Page 57 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

Fuck it. I need this woman.

I pop the line of little gold buttons on her shorts faster than she’s able to steal a breath, pushing them open to expose one pale hip and a band of blush pink lace that has my seed seeping from my tip. My hands shake with restraint. I don’t want to frighten her by shredding the very clothes she wears in my haste toexpose her delicate flesh to me. But I’m unpracticed in the art of denying myself that which I crave. And I crave her.

Gods, Titans, and all that came before and after, I crave this woman.

“I want you.” Fire rages under my flesh, behind my eyes. Against her ear, I rumble, “I want to push inside you and never, never leave.”

Her body shudders as I imagine it might when I bring her to orgasm. The idea that my words have affected her in such a way has something primal, something primitive,something ancient, roaring with life inside me.

“I want—” She pauses. I clench my teeth, grinding them in an effort to practice a patience I don’t possess. “I’m not ready for that, Hades.”

Fucking Tartarus.I want to tell her that I’ll make her ready. I want to promise her that I’ll flood her with a need unlike any other, so potent she won’t be able to resist. I want to tug at the tiny core of darkness that dares to exist inside her—the thing buried deep in the abyss of life and golden light—that is capable of loving me. The God of Death.

I want to taunt that tiny core of darkness to the surface. I ache to push and pull at the fragile lines of right and wrong that dance inside her. To force her body beyond the consciousness of caution and hesitation, of innocence and uncertainty and fragility untilshe is nothing more than a being of sensation, driven by need.

I could do it. I could…

“You need to come,” I say instead, nostrils flaring against the smooth skin of her throat. My eyes burn with a desperate need I won’t sate. Not tonight.

She moans, but offers me no words.

I pull the lobe of her ear between my teeth. She shudders. I soothe my nip with the tip of my tongue, sucking her flesh between my lips and speaking through kisses against the hollow of her neck. “If I can’t be inside you, tell me I can still make you come. Let me feel the way you shatter. Let me spill your cries and free your moans. Let me scatter the pieces of you.” I kiss down the part of her shirt, over the swell of her breasts. She clings to me like I’m the only solid thing in the whole universe. “I promise I’ll put all the pieces back together again.” I beg, “I just need to watch you come apart for me.”

“Oh my God.” She can’t know the way her words travel into the depths of me. The God inside me privy to her every prayer and plea.

Mine, I think.Ours,he growls.

I’ve lived too long separate from him, in a world far from my own. All the Gods and Goddesses have fallen to this easier life, concealed by the flesh of man. All the Gods except, perhaps, for Poseidon.

She makes me remember what it means to beme.

The urge to shift, to split from this second skin into the God of old is strong. I can’t—won’t.

She would never look at me the same.

This fragile human with the soul of a Goddess, the keeper of my heart and soul, would flee me. She is the keeper of sins, the oblivious warden who commands the master of death.

She is my Queen. My mate. Mine.

Ours.

I push the cups of her bra down to expose her breasts, reveling in the shocked gasp of need and the scent of primal hunger that spills between her legs. I want to taste the honey of her, but settle for pulling the rose pink of her nipple between my lips, twirling the peaked tip with my tongue.

Hunger, dangerous and deep, hooks me in the gut. I can feel the God so close to the surface now, I fear she will see him looking back at her through the flames in my eyes if I dare let my gaze slide to hers.

With a growl of frustration and need, I pull her from the desk and spin her around. Now that she’s not facing me, the God is not at danger of discovery. It’s only a matter of time, I know. But she’s not ready yet.

With her feet on the floor, she wobbles. I catch her with one hand around her waist as the other presses firmly into her back between her shoulders. Sharp breaths rattle in her lungs, slipping over her tongue to sound in the splitting quiet of thisroom. I want to fill every crevice with the melody of her moans. I want to paint the walls with images of us.

I dip my hand into the part of her shorts, fingertips toying with lace. Roughly against her ear, I murmur, “Say yes.”

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

Persephone

Say yes.His words, rough like gravel shoot splinters of need into every inch of my flesh. I am a thing of need, stripped of caution and hesitation. I am the pinnacle of hunger, but not for food. I hunger for flesh—his flesh. For the pleasures of flesh.

---