Read Accidentally Aphrodite Online
Authors: Dakota Cassidy
Accidentally Aphrodite (28 page)
“Dear Aphrodite,
“You are mighty
“Cute,
“And I’m pretty crazy
“About ute.”
She spit her wine out when she laughed out loud. “
Ute
?”
“Shhh. It rhymes with cute.”
“Oh, sorry. Please continue,” she said on a grin.
He rolled his shoulders and looked back at his phone. “You also have nice hair.
“I like that it hangs down to there.” He pointed to her breasts and wiggled his eyebrows. “I don’t want to ever consider
“Not being able to read you God’s tweets on Twitter,
“So it’d be pretty badass
“If you’d marry me
“Like really fast.”
Quinn’s shoulders began to shake with laughter. She fell back on the blanket, covering her mouth, trying to stamp out her squeals of hyena-like laughter until tears rolled down her face.
“Hey, now. I wrote you a gushy poem. You’re not supposed to laugh.”
That only made her laugh harder. So hard, Khristos peered down at her and mocked a frown. “If you don’t knock it off right now, there’ll be no shiny for you, Love Maker.”
She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him down to her, trying not to snarf. “I don’t care about your shiny baubles. I love
you
. Not your riches. Right now, I care more about getting you into an emergency poetry-writing class so we can rectify that disaster of words immediately.” And then she began to laugh all over again.
And it was perfect—and nothing like her dreamed-up proposal in her head, but still more incredible than anything she could have ever imagined.
Khristos rolled his tongue in his cheek and feigned insult. “Are we done making a mockery of my heartfelt profession of love?”
She snorted. “I’m done. No wait. Not quite.” She barked another laugh, pressing her hand to her mouth once again to stifle it and clearing her throat. “Okay. Good to go.” Quinn shot him a smile of encouragement and put on her serious face.
He pulled a ring from his shirt pocket and held it up, gleaming and amazing and in the shape of an apple. “So you wanna do this?”
She sighed in utter bliss, her eyes finding his, seeing the love she felt reflected right back at her. “No one in this world wants to be Mrs. Khristos with a K more than I do. I’m pretty crazy about you,” she whispered.
Khristos rubbed his nose against hers then rolled her to her side, pulling her to his chest. “Right back at’cha, Aphrodite.”
The gathered crowd all stopped and cheered. Marty and Wanda cried. Nina and Ingrid high-fived. Archibald and Darnell dabbed at their eyes with the tablecloth for the game-day feast, and Khristos flipped open his laptop to reveal her mother and Maude in the middle of a park, their beloved birds surrounding them, clinking two glasses of champagne in celebration.
How could her mother have known Khristos would propose today…?
And then she realized, as tears of joy gathered in the corner of her eyes. “Today wasn’t about a rematch at all, was it?”
He winked. Her man. Her forever. Her soul mate. “Today was about how much I love you, and how I want to spend the rest of my eternity with you.”
In this moment, this precious, perfect moment, Quinn couldn’t help but remember yet another of her favorite quotes from John Keats:
The imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream—he awoke and found it truth.
She was wide awake now, and it was better than anything she’d ever dreamed.
* * * *
Cupid and the now-relaxed, refreshed, and totally retired Aphrodite poked their heads around a pillar in the Parthenon.
She winked at her old partner in crime as he readied his arrow. “Whatever you do, avoid Nina’s mate Greg. Gods help us all if we were to mistakenly match him with someone else. I like my innards in a nice, neat coil on the inside, thank you very much.”
Cupid nodded, lifting the brim of his Yankees cap to clear his line of vision. “I hear she’ll eat your face off.”
Ex-Aphrodite shivered, running her hands over her arms despite the heat. “Never doubted it for a second.”
He looked to where Quinn and Khristos sat, curled into one another, Quinn’s chest pressed against her son’s. “You think they really need our help? Seems like they got it pretty well covered.”
“I’m not taking any chances with this, C. I’m sealing this deal for eternity. I’ve waited centuries. That’s long enough.”
Cupid pulled the bow tight, his arm up, his elbow high. “You ready?”
“Like a god on bring-your-own-virgin-to-slaughter night.”
“We don’t do that anymore,” he chastised on a snicker.
She sighed wistfully in remembrance. “But do you remember it, C?”
His sigh mimicked hers. “Yeahhh. Like it was yesterday. Glory days, Boss. Er, ex-Boss? What the hell do I call you now?”
She took her position behind him with a wink and a wicked smile. “Grandma. Just call me Grandma.”
At ex-Aphrodite’s nudge, Cupid sent the arrow high; white and blue in color in Quinn’s honor, it shot straight through the air in a perfect arc, glowing and brilliant against the deep blue of the Grecian sky.
The arrow melted through Quinn’s chest and disappeared into Khristos’s, leaving in its wake an upward spray of sparkling hues.
And Ex-Aphrodite and Cupid fist-bumped as they happily sighed—in unison—for the last match they’d ever make together as a team.
The one match dearest to their hearts.
The match they’d waited lifetimes to make.
The End
(But do come back for more in the upcoming
Accidentally Ever After
, won’t you? Nina would miss you if you didn’t!)
Author’s Note
I do hope you’ll join me again for more Accidental adventures! I’d so appreciate it if you’d help others enjoy this book, too.
Recommend it
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About Dakota Cassidy
Dakota Cassidy is a
USA Today
bestselling author with over thirty books. She writes laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, grab-some-ice erotic romance, hot and sexy alpha males, paranormal shifters, contemporary kick-ass women, and more.
Invited by Bravo TV, Dakota was the Bravoholic for a week, wherein she snarked the hell out of all the Bravo shows. She received a starred review from Publisher Weekly for
Talk Dirty to Me
, won an RT Reviewers Choice Award for
Kiss and Hell
, along with many review site recommended reads and reviewer top pick awards.
Dakota lives in the gorgeous state of Oregon with her real life hero and her dogs, and she loves hearing from readers!
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The Accidental Series
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