Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“What are you doing here?” I don’t mean to speak. I really don’t. My intentions don’t seem to make a difference. “If he broke his word…”
“Hades never breaks his word,” she says absently. “I’m here because I want to be.” Meg tilts her head to the side, causing her hair to cascade over her shoulder. I want to run my fingers through it, to tug her face up to meet mine, but I know better. I still have to clench my fists at my side to keep myself from doing it.
“He wants to see you.” She turns and walks away, leaving me to follow in her footsteps.
As I do, my confusion hardens to something significantly uglier. I’m here because I want to be. She does whatever she wants to do. No one is forcing her into anything. That’s what her words translate to, before in my new suite and here on the floor. Several truths settle over me, each a jagged shard in my throat.
Hades isn’t forcing Meg to do anything. He didn’t force her to fuck me. He didn’t force her to her knees. He isn’t keeping her like some princess trapped in a tower. She consented to the entire thing. If she didn’t, then my deal would have set her free and she wouldn’t be walking through the lounge like a queen moving through her subjects.
He played me.
Meg played me.
By the time she leads me through a tall set of doors into a monochromatic gray office, I’m furious. I stop just inside the door. “You screwed me over.”
“I didn’t even know you were here until you’d already made the deal.” She keeps walking, moving to stand at the shoulder of the man sitting at the desk.
Hades steeples his fingers and watches me with deep, dark eyes behind the black frames of his glasses. He’s wearing his customary black-on-black suit, and I hate that I respond to him. To them. He leans forward as if only casually interested in this conversation. “Are you going back on your word?”
“Why shouldn’t I? You went back on yours.”
“Did I?” He still sounds so fucking distant, I can’t stand it. He glances at Meg. “I gave my word that you wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want to, love.”
Her mouth twists, but she smooths out her expression almost immediately. “I have my safe word for a reason.”
“I don’t respect many rules, but that one is sacred.” Now Hades focuses all his indomitable will on me. “Time for you to pick a safe word, little Hercules.”
Little Hercules. As if I’m not several inches taller and significantly heavier than his slim frame. Somehow, it doesn’t matter. Even across the room, even so furious and betrayed that I can barely draw a breath, I have to fight not to hit my knees for him.
I want to tell him to fuck off. That I didn’t sign up for this. That I never would have given him this power over me if I wasn’t stupidly playing the hero for a woman who wasn’t interested in being saved. In the end, all my assumptions don’t matter.
I gave my word.
I’ll keep it.
My honor is the only thing I have left, and I can’t let something as stupid as my own mistake get in the way of it. If that were an option, I’d still be enjoying my pampered life back in Olympus. I’ve already turned my back on so much. Why not turn my back on my fucking freedom too?
“Olympus,” I grind out. It’s as good a safe word as anything.
“Good boy.” He pushes slowly to his feet. “Then we can begin.”
“What?” That shakes me out of my anger. “But I’m in the middle of my shift and—”
“Tink can manage without you.” He moves around the desk and toward the couch situated on the left side of the room. “Meg.”
She follows him, and with each step, she loses some of the dominance that drew me to her in the first place, shedding it like a second skin until she’s a single step behind him with her eyes downcast. It’s the exact same transformation I witnessed in that apartment after Hades showed up, but I have a term for it now.
Switch.
Both Dominant and submissive, all wrapped up in a package I still desire even though I know better by now.
“You’re overdressed, love.”
That’s all it takes, and she kicks off her heels and slips out of her pants, leaving her in only the cropped bustier and a lace thong. Hades merely raises his brows, and Meg rolls her eyes and strips the rest of the way down. Not a hint of shyness in the fact that she’s standing naked before us, but did I really expect there to be?
“Show him how it’s done.”
She sinks gracefully to her knees, her back perfectly straight, and lowers her eyes. She’s so beautiful, it takes my breath away. I don’t get much time to enjoy the view, because Hades steps in front of her and gives me a look like he can divine my thoughts right out of my head. “Your turn.”