Chapter 29

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

P ersephone

“Jump.”

I’ve never swam in open water. The idea is terrifying as it is thrilling. And this is open water. Hades drove the yacht farther this time than he did the first time he brought me out here. Nearly everything I can see is blue. Land is a very, very distant thing. Still, the water is calm and Hades doesn’t seem even remotely worried about the creatures that lurk in the depths below him.

“Jump for me, little goddess,” he encourages, his pitch dropping to a seductive note that I just can’t resist.

With a shriek, and a moment of regret that comes seconds too late, I’ve jumped. I hit the cool water with a splash, sinking below the surface as my feet connect with nothing.

Before I can panic, I feel Hades’ strong arms pulling me up and close. My spluttering turns to a thrilled laugh. My heart quickens in my chest and I wrap my legs around his waist, somehow knowing that he can tread water like this with me clinging to him.

With the setting sun painting the sky a brilliant canvas of tangerine and lilac, I can’t help but think he looks like an angel. I must say it out loud, because Hades says darkly, “I’m no angel, little goddess.”

Leaning back in his arms, I stare into his dark eyes. “Why do you call me that?”

“It’s what you are to me.”

I can’t help it, I blush. The man is so charming. Devilishly so. Mama would hate him; I just know it. Daddy wouldn’t like him much more. “Why are you single?”

He peers into my eyes. “I was waiting for you.”

See, charming. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Rolling my eyes, I give up, moving on to my next question. “Do you ever see your parents?”

Hades stiffens, but only for a moment before he treads water again. Clearly, I’ve taken him by surprise. He swallows, considering, “I see my mother, although it is rare.”

“Your father?”

“No. My father is gone.”

I flinch at the complete coldness in his eyes as he speaks of his father—the man who gave him life. How terrible a father he must have been to have filled his son with so much hate for him.

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Was he—was he bad?”

Hades’ eyes scan my face and his arms pulse around my body. “He was not a good father. He was constantly fearful that his children would become greater than him, and he tried, many times, to ensure that would never come to pass.”

He doesn’t miss my frown. “What do you mean?”

“He was not a good father, Persephone.”

Understanding that he doesn’t wish to talk about it, I ask instead, “What about your siblings? You once told me you had more than you liked having.” I smirk. “Do you see them often?”

His reply is cheeky. “More than I like.”

I groan, “Hades. I’m doing that thing you keep saying you want me to do.”

“What is that?”

“I’m trying to know you.”

He chuckles. “Does that mean you’ve decided to abandon your idea of leaving me come September? ”

“No.” His jaw hardens and I explain, “I’m not the one you’re meant to end up with, Hades. I’m no one’s forever, okay?”

God, it hurts me to say it.

Anger, bright and irrefutable, ignites his expression. “Why would you say that?”

“Because,” I say with a simple smile I hope doesn’t flash the pain I feel. “I’m meant for today. Right now.”

I’d found this peace on the drive to the yacht, and then during the sail into the sea. The fact that I’m steadily losing fragments of my sanity doesn’t mean that I can’t keep living in the present. So, maybe I don’t have a long future ahead of me. Maybe I’ll lose the rest of my mind in a month, or a year, or five years. It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that I live today, now, to the most of my ability. That I feel with all that I am. That I experience every moment I can.

Because, eventually, sooner than I’d like, it’ll all be gone.

When Hades opens his mouth to argue—the man likes to argue—I surprise him by dropping my mouth to his.

The kiss is instantly hot. And although I initiated it, Hades quickly takes control. He kisses me deep, invading my mouth with his tongue, tasting me. Heat swells in my core and he groans low. His rough hands move up and down the smooth skin of my back, exploring me even as he kicks his powerful legs to tread the seemingly bottomless water .

Our kiss heats and deepens. Hades’ hands work at the tie of my bikini in the seconds before he pulls it off me, tossing it to the boat where it lands with a wet splat. Cool water rushes over my breasts in an entirely new sensation now that I’m stripped of my top. Heat spills between my legs even as I lock my ankles around him, clinging to him tightly.

And then Hades is moving. He splits the water as he swims to the boat, severing our kiss as he lifts me onto the swim platform. With his powerful arms planted, he hoists his body up between my legs, his hot mouth latching onto my breast in a near violent kiss. My head falls back as my hands wind in his hair, twisting and tugging as he moves to my other breast, grazing the sensitive flesh with his teeth.

The hollow spot between my legs grows, expanding painfully with a need to be filled. My core throbs, pulsing with a need only he can sate. A desperate whimper crawls up my throat as I rock my hips into nothing, because Hades is still mostly submerged in the sea.

