A small selection of dresses is delivered to me by a tall brunette with a surly attitude who looks like she could crush my head with one hand. I don’t catch her name before she’s gone, leaving me alone once again.
The call with my sisters went about as well as can be expected. They’re furious I’m cutting them out for their own good. They think my plan is terrible. I’m certain they’ll continue to try to find another option, but I can’t stop them.
It’s almost enough to distract me from the sun tracking across the sky and down to the horizon. From the knowledge of what comes next. Or, rather, the lack of knowledge. Hades is a fan of dire statements with little information to support them. He instructs me to be ready but gives me no information about what I’m supposed to be ready for. And there’s that kiss. I’ve spent most of the day trying and failing to avoid thinking about how good it felt to have his mouth on mine. If he hadn’t stepped away, I don’t know what I would have done, and that should scare me.
Everything about this situation should scare me, but I’m not about to let Hades intimidate me into backing out. Whatever he has planned for tonight, it can’t be worse than Zeus. That, I’m sure of.
I take my time getting ready. This room offers a surprising selection of hair products, which leads me to wonder if Hades has a habit of keeping women here. None of my business. I could walk out of this room and this house at any time, and that’s all I need to know.
The dresses are all beautiful but several sizes too big for me. I shrug and pull on the simplest one, a beaded sheath that’s a similar style to the dress I had on last night. The beads add some weight to the fabric, and it swings in a really satisfying way. I’m eyeing the shoes the woman left and considering my options when a knock sounds on my door.
Showtime.
I take a deep breath and pad to open the door. Hades stands there and, good gods, I’ve never seen a man pull off a black-on-black suit the way Hades can. He’s like a living shadow, a sexy, sexy living shadow. He looks down and glares at my feet. I shuffle back, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m just putting on shoes.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
I grasp on to my irritation with both hands. Better to step onto a verbal battleground than to let fear and uncertainty override everything. “I’m not being absurd.”
“You’re right. Wearing high heels after your feet were maimed less than twenty-four hours ago isn’t absurd. It’s stupid.” He’s full-on glowering now. “Just like running through Olympus in nothing more than a silk dress in the middle of the night.”
“I don’t know why we’re bringing that up again.”
“We’re bringing that up because I’m beginning to see a trend of you not prioritizing your health and safety.”
I blink. “Hades, they’re just shoes.”
“The fact remains.” He steps into the room, his intent clear.
I dance back. “Don’t you dare pick me up.” I swat at the air between us. “I’ve had about enough of that.”
“Cute.” He sounds like it’s anything but. Hades moves so quickly that even anticipating him, I barely let out an undignified squawk before he lifts me into his arms.
I freeze. “Put me down.” Kissing Hades earlier was one thing. Agreeing to sleep with him was something else. This is totally different. Having him hold me close as he walks through the hallways of his house so I don’t hurt myself further… It feels very, very different. Knowing that he doesn’t want me to injure myself was a useful tool in negotiating this morning. Now it just feels like a hurdle I’m not sure how to get past. “You don’t need to take care of me.”
“Yes, you’re doing a stand-up job of it yourself.” He sounds so put out by the whole situation that it immediately cheers me up.
My peevish desire to irk him rises again, and I don’t bother to resist it. Instead, I lay my head on his shoulder and tug his beard. “Maybe I just want to be carried about by a big, strong man who’s determined to save me.”
Hades arches a single eyebrow, managing to convey skepticism and mocking at the same time. “Is that so?”
“Oh, yes.” I flutter my eyelashes at him. “I’m very helpless, you see. What would I do without Prince Charming in dented black armor showing up to save me from myself?”
“I’m no Prince Charming.”
“On that, we can agree.” I give his beard another gentle tug. I like the way his grip tightens on me when I do it. He’s being careful to keep his hands on my dress and off my skin, but the thought of his fingers digging in as he does…other things…is enough to make me squirm.
“Hold still.”
“There’s a very simple solution to this. Put me down and let me walk. Problem solved.”
Hades takes the stairs down to the main floor…and then keeps going. Apparently he’s going to ignore me, which is one way to win an argument. I used to employ the same tactic against Psyche when we were children and she constantly stole my toys to take them off on fantastic adventures. Fighting didn’t work to make her stop. Going to our mother was out of the question. Telling Callisto would just result in her “fixing” the problem by destroying the toys in question. No, the only thing that worked was ignoring Psyche entirely. Eventually, she always broke and returned the toys. Sometimes she even apologized.
