Blood of Zeus: (Blood of Zeus: Book One) Read online

  I frown. “What about Kell? You seem close with her.”

  She nods. “I am. I mean, more than anyone else, that’s for sure.”

  “Jesse has her in one of his classes.” I smirk, remembering the way he spoke of her. “He was surprised that she had more depth than her social media presence might suggest.”

  She chuckles. “She does. It’s…” She circles her hand through the air like she can summon the truth of the matter that way. “Everything about the Valaris eventually funnels down to image. Most of it, anyway.”

  “I can’t begin to imagine a life in the public eye like that.” When she doesn’t answer, I press on, sensing she wants to share more, even if the subject matter is stressing her out. “You seem to be the sole Valari who doesn’t want the whole world to know it.”

  “You’re not wrong.” She averts her stare and forces a tight smile. “So what made you want to become a literature professor?”

  Since my gaze hasn’t left her face, I’m well aware that she’s deliberately trying to sidetrack me. But she also probably thinks she’s shared more with me than she should have. While she still keeps a lot of herself tucked away from me, I’m able to detect her nervousness when she bites her lip. I’m barely more than a stranger—a stranger who could sell her confessions for the right price.

  I’m determined to prove I’m not. If it takes baring more of myself to her as collateral, I can work with that.

  “Becoming Professor Maximus wasn’t a childhood dream or anything,” I answer. “I’m not complaining, though. I enjoy the work.”

  “So you sort of fell into it? That kind of thing?” She blinks and studies me harder, like she’s determined to excavate a better answer from me.

  “As much as you can fall into a life of academia. I suppose it happens by default when you realize the only thing you’re really passionate about is reading.”

  Something hardens in her gaze, but I can’t decipher it. She fidgets with her napkin. Here’s my opening to volley the subject back onto her, but something tells me that’s not the right course here. Quite a few somethings, as a matter of fact.

  I exhale a deep breath. “When I was younger…after Jesse’s accident…I threw myself into books. They were safe.” I pause. “I couldn’t hurt anyone turning pages, you know?”

  She nods. Not with pity but quiet understanding.

  “I’d quit sports and needed something to kill the time. At least something to compete with all the shit going on in my head. So I spent a lot of time at the store.”

  “Recto Verso?”

  “Yeah. Reg and Sarah took me in when Mom was busy. They pretty much let me turn the place into my personal library. Good thing, since I devoured books like most kids consumed video games.”

  “And?” Something glitters in her eyes, like she knows there’s more to it.

  “And…I guess there was something about these old classic stories that pulled me in. Figuring out all the subtext. Riddling out all those little hidden gems that I try to stump you guys with in class.”

  “There’s always a story under the story,” she adds.

  “Exactly!” It feels so damn good to let it out with a full rasp of fervor. “And past that, no matter how messed up everything can get, the hero always finds a way to pull through. Every time.” I rein myself in with help from a contemplative gaze out to the horizon, taking in the fading colors before they melt away completely. When I finally look back, Kara’s attention is still fixed on me. “After everything that happened, I needed that. I needed to believe that I could pull through. And that…”

  “What?” she prompts between my hesitant taps against the tabletop.

  “That…Jesse would too.”

  She takes a long sip of her wine. “So I take it you’re a fan of happily ever afters.”

  I smirk. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  “Hmm. Maybe a few very serious academic types.”

  “I take the texts seriously. I’ve never been much of a literary snob, though.”

  “Those blazers you wear with the elbow patches suggest otherwise.”

  I laugh again, throwing my head back this time, and her answering smile is officially the best thing I’ve experienced all night. Suddenly I wish I could stop time and hold this moment a little longer. Taking in the soft blush on her cheeks. The way the wind flutters wisps of her hair across her face. This quiet escape—just us—away from all the prying eyes.

  As if she can read my thoughts, her blush deepens, and she looks down. “Do you want to go inside?”

  “Sure.”