“Please,” I gasp as he begins to kiss the hollow between my breasts, down the line of my belly. He nips at the band of my bottoms and I spread my legs wider. “Hades, please.”

“Do you want to come, little goddess?” I hear him lower his body into the water again, but my eyes snap open when he strokes my core over the swimsuit.

I groan. “Yes. ”

But that won’t be enough. I know coming undone won’t be enough this time. I need him. All of him. It’s an ache I can no longer suffer. I am empty, so painfully empty. I want to cry and beg and plead and scream.

“Take me to bed,” I beg, my fingers gripping the edge of the stern as he swipes the pad of his thumb over the slit of my core.

Hades chuckles, but he says nothing as his fingers curl into the band of my bottoms. “Lift,” he commands, and I do, eager to help him rid me of all barriers that dare sit between us.

“Take me to bed,” I plead again, even as his big hands bite into the softness of my hips, pulling me to the edge of the swim deck.

“Spread,” he growls. My breath catches.

He doesn’t wait for me to comply. He thrusts his hands between my legs, his fingertips pressing into my thighs as he shoves my legs wide. A shiver of need skates along my spine in the moment before his hot mouth clamps onto my core, sucking so violently at my clit, I scream, coming apart in seconds.

Mind spinning, I feel his hands move from my thighs to the swell of my ass. I know he’s going to lock me in place. Know he’s going to ravage me with his hot mouth. And I know this is my one chance for escape. My single opportunity to alter the trajectory of this moment. To claim the thing I want. The thing I need.

Lifting my feet from either side of him, I plant them in his chest and push hard. Caught entirely off- guard, Hades tumbles from the back of the boat into the darkening water of the sea. I quickly find my feet. My eyes land on his as I make my escape, watching the dangerous flash that seems to capture the fire in the sunset.

“What are you doing?” His big hands slam down on the swim deck, muscles rippling in his arms as he pulls himself up to his waist, pausing. The stillness feels like a threat in the air that throbs between us.

“Fleeing,” I taunt.

In a flash, he rises from the water. Big, dripping wet, and sparking a hunger in my core I have no hope of sating alone.

With a shriek, I run. My feet pound the deck as I race across the boat to the bedroom below deck. I can hear Hades’ feet slamming the floor behind me. My heart races, blood rushing, arousal blending with fear that mixes to form an irresistible blend of excitement I can’t hope to deny.

I take one step into the bedroom when Hades’ arm bands like iron around my waist, lifting me off my feet and halting every hope of escape. I loose another shriek that has the predator in Hades groaning darkly.

He drops his mouth to my ear, warning darkly in a wash of hot breath, “Careful the beast you run from, little goddess.”

“Maybe I want to play with the beast,” I taunt.

He growls. It’s a predatory sound that pebbles my flesh with delight. When the band of iron that is his arm around my waist tightens, crushing me to his front, I can’t miss the thick, hard length of his arousal beneath the dripping material of his swim shorts.

I also don’t allow myself to shy away from what I want most in this moment, which is him. Inside me.

Arching my back, I press my butt into the swell and roll. He hisses between his teeth, and my body responds to the sound with a rush of searing heat.

Crossing the distance to the bed, Hades drops me onto it. My body bounces and I’m about to crawl up the soft cushion away from him when his hands land on my hips, and he flips me onto my back. His jaw is hard as he hovers over me, his hands still gripping me, trembling with a restraint I sense, if broken, could very well free violence. There is a part of me that craves exactly that. A dark, unexplored part of me that I can’t deny exists.

A shudder of desire moves through me as his dark eyes drag the length of my body. As though called to attention by his gaze alone, my nipples tighten into little pink pebbles that seemingly stretch for him, begging for the heat of his tongue, the nip of teeth, the twist of expert fingers.

I whimper, covering my own aching breasts with my hands. Rolling the tender flesh between finger and thumb. My inhibitions are gone. My hunger has stolen my shame and stripped me of the last shred of shyness .

I just want him, this man. I want him like I want to breathe.

He catches my wrists in his hands, transferring them into one before he pins them to the bed above my head, cuffed by his much larger hand. Bent over me now, he breathes into my face. “Are you trying to push me beyond my control, Persephone?”

I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, delighted when his eyes drop to feast on the motion. My entire body is at the mercy of his in this moment, and all I want is for him to take me. Take everything.

“Yes,” I breathe.

He curses. “You don’t know the darkness you taunt, little goddess.”

“I’m not weak, Hades.”

