Chapter 20
Once again, she woke up smothered by Plutus.
In a good way, of course, but it made her think about how often it’d happened in the extremely brief time they’d known one another.
They were mates. They’d admitted they loved one another.
All in the span of less than a month. What they had yet to do was talk in concrete ways about the future.
“I can hear you thinking,” Plutus said. The words were seriously muffled because his face was firmly planted in his sheets.
“Thinking’s not a bad thing.”
“No, but maybe you need a break from it.” He jacked up, spun around, and held her tight to his chest. An exaggerated sigh left him. “I guess I will have to help you with this as well.”
“You are so helpful,” she said, as his hand moved to grab hard to her naked ass.
They’d stumbled into bed mostly undressed the night before, but far too drunk to do much but kiss and grope before they passed out.
However, it was morning. They had a little time before she had to meet her parents for a tourist day, and very little clothing or sheets, separated her slick core from the growing hardness she felt against her stomach.
“Always,” he said, bending down to give her a long, languid kiss that stole her breath.
They were in no rush. Both let their hands roam the others body, sometimes stumbling over one another in their need to keep contact.
Only after long kisses, hard grasps and a few well-placed grinds, did Plutus reach between them to test her pussy with one clawed finger. “Fuck. You feel ready, love.”
“More than ready.”
She wrapped her arms around him as he gripped himself and slid inside her.
A sigh of pleasure and relief escaped as he started sliding in and out of her in a steady, slow rhythm.
They didn’t say much, just felt what they could of each other.
They kissed, bit, and stroked as he moved in and out, in and out, so that it was almost a surprise when E felt her orgasm about to topple over like a stack of books.
She tumbled, a jumbled mess of words and sounds and clenching need.
Plutus did the same, at the same time, his own words of love and need and want mixed all up with hers.
She lay after, spent, while Plutus brought out a rag and cleaned her up. He moved her only to place her firmly on his chest and say “Rest” in his sexy, demanding voice. Who was she to argue?
She grumbled, annoyed Plutus dared to move beneath her when her sweaty cheek lay plastered to his golden chest. “Stop,” she whined, though it came out distorted and she had to admit he might not have heard it.
She did the only thing she could do; she jackknifed off his chest to give him the death stare of all death stares.
Never mind he recently fucked her clean into his comfy mattress.
She wasn’t putting up with him disrupting the rest she deserved.
His smirk was planted firmly in place when she managed to brush away her pink strands. “Problem, love?”
“I was comfortable.” She went for disgruntled, but it came out petulant at best.
“Poor baby,” he said, his voice dropping deep and now she was wide awake from the tingle it sparked in her core. “Apologies, little one, but I have something to show you.”
He turned his torso to the bedside table, tapping awake an iPad resting there.
He did the tippetty-tap thing for a minute, the glow of the screen making his molten skin look more silver than gold where it flashed.
Finally, he said, “Come, E,” as he opened his arm.
She didn’t hesitate to curl into the crook of his shoulder, facing the iPad to see what he pulled up.
He didn’t say anything, and E was left a little confused.
It was pictures of a house. A beautiful brick house, two stories, with hard peaks jutting out here and there, black shutters and a black door, enclosed by a brick fence with old-timey looking lanterns at the entrance of the gate and to the right of the front door.
Plutus flipped through images of the house: a small foyer and open living room with cream and brick accents, a quaint kitchen with high-end appliances and more brick, a large dining room, three nondescript bedrooms, and two lush, white-marbled bathrooms.
Her voice shook when she spoke after seeing the last image, a clear view of a park she knew. One in the German Village neighborhood of Columbus. “Plutus?”
His voice lifted, soft but firm. “E. I love you. I wish to be with you. Always. You are my mate. My only. But a deal is a deal, and our bargain ends in a week. This house? I purchased it for you. You can go live there by yourself and I will fulfill my end of the deal. You will never want for anything. You will live comfortably all your days. If you wish, you can do so there while I stay away. It will rip me to shreds, but I will honor your wishes. Or I can come with you. Be with you, in Columbus.”
“Do you want to leave all this?”
“Hear me, E,” Plutus growled, cupping her cheek firm and training his flaring green eyes on her. “The only thing in this world I’d be sorry to leave behind would be you, and the only thing that could make me do so would be you.”
“Then, yes, Plutus. Please. Come be with me in Columbus.”
He snapped the cover she hadn’t even noticed over the iPad and carelessly flung it back on the bedside table, where it skidded awfully close to the edge.
“Hey. You should be more careful,” she said, but then she let out a little yelp when she was flipped to her back and he loomed over her.
“Live a little, E,” he said between peppered kisses on her cheeks and forehead. “An iPad can be replaced.”
Plutus’s hand snaked under the mountain of pillows behind her head and came up with a distinct, robin-egg blue box. “However, you really should be careful how you roll around on top of this.” He tsked at her as she stared.
Again, all she could say was “Plutus?” Like all her brains went out the window.
He opened the lid and a gorgeous, too-large, square-cut diamond ring sat there, nestled in delicate cream fabric. “E, you are my mate, which is enough in my world. You silly humans like your pomp and circumstance, though, so I have to ask. Will you marry me?”
E didn’t answer with words. She shoved up, toppling the surprised god backward.
He didn’t have time to right himself as she scrambled up his long, hard body, landing with a slight oomph across his chest. She laid a long, hard kiss on him, and he was more than content to let her.
When she pulled up a fraction of an inch to look up into his eyes, she saw humor and love there.
Something she knew would be there with him, for the rest of her days.
She was so happy she made a drunken magical mistake.
Or drunkenly stumbled into a magical lottery.
Whatever. The damned Book of Desires wasn’t damned after all.
It blew up her life, sure, but helped it fall into a new, lovely mess she would have fun putting together with Plutus.
“Yes,” she finally said.
He laughed, flipped her so he was on top once again, and smiled as he gave her a swift smack of his lips. “Thank the heavens. You left me waiting long enough.”
“Seconds,” she said, teasing in her tone as she trailed her fingers up through his black hair and the length of one of his curved horns.
“Three weeks,” he corrected. “Forever, actually, but who’s counting, since you’re here now.”
She was right where she belonged: comfortable and secure in a life she made for herself in some ways, but one she let others help her create. Which, she’d learned fairly recently, was the best kind of life one could have.
Thanks so much for reading!