Sunlight penetrated his closed lids and Cupid's sweet smell floated around him. Adrian felt warm soft curves beneath his hands and hummed with pleasure. It was a delicious feeling, to hold someone. To touch.

        Adrian jolted awake, stiff with fear. The curve of Geneva's hip fit perfectly beneath his palm. Her skin was covered by nothing more than black satin. Dangerous. In more ways than one. The Grim Reaper pulled his hand away, glad to see that his fingers didn't tremble very much. 

        She was asleep in the curve of his body. Her skin was a furnace, glowing with an almost feverish heat that made him wonder if Cupid's got sick. But he didn't sense any illness from her. She was contrarily healthy and alive, bright and shining like the licks of new fire. He pulled away from that heat, imagining himself melting. 

        When she was unconscious, her powers were unrelenting. Cupid was utterly irresistible and the Reaper was easily ensnared.

        Until she yawned, stretched like a lithesome cat, and opened hypnotic sleepy eyes to find his almost immediately.

        "Well, this is a good morning," she murmured. Her voice cracked but the sultry tease shot through him like an arrow. 

        Adrian scooted further away from her, slid off the bed, and stood there to watch her. She'd taken the latex gloves off the night before while they were talking. Their removal had been a slow and sensual show. Purposeful. He knew she was trying to seduce him. It was working. But she was also being kind. She didn't touch him again. He hadn't expected to stay the night either.

        "How do you do this?" His own voice sounded like a stranger to his ear. Husky and trembling with a passion akin to anger but teetering onto lust.

        "I'm Cupid. I do this simply by loving." She'd avoided telling him how she'd become a Cupid. But the lace of melancholy in her tone insinuated a sad ascent. It was not uncommon for sorrow to be the foundation of greatness. His own story, which he also skirted, had been despondent. 

        "I should go," he said.

        "You don't have to," she replied, her brow cocked suggestively. Her hair was unevenly wild, her skin bare and brown, richly colored with golds and red undertones. There were imprints of sheets against her cheek and down one arm to prove that she'd been beside him the whole night. Cupid had been sleeping soundly and foolishly fearless of the danger that coiled around her. 

~~~~~

        He stared at her for a while before he gave her a heartbreaking look of regret and twisted himself into a swirl of black and gray smoke. Her room smelled like honeysuckle and the ancient scent of death pyres, a smell she would associate with him and loneliness. 

        Geneva laid in bed for a while as she replayed the previous night in her mind. He'd been so vulnerable, she felt rotten about seducing him into forgetting Lizzy. No, she didn't feel bad about protecting Lizzy, she felt bad about the methods she'd used. Clearly, Adrian had certain issues and sensitivities to touch and Geneva capitalized on those disadvantages. 

        She'd planned on having sex with him. But they'd only ended up holding hands. She hadn't even tried to kiss him again last night which surprised her because he was extremely kissable.

        Geneva groaned and rolled over onto her stomach, mumbling incoherently into her pillow. She chastised herself so thoroughly that she hadn't even noticed the breathtaking presence in her room until the corner of her bed slanted under their weight.

        "Goddess!" Geneva tried to scramble to her feet but Aphrodite caught her and pulled her into a warm embrace. 

        "Mom, I told you to call me Mom. You look so skinny. Have you eaten?" Aphrodite asked, pulling back to look down at Geneva. 

        Aphrodite was a tall woman, almost six feet. She was large too, curvaceous like Ruben's favorite models, with thick strong arms made for holding lovers or daughters still. Her hair was naturally black but she fequently donned a wig in homage to ancient Greek prostitutes who wore yellow wigs to differentiate themselves from the common woman. Aphrodite's eyes were her loveliest and most unique feature. They were a black so deep, they were caverns; so reflective, they were mirrors. When one looked into the eyes of Aphrodite, they looked at themselves the way the Goddess saw them. 

        "I haven't changed in almost fifty years!" Geneva exclaimed. It was very hard to keep the insolent whine out of her voice. Aphrodite was as motherly as she was beautiful. It was easy to fall into whatever role she assigned.

        "I know! I thought, if I adopted you, you would manage to eat plentifully. Let me bring you some lamb, agápi. How will you make people fall in love if you are nothing but skin and bones?" Aphrodite said, using the Greek endearment for darling like she did with all her Cupids.

        "No, that's okay, I don't eat lamb," Geneva said with a crooked smile. It was hard to say no to Aphrodite because it was hard to dislike her. She was the nurturing part of love. It was hard to believe that the confident Amazon would ever succumb to jealousy or foolish love.

        "No lamb? Okay, I'll bring you baklava. I know you like it," Aphrodite said, pinching Geneva's cheek. Geneva couldn't deny her this. The Goddess' baklava was sinfully delicious. 

        "What are you doing here, Godde- Mother?" Geneva asked to keep herself from agreeing to the copious amounts of baklava that would soon find itself stored in various places of her apartment and random places as she walked down the street for the next year or so. The decade before, it was trigona panoramatos every time it rained.

        "I'm worried about you, agåpi. Out of all my other children, you work the hardest. But I've given you tools to make your life easier. Why won't you use them?" The Goddess said as she waved her hand and pulled a bow and a quiver of arrows into existence.

        "I..." Geneva didn't want to insult the Goddess of Love. "With my methods, I've only had true love successes. The arrow's passion wears off. My Clients remain together until death..." Her voice choked on the last word as her mind conjured up Adrian unwillingly.

        "You've had three hundred Clients in forty-eight years. Your brothers and sisters do three hundred in one year, agápi. I've brought in two other Cupids to assist your region and help you catch up on your quota. Who are you stuck on now? I will make sure to take care of it before I leave."

        Geneva's eyes widened in horror. If Aphrodite were to get her hands on Lizzy, it would be over in a second. 

        "I'm sorry. I'll do better. Thank you for sending me help. I'll be sure to meet up with them and let them know what the area is like," Geneva said in a rush as she pulled away from Aphrodite's comforting and heavy arms and headed to her drawer. "I like to finish what I started. I'll bring the bow and arrows if you like. But I don't think I'll need it." She was babbling like a fool. 

        There was one thing that Geneva knew Aphrodite hated and it was a babbling fool. It made the Goddess recoil for some reason, close herself off so that leaving was her only way of removing herself from the rapid-fire uncertain words.

        "Well, if you're sure. I'll be going now, but I expect you to concentrate. I know you can do better. I believe in you, Geneva. I always have," the Goddess said with a sweet smile that made it glaringly obvious why she was deemed the Goddess of Beauty and Love. 

        Unlike Adrian who twisted his body into smoke, Aphrodite dissolved like a slow kiss. She left behind the scent of roses. 

        Geneva checked her clock and sighed. It was almost noon and she was still dressed in the black satin chemise she wore the night before. Her arms still had the slight dusty film of baby powder on them from the shiny latex gloves, and her hair was ridiculously lopsided. Only a shower could fix her at this late point in the day.

        When she left the shower, she felt better. She almost forgot that she'd been visited by Aphrodite herself. The only upside to that conversation was the fact that Aphrodite didn't bring up the fact that Geneva had a mortal job that paid her mortal currency for silly mortal things like an Ipod. It wasn't a secret, but it was definitely an unnecessary constraint on her time when she should be making more people fall in love.

        Geneva took her laptop, grabbed the baklava that appeared in her closet on a box of designer shoes, put on the shoes, and left the apartment to work at Lizzy's. Her friend had an appointment with the physical therapist in a couple of hours and it actually took a couple of hours to convince Lizzy to go.

        Geneva didn't understand what was going on with her friend. The blonde was acting very moody and withdrawn, preferring to stick to her computer. She wanted to be alone all the time and she absolutely didn't want to go to her appointments with the physical therapist. It was like pulling teeth to get her out. More than once, Geneva felt herself feel the desire to try compulsion on the other woman. It was rare for her to even think about using her magical aura to entice people into doing her bidding, but she'd been tempted with Lizzy these last few weeks.

        There had to be something she could do to get the woman to feel motivated again.

        The idea struck her and her body went into overdrive. She knew exactly what to do for Lizzy, knew exactly what she needed.

