“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 thingIwant. The thingIneed.

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 hisarm 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.”