Touch (Dark Gods: Selfish Myths #1)

14

Andrew’s still vexed. There’s nothing Love can do about that, and there’s nothing she should do about it. Instead, Love spies through the windowpanes of Andrew’s office, her face pushing through a snowy hedge gap.

He spends the morning writing, his fingers sprinting across a laptop, which is outfitted like a moody library. Dark walls. Aged books. He struggles to concentrate, pausing at regular intervals, silent thoughts creasing his face.

By comparison, Holly spends most hours at her fencing studio. Griffin is no longer an antagonist, redeeming himself and mending their courtship. He surprises the woman with those marshmallows she loves, his behavior docile and less smothering. The gesture charms Holly, who willingly melts into his arms.

This is anticipated. While Anger’s strike seems counterproductive, it’s safer to moderate Griffin’s competitive side and prevent hostility between him and Andrew, thus reducing the risk of Holly tiring of both males.

Be that as it may, Love’s attempts to matchmake are catastrophic. At one point, she stations herself on a crowded avenue and shoots Holly’s purse from her hand. Whipping out a series of arrows, Love strikes the bag in rapid succession, propelling it across the concrete toward Andrew, who’s unlocking his truck.

Love’s aim and speed maneuvers the bag as Holly chases after it. “Excuse me,” she says to passersby while skirting around them. She almost reaches Andrew when some infernal stranger retrieves the purse and hands it to her.

Another time, Love steals Holly’s wallet, intending to plant it someplace in Andrew’s vicinity, thus compelling him to deliver it to Holly later. He arrives at a coffeehouse, sets his bag on the ground by a chair, and strides to the counter. Love slips past him and tosses the wallet on the floor, close but not too close. However, another customer strolls inside and spots the wallet before Andrew returns to his table.

Irate, Love rams her boot into the wall, creating a notable recess in the facade, which the owner will probably have to take out a loan to repair. By that evening, she’s exhausted from averting Andrew’s detection.

Next, she prowls the square footage of Holly’s townhouse while plotting the next attempt. As Holly plants herself at the living room window seat and paints her toenails a seasonable shade of burgundy, Love’s finger stabs one of the woman’s romance paperbacks, which topples off a side table and lands on the floor. The female glances up from her pinky toe and notices the book.

The reminder is a stretch, but it works. Once her toenails are dry, Holly packs the novel and leaves the house. Without exception, disrupting mortal routines has been an asset to Love’s job, from mixing up reservations, to making lovers stand in a long queue, to flattening a bus tire—Love has a history with flat tires—in order to delay a couple waiting at the bus stop.

But now, she’s been reduced to defacing books. Shame on her.

At the bookstore, Love watches through the window in anticipation. Thankfully, not only is Andrew there to seal the finish on that bookshelf he’d built for his matriarch, but he’s also manning the register while Georgie uses the restroom. Holly flushes as she waves to Andrew, then impulsively scans the New Arrivals shelf, choosing a title for herself before heading toward him.

She hands over the ripped paperback first, and Andrew flips through the pages. He says something apologetic about the damaged section, and while it’s not his job, predictably the man knows Georgie’s rules about such transactions. He offers Holly an exchange, and she smiles with gratitude.

After accepting her newest purchase next, Andrew grabs a bag. From her vantage point, Love sees the cover. It’s the book she’d picked up once, displaying interior artwork of Eros and Psyche.

Andrew takes a second gander as well, his expression faltering. She wonders if he’s remembering a few days ago, when Love was here with him, when his hand had passed through her flesh and his pen traced her cunt.

“It’s better than it looks,” Holly vouches. “The cover doesn’t do it justice.”

Indeed, Andrew blinks out of his trance. “It fits the market, though,” he replies, snapping the bag open with a hard flick of his wrist. “In that case, it works.”

“I wonder if other people could see him,” the woman muses.

That’s when Andrew pauses. Slowly, he lifts his head. “See him?”

Holly fidgets with her purse strap. Her self-consciousness becomes audible to Love’s ears, the sound like an ill-tuned string instrument. “Eros is an invisible god, but Psyche is a mortal, and she has the ability to see him simply by lighting an oil lamp. But maybe she wasn’t the only one? I don’t know. That’s just what the character art makes me think of.” She tips her head. “You wrote about deities in one of your series, didn’t you? Was it different in your books?”

So Holly has not read his work. Otherwise, she’d know Andrew hasn’t written specifically about Eros. Regardless, she waits for him to reply when Georgie struts into the room.

