Aphrodite's Stand Read online

  Andra’s eyes and mouth opened wider. “He did hear us,” she whispered even lower. “He knows what we were going to—”

  “Nope. Didn’t hear that either.”

  As Jayson held in his laughter, his compressed smile morphed into one that could’ve been spawned by Lucifer himself. Stuffing his magazine into the slot on the seat before him, he stood and stretched his long, muscular limbs.

  At the sight, Andra suppressed a moan.

  Her husband fixed his gaze upon her. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’m going to use the facilities.”

  Andra remained seated, painfully aware of the man behind her who called himself Hog. Although it was invisible, she felt his powerful presence. Involuntarily, her eyes moved with Jayson until he reached the narrow restroom door. Popping it open, he paused to stare across the cabin at her. The intensity in his eyes took her breath away, setting fire to her loins.

  An instant later, he disappeared from sight.

  Prickly eternal seconds passed at her dilemma. She wanted to go after her husband yet was too embarrassed to follow. Shortly, the problem was solved for her.

  From behind, she heard a snore—one that sounded a bit exaggerated.

  Resigned, she sharply sucked in air. If that was her cue, she’d take it.

  Exhaling in one puff, she arose on shaky limbs and stepped into the aisle. Strolling forward, her frame moved as if magnetized toward the closed restroom door.

  Halfway between her seat and the lavatory, Andra could’ve sworn she heard Hog’s low guffaw follow her.

  3

  Their bodies intimately joined, Andra wiggled on Jayson’s lap, her knees parted and her spine pressed against his chest. Reaching around her, he used magical fingers to play a sensual tune with her feminine core, strumming a heavenly melody only she could hear.

  Physically charged, she closed her eyes against the erotic haziness that distorted her vision, vaguely marveling at the limited space the aircraft afforded its tiny john—and at how her husband used every cramped inch of it for her sole pleasure.

  An abrupt tapping sounded off like firecrackers.

  “Hello?” A female’s heavily accented voice filtered in from the other side of the narrow door, giving the muffled words a distant quality. “Do you know how long you will be?”

  Jayson’s probing fingers ceased, causing Andra to release an uneven sigh. “Time’s up, baby,” she said over her shoulder with some difficulty. “We’d better—”

  Jayson shook his head. “This bathroom’s occupied!” he called out. Pushing aside Andra’s thick locks, vampire-like, he clamped down on her neck, chewing as he talked around the delicate flesh. “Please use the other facility, ma’am.”

  There was a pause, as if the woman struggled to decipher the noises from the other side. Seconds passed before they heard subdued retreating footsteps.

  “She’s gone, babe.” Jayson’s palm blazed a warm trail upward, slipping inside her unbuttoned blouse, while its twin stayed at her core. “But we should finish, okay?”

  A gasp broke free from Andra’s lips as his hands simultaneously fondled her breast and her feminine core. From behind, his body pushed with greater force against hers.

  “Okay,” she said with even more difficulty. “I love you so …”

  Andra’s remaining words dissolved as her mind and body burst into a kaleidoscope of pulsating sensations. She welcomed their sensual emancipation with a violent shudder, and Jayson’s frame followed with an intense tremor of its own.

  His breathing amplified against her ear, and their eyes met in the oblong wall mirror before them.

  “I love you too, Doc,” his reflection said.

  Barely holding his stare, Andra weakly smacked the arm that encircled her waist. “Took you long enough to say it.”

  “My bad.”

  “Your bad?” She laughed. “You sound cute talking street lingo, especially with that gorgeous accent of yours.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’ve managed to pick up a few things from my peeps.”

  Smiling, she fixated on the reflected eyes that captured hers. Gradually, her mouth relaxed as she studied their faces as a whole, taking note of the extreme outward contrasts between them.

  Chewing her bottom lip, Andra wondered if her husband’s thoughts mirrored her own at that moment.

  “My beautiful wife, I can guess what you’re thinking.”

