He jerked back from the slap. The sight of his fifties housewife with her hands balled up into fists as a bruise bloomed on his cheek was disconcerting enough to finally penetrate the fog. His gaze passed over me, from the dress clearly made from a Simplicity pattern to my hair done up with enough hair spray to choke out a lesser man.
And then his eyes widened.
“Seph.” Adonis gripped my face with his hands and stared into my eyes as if finally seeing me. He looked around us with a wild expression on his face. “How are you here?”
“We’re in a dream, convincing enough to make us believe that it’s real” My head ached as I forced myself to pick through what was real and what wasn’t. “It was the fog. If you breathe it in, then it traps you in your dreams. If you don’t force yourself to wake, then you’ll be trapped inside of it forever with your body left undying but impossible to rouse in the real world.”
His eyes narrowed, and I finally saw the much more familiar Adonis shining through his eyes, not the dream-addled version. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”
Relief rushed through me with enough force to weaken my knees, and I gripped his arms to keep myself upright. “Tell me what you remember.”
“Hanging out at the bar, reading lines from your play. Everyone was insisting because you’d been keeping it so under wraps. And then I passed out, and when I woke up, there was this weird man there. He threatened me and showed me you . . .” Adonis swallowed hard as his gaze bored into mine with an intensity I’d never seen from him before. “He showed me you with these other guys, and other things that I’m not even sure were real like he was taunting me.”
“Hades can’t touch us here, at least.” The thought of what he might have seen embarrassed me, but I forced myself to push that aside. “He’s the one responsible for all of this. He brought us here, trapped us, tricked us. I have to reach his castle to defeat him, or we’ll never get home.”
“He locked me in a room with all these glass orbs in it. I could see you in them, sometimes, and other things.” Adonis took a harsh breath as if remembering what he’d seen. But the look on his face made me hesitant to ask for any details. “Maybe I fell asleep.”
“Maybe.”
“You said this was a dream,” he mused, looking around us. “Whose dream is it?”
“There isn’t anyone else here, so it has to be yours or mine.” It wasn’t difficult to imagine the more idiotic parts of my mind coming up with something like this. When you’ve never had a real family, your idea of what one looks like gets a little warped. “Maybe both.”
“If this were my dream . . .” Adonis trailed off as he looked down at me, a curious expression on his face.
Even as his head bent to block out the light, I didn’t expect him to kiss me. His lips touched mine tentatively at first as if he wasn’t sure whether or not I would pull away. When I didn’t, his lips pressed more firmly against mine, and his arm wrapped around my waist, so my body fell against him. Without him to hold me up, my weakened knees wouldn’t have been able to support me anymore.
I kissed him back as my arms clung together around his neck. Why had we never done this before, acknowledged what we both knew had always simmered under the surface between us? Fear had held me back. Fear of rejection or even worse, the pitying look he would have given me if I revealed my schoolgirl crush. But what was his excuse?
Because there was nothing close to pity in the way he kissed, demanding and consuming like he wanted to possess every part of me. His tongue teased at the corners of my lips until they parted.
My heart stuttered to a stop and then restarted in my chest as he tasted my mouth with gentle flicks of his tongue. Strong hands glided up my back and pressed me closer to him as our bodies fit together like matching puzzle pieces.
This wasn’t a fairy tale where a kiss awakened the princess from her dreams. If anything, his kiss felt like being led more deeply under the spell. A deep yearning compelled me to respond to him, to tangle my fingers into his dark hair and deepen our kiss, even as I knew our time was running out.
Adonis would never kiss me like this.
I forced myself to pull away, even as every cell of my body screamed in protest, and glared at him. “You are not Adonis.”
He smiled in apparent confusion. “I don’t understand.”
My mouth burned from the effect of his kiss. “Give up this charade. You’re Hades.”
His face shifted like it was made of liquid, features morphing until it was no longer Adonis smirking down at me, but the ruler of the Underworld.
At the outrage on my face, his smile only widened. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”
“You tricked me,” I accused.
“You wanted to be tricked,” he replied simply. He gestured around the house that looked like a movie set from an old sitcom. “Remember that I can see inside your dreams. This is what you want, some fairytale of domestic bliss. You’re as likely to get it as I am.”
I backed away even though he hadn’t made a move toward me. That kiss still felt etched onto my skin and I was struggling to forget just how good it had felt. “I’m on to your tricks, now. Let me out of here?”
“It isn’t my dream. It’s yours,” he said with a shrug. “You are the only one who can wake us up.”
“And how the hell do I do that?”
He shook his head, gaze full of dark amusement. “I suppose you’ll have to figure that out.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to wake up. In every dream that I’d ever had, just recognizing that it was a dream and deciding to wake up was enough.
How much time had passed since I fell asleep?
“Is this how you’re going to win?” I snapped, voice full of accusation. “Trap me in here until the clock runs out?”
“Time passes differently in the Underworld. Everything will be as it was when you wake.” His gaze lingered on my lips before rising to meet my eyes. “If you wake.”
