It’s cold as a witch’s tit. I’m a creature of summer. I prefer the hot, lazy days where the sun holds court in the sky well into the night, everyone moving around the city in as few clothes as possible, and air that doesn’t hurt my face. Given a choice, I would have picked nearly any other activity than walking the outdoor gardens in the university district.
Still.
I can’t help appreciating how damn good Psyche looks in her fleece-lined leggings, slouchy oversize knit sweater, boots, and an honest-to-gods puffed jacket. Add in a knitted hat to match the sweater and she’s downright fucking adorable. It makes me want to drag her back to my place—our place—and strip her out of that clothing, layer by layer.
She leans against my arm and smiles up at me as if I’m her favorite person in the world, and for a moment, I forget that this is pretend.
A click of a camera somewhere nearby reminds me.
I give her a warm smile of my own, and it’s all too easy to convince myself that her rosy cheeks are in reaction to me, rather than the icy air. “Couldn’t we have found somewhere warmer to show off how giddy in love we are?”
Her smile doesn’t falter in the least. She leans into me and matches my low tone. “It’s easier to pretend that we don’t realize we’re being followed outside.” Psyche laughs a little. “Besides, I like the gardens in the winter.”
I look around us. Some past Athena decided the university district really needed a giant, sprawling outdoor garden for students and professors to spend time in. There’s a large greenhouse on the other side of the park, but Psyche seems intent on walking every path except the one that will lead us there. “I don’t get it. There’s nothing to see. Everything’s dead.”
“Eros.” She smacks my arm lightly with her free hand. “That’s very glass half-full of you. The garden isn’t dead. It’s sleeping.”
I eye what appear to be bare sticks situated on the left side of the cobblestone path. “Looks dead to me.”
“For someone who deals death on occasion, one would think you’d be better able to identify it.” She says it so casually, as if she doesn’t recognize the barbs attached to each word.
I’m a killer, and she needs to remember it. “Psyche.”
“It’s a reminder.” She’s not looking at me. She’s studying the sticks as if they hold the secrets of the universe. “Nothing lasts forever. Not the hibernation over the winter, but not the beautiful blooms of summer, either. There are seasons to everything.”
It doesn’t require much to understand she’s not talking about the garden at all. She’s talking about herself. I slip my arm around her waist, tucking her in against my side. We might be pretending for the barely concealed paparazzi shadowing us, but the truth is that I like touching her. As much as I’d like to stay in the safety of our penthouse and keep working to seduce her out of her pants again, I’m not about to miss this opportunity to dig deeper into the enigma that is Psyche. “Your sisters all seem to have some kind of endgame when it comes to Olympus.”
“Do they?”
We turn almost as one and continue wandering down the path, deeper into the sleeping garden. “Callisto would burn the city to the ground if no one stopped her. Hard lessons or no, Eurydice wants love. I thought Persephone would flee Olympus.”
“Circumstances changed.”
Circumstances. A strange way to say that Demeter essentially sold Persephone into a marriage with the old Zeus, sending her daughter fleeing over the River Styx and into Hades’s arms. The tightness in Psyche’s voice deters me from saying as much, though. That’s fine. I don’t really want to talk about her sisters. I want to talk about her. “You’re the one I’ve never been able to figure out.”
“Am I?”
I give her a little squeeze. “You damn well know you are. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were Demeter 2.0. You go about things in a very different way than your mother does, but the cunning and careful image manipulation is the same.” She tenses, but I don’t let her go. “That wasn’t criticism. It’s foolish to think honesty will get you anything but a knife in the back when you’re dealing with the Thirteen and their inner circles.”
“Maybe I’m exactly what I look like.” A little bitterness seeps into her voice. “A socialite influencer on the prowl for a rich and powerful husband. Maybe you’ve played right into my hands.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “If that’s the truth, you’re an even better actress than I expected.”
“Thank you.” She turns in my arms, still smiling at me as if I hold her heart in my hands. “Time for a photo op, Husband.”
