by Katee Robert
I’m so focused on his mouth, I don’t even notice Meg carefully removing the cock ring until she sucks me down. “Fuck,” I grit out.
“Relax,” Hades murmurs, as if that’s even in the realm of possibilities. “Let her reward you.”
“Wait,” I manage.
Neither of them stop. Of course they don’t. I didn’t say my safe word. I have no fucking intention of saying it either, but even through my haze of pleasure, I can tell this isn’t quite right. “Meg.” I can’t quite catch my breath. “Ride my cock. Please.”
She slowly lifts her head. Even through the scene, I can see the strange vulnerability in her eyes. Tonight hasn’t quite fixed the missteps Hades and I have made along the way. Some wounds have to be healed with words and actions, not just fucking. I don’t care. I hurt her, and the desire to make things right overpowers everything else. “Please,” I repeat.
“Greedy boy.” Hades’s voice in my ear is more tempting than the devil himself. “Give him what he wants, love. He’s more than earned it.”
I’m not done, though. I look at him. “I want her to ride my cock. I want you to make her come.”
His lifts his brows, but he doesn’t give me a window to his soul the same way Meg does. Hades is an enigma. That’s fine. He can keep his thoughts to himself. This isn’t about him. It’s about her. Finally, he nods. “As I said, you’ve more than earned us honoring such a
pleasurable request.”
Meg finally nods. “Okay. Lie down on the couch. Arms behind your back and clasp your elbows.”
I obey and we all shift to accommodate. The new position arches my back and ensures I can’t touch her. A perfect kind of agony. She moves to straddle me and Hades follows suit, straddling my thighs directly at Meg’s back. Holy shit, I didn’t think this through. It’s one thing to be between them, overwhelmed by the sensations of them fucking me. It’s entirely another to have Meg sinking onto my aching cock and Hades’s fully clothed darkness behind her. Both of them watching my face, both of them predatory in the most delicious way possible.
Meg leans forward and presses her palms to my sensitive nipples as she rolls her hips, fucking me slowly in an entirely different way than she was not too long ago. Hades mirrors her movements, cupping her breasts and playing his long fingers along her nipples. “You did good work, love.” He’s not talking to me, not with his lips pressed to the spot behind her ear, not with her eyes sliding closed even as he shifts one hand down the center of her body to stroke her clit. It’s as if I’m not here, as if my cock is just as much a toy as the ones in the chest behind his desk. It should infuriate me, but it’s just as agonizingly sexy as everything else we’ve done tonight.
Use me. I don’t say the worlds aloud. I don’t want to break the spell that the three of us have woven tonight. If that requires my silence to begin to repair the harm done, to ensure that this is Meg’s night, then I’m more than happy to oblige.
“I know,” she breathes and her hands fall away from my chest. She sounds like a different person, some of her dominance bleeding away as she leans back against him, still grinding down on my cock. Fuck, but they’re beautiful together. The brightest star and the darkest night, both made better by the presence of the other.
If only they realized it.
“Take him deeper.” Hades urges her to slam down harder on my cock. Meg moans and lets her head fall back on Hades’s shoulder. He keeps up those low words, winding her pleasure tighter and tighter around us. “Just like that. Such a pretty cock he has, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“I picked him just for you. Hercules and his pretty cock.” He meets my gaze as he says it, and we have a moment of perfect understanding. Anything for her. We may go about it in different ways—we will always go about it in different ways—but the goal is still the same. Meg’s pleasure. Her happiness. I don’t fool myself into thinking it’s Hades’s only goal. He’s admitted as much that it’s not. But he loves her, no matter how strange their relationship is to me.
Not as strange as it used to seem. I can see the lines of it now, am beginning to understand exactly what it is they offer each other. Just like I can see the gaps neither one of them are capable of filling. I don’t even know if they realize the lack. They must, at least on some level, or I wouldn’t be here in this position, acting the part of their third. I could fill those gaps for them, I could be the softness to their jagged edges.
Hades nods once as if I’ve made the offer aloud. He takes Meg’s hands and guides them behind her back, mirroring the same position I’m in. “Use his cock, love. Take exactly what you need.” He resumes stroking her clit, a possessive touch that conveys the truth. My cock might be hers, but he owns everyone in this room.
