In her line of work Athena Googlios is accustomed to hot, sexy men. But Damian Leandar puts hot on a whole new level. His touch, even his gaze makes her body clench and warm with lust. Athena’s mind tells her she needs to treat him like any other client. But her body has its own agenda. And when Athena finds herself facing off with a pair of truly ugly mythical creatures, Damian may be the only one who can save her from a fate worse than death.Unfortunately, Damian has some pretty big secrets. And despite the feelings they can no longer ignore, something bigger than love may yet come between them. In the end, it might take losing everything they have, to make them realize how much they had to lose.
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An Excerpt From: NOCKED ASUNDER
Copyright © SAM CHEEVER, 2009
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.
Chapter One
Phantom Applicant
I squinted at my computer screen and frowned. Nope. I hadn’t imagined it. There it was again.
Blip.
The face on the screen, expanded as large as I could make it, was a new application, provided online, through cyberspace. It had popped into my inbox just that morning. And I’d opened it up with nary a clue of what it was going to do to me.
Not a clue.
But when I looked at the face on the screen my heart did a little blip thing. It was subtle. But to a Cupid, who is unused to experiencing that type of thing for herself, it was anything but inconsequential.
His face was wide and square, with strong features that reminded me of his Greek heritage. His hair was dark gold and longish, framing a wide face and curling softly to his neck. Somehow it enhanced the thick column of his throat rather than feminizing it. His eyes were intense, wide and dark blue, with a thick fringe of dark gold lashes around them. His chin, impossibly square and masculine, was covered with dark gold stubble. He had long creases in his cheeks, like elongated dimples, that told me he liked to smile.
His lips were full and his mouth wide.
The eyes smoldered from my screen.
He looked like a man who was used to passion.
My nipples hardened.
My inbox chimed as another application dropped into it from cyberspace and I ignored it.
That face. That body.
Holy mother of all that was rich and fertile.
I wanted that man with every fiber in my being.
Blip. Blip. Blip.
My thighs clenched together as a wave of pure lust swept through me.
I made a little choking sound and sat back in my chair. I had to get a grip. I was a professional for the gods’ sakes. I saw gorgeous men all the time. I worked with several of them in fact.
But nothing had ever…no one…
I jumped as my phone rang and reached to answer it.
“Cupid’s Arrow, we aim for your heart. This is Athena.”
A brief pause. And then a throaty female voice oozed over the line toward me. “Cute slogan. I hope you can live up to that.”
“Mm-hmm.” I wasn’t paying attention. I found myself staring at the picture on the screen again.
“Miss?”
I shook my head and flipped the monitor off so I couldn’t see his face. “Sorry, I’m just a little buried here… How can I help you?”
“I want a match. A particular match. I want to be matched with Damian Leandar. I believe you just got his application?”
Now that got my attention. “Leandar? I’m not sure—”
“Check your email, sweetie. I watched him send it.”
I flipped the monitor back on just to be sure. Yup. It was him. Damn! Feeling my heart drop sadly into my stomach, I sighed. “I have his application, yes. But if you already know you want to be matched with him, why do you need us?”
I figured I already knew the answer to that. Hope soared in my chest. Maybe he didn’t want the woman on the phone. Maybe she was butt ugly or something.
I could always hope.
“He doesn’t know my feelings. When he finds out I’m interested he’ll definitely return my interest. But he’s horribly shy. So I think it would be better if you set us up. I just sent you my application.”
I bit my lip as I opened the second application to hit my mailbox that morning. I nearly gasped when I saw the woman’s picture.
Nope. Not butt ugly.
Not even close.
Ms. Megan Megara sat astride a flawless, white horse, long legs draping effortlessly down its sides. She was barefoot and was wearing a light summer dress, looking out over the ocean with a dreamy look on her perfect face. Her features were delicate and perfectly matched on her pale, oval face. Her hair was a thick, red-blonde mane falling over her shoulders and down her back, curling softly just above her narrow hips.
She held the reins softly in one hand, the other appeared to be smoothing over the horse’s glossy neck. She could easily have fitted in with the goddesses on Olympus.
My last hope fled me.
No way Damian Leandar would tell this woman no.
I bit my lip. “Okay, Ms. Megara. Let me do some preliminary work. Then I’ll contact Mr. Leandar and try to set up an appointment for you two to meet. You’ll both need to go through our pre-screening process though. It’s a requirement.”
“Pre-screening?”
