Dion swiped at the bar with a wet rag. “If you want shots, I’ve got tequila.”

  “This is fine.” Eros put the wine glass back down on the counter and kept his eye on it. “I like wine.”

  “Sure.” Dion nodded. “Another?”

  “Not right now.” The glass was still empty.

  “Been a while,” Dion said.

  “Sorry.”

  Dion shrugged. “No problem. I imagine you haven’t felt much like company.”

  Eros lifted his gaze from the—empty—glass to give Dion a no shit glare. “You get that insight from watching Oprah?”

  Dion laughed and leaned an elbow on the bar. “You sure you don’t just miss a warm body in your bed at night, Ross? Plenty of those to be had.”

  Sure. The bar was full of them. But it was more than that. He’d loved Psyche. She had completed him, or he’d thought she did. Right until she walked out the door. And now that she was gone, Eros felt lost. What good was a god of love who couldn’t keep his own wife satisfied?

  “I think you oughta get back on the horse,” Dion said, and brought him back to earth.

  “Horse?”

  “Saddle. You know what I mean. Find a woman and remind yourself what you’ve been missing.”

  Eros shook his head. “I’m never getting involved with a mortal again.”

  “I’m not saying you get involved with her,” Dion said. “You tried that. It didn’t work.” He shook his head. “We’re gods, man. We’re not meant to stay with just one woman.”

  Right.

  “You gotta spread the gift around, know what I mean? Every woman deserves a night in the sack with a god.”

  “Sure.” Whatever. “But I’m the fucking god of love, Dion. What’s the world coming to, if the fucking god of love just wants to get fucked?”

  “Seems to me you already did,” Dion said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Sure. And you know what I mean.” He leaned both elbows on the bar and faced Eros squarely. “You need to crawl outta that pit you’ve dug yourself into and start living again. And you don’t feel much more alive than when you’ve got a woman under you, with her legs wrapped around your waist and—”

  “Enough,” Eros growled, lacing his voice with just a bit of that I am a god and you will obey now tone he’d learned when the world was a lot younger than it was now. He’d never met a mortal who could resist obeying, but Dion, being Dion, just grinned.

  “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

  Eros shrugged. “Time is relative.”

  “Right.” Dion shook his head. “I’m telling you, man. Find a woman and use her to forget the bitch. She never was worthy of you.”

  There was something in Dion’s voice, something that caused Eros’s eyes to narrow reflexively. He could hear the threat lacing through Dion’s words, even without him consciously putting it there. “Tell me you didn’t fuck my wife.”

  Dion hesitated, and Eros clenched his fist on the counter, hard enough that his knuckles showed white. If he’d been holding the glass, it would have shattered into pieces. If he’d been holding any piece of Dion, he might have shattered bone, as well. “Damn you, Dionysus. Tell me you didn’t fuck my wife!”

  “I didn’t fuck your wife,” Dion said, then added, “But she wanted me to.”

  Eros didn’t—couldn’t—speak, and after a few seconds, Dion continued. “It wasn’t too long before she left. But like you said, time’s relative.”

  Sure.

  “She came in one night. Sat at the bar. Drank wine. Told me how you were never home anymore, and she was lonely.”

  Dion grabbed the same rag and wiped the same nonexistent spot on the bar again. Avoiding Eros’s eyes. “She didn’t come right out and ask me to take her upstairs, but it was pretty clear what she wanted. Not like I haven’t had it happen before.”

  No. Women came around with boring regularity to throw themselves at Dion. They’d been doing it for millennia. Eros just hadn’t thought his own wife had been one of them.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Nothing to tell,” Dion said.

  Maybe. And maybe, if Dion had told him, Eros wouldn’t have believed it anyway. He was the fucking god of love. His wife wouldn’t go to someone else for sex.

  Except it seemed she had. Twice. He picked up the wineglass and tossed back the contents, realizing only after he did it that the damn glass was full again. Or had been.

  “It doesn’t have to be a mortal, you know,” Dion added, back to telling Eros he needed to get laid. In Dion’s world, there wasn’t a problem created that couldn’t be solved by drinking and wenching.

  “Sure.”

  “We do have a few other types coming in here, too. Like those two.”

  Dion watched appreciatively as Ari and Brita emerged from the hallway that led to the restrooms in the back. They’d disappeared back there as soon as he and Ari arrived earlier; Eros figured they wanted to fix their makeup and talk about him.

