Keyboards and Kink (5 page)

Would Thunderkiss look beyond that? She could tone
down the glittery rainbow shit for a few hours, just enough time
for them to meet. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Was she really
going to do this? Purposely go out with a mortal she’d fallen in
love with in the hopes he’d return her affection?

When her shaking hands landed on the keyboard, she
knew she was.

****

Briareus “BC” Colonomos stared at the email he’d just
received from Pain-bow Brite, his in-game wife and the mortal he
couldn’t get out of his head. She’d said yes to meeting.
Yes!
His heart pounded and his skin felt too tight for his
body. After five years of talking online, getting to know her,
discovering how naughty she was despite her good girl image on the
game, he was finally going to meet the woman of his dreams.

Holy fucking shit.

“Godsdammit, I can’t get this shit to work!”

The loud crashing sound jerked BC’s attention away
from his panicky thoughts. He glanced over to see Cottus, his
younger brother and fellow guard of Tartarus, smashing one of the
monitors. “What the fuck are you doing?” he shouted as he came to
his feet. “That was a perfectly fine monitor, you fucktard.”

Cottus grunted, his huge body rippling with anger.
“It was broken.”

He’d only bought the monitor three days before and
knew for a fact it wasn’t broken. “What was it doing?” he asked as
he walked across the immortal prison’s control room to look at the
now smashed to bits monitor.

“I couldn’t see anything on it. I kept moving the
mouse around, but nothing showed up on it. Like I said, it’s
broken.” Cottus plopped himself in one of the chairs specially made
for the Colonomos brothers.

BC sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Did you turn it on?”

“What? Of course I did, I plugged it in.”

Chaos save me from idiots.
He normally didn’t
take his grandfather’s name in vain, but his brothers tried his
nerves like no other immortal in the company could. Well, except
for their father, but that bastard never showed his face at the
prison these days.

“Look, when you turn a monitor on you have to hit
this little button, see?” He demonstrated by pressing the button on
another, unbroken monitor. “When the light turns blue here, it
means the monitor is on.”

“Whatever,” Cottus said, blowing him off. “I’m taking
a break.”

BC stood to his full seven foot seven height. “You
just came back from break twenty fucking minutes ago!”

“And I’m taking another!”

The door slammed behind his youngest brother, leaving
BC alone in the control booth. Growling under his breath at the
lack of work ethic his siblings had, he flopped back into his
chair. The laptop in front of him still showed Pain-Bow’s email,
soothing some of his frustration, but he couldn’t help but wonder
if she’d realize how much of a mistake it was to meet him. He had
nothing to bring to any kind of relationship, not that he could
remember when he last had one.

Sure, he fucked. There were always nymphs and sprites
and a few goddesses who liked the idea of having sex with someone
so hideous, but he didn’t want just sex. He wanted all that other
shit he’d never had before. Gentleness, tenderness, affection.
Things other immortals in the company took for granted.

He leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen,
paying no mind to the rows and rows of monitors displaying the
cells of Tartarus. Pain-Bow was everything he could have wanted to
find in a female, mortal or immortal. She was funny with a
sarcastic sense of humor he could greatly appreciate. She was
intelligent, but not condescending, and they could talk about
anything. She also turned him on. A smile tugged at his mouth as he
thought about their last cyber session. She had to have the
wickedest imagination ever.

His cock twitched as he remembered her words. BC
squirmed in his chair, wondering if she’d find him the least bit
attractive. His erection deflated. He wasn’t pretty or even
ruggedly handsome like the other immortals who worked for Olympus,
Inc. He and his brothers, Cottus and Gyges, were giants. And
nowhere near as attractive as their Titan siblings. A slight
misunderstanding during the War of the Titans meant the Colonomos
brothers had been banished to Tartarus to guard it for fifteen
thousand years. It was only in the last thirty thousand years that
tensions had eased between the Titans, the Colonomos brothers, and
the current executives of the company. But that hadn’t changed his
circumstances. He still lived with his idiotic brothers, still
worked at the prison, and still remained single because no sane
woman would put up with any of it.

