Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 111435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
He didn’t hesitate then, pulling me into his arms. Our bodies pressed together, his heat chasing away the chill in my bones.
“Baby, you’ve got me,” he promised. “You’ve fuckin’ got me.”
He didn’t say anything else. There was no need to. He’d just given me everything I needed.
Chapter Seventeen
“So can we agree that you’re not going to try to push me away again?” I mumbled into his chest. It was later. Much later. Hades had made love to me.
Made. Love.
I was sure that’s what it had been. Before, I’d been absolutely certain that the only thing Hades was capable of was fucking me. And I was more than okay with that. I loved the way he fucked me, loved how I felt owned, every inch of me. Loved that he branded me with his touch, with his lips, with the bruises on my hips from him grasping them so tightly, the red marks on my ass from him slapping it. The sensitivity in between my legs after he’d fucked me hard.
Yeah, I was more than okay with the fucking. The whole ‘making love’ thing had always grossed me out. That had to do with my past, no doubt, and the unhealthy way I was introduced to sex. It also had to do with the fact that when he—I refused to let myself think his name, it gave him too much power—touched me, he did it slowly. Gently. Lovingly. So whenever someone, especially a man but even a woman, tried to touch me in that warm, casual way, I recoiled.
Aunt V hadn’t been able to hug me until I was twenty-five, and even then, I’d had to grit my teeth to hide my disgust at the intimacy of it all. At the way my insides felt filthy and wrong, willing to do anything to escape my skin.
Even after all the therapy I’d had, after all the healing, I’d made peace with the fact that I’d never able to be touched like that without that rancid, horrible feeling. That I’d have to fake intimacy with men. That I could only orgasm while a man fucked me hard and dirty. For years, I hadn’t even been able to come without shame and filth washing over me before the aftershocks had even subsided. For a long time, my sexuality had been a wrong, filthy thing.
Until Hades.
After I spilled my guts, he made me come twice, both times with a gentle touch. First with his mouth, his lips worshipping my skin, my pussy. My hands had fisted the sheets of my bed and my back had arched off the bed with the power of my orgasm. It had felt clean, wonderful, beautiful.
Then he crawled slowly up my body, his eyes on me the entire ascent. His warmth was overwhelming, the weight of his body on mine overpowering in the best possible way. As soon as he poised himself at my entrance, his lips hovering over mine, seconds away from filling me, he shifted us. He turned us so I was on top of him, his hands tight on my hips, positioning me above him so his cock was brushing against the sensitive skin he’d just devoured.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his, could barely breathe under the weight of the emotions enveloping me, of what the simple gesture meant. Hades was not able to read my mind, of course. But he could read me. He understood my pain and trauma because I’d laid it out for him, all of it. And he’d realized what this might be doing to me, with everything so close to the surface. So he gave me control. All of it. Giving me agency over something intimate and carnal, he gave me his submission.
And I loved it. I moved against him slowly, my palms on his chest, the ink seeming to reach out and swallow me. His hands were on my hips, tight, but not guiding, not pulling me. They were just holding as I rode him, as I brought us both to earth-shattering climaxes.
Now, I was laying on his chest, absolutely exhausted, both emotionally and physically. I’d never felt so raw, so exposed. Every single corner of my body and soul had been exposed, I no longer harbored any secrets. It felt freeing yet terrifying. Now that I’d given him everything, I needed to know he wasn’t going to take it all away.
Hades didn’t reply to my question right away, drawing circles on my naked back.
“You gave me somethin’ tonight, Freya,” he finally said. “Something that you ripped out from inside you. You gave it to me despite the pain it caused you because you didn’t want me leaving you.”
I didn’t say anything because I was too busy trying not to cry.
“I’m gonna do the same,” he continued, his voice rough and low. “And then, you’re gonna decide whether you want me to go or stay.”