Chapter 16: Fifteen

He didn't expect the morning after to be this way.

Having gone through the awkward morning after walk-of-shame scenario, the oh-shit-that-shouldn't-have-happened moment and the one-more-round-before-we-never-see-each-other-again, Frank Sinatra was a whole new experience.

Yup, that was definitely Frank crooning ‘One for my Baby' and the woman who he'd learned every inch of her body last night, crooning along with him.

As he rose on his elbows, wiping sleep from his eyes, the sight that greeted him was Legend looking sexy in his shirt, doing a very energetic dance with her butt. He didn't think that was the kind of choreography best suited for the song, but he liked watching her do whatever that was, so all criticism and corrections were kept unvoiced.

She finally turned around and noticed him watching her and flew into the bed, her face a few inches from his and sang, "So make it one for my baby."

The light streaming in from the windows hit her, making it seem there was a halo around her head and strengthening Raph's suspicion that she was a celestial who had come down from the big house above.

"And one more for the road," He sang right back before he wrapped his arms around her waist and stole her lips in a sweet kiss as the music surrounded them.

Legend broke the kiss off, fishing her phone out of the shirt's pocket and pressed pause on the music. Then she deposited the phone on He couldn't care less because he was busy being flattened by her.

She grinned down at him.

"Good morning, pretty face."

"Would you look at that. Someone's in a mood today." One hand tucked underneath his head and the other steady on her hip, Raph watched her with a lazy smile on his face. That look Legend was wearing was most certainly the one she wore when she'd been loved good and hard. He'd done his job well.

"Yeah, I had the weirdest dream last night." She got comfortable on him, preparing to share her story. Raph seriously considered staying like this forever. Sure, things like food could pose a little problem but who needed breakfast when you had a beautiful woman on you, ready to blow your mind with her weird, slightly nonsensical tales?

This was priceless, people.

"So, Apollo came to me in my dream. "

"The Wonder Woman bad guy?"

"No," she clarified. "That's Aries. He's Apollo's brother, I think. No, wait, I think he's his cousin's uncle's nephew." She looked pleased with that answer.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't think that's a thing."

She flapped a hand at him.

"It is, now hush."

Raph obeyed, zipping his mouth. She traced a pattern on his chest. He was enjoying the feel of her nail on his chest too much and he obviously had not done his job as well as he'd thought if she had been dreaming of men who walked around dressed in blankets with gardens on their heads.

"He was trying to convince me to let him be my lover. We were in this little bungalow with a thousand pink roses and the bed was god sized. He was tireless in his persuasion, but I said no." She emphasized her negative answer with a shake of her head.

"Really?"

"Yup. I told him I had someone else contending for that position. He's a real charmer." She winked at him.

If he'd met the motherfucker, he would've taken a slug at his godly face. Great, he was getting violent over a dream that was possibly made up. Something told him that wasn't a post-coital, morning after thing.

"Good. Hope you told him never to show his smug face again."

"I don't know, I'm kinda regretting my decision." Her ice blues sparkled.

"That guy was my ticket to Olympus. You don't get to meet the gods every day."

"You wanna go to Olympus? I'll take you there." He'd never heard of people buying mountains before, but he could put in a call to his real estate agent. He should also consider hiring the A-listers to play the gods. Yeah, Shia LeBeouf in a napkin with heart arrows should seem believable.

"You would?" She gasped, clapping her hands excitedly.

He began to make mental notes.

1. He'd need a PAS. He was sure those celebrities had nice as fuck voices, but he was aiming for the booming ones the gods had—in his imagination, at least.

2. A snack table was required but they had to put it somewhere discrete so she wouldn't notice. It would shock Legend that the Olympians ate hotdogs instead of ambrosia.

The most important,

3. Sigmund Freud needed to come take a look at him because Raph was now sure he was crazy.

Maybe his mom dropped him on his head as a child and that had come back to bite him in the ass.

If Logan could see him now. His brother would snort and call him ‘A wuss who didn't know that nobody liked him' for only about a million times.

"Hey, you OK?" She drew him away from his disturbing thoughts before he went up in flames from what he'd aptly named the I hate Logan Syndrome.

"Just calculating how much Everest's gonna cost. Apollo not some kind of rich kid, is he? Cause that would be a pain, trying to outdo the fucker."

"You don't have to buy me a mountain to outdo him." Her smile turned seductive, and he felt his body reacting to that smile.

"Yeah?" That was a croak. A very unattractive one—not like there was such a thing as an attractive croak; it was the sound a frog made, for Chrissakes—but Legend didn't seem to mind.

She was still telling Raph what he had to do to please her while stripping her shirt off and slipping lower on his body.

Raph decided then that Legend's suggestion was actually brilliant.

She was a very, very smart woman.

And such show of intelligence needed to be adequately rewarded. So, Raph took his time rewarding his smart, little trooper ***

Legend had never been high on life. This was the first. She was walking on clouds, breathing underwater and being deliriously happy.

