To Love a God

Lame, with harsh features, brooding eyes, a wiry beard crackling with flame, and ropy muscles, the god mortals call Hephaestus is nobody's idea of perfection. Indeed, far from it. A lingering odor of burnt solder clings to him, adding to his manly stench of sweat and musk. His bed is narrow and lonely, his sheets filled with soot and regret.<br><br>Blacksmith to Olympus, he hides from his kin on an island in the Mediterranean, commissioned to forge a hero's sword from unbreakable metal. But a brief tryst with a minor water god distracts him. Aean is everything Hephaestus is not -- young, beautiful, sexy. He stirs in Hephaestus a savage lust the smith has never felt before.<br><br>Now Hephaestus wants Aean for his own, and he won't rest until the water god is his.