  Feeling like a wild child caught doing something naughty, she swallowed hard. “You can? What?”

  “That what we did just now can be crossed off both our bucket lists,” he said. Palming her waist, he helped her onto unsteady feet. “In fact, it was actually number one on mine.”

  Grateful her man wasn’t a mentalist and able to read her mind, she nodded guiltily. “Yeah, you got me. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  Jayson gently paddled her behind, coaxing her to move to one side. As he stood, their eyes clashed again inside the looking glass. He grew quiet, watching her.

  Uncomfortable, she exhaled sharply. “What?”

  “We belong together, Doc,” he finally said. “No matter our differences, you were made for me. I was made for you. Understand?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “Sure.”

  Ducking her head, Andra tugged paper towels from the dispenser. She turned on the water, wet her hands, and added liquid soap. With more vigor than she’d intended, she cleansed herself. A moment later, Jayson joined her, bumping her playfully in the process.

  Their carefree laughter amplified within the small space as they collided with one another in a race to get clean.

  “Well, look what I’ve found,” Jayson said, holding something up high. “I wonder whose these could be.”

  “Hey, I need those.” Stifling a giggling fit, Andra grabbed for the panties he kept out of her reach. “Buddy, sometimes you play too much.”

  After finally seizing the silky drawers, she laughed as she stepped into them and jerked them up at a sudden pounding.

  Jayson zipped his jeans with a hard yank. “Occupied!” he called out. Looking around Andra toward the closed door, he raked a hand through his hair. “Go to the other—”

  “Sir? Is your wife in there with you?”

  Smoothing her clothes with one hand, Andra reached out with the other to restrain Jayson from lunging toward the voice.

  “Baby, calm yourself,” she whispered. “Please, Jay?”

  “I’ve had enough of their persecution,” he said, shoving her hand away. “Move, Andra!”

  Jayson pushed past her, forcing her to grab the compact stainless-steel face bowl for support. With two angry steps, he reached the door. “Yes, she’s in here with me,” he said, yanking the panel open. Jayson glared at the flight attendant framed within the doorway. “What’s with you people? Andra is my wife, so why must you persecute …” Jayson’s words trailed off at the flight attendant’s anxious expression and trembling hands.

  Her face transforming into frantic relief at the open door, the brunette captured a wayward strand of hair and unevenly tucked it behind one ear with one hand while simultaneously beckoning with the other.

  “Please. Keven said your wife’s a doctor. We need her right now.” The flight attendant, named Martie, pivoted on quick feet and headed toward the back of the plane, giving Andra and Jayson no choice but to follow. “Hurry! She may be dying!”

  Passing their overhead bin, Andra stopped to spring open the latch and quickly pulled out her medical bag. Her doctor senses fully tuned to the potential crisis at hand, she ignored Hog’s sleep-drowsed question “Hey, what’s happenin’?” to catch up with Jayson and the harried flight attendant.

  “Who is it?” Andra asked, barely noticing the other passengers who stirred in their seats. “Who’s dying?”

  “One of our flight attendants—Sapphire,”
Martie said over her shoulder.

  As Andra crossed the lounge’s threshold behind the stewardess and Jayson, her attention was immediately drawn to the cabin’s floor and the blonde-haired, blue-eyed flight attendant stretched out on it.

  With grasping hands, the steely-eyed, rude flight attendant clutched at her throat, her face turning a sickly shade of green.

  4

  Stefano Theonopilus glanced up from the paperwork in perfect disarray atop his massive mahogany desk.

  Taking a break, he allowed his gaze to travel across its surface to the wall-length picture window on the other side of it, which displayed a stunning view of the back acreage of his family’s villa. His mind now split between the paperwork that needed handling and the outdoor scenery before him, he scanned the familiar sun-kissed fields that led to the olive groves miles beyond. Vaguely, he observed a fat fly bump against the glass in a vain attempt to enter the office study.

