Free Blessed by Ann Mayburn Page B

goddess are Play-Doh. Got it,” she said with a straight face, but by his less than amused expression she didn’t think she was hiding it well. Under the table, she shifted her foot ever so slightly alongside his. Her leg was falling asleep, but she didn't want to lose contact with him.
    Aiden buried his face into his hands then looked up, fighting a grin. “I'll forgive you that blasphemy for now, but yes, that's the basic idea. Each of these gods and goddesses would gain more power as more people began to believe in them. The basics of worship are faith and belief. The more worshipers you have, the more power you have from their faith and belief.”
    He rubbed the gold band on his wrist with his thumb. “As more cultures mixed and the people intermarried, the potential pool of gods available to a Chosen has grown as well. All you need is a drop of the blood of their homeland to be fair game.”
    Slowly, he reached over the table and ran the edge of his hand down her cheek. Her eyes half closed in pleasure, and her lips parted as he stroked her skin. Oh gods, he was going to make her orgasm from simply putting his hand on her face. “Take you for example.”
    “Me?” she practically moaned. She wanted to curve her face into his palm and gently bite the tender skin of his inner wrist, which made her blush all the harder. With his skin this close she drew in a deep lungful of his scent, her sex aching with the need to be filled by Aiden, as soon and as hard as possible.
    He removed his hand from her cheek and drew in a shaky breath. “Yes, you. Who knows what kind of blood you have flowing through your veins? You have light brown hair and silver eyes, but your skin is like creamed coffee, and your lips are fuller than you’d normally find among European woman, at least ones that haven’t had plastic surgery. You're the result of many cultures coming together, as are most Americans, which is why the States are such a hotbed for Chosens.”
    “Makes sense.” Actually, very little was making sense to her hormone-flooded brain at the moment, but she wanted to at least appear that she was paying attention.
    “The freedom of religion in the United States has allowed all of these different gods to gain a foothold.” He lowered his voice and glanced at the papers in front of him as a group of students walked past the entrance to the bookshelf-lined alcove where they sat. She kept her eyes on her laptop as the girls ogled Professor Klemenson and looked at her with barely disguised jealousy.
    Beneath the table, his foot shifted forward again, and his ankle rested beside hers. A warm pulse began to beat in the pit of her stomach, and she licked her dry lips. Her panties were damp with her cream and she was two heartbeats from throwing him down on the table and kissing the hell out of him.
    He shook his head. “I was picked to Mentor you, and I serve a Creation Deity. If you had the temperament, the soul to serve the Destruction side, a Priest or Priestess of Destruction would Mentor you. However,” he said with a wink, “you smell too good to be Destruction.”
    “I smell too good?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
    “Er…yes,” he said as he cleared his throat. “It's a genetic survival thing. Each side has its own psychic scent, and each individual has their personal scent that only smells good to their side. You'll learn how to shield your scent to avoid detection, but that's a more advanced exercise that will come to you later. For right now, you need to start at the beginning.”
    “How would I smell if I was one of the bad guys?”
    He wrinkled his nose, a gesture she found unbearably cute. “If you were Destruction slated, you would have smelled like spoiled bologna or dog farts and you will smell similarly bad to them.”
    “Nice to know I don't smell like dog farts,” she muttered and gave him an arch look.
    He winced. “No, because you’re Creation oriented you smell very appealing to me—a