My heart raced in my chest at the smoldering look in his eyes, making it difficult to breathe. Nothing around me had changed but it was starting to feel a bit like the walls were closing in. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“We’re in a dream, one that you cannot wake from unless you will it.” His hand moved to my face, fingers close enough to almost brush against my lips. “We could simply stay here. Forever.”
I wanted to back away from him, but my foot wouldn’t carry me away no matter how many times I willed them to do just that.
“Stop it.”
Hades stepped even closer, his breath warm against my cheek. “We could stay here and be safe as long as we never wake up.”
My hands moved up to push him away, but instead my fingers clenched in the silken fabric of his shirt. “Don’t…”
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you,” he breathed. His face moved closer to mine by infinitesimal degrees until it seemed like no distance separated us at all.
A bubbling laugh escaped me, born more of hysteria than amusement. “This isn’t real. Nothing about this is real.”
His fingers teased at the buttons of my blouse. “But it feels real.”
My thoughts turned to the visions I had seen in the memory palace, how it had felt to see myself in his arms. We were enemies, I knew that, but my body was having a hard time catching up.
But none of those things I saw could be real, which meant that this had to be just another illusion.
None of it was real which meant there couldn’t be any consequences.
I didn’t pull away as he finally closed the distance between us.
This time, he kissed me in a way that lacked even an iota of hesitation. I let him swallow my gasping protests because I didn’t have any strength left to fight this. Even though I knew the consequences were dire, all I wanted to do was wrap my body around his and never let go.
So I did.
Hades lifted me easily with his hands under my thighs w
hile my legs wrapped around his hips. The one nice thing about these stupid flared dresses was that they allowed for easy access. He carried me without breaking our kiss, somehow managing not to knock into the walls or trip over any furniture.
We only went a few yards before he fell with me onto a bed that definitely had not been in the living room a few minutes ago. I broke our kiss with a gasp and looked around to see that we were no longer in the hallway, but inside a tastefully decorated bedroom lacking both windows and a door.
I didn’t have to go searching to know that the baby was gone, along with all the pictures on the mantle, because I no longer needed to be convinced this was really happening. I recognized it was a dream, which meant that the rules of reality no longer applied.
The dream was whatever I wanted it to be.
We stripped each other’s clothes off with frantic hands until both of us were completely nude. But Hades froze above me as the last bit of fabric covering my body was stripped away, his gaze drinking me in. His nostrils flared as he deeply inhaled and then bent his head to capture a peaked nipple in his mouth, sucking hard.
With a groan, my hands rose to tangle in his hair as I pulled his head further down and arched my back into his mouth. The movement was in vain; not even a millimeter of space separated him from my flesh. His hand rose to my other nipple and pinched it between his fingers. Stars burst across my vision with an answering heat between my thighs.
He released my nipple with a wet pop then traced his mouth up the curve of my breast and over my chest, stopping to nip my collar bone. He kissed the side of my neck, swirling his tongue on the skin, before breathing out in a soft sigh.
Fingers teased at my opening, dipping inside to feel how slick my passage was. He shouldn’t have bothered, I’d been ready for him from the moment he walked through the door. The tip of his thumb stroked over my clit, rubbing in a gentle circle, and I let out a low groan.
“I’ve been waiting for this too long to be gentle,” he murmured against my overheated flesh. “We’ll do slow and sweet next time.”
“Okay.” The words next time tickled pleasantly down my spine, just as he lifted my ass on the shelf of his hand and drove into me.
Even in a dream, my body was barely ready for him. It had been years since I was with anyone, and despite my readiness, my passage clenched around him.
“God, you’re so tight.” His mouth captured mine in another bruising kiss as he slowly withdrew, waiting for the frantic pull of my hands at his shoulders before he would move again. “Maybe I can manage to go slow, after all.”
Slow might be one thing, but there was nothing gentle about the grinding movement of his hips. My nails dug into his shoulders as he slowly eased out of me, forcing me to beg in gibberish phrases before he drove into me again, bottoming out in one thrust that sent spasms of painful pleasure through my womb.
“You’re torturing me,” I whined, trying to twist under him to tempt him into going faster or at least get a little more friction until he stilled me with strong hands on my hips. “I can’t take it.”
“Yes, you can.” Hades gently bit my lower lip, a smile in his voice. “And I think I could go on like this forever. Just. Like. This.” He punctuated each word with a driving movement of his hips until I thought I might actually pass out. Amusement twinkled in his eyes as he captured my mouth in another searing kiss. “Remind me how long a dream can last.”
“Forever,” I breathed in a harsh gasp of air. My arms wrapped tightened around his neck, and it felt like I was hanging on for dear life. But my port in the storm also happened to be the source of this delicious torment. “It’s me you have to worry about not lasting.”
Pushing his arms under my back, Hades lifted me as he rolled us over, so I rose to straddle him as he lay beneath me, his cock still buried in me. His hands slid down to my hips and stroked them gently as he made of point of relaxing against the mounded pillows. “Show me how you like it.”