“I know,” he tells me, his voice impossibly rough. It’s spilled gravel over hot coals. I shiver at the raw truth in his next words as he cups my face with a tenderness that belies the flame in his eyes. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”

My lips part and he watches as I wet them before his hand drifts slowly from my face, over the flickering pulse that flutters in my throat, to palm one breast roughly enough to draw a shuddering sigh from between my lips. He moves to the other breast, the callouses on his fingers a scrape against the tender flesh of my nipple. He plucks and pulls and twists, flicking and rolling until my body is a cord of oversensitive need pulled too tight .

All the while, his eyes don’t drift from mine.

With my hands still locked in the cuff of his high above my head, his body arched over mine, he lets his free hand move from my breasts to drift, featherlight, down the line of my belly. He circles my navel. My breath hitches, my belly dipping at the gentle scrape of calloused fingers over smooth flesh. He finds the warmth between my legs, his eyes still locked on mine as he dips his fingers into the hot wet of my center. My lips part. I suck in breath, biting down hard when a moan threatens to break free.

His lips twitch, as though he recognizes the challenge in my silence and likes it.

I try to close my legs, try to make this possession just a little harder for him, but he stops me with a knee in the bed, a force I can’t fight between my legs. Beneath his shorts, I can see the proof of his desire. He’s so big, I’m not confident I can take him. Still, I want to try.

The twitch of his lips morphs to a hitch. He presses his thumb into the button of my clit and aligns two fingers with my entrance. I think he’s going to thrust deep and fast, but he doesn’t. He rims me in a slow, agonizing circle that has a symphony of whimpers spilling from the deep.

“Hades…”

“Spread wider for me.” I do as he commands without even a moment of hesitation, spreading so wide my knees hit the bed. He murmurs sweet praise, “Good little goddess.”

And then, rewarding me, he slowly slides two fingers deep. Heat erupts across my flesh, searing the very marrow in my bone. Prickles of warmth sting my pores as I throw my head back, biting down to conceal the cry of delicious ecstasy that threatens to escape.

He pumps in and out. It’s a slow, decadent torture that forces me higher and higher. His thumb doesn’t release the button of my clit, but circles it as he draws a painfully reluctant orgasm to the surface. It bubbles over, simmering in the spill. I twist my head to the side, loosing a cry into my raised arm as I lift my hips off the bed, seeking more and less and… I don’t know…

“Hades,” I sob when he doesn’t pull his fingers from the core of me, but instead flicks them up to toy and stroke an entirely new and entirely too sensitive spot deep within. My legs tremble as I try and fail to clamp them closed. That flush of heat simmers just under my skin now, the evidence of it spilling a bloom of red into my skin even as a sheen of sweat coats every inch of my body.

“Beautiful,” Hades praises me as a second orgasm rockets through my core, threatening to break me apart in the unexpected violence of it as it moves like a torrent of endless waves through my body.

He roots his fingers deep as my core clenches around him. I think this is it—that he can’t give me more—can’t take more—that there is no more to take— when the last wave pulses, and Hades pushes a third finger into me.

I’m oversensitive, my flesh puffy and swollen. The stretch stings, but my hips roll into him as he shoves knuckle deep. I want to cry and scream, but as I open my mouth to scream—no sound flees. He is not gentle now as he thrusts his fingers inside me. My breasts bounce with the invasion, and fire dances in his eyes.

“Hades—I—oh, God!” I scream now, because he’s kicked my legs wide apart with his knees in the bed. His body is between my legs now, stretching me wider around him as he pumps me with his fingers, stretching, and filling, and branding me with his touch.

Peering up at him, he’s never looked more like a dark god of possession than he does in this moment. Like the Hades of myth and lore—his namesake. He’s darkness personified, as shadows of a night sky spill in through the windows around him, haunting him with a halo of white moonlight reflecting like glitter cast from Heaven on dark waters.

The pressure builds and my body writhes against it, fighting it, rejecting it. I fear it may very well break me apart. Rip apart my seams. Spill the innermost parts of me for his consumption.

And he will consume me. All of me, given the chance.

“Hades,” I cry. Maybe I scream again. “Too much. It’s too much.”

Am I crying ?

“You can do it, beautiful goddess.” He doesn’t sound like him, but like something other. Something born of darkness and night. He urges, “Give me one more.”

I shake my head even as he bends low to suck my breast into his mouth. My back arches. My breaths are so ragged, so violent and deep, I feel like I might choke on them. On the very air that tastes of woodsmoke and sin as it seeps into my lungs, invading every crevice of me. My eyes slam closed because as much as it hurts, as spent and aching as my body is—as hot as the itch that coats my bones burns—I’m not sure that I can do this, can suffer the agonizing bliss of this shattering at his hand.

I whisper my plea, “Please,” as white hot pleasure erupts in my core in a burst of fire so deep and primal, it ignites my very soul.

And then, with fire in my bones and a spent, spent soul, I drift into nothingness.