7th Circle (Hades Book 1)

by Tate James

  I gasped against his kiss as he rolled my nipples, sending wave after wave of pleasure shooting straight to my cunt. Mentally, I wrote a quick eulogy for my panties because they'd officially drowned.

  One of his hands moved to my ass, groping it through the tight fabric of my skirt, and it was right on the tip of my tongue to tell him to rip the fucking thing off me.

  Then the door opened again, and Zed's startled gaze met mine from a mere foot away.

  16

  It was safe to say I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Zed speechless. But the way his eyes widened and lips parted, I'd say that he was pretty damn close.

  "Zed, fuck off," I snapped, shoving him out of the office with a hand to his face, then kicking the door shut once more.

  Lucas let out a soft laugh, and it brought me back to reality. Crap. I couldn't fuck him again, if for no other reason than he was my baby sister's crush.

  Clearing my throat, I peeled my hands and body away from him and took a couple of very deliberate steps away. The message was clear, and he let out a disappointed sigh.

  "Hayden—" he started to say, but I held a hand up to silence him.

  Turning my back—because he was painfully tempting standing there basically naked—I quickly tucked my blouse back into my skirt and counted to five in my head. Okay, I counted to twenty.

  Then I turned back around, stooped to pick up his towel from the ground, and handed it to him.

  "Your break is probably over by now, Lucas," I told him in a cool voice, deliberately opening the door to indicate we were not continuing what we'd just started. No matter how badly my thighs were quivering with need.

  Zed was waiting right outside the office door, his brow drawn in a deep scowl, and I opened the door wider to indicate he come in.

  "Pretty sure Sisalee was looking for you, new kid. Something about a cowboy costume?" Zed arched a brow at Lucas, his quick gaze taking in all that naked skin and the small towel barely covering his dick.

  Lucas ignored Zed—ballsy—and locked eyes with me. "I thought I was fired."

  My teeth ground together; Zed would give me grief over this whole exchange later. "Did you lie about your mom?" I finally asked, my voice barely louder than a frustrated growl.

  Lucas shook his head. "Not a word. God's honest truth, I wouldn't make something like that up."

  I released the breath I hadn't known I was holding. "Then hurry up and get into costume. You get to keep one hundred percent of your tips on your first night."

  Lucas frowned, his jaw tight with the need to argue with me. But at the end of the day, if he was telling me the truth about his mom's medical bills and the strain on their finances, then he wasn't going to take a barista job over this one. Not with the way those women were throwing cash at him downstairs.

  So I just held his gaze steady, letting him draw that conclusion for himself. After a tense moment, he must have. His tense shoulders sagged, and his gaze dropped from mine as he gave a nod.

  "Yes, ma'am," he murmured, stepping out of my office.

  Zed didn't waste any time pushing the door shut again, slamming it behind Lucas's perfect ass, and turned to me with raised brows. "What—"

  "Shut it," I barked, cutting him off before he could start on what he’d just witnessed. "What are you even doing here? I thought you were otherwise occupied." There was way too much emotion in my voice as I said it, and I cringed hearing the words out loud.

  Zed heard it too, the perceptive bastard. His eyes widened, and the corner of his lips tugged up. "Are you jealous?"

  Oh, hell no. Even if I were—which I wasn't—I sure as fuck wouldn’t admit it to his face.

  My glare flattened, and I wiped all traces of emotion from my expression. "Tell me something, Zed. When you opened the door a moment ago, did that look like a woman still pining for a guy who turned her down seven years ago?"

  I didn’t give him a chance to reply—I really didn’t want to hear what he had to say—instead crossing over to my desk to grab my phone where I'd left it, along with my empty martini glass.

  "Come on," I told him. "We can talk in the mezzanine bar. I need another cocktail."

  No, seriously. If I was going to keep up with the whiplash of my own conflicting personas, I needed shots. Zed could join me or not; I didn't much care.

  Yet when I heard his footsteps follow and felt the feather-light touch of his fingers on my lower back as he pushed the door open for me at the end of the corridor, I let out a small sigh of relief. I couldn't afford to fuck things up with Zed. Not now, when I needed him to have my back more than ever before.

