Page 72 of Unleash Hades
There was so much left to savor. There was so much left to love.
I held her close, her head falling into my chest.
“Thank you,” she said, her chest vibrating with her pleasure sobs. “Thank you.”
“Did you get what you asked for? Do you feel loved? Do you feel free?”
“Yes.” She buried her face in my bare chest, her nose moving back and forth, nuzzling against my chest hair.
I twisted my fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, feeling the rough texture of them. Each curl seemed to weave around my fingers, asking me to stay.
“You must trust me to do what is good for you,” I whispered, because I had to make my point. I had to make it now, before she slipped through my fingers. “Trust me to do what is best. To give you what you need.”
She pulled her head away, but for once, I did not let her go. I held my arm around her waist, gripping her against me.
“I’m not ready,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of Richard.”
“You could be, if you wanted.”
“It’s different!” She insisted.
My poor little Persephone. She had been conditioned to believe this. Groomed by an evil man to think that she had no choice. But she had one. And she would make it… eventually. I knew it as I knew the seasons.
“You will call, when you are ready,” I traced my thumb along her lower lip, and kissed her forehead. “And I will take care of it.”
Chapter 23
Calissandra
It had grown darkwhen I was dressed and ready to head back to the house. He’d proudly declared that there were no cameras here. He was sure of it.
I trusted him.
“As far as the gate,” he said, “Then I will set you free back into the land of the living.”
We walked in silence, hand in hand in the darkness, the moon casting a silver light between the leaves of the trees.
“Have you…” I started to ask, before I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“Ask me,” he said, pulling his arm in, drawing me into his side.
I was about to ask a stupid question. Why would he ever…
“Have you been with anyone else?” I blurted out and covered my lips in embarrassment. “I’m sorry… I…”
“I was with three women, before I met my wife–”
“You were married?” Bellamy had been telling the truth after all.
“We divorced before I joined the Legion. I was celibate during that time because there wasn't an opportunity, until a certain journalist found her way into my room.” He frowned, trying to hide a smile. But the sparkle in his eye gave him away. “And I have kissed that journalist a few times since, and been inside her twice.”
“And… and no one else?” I was surprised.
He was a specimen of a man. Rough, his skin worn, but still so masculine. His hands, his muscles, his rugged looks… It was the kind of appearance that turned the heads of women who craved a bit of danger and excitement. Women like me.
“No one else.”
I let out a breath.
