chapter 4
This was not just a kiss. No. He would open himself to her, and she would know his torment, know the slow-burn ache of his
loneliness. She would know his heart, soul, and mind. And then they would make love and uncover the bittersweet truth.
What would he do if she was his mate? Did it matter? Any way he looked at it, the situation was impossible. His world did not fit
neatly with a mortal’s, and he could never turn his back on what he was. Yet, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to move forward,
from wanting to discover why fate had pulled them together. His lips slammed against Maggie’s, and his tongue thrust inside her
mouth. Into her, he poured every raw ounce of unsated sexual hunger he’d endured. No more games.
Several hellacious moments slid by before her walls of superficial, manmade decency and righteousness crumbled. She threw her
arms around his neck and kissed him back. Hard. Needy. Uninhibited.
Yes…
His entire body instantly flooded with her light, which reached every corner of his soul. Holy hell, man. She has to be your mate. He
did not need to make love to her to sense the powerful bond between them. But instead of it seeming like an insufferable fate, as he
’d imagined it would, the connection filled him with quiet strength and a profound peace of mind. No matter what came next, he
would find a way to be with her.
“Say you want me,” he panted between kisses.
Maggie peeled herself away and looked him in the eyes. “What are you?”
“Does it really matter, Margaret? You feel we are meant to be together, and I have waited my entire existence for you. You feel the
truth, so say it. Say you want me.”
What could she say? Whatever he was, he’d just blown her ship deep into the swelling waves of uncharted waters. And that kiss! It
was an ancient cyclone of nomadic wind that had journeyed across thousands of centuries, witnessing his life. Every exhilarating
emotion and mundane thought, every beat of his neglected heart—she watched it all. She saw the faces of everyone he’d helped,
his brethren, his foes. She felt his frustration for the role thrust upon him and the compulsion that kept him going even when he
believed he might go mad if he lived another day as a god.
Oh lord! Her mind sputtered. It was as though she’d been living on a Wild West movie set and had suddenly decided to peer
through the saloon window, only to find the real world just on the other side.
He was telling the truth. But how could gods exist without anyone knowing? The world was not at all what she’d believed.
A lifetime of manufactured façades crumbled at her feet, and in this new reality, each sliver of bone in her trembling body sang with
the truth: She was born to be with him. This was why no other man had ever touched her heart. I’m not broken…
Maggie sighed. Yes, she wanted him. She would never breathe again without him. She would shrivel up and die this very instant
without the rough touch of his hands on her bare skin, without knowing his lips intimately exploring her body, and without having him
deep inside her. Every cell in Maggie’s body threatened to collapse if her body didn’t get its way.
“Yes,” she finally purred.
A twinge of wicked victory shaped his full, stubble-framed lips. “Yes, what?”
“You’re really going to make me say it?”
“Naturally.”
“I want you,” she said with her mouth, but her eyes boldly told him what was now in her heart and soul: the insane, magnanimous,
epic truth that words could never articulate: She was his. At least, she sure the hell wanted to be.
“That wasn’t begging.”
“Don’t push it,” she hissed.
“I didn’t say you have to beg with words.”
He gently set her on the ground, steadying her on her good ankle. “Show me how you feel with your body.” He undid the top button of
her dress.
Her insides twisted into a knot of anticipation.
Another button.
And another.
She swallowed.
“Lovely.” He ran his callused fingertips over the swells of her half-exposed breasts, and strummed those taut ropes, which braced
her sails, like the strings of a guitar.
His hand stopped. “And what is this?”
It was a necklace. She hadn’t removed it since the day her father—Christ! Her father!
She stepped back and fisted shut the open panels of her dress. “There’s something I have to tell you.” She instinctively knew there
could be no secrets between them.
Oh God. I’ve gone insane. Haven’t I? I can’t believe this is all happening.
Chaam closed the gap between them. “Can it wait? If it’s about the species question, I assure you I do not care. I would still want you
even if you were part chupacabra.”
What the flapjack is a chupacabra?
She shook her head no. “My father is missing. That’s why I was in the jungle. And as much as I want to do this with you—as
incredibly insane as that is—which I won’t argue with because you are clearly, clearly something different, and I am clearly, clearly
not ever going to get you out of my system or head or life because I did see the vision, and it was… wow… and now I’ve gone all
goofy for you—but I have to find him.”
“Goofy? I assume this means you desire me?”
She nodded.
“Is the desire deep and consuming?”
