by RM Virtues
She lets him ride it out, and only when he deflates against the seat does she retract her hand, bringing her knuckles to her lips to taste him. It’s almost instinctive, not entirely decided upon but inevitable in a way. His eyes, hooded and hazy, follow her hand until she laps at the drops gracing the skin of her fingers. His body shudders. Hers does too.
She cannot wait to get home.
9
Hades
If the ferry ride had been any longer, Hades would have taken her in the back seat, and there is no doubt about it. He’s still recovering when the vessel docks in the Styx District, his hands trembling as they button up his trousers. He’s absolutely dumbstruck. Nothing about tonight would have insinuated that it would end like this, although this feels far more like a beginning. It had never been his goal, and he had been happy just to have dinner and a conversation with her. He doesn’t know if it can get any better, but he vows to find out once they reach her apartment.
He cannot remember the last time he’d come so hard. The evidence litters the steering wheel in front of him, and he tries to keep to her previous directions, eyes straight ahead, if only to keep from thinking about it too much and running them off of the road. He’s already hardening all over again, and as they pull out onto the street, he slips his hand over her thigh. And then between them.
She doesn’t react, but he can already feel the heat there, the moisture, and it manages to ground him. After all, it was almost impossible to tell if what she had done to him had held any effect on her whatsoever at the time. Finding proof that it had doesn’t make him any less hellbent on a comparable brand of revenge. The side of his finger only just brushes the front of her panties, enough to take note of the dampness there and nothing more. In his peripheral, he catches her sinking her teeth into her lip. Her eyelids flutter. He pushes down on the gas. His district has never seemed as big as it does right now.
Persephone is prepared with her card key in hand as they approach the main door of her apartment building, buzzing them through so quickly that Hades isn’t sure the door was locked at all. What a tedious thing to take note of when all he wants to do is rip her clothes off and fuck her senseless in the elevator.
He doesn’t get a proper look at her apartment. She strides in several steps ahead of him, turning on a few lights and dropping her purse, and his eyes hone in on the valley of her shoulders. He follows her across the open hardwood floor, oblivious to —yet altogether grateful for— the lack of walls. When she reaches her bed in the far corner of the space, he reaches down and grips his belt buckle, which he had failed to reclasp. Slowly, he slides the belt from the loops.
“Quite something you pulled in the car,” he says, his voice low and deep. Even so, it fills the vast space like smoke. He sees her shoulders tense. “Did you think you were going to get away with it?”
She doesn’t answer right away, but as he moves closer, he catches the faint sound of a gasp. He folds the belt into his hand so that he grips both ends, the loop of leather now menacing as it hangs at his side.
“No,” she admits at last after tossing her jacket on a nearby chair.
“Do you think you should be punished?”
She turns to him slowly, and her eyes immediately fall to the belt, widening at the sight of it. He loosens his tie with expert fingers before unbuttoning his vest. He doesn’t miss the way she swallows. Or the way her thighs rub together. His bulge is evident, defined against the tailored fit of his trousers, but he pays it no mind at the moment. She, however, does.
“I asked you a question,” he urges, his tone more firm as he drags the loop of the belt against his palm.
She looks up at him with evident reluctance, and he doesn’t look away. She may have caught him off guard back in the car, accessing a side of him that he himself forgot existed, but it won’t happen again, at least not tonight. He’s as patient as they come, and that doesn’t falter in the bedroom, not unless he allows it. He is not yet prepared to do anything of the sort.
“Yes,” she breathes.
“Yes what?”
“I should be punished.”
He appraises her for a long moment, long enough to let her nerves begin to buzz, before he takes a seat on the chair, satisfied.
“Do you have a safeword?” She pauses at this question he poses before shaking her head. “Would you like some help determining one?”
She quickly nods in the affirmative, and he smiles. It signals trust , which is a good start.
“Remind me, what kind of wine did we have with our appetizers tonight?” he asks.
She takes only a second. “Pomegranate.”
“Do you think you can remember that?”
“Yes?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
She takes a deep breath. “Yes, I can remember it.”
“Okay. You say that word, and no matter what and no matter when, everything stops. I stop. Okay?”
She nods, enthusiastic and understanding. “Okay.”
Choking up on his grip of the belt, he beckons her forth. She wobbles on her legs, and he wonders how much wetter she is now. He’ll have to check on that.
Once she’s within reach, he takes hold of her hand and guides her to stand beside his legs. Then he reaches up, finding a hold on the back of her neck with his long arm and guiding her down to lay over his lap. She gets the idea and follows his lead, positioning herself so that her ass is propped upon his thigh. It’s amazing how fluid she steps into this role, but he’s no fool. He only has all this power because she gives it to him.
“I do love this dress on you,” he hums, running his hand down her back.
“It’s my favorite,” she grunts immediately, and he catches the warning in the words.
He smiles. “Then I suppose we should be careful with it. You did wear it for me after all. I am honored.”
He feels her body tense, bracing for the first strike. He takes his time, toying with the hem of her dress before he begins to drag it up her body. He bunches the fabric around her waist, digits dusting against the bare skin of her back before he allows himself to admire the expensive black lace of her panties. He curls his fingers around the center of them, knuckles brushing against her slit, and she doesn’t hold back the whimper it emits.
