One moment, his hand was sliding up my thigh, his mouth all wicked promises and velvet menace—
And then the bastard was gone. Just… gone. The warmth of his body vanished like it had never been there. I blinked, stunned, dripping, trembling, still wound tight—only to see him lounging in a sun chair, perfectly dry, perfectly clothed, sipping wine like the world's most irritating god.
"Malvor," I hissed.
He had the audacity to look innocent, eyes gleaming with menace. "What?" he purred, smirk curling. "Did you want something? Maybe if you were a good girl…"
The audacity. The absolute, smug audacity. "Mal!" I shouted, water dripping down my face. "You are a tease!"
He raised his glass in a lazy toast, reclining like the star of Gods Who Deserve to Be Slapped Weekly. "Only the best kind, Annie, my love," he said, voice like warm velvet and sin. I splashed a wave at him. Fury, humiliation, arousal, all mixed into one incoherent attack. Of course, the water soaked the edge of his chair but not him. He stayed perfectly dry. The bastard.
He smirked, dodging with infuriating ease. "Careful! This is vintage. Much like my charm and you, amore."
"You are infuriating!" My chest rose and fell with rage and other things I refused to name.
"I know." He grinned, all teeth and trouble. "But you adore me. Deeply. Painfully."
I glared, flushed, vibrating with tension. "I will drown you."
He leaned back even further, sipping his wine. "Worth it."
And gods help me… he probably would do it, with perfect hair and a smug smile. "You are a bastard!" I snapped.
"Technically true," he said breezily. "My parents weren't married. Although also not true, since I only have a father. No mother. I was brought forth directly from the mind of Creation himself." He gestured to himself like a priceless painting.
I blinked. "You… what?"
"Yes, yes," he said, already settling into monologue mode like he'd been waiting centuries for this. "One wild night, when the universe was but soup, Creation, big C, Daddy C, got bored. Tossing stars like popcorn, cackling at galaxies smashing together, when suddenly, poof! He had a thought." He spread his arms grandly. "A thought so powerful, so mischievous, so catastrophically ill-advised that it took form. That thought… was me."
I squinted. "This is a story, right?"
His gasp was pure scandal. "How dare you! This is sacred cosmology!"
I raised a brow. "So you're telling me you were… birthed by a thought?"
"No, no, forged, darling. Forged. There was no birthing involved. That's icky. I simply appeared. Fully formed. With impeccable bone structure and a tragic backstory."
"You always say that," I muttered.
"My first act," he barreled on, "was to turn Saturn's rings into hula hoops. My second was convincing a black hole it had stage fright. I was chaos incarnate, Annie. The original divine wildcard." I stared at him, expression flat, stuck between disbelief and mild concern.
"And the best part?" He leaned in, eyes glittering. "Every word of it is true."
"…You're lying."
"Annie." He placed a hand over his heart. "For once in my eternal, ridiculous existence, I am not."
The problem was, he always smiled when he lied. And when he told the truth. "That is an interesting version of the birds and the bees," I deadpanned, folding my arms.
"Annie!" he gasped, scandalized. "Once again, disgusting! Birds and bees is how Ravina was made. Not me!"
"Ravina?" I asked, tilting my head.
"Yes, yes. Goddess of plants, harvest, leafy inconveniences. Very in touch with nature. Forests, vines, whispery tree magic." He waved dismissively. "Allergies in divine form."
"And the earth?"
"Oh no, that's Tairochi. Big rock man. Stoic. Boring. Very dramatic with his mountains and valleys. Not enough sparkle."
I raised a brow. "So you're saying they're grounded."
He froze. Eyes wide. Then he clutched his chest like I'd stabbed him. "Annie, you made a pun. I'm so proud, I could cry."
"Don't." Too late, he was already dabbing his eyes with an invisible handkerchief. I sighed, loud, theatrical, the kind of sigh that should have rattled the heavens, and swam to the edge of the pool. With a huff, I hauled myself out, water streaming off me in sheets, my hair plastered to my shoulders. If I looked like some half-drowned sea goddess, so be it. Malvor, of course, lounged there watching like the bastard he was, eyes gleaming far too smugly. He enjoyed this way too much.
I spun on him, still dripping, and flipped him off. "You're the worst," I said flatly. The worst part? The bond hummed, warm and smug, soaking up his delight. He was ridiculous. Infuriating. And gods help me, I wanted him anyway.
He wiggled his fingers in a mock little wave, grinning like a devil. "And yet, so adored."
"Not right now, you aren't." I snatched a towel off the nearest chair, wrapped it around myself like armor, and stomped toward the villa. "You are not allowed to look at me," I snapped over my shoulder.
Behind me came his inevitable reply, smug and unbothered: "Too late." My jaw clenched. A heartbeat later, the slam of the villa door shook the courtyard. And if it was a little louder than necessary, well, that was entirely the point.