Page 30 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

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 heisa 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 rollsbefore 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 thanthis.

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 theblue 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 methere. 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 hisarm moves to band around the small of my back. He pins my softness to the wide, hard, hot expanse of his chest.

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