Page 15 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

Hades

She thinksshe’s fallen for me. She doesn’t know what it means to fall. She’s too innocent. Too inexperienced. Her understanding of what it truly means to fall for another is skewed by this modern day living, where falling is easy, loving is simple, and leaving is expected.

But when one loves another, really loves another, it isn’t simply for a few months. There is never an expiration date on love.

Real love, true love, love between mates is something much of humanity todaycan’t comprehend. It is impossible to kill. Those who taste true love and know the touch of their mate never move on from the mourning of their loss.

No, she hasn’t fallen for me. Not yet. Not if she intends to leave me still come the end of the summer. But the taste of her desperate prayer, knowing that she believes she’s losing her heart to me—it gives me hope that sooner than later—she really will fall.

Until then, I will wait for her.

I’ve already waited for her for millennia.

I can’t lie and say that I’ve ever denied myself of that which I want, but as I walk the ramp into the shallow end of the pool, and the water slowly falls down to expose more and more of her body to me, I grit my teeth against the desire to take her. To push inside her and make her mine, ready or not. In love with me or not.

She shivers in my arms, tiny goosebumps rising on her skin before she wiggles closer. With her body tucked tight against my chest, her legs wrapped around my waist, I climb the ladder onto the patio. The moment her teeth start clapping, I pivot from the direction of the patio bed and move instead to the hot tub.

Her body relaxes against mine as soon as I sink inside the warm water. In the far distance, color is beginning to break through the night sky.

“Better?” I ask.

She nods, lifting her head from my chest. “Yes.”Her eyes find mine, searching for something she obviously doesn’t find.

I can’t stand the little lines of disappointment that furrow her brow. “What is it?”

“I don’t like the thought of not knowing you,” she admits quietly. “I don’t like that you’re holding back.”

Unable to help myself, I lean forward and press a kiss to her forehead. Her skin is so soft under my lips. So smooth under the rough expanse of my hands. “You are learning me still, Persephone. Perhaps not as quickly as you think you’d like, but I assure you this is for your own good.”

She narrows her eyes at me. When her nose wrinkles, I am forced to bite back a laugh. The woman is adorable.

She blurts, “Are you Greek Mafia?”

The laugh spills out of me abruptly.Yes, she’s most definitely adorable.“No, I am not Greek Mafia.”

She studies me, her nose scrunched in a look of uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“I think I would know if I were in the Greek Mafia, little goddess.”

She wiggles on my lap, taunting my cock that has yet to give up the hope he’ll slide inside her tonight. My fingertips dig into her flesh, and I watch her lips part. Her breaths turn shallow and a flush rises to the surface of her skin before she shutters her eyes and shakes her head.

She pushes off my lap, and I let her.

My eyes track her as she puts distance between us, walking to the opposite side of the tub. The fall of her white-blonde waves nearly reaches the small of her back. My eyes drink in the beauty of her. The smooth lines of her back, narrow and lovely and delicate, before the flare of wide hips. I wet my own lips as my eyes settle on the intimate dip at the small of her back before the curve of her perfect ass.

Arriving at her destination, she turns and settles her lovely ass on the seat. Through the water, I can see her creamy skin. Temptation burns inside me to close the distance between us. To take all that she is.

I don’t move.

She cocks her head slightly to the side, lifting her little chin. “Do you have siblings?”

I clear my throat. “I do.”

She looks surprised. “How many?”

“More than I like.”

“Hades, I’m trying to know you.” Exasperation bleeds from her words. “Talk to me.”

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