Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,37

about anything, and definitely couldn’t remember the last time a man had made her feel this way, as if she was coming and going at the same time, spinning in circles and being turned inside out.

Afraid of what might happen, but desperate for it at the same time.

His cool breath fanned across her lips, his chest shifting against hers as his breaths quickened.

Did he feel the same sense of anticipation?

She mustered her courage and settled her palm on his left pectoral, stroked her fingers downwards to graze his nipple and the start of his stomach. His breath hitched, his body tensing beneath her questing fingers, and his gaze turned distant and hazy again.

“Does this satisfy yours?” she whispered, her mouth drying out as she dared herself to inch her lips towards him.

He ruined the chance by turning his profile to her, his gaze falling to her hand as he murmured, “How do you do that?”

Cass smiled softly. “It’s magic.”

He turned his head towards her again, their lips almost touching, and an ache bloomed inside her, a powerful need consuming her.

She needed him to kiss her.

She wanted to know what it would feel like.

He leaned closer and she swore her heart stopped.

Water slammed over her, her senses reeled, and she gasped. It poured into her throat, triggering dark images, memories she wanted to forget. They flashed across her mind in rapid succession as she desperately clawed her way to the surface, as she coughed and struggled to get air into her lungs and purge the water.

When she could breathe again and the fear that had gripped her subsided, she narrowed her eyes on Daimon where he lounged at the other end of the pool. Looking for all the world as if he had done nothing wrong, as if he had felt nothing as he’d watched her struggling to surface and fighting for air. Her hoarse breaths raked in her ears as fury poured through her veins to obliterate the softer things she had been feeling.

“That’s twice you’ve tried to drown me,” she snapped and stood, and the water around her trembled as her magic rose within her, filling her with a need to give as good as she had gotten and show him what it was like to be drowned.

Not a flicker of regret crossed his handsome features as he stood and stepped from the water, as he scowled at her as if she were to blame for everything.

She didn’t bother holding back this time. “You were the one who tried to kiss me!”

He flashed short fangs and stormed away from her.

But in the brief moment before he had turned away, she had caught the pain in his eyes.

Fathomless. Dreadful.

Cass sank back into the water, all her fight draining from her.

He had said his heart belonged to another, but that wasn’t the truth. Someone had broken it and for some reason he was holding on to the tattered remains rather than trying to heal it.

She stared in the direction he had gone.

Whispered.

“Who hurt you?”

Chapter 10

Daimon sat on the edge of the king-size bed in his home in Hong Kong, staring at the pendant resting on the palm of his hand.

It had been wrong of him to want Cass like that.

Unfaithful.

He closed his fingers over the pendant and shut his eyes.

Penelope appeared before him, a smile budding on her lips as she worked in the small garden of her home, tending foxgloves and gladioli. A dirty white pinafore covered part of her dull blue-grey dress, but the scooped neckline was low enough to reveal the pendant. It swayed and twinkled in the summer sunshine as she leaned over, her knees pressing into the grass.

Beyond her, the old cottage had seen better days, needed repairing again.

Would forever need repairing.

She sat back and brushed her hand across her forehead, clearing damp strands of sun-kissed auburn hair from it.

He held the pendant more tightly, watching her as she worked, tending to the garden she had loved so much.

Waiting for him.

The pendant could show him any moment when she had been wearing it, allowing him to see how happy she had been when he had given it to her, among other things.

Rather than soothing him as it usually did, today the sight of her only made him question his feelings about her.

He waited, hoping, needing to feel that calm he did whenever he watched her like this, that sense that remaining loyal to her was what he wanted more than anything, that his love for her