I will not break.
Since our conversation is apparently over, I settle into Hades’s arms like this is exactly where I want to be. Because we’re touching so much, I can feel him getting tenser and tenser. I hide my smile against his shirt. Take that.
He finally stops in front of a door. A black door. It’s perfectly flat, with no panels to mar its surface, and it shines eerily in the low light. I stare at our faintly distorted reflection in it. It’s almost like looking into a pool of water under the new moon. I have the strangest suspicion that if I touch it, my hand will sink right through its surface. “Are we diving right in?”
Only now does Hades hesitate. “This is your last chance to change your mind. Once we walk through there, you’re committed.”
“Committed to depraved acts of public sex.” It’s really cute how he keeps insisting on giving me an out. I lean back enough to see his face, to let him see mine. I feel none of the conflict I see in his dark eyes. “I already said yes. I’m not changing my mind.”
He waits a beat. Two. “In that case, you need to pick a safe word.”
My eyes widen before I can temper the reaction. I read widely and know a very specific set of entertainments comes with the use of a safe word. I wonder which flavor Hades prefers. Whips or bondage or dealing out humiliation? Maybe all of the above. How deviously delicious.
He takes my surprise as confusion. “Consider it a safety brake. If things get too intense or you become overwhelmed, you say your safe word and everything stops. No questions asked, no explanations required.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that,” he confirms. Hades glances at the door and then back at me. “When I said I didn’t bargain for sex, that wasn’t strictly true. Each encounter has an element of bargaining and negotiation in it. What I actually meant is that I value consent. Consent because you have no other options isn’t consent.”
“Hades, do you plan on putting me down before walking through that door?” Wherever it leads.
“No.”
“So this consent only applies to sex?”
He tenses as if he’s about to turn around and march me back to my room. “You’re right. This was a mistake.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He is so stubborn, I could kiss him. I frown up at him instead. “We’ve had this conversation before, no matter how you want to paint it now. I have other options. I want this one. I was just teasing you about carrying me.”
For the first time since we met, it feels like he’s really looking at me. No holds barred. No growly masks in place. Hades looks down at me like he wants to consume me one decadent bite at a time. Like he’s already thought of a dozen ways he wants to have me, and he has them planned down to the barest detail. Like he already owns me and he fully intends to stake his claim for anyone to see.
I lick my lips. “If I tell you that I like you carrying me, are you going to do it nonstop for the next three months? Or will you decide to punish me by making me walk of my own power?” A few minutes ago, I’d say I was playing with reverse psychology, but in this moment, even I don’t know what I want his answer to be.
He finally registers that I’m mostly joking and shocks me by rolling his eyes. “It never ceases to surprise me how difficult you are determined to be. Pick a safe word, Persephone.”
A shiver of apprehension goes through me. All joking aside, this is real. We’re truly doing this, and once we go through that door, he might honor my safe word, but at the end of the day, I have no way of knowing. Two days ago, Hades was little more than a faded myth that might have been a man a few generations ago. Now, he’s all too real.
In the end, I have to trust my instincts, which means trusting Hades.
“Pomegranate.”
“Good enough.” He pushes through the door and into another world.
Or at least that’s what it feels like. The light moves strangely here, and it takes me a few moments to realize it’s a clever trick of lamps and water that sends ribbons of light dancing across the ceiling. It’s like the polar opposite of Zeus’s banquet room. There aren’t any windows, but thick, red wall hangings give the room a decadently sinful feel rather than making it claustrophobic. There’s even an honest-to-gods throne, though like the rest of the room, it’s black and actually looks comfortable.
Realization rolls through me and I laugh. “Oh wow, you’re really petty.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. All it’s missing is a giant portrait of you.” He must have seen the banquet room at some point, because he’s built something that is its antithesis. It’s a smaller room and has more furniture, but it’s impossible not to see the connection. More, it’s not like the rest of the house. Hades obviously likes expensive things, but the bits of the house I’ve seen so far feel cozy and lived in. This is as cold as Zeus’s tower.
“I have no need for a giant portrait,” he says drily. “Everyone who walks through these doors knows exactly who rules here.”
“So petty,” I repeat. I laugh. “I like it.”
“Noted.” I can’t be sure, but I think he’s fighting back a smile.
To keep from staring up into his handsome face like a lovestruck fool, I peer at the comfortable couches and chairs—all leather—gathered strategically around the space as well as a number of pieces of furniture that I recognize by description if not by sight. A spanking bench. Saint Andrew’s cross. A frame that might be used to suspend a person from if one got creative with rope.
