As I picked them up, the hair lifted on the back of my neck and I sighed. It had been about a month since I’d felt that prickle, and I honestly thought it had stopped. But here it was again. Couldn’t say I was happy about it.
Holding the plates securely, I glanced over my shoulder, just like I had a thousand times before. I expected to see nothing. No one.
But there was someone. A very solid someone. Six foot plus of muscles, leather jacket, shit kicking boots, and hair so black it was blue in the sunlight. His skin was pale, like he didn’t see a lot of sun, and his eyes were a bright, golden brown.
He held his sunglasses in his hands and wore half a smile on his lips as he stared back at me.
“Uh. Take a seat anywhere,” I told him, and then stood there like a Korey statue because I wanted to keep staring at him.
“Korey. The food.” Thanks, Bill. I smiled once at the man, gesturing with my chin toward a booth as I forced myself to take a step toward the guys who’d order the hamburgers.
“Looking good today, Korey,” Elliot Janey told me as I slid his plate in front of him.
A chill filled the air and I shivered. “It’s my birthday.” I’d gone to school with Elliot, but time had been a little kinder to me than it had to him.
Of course, I didn’t have an ex-wife, two baby-mommas and a habit of chewing tobacco to account for the thinning hair and bad teeth.
Elliot laughed, showing every bite of the hamburger he’d just smashed into his maw. “No shit.” A chunk of hamburger landed next to my hand. Gross. “The crown gave it away. Older but not smarter!”
I thought it said a lot about the people in this town that no one else laughed. Right then and there I resolved to give them all free soda refills. Bill could take it from my check, or I’d use my tips.
Elliot stared at me, as if waiting for me to respond. Of course, I’d heard this stuff before.
“Korey has a cute face and an empty head.”
“Korey is a great date as long as you keep her mouth full so she can’t talk.”
Guys in high school had plenty of ideas about what they could put in my mouth. It was one of many reasons I’d said no to every person who’d asked me to the prom. I was dumb, but I wasn’t that dumb.
Elliot’s laughter cut off and his face turned red. Oh, shit.
“He’s choking,” a bored voice called out.
The chewed-up beef flew out of his mouth onto his plate as his friend slapped him on the back. Face returning to its normal shade of tan, Elliot coughed and sputtered, but he breathed.
“Drink some water. And take smaller bites.” That was as much sympathy as I was giving him today. I’d probably feel guilty about it later, but I was still smarting from his hurtful words.
Everyone in town, and the hot stranger, had witnessed my embarrassment. Sighing, I slid all the menus except one under the counter and started toward the back booth.
Izzy and Jenna were the other waitresses on today, and I expected them to have taken the new guy’s order. But they were nowhere to be seen.
“Happy Birthday to me,” I said under my breath.
“Happy Birthday,” the man said as I came to a stop next to him.
We stared at each other. Or I stared. There were words that were supposed to come out of my mouth, but for the life of me, I didn’t know what they were supposed to be. “Marry me?” That seemed a little much.
“Do me?” Closer.
“You’re different.” He spoke almost to himself. “I knew you were, but I wondered if once we met, I’d find you to be the same.”
“Does different mean dumb? Because I can assure you, I can easily add the twenty percent jerk-wad charge to your bill. I can even do it in my head.”
He chuckled, shaking his head from side to side. “I’d never say you were dumb. Never. And I’d happily choke anyone who said something similar.” He glanced over my shoulder, back toward Elliot, and my knees wobbled a little.
The way he spoke. If I hadn’t been absolutely certain that I’d never met him before, and never mentioned to a single, solitary soul that I felt someone watching me, I’d think he know.
“Have you had a nice birthday?” he asked, his gaze going to my crown. “The crown is fitting.”
He was confusing me. “It’s okay,” I answered the first part of his question. “Can I get you something?”
“You,” he replied, so clearly I couldn’t mistake him.
“I got you.” Izzy walked by and nudged me, pushing me toward the booth. Bill would shit a brick if he saw me sitting down during my shift, but then again, it was my birthday.