  We get up, leaving dinner behind. I beat her to the door into the Hall of the Sky, holding it open for her. Together we step inside and walk through to the rotunda and the colorful displays that lie beyond.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Her voice bounces around the smooth walls and tiled floors that surround us now.

  The seductive taunt causes me to stop so hard that my athletic soles chirp on the marble. I take her hand and tug her back to me. When we’re chest to chest, I almost forget about her lingering question. I’m too dazed by the visual of her. The proud poise of her slender shoulders. The generous swell of her breasts, tapering to the sweet nip of her waist. And then—God help me—the flare that accommodates everything below. The parts I’ve refused to think about. The flesh I can’t help obsessing over…

  Her expression seems to match mine. A little lost. Dark with longing.

  “What is it?” I murmur. “All your secrets are safe with me.”

  She pauses a moment, seeming to take in my promise—one I mean with all of me.

  “I’ve never actually been in here before. Inside the observatory.”

  My eyes widen. “Are you shitting—I mean kidding—me?”

  She slants a stare of warning. “Safety zone for all the secrets, Mr. Kane. You promised.”

  “And I’m still your lockbox,” I return. “But how have you grown up here and not experienced all this?”

  That alone seems to prompt her next move. She tilts her head back, casting her gaze heavenward. “Oh, wow.”

  I don’t have to follow her focus to know the cause of her exclamation. “The ceiling in here does that to a lot of people,” I assure her. “And actually, seeing as we have this place to ourselves…”

  I lower myself to the floor, taking her down with me, until we’re both sprawled and share a perfect view of the rotunda’s mural.

  “Talk about spectacle and glory,” she mutters with no small amount of awe.

  “All the panels were painted back in the thirties by a guy named Hugo Ballin. The big circle in the middle illustrates the gods and goddesses of the zodiac signs, wielded in the sky by Atlas.” I point up to the different places on the mural as I speak. “The Pleiades are also there, and then he’s got Jupiter—or Zeus, depending on whether you’re feeling Greek or Roman.”

  “Zeus. Huh.” Her thoughtful murmur seems layered with new meaning. Or is that just my heightened senses working overtime? A misplaced interpretation of her rasp on the still air? The battle I’m still waging, now more than ever, not to clutch her close, kiss her senseless, and give her whispered promises of more?

  As a result, I default to Professor Maximus mode. When the occasion fits…

  “Ballin wasn’t exactly shattering boxes with the concept,” I explain. “Many of the constellations were named after the gods because the ancients believed the gods moved among them. Each god and goddess was given a place in the sky to honor them and to therefore appease them. The bigger the deity, the larger the constellation.” I gaze up at the huge dome dominated by the cathedral-like art. “No less of a crazy theory than gods walking the earth and conspiring with humans, I guess.”

  Kara shifts her weight, lifting herself to gaze down at me. “Crazy? Why?” she prompts. “Just because the theory belongs to an ancient civilization? Because it’s all called mythology and not literature? Because science and facts don’t directly support it as proven history?”


  I don’t answer her at first. I think I’m waiting for her to crack a just-kidding grin. When she doesn’t budge, I challenge her. “What are you saying? That you believe there’s a bunch of superbeings cavorting around in the sky when they’re not snacking on nectar on Mount Olympus?”

  “I’m saying that there are lots of things in the world—in the universe—that you can’t begin to understand or explain away.”

  “All right,” I drawl. “I’ll bite. Like what?”

  “Like the Bermuda Triangle,” she says at once. “And the Nazca Lines and Bigfoot and déjà vu.” And then she’s leaning over, reworking our hands so they’re entwined again, so that the energy, so bizarre and insane but bright and beautiful, flares between us again. “Like us, Maximus,” she whispers. “Like…this.”

  Too late, I realize that I’m not breathing. There’s something bizarre and forbidden and different about Kara Valari. But something warm and familiar and right too.