  Ari was still wearing the navy blue suit she’d had on at work all day, with her hair pulled into the same no-nonsense knot at the back of her head. Brita had changed into a hot pink dress barely bigger than a bathing suit, with strappy sandals on those long, tanned legs. With her masses of blond hair falling over her shoulders, the Cretan goddess of hunting looked like every mortal’s wet dream, and Eros wasn’t
surprised to see most of the men in the room were watching her with glassy eyes. Harry Mitchell was back in the corner, he noticed, a familiar face in a group of other men, all of them staring.

  Even Dion, damn him, was looking at the two with more than his usual amused attitude.

  “Leave my girls alone,” Eros growled.

  Dion glanced at him, and after a moment, the dark look in his eyes faded. He smiled faintly. “Your girls are safe from me.”

  “No one’s safe from you.”

  “They are,” Dion said, with a nod that made his hair escape from behind his ear and fall across his face. Maybe that’s what Psyche had liked about him. His hair. Erik the Norse godling had long hair, too. Eros glanced in the mirror. His own black curls never grew longer than two inches. It was one of the benefits—and drawbacks—of being a god. No barber bills. Never getting older. Never changing.

  Dion added, “Ariadne won’t let me within five feet of her, and Brita isn’t my type.”

  “You have a type?” Eros asked.

  Dion laughed, but said, “Fuck you.”

  “No, thanks. I have a type, too, and you aren’t it.”

  “No,” Dion agreed, “we all know what your type is.” Movement in the hallway to the restrooms caught his attention, and he added, “Here it comes now.”

  Eros looked over in time to see another young woman slip into the bar. Shorter than his girls by a bit, she had soft brown hair in a halo around her head, and she was dressed in a black dress that plunged low over a pair of rather attractive breasts. She was pretty, but in an average, human sort of way. Sweet face. Big eyes, soft lips, pert little nose. Decent figure inside the black dress. And a pair of bright red shoes on her feet that immediately put any man—mortal or immortal—in mind of fucking.

  “Wonder if I could talk her into keeping those on?” Dion mused.

  It wasn’t until she’d taken a couple steps into the room that Eros recognized her. Too busy looking at her shoes, probably. Or maybe it was just that she didn’t look like herself. Usually when he saw her, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with her short brown hair neatly combed, not tousled as if some man had had his hands in it. And she always moved quickly on comfortable shoes; she didn’t undulate across the floor, hips swaying.

  What was she doing here? This wasn’t the kind of place sweet Annie Landon should be visiting. Not with the likes of Dionysus manning the bar.

  “She hasn’t been here before,” Dion said, his eyes on her. “I think she’s looking for company.”

  Eros didn’t even try to keep the growl out of his voice. “Leave her alone.”

  Dion glanced at him. “Why? She isn’t one of yours.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “You hiring mortals now?”

  “Not that way. I’ve been trying to set her up.” Without really trying. But thinking about trying. Watching her. Thinking that she needed a man in her life, someone who’d appreciate her. She looked like the kind of woman it would be easy to appreciate. In a lot of different ways.

  “Ah,” Dion said. “A client. Or a charity case?”

  “Don’t call her that. She’s lonely.”

  “I have the cure for that.” Dion smiled.

  “She’s also looking for love. Not a quick trip upstairs to your bed.”

  She wasn’t the type for something like that. But most women found it hard to resist Dion when he turned on the charm. Poor Annie Landon wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “I could invite her into the snug behind the bar and take her against the wall if you prefer,” the god of debauchery said.

  “I’d prefer,” Eros replied, his voice tightly controlled as he tried not to imagine just that, including those legs with the damn red shoes wrapped around Dion’s waist, “that you keep your hands off her. Along with every other body part. Not to mention your filthy mind.”

  Dion grinned, and Eros added, “That one, and my girls. That’s it. It isn’t a lot to ask. You can have any other woman you want.”

  “Of course I can,” Dion said.

  “You know what I mean. Leave mine alone. Including her.”

  “If you say so. So who are you gonna set her up with? Or are you thinking of keeping her for yourself?”

  “Him,” Eros said, gesturing to Harry Mitchell, still gaping at Brita. She noticed him and Dion watching her and sent them a bright smile. Eros reflexively smiled back, but she only met his gaze for a second before sliding past him to Dion.

  Dion didn’t notice. He tilted his head, still contemplating Harry. “The asshole whose tongue is hanging out?”

  “All their tongues are hanging out,” Eros said fairly. “Brita has that effect.”

  Although obviously not on Dion. The god of wine turned back to him. “Why would you pair that sweet little thing with a guy who’d give his entire year’s salary to get in Brita’s pants right now?”

  “I think she likes him. I’ve watched her when he comes into the bakery. She smiles. And it’s not like he has a chance with Brita.”

  “No,” Dion admitted. “But that seems a bit unfair, Ross.”

  “Why? She’s mortal. He’s mortal. Brita’s immortal. And not interested in him. It’s obvious the two of them would make a better match.”