“You are absolutely soaked, babygirl,” he says softly, and her hips writhe against his fingers in response. “You gave me all that pleasure without taking some for yourself.”
Though he doubts that’s entirely true. He had seen the look on her face just before he’d been ordered to keep his eyes straight ahead. She’d loved every moment of it.
“But let us remember whose territory you traipse through, shall we?”
In one swift movement, he rips the lace clean off of her body, and she gasps in surprise. She turns her head in time to see him slip the wadded garment into his breast pocket. He shifts the belt to his newly freed hand and guides her head back down with the other.
“Eyes straight ahead.”
Her body shivers as he throws her words back at her, but he offers no further instruction. He doesn’t need to. Even as he lands the first strike right across the center of her ass, a yelp spilling out from her lips onto the floor, she doesn’t move her head again. She does try to brace her hands against the floor, but she struggles to reach, helplessly clawing at the air when he brings down the second strike. His cock twitches against her lower stomach, eager for inclusion, but he tamps down his own desire for the time being. After all, he owes her one, and Hades never fails to repay a debt.
“Clasp your hands behind your back,” he directs her.
She struggles to do so, already weak, and he helps her clamp one hand around the other wrist. He then moves his own hand to encircle the front of her neck with a loose grip so as to hold her up. He can feel her pulse pick up beneath his fingers. It delights him, as if he holds her very life between thumb and forefinger.
“Now count.”
Persephone does not
require elaboration, and that only arouses him further, especially when he recalls just how innocent she’d looked to it all when asked for her safeword. With every strike he delivers to her ass, she calls out the number on the edge of a moan, her knuckles sheet white around her wrist the way his knuckles had been around the steering wheel. She gets to twelve before the bruises begin to bloom, the outline of the belt evident against her skin and the height of her arousal evident against his thigh. His trousers are soaked through with it, and as he drags the belt along her slit, the leather comes away gleaming with moisture. He doesn’t want to wear her down too well. He knows she’ll have to be able to walk tomorrow. And dance and flip and all the other demands of her profession. Not to mention the fact he isn’t even done yet.
“Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” he asks, his voice mild.
“—Yes, Sir,” she manages, her voice hoarse.
He shudders at the embellishment. “Rehash it for me.”
“This is - your territory. —And you’re in charge.”
He grips her throat tighter, pulling her up until he can brush his mouth against her ear. “And tonight, while you remain in my territory, you are mine.”
The sound that escapes her is sultry and sweet, spreading over his skin like warm oil, just as flammable too. As much as he would love to drag this out, he’s been waiting for far too long. If he has his way, there will be plenty of other chances to test her limitations, but tonight, he has already been pushed to his own.
The rest of their clothes are on the floor by the time he pushes her down onto the bed. She stretches out across the sheets, feline, her eyes roving over his form. His gaze offers her the same treatment, drinking her in inch by flawless inch. She is every bit as beautiful bare as she is fully clothed, but there is something else now too. It’s as though she hasn’t only shed her dress but any inhibition that comes with it.
“You didn’t want to fuck me in that dress?” she purrs, drawing her knee up and spreading her legs to give him an unhindered view of her pussy.
“Another time,” he concedes. “But right now, I don’t have the patience not to ruin it in some shape or form, so we’ll have to do without it.”
She bites her lip, and the act alone beckons him forth. He climbs atop the mattress on his knees, taking hold of her ankles and pulling her closer until his heavy erection rests flat against her pussy. Her breath catches, but she says nothing, simply watching him maneuver her to his liking. Once he does, he releases her legs, lowering himself until their chests are pressed together. He keeps his eyes fixed on hers, and with every moment that passes, the pressure in his gut builds, right alongside the tension between them.
Do you think you deserve it? Her question echoes in his mind, and he still isn’t sure what the answer is. Yet as much as he likes to deny himself the things he wants most with the fear that he doesn’t deserve them, it is impossible to do so now, especially when doing so would deny her too. And with the way she’s looking at him, nails digging into his side and pressing him closer, he knows she wants this as badly as he does.
They lay suspended there, mouths mere centimeters from one another, neither truly breathing until at last, he slips a hand between them. There is a dense silence in the singular moment before he enters her, and it bursts in a chorus of muffled whimpers and restrained groans. She constricts around him, dragging him deeper as he dusts his lips against hers. He tries to ease into a steady pace, but his eyes snap wide open as her hand strikes his ass, gripping it firmly and driving him into her. A hoarse laugh leaves him, a low growl in its wake, and when she snags his lower lip between her teeth, she takes what’s left of his patience with her.
Mere minutes is all it takes for the sound of his hips clapping against hers to permeate the air, her moans laid out across the bassline unbridled.
“Hades - fuck!”
His control is all but lost to him. Between the hold of her hands and the depth of his desire, he begins to relinquish his grip on the reins he’s held so firmly for as long as he can remember. Reaching up, he instead takes hold of the headboard, using it as leverage as he drills into her. She combats her own moans by scraping her teeth along his neck and chest, tugging at his nipple and slapping his ass once more to elicit a groan from him.