Or maybe, you're just high on sex, her subconscious sniffed. She certainly had had enough of that to compensate for the two-year celibacy and all. She shivered as she remembered how Raph had bent her over and taken her from behind in the shower, water streaming down on them as he moved in and out of her. That had been after he'd taken her against the wall and before that, he'd had her screaming his name in her bed. The result of all that sexing was a deliciously sore vagina and a glowing Legend.

He looked at her now as they walked to the kitchen and smiled knowingly like he was aware of her wild thoughts.

She blushed red, then jumped when she saw Shane eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen.

"Holey cock-sucking socks!" Both men raised an eyebrow at her epithet, but she paid them no mind. She was still trying to make sure that was Shane and not some shapeshifting, cereal-eating zombie.

"How the fuck did you get in here?"

"Raph gave me a key. Hi, Legend." He gave her a shy smile, stunning Legend.

She had thought his face didn't have the muscles for smiling. She had also thought he would turn into an ogre if he smiled.

Shane was... OK, maybe she was overreacting a little but well, he was beautiful.

The silence in the room grew, with Raph glaring at Shane, trying to figure out if he'd snake charmed her and the poor man shifting uncomfortably.

Raph cleared his throat, "Legend, are you—"

"Shh. This moment is spiritual. He smiled at me." She would find tears in her eyes if she reached up to check.

Shane blushed and grinned again, eliciting a delighted gasp from Legend. Raph rolled his eyes.

"I think you're being overdramatic."

She glared up at him. "I'm having a moment with the man."

"Yes, ma'am. "

She approached Shane cautiously before she spooked him or something.

"Are you OK?"

He seemed confused by the question.

"Yes, I am."

"So, you don't feel different?"

He looked to Raph for help. Legend whipped around to watch Raph push away from the door frame he had been leaning on. His hair was still wet from the shower and his shirt clung to him. With the scruff on his face, he was the sexiest man alive. Legend didn't think she had it in her to feel aroused again after all the hanky panky they'd partaken in this morning, but her body was just full of surprises.

"What the woman is trying to ask is if you hit your head somewhere and are now having amnesia which results to you not remembering that you are a grunting beast?"

"That's accurate." Legend murmured, and they both studied the Hulk silently like two scientists observing a fascinating insect under a lab microscope.

"I'm just being nice."

"Well, I think you should do nice more, darling. There's someone I know who teaches people how to open up their positive energy vault." She patted his arm. Raph scowled at him. Legend wondered, irritably, if he was going bonkers of if he wanted Shane to have a scowling contest with him. Either way, his timing was poor.

"Stop frowning," Legend snapped at him. "You're going to upset him."

She turned back to Shane with a warm smile, carrying his cereal bowl to the sink and brushing off all his protests.

"He smiles at her one time and she's all ready to be barefoot and in the kitchen." Raph stage-whispered. His efforts earned him a dirty look from Legend and a deep blush from Shane, who stood up to go do whatever it was he did around there.

Once he left the room, Legend pounced.

"You can be such an ogre, you know."

"You're gonna give him the wrong idea. Dude's gonna start thinking you like like him."

She shook her head.

"You did not just say like like."

Raph shrugged one broad shoulder while crossing the room to the sink where she was trying to figure out what to do with the cereal bowl—her domestic side was telling her she was supposed to bury it in the backyard.

"I think he has a crush on you." He proved her domestic side was shit by taking the bowl from her and pouring some washing liquid into it.

Apparently, burying things in the backyard was for dogs only.

"He does not. He has a girlfriend."

"He better," That was a dark mutter accompanied by aggressive scrubbing. "Because if he looks at you funny, I'll peel his tongue out and stuff it down his throat. "

She was disgusted by the picture he'd just painted.

"Did I say Ogre? I'm sorry, you're a Neanderthal. " Even though the idea of Raph going all caveman because of her made her all smiley and gooey.

He wiped the bowl dry and stored it away then headed over to the fridge to get out the makings of ‘clean, healthy breakfast' as he called it, or ‘insect food' as Legend named it.

Raph held up something green and gross and cocked a brow at her, silently enquiring if she wanted that in her omelet. She frowned at him.

He smiled back then cut it up before whisking the eggs.

Legend loved the way he worked in the kitchen, moving so gracefully. She just liked looking at him. Raph was going to end her one day.

He turned and caught her staring.

"What?"

"I like you." She admitted quietly.

That caused him pause.

"I like you, too?" Translation: Where's this coming from?

Was it only this morning she'd tasted those lips? It felt like years ago. She stood up and marched over to him, then put her arms around his waist, stood on her tippy toes, and kissed the hell outta him.

It took Raph a moment to haul her against him and take control of the kiss. Legend loved it when he dominated her so.

"Raph, are you there?" They were startled out of the fire that was threatening to engulf them by a female voice in the sitting room.

They heard another voice, Shane's, murmuring before—

"I'm here to see my son."

Legend felt like the floor had opened up and she was falling into oblivion.

"Son?" She prayed it was just a crazy, homeless woman down the street who liked to call Raph son and had decided to pay him a friendly visit.

Except there were no homeless women in the posh area of town where Raph lived.