“Do I know you?” I slid the menu toward him.
“Yes. We’ve known each other a while.”
Heat rose from my chest to my face. Damn. Who the hell was this guy? I racked my brain to put a face with a name, but the thing about this small town was, I knew every single person who’d ever moved away. I knew who’d been born and raised here. And I was ninety-seven percent positive I did not know this guy.
“I think you think I’m someone else.” I shrugged, a little disappointed. He had me mixed up with somebody, and that was a bummer because I liked the way he smiled at me. And the way he’d glared at Elliot. “I have one of those faces.”
“No, you don’t.” He pushed aside the menu and took my hands in his big, rough scarred ones. “No one who has ever seen your face could forget it.” He had a nice voice, low and smooth, with a hint of an accent. Which meant I for sure didn’t know him. I’d never gone to school with anyone with an accent. Unless you counted Joseph Pitnelli, who was from Canada, and finished sentences with, eh?
“Your words don’t match your face.” I shut my eyes and wished I could get a do-over. “I mean—” This was why I hated talking to people I didn’t know. All the words got jumbled up in my head and when they spilled out of my mouth, there was just this long string of words mashed into rambling, offensive sentences. “It’s just that you’re very handsome, and kind of scary looking in like, a very appealing way, but everything you’ve said has been really nice, if a little confusing, but like I said, really nice. Unless you’re trying to trick me. I saw this episode of Dateline where these motorcycle clubs used the guys who were super handsome to trick girls and then sex traffic them.” Standing and dragging my hands away from his, I peered out the window. I didn’t see any bikes out there, so I sat back down and wagged my finger at him. “Don’t get any ideas.”
He stared at me a minute as I sat there, trying to catch my breath. I’d run out of air by the end of my speech. This was the part where he put his head down, stared at the menu, mumbled an order, and pretended he hadn’t flirted with me. Wait.
“Are you flirting?”
He took my hand again, lifting it to his lips. He touched them to my knuckles and then placed it back on the table.
“‘Just rule’.” I read the words tattooed on his knuckles aloud. “Is that like, ‘just do it?’ “ My joke was lame, but he smiled and chuckled.
“No. It’s a reminder. A goal. In my…work…it’s important that I remember my purpose.” Huh. Deep. Lesson learned universe. I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
I withdrew my hand again and held it out. “I’m Korey.”
“Had—Hayden. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Korey!” Bill’s voice made me jump and I knocked my knees into the top of the booth. “Order up!”
“Sorry!” I called out. Sliding from the booth, I asked Hayden, “What can I get you?”
“A date.” His gaze held mine, and it was probably my imagination, but the gold darkened until his eyes were black. It was like staring into the clear night sky and finding a billion pinpricks of lights.
“Korey!”
“I’m working until close tonight,” I told him.
Behind us, the fire alarm shrieked. “God damn it!” Bill yelled.
I spun. Smoke poured from the kitchen, filling up th
e narrow diner. “Come on.” I couldn’t see him, but there was a whoosh of air from the fire extinguisher followed by Bill’s angry, “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Hayden stood, placed his hand on my lower back, and led me out the door. “I don’t think you’re going to be doing much of anything in here now.”
Hades
Look, I was a fucking certified stalker, but I owned it. Call me a grade A, stage-five clinger. I’d own that, too.
But if you found the girl of your mother fucking dreams, then lost her, and had survived with only the tiniest hope that maybe, maybe, you’d find each other again, then you’d stalk, too.
Korey was mine. She was mine when she was picking flowers in the fields of Nysa under the watchful eye of her mother. Mine when she spent half a year in the Underworld with me, and half a year being bored out of her skull as she listened to her mother complain about me.
She was mine before she was Korey. Mine when she was known as Despoina. Karpophoroi. Neotera. Hagne. Mistress of Death. Queen of the Dead.
Persephone.
She was mine from the moment of her birth, and her disappearance, and then mine again when she was reborn here, eons from the time I knew her.
