“Hades––” She’d barely gotten his name off her tongue when his mouth came down on hers.
“Is this what you want?” he growled against her lips. “I’m not one to question motives when it comes to females who are willing to fuck me, but you have me confused as shit.”
She wasn’t confused at all. Zhubaal...he’d been an experiment. A means to an end. Oh, she’d liked him, she supposed. He was gruff and rude, but he was never cruel. At least, not that she’d seen.
But Hades was unique. From his clothing to his hair, he blew other fallen angels out of the water. And where most other fallen angels were all serious and dour, Hades was playful, even silly at times. Once, when Thanatos, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, had come to Sheoul-gra with his toddler son, she’d watched Hades chase the squealing boy through the courtyard before tackling him gently and then tickling the boy’s belly with his Mohawk.
She’d been fascinated to see a legend like Hades, a male whose job it was to make life miserable for millions of demons, handle a child with such tenderness. And he did it with such exuberance, without a care who was watching. How many times had she seen male pride get in the way of fun, as if enjoying life and showing emotion was wrong or weak?
No, it took strength to live the way Hades did and still be able to laugh at a joke or enjoy a child’s giggle.
That was the fatal moment in which Cat had decided that she needed to get to know Hades a little better. It was also the moment in which she decided she wanted to feel that blue stripe of hair tickle her sensitive spots.
Before she could tell him as much, he spun her, put her hard into the wall, his body against hers. She gasped at the feel of his erection as it pressed into her from her core to her belly. Oh, sweet Heaven, how was that going to feel inside her?
“Most females want me because I’m a monster.” He arched against her, and she moaned at the erotic pressure against her sex. “Is that your game? Fuck the underworld’s most notorious jailor and earn some bragging points?”
A note of bitterness crept into his voice, but she couldn’t tell if he was bitter because of what he was...or if he was bitter because he thought she only wanted him for bragging rights. Either way, it made her want to hug him.
Not long ago, she’d have thought him a monster, but even if she hadn’t seen him playing with a child or pilfering bread from Azagoth’s kitchen to feed the doves, Lilliana’s stories about Azagoth’s redemption had touched her. Azagoth had been perched on the precipice of the kind of evil one couldn’t come back from, but Lilliana had lured him away from the ledge. Oh, there was still darkness in him––the kind that had made Cat sick for days after accidentally touching him. She had a feeling that if anything ever happened to Lilliana, Azagoth would fall into that black, evil hole and would never return.
But Hades, for all his evil deeds and all the malevolence that surrounded him, had somehow avoided becoming toxic. So, no, he wasn’t some sort of fiend, and he wasn’t going to convince her otherwise.
She lifted her leg and wrapped it around him, trying to get closer. Trying to get some friction going on. “I don’t believe you’re a monster.”
He scraped his teeth over her ear. “Why not?” he growled, so softly that the crackling flames from the fire nearly drowned him out.
She could have told him the Thanatos story. She could have told him how beautiful he was when he laughed with Lilliana. She could have mentioned the time she saw him smiling as he watched a couple of foxes playing on the edge of the forest just outside Azagoth’s mansion. But for some reason, she wanted him to know why her opinion of him was so personal.
“Because I worked with Gethel,” she whispered. “She was a traitor who plotted with Pestilence to slaughter a newborn baby and start the Apocalypse.”
He brought one hand between them to feather his fingertips across the swell of her breasts, and she went all rubbery in the knees. “So you’re saying that in comparison, I’m a saint.”
“No.” She nipped his lip. “I’m saying you are nuanced. You’re evil, but there’s good in you, as well.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Expose more of my skin, and I will.”
She felt his chest heave against hers. Once. Twice. And then, as if he’d given himself permission, he reached around behind her and ripped her corset off. Thank Heavens she’d chosen the one with the Velcro closure today.
“Now tell me,” he breathed into her hair, “do you feel me?”
“Yes,” she moaned, undulating her entire body, desperate to get as much skin-on-skin contact as possible. Her nipples, so sensitive they were almost painful, rubbed against the hard planes of his chest. She hadn’t known they could ache like that.
“Shit,” he rasped. “Too much. This is too much.”