Meg’s strokes lose their smooth rhythm, and Hades is there with his free hand, gripping her hips and forcing her to keep up the motion that will send her over the edge. I’m close behind, every muscle in my body coiling tighter and tighter as I fight off orgasm. She has to come first. She has to.
Hades ensures it happens. He presses hard on her piercing and her pussy clenches so tightly around my cock that I curse. I forget myself, forget my orders. I grab her hips and drive into her again and again, chasing my own pleasure as she milks my cock with wave after wave of orgasm. I slump back onto the couch, a boneless mess, and Meg does the same against Hades. He presses a kiss to her neck and strokes her stomach, her breasts, her arms, before shifting to give me a similar treatment. That little touch grounds me when I didn’t even realize I was floating. Hades carefully eases Meg down onto my chest and presses a soft kiss to my mouth that I’m too dazed to return. “Don’t move.”
As if I could even if I wanted to. I wave a hand vaguely and wrap my arms around Meg, cuddling her into me. She kisses my neck and nuzzles me, obviously as blitzed as I feel. Damn. I just… damn. I didn’t know sex could be like this. It was beyond good, beyond great. It was fucking life-changing.
And I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve only scratched the surface.
Hades returns quickly with blankets and a warm damp rag that smells faintly of clean laundry. He helps us sit up and cleans us up a little. Though he doesn’t linger on that aspect, there’s an element of softness in his caretaking that I didn’t expect. Maybe I should have. Several minutes later, he has us wrapped up in our respective blankets and leaning against him on either side. It feels so fucking right, I don’t bother to question it. Meg reaches across his lap and laces her fingers through mine, another little point of contact, a connection I crave as much as Hades’s warm strength.
I don’t know how much time passes while Hades acts as rock to our respective storms. Long enough that my heart is no longer trying to beat its way out of my chest and my breathing evens out. Finally, as if he’s as reluctant to break this peace as I am, he sighs. “I suppose it’s long since past time to talk.”
Chapter 20
Meg
I don’t have the energy for this conversation now, which must have been the point when we began this night. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, because Hades is speaking in that careful way of his that seems to come out when he’s negotiating. I push up a little, needing to see his face as he talks. My body resists the call to action, but I power through the languid feeling coating my muscles. Some things are more important than the afterglow. On his other side, Hercules does the same, shifting back to rest against the arm of the couch. His legs are still pressing against Hades; he doesn’t seem to be able to give up that contact any more than I can.
Hades plays his fingers along my knee and sighs. “I targeted Hercules specifically.”
I know that already. He does nothing without reason, and we were in that restaurant with the sole purpose of netting Hercules. “Yes, I’m aware of that, even if you didn’t bother to tell me.” My voice comes out sharper than I want it to, giving too much away, but I can’t seem to help myself. My defenses are down, crashed to pieces by these two men.
He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “I did intend him as a gift to you, love. But that’s not the reason I picked him specifically.”
A gift. I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around the fact that Hades knew exactly how messed up we’d gotten and instead of talking to me like a normal person, he served me Hercules on a platter. I don’t know that I can throw stones at this point, though. As Hades pointed out, I didn’t exactly tell him everything I was feeling.
Maybe he’s right. We aren’t normal people to fix our problems in that way. And I can’t deny that Hercules’s presence helps in ways I wasn’t expecting. Not solely in prodding us to talk to each other, but he’s a soft ooey-gooey center to all our harsh edges. He blunts us, allows us to connect in a softer way.
I clear my throat, bringing my attention back to this room, this conversation. “Why did you pick him, specifically?”
“A long time ago, before I came to Carver City, I lived in Olympus.”
“I know.” Just that he lived in Olympus and was exiled. Nothing more. Maybe I should know more about him, how he grew up, what his family was like. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. My parents were hardly saints, and they turned their backs on me when I ran off with Declan all those years ago. I couldn’t bear to admit that they were right about him, so I’ve never gone back. And they’ve never once tried to reach out. It doesn’t hurt quite as much as it used to, but that tenderness causes me to never push Hades about his past. What is the point? We have our now and our future.
Obviously, I should have paid more attention.