BC glanced at the email again and saw the words,
Can’t wait to finally meet you
, and knew it didn’t matter.
He’d fallen hard for the mortal female and he’d do anything in his
power to make her his. He’d picked up some things over the last
thirty-eight thousand or so years. She wasn’t immortal. Not yet,
but he would change that. There were a lot of powerful immortals in
Tartarus and some of them might be willing to make deals for better
accommodations.

He only hoped Pain-Bow wouldn’t mind hooking up with
the giant god of violent storms and hurricanes because he wasn’t
sure he could let her go once he saw her.

Chapter Two

In a rush to get through her day so she could hurry
home to get ready for her first face-to-face meeting with
Thunderkiss, Iris knocked on Tartarus’s control room door louder
than usual. The message she carried came directly from the Fates
and they’d made her promise to deliver it herself rather than pass
it on to one of the junior messengers in the Communications
Division.

“Come in,” a deep voice said from within.

Iris opened the door and saw the rows upon rows of
monitors, but only one giant sitting in the booth. Briareus, the
Vigorous, sat hunched over a laptop, his big fingers clicking away
with more dexterity than she would’ve ever credited him with. He
didn’t even look her way as she stepped into the booth, all of his
focus on the screen she couldn’t see.

She bit back a sigh of impatience and waited for him
to notice her. One thing she always prided herself on was her work
ethic. Yes, she was in a hurry, but she’d never be rude to a
coworker. Judging by the way Briareus frowned at the screen he had
to be doing something important.

He was massive, but then he was a giant. He wasn’t
bad looking either, though not pretty boy handsome, or even
ruggedly handsome like most of the men on Mount Olympus. He just
looked rough and dangerous with his crooked nose, and jagged
features. Iris couldn’t help but admire his massive physique
despite her love for Thunderkiss. Briareus was all man and then
some, but of course he never noticed her as anything but an
annoyance because every time she saw him it was to deliver orders
from the corporate executives. She didn’t think he disliked her so
much as just didn’t think anything of her and she was okay with
that because she had Thunderkiss.

When Briareus finally looked up, she beamed at him
and stepped forward. “This is for you from the Fates. They asked
for me to wait for a reply.”

He took the envelope from her with a grunt and tore
it open. Tapping her toes inside her winged shoes, Iris tried to
keep her impatience from showing. Briareus frowned at the sheet in
front of him, his pretty gray eyes scanning the missive. She’d
heard a lot about him through the water cooler grapevine, not that
anyone spoke directly to her about their sex lives, but they liked
to talk with each other and her speed meant she passed by too
quickly for them to stop themselves from dropping the juiciest
piece of gossip in front of her. Nymphs, sprites, even a goddess or
two had slept with him, although from what she’d heard they didn’t
do much sleeping.

Her cheeks burned as they always did when she thought
about the things he supposedly did to his lovers. None of them
complained about being mastered by him, but none of them went back
for second helpings either. They all said he was too rough, too
dominating and wanted too much from them. Iris didn’t even know
what that last part meant. Did he want them to do things that were
horribly taboo, or was it something else? He’d never seemed cruel
to her, just a little crude. Kind of like Thunderkiss, although
there really wasn’t a comparison, was there? Her mortal was sweet
to her and he said the most delicious things. Her toes curled in
her shoes.

“What’re you so fucking happy about?” Briareus asked
in a hard tone as he scribbled something at the bottom of the
message.

Iris’s cheeks heated even further, but she didn’t shy
away. “I have a date tonight and I’m a little impatient.”

That caught his attention and he lifted his eyes to
stare at her. “You have a date?”

Anger threatened to overtake her happiness and
excitement, surprising her. She never got really angry. Upset, yes,
maybe a little aggravated, but anger wasn’t part of her emotional
make-up because it was a useless emotion. “Is that so hard to
believe? Yes, I have a date.”

His thick brown eyebrows rose at her sharp response.
His massive shoulders rolled beneath his polo shirt. “Not hard to
believe someone would want to go out with you, just surprising that
you’re actually going out. You never go out with anyone.”

