The silence that followed was not so heavy, and Hades hoped that healing from this would be easier somehow.
“May I join you on your walk?” he asked.
“This is your realm.”
He frowned at her response, which was less enthusiastic than he’d hoped, though he supposed he could not blame her for putting distance between them after what she had seen. She moved ahead, walking in the direction he’d come from, and he fell into step beside her. He wanted to touch her, at least hold her hand, but he recognized that he was seeking comfort, seeking confirmation that they were okay, and he could not expect her to be ready for that.
He curled his fingers into fists as they continued on in silence, coming to the end of the garden, facing the Asphodel Fields, and the tension between them was so great, Hades could no longer handle it.
He turned to her, and while her body was angled away, she stared up at him.
“Persephone,” he murmured, wishing so much that he could reach for her.
“I…I don’t know what you saw, but you must know— you must know—it wasn’t real.”
Which was mostly true. Hecate had pulled memories from Persephone’s mind, and those had been filtered through her pain and her anguish and her trauma. He would never truly know what she’d seen, only how it had affected her, and that somehow made this all worse.
“Shall I tell you what I saw?” she asked, a raw note to her voice that made it rasp. “I saw you and Leuce together. You held her, moved inside her like you starved for her.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and trembled.
“You took pleasure from her. Knowing she was your lover was one thing.
Seeing it was…devastating, and I wanted to destroy everything you loved,”
she said, her voice cracking as tears spilled down her face. “I wanted you to watch me dismantle your world. I wanted to dismantle you.”
Her words were like claws digging deep into his chest, and despite his previous reservations about touching her, he reached for her now, wishing to meet her gaze.
“Persephone,” he said and she opened her eyes, brimming with tears.
“You must know that wasn’t real.”
“It felt real.”
That was the horror of it—the torture of it.
“I would take this from you if I could,” he said, and he meant it. He would take it from her so she would not feel the pain of a betrayal he did
not commit, so she would not look at him like she did now—with the shadow of suspicion in her eyes.
And yet even with the doubt swimming in her expression, she drew nearer.
“You can take this,” she said, then whispered, “Kiss me.”
He was doubtful at first but eager all the same, and he touched his lips to hers. His intention was to be gentle, but Persephone left no room for soft caresses. Her hand snaked behind his neck, and her mouth pressed hard against his, so he let his tongue taste hers. Hades drew her closer, his fingers digging into the fabric of her dress while her hands cascaded down his body to his cock, which had grown long and thick as their kiss had continued, and he drew away with a guttural inhale.
Still, Persephone held him, and despite the layer of fabric between them, he felt hot in her hands.
“Help me forget what I saw in the forest,” she begged. “Kiss me. Love me. Ruin me.”
She never had to ask, though he cherished the invitation. They shed their clothes as they kissed, and Hades reached between Persephone’s legs, cupping and teasing her heat before drawing one of her legs to hook around his hip and sliding two fingers inside her. She offered a breathless moan, arms twining around his neck as she sought a way to steady herself, but Hades kept a firm hand wrapped around her waist and moved slowly. Their faces were inches apart, and he watched her as her expressions morphed from a focused intensity to something far less controlled—as if she could no longer control how her body reacted to him. Her head fell back, her mouth fell open, her eyes rolled, and when she became weightless in his arms, he knelt to the ground with her.
He stared at her openly as she reclined on his robes amid the tall blades of grass that rustled around them. Naked, hair gleaming, bathed in his light, she was ethereal.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “If I could, I would keep us here in this moment forever, with you spread out before me.”
She tilted her head down, and though her eyes were eerie and bright, there was a darkness to them that made the pit of his stomach ignite with fire.
“Why not fast forward,” she asked, “to when you are inside me?”
He offered a lopsided grin. When he had said this moment, he meant all of it.
“Eager, darling?”
“Always.”
He crawled forward on his hands and knees until he was between her thighs, where he kissed her skin until he found her center. She was soft against his tongue, and he lapped at her arousal, pushing her legs farther apart while Persephone hooked her arms beneath her knees. She was a vision, glorious and glowing, and she writhed beneath him as he pushed her toward release with both his mouth and his hand.
When she could no longer control her body or the sounds that came from her mouth, he knew he had her and he pushed forward until she came.
“Hades,” she spoke his name, her legs limp around him, her fingers threading through his hair, then tugging on the strands to bring him up her body to her mouth. He kissed her for a long time, the heat between them unbearable even as he paused exploring to stare into her eyes.
“There was no greater torture than feeling your anguish.” There was a part of him that hated bringing this up, especially after all his effort to make her forget what she saw, though she knew just as well as he that there was no forgetting the Forest of Despair. “I knew I was somehow responsible, and I could do nothing about it.”
Persephone was less inclined to speak on what happened, because she touched his lips while dragging her tongue over her own and said, “You can do something about it.”
She arched beneath him, then her hand found his cock, which she tugged generously, sending a wave of pleasure to his head, and he understood. As much as they had to talk eventually, this was what they needed, what they did.
So he settled between her hips and entered her. The first few strokes were slow and deep, and his reward was watching Persephone, breathless, beneath him, but he found it hard to maintain this pace when what he really wanted to do was fuck, and if they were trying to make this far more memorable than their exchange in Tartarus, then it had to be different.
So things shifted between them, and Hades kissed her harder and moved harder, and Persephone’s fingers dug into his skin. Neither one held on to their cries of passion, pleasure—and pain.
This was it, the vessel through which they released and processed their emotions, and it was raw and wild and desperate.
Persephone came first, her entire body clenching around him, even her nails, which pierced his skin.
“Fuck!”
He drew in breath between clenched teeth, but not from the ache of breaking skin. It was more from the pleasure of it and a fierce need to come inside her, to claim this moment, and he took her hands and guided them over her head, holding her in place as he slammed into her. Moving inside her was its own euphoria, and the pressure built in his cock and the back of his throat until he came so hard he collapsed atop her.
They were still for a long moment, just breathing. Persephone’s hands came around him, fingers trailing down his back. He got the sense she was looking for injuries, but they had already healed. When he had collected himself, he rose onto his elbows and stared down at Persephone.
“Are you well?” he asked, drawing pieces of her hair from her face.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Did I… Did I hurt you?”
It occurred to him that he hadn’t been completely grounded or aware at some point during their coupling, but then she smiled and touched his face, her finger dancing lightly over his features.