  "So, Vega?" Zed prompted as we sat down on one of the low sofas overlooking the main stage. Whoops, did I subconsciously just want to see Lucas dance again? Possible. Very damn possible.

  Zed sat beside me, rather than opposite, but it worked for me pulling up the documents on my phone to show him.

  A waitress delivered drinks to us both, not needing to take our orders to know what we usually drank while working, and I opened the files Vega had sent. The first one was a scanned copy of the medical records for the kids in question.

  Sure, it wasn't something I—or Vega—should have been able to access, but normal rules didn't really apply to us. My understanding of medical notes, though, wasn't amazing, so I just gave it a quick scan and handed the phone to Zed. He would have a much better understanding of what was included in those reports.

  "Thoughts?" I asked after a moment.

  He gave a small shrug and handed my phone back. "Not much useful info there. Logical conclusion from their tox screening is that they took a dirty batch of PCP, which isn't unusual in other areas of the country."

  I grimaced. "Except in my territory where it's strictly prohibited. Fuck’s sake." I ruffled my fingers through my hair, staring out over the main club as I thought it through. Below us, “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” started playing, and a jaw-droppingly gorgeous cowboy strutted his shit out onto the stage.

  "If it were an isolated incident, I'd say it was just one of Vega's boys trying to make a name for himself by expanding his portfolio," Zed commented, dragging my attention away from Lucas.

  I nodded my agreement. "But it's not an isolated incident. Not with Sonny and that tattoo." With a long, frustrated exhale, I opened the next file Vega had sent over. It was typed up like a police report, but without any official logos, probably a copy from whatever local law enforcement was on his payroll.

  "Surprise, surprise," I muttered, dread souring the drink in my stomach. "The kids described the plastic bag as being stamped with a geometric design of some sort." I raised my gaze to meet Zed's and gave a tight, bitter smile. "Wanna bet we know what that design looks like?"

  Zed's jaw clenched, and I could almost hear his teeth grinding together. "If you hadn't already shot Chase in the head, I'd want to kill that bastard myself," he muttered, reaching out for his drink on the table and bringing it to his lips.

  I had nothing to say to that, so I just echoed his movement and sipped my own drink. When our waitress drifted past a moment later, I grabbed her attention and ordered a couple plates of food for us. No way was I getting sloppy drunk again like I had on the weekend.

  Not that it would matter. I'd already thrown myself at Cass. And look how that turned out. Evidently, he was only interested when I wasn't Hades.

  Insecure fucker. Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised; he wouldn't be the first guy to be intimidated by a powerful woman. Aunt Demi liked to joke that was half the reason she had ended up marrying a woman.

  "So, what was the drama over at 22?" I asked Zed, leaning back on the sofa and not even trying to take my attention away from the stage now. Lucas had stripped out of his shirt, showing all those chiseled abs off. Damn, I wanted to lick him all over.

  Zed finished his drink in a gulp, dropped the glass onto the table, and signaled for another before giving me a narrow-eyed look. "Nothing major, just a fuckup with the beer delivery. The supplier
sent light beer instead of the normal stuff and wanted to blame it on Rodney for ordering the wrong one."

  "Idiots," I muttered, rolling my eyes. I was glad not to be handling that side of the bars, that was for sure. It seemed like every damn day there was some issue that Zed needed to personally handle, even though I'd told him to hire more management staff.

  "So, the stripper kid, huh?" Zed's tone was laced with amusement, and I groaned inwardly. I fucking knew he wasn't going to just let that one go.

  Still, I couldn't deny it when he'd literally walked in on me mauling Lucas in my office. And now I couldn't tear my eyes off him as he worked the stage like a pro. There was no freaking way anyone would think it was his first night. Or that he was only eighteen. Cringe.

  "Just scratching an itch," I bullshitted with a casual shrug. "Even the big bad Hades is entitled to get some decent dick every now and then, Zed. You're certainly not in a position to judge."

  With Herculean effort, I turned my face away from the stage and cocked a brow at Zed. He just held his hands up defensively, an odd smile sitting on his lips.

