A Game of Retribution (Hades Saga #2)(96)

Finally, he kissed her, and the release was instant but quickly overpowered by an all-consuming need to be inside her. Then she touched him, sliding her hands down his stomach and over his cock before unbuttoning his trousers, fingers curling around his bare flesh. He groaned, loving the feel of her on him, and he wanted more.

He let his tongue and teeth play across her lips, over her jaw and down her neck, and the harder she breathed and moaned, the more he teased and sucked her skin, which was why he was surprised when she pushed him away. She took a moment to stare at him with hungry eyes, then placed her hand on the center of his chest, pushing him back until he felt the edge of the bed behind him.

“Sit,” she ordered, and as he obeyed, she removed the crown from her head and set it on the nearby table. She placed her hands on his knees, holding his gaze as she lowered to the floor.

“You look like a fucking queen.”

She always did.

She smiled as she answered, “I am your queen.”

Then she touched him, her hand working up and down his cock. He took a breath, the heat of her touch going straight to his head.

“Persephone.” Her name felt rough on his tongue, and while her hands felt good, her mouth felt better, closing around his crown, tongue trailing around his head before she brought him fully into her mouth.

He drew her hair into his hand and held it away from her face so he could watch her take him deep. She was warm and wet, and the pressure her mouth offered was far different from being inside her. There was something all-consuming about this, and he had an acute awareness that she was somehow in every part of his body, though she touched just one. After he came, he brought her to her feet with him and devoured her mouth while his fingers worked to unlace her dress. Once she was naked beneath his hands, he lowered her to the bed until she was on her back, rising once more to shed his own clothing.

She watched him from where she lay, and his eyes never left her body, so exposed in the firelight of his room, cradled in the darkness of their sheets.

As good as her mouth had been on his body, he couldn’t wait to be inside her.

He climbed on top of her and rested his body against hers. There was nothing like the feel of her against him, nothing that felt more like home.

She placed a hand on his face, then twined strands of his hair around her fingers.

“Why do you wish to be married?” she asked.

He wasn’t exactly sure how to take her question, though they had never discussed each of their perceptions of marriage, and perhaps that was part of the problem. He had asked her twice without knowing how she felt. He was definitely an idiot.

“Haven’t you always dreamed of marriage?” he asked, curious, though he imagined she hadn’t thought it was ever going to be a possibility, considering her mother had probably never encouraged her to think beyond four glass walls.

“No,” she answered. “You didn’t answer my question. Why is marriage important to you?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It became important to me when I met you.”

They stared at each other for a few moments, then their bodies shifted so that their hips met, and Hades reached to guide himself into her heat. He entered her hard, but once he was fully sheathed, he paused, bending to press kisses to her forehead. There he stayed as his hips began to move, taking her in slow, deliberate strokes, but the harder she held on to him, the harder he moved.

“So fucking sweet,” he said as his mouth pressed against her skin, tasting and sucking and nipping. “Take me deeper, darling.”

He shifted, snaking his arm under her leg, which lifted and parted her flesh even more. She gasped, her head digging into the bed. The deep

fissures her fingers had made into his skin turned into scratches down his back.

“Harder!” she cried in a breathless plea, and he obeyed, completely disarmed as he watched her pleasure. He held on to that, unrelenting until she clenched around him.

“Come, darling.”

Feeling her come was the end of him too. He felt his whole body quake as he released into her, pulse after heated pulse.

Breathless, he bent to kiss her, then settled his weight on her before shifting so he could lie on his back with her draped across his body.

“Gods, I missed you,” she said and pressed a kiss to his chest.

He laughed and looked down at her as she stared up at him. He could tell she had something to say and understood why she was hesitating when the words came out of her mouth.

“You were going to tell me about Leuce.”

“Hmm. Yes,” he said, and he tugged on her until she shifted on top of him, resting with her arms crossed on his chest. “I had a meeting with Ilias at my restaurant. I didn’t know Leuce was there. She hurried after me as I was leaving and grabbed my hand. Old habit.”

He wasn’t sure why he added the last part, because he did not so much believe it had been a habit now. Persephone must not have liked it either, because she gave him a dull look, and he pressed his fingers to her lips, smiling wryly.

“I jerked away and kept walking. She was asking for a new job.”

It was a half-truth, but he did not wish to go into the details of Leuce’s own lie or deception. That would come later when he could prove it.

“That’s it?”

“Afraid so.”

She dropped her head, and he drew his arms around her.