Chapter 40

Persephone

The hallway of a crowded club wasn’t the best place for such a personal conversation, but some might argue that it wasn’t the place to have a mind-blowing orgasm either. Hades had run from me the last time I’d tried broaching the subject. I was certain he wouldn’t leave me at The Cauldron when he was so paranoid about my safety.

He took a few steps back before asking, “Why would I be afraid?”

I wasn’t interested in putting any distance between us, so I moved closer. Two more steps put his back against the wall. I smiled up at him and followed. “You seem to be trapped.”

With a dry laugh, he muttered, “That has been the case since the day I laid eyes on you.”

“Yet, you keep avoiding me whenever possible.” I had to point that out because it made no sense to me.

He looked away, his gaze locking on something at the end of the hall. It seemed he wasn’t going to answer me when he finally looked at me and spoke. “I’m falling in love with you.” His voice was quiet and hard to hear over the noise in the club. “The concept of love at first sight seems foolish, but there’s no denying that I’ve always been drawn to you. I didn’t even know your name, yet I wanted to be close to you.”

I smiled at the memory of the day we’d met. “That first day, you looked completely wild and a little intimidating.”

“I was wild,” he admitted. “I still am.”

“You also looked incredibly sexy,” I told him, reaching out to touch his cheek. “I knew who you were, and I’d heard the stories of you kidnapping women. That sort of thing isn’t at all romantic, yet I was still tempted to tell you my name that day. The next time I saw you, you still looked wild, but you were trying to impress me and not frighten me.”

“I don’t want you afraid of me,” his voice was rough with arousal. My hand stroking his cheek was clearly affecting him.

“I’ve never been afraid of you,” I said with a smile. “You don’t always have to tone it down. The wild part of you doesn’t frighten me. You can be yourself and stop being afraid of hurting me.”

My words seemed to amuse him. “You think that’s why I haven’t taken you?” he asked.

“What other reason could there be?” I asked.

“What if it’s all a sick joke?”

I frowned at his question. “Sick joke? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“What if my curse can’t be broken? Or what if there are some conditions that weren’t revealed to me? Aphrodite is a vindictive bitch. There could easily be more to the curse, and loving you may not break it.”

“So, you have performance issues,” I deduced.

“No!” was his automatic reply. “I can perform. In fact, I’m sure I can perform very well. Completion issues concern me—my completion, not yours. I can satisfy you.”

“I get it,” I assured him as I struggled to bite back my laughter. “My wording was bad. I know men don’t like having their prowess questioned. I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it.”

“But you see why I’m worried about the outcome, right?” he asked.

I nodded and considered his situation. “It’s like a band-aid.”

His brow knitted in confusion. “A band-aid?”

“Yes,” I replied. “You know how sometimes as a kid you have a band-aid on, and it needs to come off, but you’re afraid it will hurt. You keep putting it off until you start to peel it off slowly. In the end, the best way to deal with it is to just rip it off.”

“There were no band-aids when I was a child,” Hades reminded me. “Still, I understand what you’re saying. You think I’m acting like a pussy, and I should get this over with.”

“I wouldn’t have put it that way,” I replied. “I’d like to think that you won’t feel like you’re just getting it over with when you finally have sex with me. Still, that’s the gist of it.”

His eyes darkened as his gaze moved to my mouth. “You always surprise me.”

“Most people say that about me,” I replied in a breathy voice.

“It’s one of the things I like most about you.” His hand moved to my cheek as he leaned forward until his lips were almost touching mine. As he spoke, his warm breath moved across my lips. “You make me feel alive. For more than a century, I felt my sanity slipping away. At times, I felt more like one of the statues on Olympus, dead inside and slowly crumbling. Each day was almost exactly like the last.”

“I imagine that’s a problem with immortals,” I remarked thoughtfully. I’d heard of older witches suffering from depression caused by the monotony of their lives, and they weren’t stuck in Hell. Hades didn’t have the freedom to simply move to a new territory and make new friends. While difficult for witches, it was done occasionally. As a fallen angel, Hades had to live in the demon realm. He could visit areas in the human realm, but only for a short time.

He shrugged. “I suppose you’re right.”

I was disappointed that my comment had broken the spell of arousal we’d been under, and I was also unwilling to let Hades drop the subject. “Are you ready to rip off the band-aid?”

“That is a strange way to ask if I’m ready to fuck you until you can’t stand,” he rasped out.

“Please, say you want to do that,” I whispered.

His thumb brushed against my lower lip. “Are you sure?”