Page 19 of The Demigod Complex
He took her by the elbow, but a flash of pink on the floor caught her eye. When had he untied her belt? She snatched it up and cast Castor a glower of her own, daring him to say a word. Head held high, she led the way.
As soon as they were in the suite, she beelined straight for the bathroom. A long soak in water was what she needed right now.
“Hey.”
She paused in the doorway and glanced over her shoulder at him in the main room, his eyebrows raised in question. Bluffing her way through this was her best bet.
He crossed his arms, and she did her best to ignore how the muscles strained the fine material of his shirt or the strength of his forearms exposed by his rolled-back sleeves.
“You’re going to explain what happened down there.”
Damn. She’d hoped he’d let it go. Time to play dumb. “Um. I saw a person I’d rather avoid. You helped me avoid him.”
She turned away.
“Hold on, you.”
She gave a little sigh before she turned back around, then yelped because he’d managed to cross the room to stand directly behind her without a sound.
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“You’re telling me that kiss was all an act?”
That panty-melting, set-me-on-fire, take-me-now kiss? Men could be so dense. “Of course.” She grimaced. “I shouldn’t have kissed you at all, but he showed up and I just kind of…panicked.”
He put his hands on the doorframe on either side of her, leaning close, his fresh-air scent swirling around her, casting her more under his thrall, and she found she couldn’t pull her gaze away. So, Leia did the next best thing. She hardened her heart and held her ground, angling her head to look him in the eyes.
“So if I were to kiss you right now”—his gaze dropped to her lips, making her tingle as though he’d already put words into action—“you’d feel nothing?”
Ah. That’s his problem.She’d pricked his pride. Shoving aside her unreasonable disappointment, she tried to forget the utterly perfect feel of his lips against hers. “Of course I’d feel something. I’m a nymph and you’re a demigod.” And a hell of a kisser. And she had this uncontrollable thing for him. “But it wouldn’t mean anything. You’re my boss, not my lover.”
He gave her a long, hard look, and a sound of splintering wood told her he’d gripped the doorframe a tad too hard, though she didn’t check to confirm. Her stomach tightened when his gaze dropped to her lips again and he seemed to lean closer.
Leia held very still. Waiting. Wishing…
But then he stepped back. “You’re right.”
Disappointment mingled with relief as her pent-up breath punched from her. “It won’t happen again.”
That statement didn’t make her feel any better. Regret dragged her heart down to the pit of her stomach.
“Who were you trying to avoid?”
She tipped her chin. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Too bad.”
She knew the stubborn light in his eyes, his jaw clenched with determination. He’d get it out of her by hook or by crook. “The werewolf responsible for losing me my spring.”
His eyes narrowed. “You told me Poseidon was responsible.”
“Yes, but it started with Kaios. He wanted me. I rejected him.” She left out the details on purpose. “To get even, he made a bet with Poseidon that the god would also fail with me. If he lost, Kaios was supposed to bring the god something. I never did find out what. If Kaios won, Poseidon would punish me much more than Kaios ever could.”
She gazed out the window at the lights of the shopping center below the hotel and the cars driving to and from the downtown area. “He must be here for the mating. Having an ancient like Kaios here to bless the mating with their presence is desired by the wolves. Except…I wasn’t aware he was still alive.”
They tended to die faster than other immortals given their proclivity toward fighting each other and the world, and she’d avoided everything werewolf since the day her spring had been destroyed. Until now.
Kaios was a self-centered megalomaniac, though. No way was the guy here to bless a mating. It couldn’t be coincidence. But he couldn’t be here for her, right? Yes, she’d rejected him. Granted, the way she’d gone about it—close to drowning him with the water from a river in a show of how her power could trump his, to get him to back off, and doing so in front of the most powerful of his people—had been beyond stupid. But he couldn’t still hold a grudge. Could he?