“Yes ma’am, it requires that a Cupid’s Arrow representative spend at least ten hours with every prospective match, in a dating environment, just to make sure we completely understand your needs…so we can match you more perfectly,” I added, feeling hopeless at the thought.
I wanted to be Damian Leandar’s perfect match. A part of me, a mean little part, relished the thought that I would get him to myself for ten hours…maybe more if I could swing it…before I had to hand him over to her.
I felt a little better at this thought.
“I’ll have one of our male representatives call you to set up your pre-screening.”
The woman sighed audibly. “All right. If I must. But I want to move forward with this quickly…I’ve waited long enough…” Clearing her throat, she stopped in mid-sentence, as if realizing she’d said too much. “Anyway, I’ll be expecting that call today.”
“Thank you for contacting Cupid’s Arrow.” I hung up, pleased that I’d sounded sort of sincere.
Then my gaze slid back to my monitor, where Damian Leandar’s brooding, bad boy face called to me. My heart did that little blip thing again and I sighed. What was it about the man that called to me? Was it the thick tangle of dark gold hair, curling softly around a masculine face with a square jaw and strong nose? Was it the full, kissable mouth? Or was it the sad, blue eyes, which looked like they’d seen way too much of the world and needed someone to make it all better?
Nah, I decided, it was the broad shoulders, smooth golden chest and muscular arms that called to me.
Leandar was standing on a beach—I didn’t miss the obvious connection there—shirtless, wearing body-hugging jeans and nothing else. He held a light-colored wad of cloth in one hand, as if he’d just stripped off his shirt and he stared toward the camera, yet his gaze was unfocused, as if he didn’t know it was there.
He looked as if his heart were heavy, his thoughts deep. He appeared to be a very unhappy man.
I suddenly realized I wanted to fix that for him.
I wanted to take away the pain in his beautiful eyes.
No matter what it took.
Even if it meant giving him to her.
Sighing, I picked up the phone to call him.
It would be all right, I told myself.
After a couple hundred years as a Cupid, I was used to self-sacrifice when it came to love.
I could do this.
But as the phone started to ring on the other end of the line, my heart did that little blip thing again.
Only this time it hurt.
* * * * *
I tried Damian Leandar’s number for the tenth time, fully expecting the phone to ring through again as it had been doing all day. Instead I jumped as a soft, deep voice answered. “Yes?”
I sat there, my lips flapping like a wounded fish, suddenly at a loss for words. Then I remembered why I was calling him. “Damian Leandar?”
There was a short beat of silence before he responded. I discovered I was holding my breath. “No. This is his brother, Peter. Can I take a message?”
Frowning, I tried to ignore the way the sexy voice had jump-started my pulse and the entire southern geography of my body. “Yes. Thank you. My name is Athena Googlios, I’m a representative of Cupid’s Arrow and I’m calling in regard to your brother’s application.”
Another silence. “Cupid’s Arrow?”
Reluctant to discuss his brother’s private business, I didn’t elaborate. “Can you ask him to call me, please?” I gave him my office and cell numbers and hung up, feeling very frustrated.
It wasn’t often I had this much trouble locating a client.
My phone rang as I was preparing to leave for the day and I snatched it up, hoping it was him.
“When am I meeting him?”
I sighed. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with him, Ms. Megara. I’ll keep trying and, when I do, I’ll be sure and contact you right away.”
“What’s the problem?”
My teeth started to grind together as I clenched my jaw. The woman was worse than pushy and I just wasn’t in the mood. I figured my best bet was to get off the phone before I said something we’d both regret.
Well, at least I’d have regrets if I said something wrong. I wasn’t sure Ms. Megan Megara was sensitive enough to have regrets.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Megara, I have to run. I’ll be in touch.”
Heading out of the office, I waved to Christian Kairos, who’d just come home from Olympus and was cleaning out his office to go back. He’d apparently found his perfect match in a young goddess named Arion and was returning to the city of gods to live.
A wave of pain swamped me and I realized I was jealous.
Really jealous.
I headed to my car, a bright red Jeep Wrangler, and slid inside, anxious to get home and climb into a hot tub with a chilled glass of wine. I pulled out into traffic and hit the power button on my radio, settling back wearily into my seat and laying my head against the leather headrest.
The sun warmed me through the open roof of my little car, great tunes pulsed from my radio and my body started to de-tense.
My cell phone rang and I reached for it. “Hello?”
“You’re a matching service?”
I blinked. It took me a moment to place the soft, sexy voice. “That’s right. You looked us up?”