The room is also completely empty.
I twist in Hades’s arms to look at him. “What is this?”
He sets me down on the nearest couch, and I skim my fingers over the smooth leather. Like every other piece of furniture I can see, it’s flawless and pristine. And cold. So incredibly cold. It’s exactly what I would have expected from Hades, based on the myth surrounding him, and nothing like the man himself. I look up to find him watching me closer. “Why isn’t anyone here?”
Hades slowly shakes his head. “You thought I’d throw you to the wolves on the first night? Give me a little credit, Persephone.”
“I don’t have to give you anything.” That comes out too sharply, but I had built up my courage for this, and the letdown is leaving me dizzy. This place is leaving me dizzy. It’s nothing like I expected. He is nothing like I expected. “You have to stake your claim, and you have to do it now.”
“And you have to stop telling me what I have to do.” He looks around the room, expression contemplative. “You say you’re no virgin, but have you done any kink before?”
That takes the wind right out of my sails. No point in lying, at least not at this juncture. “No.”
“That’s what I thought.” He shrugs out of his jacket and slowly rolls up his sleeves. He’s not even looking at me, isn’t paying attention to the way I devour each inch of revealed skin with my eyes. He’s got nice forearms, muscled and tattooed, though I can’t make out the design. It looks like swirls, and it takes me several long moments to realize the tattoos are moving around scars.
What happened to this man?
He sits next to me, keeping a full cushion between us. “There are some preliminary questions I need answered.”
That surprises a laugh out of me. “I didn’t realize this was an entrance interview.”
“Hardly.” He shrugs, looking like a king with the way he unapologetically takes up more than his fair share of space. It’s not even his body—he’s not particularly huge. It’s his presence. It fills this large room until I can barely breathe past it. Hades is watching me too closely, and I have the uncomfortable feeling that he’s clocking every single one of my micro expressions.
He finally motions around the room. “This arrangement might have a purpose beyond pleasure, but I’m not interested in traumatizing you. If you’re going to fuck me, you might as well have a good time, too.”
I blink. “That’s so very considerate of you, Hades.”
My sarcasm rolls right off him like water off a duck’s back. Though I am certain his lips twitch. “Answers are yes, no, maybe.”
“I—”
“Bondage.”
My body goes hot at the thought. “Yes.”
“Fucking in front of people.”
No. But that answer isn’t the truth. The truth is the very idea sets me aflame. I look at his face, but he’s not offering me a single thing. No encouragement. No judgment. Maybe that’s why I’m able to answer honestly. “We already talked about this. Yes.”
“It pays to be sure.” He goes on like that. Him naming thing after thing and me trying to answer as honestly as I can. Most of these things, I’ve never thought about too hard outside of fiction. I know what makes me hot and squirmy in the books I read, but the possibility of acting it out in reality is almost too much to contemplate.
The conversation, if one can call it that, is hardly comfortable, but it reassures me all the same. He really is doing the proper homework instead of throwing me into the deep end. I can’t remember the last time I was the recipient of focus this intense; the realization has heat working its way through me in slow surges, and my breath picks up at the thought of acting out all the things Hades names.
He finally sits back, expression contemplative. “That’s enough.”
I wait, but his gaze is a thousand miles away. I might as well not be in the room. I open my mouth but decide against interrupting wherever his thoughts have gone. Instead, I stand and turn for the nearest kinky furniture. It looks a bit like a less soulless version of the table you sit on at the doctor’s, and I want to see exactly how it works.
“Persephone.”
The snap in his tone has roots growing from my soles and freezing me in place. I glance over my shoulder. “Yes?”
“‘Yes, Sir’ is the proper response when we’re in this room.” He points at the spot I just vacated. “Sit down.”
“What happens if I don’t obey like that?” I snap my fingers.
He’s back to watching me closely, his body poised and tense as if he’ll spring at me given half the chance. Maybe that should scare me, but it’s not fear beating a pounding drum in my blood. It’s excitement. Hades leans forward very slowly, very pointedly. “Then you’ll be punished.”
“I see,” I say slowly. A choice, then. There’s no one watching right now, no one to playact for. I don’t have to be perfect or sunny or bright or any of the labels I’ve acquired over the years. The realization leaves me feeling giddy and almost drunk.
I look around the room again. “What is this place for you? Freedom from labels?”
