More Than Words: Kissed By A Muse #3 (20 page)

Ah well, the whole destiny thing is bound to make her look at me with those eyes again, right? But until then…

‘Feel me, baby…’ Ryan pulled his shirt off over his head and slung it around her eyes before slamming into her hard, catching her off-guard and enjoying the way she lifted her face to the ceiling. It felt weird to be doing such dirty things in such a beautiful, feminine space but that was his Honey- a chameleon. He kept her blind-folded with the thin white cloth of his shirt, using it like reins to push himself more deeply inside her the next time. ‘Do you feel me inside you?’

‘Yes…’ she breathed, clawing her fingers down the timber table on either side of her head. She turned her little backside up to meet his thrusts, and a bead of sweat slid down the curve of her spine. ‘Ryan… yes!’

Her breathy murmurs of approval made his cock feel hot enough to melt. After having a few days to think some things through, he’d come to understand that like the character in the book, Ryan did enjoy dominating his lovers- but only the ones he was truly in love with, and  only because he’d been given such an inferiority complex over the years of watching what he couldn’t have from afar, that by the time the object of his affection was within his grasp, he simply couldn’t hold on tight enough. He’d been bossy and domineering that one night with Callie, but his need for her submission paled in comparison to the things he would do to keep Leigh in his bed. He’d tie her up for sure- bind her to him so she wouldn’t escape- gag her so her throaty cries of delight wouldn’t make him shoot before taking aim. He’d blindfold her like he was now to win over all of her senses the way she owned his,  and if she ever looked at another man again, he wouldn’t hesitate to put her over his knee and spank her sweet little backside and pussy until she was wet enough for him to assert himself inside her, because he needed her to need him- to fear losing him- to endeavor to please him the way he did, her. Maybe it would fade after a few years of feeling secure, but when he imagined taking one of those fringed floggers to her skin and toying with her nipples until she came from the pleasure and pain, he thought maybe not, and the fact that he knew she’d lift up her sweet little petticoat to let him debase her was just one more thing that he loved about them- because Ryan wanted the fantasies too… hadn’t he waited long enough for not just one kind of perfect life, but all of them after witnessing so many? He wasn’t an immortal anymore- his life would come to an end within a few decades… so why spend what little time he had left imagining things he could do to a woman in front of a dirty sex video, when he could delight his new soul mate with a medieval dungeon fantasy one day, then make sweet love to her in a field the next?

And that’s why she’s so perfect… how many genuinely pure souls are out there, who will let a dirty, thousand year old demi-god like me spank them on their Vegas wedding day?

Excited at the prospect of all they could share if only The Harmony would overlook the wrinkle his run-in with Calliope had forged in fate, he leaned forward and caught the bead of sweat with the tip of his tongue and Honey pushed off the table, impaling herself further and almost un-manning him. ‘Oh…!’

He lost his grip on the shirt in surprise and Honey mewled and spun in his arms, jumping up on the edge of the table and wrapping her feet around his backside. ‘Don’t stop!’ she gasped, smoothing her hands down from his shoulders and along his abdominals, her eyes driftwood fire and sexily slanted while he reached around her waist and slid her back along the table and onto him. ‘You owe me that much! Don’t stop until-’

‘I don’t plan to!’ He took her hips in clenched hands and began to pound into her, trying to kiss her but finding it difficult to trap her mouth as it slid along his jaw and over his shoulders. He groaned as he felt his own climax swiftly approaching again, and when Honey leaned back, catching herself on the table and angling her hips up to meet every thrust while her knees tightened around his lower back, she looked so erotic that Ryan knew that his self-control had a shelf-life of about thirty seconds.

‘Fuck me Ryan… harder!’ she demanded, pressing him into her with her ankles and not letting him retreat enough to get up any momentum. She began to ride him back in compensation, hips twisting like a dancer’s, her pretty tits bouncing just for his viewing pleasure, and her elegantly-styled hair coming loose from their exertions and tumbling down in one shiny spiral- and she stole his breath. This girl thought she was a GEEK? He’d had sex with an actual goddess, but between Honey’s legs, Ryan couldn’t even recall her fucking name at that moment.

