The Passion of Hades - Eliza Raine Page 0,43

carefully.

'Isn't that why you wanted me to come here?'

Her eyes dipped from mine and I knew I was right. She wanted me as much as I wanted her, the gold vines had shown me that. But she didn't feel the bond yet. She didn't feel the dying cord that had crackled back to life when I had seen her in my throne room, and had been glowing a tiny bit brighter every day since. I would know if she felt it too. It would burst into life, safe and solid and present and eternal.

'It might have,' she said, and swayed on her bare feet.

'I'll tell you what,' I said, my anger from earlier now merging with my arousal, pent up energy crashing around inside me like an ocean storm. I couldn't take her like this.

But there was no fucking way I was leaving with nothing.

I flicked my hand and the kobaloi barked as a smoky bubble enveloped him. I wasn’t sharing this view.

'Let me see you, and maybe I'll do the same.'

Twenty

Persephone

I raised my eyebrows as Hades stood before me, his words reverberating around my fuzzy brain.

'I'll show you mine and you show me yours?' I said, staring at him. He was so beautiful. The strong lines of his jaw, his sharp cheekbones and angular nose, the dark stubble - it was like he had been designed with as much 'man' as was available from the ingredients.

'Yes. I'll show you mine, if you show me yours.' A wicked smile was pulling at his lips and his silver eyes were dark.

'Seriously? Like we're teenagers?'

'Yes. And I guarantee I'll ruin any memory you have of anything you saw as a teenager. Or since.' I gulped. I didn't doubt it.

I wasn't exactly shy when it came to be being nude, but he was Hades, King of the Underworld. Did one just strip casually in front of an all-powerful god?

But my word, did I want to see him without those jeans on.

The thought had my hands moving before I could stop them, and I slowly drew the thin straps of my camisole off my shoulders. Without them to hold the top up, it slid down to my hips, catching on the little shorts and leaving my breasts and stomach completely exposed. I kept my eyes on his, drinking in his change in expression as his eyes raked over me. My nipples hardened as desire pulsed through my body. The all-powerful god wanted me, and it couldn't be more obvious. Or confidence-inducing. I let a coy smile dance over my lips as I ran my fingers inside the waistband of my shorts, delighting in how his breath quickened.

'I think it's your turn to lose a shirt,' I breathed. His black shirt dissolved instantly, the hard planes of his abs utterly perfect, his huge shoulders and the V of his stomach prompting shivers of pleasure through me. Please don't drool, please don't drool, I chanted drunkenly in my head as I pictured those divine arms lifting me, my legs wrapping around his solid waist.

I inched the shorts down.

His hand moved to the top button of his dark jeans.

Yes. Yes. Unbutton the jeans.

I wiggled my hips, easing the shorts down further. He deftly undid the first button, then the next. I realized with a small moan that he wasn't wearing underwear. Another couple of buttons, and I would see him.

My hands began to shake as I moved one side of the shorts down another inch.

A resounding crash from outside my room snapped both our attentions to the bedroom door, my lust and booze addled brain protesting wildly at the sudden interruption. But before I could even consider what to do next, Hades had shifted into something unrecognizable.

He grew in size, muscles bulging, electric blue light glowing from him, and I saw his face, twisted with unbridled fury before he whirled around. My bedroom door blew apart as he raised his arms, black smoke shooting from him in curling tendrils and snaking through the open door.

'You won't escape me this time,' he hissed, and his voice was like knives slicing through flesh. Who was out there?

A distant screaming began to grow louder in my ears, and the tang of blood crept into my nostrils as the temperature plummeted.

No, I could stop his power affecting me, I thought as I hoisted my top back up. I dug deep inside me, hunting for my power, trying to drag it up to the surface. Vines slowly emerged from my palms as