Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

P ersephone

I hold my door open as Noc, Jas, and Prim strut through. When it falls with a soft click , and I flinch, three sets of eyes fall on me as though to ask, what?

They might be Hades' dogs, but they've taken to wanting to be with me. At first, it made me uncomfortable and nervous that his dogs he very clearly loves very dearly, would choose me over him. But now, I suspect that Hades not only prefers them to remain with me, but that he's commanded it and they somehow understand him enough to listen to such a bizarre command.

Noc remains at his station by the bedroom door, which is always his station while the girls follow me to the closet. Jas sits outside, but Prim dances into the room with me, her eyes watchful as I feel my belly sink into my feet.

Hades didn't just buy a few things. He bought enough to completely fill the big closet.

My mouth drops at the section of work clothes. They're all light in color to keep me from overheating under the hot sun I've begun to crave more and more every day while I dig, shifting to the relaxed section of at-home wear that is comfortable, but still stylish. I see jeans, suit pants and leggings, shorts, skirts, and summer dresses all to be paired with shirts of all kinds, cardigans, sweaters, and jackets. There is also an enormous, and quite frankly silly, section of gowns the kind of elegant that I can't imagine I will ever have reason to wear.

Numbly, I pull open the drawers to see underwear, night dresses and lingerie, swimsuits, scarves, and accessories. There are rows of shoes for every occasion.

"The man is a nutcase," I breathe to myself, but from the corner of my eye, I see Prim's head cock to the side. "Even more than I am." I touch a gown that glimmers like starlight in the night sky. "He's a madman."

Prim gives a doggy huff. I'm not quite sure if it's in agreement, or not. It doesn't matter, though. Hades is clearly a few marbles short of sane if he's willing to spend this kind of money on his hired companion .

But I can't deny it all makes me feel special. Like I am more to him than I am or can ever be.

Feeling frazzled and wanting to escape this closet, I grab the first swimsuit I see and start to strip. When the suit is pulled into place, I can't help but gape at myself in the mirror. I've always worn one-piece suits, but Hades hasn't given the option of anything but bikinis in the drawer of suits.

Midnight black clings to my skin with features of gold that warm the paleness of my skin. With my wavy, white-blonde hair, I feel like I look a little mythical. A lot unlike the girl I've always known myself to be. But that's the magic of Hades. He always makes me feel different. More. Right from that very first moment when I opened my mouth and spilled my innermost secret to him.

Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I find a sheer black cover and slide it on. I tie it tight at my waist, grab a towel and hurry from the room.

To the side of the kitchen, I find an open door that has always been locked. It's open wide now, displaying a wide set of stairs to another door that is also open wide. The sky above is painted in strokes of midnight, shimmering with a million dotted stars. Like someone tossed glitter onto a canvas of black to bring it alive.

It's so big, so vast, and should be so heavy. But rather than crush me with its great expanse, I feel as though something is lifted from my chest. My insecurities, maybe?

I pull my gaze from the sky to find an oasis of pleasure. There is a long glittering pool of blue with water so still under the open sky, I can almost see the faint twinkle of the starlight in the glass of it.

My gaze slides beyond the pool to the other side of the rooftop paradise, where there is a massive shelter done in rich wood tones. The top is painted a crisp, bright white to ward off a high dramatic sun. Little bulbs illuminated with warm amber light string from the rafters over an intimate hot tub, seating area, and bar. Lush plants sit in massive pots, bringing life to an otherwise stark but luxurious space.

My eyes drift from the lights back to the pool, landing on Hades. My heart skitters and my breath stalls. Tingles of awareness erupt over my skin, and my mouth goes bone dry.

The man is—there are no words.

But if I had to find words, I would say he is massively dark and dangerously, devilishly handsome. I haven't seen his chest bare since the interview when Leuce led me to the room where he was painting. The effect now is as damning as it was then.

But his eyes—his dark eyes are what have me rooted to the ground, struck still by the physical touch of his gaze.

"Come," he beckons roughly from the opposite side of the pool. He is facing me, his arms thrown up over the ledge as one might toss them over the back of a couch. "Join me."

Clearing my throat, I move closer on legs that feel wobbly. My knees are crafted of jelly. Unable to handle standing when he looks at me like he is, I try to save face and lower myself to sit on the edge of the pool. I dip my feet into cool water that seems to sear my boiling blood, offering tiny relief.

It's delicious, but I feel only a little of the tension seeping from my flesh. The rest clings to me as though it is a thing of claws and teeth, hungering for the flesh of me.

Needing to say something, anything—to simply fill the space with something other than this new need he's pulling from the depths of me, I murmur, "This is beautiful, Hades."