‘Yes!’ Honey sat up, wrapping her arms against his neck and grinding her sex against his lower stomach, generating friction that made her writhe and gasp. ‘I’m coming…!’ her warning came in a gasp, and when she began to shake, Ryan slipped his arms under her knees and yanked up, lacing his fingers together at the small of her back and swinging her off the table and against the wall. Honey yelped, creaming around him and Ryan began to drive himself into her core, using the wall to support her weight while he slammed himself up and into heaven again and again.

‘God! Oh God…!’ Honey’s eyes opened in that way, and he groaned and began to come hard inside her. ‘Where were you, baby? How could you…?’ Her eyes overflowed and she closed them, parting her lips as her sex clenched around him. ‘I was so lost!’

Ryan grunted and gasped, closing his eyes and leaning into her shoulder as he jerked roughly inside her. ‘I’m not a normal guy…’ he  moaned, forgetting how to talk while he unloaded inside her, but continued to thrust when he sensed that she was nowhere near done. She whimpered and began to twist again, confirming his multiple-orgasm hopes and he greedily began to slide his mouth over her breasts, drinking her in, glorying in the taste of her sweat in his mouth. She hadn’t sweated that much in the North American winter and now that he’d tasted that too, he knew he’d chase summers with her around the globe to keep his cravings met. ‘I’m actually a demi-god, or was…’ he suckled on her nipple and then moved to the other. ‘But now I exist only for you...’

‘A demi-god, huh…?’ there was a teasing lilt in her voice, one he hadn’t expected to hear again for quite some time given all he had put her through. ‘Hmm…’

‘Yeah…’ he twisted his lips and pulled back, eyeing her through blurry eyes. ‘You’re not laughing…?’

Leigh exhaled slowly and ran her hand down his chest, before looking up at him with a wicked look in those green eyes. ‘Why would I? It explains a lot… these abs and those eyes not withstanding...’

Ryan groaned and kissed her, taking her off the wall and walking them over to her pretty white couch, where he lay her down and began to kiss her more sweetly, soaking up her amusement and praying that he’d be gazing into wide-eyes when he told her the truth, and not alarmed ones.

‘Are you ready for a story, sweetheart?’

Leigh pulled back and eyed him warily. ‘Does it have a happy ending, or a shit one?’

Ryan bit his lip and rested his forehead against hers. ‘You’re going to be the author of this particular ending,’ he said softly.

Honey groaned. ‘I’m really not comfortable with that kind of-’ something buzzed loudly, and her eyes popped. ‘My crackle! Argh! What time is it? We can’t be naked! My parents will be here soon!’ She flung Ryan off her and zipped across the room, bare-ass naked in stockings, collecting her items of clothing off the floor. ‘Oh my God! Maybe you should go I-’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he grumbled, pushing off the floor. ‘And what I have to tell you is important, sweetheart… it really can’t wait. I don’t want you introducing me to your parents as your ‘friend’ Ryan Weaver!’

‘Why would I introduce you as Ryan Weaver now that you know your real name?’ she asked, wriggling back into her panties and then looking down at herself and muttering something about needing a shower.

‘Because my name really is Ryan Weaver,’ he said solemnly. ‘Now I have a birth certificate to prove it… a birth certificate that says I’m actually thirty-two, mind you, and a Leo. That’s weird- I’d had myself pegged as a-’

‘Thirty-two?!’ Leigh squeaked, whirling on him and pressing her polka-dot dress to her chest. ‘You’re the same age as the guy in the book?’

Ryan’s chest tightened. ‘I am the guy in the book. Only Kathryn didn’t know it because the muse of the written word inspired her with dreams about me and that sort of helped bring me back to life after my drug overdose…’

Leigh went ashen. ‘WHAT? You overdosed over Melody Marks?’

That’s more upsetting to her than the whole muse thing? Uh oh… she’s not going to take the soul-mate thing well at ALL.

Ryan covered his wet penis with one of her pretty cushions, feeling like a deviant for doing so because it had an image of the couple from The Princess Bride kissing sweetly embroidered into the fabric. There was a picture of Leigh as a child on the coffee table, sitting on Santa’s lap with a dowdy-looking couple flanking her, and the smile on her pretty little face stole his breath. He squatted down in front of it and stared at it with a racing heart. He knew that face! Had their paths crossed in Horizon? It wasn’t so far away!

‘Ryan?’ Leigh prompted.