She nodded again.
Chaam gloated with a smirk, just a little. “How long has he been missing?”
“Three days. And he hasn’t been well.”
“I assume you’re referring to his mental state?”
She nodded.
“Am I in time for s’mores?”
Chaam shoved Maggie behind him and then groaned with relief. “For f*ck’s sake, Cimil, how many times have I told you not to
sneak up on me?”
“Five thousand, two hundred, and twenty-two,” Cimil said. “Only six thousand, three hundred and fifty more times to go before I listen!
”
Maggie immediately recognized the strange redhead, only now she wore a mariachi outfit, complete with dazzling sombrero. A
loco-sombrero, of course.
“Funny. Mind telling me what the hell you’re doing here?” Chaam asked.
“What? Can’t a goddess of the underworld go for a leisurely stroll in the jungle for a little fresh air without having any hidden
agendas, especially ones having to do with mischief, mayhem, and world domination?”
“No,” Chaam replied.
Maggie felt strangely relieved that Chaam didn’t seem particularly fond of the bizarre woman, because she sure as hell scared the
crap out of Maggie.
“She said she was looking for you when I saw her earlier,” Maggie whispered over Chaam’s shoulder.
Chaam glanced at Maggie. “You already met my sister?”
Maggie nodded, but actually wanted to wince or make some sort of sour face to express her complete distaste of this woman he
called his sister. “Uh-huh. She came out of the lake when I was stuck on the dock.”
Chaam whispered, “What did she say?”
“Only the truth, brother,” Cimil spouted. “Maggie is your destiny.”
Chaam growled. “You’re up to something. I know it.” He pointed toward the dock. “You. There. Now.”
Cimil rolled her eyes and then began marching. “Gods. They’re so bossy,” she whispered as she passed Maggie.
“No, he’s perfect,” Maggie hissed. Surprisingly, she didn’t appreciate anyone badmouthing Chaam.
“Oh, you just wait,” Cimil replied and trailed behind her brother to the dock.
While Maggie buttoned her dress, Chaam and his sister had an intense conversation. Not that Maggie could see their faces in the
dark, but the water did a nice job of carrying their voices. Maggie had never heard the f-word so many times. She’d need to talk to
Chaam about his abrasive, ungentlemanly vocabulary later. For the time being, however, she listened intently as Cimil swore over
and over again that she hadn’t come to collect any—shit! Had she said “souls”?
“You f*cking expect me to believe you’re here for fun?” Chaam asked Cimil.
“Yes! I heard about that cricket, and well, I… dammit, Chaam! You know what happened with Alberto. I completely overreacted. I’ve
been searching for him ever since.”
“That should teach you not to turn humans into insects. And that should really teach you not to set them free in the jungle!”
Oh, my lord, Maggie thought. They can’t be serious.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Cimil said. “I merely wanted to teach him a lesson for spending all his time with that little slut!”
“Cimil! She was his sister. She was his sick sister! Have you no compassion?”
Long pause. “Is this a trick question?” Cimil asked.
“Never mind,” he replied. “I am calling in that favor you owe me.”
“Now?” she whined.
“Yes.” Chaam’s voice softened to a whisper too low for Maggie to hear.
After several moments, the two returned to the fire. “Maggie, Cimil has kindly agreed to look for your father, so if you could—”
“What? You’re sending her?” Maggie asked.
Cimil hissed. “Watch it, cupcake. I may look crazy, but I’m actually… actually, yeah. I’m crazy. I mean, you have no idea.” She
snorted.
Maggie suddenly realized that Cimil must’ve been the one Chaam had spoken of earlier; the god who’d tried to take lovers and lost
her mind.
Chaam pulled Maggie to the side. “Leaving you here alone is not an option; there are many dangers in this jungle. So either she
goes or I go.”
Maggie certainly didn’t want to stay alone with crazy-hat over there. “I see.”
Chaam cupped her face. His hands were warm and rough, and as inappropriate as it was given the situation, Maggie couldn’t help
but notice that sweet tension coiling right on cue.
He threaded one hand through her hair and kissed her quickly. “I knew you would see it my way. Besides, you and I have some
unfinished begging to attend to.”
After Maggie gave her father’s description and the approximate location of the excavation site, Chaam spent a full ten minutes
describing Cimil’s fate in explicit detail right down to her crazy cuticles if she didn’t find Maggie’s father pronto.