  "Hey, I wasn't judging, boss. Just surprised." His attention shifted past me to the stage, where Lucas was hanging from the pole in some deadly-looking pose that would easily break his neck if he fell. "Although I can't fault your choice. Holy shit, if I was into dudes..." His brows high, he shook his head with a short laugh.

  The idea of Zed and Lucas together really shouldn't have intrigued me as much as it did, so I cleared my throat and sipped my drink. Food needed to hurry up and come out, or I'd end up dragging Lucas off the stage by his thong.

  A familiar set of leather-jacketed shoulders moved through the crowd below us, heading towards the stairs to the mezzanine bar, and my stomach flipped.

  "What's Cass doing here?" I asked with a scowl, tracking Cass as he made his way through the crowd, totally oblivious to the women undressing him with their eyes.

  Zed leaned forward to see what I was glaring at, then shrugged. "No idea, but I'm sure we're about to find out."

  He was right, too. Cass disappeared up the stairwell, then popped out a moment later at the end of the bar. He headed straight over to where Zed and I sat, pausing only briefly to order himself a drink.

  His long legs ate the distance up, though, and before I could even remember to breathe, he was looming over our table.

  "Hades," he greeted me in that gruff voice of his. "Mind if I join you?"

  His scarred brow quirked up as he met my gaze like he was challenging me to acknowledge what had gone down between us the day before. It was almost laughable, considering how cold he'd gone when I transformed back into Hades after he’d dropped me at my car.

  I hadn't heard from him since he’d driven away, not a word. So, no. I wasn't acknowledging shit.

  Keeping my face blank, I waved to the vacant sofa opposite the one Zed and I occupied.

  Cass's eyes narrowed, but after a short pause he sank down onto the plush velvet seat. Our waitress arrived, then, with all the food I'd ordered, piling the small table between us with the most delicious-smelling shared plates, and amusement flashed over the Reaper leader's face.

  "Expecting company?" he asked, eyeing all the food—considerably more than one or two people might consume.

  I didn't rise to the bait, though, meeting his gaze calmly. "I haven't sampled the new menu here," I informed him, "so I wanted to try one of everything. Quality control is important to me."

  Zed, laughing softly under his breath, leaned forward to snag one of the duck spring rolls and dunk it in plum sauce. "What can we do for you tonight, Cass?"

  Cass gave my second a long look, his expression totally unreadable. His poker face was almost as crack-free as my own, and it drove me nuts. I liked being able to read people, but I could never read him. Nope. Cass wasn't just a closed book, he was a locked vault.

  "Nothing," the tattooed bastard grunted. "I was here discussing terms of surrender with a couple of the remaining Wraiths. Figured it was a waste of talent to just kill them all."

  Zed crunched on his spring roll, sitting back again in his seat. For a couple of moments, there was a tense silence between the three of us, and it weighed down on me like a lead cloak. Swallowing my sigh—because showing emotions in a professional capacity simply wasn't done—I shifted my gaze back to the main stage.

  Lucas had done a speedy costume change and was now dressed in an imitation SWAT uniform and lap-dancing a girl on stage. Lucky bitch.

  "Isn't that three-minute man from the other night?" Cass asked, his question shocking the absolute shit out of me. Not just that it was so personal, but that it was totally out of character for him. Also, how the fuck did he just recognize Lucas from the grainy CCTV footage in his supply room?

  Zed choked on the sip of liquor he'd just taken, covering his mouth as he coughed and shaking his head at my death glare.

  "Three minutes?" Zed gasped out when he stopped spluttering. "More like three hours. Or more. How long was your phone off on Sunday, again?" His smirk was pure evil, and I was reeling. Should I threaten to shoot him again? I felt like maybe I'd gone too long without making him fear for his life, that things were getting too friendly again.

  Then again... I liked it when we were friends.

  "Sunday?" Cass rumbled. "I was talking about Saturday." He cocked his head to the side, his eyes hard as he glared at me.