~~~~~

        Lizzy felt herself sweat with the anticipation of Geneva's arrival. Every day, it was the same. Get up, get physical therapy, eat ice cream, go to bed. And every day, Lizzy noticed that her leg wasn't getting any better. In fact, it seemed to get much worse. It hurt so bad on some days that Lizzy couldn't talk because she was afraid of the trembling wail she knew would escape her lips if she opened them. 

        Her buzzer rang and she considered not answering. But it didn't matter. The buzzer was to warn Lizzy she would have a guest. Geneva had a key and could let herself in at any time. 

        "Guess who?" Lizzy heard Geneva's melodious voice. And then a bark.

        Lizzy nearly tore the door off it's hinges. 

        "Bilbo!" The dog barked again.

        Lizzy slumped down in the hall and the chubby corgi attempted adorable little jumps with his front paws to give Lizzy's chin a hundred kisses. The blonde looked up at Geneva's triumphant face.

        "I talked to your boss. He's going out of town and he needs a dog sitter. Surprise. You're his temporary dog walker for the next two weeks," Geneva said with a grin.

        "I'm going to kill you. First, I'm going to squeeze you in the bestest, longest hug ever, and then I'm going to kill and bury you," Lizzy said with a chilly smile. She was trying to hide her happiness, the exultation was sneaking into that smile.

        "Better me than you," Geneva said enigmatically. But before Lizzy could ask her, Geneva sank down to the floor beside them to play with Bilbo too.

__________________________

Author's Note: 

Technically, I missed Wednesday. It is 1am on a Thursday morning. But if you live on the West coast (I'm East coast!) then it's still Wednesday for you!

Anyway. I'm very tired and I need to get to bed because I have work tomorrow. 

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It took me a little while to fully design Aphrodite in my mind. I thought it would be good for her to be full figured, sexy, and matronly all at once because that's honestly what I think of when I think of beauty. 

See you next Wednesday! (On time~)