A Touch of Ruin (Hades x Persephone #2)(18)

“I did not think you would come to me tonight.”

She rested her head on his chest. He was warm and solid and right.

“I can’t sleep without you,” she admitted, feeling completely ridiculous, but it was true.

Hades palms soothed, running up and down her back. Now and then he paused, to squeeze her bottom. She wiggled against him, his erection growing harder between them.

“That is because I keep you up so late.”

She sat up, straddling him, and laced her fingers through his.

“Not everything is about sex, Hades.”

“No one said anything about sex, Persephone,” he pointed out.

She raised a brow and rolled her hips. “I don’t need words to know you’re thinking about sex.”

He chuckled, and his hands moved to her breasts. Her breath caught in her throat, and her fingers curled around his wrists like shackles.

“I want to talk, Hades.”

He arched a perfect brow. “Talk,” he said. “I can multitask...or have you forgotten?”

He rose into a sitting position and captured a nipple between his teeth, teasing her through her shirt. She wanted to give in and let him explore. Her hands—traitorous hands—slide around his neck and tangled into his hair. He smelled like warm spice and she could practically taste his tongue, flavored with whiskey.

“I don’t think you can multitask this time,” she said. “I know that look.”

Hades pulled away long enough to ask, “What look?”

She took his head between her hands. She thought to keep him from distracting her with his mouth, but his hands were moving under her shirt, over her skin, making her shiver.

“That look,” she said, as if it explained everything. “The one you have now. Your eyes are dark but there’s something...alive behind them. Sometimes I think it’s passion, sometimes I think it’s violence. Sometimes I think it’s all of your lifetimes.”

His eyes glittered and his hands fell to her thighs.

“Hades,” she hissed his name, and he covered her mouth with his, shifting so that she was beneath him. His tongue slipped into her mouth. She’d been right about how he would taste, smokey and sweet. She wanted more and twined her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. His lips left hers to explore the contours of her neck and breasts.

Persephone tightened her hold around his waist to keep him from shifting lower.

“Hades,” she breathed. “I said I wanted to talk.”

“Talk,” he said again.

“About Apollo,” she breathed.

Hades froze and he growled—it was an unnatural sound, and it sent a shiver down her spine. He pulled away completely, no longer touching her.

“Tell me why the name of my nephew is upon your lips?”

“He’s my next project.”

Hades blinked and she was certain she saw violence in his eyes.

She hurried to continue. “He fired Sybil, Hades. For refusing to be his lover.”

He stared, and his silence was angry. His lips were set tight and a vein pulsed in his forehead. He left the bed completely naked. For a moment, she watched him walk away—well-muscled ass and all.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I can’t stay in our bed while you talk about Apollo.”

She didn’t miss that he had called his bed our bed. That made her feel warm inside, except that she’d fucked it up by mentioning Apollo.

She scrambled after him.

“I’m only talking about him because I want to help Sybil!”

Hades poured himself a drink.

“What he’s doing is wrong, Hades. Apollo can’t punish Sybil because she rejected him.”

“Apparently he can,” Hades said, taking a slow sip from his glass.

“He has taken away her livelihood! She has nothing and will have nothing unless Apollo is exposed!”

Hades drained his glass and poured another. After a stretch of tense silence, he said, “You cannot write about Apollo, Persephone.”

“I’ve told you before, you can’t tell me who to write about, Hades.”

The God of the Underworld sat his glass down with an audible click.

“Then you should not have told me your plans,” he said.

She guessed his next thought: You shouldn’t have mentioned Apollo in my bedchamber, either.

His words fueled her anger, and she felt her power moving in her veins.

“He won’t get away with this, Hades!”

She didn’t add that she really needed this story—that it would provide a diversion for what her boss really wanted—a story about them. Hades must have sensed the change in her power, because when he spoke again, his words were careful and calm.

“I’m not disagreeing with you, but you aren’t going to be the one to serve justice, Persephone.”

“Who, if not me? No one else is willing to challenge him. The public adores him.”

She didn’t understand how they could love Apollo and fear Hades.

“All the more reason for you to be strategic,” Hades reasoned. “There are other ways to have your justice.”

Persephone wasn’t sure she liked what Hades was insinuating.

She glared at him. “What are you so afraid of? I wrote about you and look at the good that came out of it.”