Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
And here…
Here, in Hades’s realms…
It is not so different than it has been, but it feels like everything has changed. I undress, laying my silk garments over the back of the lone chair, and slide under the plush blankets. The sheets are cool on my naked skin. I do not pull them close to my chest. I just lie there, struggling to calm myself, thoughts buzzing in my mind.
About Hades. About me. About what I crave from him and what he craves from me.
About my purpose. About his. About his promise of my powers and about the magic I have found.
The way he said, It seems you’ve found your strength. He did not even need to look at me. He sees me in other ways and I do the same to him, but what I see is startling.
How his eyes went black with an emotion I dare not name when he said you know not what you do.
All these thoughts and more speed through my mind. An eternity seems to pass before Hades returns to the room and approaches the bed. His chest is bare, a smattering of hair that I crave to touch above his hardened muscles. The lights in the room dim, which gives me only a little relief. It is not so dark that I cannot see him although the shadows only outline the curves of his muscles in a seductive way. The corded lines of his arms and the strained veins that promise his powerful touch. They all tempt me. His flesh is divine, my Lord of the Dead and Damned.
He watches me, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathes.
Summoning all my courage, I lower the sheets, baring myself to him as he likes. The air in the bedroom is slightly cooler than the sheets, but my nipples are already peaked. That might’ve happened when he entered the room. That would not be surprising, because what moves between us is far deeper than hatred.
Hades’s gaze stays on my face for a few beats, then skims down over my naked body.
“How angry are you?” I ask. “I do not wish to fight,” I whisper the words with emotion I did not realize I had.
He is slow in returning his gaze to mine, lingering over my hips and breasts and throat first as I swallow thickly.
“My love will always be greater than my anger.”
My heart hammers once at the word, love. I do not know if he is aware of what the word could possibly mean. He lacks it so. But I know truly what it means and I feel something there. Something forgiving. Something merciful.
Needing his touch to soothe the uncomfortableness for I do not wish to go backwards, I hold my arms out for him, then, and Hades climbs onto the bed. In his masculine form, he allows me to hold him and in return he shifts his body to his side and holds me back. His embrace full of comfort and security.
With a soft gasp from me, he claims my mouth in a hot, possessive kiss, balanced over me. I run my fingertips over his shoulders and down his flexing arms as I moan.
It is like touching a stranger, but it is also familiar to me, as if I have done this many times before. Only for him. This dangerous and powerful God.
I have done this in my dreams, I know. And who is to say that the dreams were less real than this? Hades’s realms have taught me that many things that are seemingly impossible—even for Gods—dwell in the Underworld.
I kiss him back, tasting him. He tastes fresh, like running through a garden on a clear night. The act is natural and in an instance, the pain and uncertainty is lost. I know not what I feared before or the anxiousness that ran through me.
My body responds as it has never responded before. My hips rock toward Hades on a wave of desire. It’s a new heat, and I feel like I’m coming awake a little more every time he touches me. Every time his strong body meets mine, he is showing me where my own power lies. He maneuvers me beneath him and I love it.
I wrap my hands around his neck, loving how hot the skin to skin tension is, and hold him closer, arching up towards him. For a minute, nothing else seems to exist but his mouth on mine, and his tongue exploring me, and his weight carefully above me, keeping me in place but not caging me. His pulse races underneath my fingertips.
Hades spreads his fingers at my ribs, and I move into his touch, craving more of it. His hand moves down to my hip and moves me with him as he pleases.
The rhythm of it is familiar, too. It is the rhythm of my own desire. Our hips touch. Hades is hard against me, but for these moments, he does not enter me. It is just the two of us, moving together. It takes my breath away. I do not know how he has made it so intimate. Maybe it is not him. Maybe it is the two of us. But kissing like this, moving like this—