‘Yeah…’ he struggled to recall what they’d been discussing. ‘Yeah, I O’d… sort of publicly too…’ he scratched his head and stood up. ‘You’ve seen the film clip of the original ‘Melody’ video on YouTube, right?’ His voice quivered. ‘Well…’ he pressed his thumb to his chest. ‘I’m the nameless dude whose arms she died in who dropped dead backstage a few minutes later, only... she came back a lot quicker than I did.’

Leigh stared at him for the longest time, and his words hung in the air as obviously as the strings of fairy lights she had strung from wall to wall. This was it- the moment of truth. She was either going to believe him, or hit him with a fry pan the moment his back was turned… if there had ever been a truer test of someone’s imagination, he’d like to know about it!

After the longest time, Leigh turned and walked into the kitchen. ‘You can talk and slice fruit, yeah?’

Ryan smiled and followed her. ‘I can, if you believe I can.’

She responded by flinging a tea towel in his face. ‘That, remains to be seen.’

Twenty

‘I
don’t remember much about my first mortal life,’ Ryan began, taking the knife from her and turning to appraise the watermelon on the counter behind her. He’d put his board shorts back on but was still shirtless and barefoot, and the way his muscles across his shoulders worked as he began to carve into the melon had Honey reaching for her beer and finishing the entire thing in one desperate gulp. He’d made her sweat and then dehydrated her mind, and though the beer hit some spot, it only made her already fuzzy head, fuzzier. ‘I grew up on a farm outside of Athens, raised as a slave to a man who bred and traded goats. I don’t recall what parents I had, or anything really, before I was about eight. Time fades memories under normal circumstances after all, but this was like… let’s say we partied like it was A.D, but I’m not certain that it was...’

Leigh made a face at his back as he chuckled at his own joke. Was he really going to try and be all witty now? Her eyes shifted to the  rolling pin that she kept on her wall as a decoration.

One good whack and...

‘Mmm-hmm…’ she eyed the tattoo on his hand, knowing that it was pretty damning evidence if his body was found with her rolling pin buried with it.

Ryan shrugged. ‘Anyway… I had a boring, normal peasant life. I worked, I drank wine and ate whatever was going… I was treated well and respected by my owner and the other slaves, but I was no one special.’ He paused; ‘Actually no, I was quite popular with the owner’s eldest daughter, I think, and that brought a bit of grief my way. Lots of warnings and what not because she hung around…’ he glanced at her over his shoulder. ‘I was a virgin, though- I know that.’

‘Okay…’

Seriously, one good whack and I can call the cops and...

Ryan smiled sadly at her. ‘That’s irrelevant, I guess. But I was about eighteen when Zeus took me, so I ended up staying a virgin for a very, very long time.’

‘As you do,’ Leigh said nonchalantly, moving to the fridge to grab another beer to dull the edges of her mind long enough to get through his recondite tale. How was she supposed to make gravy with shaking hands? How was she supposed to treat her parents to a nice Christmas when she ended up asking them to hide a body? How could she be expected to turn away from such a brilliant damn body?!

‘Oh boy, she thinks I’m nuts…’ Ryan put down the knife and turned, watching her. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Innocent until proven certifiable,’ Leigh twisted the bottle top in her fluffy skirt and leaned against the fridge to close it. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve been known to ride out the weirdest books until the end.’

Ryan laughed and pulled her into his arms, and she judged herself for how right it still felt. ‘I’m going to preface the rest of my ‘story’ by pointing out that I can prove all of this to you. I’d rather not involve any third parties because I’m going to have enough issues with The Harmony as it is but…’ he kissed her nose. ‘I’ve been known to risk a lot on love before, and you’re a safe bet.’

An easy lay and mark is more like it!

Ryan pulled away from her. ‘I’ll keep it simple for now, all right? One day I was working in one of the fields and I heard beautiful music. I went around this giant stack of hay and saw a beautiful older girl with dark hair playing a Lyre, and a little blonde girl, one of the kids from a neighboring farm, was dancing to the music. I though both girls were a mirage, so beautiful they were, and the music…’ he closed his eyes and smiled dreamily before opening them. ‘There wasn’t much to live for back then, but that music was heavenly.’ He wet his lips. ‘I ended up watching them for longer than I ought to have- until the older girl left, after gifting the little one her lyre. I knew the instrument because the youngest daughter of my employer had one too, but she couldn’t play it like Calliope could.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Adria… that was my boss’s daughter’s name. Can’t remember the older one though they were both very plain…’

Calliope? LYRE? Oh he is NOT going there!!!