Ironically, the graphic threat didn’t sour Maggie’s impression of Chaam; it cemented the truth in her bones. He was a deity. How had
she not seen it? The power and authority he yielded leaked from every word, every gesture. Even Cimil’s blasé response—eye
rolling and foot stomping, but never showing fear—indicated she was not of this world. Or maybe that was a sign of her bat-shit
craziness? Who knew?
Chaam watched Cimil’s silhouette fade into the night and then threw two logs on the waning campfire. “Are you ready?”
“Ready?” Maggie asked.
He dipped his head. “Yes. Ready.”
Maggie’s entire body solidified into a mass of tense muscles. “You mean…”
He made no production of reaching for the buttons of her dress.
“Wait!” She gripped his hand. “I want to know something.”
“Yes?” His eyes flickered with impatience.
“You said that you’d waited for me your entire existence?”
He nodded and a warm glowing smile stretched across his lips. And yes, she pathetically melted inside.
“Are you absolutely sure it’s me?” she blurted.
He nodded again. “I think I knew from the moment I touched you. Fate brought us together. I feel it.”
She felt it too now. At least, that’s what she thought she felt. It was so dang difficult to believe. “But what if you’re mistaken?”
“I am never wrong about such things.”
“I’ll need a little more than that if I’m going to give myself to you.”
He didn’t bother to contemplate a response. “I have spent thousands upon thousands of years assisting mortals bond with their true
loves. I have become very adept at recognizing the signs of two souls meant for one another.”
“But didn’t you say you’re the God of Male…” Oh, what was it? Whoopee? Friskiness? Horniness.
“Virility,” he said.
“Yes, that. Which means you help men…”
“Have sex. But I do not waste my time with those who simply want to f*ck. Although, f*cking,” he slid his finger over the curve of her
jaw, “certainly has its place and purpose.”
To hear him say that word in that way spiked her mind with vivid sexual images. Images that sent her heart on a thumping rampage.
God, she actually wanted him to say it again.
“I help males,” he continued, “who have found their true love but have lost their way and are unable to take that next, all-important
step. Sometimes it is fear of rejection or fear they will not please the woman, especially if it is his first time.”
“But why do you only help men?” she said.
He gave her a “you-must-be-joking” look.
“What? It’s a legitimate question.”
“Because,” he replied, “men are idiots.”
Can’t argue there.
“More precisely, they are idiots when it comes to intimacy. Women have a natural gift for such things.”
Again. Can’t argue there.
“What do you do to help them?” she asked.
He shrugged like a man who had all the answers. “Depends on the situation. Sometimes, it’s merely a question of removing the
negative energy they’ve accumulated—fear is like a cancer of the spirit. Other times, I must compel them to simply push ahead, so
to speak. And then there are those occasions when I must teach them precisely what to do.”
She swallowed. “Teach them? You-you mean actually show them how to…?”
He reached for her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. The roughness of his whiskers and the soft warmth of his lips speared
right through her central nervous system.
“Oh yes,” he whispered. “I show them how to please a woman, specifically, their woman. Every female is different.”
Her insides clenched. “You-you know what every woman wants?”
He stepped in and pressed his tall, powerful frame against her. “Yes. It is a gift.” He leaned in slowly and placed his lips to her ear. “I
merely look at a female, and I know.” He brushed his lips down the length of her neck.
“Wha-wha-what is it that I wa-wa-want?” Brain? Are you there? Please don’t abandon me now.
His hot breath tickled the curve of her neck.
Oooh. Yes. She wanted that. How did he know?
He placed a soft, sucking kiss over the same spot and then pulled her against the hardness between his legs.
Yesss. That too. Horsefeathers… he’s good.
He then slanted his hot lips possessively over hers, slid his tongue past her teeth, and rhythmically stroked her mouth in time with the
rocking of his hips.
Suddenly, a wild and uninhibited Margaret she never knew existed took over. This Margaret didn’t care about propriety or anything
rational. This Margaret panted and clawed and wanted him deeper. This Margaret returned each thrust of his tongue with one of her
own and desired only to devour every male inch of his large, insanely hard body.
With a frantic flurry of hands and kisses, Chaam stripped away her dress and undergarments and backed her into the finely woven
hammock. She raised her hand to pull him down with her, but he moved back and drilled her with his turquoise gaze, willing her to
stay put.