  So damn right…

  Whoever she really is, sharing this time together has only sharpened the yearning to figure her out. To know all her secrets, even as she helps me discover all of mine. But before that, there’s a much more urgent purpose. I need to kiss the hell out of her. No matter how thoroughly I’m terrified to.

  I reach up and pull her ponytail free, then sift my fingers through the silky strands until I’m cupping the back of her head. Slowly, I guide her down to me. I’m too eager for the lips that have just formed those words. In this moment, they resound in my mind like a declaration of freedom and in my heart like a manifesto of truth.

  Because something tells me, as she forms her mouth over mine, that the two of us really are barely scratching at the first layer of a deeper truth. Terrified to go any further—but more terrified of what will happen if we don’t.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kara

  Kissing Maximus is a thought-robbing endeavor. For all the way he stimulates my mind, being this close to him makes me quickly forget about the other ways we match. Seconds ago, my thoughts were weaving through the constellations, deep in myth and mystery—all things I’ve spent my academic life contemplating along with the truths I already know.

  Now I’m all blood and hot skin and clawing need. Human. Demon. Possibly a dangerous combination of both. Emboldened, I skim my hand down the front of his shirt and tease my fingertips under the hem. His muscles jump and clench the higher I go. Our mouths unlock just enough that his moaning exhale warms my lips. I wonder if it’s the kiss or the small touch that’s undoing him. Then his free hand shifts me over him so my thigh slips between his.

  His arousal is unmistakable, pressing against my hip. It might be a little awkward if it weren’t so damn intoxicating to know how I affect him. I should move away. Ease the pressure between us. But I’m driven to test his control the way he tests mine, so I deepen our kiss and drag my torso a little higher as I do, adding to the friction.

  Maximus reaches to where my shorts have ridden high and takes two firm handfuls of the flesh there. The possessive motion creates a surge of pressure between our bodies. It’s a blinding blaze through my system. Too much too fast.

  Oh, but I love it. I moan against his lips and curl my fingers against his pectoral.

  “Goddamn, you’re killing me with these shorts.” He exhales in a ragged breath. “We should stop. Kara, tell me to stop.”

  “Stop” sounds like the worst word I’ve ever heard, so I kiss him harder, making it quite clear that I’m not on board with that plan. At all.

  “Kara.” His voice is a desperate rasp between us, rough with his worry and longing.

  “I don’t want to stop. I want you to keep touching me. Kissing me.” The rest of my pleas echo silently through my mind. The ones that involve him doing more than kissing and touching. But I’ll never be able to share that experience with him, no matter how badly I may want to.

  It’s a sobering thought.

  I should stop this. Revving the attraction a little is one thing, but this is a high-speed chase down a road I have no business traveling. At least with Maximus.

  I break the kiss, but before I can come up with a good excuse to stop things, he switches our positions so I’m lying on the floor. He cradles the back of my head, protecting me from the hard tiles as he hovers over me.

  He brushes his lips gently across mine. I bow my body toward him, eager for more full contact. He takes the invitation and lowers, taking care not to crush me. Not that I’d mind. I’m already fully obsessed with the feel of him. The weight of him. His heat and the way he smells like the rain when we’re this close.

  He brushes his fingers along my jaw and follows the journey with his mouth until his next breath tickles my ear. “I don’t want to stop either. I don’t think I’ll ever want to. Not with you, Kara.”

  The confession is enough to kill any refusals forming in my brain. More, it transcends the physical frenzy that’s seized my senses. Heat and awe swirl behind his eyes when our gazes meet again.

  When he kisses me, somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, I think I could fall in love this way. With his tortured whispers, heated looks, and the worshiping way he trails his lips over all the skin he can reach.

  I thread my fingers in his hair and blink up at the ceiling. The only witnesses to this intimate moment are the figures painted into the sky. They’re not my gods, but somehow I can still feel them watching. Judging me.

