Goddess of Love (Goddess Summoning #5)(18)

"I saw you run in here because you were embarrassed," Venus said gently. "I don't think you are truly fine."

Pea's cheeks flushed, but she put on a g*y smile. "Oh, that's just me. I embarrass myself all the time. I'm used to it."

"If that were true, why does your smile not reach your eyes?"

"It does. I just...I'm..." Pea floundered. "I have to go." She rushed toward the door.

"If you would wash it and then apply a small amount of coconut oil, comb it only with your fingers and let it dry naturally I believe you could begin to tame your hair."

Pea stopped short of the door. Turning, she met Venus's kind gaze. "Coconut oil?"

She nodded. "Pure coconut oil of the highest quality you can acquire. And it is of the utmost importance that you stop combing your hair. Do only this." Venus ran her fingers gently through her own thick, silver-blond tresses, starting at her scalp. "And you must do this, too, to help encourage the curls to be round and full instead of..." She paused, searching for the right words.

"Instead of willful and unruly like the wild mane of a lioness." Venus reached up and scrunched handfuls of her hair, pretending to have errant curls instead of glistening waves.

"That works?" Pea said hesitantly. "Really?"

"Would Love lie to one who has invoked her aid?" Venus smiled benevolently. Pea chewed the side of her lip, her expression telegraphing that she was torn between being intrigued and being certain she was talking with a crazy person. "Thank you," she finally said, good manners winning out over all other considerations. "I'll try it."

Venus cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. "Now, before we begin to repair your rather unfortunate manner of dress, I need to know if you are pleasuring yourself regularly."

"Ohmygod! You did not just ask me that!"

"Of course I did, darling." Wrinkling her brow, Venus tried not to show her frustration at the mortal's apparent lack of intelligence. "It's a completely natural question. If you're not pleasuring yourself properly, how can you expect - "

"Stop! After the day I've had I can't take any more."

"I'm just trying to help."

"Weirdly, I almost believe you."

With sudden inspiration, Venus pressed the Pricilla's bag into Pea's hands. "Consider this a gift from your goddess."

Awkwardly, Pea took the package and began backing toward the curtained door, obviously deciding it was easier to go along with the woman and escape than to argue with her about gifts and mast***ation. "Okay, well, again, I say thanks and I'll definitely take your hair care advice, if you will take a piece of advice from me in return."

"How unusual - a mortal giving a goddess advice. Tulsa is such a refreshing place." Venus looked curious and eager. "Please, enlighten me."

"From now on go easy on the martinis." Pea smiled nervously and ducked back through the curtain.

"That certainly didn't go as expected," Venus said to herself. Still trying to understand how a mortal could ask for and then reject her aid, she walked through the thick curtain and reentered the bar area of the restaurant just in time to see Pea trip up the little bar step and drop the Pricilla's bag - right in front of the row of firemen. The huge phallus rolled out of the bag to land, vibrating cheerfully, at the feet of a man who was so exceptionally handsome that Venus wondered that she hadn't noticed him earlier. He bent to retrieve it. Holding it carefully, he offered it back to poor, embarrassed Pea.

"Ma'am, I believe you dropped this."

Speechless, Pea stared in horror back and forth from the vibrating penis to the handsome fireman.

"Ma'am?" The men around him were chuckling, but valiantly he managed to keep a sober expression. Then his eyes widened in recognition. "Aren't you Pea? My neighbor with the Scottie who thinks she's a cat? The brownies you left at the station were good."

Pea took the phallus from him, turned it off and dropped it back into the shopping bag. Venus noticed that her face was flaming red and she looked ready to cry, but when she finally spoke her voice was filled with self-effacing cheerfulness. "That's me - Pea! Your neighbor, the Scottie cat's mom, loud burper, owner of a humongous vibrating penis and excellent brownie baker. I'd love to stay and talk with you, Griffin, but I'm off to embarrass myself fully somewhere else. I just reached my limit here." Then, with the men's laughter following her out the door, Pea dropped some money on her table, picked up her book and fled.

"Pathetic. Truly pathetic," Persephone said.

"I should zap them into silence," Venus said. Her fingers twitched as she narrowed her eyes dangerously at the still laughing row of virile men.

"Venus, no, don't..."

She ignored Persephone and continued to glare at the men. The most handsome of them, the one who had been somewhat polite to Pea, met her eyes and Venus was caught by the blueness of his dark-lashed gaze. He nodded at her with a faint smile lifting his lips. The goddess reminded herself sternly that, no matter how chivalrous he had appeared, he was still part of the group of men who had laughed at Pea, so she should ignore him. But there was something about the sparkle in his eyes...the handsome tilt of his full lips...and especially about the way he looked at her - confident and openly appreciative, which was so different from the way even the most warriorlike of the ancient mortals ever dared look at her - that Venus didn't look away...couldn't look away. And that's when it happened. That spark. That lovely, inexplicable sizzle that sometimes happens between people that not even Love herself can always predict.