"I rarely take the time to enjoy it."

From the corner of my eye, I see the pups sprawling on the stone of the patio, cooled gently by a high moon.

"Why?"

"I am a busy man, Persephone."

I blush, because he is a busy man. As the owner of a highly successful club and an artist, of course, he is busy. I feel foolish.

Still, I tell him, "You only get one life. You should live it."

There's a pull of amusement to the lips he rolls before he murmurs, "How can you be so sure there is only one life?"

I shrug, kicking my feet gently in the water. "That's what everyone says. Do you believe we live multiple lives?"

Somehow, I can't see it. This powerful man believing a thought so fanciful that there is anything more than this .

He surprises me. "I believe humans live as many lives as they choose to live."

"Humans." I frown. "That's a peculiar distinction."

He doesn't reply. Not physically with a shrug or verbally with words. But his eyes say so many things. They speak a language I'm not sure I understand, but my body shivers all the same, sensing something my mind can't form into words.

He commands, "Come inside, Persephone."

What is it about the man's commands that I am helpless to refuse? What about them makes me ache to comply?

Severing my gaze from his, my hands move to the tie I've knotted at my waist. I realize, to my absolute horror, that my knees aren't the only thing that has turned to jelly. My fingers tremble, slipping over the knot as panic builds inside me.

Hades pushes from the wall to plunge into the water, looking like a predator from the depths of a dark sea. He swims the length of the pool to the shallow end where I sit, his body splicing through the blue with a power that lashes at my awareness. He rises and water drips from his longish hair, glistening on his wide, carved chest as he prowls across the space I've very strategically kept between us.

Inside my chest my heart slams. This time, my breaths don't stall in my lungs. Instead, they race from me in short, quick bursts.

"What are you…" My words drift off in shock as the feel of his big hot hands land on my thighs, spreading my legs wide enough for the bulk of him to move between.

Heat unlike any other I've ever experienced before this moment surges through me. My sudden sharp arousal is an eruption of magma in my veins. It pools like a lake in my very core, filling the hollow of me with an aching need fiercer than any other. It steals my breath and sensibility.

I've never had a man so close to me. I've never had a man touch me as Hades touches me.

A spill of wet rushes from between my legs to settle sticky in my bathing suit as I imagine Hades' big hands sliding higher up my thighs to touch me there . To stroke me. To invade me.

I very nearly whimper as my core clenches hard again. God, I'm wet for him.

Hades' nostrils flare, and I swear I see that fire flash in his eyes before he shutters them again. His hands move to the tie at my waist, gently shoving mine away. He rumbles, "Let me. "

Hades makes quick work of the knot, and the sheer black material parts to showcase pale skin kissed in moonlight, and the black bikini. A sharp inhale sounds and my eyes spear to his as he lifts his hands to my shoulders, pushing the material from my body, grazing my skin with hot fingertips as he does.

I shiver, pebbles of aching awareness rising on my skin. In the bikini, my breasts feel heavy and swollen. My nipples are painfully hard.

I pray he won't notice, and die a little when his eyes drop to my breasts. He wets his lips in an absent gesture that cries of a ravenous hunger I don't know how to sate, before his gaze drifts up to mine once again.

"You're cold." His voice is hoarse, clinging to ravaged control.

I'm not. I feel as though I'm a mere moment from bursting into flames. Still, the rough grate of his voice has another violent shiver pulsing through me.

I lie, "Yes."

Hades shifts to the side of me, pulling himself up from the pool before he reaches for my hand. I can't help the way my eyes linger on the drops of water that slide over the warm tones of his skin, between the valleys of muscle that ripple under his flesh.

He pulls me up to stand, and to my horror, my jelly knees fail me and my body slams into his. It's a collision of flame and sin and innocence. Woodsmoke swirls. He's so much bigger than me, I think, as his arm moves to band around the small of my back. He pins my softness to the wide, hard, hot expanse of his chest.

My thoughts fracture.

My heart flips in its cage. A whimpered breath spills from my lips as I steady myself with a hand to his breast. Under it, I can feel the rapid-fire dance of his quickening pulse.

God, what am I doing?

Hades swallows, and his voice sounds rough as he asks, "Good?"

I nod, pushing myself from his chest. "I'm sorry, I—I…"

"Tripped?" Hades provides for me and I nod, even though we both know it's more. "Let's get you into the hot tub so you can warm up."

Again, I nod, but I say nothing. I don't trust my voice right now. I don't trust my body or my emotions or this yawning hunger that is growing within me for something I can't allow myself to take.