  A sound much like the one his father had produced when Stefano was a boy—a noise birthed by frustration, anger, or a combination of both—traveled up his esophagus to slip past his tense lips.

  Surprised that at age thirty-five, he could make the noise, which signaled he too was getting older, Stefano soothed his furrowed brow with an unsteady hand. Try as he might, he couldn’t prevent the same daily thoughts from revisiting him, their loud returning footsteps traipsing across his brain like an unwelcome parade.

  Nor could he stop himself from repeating the noise.

  The paperwork before him revealed something he had dreaded yet already known: the olive harvest that year would be smaller than last’s year—much like the year before. Each harvesting season brought in a lesser crop and, therefore, a lesser value, and he feared that pretty soon the multiple rows of planted trees would refuse to yield any crop at all.

  It was unlikely yet not impossible.

  Once he’d taken over the family business, to his discouragement, it had continued to be a constant uphill battle just to maintain a thriving grove. It had gotten to the point where he now considered outside resources to keep the Theonopilus family enterprise afloat. Investors.

  “Why now?” he muttered. “Why me?”

  He had come to the conclusion he must be cursed.

  Staring down at his unsteady hands, at that moment, what he wanted most was a strong drink. Stefano shook his head, ignoring the impulse to drown his mental and physical woes in alcohol, and considered his next worry.

  His next sigh broke forth with such ferocity that it produced a faint headache. After dropping his pen atop the scattered paperwork, he used his cool fingertips to rub circles into his temples.

  His father, Georigios—George, as he liked to call himself—had been an invincible rock during Stefano’s youthful years, a formidable tower built from strength and vitality. Yet right before his eyes, his papa was growing older, more tired and less attentive with each passing year.

  His father’s mental and physical decline had forced Stefano, as the oldest son, to prematurely step into the elder’s shoes as the patriarch of the family and its business. More and more lately, his father talked of nothing but his wife, Cecilia—Cecil, as Papa lovingly called her. He longed to go where she now resided.

  A grave among the ancestral burial grounds in the northeastern section of their property had been her permanent home for the past twelve years.

  Sometimes George would head out early in the morning, walking with his tired old-man gait toward the cemetery, and he refused to return until late in the evening—or until someone went out in search of him.

  When the latter was the case, his father could usually be found on his knees in the soft grass, hunched over his beloved Cecil’s grave, as if willing her to reach beyond it and pull his body in with hers.

  On the occasion it fell to him to search for his papa, Stefano automatically averted his gaze once he discovered the older man. He refused to stare directly into haunted eyes that in many ways mirrored his own.

  Stefano grumbled. He’d politely considered and ultimately dismissed suggestions from meddling relatives about placing his father in an elderly care facility. At fifty-eight, his papa was far too young for such a depressing fate, he believed; therefore, he refused to do it.

  Still, the more his papa lingered in his grief, the older he appeared—it was as if the life were slowly draining from him, ultimately revealing the shriveled shell of a man he now appeared to be.

  However, Stefano believed George’s deteriorating condition was due not only to his mother’s passing but also to something else just as devastating.

  Upon taking over the helm years before, Stefano learned from George of a tragic event surrounding a consumer’s death, which was attributed to a batch of their family’s custom-made olive oil. It had resulted in a hush-hush lawsuit and subsequent rush for a punitive-damage settlement.

  When George told him of the horrible event, he swore Stefano to secrecy. Attempting to probe more information from his father had proven futile because Stefano soon realized George actually knew little. The older man, distraught over the tragedy, had refused to learn anything about the deceased consumer.

  In blind anguish, he’d simply turned the entire matter over to his lawyers and allowed them to handle the out-of-court settlement. And that was that.

  Now, feeling the need to mentally move on, Stefano allowed his tumultuous thoughts to shift in a new direction, and he produced the noise a third time.

  Swiveling in his chair, he turned his back to the window and faced the open office door. Too exhausted to fight them, he surrendered to the newest encroaching thoughts, allowing the mental gate he’d willfully constructed against them to open. Obtaining their freedom, they stampeded forth with vicious determination.