I’d found her again, and I was never letting her go.
Actually, I needed to qualify that. I wasn’t a monster, even if I was king of them. If Korey chose me, I’d spend eternity making her happy. But the choice was hers. I wasn’t going to kidnap her, no matter what you might have heard about our initial meet cute.
Most of the bad press I got came from one source: my mother-in-law.
If you knew the story of Persephone and Hades, you probably heard her version. I was the asshole who saw this innocent young woman picking flowers in a field. Then—again, because asshole—I bodily drag her into the Underworld.
Nope. Fucking, no. There was one god who did that sort of jackass shit, and his name rhymed with Shmeus. I wooed my wife. And when I found her in the field that day, it wasn’t the first time we’d met. So when she whispered in my ear that she wanted to stay with me forever, I did a double take, spurred my horse on, and brought her home.
No kidnapping. Consent given.
Now—some mother-in-laws were pains-in-the-ass, and what I wouldn’t give for one of those—and some were overbearing, controlling, whack jobs who thought it was fun to hide your wife for a million fucking years, and then toss her back into no-man’s land with no memory of who she’d been.
Or who she was.
To me.
So, it might have been a little too soon to hold her hand in mine as we descended the concrete steps of the diner and stood under the hot September sun, but I’d been waiting forever to do it.
On the horizon, clouds gathered and the wind picked up.
“How do you feel about ice cream?” I asked, eyeing the quick-moving gray fluff.
Korey snorted, wrinkling her nose. “How do you think I feel about ice cream?” She reached around her back to untie her apron, a move that made her tits push against the fabric and my dick press against the zipper of my jeans.
Be cool.
“Can I take you out?” In the distance, sirens wailed. I’d done a pretty good job of containing the grease fire that had sent us all out here, but it was a probably a smart idea to have the experts check it out, and a genius idea to have her to myself for a while.
She studied me, gaze taking me in from the top of my head to the tips of my boots. “I should probably say no.”
My heart clenched. This was a different time and women had to be careful. I should have thought of this, but I just couldn’t wait another minute to meet her.
One million, twenty-seven years was too long.
But it was the twenty-seven years that really did me in. Sneaking around, keeping an eye on her while staying off her mother’s radar. If I hadn’t been immortal, the stress would have killed me.
Korey’s mother, Demeter, was a formidable woman, and she’d already done the worst thing she possibly could do when she took Korey from me the first time. I wasn’t looking for a repeat.
Staring at me, she put her fist on one hip. “I should probably say no, but I’m not going to.” She held up a hand. “And I know, I know, I shouldn’t take ice cream from a stranger, but you don’t feel like a stranger, Hayden Whatever-your-name-is.”
A smile split my lips, so wide it made my face ache. Me. Lord of Darkness, King of the Underworld, Hades.
“My truck is parked right over there.” I pointed to the jacked-up behemoth parked across the street.
“Jesus.” Eyes wide, she looked from the truck, back to me, and then shrugged. “It actually makes sense. Big guy needs a big truck.”
Her face turned the prettiest shade of pink I’d ever seen. Clearing her throat, she nodded and pointed to a rusty little Subaru. “That’s mine. I’ll meet you at the Tasty Lick. Do you know where that is?”
I choked on my spit. “Yeah.” I didn’t, but I’d find it. And smart girl, not taking a ride right away.
I wasn’t sure how it happened, how a life lived so differently than the one she’d had when I first met her, had shaped someone who retained those facets of her personality I’d adored. And at the same time, this era had morphed her into this totally unique and hilarious individual who tied me to her even tighter than before.
Korey
Mr. Big Sexy Truck followed my shitty-but-sweet Subaru down Main Street to the ice cream parlor. Bill had waved me off when I told him I was leaving, because, “Can’t you see I’m busy, right now?”
Rude. Especially on my birthday. But even from outside, I could smell the burned grease and smoke, so I gave him a pass for now.