I wonder if it's just Hades or if I let myself, I could feel this same want with Addison. He's impossibly attractive, and entirely opposite to Hades. He'd flirted shamelessly with me all week long, but I hadn't reciprocated, even though I could admit his attention felt good. Sort of.

And Addison is my age.

Still, every time I think of flirting back with Addison, something ugly balloons inside me. Something that makes me feel hideous and wrong. Thoughts of Hades plague me in the moments I am away from him.

This crush is ridiculous and inappropriate. I need to get a handle on myself, like…yesterday.

I wish I knew what was happening to me. I wish I could explain away this wicked craving for my boss that I try so desperately to hide. To bury deep within me where not even I can find it.

He awakened something within me that first night we stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring into the devastatingly captivating horror of his art. He spilled fuel to the spark of hunger his darkly intense gaze ignited within me, and I've been burning up ever since.

I don't want to admit it, but I can't refuse it either. I've tried.

I've lied to myself and to him, desperate to keep the lines between us sharp and clean.

Hades lowers into the bubbling water of the hot tub, gesturing for me to do the same. My knees knock as I shimmy to the ledge. Under his breath, Hades says something to himself as he reaches up to close his hot, hard hands around the small of my waist. I gasp a breath of still night air, as he lowers me into the water before him. I'm so close to him, I can smell the scent of woodsmoke and sin and cool, refreshing earth.

He removes his hands from my body, giving me the space I so desperately need before I'm incinerated by desire. He lifts a glass of wine from the ledge, passing it to me.

I take a deep drink of the dry red, praying for reprieve from the heat and devastated to realize it's only fueled the fire that rages in the depths of me. The heat of the wine is like spilled magma as it moves through my body, swimming into the desire that surges like a tremulous sea of fire and sin in my belly.

I need to get a handle on myself.

"I've been meaning to speak with you." Hades settles himself onto a seat, resting one arm over the ledge as the other lifts his own glass of wine.

"Oh?"

"You recall when I hired you, how I said I may require you to accompany me to functions?" I nod, but say nothing. He continues, "There is a gala at the end of the month in celebration of the opening of the new hospital we've built."

"You built a hospital?"

"Myself and some other large investors, yes." He watches me closely, and I struggle to keep from shifting under the heavy weight of his gaze. "This gala will help to fundraise once again, for the patients."

I nod. That must be what all the gowns in the closet are for. "You want me to come with you?"

"I do."

"As your assistant?"

He shakes his head. "As my date."

My lips part, and to help my cough go back the way it came, I take another deep swallow of wine. "But—we can't—I'm not…"

He doesn't let me finish. "I am tired of these events, Persephone. Women eligible for marriage attend, attempting to hook their claws into men of stature and wealth by any means. It is exhausting fending them off time and again." He gives me a rueful grin. "I am asking that you accompany me as my date so that I do not have to fight quite as hard."

I'm not sure he's seeing the big picture. Cautiously, I ask, "You aren't concerned what people will say?"

"About what?"

"Hades," I say his name, exasperated. "I'm nineteen and you—you are thirty-six!"

He pauses. "How do you know I'm thirty-six?"

" Google ."

He arcs that brow. "You Googled me?"

"Everyone Googles everyone," I huff.

He tips his head, only slightly, in thought. "When did you Google me?"

"When you hired me," I admit, blushing. "I was curious."

He is quiet for a moment. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

I wet my lips, considering. "Not really."

"And what was it you were looking for, Persephone?"

I shake my head slowly. "I—I'm not sure." I snap out of the spell he's put me under, and say tiredly, "I can't go with you, Hades. It will ruin your reputation."

"How so?"

"I already told you. I'm too young to be your date."

"You are nineteen, and will soon be twenty. In the eyes of the law, you are legal. How is that too young?"

I tip my head back to the sky, pleading for deliverance. When I look back to Hades, I find a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. "You are almost seventeen years older than me."

"Age is just a number." I make a noise, and he continues, "All that matters is we are two consenting adults."

"You're really willing to risk your whole reputation to avoid a night of women throwing themselves at you?"

"They really are vicious creatures," he says, but there's a mocking tease to it that has a reluctant smile pulling at my lips. "Say you will, Persephone."

"What exactly do you want from this, Hades? For me to simply be a barrier between you and the vicious creatures ?"

He laughs, and it is—it affects me. In a way it shouldn't.

I shift in my seat, waiting.

He replies, "I want them to think that you are mine, and I am yours."

I feel my lips part. "But… "

"It doesn't have to be real." He sighs. "It simply must look real."

"Look real?"

"As though we are a couple."

I swallow my shock. "You want me to be your fake girlfriend?"

Darkly, with a touch of ominous amusement, he says, "For now."