Husband.
Oh, I like that. I like that far too much.
I clasp her hips, bringing her as close to me as we can get with all the layers of clothing between us. Our exhales ghost the air between us, but for the first time since we got out of the car, I don’t feel the cold. How can I when Psyche is so close?
There’s no artifice in how eagerly I take her mouth. I’m not pretending to want her. She might be a damn good actress, but her little shiver and the way she melts against me aren’t pretend, either. I know what she sounds like, feels like, looks like when she comes now. She’s not faking her desire any more than I am.
She laces her arms around my neck and drifts her fingers over the sensitive spot at the nape of my neck even as she opens her mouth and lets me in. Psyche tastes like the fireball candy she had in the car, cinnamon and spice and too sexy by half. I lose myself in the stroke of her tongue against mine, in the way she fits against me so perfectly.
She’s the one to break the kiss, leaning back just enough to let loose a surprisingly happy giggle. “Gods, Eros. You can’t kiss me like that in public. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
True? Not true?
I can’t be sure. Not when I’m half a second from dragging her into the greenhouse and finding a private corner to make her come a time or three. But no, I can’t do that. We have observers, and the paparazzi in Olympus are relentless. No matter how giddy we’re supposed to be right now, I’m not about to let photos of me with my hand down Psyche’s leggings go public.
I press my forehead to hers, trying to get my body back under control. “I’m going to get us in trouble?”
“Yes.” Her smile softens a little. “Obviously I’m an innocent bystander.”
That’s the thing. She’s not entirely wrong. I don’t normally waste time with guilt, but that must be the strange stabbing feeling in my side, like someone slipped a dagger between my ribs. Psyche had a plan of her own before my mother decided to punish her, pushed over the edge by a simple act of kindness Psyche showed me. I was never part of her plan. If I’m enjoying the perks of this hastily put-together marriage—and I am—it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not her plan.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t mean to say the words, but I do mean them. Possibly for the first time ever. “For all of it.”
“You know, I almost believe you.” She laces her arm through mine and turns us down the path. “It’s a moot point now, regardless. We’re going to make the best of this situation.”
We walk for a few minutes in silence. It’s comfortable enough, and one glance at Psyche’s face makes me think she’s lost in thought and far from here. I don’t mind. I doubt she realizes the significance, but I do.
She trusts me.
I let the knowledge roll over me, buoy me. I’ve done little to earn this woman’s trust. Yes, I didn’t kill her, but that’s the literal bare minimum a person should do—and I can’t even pretend I made that decision out of the goodness of my soul. It was just as selfish as everything else I’ve done. I wanted her, and this shitty situation provided me a way to take her.
All because she showed me the tiniest hint of kindness.
I might laugh if my chest wasn’t so fucking tight. It’s pathetic that I’m so starved for any kind of softer emotion that the second someone comes to me with gentle hands instead of sharp words, I’m willing to walk to the Underworld and back to keep them in my life.
If it was just that first night, maybe I could have resisted my darker impulses to bundle Psyche up and haul her back to my home like a dragon with his hoard, but then she showed up for that meeting intending to help me again. How could I let my mother snuff out such a compelling light?
I don’t deserve Psyche’s trust. With anyone else, it would just be a tool to leverage against them if the situation ever arose. With this woman?
I want to earn it.
Maybe a good way to start would to be to offer up some of my own in return.
The next time the path branches, I turn us back toward my car. “Let’s go warm up and have a drink.”
“I was thinking—”
It’s more challenging than I would have guessed to cut in. “I’d like to take you somewhere.”
She blinks. “Oh. Okay.”
No reason for the flutter of nerves in my stomach. It’s not like my regular spots are secrets, but I’ve never really wanted to share them with someone else before. In Olympus, I will always be recognized as Aphrodite’s sharpest weapon. But in a few rare places, they see me as Eros. Just…Eros.