Chaam leisurely slid off his white cotton trousers and straightened to his full height. Shoulders broad and straight, he proudly
displayed each unbreakable ripple of his abdomen, the swells of his chest, and the sexy, unmistakably masculine patch of black hair
surrounding the one object she’d crudely obsessed over since she’d first spotted him toweling off. She’d not seen his manhood
then, but now she stared right at the thing. It jutted into the air like a thick saber made of solid flesh.
She squirmed just a little as the heat between her legs made it abundantly clear that his large, pulsing erection was exactly what she
needed to ease the aching tension deep inside.
Are you kidding? Look at the size of that thing. Do you really think it’s going to feel pleasant?
Wild Margaret went running for the hills.
“What’s the matter?” He glanced over one shoulder and then the other. “Is that damned jaguar back?”
“No, it’s… well, I’ve never…” She scrutinized her body, then his daunting erection.
“Oh. I see.” He relaxed with a cocky smile. “Not to worry, hammocks have been around for thousands of years. I assure you it is very
secure. And,” he paused, “I know what I’m doing.”
“No. I meant your size is so…” Drat. How should I say it? “You’re large, all right? Really damned large, and I—”
“I am told this hammock,” he interrupted, “can hold the weight of ten men, not that I wish to see that. Besides,” he leaned over for a
kiss, hovering just above her lips, “I know what I’m doing. I am the God of Male Virility. I practically invented sex.”
Oh potato salad! “I’ve never been with a man,” she blurted.
A radiant smile, one that displayed almost every pearly white in his gorgeous mouth, leapt across his face. “Neither have I.”
“Amusing.”
Seriousness took over and his eyes locked on hers. “I have never been with anyone, either.”
“A virgin? You?”
“Yes,” he replied without the faintest hint of embarrassment.
The thought had never occurred to her, but given what she now knew—gulp, gods were real?—about his kind, well, of course he
was a virgin.
He then lifted his eyebrows in such a way that said, “And I know you want some,” however, his mouth said, “And I assure you, I know
exactly what I’m doing. I know exactly what you want.”
Without breaking his gaze he lay over her, smoothly placing himself between her legs. This simple act of his delicious, warm body
pressing intimately against hers was the most sensual thing she’d ever experienced. And the moment his lips touched hers, the
moment his rough hand cupped her breast, the moment the tip of his stiff cock prodded her sensitive opening, she understood what
it meant to beg with her body.
Combustion!
She slid her arms around the sides of his tight, narrow hips and cupped his solid, smooth backside, the one she’d already decided
deserved a shrine (or maybe two? or five?) to urge him closer.
With his strength and sizeable mass, he easily resisted her invitation to plunge inside. “No,” he whispered with a hot breath in her
ear, “it will hurt less if I work it in slowly. You will enjoy it much more.”
But didn’t he say he knew what she wanted? Because if he did, he’d know she was shamelessly begging for every hard inch.
She pulled his mouth to hers, slid her tongue past those sweet delicious lips, and again raised her hips toward the head of his cock,
driving him just a nudge deeper.
His eyes clamped shut and he groaned.
“You weren’t listening very well, because this is what I want,” she whispered.
His eyes flew open, and something animalistic and greedy flickered inside those orbs of deep turquoise.
Before she could mutter another word, he leaned into her. She cried out as he slid deep inside.
Although she’d begged him for it, he knew her pain had been sharp. He’d witnessed countless females taken for the first time.
Generally he watched from his realm and provided help to the clumsy males who were on course to spill themselves before getting
past the threshold, but no amount of spectating could have prepared him for the ecstasy of taking Margaret O’Hare. Being deep
inside her tight, slick heat, merging their bodies together, made him feel alive with sinful rapture.
“Are you all right?” He fought the urge to begin rocking himself deeper, knowing her body was processing the raw, conflicting
sensations of pain and pleasure.
Eyes shut tight, she nodded.
He brushed her swollen lips with his and released a tiny pulse of his light to help her heal quickly. “Tell me when you want more,” he
whispered.
Within moments her heated mouth returned to his. She pulled back her hips and pushed into him.
A groan involuntarily escaped his mouth. He’d never imagined…
The sensual tension immediately began to build with each delicious stroke of friction. Her fingernails dug into his back as she pulled
him deeper, working him in and out in a steady rhythm. And just when he believed his pleasure could not escalate another titillating
inch, it did. She screamed his name into the night, her body going rigid with her release while her inner muscles contracted, milking
him.
He felt the hot liquid burst from his cock and with it, her name poured from his lips.
No, he would never let this woman go.