Nocked Asunder Read online

  Nocked Asunder

  Sam Cheever

  Gods of Love, Book Two

  In her line of work, Athena Googlios is accustomed to hot, sexy men. But Damian Leandar brings hot to 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 have to lose.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Nocked Asunder

  ISBN 9781419925535

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Nocked Asunder Copyright © 2009 Sam Cheever

  Edited by Helen Woodall

  Cover art by Willo

  Electronic book Publication October 2009

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Nocked Asunder

  Sam Cheever

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Jacuzzi: Jacuzzi Inc.

  Jeep Wrangler: DaimlerChrysler Corporation

  Teflon: E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company

  Prologue

  Lucky Cupid?

  I am Cupid.

  No, I’m not a cute little chubby guy with a large bow and a quiver of arrows.

  In fact I’m not even a guy.

  But I am a Cupid. As were my parents and their parents before them, on and on throughout time, back through the millennia of our Greek ancestry.

  I’m not sure where the whole chubby little guy thing started. It’s probably because Cupid was represented as a guy in both Greek and Roman mythology. Of course in Greek mythology Cupid was called Eros. And Greek writer Hesiod once described Eros as the “loveliest of all the immortals” and said that Eros “makes…men’s bodies go limp, mastering their minds and subduing their wills”. Now I ask you, does that sound like a guy?

  Of course there are some men who are Cupids, though not one of them is chubby. They’re all devastatingly gorgeous in fact and they certainly wouldn’t appreciate being called “cute” in any way. As a whole the Cupid race is exceedingly good-looking and pleasing in every way.

  Which has done us very little good over the millennia.

  Our deepest, darkest secret is that we look like every man’s or woman’s dream but, up until recently, we were destined never to find love of our own. Unfortunately, that part of mythology is correct. Cupids have been like Teflon when it comes to attracting a love interest. We could give love to others but we couldn’t take any for ourselves.

  Recently though, a special Cupid named Daphne Charissa found her perfect love and fought the Furies to keep it. Since that time things have changed for Cupids.

  Under very special circumstances we can now find love of our own.

  But special circumstances don’t come around every day. Which is why they’re called special circumstances. And I figured I was too ordinary to warrant a special circumstance of my own.

  My name is Athena Googlios and I work for Cupid’s Arrow, an Earthbound matching service for humans.

  Like most of my fellow Cupids, I figured I would live out my five hundred or so years in lovelessness.

  I had almost resigned myself to that fact.

  But then the strangest thing happened…

  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?”