“This place is the label.” When I frown, he sighs. “There are only so many methods of holding power. Fear, love, loyalty. The latter two are fickle at best, the first difficult to acquire unless you’re willing to get your hands dirty.”
“Like Zeus,” I murmur.
“Like Zeus,” he confirms. “Though that bastard has enough charm that he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty when he doesn’t want to.”
“Do you get your hands dirty?” I glance around the room again, beginning to understand. “But then, you wouldn’t have to if everyone is scared of you, would you?”
“Reputation is everything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Hades studies me. “Do you need one?”
Do I? It’s not required for our bargain; I’ve already agreed and I have no intention of backing out now. But I can’t help the curiosity that sinks its fangs into me and refuses to let go. My fascination with Hades goes back years, but meeting the real man behind the myth is a thousand times more compelling. I’ve already divined the purpose of this room, this carefully curated stage. I want to know more about him. I hold his gaze. “I’d like an answer, if you’re willing to give it.”
For a moment, I think he won’t respond, but he finally nods. “People are already primed to fear Hades. As you keep pointing out, the title is the boogeyman of Olympus. I use that, amplify that.” He motions around the room. “I have exclusive parties for carefully selected members of the upper city here. My tastes already ran kinky; I simply use that predilection to serve my purposes.”
I study the room, focusing on the throne. All the better to create the larger-than-life image of Hades, a dark king to Zeus’s golden one. Neither of the images they present to their audience are the truth, but I much prefer Hades’s version. “So you sit there and preside over this den of iniquity and indulge your desires in a way that gives everyone watching a shiver of fear and a story to whisper.”
“Yes.” Something strange in his voice makes me turn to look at him. Hades is staring at me like I’m a puzzle he’s dying to put together. He leans forward. “They really don’t know what an asset you are in the upper city, do they?”
I paint my usual sunshine smile across my features. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re wasted on those fools.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” Hades rises slowly. All he needs is a cape to flow around him to complete the menacing-sexy picture he creates. “Shall I give you a demonstration of how our first night here will go?”
Suddenly, this is all too real. A shiver works its way through me that’s part nerves, part anticipation. “Yes, Sir.”
He glances at my feet. “Are they bothering you?”
Truth be told, they already ache just from standing here for a few minutes. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Nothing you can’t handle,” he repeats slowly and shakes his head. “You’ll run your body right into the ground, given half a chance. I wondered if that first night was the exception, but it’s not, is it? It’s the rule.”
I flinch, guilt flickering through me even as I tell myself I have no reason to feel guilty. It’s my body. I can do with it what I need to in order to survive. If sometimes my flesh bears the cost? That’s the price of life. To distract myself from the uncomfortable feeling unfurling within me, I take another step back. “I said it’s fine, and I mean it.”
“I will take your word on it. This time.” He continues before I can say anything. “But I will be checking your bandages at the end of the night, and if you’ve damaged yourself further out of stubbornness, there will be consequences.”
“You are outstandingly arrogant. It’s my body.”
“Wrong. For the duration of this scene, it’s my body.” He motions to the low stage set up in the center of the room. “Up.”
I’m still processing that statement as I set my hand in his and allow him to assist me the mere twelve inches up onto the dais. It’s not high, but it gives the impression of looking down at the rest of the room. Of being on display. It doesn’t matter that there’s no one else here but us. Imagining all the chairs and couches filled has my heartbeat kicking into high gear.
Hades releases my hand. “Stay there a moment.”
I watch him weave through the furniture to a nondescript door tucked behind a carefully draped curtain. A few seconds later, a set of lights flick on over the dais. They aren’t particularly bright, but in the relative darkness, they immediately cut off my view of the room. I swallow hard. “You weren’t kidding about making a scene, were you?”
“No.” His voice comes from an unexpected direction—to my right and slightly behind me.
I turn to face him, but I can’t see much in the glare. “What is this?”
“Tell me your safe word.”
Not an answer, but did I really expect one? I can’t tell if he’s trying to scare me or if this truly is a preview of what he intends to do in front of an audience. I lick my lips. “Pomegranate.”
“Take off your dress.” This time, he speaks from somewhere in front of me.
My hands fall to the hem of the dress and I hesitate. I don’t think I’m shy, but every remotely sexual encounter I’ve had to date has been behind closed doors and mostly in the dark. The exact opposite of this experience. I close my eyes, trying to still the shaking in my body. This is what I want, what I asked for. I grip the hem and begin to lift.