‘... I heard that lyre playing all day and night, and it made me so happy!’ And then Ryan dropped his gaze. ‘But it didn’t last long- the next day I heard screaming and yelling instead and I ran to the field and that little girl was being pushed around by some of the guards from my farm. Apparently, Adria’s Lyre had gone missing, and the little girl was alone and being accused of theft. I ran over, intending just to stand up with her, but times were different then, you know? She couldn’t afford an instrument like that, and just possessing it was grounds for severe punishment. They could have flogged her or raped her or sold her into slavery and she couldn’t have been older than maybe nine… so I ran forward and said it was mine- that it had been given to me by the older girl, and that I’d loaned it to the little girl and that my master’s lyre was probably down by the pond on their grounds, where she usually played it, lost in the long grasses.’

Leigh cocked her head to the side, intrigued. If Ryan was making this story up, then she had to introduce him to Lachlan the agent properly before she called D-Ward on him so at least that way, someone would benefit from her broken wings. ‘What happened?’

‘They believed it was mine- but only because I’d stolen it. They released the girl and she tried to plea with them- to explain that there really was a dark-haired beauty that had taught her how to play it, but they didn’t care or listen. They put me in irons and marched me all the way to Athens, and the little girl followed me until her legs gave out, and they just left her there.’ Ryan lifted his eyes to her and they were deeply troubled. ‘The magistrate system wasn’t quite as thorough then as now, and because my master’s daughter’s lyre had not been returned, I was found guilty and sentenced to be stoned to death at sunset.’ His eyes drifted over her shoulder, looking somewhere she’d never be able to see. ‘They lined me up in the square and began to throw the rocks.’ His face creased. ‘It fucking hurt, and I think two  big ones hit me and instantly broke something. I was in agony, and terrified to be losing my life before I’d fallen in love with a girl like Calliope, or born a child like that little girl, which was all I’d ever really wanted.’ He released Leigh and rubbed his chest, and Leigh wondered if he’d imagined phantom pains from his public stoning too. ‘I… I saw her then- the brunette. She was on the other side of the square with some street performers- laughing and dancing with an Aoul and completely unaware of what was happening to the boy she’d never met, whose life was in her hands. I was tempted to call out to her, or to alert my executioners to her presence, thinking maybe she’d speak for me- but there was no point. If they’d switched her with me, it would have killed me all the same, and I’d already been mortally wounded, so I watched her dance as I died, taking comfort from her grace…praying that the frightened little girl had gotten home okay...’

Leigh felt tears well in her eyes and once again it occurred to her that Ryan was either a fantastic actor, or batshit crazy to tell his tale so convincingly. ‘My god…’

Ryan wiped at his eyes and straightened, smiling tightly. ‘But Zeus showed up right then- he’d seen everything, and he turned the flying rocks into lumps of horse hair and hay. He came right up to me, and told me that I was a hero, not only for dying for someone else, but for something else- some romantic ideal, like music. He said that Calliope was the muse of music, and that I was the only man in Greece worthy of her. He said that I could choose to come with him and live at his side in Helicon to be her soul-mate and win her heart, or he could make me a demi-god- a superhuman among the mortals.’ He blushed. ‘And, um…’

Leigh’s heart sank. ‘You chose her?’

Ryan nodded and then turned away, and the fact that he couldn’t look at her then made her heart ache. ‘I was young and romantic and he seemed to want me to choose that option, so I did.’ He began to slice watermelon again. ‘Only there was nothing romantic about the consequences of that choice. Calliope and all of her sisters loathed the matches their father had made for them and ignored all of us completely, preferring to spend most of their time on earth while I was trapped there, waiting for her to look my way. And she didn’t- not for one hundred years, not for one thousand years, or a thousand more, I’m certain… I lived every day in Helicon, which is a place only the gods can go, and exists only within the imagination. And as muses, they had the power to imagine anything up there into being, or away. I mean, we all did, but my power had nothing on Calliope’s. I’d approach her with roses, and she’d put a waterfall between us. I’d throw myself at her, and she’d imagine me invisible and mute. And as time went on, I began to fade, and she began to forget me completely.’

Did she not see you in the first place?!