  Shutting his eyes, Stefano leaned back in his chair to rest his elbows on the armrests. He clasped shaking hands against his stomach.

  A facial tic jumped above his left eye.

  His baby brother Jayson, the so-called rebel of the family, would return home that day after living for years in America. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be alone; he would be carting behind him someone he should’ve left behind in the States: his black bride.

  Indignant, Stefano snorted. His cheeks grew hotter with each tick of the office wall clock, until his face sizzled. Initially, he refused to identify those burning emotions, but it wasn’t long before he couldn’t help but acknowledge them: humiliation and embarrassment mixed in equal parts with anger.

  “My second curse,” he said. Behind the darkness of closed lids, Stefano shifted. His clasped hands pressed tighter against his abdomen.

  Jayson couldn’t simply have married someone from their own heritage—no, that would’ve been too simple, too right.

  There were many beautiful Grecian women in and around town—little Sylvia Menkos being one. Why could he not be satisfied to marry any one of them? Why did he have to become some religious rebel without a cause, run off to America, forget who and what he was, and join himself to—of all women—an inferior black female?

  Or would it be politically correct to say an African American? he thought. He shook his head. I don’t know. Who cares?

  He knew that no matter the title, the woman was beneath his family.

  To Stefano’s irritation, his mind handed him the memory of Jayson’s first text informing him that he’d fallen in love while in the States. Stefano had to admit his initial happiness at the sudden news was fueled by selfishness: he had hoped the engagement would pave the way for Jayson’s return to Greece. He would bring back a bride, settle down there, and help Stefano run the business.

  However, his joy had turned to immediate disgust once Jayson had texted him a picture of a fiancée who—although beautiful, he grudgingly had to admit—was black.

  The following week, the horrid introductory phone call had occurred.

  Stefano gr
imaced as he recalled the over-the-top bliss in Jayson’s overseas greeting. Seconds later, he’d put the woman on the phone. The next few moments had been excruciatingly painful as her attempt at polite conversation fell short. Relieved that Papa had picked up the study’s extension, Stefano’s hostility-driven hypocrisy had forced him to hang up his end.

  He exhaled at the memory.

  Finally, the dreaded call had come in from the States to inform the family Jayson had married her. Stefano recalled staring at the receiver in his hand; the urge to do his sibling bodily harm had swept over him with such ferocity it nearly paralyzed him.

  His mind emerging from the turbulent past, Stefano experienced a foreign pressure behind his eye sockets. He willed his male pride to subdue it before that pressure turned into actual tears.

  He sniffled anyway.

  He hated the fact that both she and Jayson were arriving that afternoon to show their faces among the village and publically disgrace the entire family with their unnatural union.

  There had been another incident a few years back, when his distant cousin Meego had run off and married Sarah Smyth, a white Protestant from New York. It had taken a long time for both close and distant relatives to get over that particular act of family terrorism.

  “Maybe this is all Meego’s fault,” Stefano said to the air, verbally testing the weight of his words. “He must have set a precedent with his rebellious, thoughtless behavior.”

  The thumbs of his clasped hands twitched. To counteract their spasms, Stefano twirled them around each other.

  No, he refused to compare Meego’s rash matrimonial actions to Jayson’s blatant rebellion—the situations were different, worlds apart.

  How could his stupid little brother act in such a way? Had he lost his philotimo?

  Honor, integrity, dignity, sacrifice. Stefano snorted, knowing Jayson had none of those—the selfish brat.

  A rustle brought Stefano’s mental tirade to an abrupt end. He opened his eyes.

  His father stood inside the doorway.

  As usual, Stefano couldn’t bring himself to stare directly at the older man’s haunted eyes; instead, he focused on his attire. A familiar mental alarm sounded upon his scrutiny of George’s white polo shirt and light khaki pants, which only a few years ago would have fit him perfectly but now hung several sizes too big for his stooped frame.