I’d always felt awkward being on top, like the guy I was with would be disappointed in how fast I moved or how deep he could go. But there was no awkwardness with Hades as his fingers moved over the front of my body, pinching and teasing. I knew he wanted to watch me move, exploring my body as I did.
I leaned forward so that my hands rested against his chest as I ground down with my hips. From this angle, my clit rubbed against the rough hairs at the base of his dick whenever he bottomed out inside me. After only a few strokes, I spiraled higher towards climax.
“C’mon baby, let me watch you come.” His fingers dug into my hips hard enough to leave marks on the skin, and he pulled me down hard as he thrust with his hips, pounding into me. “I want to hear you moaning my name.”
I was already there by the time the words were out of his mouth. My back bowed as the force of my orgasm robbed me of the ability to speak. I couldn’t speak his name, only mouth it, as wave after wave crashed over me. It was only after I collapsed on top of him with my sweaty cheek pressed against his shoulder that I realized he was still rock hard inside of me.
He kissed me gently on the temple. “My turn.”
Before I could puzzle out what he meant, both of his arms wrapped around my back to hold me in place. Any desire to go slow had completely fled, and he pounded up into me with enough speed and force that I knew what I thought was torture before seemed more like nothing in comparison.
My nails dug into his biceps, scratching his skin, because my hands were the only part of my body not being held down by the steel bands of his arms. Even as overworked nerve endings screamed in protest, I felt myself climbing toward another peak. Seconds or minutes or more could pass as I stayed locked in the pleasurable spiral, time losing all meaning as he used me for his pleasure.
The thought that he was fucking me like this only for his own pleasure sent mine somehow surging even higher. I wanted to feel used, just a vessel that he could fill up and then empty out only to fill it all over again.
“Fuck, Seph.” He groaned, gripping me so tightly, my spine squeezed in protest. “Hold on, baby. I’m coming.”
I had always been careful with guys in the past, so no one had ever come inside me before or even fucked me raw for that matter. But this was a dream world, the need for contraception didn’t exist if I didn’t want it to. The silken feel of him and the splash of fluid against my insides was wholly unique to me, and I would keep the memory of this seared into my mind for the rest of my days.
That memory would keep me moving forward when this dream collapsed. Because nothing had changed, we couldn’t stay here.
Hades eased out of me, smiling in apology as I winced at the slight pain between my legs. He hadn’t lied about his inability to be gentle, not that I regretted even a moment of it. I rolled my body slightly to the side, so my entire weight wasn’t on him, leaving my leg draped over his waist with my face pressed to the curve of his neck.
I deeply inhaled and smelled his skin, the scent was a curious mix of leather and espresso.
That made the dream seem much too real for my comfort.
This cannot have been real.
Pulling away, I forced sharpness into my voice because I was speaking to myself as much as I was to him. “It’s time to wake up.”
The dream fractured around me, like shattering glass. It was more disorienting than painful, but I felt the dream collapse into itself like a physical pain.
The sadness on his face was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.
Chapter Fifteen
I came awake with a start, my arms and legs still gripping a solid form. But when my eyes blinked open, it was Ryn’s surprised eyes staring back into mine.
My legs and arms were clamped around him while we laid in the small sleeping berth. My hands gripped his chest hard enough to leave little half-moon marks where my nails pressed into his flesh.
Even though my body was still aroused, waking up was like being doused with a bucket of cold water.
Ryn m
ade no move to untangle himself from me, but his face creased with concern. “Are you okay?”
I pull away, feeling suddenly uncomfortable at being so cuddled up to him. The sex with Hades was a dream, it wasn’t real, but I still felt a little strange waking up in the arms of a totally different man.
“The fog . . .” I trailed off as I looked behind me to see that the fog had completely cleared. The boat had sailed on while we slept, and the spires of Hades’s castle rose high overhead as we coasted along the water toward a nearby harbor. “Did you dream?”
He shrugged, studying me with close attention. “Not that I can remember. I assume something happened to you.”
But I didn’t want to share what I had experienced, desperately hoping that it had only happened inside my head. I wouldn’t be able to face Hades again if it wasn’t, or Adonis for that matter.
My gaze moved to the lariat tangled around our bodies. I had to unwind the end of it from around his neck so I could see the stones at the end. All of them had turned bright colors save for the last one
Only one hour left.
“Never mind, I think I’m just confused,” I said, rising from the wooden berth as my joints creaked in protest. Ratty blankets and rotten wood didn’t exactly make for a comfortable sleep surface. “We need to wake up the others. The boat will be docking soon, and we’re almost out of time.”
But he wasn’t going to let it go that easily. Ryn followed me out of the berth but grabbed my hand before I could scurry away and gently pulled me back. Concern filled his gaze, along with an intense curiosity that didn’t entirely make sense. “Tell me what you saw.”
I tried to pull away, but he was too strong. “A fantasy, that’s all. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
His brows knitted together. “Was it Hades?”
A blush brightened my cheeks, but at least I could tell him the truth. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Tempted by Darkness Page 16