“Of course I looked you up. I don’t believe my brother sent you an application. Why would Damian need a dating service? The idea is ridiculous.”
I changed lanes and flipped on my turn signal. “I can’t discuss this with you, Mr. Leandar. It’s between your brother and Cupid’s Arrow. I’m sorry.” I hung up and concentrated on driving.
My cell rang again.
Sighing, I looked at caller ID and saw the name Leandar. I almost didn’t pick it up. But something told me I should.
“Hello again, Mr. Leandar.”
“I can assure you my brother didn’t send you that application. You can destroy it. He won’t be returning your call.”
I felt my hot Greek blood beginning to simmer, not in a good way. “Are you saying that you won’t give him my message?”
“I don’t need to. He didn’t send you any damn application.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Leandar?”
“Because I know my brother. He’d never do something so stupid.”
“Stupid!” I was aware of a certain shrieking tenor to my voice but couldn’t seem to do anything about it. “Cupid’s Arrow is not stupid, Mr. Leandar. We’ve been in business for a hundred and fifty years and we have a ninety-nine point nine percent success rate matching people with their per—”
“Yeah, yeah. Save the commercial. I know what you people do…you match the ugly and unpleasant with the desperate and unsociable. My brother doesn’t fit into any of those buckets. He doesn’t need a matching service to get a girl, I assure you.”
At this point I was shaking with anger. I was so mad I fully expected flames to come out of my ass at any moment, propelling me out of my car like a shooting star. “And I assure you, Mr. Leandar, Cupid’s Arrow matches wonderful people to other wonderful people to make wonderful connections. Our clients are not unpleasant, desperate, or ugly.” Okay, a few of them were unsociable…I’d give him that.
Horns blared around me and I realized I’d crossed the center line and was intruding on oncoming traffic. I swore softly and overcorrected, nearly running the car next to me off the road.
“No need to swear at me, Ms. Googlios.”
Was that humor in his voice? How dare he. “I’m not swearing at you, Mr. Leandar.” Though it certainly was warranted. “I need to hang up now and concentrate on my driving. Please, have a nice day.” I disconnected and threw the phone on the passenger seat.
I took deep breaths to try to calm down and realized that I had a death grip on the steering wheel and my heart was pounding in my chest. I hadn’t experienced that much emotion in one sitting since I’d been a hormone-infused teen.
Pulling onto my tree-lined street I finally felt myself starting to calm down. As I pulled the Jeep into my garage, my cell rang again.
I grabbed my purse and, reluctantly, my phone and started into the house. “Hello, Mr. Leandar.”
“Okay, maybe I was hasty.”
I set my purse on the table by the door and went straight to the refrigerator. Maybe I’d skip the wineglass and drink straight from the bottle. “Maybe you were.”
“I’m willing to give you the fact that Cupid’s Arrow is a legitimate business.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Leandar.”
“Okay, my bad. That sounded really arrogant, didn’t it?”
No comment. I pulled the bottle from the refrigerator and headed toward my room, bottle clutched in hand like a street bum. All I needed was a brown paper bag.
“What I meant was…obviously you do good things. You help people who need help finding love.”
Sensing just the tiniest bit of condescension in his tone, I frowned. “Actually we do help people. And we’re very good at it.”
“I get that. It’s just, my brother isn’t that type of person. He would never have sent you that application.”
Tucking the phone between my ear and my shoulder, I kicked off my shoes and dragged my short black skirt over my hips. My tights followed.
It was a little tougher to pull the white t-shirt off while using the phone but I managed.
“As I told you before, Mr. Leandar, I can’t discuss this with you. It’s your brother’s private business.” I headed into the bathroom. “He must have had a reason for sending us the application. Maybe you just need to trust his judgment.”
“He didn’t send you that damn application! Oh hell…” The phone went dead in my ear. I shrugged and set it down on the toilet so I could reach it if I needed to. I cranked the water of my Jacuzzi tub to hot and added some soothing bath salts.
At that point I needed all the help I could get with the soothing thing.
I divested myself of my bra and panties and climbed into the tub with my bottle.
“Ahhhh. Now that’s more like it.” Settling back into the lusciously hot and silky water, I took a tug from my bottle and closed my eyes. “An hour or two in this tub and I might feel human…er…goddesslike again.”
My cell phone rang.
I grabbed it and squeezed it so hard I heard the plastic of its poor little casing groan. Forcing myself to remain calm, I took a deep breath and pushed the little green phone icon. “Mr. Leandar, I’m trying to relax in a soothing tub—”
“Now that’s a pretty picture. Want some company?” The soft voice had lost all vestiges of anger and had been replaced with a decidedly lascivious tone. I wanted to believe it didn’t affect me but a tightening sensation between my legs would have made me a liar.