  Nope. No way. I wasn't taking that shit, not when he’d kissed me like I was his goddamn soulmate yesterday, then totally ghosted me since. Fuck that noise.

  "None of your fucking business," I snapped, then shifted my glare back to Zed. "Either one of you. And when did we start acting all friendly in front of rival gang leaders, huh?"

  Cass was the one to answer that, giving me a one-sided smirk. "I'm not a rival, remember? Besides, all of Hades’s clubs in Shadow Grove are neutral territory."

  How the hell could I argue with that? He was quite literally throwing my own words back at me. Motherfucker. So I shook it off like it wasn't making me uncomfortable in the least.

  "Eat some food, Cass," I told him, ignoring his pointed reminder of our kiss. "You're wasting away."

  He huffed something vaguely similar to a laugh, but helped himself to one of the miniature pulled pork sliders on the table between us. The tiny burger looked beyond ridiculous in his huge ink-covered hand, and I shifted my gaze back to Lucas.

  Lucas. Jesus fuck, what was I going to do about Lucas?

  He was watching me again, just like he had been the whole time he'd been on stage, and this time our eyes locked for an extended moment. His hips rolled, simulating... well, shit. Like he was simulating what he wanted to be doing to me, just like he’d told me he would.

  My nipples hardened against my top and my pussy throbbed as I watched him dance, picturing what it would have been like if Zed hadn't interrupted us earlier. But my daydream was broken when Zed casually stretched an arm around me, his fingers stroking down my upper arm.

  I frowned, shooting him a confused look. "What the hell are you doing?"

  He met my stare, giving me a half smile. "What? You had some dirt or something on your sleeve. Probably from the office wall earlier." He shot me a wink, then withdrew his arm. Slowly.

  What the fuck?

  17

  I was too stubborn to extract myself from the awkward-as-hell situation I’d found myself in with Zed and Cass, not wanting them to think I'd run from a challenge. So instead, I polished up my big old lady-balls of steel and stuck it out.

  To my surprise, I didn't hate it as much as I'd expected. Cass even spoke in full sentences—occasionally—and only looked at Zed like he hated him about half the time we sat there. But then I was pretty confident Cass didn't like anyone except my little sister, so that wasn't a shocker.

  We shared information with him about the kids overdosing on dirty angel dust down in Vega's zone but kept the tattoo on Sonny-boy to ourselves. Cass might have kissed me, but it didn't mean I
trusted him.

  Some time later, when we'd eaten everything on the menu—Cass and Zed mostly—I brushed off my skirt and stood up.

  "This was..." I trailed off before saying fun. Because I wasn't in the habit of having fun, it just sat awkwardly in my mouth. Instead I just walked away without any words at all. I wasn't one for polite goodbyes anyway, so fuck it.

  I’d barely made it to the first step of the staircase when I noticed I was being followed. The stairs from the main bar up to the mezzanine were enclosed as they twisted around a corner and the lights low enough that only red LED strip lights under each step prevented people falling.

  "Was there something else, Cass?" I asked, not turning to look and confirm it was in fact him. He just had a quiet presence that was unmistakable.

  He grunted a sound of annoyance, then took two long strides, overtaking me on the stairs and turning to face me from a step lower.

  "Actually, yeah," he told me, his eyes flashing like black diamonds in the low light, "this." His hand cupped the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair as he crushed his lips to mine in a kiss that made my balance falter.

  He was ready to catch me, though, sweeping his other arm around my waist and spinning me against the wall. Thankfully, there was no one else on the stairs to see, but the risk was too great. The last thing I needed was rumors of favoritism sparking a gang war with Maurice or Vega.

  "Cass," I breathed, pushing him away with a firm hand to his chest. "Not the time or the place."

  His chest vibrated with a frustrated sound, but he took a step away nonetheless, swiping his hand over his face. "Right. My apologies, Hades."

  My temper flared. "Don't fucking start with me, Cassiel."

  His gaze snapped back to mine, anger flaring in those stony depths, then fading again as he gave an irritated shake of his head.

  "You didn't text," he commented, his tone neutral and his face guarded.

  I scowled. "Neither did you."