“Seph-” It’s severed by a grunt. He draws his knees up, moving his free hand to her shoulder to pin her in place. She catches his thumb between her teeth before it gets there, pulling it into her mouth. He grits his teeth, snarling as her heels dig into the backs of his thighs. Her eyes roll back, whether intentionally or otherwise. She takes him up to the knuckle, moaning around him. Then she recedes and bears her throat.
He bites down on his lip as his hand encircles the slender column, her pulse again pounding beneath his digits. Her eyes shine with a hallowed hunger, and he yearns to claim it for his own. She calls out, arching off the bed, and his grip tightens both on her neck and on the headboard. Her nails bite into his skin, and she spreads her legs wider around him, urging him deeper. He doesn’t need further prompting.
“Ha—” She can’t finish the word.
He knows she’s fighting to hold out, teeth tearing into her lip as her grip loosens on his ass. He doesn’t slow down, the entire bed shaking around them. The frame shrieks in protest, banging against the wall like a battering ram. It fails to dissuade him.
“Come for me,” he hisses on instinct, and the words hang thick in the air.
He strokes her jaw with his thumb even as the other fingers press into her throat, his thrusts short and sharp.
“Look - me in the eye, and come for me, babygirl.” Even as he himself struggles to hang on, his tone is firm. It can be taken as nothing other than a command, and when her eyes snap open to meet his, he knows she understands that. “Now.”
“Hades!”
Her walls clench around him, hands scrambling for perch along his back, her ankles locking against him as she squeezes her legs together. She cries out, wanton and raw, back bowed in a perfect crescent as she unravels over him. He finds his second wind in that newfound warmth, placing both hands on the headboard as he hits the homestretch. She calls his name again, clawing at his shoulders, her thighs trembling against his sides.
“Please…” she groans, hanging on for dear life and taking every rogue and ruthless thrust he supplies her with. “Hades - please!”
“I’m—”
It’s as much of a warning as he can manage, so very close to the edge, but she only clings to him harder, rolling her hips wildly up into his. She pleads with her eyes until they roll back into her skull again, the most delicious moan spilling over her swollen lips. It is his undoing.
Three rough thrusts, and he goes rigid, lightning cracking behind his eyes as he squeezes them shut. His roar shakes the open space as he comes, her walls still spasming around him. He rides it out with her in tow, their hips rutting against one another until he at last collapses atop her, panting and slick with sweat. He buries his head in her neck. One of them —or maybe both of them— is shivering.
“Don’t - pull out,” she breathes, brushing her lips against the side of his head.
“I couldn’t - even if I wanted to,” he returns, eyes still closed. “Fuck.”
“Mm, good?”
He manages to raise his head enough to capture her lips with his own, pouring whatever he has left into it. He catches her hoarse purr on his tongue.
“The best I ever had,” he finally relents.
And oh, by the Fates, does he mean it.
10
Persephone
Persephone is sore. Deliciously so. She is also fatigued. She wakes up at a gradual pace, becoming more and more aware of her surroundings as the minutes pass: the faint light of the sun creeping in through the blinds, the cool touch of the sheets on her bare legs, the smell of Hades’ cologne surrounding her, and then… his mouth against her neck.
Suddenly, the events of the night before race through her mind. The taste
of him on her knuckles, the way he’d fallen apart just for her, how fucking sexy he’d looked with his belt in his hand, prepared to take the revenge she had hoped he would, and the thorough way he’d fucked her after. Everything about it had been far beyond anything she had expected, and by the fates, she wanted so much more. Despite how sensitive her ass is from his lashes at the moment, she would take it all again. She had never seen anything more delicious than his composed dominance.
Her body reacts before her mind does, greedy hands dragging him closer until he’s all but atop her. She bites her lip with a soft groan as that slick tongue of his descends down her body, failing to leave any one area untouched. It swirls around each breast, flicking against her nipples, before drawing a path to her navel. He bites the skin there before continuing, earning a hiss.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice raw, even as she guides his head lower.
“Breakfast,” he says simply.
A tremor racks her body at the insinuation, thighs parting instinctively as he disappears beneath the sheet. He finds his mark with ease, but he takes his time. Of course he takes his time. Hades is a dynamic lover, and the torture is a large part of that. No one has ever made her feel the way he has in the course of twelve hours. She may not have too much experience, but she thinks she has enough to conclude it, especially considering she’d been afraid that she was immune to most of these sensations. He is very good at what he does, everything he does.
And right now, he’s kissing her clit with more passion than she thought anyone capable of, his tongue doing laps around it before he takes it between his lips. His fingers part her folds, and she’s already dripping out onto the sheets beneath her, a chorus of moans falling from her lips unchecked. Her hands do everything they can to find anchor upon his head as he shrugs her legs onto his shoulders. Immediately, her heels are bracing against his broad back when he scoops her ass into his hands. Then his mouth is descending again until his tongue has begun to trace the exterior of her entrance.