“Seems to me,” he said in a humiliatingly rough voice, “that bumping up against evil would be an incredible temptation for angels like you.”
“It is,” she purred. “Which is why we aren’t allowed to leave Heaven except under certain circumstances, and even then, we must have an escort. It’s one of the reasons I know I can’t ever enter Sheoul. To become a True Fallen would be to have my full powers of detection restored, and I’d be skewed toward evil. The few Seraphim who have become fallen angels are like drug addicts, seeking out the most evil beings they can find, to serve them, to just be near them.”
He wondered how having a Seraphim fallen angel as a warden in the Inner Sanctum would play out. Then Cat dragged her palms down his chest to his abs, and he forgot all about everything except what was happening right now, right here in his home.
“And what do you feel when you’re near me?” He knew he shouldn’t ask. Knew he was encouraging something that shouldn’t be encouraged, but holy hell, he was starving for female contact. Maybe this little bit would be enough.
And maybe he was lying to himself.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled. “Like I want to climb your body like a tree so you can wrap yourself around me.”
Hot...damn. He wasn’t sure if the rum had gone to her head or if she was affected by his inner evil, but what she’d said made him want desperately to play giant oak for her so she could do whatever she wanted with his hardwood.
Giant oak. Hardwood. Man, he cracked himself up sometimes.
His amusement fled as her fingers brushed his waistband and reality crashed down on him, splintering the tree fantasy. She was clearly not in the right state of mind to understand the consequences of getting physical with him, while he understood far too well.
Cataclysm is off limits to you.
Azagoth’s deep voice echoed inside Hades’s ears. He’d gone to Azagoth a few months ago, hoping he’d grant Hades permission to see Cat. Hades would have been happy to just talk to her, to get to know her, but Azagoth had been immovable. And then, when Hades had asked Azagoth why, after thousands of years of service, he couldn’t even take a walk in Sheoul-gra’s lush forests with Cat, the unsatisfying answer had been, You know why.
Yeah, he did. And what if I disobey?
Do you remember the last time you disobeyed me?
As if Hades could forget. The very memory still made Hades’s testicles shrivel. Reluctantly, he stepped back from Cat, but she moved with him, her hands splaying on his torso as they caressed him in slow, sensual circles.
So. Fucking. Good.
Gods, he felt like he’d been deprived of air for so long that he no longer knew how to breathe, and now someone was offering him an oxygen mask but he wasn’t allowed to take it.
“Is this really what you want?” He forced the question from his mouth, because dammit, this was really what he wanted. He just wanted to take a breath. “To get me worked up?”
“Didn’t you just accuse me of panting after you?”
He had. He’d been teasing, but there was nothing funny about this anymore. Her flirtation had been cute and flattering, but it had to stop. For both of their sakes.
“Yes,” he drawled, reaching for the cockiness that had served him well when things got too serious. “But to be fair, all females do.”
A slow, seductive smile curved her mouth, and it took a lot more restraint than he cared to admit to keep from dipping his head and kissing her senseless. “I’d tell you that you’re arrogant, but I’m sure you already know that. And I like it.”
Man, he had no idea how to handle this little vixen. She seemed both innocent and experienced, and he wasn’t sure which was the truth.
Maybe it was time to find out.
Chapter Nine
Cat’s heart was pounding so hard that she wondered if the surrounding tissue was going to be bruised. After months of trying to catch Hades’s eye, she had him all to herself. She had his ear, his eye, and with luck, she’d have him in that coffin-bed.
Yes, there were pressing matters to attend to, but in this moment, they were in background because all she cared about was the foreground. And what a foreground it was.
The problem, she realized, was that she had no idea how to proceed. Things with Zhubaal had gone disastrously wrong, so she didn’t want to repeat the mistakes she’d made with him. She just wished she knew what, exactly, she’d done.
Gods, this had better not be a replay of her incident with Z.
Closing her eyes, she let herself feel Hades’s unique blend of good and evil on her skin. She’d made the comparison of good feeling like sparkling wine, while evil felt like whiskey, and Hades was a swirling mix of both. Carbonated whiskey. Might taste funky, but her skin felt alive with a tingling heat that spread to her scalp, her toes, and everything in between.
It was especially concentrated in her feminine parts.
So delicious.