her.
Tugs radiated into her scalp and she
ducked away. “What are you doing?”
Men touching her hair was nothing new,
the thick mass waved down her back to her waist. For some reason it attracted
them like kittens to catnip.
“Getting rocks out of your hair.”
More pulls on the strands radiated into her
scalp, but this time the heat of fingertips rasped over the nape of her neck,
to her back, then to the top of her ass.
“Oh.”
He continued to finger comb the locks
and she relaxed into the sensation. Poseidon hadn’t bothered to brush her hair
in centuries, and the guards never had time. Any hook-ups with one of the males
assigned to watch over the nymphs happened in a flurry of hands and mouths. No time
for cuddling or closeness.
She leaned into him. “Yes.”
The ministrations paused.
“Blue. It’s naturally blue.” She peered
over her shoulder at him. Theo had a mass of hair captured in one hand.
“I wish I’d seen it that way.” He
stroked the skin below one eye with a knuckle. “With your extraordinary eye
color, it would truly be something to behold.”
A swell of sharp edged tenderness
crested in her chest.
“Eh, I’m alright.” She stepped away from
him, the strands of hair flowing through his hand to flop down. “Thank goodness
I didn’t have to dye my eyebrows too. At least they just look black. You should
have seen us trying to get the dye to stick to my hair. It was a cluster fuck
right up there with the time Hera came to visit and found Zeus fucking four of
my sister-nymphs in the small breakfast room.”
A surprised chuckled erupted from him. He
shook his head, and cast his stare to the mouth of the alley. “That’s uh…hmmm.
The ways of the Olympians have long puzzled me.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s no secret they have a
relationship founded on drama. Not everyone is like that.” She fluffed her hair
and wished she’d thought to bring a hair clip of some kind. The back of her
neck was getting hot and sweaty.
Theo tugged on her shirt, making some
minute adjustment. The grey spirals of color chased across his irises and
affection warmed her. The cold, grumpy veneer the grotesque initially presented
her with was wearing off. “Your friend is off with my brother. What do you plan
on doing now?”
“I don’t know. I’m not here for the same
reason as Petra.” She walked toward the street with him falling into step
beside her.
“Ah.” The weight of his presence next to
her was too damn comfortable, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of
leaving. “What reason would that be then?”
“She asked me to come with her.” They
turned to the left when they reached the sidewalk with some kind of unspoken
agreement. “I don’t think it’s possible to find true love in three days. So I
came along to keep her company and have some fun until I have to go back to the
harem.”
A sharp pain twisted in her gut and a
lump formed in her throat. Saying the words out loud hurt. Thinking them hadn’t
bothered her, but giving them voice clenched her stomach into a knot.
“How does a nymph with carte blanche to
do whatever she likes have fun?” He guided her around a crowd of teenagers
clumped together in the middle of the sidewalk with one hand on her lower back.
“Hmmm…well she gets a hot dog from
Nathan’s Famous. Then she buys a scarf from a shop because it matches her
hair.” She flipped the lower edge of the article at him and he clamped it down
on her thigh with a censuring look. A giggle escaped at the scandal on his
face. “Then the nymph drags a poor unsuspecting grotesque into an alley and has
her wicked way with him.”
“You do love to display yourself.” A low
chuckle slipped out and he tucked her hand into his elbow. Probably to keep her
from flashing again. “What would you like to do now?”
“Well, I don’t know. My sister abandoned
me.” She batted her eyelashes at him and bumped her hip into his. Flirting she
understood. Flirting gave her