“You don’t trust me?”
“No!” she shot back. “No, I don’t trust you. Not when it comes to Lexa.
And what about this place, Hades? This is your club, isn’t it? What the fuck?”
She had expressed her embarrassment when she’d had to find out about his charities through someone else, so it was no surprise that she was angry now.
He reached for her, his hands gripping her shoulders. There was a strangeness beneath his skin, a volatile need to touch her. It was likely fueled by how he’d spent the past several hours of his life, and he wished to channel it into something far more productive than violence.
“You were never to come here. This place isn’t for you.”
Hades did not expect her to wince, and he hated that he had hurt her, though he didn’t understand why until she spoke.
“Leuce works here,” she countered, as if they were one and the same.
“Because it’s Leuce. You told me to give her job back, so I sent her here.
You…you’re… different.”
“Different?” She pushed away from him. “What does that even mean?”
Hades’s frustration was acute, pounding through his head. He gritted his teeth. “I thought we’d established this. You mean more to me than anyone
—anything.”
“What does that have to do with keeping this place from me?”
Aside from the fact that it was dangerous?
She might not like what she saw—what it made him.
“Everything here is illegal, isn’t it? The Magi are here. What else?”
He stared at her, knowing that he could not escape answering but wondering if he could prolong it.
“What else, Hades?” she demanded.
“Everything you’ve ever feared.” Or perhaps thought to be impossible.
“Assassins, drug lords…”
He housed crime families and madams, relic dealers and thieves, arsonists and smugglers. Anyone and anything that could benefit him was within the walls of this club, but as he watched Persephone’s face pale, he questioned just how much she was ready to learn.
So he trailed off, and after a brief silence, Persephone whispered, “Why?”
“I created a world where I could watch them,” he said.
Watch and control.
“Watch them do what? Break the law? Hurt people?”
“Yes,” he said, his frustration at a breaking point. Why did it feel so impossible to introduce her to the scope of his world? How was he supposed to illustrate lifetimes of work, built to reach both the heavens and the depths of depravity?
“Yes? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“For now.” He was at a point where he did not want to explain. If she wished to think so poorly of him, then perhaps he should let her.
“Who brought you here?” he demanded.
“A taxi.”
It was not the answer he sought, and she knew it. Someone had told her about this place, fed her the information on how it worked. Hades narrowed his eyes. “You think I won’t find out?”
In fact, he thought he already knew.
“I have free will. I chose to come here of my own accord.”
Hades’s eyes darkened, and he touched her again, drawing her closer. His body felt rigid, run through with wire. He felt too agitated, and he wasn’t
going to get through this if he didn’t find some kind of way to release this energy. He needed to fuck, and he needed it to be unkind and ugly, and Persephone was primed to offer it.
Except that she pushed his hands away.
His gaze hardened as he stared back at her.
She could not say she did not know his intentions. His cock pressed firmly into her stomach, and despite her initial rejection, her body bowed to his desire.
“Are you telling me no?”
Truly, if she did not want him, he would release her, but she shook her head once and his resolve crumbled. He spun her around and guided her forward so her hands pressed flat against the mirrored wall, hiking up her skirt and shoving her legs apart. He brushed his palm over her round ass before giving her a light smack, which caused her to yelp. For a moment, he thought he might have hurt her, but when he met her gaze in the mirror, she offered a small nod, and he continued, bending to kiss the skin he had touched while guiding her underwear down.
Once they were off, he placed them in his pocket and turned his attention to her center. Slipping his hand between her thighs, he let his finger trail along her entrance, slick with her arousal. She groaned and arched, her stance growing wider with the hope that she would soon accommodate more of him.