Cool air teases my thighs, the lower curve of my ass, my hips.
“Persephone.” His voice is deceptively mild.
I can’t quite catch my breath. We haven’t even done anything, and I feel like my body is on fire. “Yes…Sir?”
“You’re not wearing anything under your dress.” He states it like he’s commenting on the weather.
I have to fight the urge to squirm, to drop the dress to cover my nakedness. “My borrowed wardrobe is missing a few items.”
“Is that the truth?” He steps out of the darkness and joins me on the dais, and it’s almost as if the light shies away from him. Hades circles me slowly, stopping at my back. He doesn’t touch me, but I can feel him there. “Or did you think you could tempt me into doing what you want?”
The thought had crossed my mind. “Would it work if I tried?”
He lifts my hair off the back of my neck. An innocent touch as such things go, but I feel like he’s doused me in gasoline and lit a match. Hades’s other hand drifts to brush the bared skin at my hip. “The dress, Persephone.”
I take a slow breath and continue easing it up my body. He’s perfectly still behind me, but I swear I can feel his gaze devouring each newly bared inch of skin as the fabric rises. It feels horribly intimate and also sexy beyond belief. I finally pull the dress over my head and, after the briefest hesitation, drop it on the floor.
There’s nothing hiding my body from him now.
I jump at the press of his fingertips to my upper arms. Hades chuckles darkly. “How do you feel?”
“Exposed.” Having to answer the question only makes the sensation more acute.
“You are exposed.” He trails his fingers up to my shoulders. “The next time we do this, every eye in the room will be on you. They’ll look at you and want you for their own.” And then he’s there, his body against mine, one hand lightly bracketing my throat. Not applying any pressure. It’s a simple touch of ownership that has me fighting not to curl my toes. “But you’re not theirs, are you?”
I swallow hard, the move pressing my throat more firmly against his palm. “No. I’m not theirs.”
“They can look their fill, but I’m the only one who gets to touch you.” His breath ghosts the shell of my ear. “I’m going to touch you now.”
I can’t stop shivering, and it has nothing to do with the temperature in the room. “You’re touching me right now.” Is that my voice, all breathy and low and filled with invitation? I feel like I’m floating above my body and yet devastatingly grounded in my flesh.
His hand drifts down to my sternum, tracing a line between my breasts. Still not where I suddenly desperately need him to be. He’s barely done anything and I can’t stop shaking. I bite my bottom lip hard and try to hold still as his fingers feather over my ribs and down my stomach. “Persephone.”
Gods, the way this man says my name. Like it’s a secret just between us. “Touch me.”
“As you said, I am touching you.” There it is, that sliver of delicious amusement. He goes still, his hand resting on my lower stomach. The weight feels like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to this world. He traces one of my hip bones. “This is how it’s going to go. Listen closely.”
I’m trying, but every bit of my concentration is wrapped up in not spreading my legs and trying to contort myself to get his hand where I desperately need it. I settle for a shaky nod. “Yes, Sir.” Funny, but calling him that hardly feels strange at all.
“I will give you every fantasy you’ve dreamed up in that ambitious brain of yours. In return, you follow my every command.”
I frown, trying to think past the feel of his body against my back, his hard length pressed against me. I desperately want to get up close and personal with this man, to strip him down and touch him as intimately as he’s touching me now. “I have a lot of fantasies.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” His lips brush my temple. “Are you shaking out of nerves or desire?”
“Both.” So tempting to leave it at that, but I need him to understand. “I don’t hate it.”
“And the thought of people actually filling this room and watching me touch you like this?”
“I don’t hate it,” I repeat.
“I’m going to make you come, little Persephone. And then I’m taking you upstairs and changing the bandages on your feet. If you’re very good and manage to restrain from complaining, I’ll let you orgasm a second time.” He gives my stomach another slow stroke. “Tomorrow, we’ll get you clothed appropriately.”
It’s so very hard to focus with his fingers drifting closer and closer to my pussy, but I try. “I thought we were negotiating orgasms.”
“This is about more than orgasms.”
I only understand this game in broad strokes, but I recognize that he’s asking for permission in his way, as if I haven’t given him the green light half a dozen times today alone. He’s not exactly throwing me into the deep end to wait and see if I sink or swim. He’s drawing me carefully, inexorably toward a single destination. I don’t believe in fate, but this moment feels like we’ve both spent years barreling down our respective paths to this point. I can’t turn away now. I don’t want to.
“Yes. I say yes.”