  “When you put it like that,” Dion said, although he didn’t sound happy about it. “Are you sure I couldn’t just…?”

  “I’m sure.” If Dion went anywhere near Annie Landon, even for a quickie in the snug behind the bar, he’d just ruin her for everyone else. Especially someone like Harry. Dion was a god, after all, if an annoying one. “Leave her alone. I’ll deal with her.”

  He looked away from Dion and across the bar, just as Annie turned their way.

  Chapter Four

  Him.

  It had to be.

  Annie had stood in the doorway from the hall to the bar for a couple of minutes trying to find the “Greek God” without much luck. She’d recognized Ari immediately, although the young woman didn’t look much like Annie had imagined. From Ari’s crisp, businesslike manner, Annie had pictured someone a bit older, humorless, and severe. But Ari looked no older than Annie herself, and although she was dressed in a dark suit with her hair pulled back into a tight chignon, she didn’t look stern. The suit draped over a perfect figure, with long legs and softly rounded hips—no junk in Ari’s trunk—and the rigid hairstyle only served to emphasize the exquisite beauty of her face. She was over in the corner talking to an older man, probably the Silenus they had mentioned, and when she smiled at him, she was so pretty Annie was honestly surprised the bar didn’t erupt in gasps of admiration.

  Brita was playing pool; her hot pink dress easy to spot, even in the semi-darkness of the bar, and she was no less beautiful than Ari, with thick blond hair and a perfect figure. Every time she bent to take a shot, every man in the room stopped what he was doing, often mid-sentence, even with a glass or bottle halfway to his lips, to gape.

  Annie recognized Harry Mitchell from the accounting firm down the street among the group in the corner. He’d come into the dog bakery a time or two, and Annie had always thought him handsome, although right now he looked ridiculous, with his mouth hanging open and his eyes threatening to pop out of his skull.

  Brita’s opponent was male, but there was nothing remotely godlike about him. He was short, stout, and balding; just exactly the right height to bury his nose in Brita’s cleavage. He couldn’t possibly be the man the two women had been talking about.

  As Annie—and the men—watched, Brita sent a ball skimming across the felt to slide neatly into the corner pocket. She looked up with a triumphant smile, one directed toward the bar. Annie turned that way, and that’s when she saw him.

  The “Greek God.”

  It had to be.

  He was talking to the bartender—Dion?—and if Annie had ever seen a man who looked more like a Greek god, she didn’t know when. Unless it was Dion himself.

  But where the bartender’s sex appeal was almost too much
for comfort, this man—Ross?—was more classically handsome. He looked like an old statue come to life, carved in marble by a long-dead master.

  His hair was short, tightly clustered black curls clinging to a perfectly shaped skull, just long enough to brush his collar in the back. Unlike Dion, with his leather pants and soft poet’s shirt, Ross was dressed in average, everyday business wear. The crisp white shirt, open at the neck, fit snugly across his shoulders, and the dark slacks draped long legs and what looked like an outstanding ass. He had a matching suit jacket negligently draped over the stool next to him. And the face—good Lord, the face! That might as well have been carved in marble, too, with its high cheekbones and strong jaw, plus a mouth that looked like it was made specially for kissing. Soft and firm at the same time, and perfectly shaped.

  Annie knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help it. He was gorgeous. Mind-blowingly beautiful. The best-looking man she’d ever seen. Even Dion paled by comparison.

  She couldn’t possibly try to pick him up. Dumped or not, lonely or not, there was no way he’d look twice at her. Not a guy like him.

  And that’s when he did just that. Caught her eye and held it for a moment, before his gaze drifted south. She could feel him linger on her breasts and then on her shoes for a second before coming up to meet her gaze again.

  She was on her way across the floor before she had any inkling that she was moving. It was like he’d shot an arrow straight across the room and into her, and now he was reeling her in.

  The chair next to his was empty—not the one with the jacket on it, the one on the other side. She scooted up, her cheeks flushing as both men turned to look at her. “Hi. I’m Annie.”

  Her voice came out breathy, Marilyn Monroe–style. Not because she was trying to sound seductive, but because the dual attention of the two best-looking men she’d ever seen was literally taking her breath away.

  Up close, they were both too handsome for words. She’d already gotten an eyeful of Dion when she’d sat at the bar tossing back Cosmopolitans earlier, but his friend… Wow.

  Just wow.

  “Hi,” he said now, in a voice like melting chocolate, the perfect complement to those deep brown eyes surrounded by the longest, darkest, most luxurious eyelashes she’d ever seen. Most women would happily sell their souls for lashes like those. “I’m Eros.”