A Game of Fate (Hades Saga #1)(61)

He moved closer, towering over her, and touched her face, brushing his finger across her cheek.

“Last time we saw each other, I was unfair to you.”

She averted her eyes, and Hades’ hand fell from her face as she said in a quiet voice, “We were unfair to each other.”

She was talking about the article she had written, and the fact that she was acknowledging its unfairness made his breath catch in his chest. Was it too much to hope that she was changing her mind about him?

“You like your life in the mortal realm?” He had to ask, needed to assess her attachment to the Upperworld. Would she leave it to be his queen?

“Yes.” She pushed away from him, swimming backward, her breasts lifting above the water. Hades followed as if she were pulling him on a string. “I like my life. I have an apartment and friends and an internship. I’m going to graduate from university soon.”

“But you are Divine.”

He did not understand. Why was she building this mundane life in the Upperworld, when she could have anything? Everything?

She stopped wading away, and they stood centimeters apart. He could feel the brush of her nipples against his skin as she breathed.

“I have never lived that way, and you know it,” she replied, and she looked almost frustrated with him, a line appearing between her brows.

“You have no desire to understand what it is to be a goddess?”

“No.”

“I think you’re lying,” he said. He could taste it immediately, that bitter, metallic tang at the back of his mouth. The question was, why? If he were to guess, he would think it had something to do with her dormant power.

“You don’t know me.”

Her eyes ignited like souls ascending into the night sky.

Yes, he thought, build that fire.

He wanted her angry, wanted to feel her passion radiate from her body and vibrate through his own.

He narrowed his eyes, challenging. “I know you.”

He moved so that he was behind her, touching her only with the tips of his fingers, trailing along her collarbone and shoulder.

“I know the way your breath hitches when I touch you. I know how your skin flushes when you’re thinking about me. I know there is something beneath this pretty fa?ade.”

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, before his hand moved lower, grazing her breast. Persephone offered a sharp inhale as her body arched into his, and Hades almost groaned.

“There is rage. There is passion. There is darkness.” He punctuated his words with the swirl of his tongue against her neck.

“And I want to taste it.”

His hand drifted across her belly before hooking around her waist, then he drew her tighter against him, leaving her in no doubt of his desire for her. His cock fit perfectly against her shapely bottom, her back against his chest.

“Hades.” She breathed his name, and it made him ravenous.

He dropped his head in the crook of her shoulder and he begged, “Let me show you what it is to hold power in your hands. Let me coax the darkness from you. I will help you shape it.”

While he held her against him, his other hand sought her center. His fingers threaded through coarse, dark curls until he cupped her sex, feeling its heat wet his hand. Persephone’s head flew back, resting on his shoulder, and her gasp encouraged him.

“Hades, I’ve never—”

“Let me be your first.”

It was a plea, but also a question. He wanted this desperately, could feel how much she wanted this, too. But there was a difference between wanting and being ready, and he would not push her if she needed time.

Except that she nodded, inviting his hand to part her flesh. His thumb brushed lightly over her clit, teasing along the entrance of her delicate and delicious flesh. She rose onto the tips of her toes, body growing rigid beneath his touch.

“Breathe,” he whispered, and when she did, his fingers sank deeper, eliciting a cry from Persephone and a groan from Hades. His head was clouded with lust. He wanted so much from this one instance, to explore her with his hand and his mouth and his cock. He wanted to take her in a million different erotic ways, and yet she was new to all of this, her body unfamiliar with this…invasion. He bit his lip hard to bring himself back to this moment, to focus on pleasuring Persephone, not his throbbing need for release.

This should be about her.

“You’re so wet.” The words came out like a hiss, his face buried deep in her hair. The smell of vanilla and lavender clouded his scenes. When he felt her nails bite into his skin, he guided her hand down to where his was buried deep.

“Touch yourself. Here.”

He showed her how to work her clit, lightly brushing the bundle of nerves that sat just above her moist heat, where he was still moving. He reveled in watching the erotic way she moved against him, rocking her hips, desperate to feel him deeper, and he was happy to oblige. He loved the way she moaned, the way her breath caught in her throat, the way her head lolled against his shoulder. He continued moving inside her while his other hand moved to her breasts, squeezing and kneading her nipples, and then he withdrew from her.

Persephone’s shocked cry made him smile, and she whirled on him. He was not sure what she had intended to do, but he didn’t give her a chance to follow through. He drew her to him, and his mouth descended upon hers, parting lips, tongues moving against each other with a desperation he had never felt before. It was the result of weeks of pent up need, and he would unleash it now, worship her until she was red and raw.