Neon Gods (Dark Olympus #1)(77)

He growls against my skin, and it feels so wicked, I can barely stand it. “Make me come,” I whisper.

For a second, I think he might pull back, remind me that no matter how equal we are, he is the one in charge right now. He doesn’t. He…obeys.

Hades wedges a finger and then two inside me, twisting his wrist as he searches for the spot that will turn all my joints liquid even as he traces my clit in steady circles with the tip of his tongue. Where before he built my pleasure in steady waves, lapping at my control, now he spins a tsunami of desire that I have no hope of fighting.

I never intended to fight it.

I come with his name on my lips, the sound of it seeming to sing to every corner of the room. Even as he gentles his touches and coaxes me back into my body, I’m shaken by the feeling that nothing will ever be the same again. We’ve crossed a point of no return that neither of us recognized. There’s no going back now. I’m not sure I want to, even if the road remained open.

Hades finally shifts my dress back into place and rises. At first glance, he seems perfectly composed…at least until I get to his eyes. They’re wild with the same need surging beneath my skin. This wasn’t enough. It barely took the edge off.

He holds out his hand.

I stare at it for the space of a heartbeat. It seems such a simple gesture, but even as shaken as I am, I know better. He’s not demanding. He’s requesting. Putting us on equal ground. The thing I don’t understand is why.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. I slip my hand into his and let him tug me to my feet. He turns to face the rest of the room, all of whom have stopped pretending to do anything but stare at us. It feels…strange, but not necessarily in a bad way. They’re waiting on our whim, and they’ll wait as long as we demand.

Is this what power feels like?

Hades seems to stare down each and every person present. “Be sure, when you go running back to your high-rises and glamorous lives in the upper city, that you’re telling the full truth of what happened here tonight. She’s mine.” His hand tightens ever so briefly around mine. “And I’m hers.”

This wasn’t part of the plan. I’m not exactly sure there was a plan going into tonight, not after I got cold feet. But Hades isn’t declaring me his the same way he has been since the beginning of this, the way designed to provoke Zeus.

He’s declaring it mutual.

It’s something we spoke of privately, but doing it like this is something else altogether. I don’t know what it means. Because I don’t know what it means, I can only fight to keep my expression under control as Hades turns us toward the exit and we leave the room. The door barely closes behind me when I murmur, “Not holding court tonight?”

“Fuck them.” He barely sounds like himself. “They’re only here for the gossip, and I’m not in the mood to play villain.” He moves down the hall toward the stairs, nearly dragging me behind him. “They don’t see me. No one fucking sees me but you.”

My heart lodges itself in my throat. “What?”

But he doesn’t speak again until we enter his bedroom suite and he slams the door behind him. I’ve never seen him like this. Angry, yes. Even a little panicked. But this? I don’t know what this is. “Hades, what’s wrong?”

“I swore I wouldn’t do this.” He drags his hands through his hair. “What we have isn’t simple, but it’s the most honest I’ve been with another person for as long as I can remember. That means something, Persephone. Even if it doesn’t mean something to you, it does to me.”

I still don’t understand, but I at least have an answer to this. “It means something to me, too.”

That calms him a little. He drops onto the couch and exhales roughly. “Give me a minute. This isn’t your fault. It’s shit in my head. I just… I need a minute.”

But I don’t want to give him a minute. I want to understand what’s upset him. I want to fix it. He’s given me so much over the last few weeks, more than I can begin to categorize. I can’t stand by and let him hurt while I twiddle my thumbs. So I do the only thing I can think of.

I walk to him and sink to my knees in front of him. When he just watches me, I wedge myself between his thighs until he’s forced to either push me back or make way. He spreads his legs with another of those heartbreaking sighs. “You already sucked my cock once tonight, little siren.”

“That’s not what this is.” If I thought for a second it would help, I’d have him in my mouth and gladly. Sex won’t fix this, though. Of that I’m sure.

Instead, I press myself to his torso and wrap my arms around him as best I can. He goes so still I might think he was holding his breath if I couldn’t feel his chest rise and fall against my face. Slowly, oh so slowly, he wraps his arms around me, gently at first and then hugging me tightly to him.

“It’s going to hurt when you leave.”

He speaks so softly, I barely register the words. When they hit, it’s with the force of a nuclear explosion.

I had suspected he cared, of course. Hades might be fearsome in so many ways, but he’s too honest to be able to lie with his body. He touches me like I mean something to him. He’s drawn back the curtain on bits of the lower city, showing me things he cares about, letting me in. Even if I haven’t allowed myself to contemplate the implications of that too closely, I’ve noticed. Of course I’ve noticed.