Iris pressed her lips together to keep back a snappy
retort. It didn’t matter what he or anyone else thought. She hadn’t
gone out with anyone because no one ever asked her. “Well, I’m
going out with someone tonight and I’m impatient.”

Her phone buzzed on her hip, telling her she had a
new email, and her heart leapt. It had to be Thunderkiss telling
her what time he wanted to meet and what he was wearing. Since Iris
had told him she lived in south Louisiana, but not exactly where,
he’d agreed to drive in from Houston to meet as long as she picked
a nice, public spot for them to meet in and let him pick the time.
She almost bounced with excitement to read what he said.

Briareus scrawled his name with a flourish. “That’s
nice. Have fun, princess.”

She snatched the newly sealed envelope from his hand.
“Thank you, I will. Have a great day.”

****

BC watched Iris walk out the door and fought back the
urge to follow her to find out who the fuck she was going out with.
It was none of his business. They were coworkers and nothing more.
He glanced around the control room, a small grin playing around his
mouth at the residual rainbows she’d left behind. If there was one
thing anyone in the company could say about Iris Argyris, it was
that she always brightened up the day. Everywhere she went she left
a little bit of herself behind. It never lasted for long, but it
was enough to calm BC’s nervousness about the upcoming night.

He frowned at the streaks of rainbows she’d left on
the floor of the control room. She’d obviously been nervous to have
left that much of her heat signature behind. Normally, Iris’s
residual energy faded within two minutes, but this time he had a
bright patch of color on the boring, gray tile of the control room.
BC leaned back in his chair and thought about her nervous
twitching. He didn’t know why someone like her was so jittery about
a date.

She was a knockout. She wore her thickly streaked
hair in pigtails that flowed behind her as she flew around. BC was
man enough to admit he’d fantasized about holding her by those
pigtails and fucking her. It was impossible not to with her rainbow
colored hair. And when he said rainbow colored, he meant Roy G.
Biv. The red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet
colored strands of hair made her appear as though she had dipped
her head in a rainbow and she always carefully separated the Roy
and Biv, making sure each side had equal amounts of green. It was
cute and sexy. Then there was the way she dressed, like she was
just a girl next door instead of a goddess. She always wore baggy
cargo pants that caught on her hips and white baby-doll T-shirts
with the words Communication Division plastered across her big
tits. The specially altered Converse sneakers she wore were winged
to make her job of delivering messages easier.

She was an essential part of Olympus, Inc. and he’d
fantasized about her plenty of times, but someone like Iris was too
sweet and innocent for a dark giant like himself. He frowned at his
laptop, hoping the same couldn’t be said of his Pain-Bow girl.
She’d been unsure of herself when they first began to cyber, but
she’d caught on quickly and even surprised him. And he’d loved it.
Loved her.

His computer dinged, telling him he had a new email.
He sat up and clicked open his browser. It was from Pain-Bow
Brite.

Thunderkiss,

Can’t wait to see you tonight! I’m still at work,
but I’m getting off early today. I don’t care what my coworkers
think. Meet me at Big Cups Café at seven o’clock. I’m sending the
directions to you. I’ll be wearing a white sundress and a
scarf.

I’m so excited, I think I might be sick, but
hopefully it won’t be on you, LOL

Love,

Pain-Bow Brite

BC let out a shaky laugh. She wasn’t the only one who
was so nervous they couldn’t spit if someone yelled fire. He didn’t
know the place she was talking about so he quickly Googled the
place and saw it was a very small coffee shop in an equally small
town in south Louisiana. She’d told him she lived in south
Louisiana, but not the exact town. BC never pushed to discover more
because he figured she was being cautious, something he greatly
approved of since it’d kept her safe for him.

He studied the map carefully. Okay, no biggie, he
could take the portal to the corporate office in New Orleans and
drive out there. He’d already told her he would be wearing a black
shirt and blue jeans. Now that he knew what she would be wearing,
his cock threatened to burst out of his work khakis.