Even realizing that Psyche will always see the danger in me first, part of me wants her to see the rest. The man, fucked up though he is. She makes me feel…human…in a way I haven’t in a very long time. Maybe ever.
I want her to see me as just Eros, too. Even if the idea terrifies me on a level I’m not prepared to deal with. How could she not turn away if she sees past the untouchable persona to the rough reality beneath? The broken bits I keep tucked away, lest they be used against me?
When we make it back to my car, I open the door for her and round to the driver’s side. There are three photographers approaching, and they’re no longer trying to pretend they’re anything but paparazzi. They rush forward, and I’m a petty asshole, because I nearly take two of them out when I pull away from the curb.
Psyche snorts. “If we could avoid getting arrested, that would be ideal.”
“If I was nice to them, they’d know something was up.”
Her hazel eyes light up with mischief. “Gods forbid.”
“Now you’re getting the idea.” I weave through the streets, heading south to the theater district. It’s a few blocks that contain a trio of theaters that do a handful of productions each season. I can take or leave live performances, but actors in Olympus have a way of not giving a fuck that’s difficult to find on this side of the river. The only thing they care about is their power hierarchy, and as long as Athena and Apollo keep them paid well, they don’t bother with the rest of the Thirteen.
My mother, in particular, isn’t overly fond of this area. She likes the theater well enough and dragged me to countless productions over the years in an effort to instill me with culture, but that began and ended with the shows themselves. She never lingers, and as such, this area has always been something of a refuge for me. I never have to worry about running into her when I’m here. I pull into the tiny parking lot behind the Bacchae and turn off the engine.
Psyche peers out the window. “Interesting choice.”
“Have you ever been here before?”
She shakes her head. “I have season tickets to the theater, but we normally get drinks closer to home afterward.” The Dimitriou women alternate their time out between their mother’s neighborhood and the blocks around Dodona Tower, so it makes sense they would choose places more familiar to drink at.
I climb out of the car, but this time she doesn’t wait for me to open her door before she joins me. There’s still a little line between her dark brows. “I don’t think the press spend much time here.”
“They don’t.” I take her hand. “But the theater people are notorious gossips and so they’ll do the work for us.”
Her eyes light up. “I see. Clever.”
“I live to please.” We walk around the building and I purposefully slow down, watching Psyche as she takes in the outside of the Bacchae. Here in the theater district, they don’t prize a pristine look the same way so much of the upper city do. They prefer character and the Bacchae has it in spades. The weathered exterior looks like it’s stood here for time unknown, but the building is only twenty years old, and it had this faded paint job from the start.
I hold the door open for Psyche and follow her into the heat of the bar. She shrugs off her coat immediately, and after doing the same, I press my hand to the small of her back and guide her through the crowded tables to the small booth in the back corner. I’m glad it’s open, because it’s got the best seat in the house to appreciate everything the Bacchae has to offer.
She allows me to usher her into the booth and follow her in, her wide-eyed gaze on the wall. “Wow.”
“The owner is something of a collector.” I sit back and watch Psyche take in the objects crowding the walls. Glossy new posters of current productions sit side by side with ones faded from decades ago. A narrow ledge circles the room with glass cases filled with props and clothing, each painstakingly labeled with their production and year. The faint sounds of some musical soundtrack I’m not familiar with play in the background.
I should keep quiet and let her process, but I can’t help speaking. “It’s plenty busy now, but you should see it after the evening shows. The actors and actresses and stage crew come in, half of them still in some kind of stage makeup, and things get wild. The energy they bring is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The shows are fine, I guess, but seeing the aftermath is a little like magic.”
She finally drags her gaze away from a particularly intricate white gown and looks at me. “I’d like to come here sometime and see that.”
“We will.” It’s a small promise, easily provided, but it doesn’t change the fact that it feels profound.
“This place is important to you.”
Of course she’d pick up on that immediately. She’s too smart not to read between the lines, and I intentionally picked this place so I could share it with her. I tug her hat off and drop it on our pile of coats on the other side of the booth. Her hair is a little frizzy, but I like it. “Yes, it’s important to me.”