I sighed audibly. “Mr. Leandar…”
“I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
I sat up straighter. “I don’t even know you…”
“I mean, just to talk.”
I blinked. “Oh. No, that’s not a good idea. We have nothing to talk about.”
“I think we have lots to talk about. Do you need more time in your bath? Let’s make it an hour.”
“No. Mr. Leandar…”
“Man, you take really long baths. Okay, two hours but that’s my final offer. I’ll see you then.” He hung up.
I stared at the phone, my lips moving but nothing forming in my brain to push through them. I was shocked…appalled…disgusted…tingly. No, scratch that. That last emotion didn’t fit at all with the others.
I stood up and grabbed a towel. I had to stop him from coming to my home. It was wrong on so many levels.
I had climbed out of the tub and was nearly dry when it hit me. How the hell did he know where I lived?
Oh shit!
I dressed quickly in jeans and a t-shirt and headed out the door. I had Damian Leandar’s file in my car and I got the address off that. Driving way too quickly, I headed out of town, up nearby Mount Chartrain and toward the address listed on the application.
I found it on a winding, tree-lined road where huge, expensive homes sat nestled in the trees on the roadside, with an ocean view at the front.
It was a breathtakingly beautiful spot. And mind-numbingly expensive.
I rang the doorbell and waited, my heart pounding hard.
When the door opened I was shocked to find myself looking at Damian Leandar.
“Can I help you?” The voice was not unlike his brother’s but had a harder, more suspicious edge to it.
“Hello, I’m Athena Googlios, from Cupid’s Arrow.”
He stood there, looking at me with dark, sexy eyes.
When he didn’t speak I felt inclined to babble on. “You sent us an online application form.”
Finally the yummy lips parted and he said, “You make house calls?”
I laughed, flustered. How the hell was I going to explain? “No. I mean, I… It’s just that your brother…”
One thick, gold eyebrow lifted. “You’re here to see Peter?”
I dropped my purse and had to pick it up. When I stood my knees buckled and I almost fell. I dropped my purse again.
Laughing stupidly, I started to bend down again.
A strong hand grabbed my shoulder. “Let me get it.”
When he straightened with my purse he had a soft smile on his face.
I couldn’t help feeling like he was laughing at me. I frowned. “We need to schedule your pre-screening and I have a potential match for you…”
He held up a square hand with long, thick fingers to stop me. I couldn’t help wondering if what they said about a man’s fingers and his…well…other parts of his anatomy were true.
I licked my lips hopefully. Then berated myself silently for being a slut and a whore.
“Ms. Googlios, I don’t want or need any matches. I don’t know who sent you that application but—”
I nearly stomped my foot in frustration. “You didn’t send me the application?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Then who did?”
He smiled, showing me beautiful, straight, white teeth. “I have no idea.”
My heart dropped in my chest. Damn! “Oh, okay. Then I guess we have no further business.” I turned and started walking down the steps.
I made it almost to my car before he stopped me. “Ms. Googlios…”
I turned, trying not to grin too widely. “Call me Athena, please.”
He smiled too. “Like the goddess.”
I laughed. My behavior to that point had been far from goddesslike. “That’s what I’m told.”
“You’ve come all the way out here. And it looks as if we have no business to conduct. But I wondered…”
He seemed to be struggling with something. His beautiful eyes swung away from me, searching the area carefully, before he continued.
I forced myself to stand patiently, waiting.
His dark blue gaze finally swung back to me. “Would you like to come inside? Maybe have dinner with me? I was just fixing a light dinner and I’d be pleased if I didn’t have to eat it alone.”
I wanted to scream, Yes! And run back up those stairs but I forced my head to nod sedately as I said, “I’d like that very much.”
He smiled and I moved toward him, climbing the stairs very carefully and dropping the long strap of my purse over my head and one shoulder so I didn’t embarrass myself again.
He stood aside and motioned with a hand for me to enter ahead of him.
I turned as I entered the house and caught him looking around the area again before following me in.
I wondered what exactly it was that he was afraid of. Because it was obvious that something had him spooked.
Unbidden, the picture on his application, where he looked haunted and brooding, flitted across my mind.
There were layers to the man who now ushered me toward the back of the beautiful house. Serious layers.
And I was as anxious as hell to start uncovering them all.
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