“What I want to know is whether people feel those arrows.” The matriarch leans across Andrew to grab a notepad off the counter. “Invisible or not, good intentions or not, getting one of those suckers in the chest has to hurt.”

While thanking Andrew for taking over momentarily, she relieves him and rings up the exchange. Backing away, Andrew frowns at Holly’s book, some new idea dawning.

Love has accepted that she cannot sense his emotions. Nonetheless, foreboding creeps like a spider across her skin. Whatever he’s thinking, it’s hardly innocent.

The register chimes, and the lip pops open for change. Holly accepts the bag and hesitates, but then issues a quick goodbye. Not that Andrew notices, for he’s too consumed by his thoughts.

Love rubs her temples like humans do when they’ve got a headache.

***

The next day, she studies the receipts and random lists scattered across the bookshop counter. After memorizing Georgie’s handwriting, she chooses a paranormal romance from the shelf, adds it to a pile of “special orders,” and forges a home delivery request with Holly’s address on it. In this unforgiving winter climate, deliveries are one of the matriarch’s seasonal offers.

But since Georgie’s driving glasses are nowhere to be found—an orchestrated theft that Love shall atone for later—and she doesn’t have extra staff on hand, the woman sighs and reluctantly dials Andrew. Delaying until she has found the spectacles would make sense, but Love has learned a valuable fact about this woman. When it comes to customers receiving what they paid for, she doesn’t keep them waiting. Not in this weather. Being cooped up from the snow, books are essential to readers.

The matriarch apologizes profusely, but since Andrew lives close to Holly, he picks up the book and makes the stop on his way back home. At the front door, the woman wraps a cardigan around her chest to blot out the cold and gazes at the book in confusion. “I didn’t order this.”

Andrew’s face darkens in a way Love doesn’t find reassuring. “You sure?”

Holly’s mouth quirks. “Pretty much, since I was just at the shop yesterday.”

“Must be a mix-up then.”

“Yeah, I’m so sorry you had to come out here. You were delivering it yourself? But I thought you didn’t work—”

“It was just a favor.”

Slowly, the female’s sheepish grin expands. She thinks this is a ruse to see her. So much the better. It’s the impression Love had been hoping to produce.

She waits a safe distance away and clings to her bow. Invite him inside! Invite him inside!

After a moment, Holly’s expression sobers and grows agitated. “Look. I’m flattered, but you shouldn’t be here.”

The door flexes open wider. Griffin materializes behind his mate, his arrival causing the woman to tense from ass cheeks to shoulders. Although she braces herself for a confrontation, the concern is futile. Indeed, Andrew and Holly’s stunned reactions are priceless as they witness the brute’s newfound civility.

“Hey, man.” Griffin gestures to the paperback. “Book mail, eh? I’m betting you’re happy about that,” he teases Holly, as if this situation isn’t random or the least bit unusual.

“I do love a good book,” she says, riveting her gaze on Griffin.

The man flashes Andrew a magazine-cover grin. “Listen, about that shitstorm at the park. I was drunk and being a dick. For what it’s worth, you gave it to me pretty bad. Any harder, and your fists would have gone through my skull.”

Andrew’s features lock with suspicion. “My fists,” he repeats, because it’s only half true.

He hadn’t been alone that night. True, he could have dealt with both men on his own, but Love had helped. Eagerly and destructively. The damage Griffin had suffered could have been from either of them.

Misinterpreting Andrew’s reply, Griffin offers a mild chuckle. “Don’t rub it in too much. So we’re good?”

The woman beams at her mate. Andrew’s eyes narrow, a thousand alarming thoughts flashing across his profile. Rather than answer, he hands over the paperback—“Keep it,” he murmurs—then twists and stalks away with purpose.

Very well. Perhaps Love had been wrong, and Griffin hadn’t needed to be this well-behaved. She flings her bow to the ground, then kicks her heel into the snow.

***

She is on the verge of a goddess fit. Before resorting to extreme measures such as matching Griffin with the nearest hibernating grizzly bear, Love gives herself a timeout. Ignoring the pleading flap of her hidden wings, she jumps from one branch to the next, putting miles between herself and civilization, moving through the woods slower than usual, tasting snowflakes on her tongue as they drop from the sky. Taking refuge on her branch, she settles onto the coarse surface and scowls at the eventide sky.

