Desperate Housewives of Olympus by Saranna DeWylde Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t know and she didn’t want her sister or her nieces to pay the price.
    Why had she ever come to Ambrosia Lane? She shouldn’t have moved to Mt. Olympus. She sagged down in the chair. Who was she kidding? If she hadn’t come to Olympus, she’d still be sitting outside the window at her sister’s house, watching them go about their lives without her. Abstinence didn’t bear them any rancor, she loved them all. But she had to do something with her eternity.
    The thought made her so very tired. Eternity just like this, never again holding food on her tongue, not drinking or tasting, never being touched. She missed hugging; the feel of being pressed against someone who took away all the bad things in the world. When simply being in their embrace made everything better. She missed her mother. Second best was being hugged by a strong man. Abstinence had liked hugging more than kissing, more than sex.
    She supposed it was a cliché, but she wanted to be held. Too bad her traitorous body wanted Zeus to do it. He’d be more than willing, she was sure. It would be too easy for him to go from holding, to touching, to pleasure… He’d do anything to get what he wanted.
    The sad part was he didn’t even have to be attracted to her to want her. She was something new, something he hadn’t had and he’d been told no before he’d even toed up to the starting line.
    He was coming over again today. Abstinence didn’t remember how he’d gotten an invitation out of her, but apparently, it had fallen out of her mouth like a suicidal lemming and her tongue had been the precipice of the cliff. They were going to watch reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and he was bringing more ambrosia wine. He’d promised to only give her a glass and she was to leave half.
    She wanted to tell him not to come. She was only torturing herself by spending any time with him at all. He said he understood her predicament and didn’t want anything bad to happen because of him, but she’d have to be sixteen kinds of stupid to believe that. His wrath was vast and terrible when he didn’t get his way and he’d been known to hurt those who were supposed to be in his good graces.
    Abstinence sensed a presence on her walkway and peered out of the window to see one of the most beautiful women she’d ever set eyes on. She was everything Abstinence was not: thick dark hair hung in perfect ringlets, frosted with purple tips, lush breasts were spilling over her corset with enticing cleavage, her hips were flared and round and her face, her skin… Abstinence was instantly envious. Then she noticed the woman wore a crown. This had to be Hera. Zeus’ long-suffering wife.
    From the smile on her face, she didn’t look to be suffering. Maybe they had one of those open marriages, although mythology said Hera was the super bitch of smiting doom. Abstinence found her gaze drawn to the goddess’s cleavage again and then back down at her own sad state. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to touch them because she wanted them for her own, or because she was girl-crushing. It couldn’t be that, could it? She’d never been attracted to another woman. Ever. She’d never really been attracted to a man before Zeus, either, so she supposed it was all the same. Maybe it was a god/goddess thing. Or maybe it was because she’d denied herself everything for so long, she wanted everything . It was like taking a starving homeless guy to a buffet he could sleep in. That explanation made more sense to her and made her much less uncomfortable.
    Hera knocked; unceremoniously rattling her from those thoughts and into new ones. Abstinence didn’t want to open the door. The Queen of the Gods was paying her a visit the day after her philandering husband had come over and tried to get between her thighs. If she’d been another sort of goddess, he was charismatic enough that she might have let him. Was Hera here to kick her ass into another dimension? Shit, she did not want to deal