  Maximus keeps moving down my body, nipping my breasts through my cropped top. Then dragging hot kisses across my bare stomach. I can barely breathe. I’ve never wanted anyone this way. I don’t think I ever will. But we can’t. I can’t…

  Still, our sighs and moans keep echoing off the walls. Then the pop of my top button on my shorts coming loose. His name on my lips like a prayer.

  Then the thunder. A quiet rumble that’s easy to ignore until the booming cracks of a fast-approaching storm have us both silent and still. My eyes fly open when Maximus shifts over me.

  The question in his blue eyes mirrors the one in my head. Should we get out of here before the sky opens up? Or keep doing sexy things on the observatory floor to the sound of the rain?

  A gray-pallored Zeus stares at me over Maximus’s shoulder. The god of thunder himself. I’m not sure whether to thank the man in the mural or hate him right now.

  “Should we go?”

  I shift my attention an inch to the left to the beautiful man staring down at me who could easily pass for a god himself. I reach for him, already regretting the end of our night. The second my fingertips meet his cheek, the sky erupts with another angry clap of thunder.

  He lifts to his knees and then hauls me up to stand as he does. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before it gets bad out there.” He turns toward the terrace. “Shit. The food.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know people who know people. Remember?”

  His smile is a bloom of relief in my chest. I’m so messed up right now. I haven’t recovered from where my head was five minutes ago, and I might not ever. More relief comes when he takes my hand and leads us out of the building. Wordlessly we hurry toward the east trail—one that hopefully will get us down before the rain starts.

  We make the descent quickly, but we’re not fast enough to outrun the rain. Drops begin pelting us just before we get to the bottom. The full deluge of the storm arrives as we make the last dash to his truck. We jump in and catch our breath. The rain creates a white noise around us and obscures the view out his windshield.

  When I shiver, he turns on the engine and switches on the heat. I don’t miss the way his attention snags on my rain-drenched clothes. I’m just as guilty. He looks impossibly gorgeous with the fabric of his T-shirt clinging to his well-defined torso.

  “Thank you,” I say, rubbing some warmth back into my arms.

  “No problem.” He rests his head on the neck rest with a heavy sigh. “Thanks, Dad. Impec
cable timing.”

  I lift my eyebrows. “Dad?”

  He turns to me with a smirk curling up the corner of his lips. “That’s just my personal joke. Pretending that the god of thunder is my dad.” He points his finger to the sky.

  “Zeus?”

  He laughs quietly. “It’s dumb. I guess it’s better than thinking about what happened with the real one, though.”

  My brain rushes to catch up to what he’s saying. “What happened with the real one?”

  “That’s an excellent question. I have no idea, and my mother refuses to tell me. Not ideal when you’re trying to figure out who you are, you know?”

  I’m quiet for a long moment, struggling with how suddenly and deeply my heart aches for him. I’m also fighting to understand why someone would keep that information from their own grown child. My lineage is an ugly tree of betrayals and deceit, but at least I know what it looks like. Living in the dark would be so much worse. At least I think so.

  “That seems unfair.”

  He beams his stare forward like he can somehow see through the rain-drenched window. “I had to come to terms with unfair a long time ago.” He switches on the windshield wipers. “Speaking of unfair, let’s drive you home so you can get dry.”

  I cover the top of his hand with mine as he puts the vehicle into gear. He pauses to look at me.

  “I had a really nice time with you. I’m glad you said yes.”

  “Me too.” His eyes are unreadable. They hold too much. Or maybe we’re both feeling too much of everything right now. I can’t figure him out.

  Worried that he’s already regretting the whole night, I release some tension when he captures my hand. He keeps it tight in his during the rest of the drive home.

  Almost an hour later, he pulls up to my house and idles behind Kell’s Bentley.

  “I guess I’ll see you Wednesday,” I offer, even though I wish I could see him sooner.

  Maybe he’ll want that too. But he’s not looking at me, and I hate it.

  “See you Wednesday,” he utters quietly.

  Despite his sudden coolness, I lean across the front seat and kiss his cheek. I pull back before the moment can turn into more and then run through the rain to the front gate.