Penelope & Odysseus

Welcome to our Perfect Pairing series from Good in Bed, in which we couple a steamy short story with a toe-curling "pleasure-guide" that will inspire you to turn fiction into reality. At Good in Bed, we believe the brain is the biggest sex organ, and there's nothing like a good erotic story to get the heart pounding and the blood flowing.

With this hot, sexy tale based on the Greek myth of Penelope and Odysseus, your sex homework will include sexy games, dirty talk, fun in the shower, and more. How’s that for an adult education?

But before you turn to the pleasure guide at the back of the book, first travel back to the mythic past and witness the meeting of a classic couple.

Being fast has its advantages, especially when a princess knows she has to marry the man who beats her. Penelope, Sparta’s only heir to the throne, is all too aware of what she doesn’t want in a husband — a domineering, soulless man exactly like her father. Which is why she so thoroughly and completely decimates her suitors. But when a fresh wind blows Ithaca’s uncharacteristic prince into her path, she begins to wonder if winning is everything.

Finding himself jostled onto the starting line of a race for Sparta’s princess, Odysseus has little desire to win. Happy with his life as a military leader and unfettered man, he hasn’t given marriage a passing thought. But one fierce glance of challenge from Penelope, the cleverest, most captivating woman the Fates have ever thrown his way, is impetus enough..

Tied for lead, the wary, but instantly attracted pair seeks refuge from a storm within the narrow confines of a cliff-side cave. Their passion is explosive, and Odysseus, knowing Penelope cannot deliberately lose to him, competes in the race of his life.

But the joy of their victory is short-lived, and all too soon, twenty years of appalling rumor, fickle gods and war separate them. And, for the second time in their lives, they find themselves alone on the betting side of Love.


Cate Bellow's love of literature started on one coast and followed her across a few states in between until she settled with her family on the opposite side. She has been teaching English for nearly twenty years, because she never tires of reading great books and her students' creative writing. And when her nose isn't in a book or her hands typing away, you can find Cate traveling, gardening, running and, less often than she should, vacuuming up after her many adopted animals.