In fact it was hardly believable.
The thought drove her across the room, away from him. She wrapped her arms around her middle, chewing on her lip as she looked guiltily at the box on the fireplace mantle. His slow, measured tread came up behind her; she was so hyperaware of him, she knew to the exact moment when his hands would come down on her shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
The question burst out of her. “Do you think the gods can make us do things we wouldn’t otherwise do?”
His thumbs rubbed soothingly at her shoulder blades. “Why do you ask?”
Her body was trembling with the force of her own desire to keep silent, to take what he offered her with his hands and his mouth. But she couldn’t.
She whispered, “When Dr. Telemar—the medusa—couldn’t identify what kind of Power was in those Tarot cards, I started to wonder about those old legends about the gods putting items in the world to enact their will. Inanna’s card keeps surfacing. If the cards are hers—could they be influencing us to act in ways we might not otherwise act?”
He was silent for a long, thoughtful moment. Then he brushed her braid aside and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “The chances of such a thing would be outrageously rare, you know,” he said gently. “And while the good Dr. Telemar is no doubt highly proficient at her job, she is but one physician and the world is filled with many strange and different magics.”
“I know,” she whispered.
He pulled her into his arms. “Even if we were so lucky to have an item of Inanna’s working in our lives, no, I do not believe the gods can or would make us act against our natures or inclinations. Our free will is one of the primal Powers after all. Inanna may give us the opportunity for love, but it’s our choice whether or not we take that opportunity, and love is what we make of it.”
She said in a low voice, “I just find it hard to believe that you might—you might want me.”
He turned her around and stared into her eyes. “Xanthe, you are the most beautiful surprise in my life. I hardly noticed you at first. You carry the quiet of a river with a still surface that runs very deep. I found that the more I looked at you, the more I saw—and now the more I see of you, the more beautiful you become and the more I want you.” He paused then said deeply, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I have grown to want you.”
Her trembling deepened as she listened to him. Overcome, she laid her hand against his lean cheek. “Me neither.”
He smiled at her, slow and intimate, as his hands drifted gently, gently to the front of her shirt. He gave her plenty of time to say something, to object or pull away, as he teased open the top button, then a second one. Her breathing quickened as she watched his long, clever fingers work the material open. When she glanced up at him, she saw that his breathing had quickened also.
Her shirt came unfastened and he pulled the edges open, gazing down at her breasts. She was slim everywhere, muscles sleek and strong under pale, smooth skin. Her breasts were high and slight, the pale pink nipples pebbling in the open air.
He touched the swelling, velvet soft skin of her breast with shaking, gentle hands, and brushed the extremely sensitive jut of one nipple with the back of his fingers. Sensation and emotion coursed through her, the small pleasure brought to an extreme by the awareness that he was the one who touched her with such care.
She looked up at his dear face, both noble and kind, and surprised an expression of vulnerability. He said, very low, “I have not been with anyone since my wife died. I felt dead inside for so long.”
Compassion wrenched her. She circled his wrists loosely with her hands. “We don’t have to do this, Aubrey, if you’re not ready.”
“Yes, we do.” His eyes blazed. “She took so much from me. I will not lose any more of my life to her. For a long time, I didn’t see how I could learn to trust someone again. Until you.”
Tears burned at the back of her eyes. “I would never hurt you. Never. I’ll kill anyone who tries.”
His clenched expression softened into a tender smile. He cupped her face and whispered, “I believe you.”
She pulled his hair loose from the tie that held it back, and the long raven strands fell about his lean face as he bent his head to kiss her. Starting out light and tender, the caress rapidly escalated until he gripped the back of her head and dug, groaning, into her open, inviting mouth.