My car sputtered and coughed as I eased it into a spot right in front of the parlor. Hayden pulled his truck next to me, and I quick-checked my make-up. As I suspected, my mascara had run, but a swipe beneath my eyes turned me from a raccoon into a sexy raccoon, so I called that a win.
A chill swept over my body just before there was a knock on my window and the door opened. Hayden stood there, one hand gripping the frame as he waited for me to exit.
“Thank you, sir.” I smiled at him because a man who opened a car door for a girl was a gentleman. And he hadn’t given me a hard time at all about driving myself. And he’d even looked a little bit proud. I didn’t even know why that mattered to me, but it did. I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed his chin. It was quick. Just a peck, but he froze.
I began to lower myself to my heels, but he stopped me. He put his hand around the back of my neck, holding me in place as he descended on my mouth.
Holy she-yit. The man could kiss.
I expected this rough looking man to kiss rough, but he didn’t. His lips were gentle on mine, slow moving. He sucked my top lip into his mouth and hoo boy, my pantaloons were on fire.
I dipped my tongue into his mouth, wanting a taste of him. I was bound to reveal all my air-brained crazy on this date, and he was bound to make a hot-boy outline on the wall when he ran away.
Hayden groaned, the sound deep, as he touched the tip of his tongue to mine. He stroked one side, and then the other before easing back with a light smack. I stood there, face lifted toward him in case he came back, and tried to get my head screwed on right.
That kiss went from my lips to the soles of my feet, and shook my entire body. I throbbed and pulsed and ached, and I’d never never felt like that before.
Suddenly, the idea of him running wasn’t funny. I was in a much more serious situation now, because I wanted him to like me.
And that was going to be hard. I’d say the wrong thing. I’d make a fool of myself. I’d probably get ice cream all over my face and not realize it.
This guy was seven levels out of my league, and even if this was a birthday gift from the universe, there was no way I was going to get to keep him.
“What’s that look for?” He smoothed his rough thumb between my eyebrows and I opened my eyes.
He stared down at me, head cocked to one side, mouth tipped down in a frown while he waited for me to answer.
“You don’t know what you’re getting with me.”
He smiled. “Isn’t that what a date is? Getting to know each other on neutral territory? Sweetening what could be awkward and uncomfortable with dessert? Or beer?”
“Well, yeah. But—it’s also trying each other one for size, and I’m no one’s size.”
His cheeks went pink and I realized how that sounded, but for once, I kept my mouth shut. I thought he was smart enough to get what I meant.
“Korey…” My name was a sigh. “You’re my size. I promise.” A shiver ran down my spine again as he watched me. “You’re the one who might change their mind.”
“Doubtful,” I replied. I slid away from my car and shut the door. Holding up one finger, I started to enumerate what I liked about him already. “One: you suggested ice cream for a date, not lunch, so you’re obviously a mind reader. Two: you have kind eyes. I have a feeling that as long as you have eyeballs, I’ll be able to figure out how you feel. Three: you’re taller than me. Four—”
“Taller than you is a point in my favor?” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he lifted his shoulders to his ears like he was embarrassed.
“I’m five feet, nine inches of farm girl. They grew me big and I want to wear heels one day. Actually,” I needed to qualify that, “I want a reason to wear heels one day. Like at my wedding or something.” Abort. Abort. “Uhh…” Eloquent.
The gorgeous man just laughed.
“Four,” I whispered, “you laugh at my jokes and don’t make me feel stupid.”
He stood up straighter, narrowing his eyes. “This is a conversation that needs ice cream.” Grabbing my hand, he led me into the ice cream parlor and to a high table for two. He pulled out my chair—swoon! and kissed me right on the nose. “Do you trust me to order your ice cream?”
“That’s a make or break question,” I answered. “Are you ready to deal with the consequences?”
He leaned down, pressing his lips to mine and I forgot all about ice cream. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t kiss strange men I just met, but with Hayden, everything inside me said he was safe. I’d spent my life listening to my instincts, and I wasn’t going to stop now.
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