Page 36 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

I don’t know what it is about Hades that sets me off like this. What is it about his nearness that rattles me this way?

“Are you afraid of me, Persephone?” God, he’s so close. I can feel the hot wash of his breath against the shoulder my tank top has left bare.

“N-no.” The word falls from little more than a breath into a space that crackles with electricity.

“I can practically hear the thunder of your heart.” He isn’t touching me, but the heat of his body touches every inch of my back. A caress of flame and sinful darkness that I desperately ache to sink into.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Mmm.” The low rumble carves the way for fire to spread in my veins. He observes, “You’re trembling.”

Breath rattles in my lungs. “I’m nervous.”

“Why?” He’s so close. He could touch me. He could kiss me.

God, but I want him to kiss me. I want him to taste me and ravish me and keep me…

As though he can hear my thoughts, he curses low. It’s an agonized, hardly restrained thing of nearly broken need that strikes a lash of violent hunger deep within me.

I swallow the moan that threatens to break free, admitting instead, “Because I feel the need to tell you things I’ve never told anyone else. Things I wouldn’t dare tell another soul.”

“Like?”

I laugh. It’s an incredulous sound. “I told you I was crazy within minutes of meeting you, Hades. I told you I hear a voice in my head.”

“Mmm,” he murmurs again. “And what do you feel the urge to tell me now, Persephone?”

“I—” I shake my head. “I can’t. You won’t look at me the same.”

“The way I look at you could never change.”

I scoff. “Yes, it could. I assure you.”

His hands move to grip the counter, bracketing my body. He’s still not touching me, but there is an air of dominance in this simple act that I’ve sensed from the man from the moment I met him. A dominance I’ve been unable to ignore.

Nerves erupt in my belly. I gasp a sharp inhale, the shards of it splintering in my lungs. Maybe it’s this dominance that had me agreeing to the insanity of becoming his companion. Maybe it’s the darkness I sense deep within him that calls to the cavernous pits of my hollow soul, where the echoing agony of a man I don’t know has called for me all my life.

Maybe I really am crazy, hovering between reality and something fantastical that will send me into a spiral of insanity from which I will never recover.

His voice is deliciously rough, the only thing to touch me even though we stand so close, as he commands, “Tell me.”

There is something in his command that has my lips parting, threatening to spill a truth I can’t hide. My control has slipped, fractured by the magnitude of his power as the weight of his demand caresses me like I wish his touch would.

No, no. He is my boss. And he’s so much older than me.

We wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t fit.

We’re from two different times. He’s lived life, while I’ve only just begun.

He urges, “Persephone.”

I shudder. “It’s his romance with Persephone. The way he took her, stole her.” I think his breath catches. His fingers curl into the counter.I can hardly breathe at all.“It’s wrong, Hades. I shouldn’t—I know it’s wrong. But I’ve always been so fascinated with his obsession of her, and how it drove him to claim her—even against her will. How he refused to let her go, manipulating and scheming in order to keep her for his own. I?—”

The heat of his big body warms the space between us. The rumble of his deep voice strokes me like a physical touch. I am helpless to refuse when he urges, “Go on.”

Quieter, I admit, “I wonder about the way he made her fall for him. How he managed to possess her heart after stealing her body.” My breath hitches, my body aching with sharp desire that spills wet need into my panties in response to his big body hovering over mine. “I’ve always fantasized about having that for myself. Finding a man who claims me, all of me. Who steals my choice and forces my love. Who invades my heart with the same force he invades my body, as I imagine Hades did with Persephone. I—” I shake myhead and shutter my eyes as fire spills into my cheeks. “I think—I think I’m more than crazy, Hades. I think I’m sick.”

“I think you remember.”

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