Andrew and Holly’s fate are on a downward trajectory, Griffin has mutated into someone halfway decent, and Andrew hasn’t wiped that disturbing look from his face since talking to Holly at the bookstore. Something is brewing inside him, and it’s driving Love wild.

She festers, rests, debates. She cannot afford to waste time, but solutions refuse to manifest. It prevents Love from stalking the lovers at dawn, forestalling her until that afternoon, when she finally surrenders and returns to the village. Anxious about what to do, she reaches the main square and stops dead in her tracks.

At least now she knows what’s been dominating Andrew’s thoughts. Sheets of paper flap from windows, traffic signs, and doors. Some are crisp from the cold, others are damp from the snow. Passersby murmur to one another while reading each page, although every leaflet asks the same question.

It’s hypnotic. It’s his handwriting demanding to know.

Are you Eros?

***

Love rips open Andrew’s office door and deliberately slams it closed behind her. He’s standing in front of his desk, leaning against the wood with his hands casually tucked in his pockets. As if having expected her, his features betray no signs of surprise.

Well. She had indeed made a racket storming through the house, after checking that Andrew’s corrosive relative wasn’t on the premises. Regardless, people within shooting distance could have heard Love tearing a path to Andrew’s office, provided she were a mortal.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she shouts.

Andrew barely moves. “At the moment, I’m watching you blow a fuse.”

“Answer me!”

“No, you fucking answer me.” He shoves off the desk and eats up the distance between them. “Are you Eros?”

“I demand to know how you drew that conclusion.”

“Don’t play that game.” But when Love just stands there fuming, he mocks, “As a reminder, I have some experience with the subject of deities, which tends to play tricks on the mind.”

“You insufferable shit,” she growls. “This is anarchy. You wrote the question everywhere!”

“Mmm. I guess I could have visited your tree and asked the question like a gentleman, but then you would have lied to my face. Figured I’d take you off guard. If I was wrong, you would scoff and ignore me. If I was right, I’d get a reaction.” His irises glitter like platinum. “An excessive one.”

She lifts her bow and aims an arrow at his sternum. Deadpan, Andrew steps forward, indifferent to the weapon pressing against his solid chest. “That night in the park, you called yourself a myth. In the bookstore, that paperback with artwork of Eros and Psyche triggered you. And don’t get me started on how many times I’ve fantasized about tracing the rest of your pussy with my pen, much less replacing it with my cock. My point is, you’re bewitching. You’re as strong as a fucking dragon, supernaturally gorgeous, and you wield a bow. Your arrows tear forests to shreds. And your name is Love, for Christ's sake. The mortal renditions of Eros aren’t female, and I don’t see wings, but fiction is fiction, and reality is reality. And who the fuck was that titan I saw you with?”

Love blinks. “He—”

“Never mind,” Andrew snaps. “I don’t give a shit about him. What did you do to Griffin? Suddenly, he’s acting like a reformed teddy bear. As for Ulrik, that bastard never lifts a finger except to jerk himself off, but this morning I found him wearing a goddamn apron and poaching us eggs. It may not sound like a lot to you, but it’s fucked up to me.” He stalks nearer, his height overpowering the room. “I’ll ask you one more time, Little Myth. And so help me, you’d better answer. What did you do?”

Love’s body is still recovering from Andrew’s confession about what happened in the bookstore. That he wants to pleasure her further with his pen, then fuck her with his cock. Maintaining a semblance of composure, she lifts her chin. “I will not explain myself to a human.”

He chews on her reply for all of a second. “Change that answer. Or I’ll change it for you.”

His livid mouth transfixes her. She contemplates the ways she might explore it through taste, texture, and movement. Her desire must be spreading across her face, clear enough for Andrew to see because his eyes detonate.

“I’m not a demon,” she defends, humiliated by the strain in her voice.

He nods. “And even if you were, I’m too far gone for that to make a difference.”

Love’s chest constricts. She wants that to be true, but she shouldn’t. She could also deny her myth, twist the truth. Yet everything within her won’t permit it.

What would it be like to finally talk to someone? To be known?

Her resolve withers. In the cramped space beneath her shoulder blades, Love’s wings flap with yearning, like something dusty and long neglected.

“I’m not Eros.” She lowers her weapon. “I’m Love.”

The mortal’s lips twitch, and he lifts one eyebrow. “We’ve established that.”

She reaches out her hand, pretending he can take it. “Then I dare you to come with me.”

Andrew’s gaze lowers to her outstretched fingers, then rises to her face. “Anywhere, Little Myth.”