“I’m offering myself to you,” I tell him. Just to be perfectly clear. “No deals. No quid pro quo. No expectations.”
I pause, studying everything about him as that sinks in.
“Join me…or don’t. Your choice.” I turn away, closing my eyes against the horrible knowledge that he could very easily choose don’t. Especially with the way he’s fighting this. “But I would really love it if you joined me.”
With that, I dive into the water.
Like everything else about this place, the water is perfect, cool but not cold, a rush of silk against my skin as I swim.
My heart is beating so fast, I have to come up sooner than I’d like just to take an extra breath. I’m trying to play it nonchalant as I go. I don’t know if Hades is still there watching. He could have turned away.
I force myself to not look, to swim lazily along, into the entrance to the grotto. It’s beautiful in here, too, the natural stone awash in lantern glow, and whatever it is on the cave ceilings over Styx that lights up like blue stars is in here, too.
But when I swim out, it feels more like I’m suspended above the Underworld in a private, fantastical floating sanctuary. And yet gloriously, uninhibitedly exposed.
And Hades isn’t here.
He didn’t follow.
I turn finally to look and immediately deflate at the aloneness. There’s no one behind me, no disturbance of the water beyond what I’m making, no splash of sound within the grotto.
His answer is no.
He doesn’t want me. Not enough.
I take a deep breath that pushes at the tightness of my chest and swim to the edge of the grotto, where the water spills over into another pool below, numb. As far away as I can get from the mountainside and him, I lay my arms across the top of the rock ledge, propping my chin on them with a sigh.
At least I picked a nice, private place to hide my hurt and humiliation. Believe it or not, I’m doing my best to focus on the second feeling and trying damn hard not to acknowledge the disappointment that’s building a crushing sort of weight around my chest.
I’ve been alone most of my life. I do fine alone.
But this is different.
This meant something. More than just lust. Am I foolish to let it affect me this much? Probably. All the same arguments against giving in to this attraction are still there. They didn’t disappear like dust in the wind just because he showed me a tiny piece of who he is deep down, just because he showed how he knows me, and supported me, and protected me, and took punishment for me.
And I proceeded to turn to mush.
“Damn,” I whisper.
With no warning, strong arms steal around me and a bare chest presses against my back. Hades drops his forehead to the back of my head, and I hear him breathe me in. There’s still resistance in him, in the inflexibility of his embrace, the unbending way he’s holding himself.
“I need to know you realize what this can’t be…and what it can,” he growls.
A hard warning. A dark promise.
88
The Surrender
Even with Hades pressed against me, even with him fighting his desire, I need to be sure I know what he means.
“Tell me, just so we’re clear,” I murmur and can’t help my smile.
I want so badly to lean into him, elation filling me in sharp bursts, but I make myself wait.
“I can’t give you a future, Lyra,” he says. “I can’t care for you the way mortals need. It’s not in me. But I want you.”
Harsh. Direct. Real. I don’t want to believe that’s all it is for him, even with my curse, but I make myself. “That’s clear enough.”
Neither of us moves.
“You gave me a choice,” he says, breath brushing over the back of my neck. “Now I’m giving you one.”
I close my eyes and make my own demand. “I need to know that the only reason you’re here right now is because you want me. Me. That I mean enough to you to make you need this even when there are so many reasons we shouldn’t. Even when my curse doesn’t allow for more. Even when this might be the only time and neither of us can give anything beyond this.”
“I want you,” he says. “Though I’m damning us both with it.”
Is he still fighting this? I won’t push him more than I already have. I’ve made my choice and made it clear.
After a taut moment of silence, he doesn’t lift his head, but his arms tighten slowly, drawing me back against his flesh, which is hot enough to warm the water around us. He pulls my body flush against his, then trails a single, teasing, questing touch down my belly to the soft curls at the juncture of my thighs.
With the lightest, most frustrating of brushes, he sends that single finger over the spot that makes my body hum.
I drop my head back against his shoulder on a gasp, and a lightning flash of his emotion charges through me.
Satisfaction and need that is nearly overwhelming. And something else. A determined sort of control.