Ryan smiled, understanding the dumb expression on her face as he slammed the knife through the watermelon again. ‘I didn’t look like this to her- she never really acknowledged my true face and if she did, she forgot that too, over time, and painted me as some golden, green-eyed cherubic dude- someone not to her liking, more like a statue of a Greek man than an actual Greek man, and that was the face I wore for all of them.’

Leigh was finding it hard to follow him, so she put her beer down and began to pick up the watermelon slices and line them up on a serving plate. ‘A man named Ardos?’

‘Yes.’ Ryan suckled watermelon juice off his wrist and then reached for honeydew. ‘Mmm, yum. Anyway…’ he resumed cutting. ‘I stayed in Helicon while she and her sisters competed for dominance on earth. For years, Calliope was of little consequence to the world, but things changed after America was settled and all of those different cultures started pouring in, bringing their different kinds of music and sharing it. She began to gather steam and by the nineteen-sixties, she was a golden god, if ever there was one. By then, Greek mythology had become all but obsolete and some of the muses and gods were blinking out like stars- Zeus and Calliope’s mother included, but Calliope and her sister, the muse of the written word, became the most powerful entities on the planet and then, Calliope pulled into the lead. They sort of feed off their arts, understand? The better they inspire, the more glorious they become, and Calliope was… a force of nature.’ He sighed, and Leigh felt that ache again. ‘Only she didn’t handle the power well, and music began to change- it became better, but rougher, darker and more sexual, as did she. She stopped caring about what she was creating and just kept creating more, becoming more beautiful and cruel and making her sisters furious with her lack of compassion, and envious of her power. Imogen, the muse of the written word, couldn’t stand her as it was and even I was finding it hard to accept the things she was doing and the men she was bedding and the humans she was hurting then abandoning in the name of her righteousness, but Calliope didn’t heed any of us until one day she went too far and pursued a man who was destined to become a writer, rather than a musician.’ He glanced at her, looking forlorn. ‘Imogen was in love with him, but Calliope won his heart and then broke it- and one awful night, he shot himself in front of them both.’

Leigh frowned, for the story was beginning to get awful. ‘The woman you were destined to be with was a witch? And hang on… IMOGEN?’

‘Yes, Imogen… I’ll get to that.’ Ryan chuckled. ‘But yes, though Calliope had been born with a pure soul, she corrupted herself and everyone was suffering. Not just the gods and goddesses and muses and artists… but The Harmony, which is sort of another word for Karma-’

‘I know about that whole Harmony thing,’ she said softly. ‘A girl from the next town over, Marnie Winters, wrote a series about... what?’ she asked, when Ryan smirked.

‘Once again, I’ll get to that.’ He’d done the honeydew and now reached for a punnet of strawberries. ‘So… Calliope had pissed off the cosmic balance, and Imogen demanded that she pay for her evil-doings. No one wanted such extreme lengths to be taken but The Harmony agreed, and Memoria cast her daughter back onto earth as an infant girl without her powers, to be raised human and without any comprehension of what she meant to the world, but with a debt to repay.’ He glanced at her. ‘To grow up with a boy she would come to care for deeply, to nurture his God-given gifts and his shiny new soul so that he could grow to be the greatest musician of all time.’ He wet his lips, then began to chop madly. ‘If she could do that without her powers, she’d get them back and her memories. But if she fell in love with him- with any mortal man- her heart would fail and she’d be cast into Oblivion.’

Calliope frowned. ‘That’s a big mission…’

‘It was an awful one, and I didn’t think it was fair. But it was done in a heartbeat and because I could not undo it, I threw myself at Memoria’s feet and told her that I couldn’t wait for her there any longer, watching and helpless, and I meant it too. I just wanted to love her, and was willing to take death as opposed to going without it any longer, and as a mortal, she’d have no way of returning to Helicon until she’d fulfilled her awful task. I begged Memoria to make me mortal, and to see if I couldn’t prove that she had a heart after all, by finding Calliope and making her fall for me instead.’

There were those jealous pangs again. ‘And she agreed?’

‘She did, but with a pretty shitty condition, for The Harmony, you know?’ He was going through strawberries like slicing was a nervous tick. ‘She’d grant my wish, but she’d take my memories too, and because Calliope wasn’t allowed to give her heart to a mortal man, if I succeeded- I would die, both on earth and in Helicon, and be cast into Oblivion.’

‘And you accepted?!’ Leigh demanded, incredulous not only because of the sacrifice Ryan had made, but because suddenly- Leigh knew that she believed him.