Page 47 of Seduced

He nearly choked on pure air.

“The truth,” he finally managed to say.

She remained silent.

Dammit.

This had certainlynottaken care of his absurd need to touch her.

“I shall have to seduce it out of you, I see,” he said, willing his voice not to break. It broke. Dammit.

“What do you m…?”

Now he had gone and done it. And since he was already damned, he might as well be thorough.

He might as well enjoy it.

As much as anyone might enjoy being killed.

“This way,” he said, hurrying up in order to put as much distance between them as humanly possible. He heard heruneven gait as she struggled to keep up, he heard her pant in pain, and still he didn’t slow his steps. “To my chambers.”

And may God, if He exists, probably not, have mercy on my soul.

Well, what’s left of it.

thirteen

Poppy

The river had scared her. The darkness, the water’s smell, Hades’ words…all of it was unsettling, to say the least.

But most of all, what had scared her was he himself. The way he acted, the way he spoke about himself…There was a carelessness, a self-loathing in his manner that frightened her. She had focused on his hands as they had clutched the oars, those long, tapered fingers, those wrists threaded with ropy veins, those arms bulging with muscle beneath his sculpted jacket. She could not look at his face.

Something in his eyes disturbed her, and not only because they were too cold and too blue. Too intense, too beautiful.

But no, those were not the only reasons she could not stand to look at him: Something inside her needed to reach out a hand and push those black locks away from his forehead, to run her fingers down those sharp cheekbones, to brush her lips against…

She stopped the thought, her cheeks flushing.

Sin. That was it, sin.

Sin was the reason she was afraid of him.

He made her sin—or would, soon enough. And she had sinned enough for ten lifetimes already.

Hades led her to a room as dark as the lake’s cave, covered in silks and carpets. In the middle stood a huge bed, raised on a pedestal as if it were an altar. Poppy felt the blood drain from her face

This is no time to faint.

The only thing that saved her was the compulsion to follow and obey. If it wasn’t for that, she would have stood frozen on the spot, or have fainted dead away. But as it was,she meekly followed Hades into the room, feeling very much like a lamb being led to slaughter.

Is he going to touch me?

And am I going to let him?

Am I going to be able to fight him?

She could hardly recognize herself. Her own reactions—or rather, the lack thereof—made little sense to her, but it was as if a force separate from herself controlled her.

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