“Thank you for bringing me here.” She smiles a little and smooths her hair down. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
My chest feels too tight, but I can’t look away from her happy smile. “You shared the gardens with me. They mean something to you, right? A refuge of sorts.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it a refuge…” She sighs. “No, that’s a lie. Sorry, habit.” Psyche shakes her head, looking rueful. “Yes, the gardens are special to me. It’s not a secret that I go there from time to time, but the reason I do is because it reminds me a little bit of life before moving to the city. It’s nothing like the farm, of course, but growing things soothe me.”
The sensation in my chest gets more intense, until I can barely breathe past it. “That’s what this place is to me, too. No one here cares who I am or who my mother is. It lets me relax as much as anyone can relax in Olympus.”
Psyche starts to say something, but she’s interrupted when the bartender, a tall Latina whose dark hair is threaded with silver, heads in our direction with a smile. “What can I get you?”
I order my favorite red wine and Psyche asks for bourbon. She catches my raised eyebrows and blushes. “It’s the perfect winter drink.”
“I’m not arguing that.” I know better than to make assumptions based on drink orders, but I can’t help the surprise. From what I’ve seen, Psyche doesn’t seem to party, but when she does drink, it’s a very specific type of cocktail. “You don’t normally drink bourbon.”
“Correction: I don’t normally drink bourbon in public.” She gives a slightly bittersweet smile. “It’s part of the image thing. Public Psyche likes fruity drinks and wine, depending on the time of day.”
I shake my head. “The amount of thought you’ve put into your public image is staggering. I mean that as a compliment.”
“Thank you.” She shrugs. “It was necessary. You, of all people, understand just how effective armor a good public persona can be.”
“Yeah.” I stare out at the room. Instinct tells me to leave it at that, but I push past it. I didn’t bring her here to shut her out now. “When they hate you, it’s easier to pretend they hate the public version of you instead.”
“Yes, exactly.”
I glance at her. “You’re willing to let that persona slip a bit with me?”
“It’s a special occasion.” She smiles slowly. “And I make a tidy sum on sponsorships from several wine companies. It can’t hurt adding some whiskey sponsorships to the mix if and when we get photographed here.”
She’s intentionally navigating us back to safer territory. I appreciate it. The ground’s feeling pretty fucking liquid beneath my feet right now. I search for something to say that won’t toss us off the deep end again. “The wine sponsorships aren’t the only ones you have.”
Her smile widens. “No, they’re not.”
Likely another reason my mother zeroed in on Psyche. She’s so damn successful at what she does, even more successful than Aphrodite. And Psyche doesn’t have a team of people who’re paid solely to make her look good.
The bartender arrives with our drinks and leaves an appetizer menu before departing again, making the rounds to the handful of occupied tables. There are two groups of people, and they’re trying very hard to pretend like they’re not watching us closely, but they keep putting their heads together and whispering while shooting furtive looks in our direction. No doubt pictures of us will be gracing their social media before too long.
I watch Psyche sip her bourbon and shiver, the color in her cheeks deepening. An answering heat pulses through me. “Bourbon looks good on you.”
“Eros.” She leans into me, her expression happy even as her words are dry. “You really don’t have to say things like that. No one can hear you.”
I dip my head until my lips nearly touch her ear. “I’m not saying them because I care about who’s listening. I’m saying them because they’re true.”
“Eros, please.”
I lean back enough to meet her eyes. The conversation from this morning plays through my head. We were both more than a little out of control, both more than a little skittish about how intense things have gotten so quickly. The smart play would be to slow down, to give each other space to shore up our defenses.
Fuck that. “Have you ever been seduced, Psyche? Truly seduced?”
She licks her lips. “Depends on your qualifications.”
“That’s a no.”
She makes a face. “Fine. No.”
I give her a slow smile, enjoying the way she shivers in response. “You’re about to be.”