“I…” For the first time tonight, Hades hesitates. He glances at Hercules, a connection so brief, I wouldn’t have caught it if I weren’t watching them so closely. “I had a family. Wife. Son. A promising future as one of the most powerful people within the city.”
A wife.
A son.
Each word hits me in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Two things I can never, ever give Hades. Two things I desperately don’t want, even now. I start to pull away, but his hand bracketing my knee tightens and he turns to me. “Listen.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear how happy he was. How normal he was. Some truths aren’t mine to bear, and this one is too much to handle. I might laugh if I could find the breath for it. Of all the secrets lurking in his past, this will be the one to break me. Not the horrible things he’s done. Not the people he’s hurt along the way in his quest to secure power. Not the legion of people he’s fucked. Just this. A wife. A son. An entire life I knew nothing about. I swallow hard. “I’d really rather not.”
“Listen.” This time it’s Hercules who speaks, his deep voice steadying something in me despite every molecule in my body demanding I get the hell out of here.
Hades gives me a long look and continues. “We didn’t last the year after I inherited the position of Hades. I was too young and too… innocent. I couldn’t protect them.”
A pit opens up in my chest. “What happened?”
“Zeus killed them.”
Hercules makes a choked noise, but Hades doesn’t look away from my face. “He killed them,” he repeats. “And he drove me out of Olympus with nothing but sorrow to accompany me. For thirty years, he’s been untouchable, well beyond my reach, and now I have the chance to balance the scales. A son for a son.”
My mind is racing and my body tenses as if I’m about to flee for my life, rejecting the things he’s saying. “You… Hercules… His son.”
“Zeus is my father, yes.”
More pieces fall into place. The reason Hercules left Olympus, because of his father’s monstrosity. It never occurred to me that it could be connected to Hades. I grab Hades’s wrist and wait for him to look at me. “You are not killing Hercules.”
He gives me a small smile. “Hardly, love. I’m not in the business of murder.”
I could argue otherwise. He’s more than happy to hand people over to their enemies, which may or may result in their death, even if his hands remain relatively clean. He was more than happy to hand Jasmine over to a man who terrified her. I can’t blame him for that, though, not when my hands are equally dirty with his deals. I look from Hades to Hercules and back again. “So you seduce the son to hurt the father. I’m assuming there is some footage or photographs that will make their way to him.”
He shrugs. “It’s possible.”
I point at Hercules. “And you’re okay with this, with him using you like this?” It can’t last forever, no matter what Hades negotiated as terms. He’s going to drag Hercules down to our level and then cut him loose to drown. “You can’t be okay with this.”
“My father is a monster.” He says it so calmly, as if remarking on the weather. From the little I know of Zeus at this point, I can’t argue with him, but surely he sees this isn’t as simple as Hades has laid it out to be.
They knew and spoke about this and didn’t loop me in until I forced them to.
I feel like I’m falling. Every time I hit the bottom it collapses beneath me, revealing farther to drop. I am completely immaterial to this place. Just the lure Hades placed to draw Hercules in. He didn’t tell me. And Hercules seemed more than content to keep his silence too. It hurts. It hurts way more than it fucking should. I can’t help feeling like Hades has drawn a circle in the sand and I’m on the outside of it. Why bother to tell me the plans? My part in them has been served. He’s only doing it now to placate me, to keep me content and avoid rocking the boat further, not because he genuinely wants me involved or sees me as an equal partner. Even offering Hercules as a gift feels secondary to his vengeance.
I swallow past the hard knot in my throat. “So you take the pictures, send them to Zeus and… what? How is that even close to equal to what he did to you?”
“It’s not.” Just that. Nothing more.
Even with all this talk of talking, he’s still shutting me out.
I wait, but no more information seems to be forthcoming. He’s given me enough that I’m supposed to be satisfied, but even now, he’s holding back. I want to shake him, to scream at him, to list all the ways he’s breaking us even as he appears to take actions to heal us. I don’t. It won’t change anything, not really. Instead, I lean over and take his chin the same way he does to me when he wants my undivided attention. “Hades.” I pitch my voice low, but it shakes with the sheer intensity of the feelings I’m determined not to show. “If you hurt Hercules, that’s it. I’m out.”
“You have a lifetime sentence, love.”
I give him a sad smile. “We both know that won’t stop me if I want to disappear. You deliver harm to him, and I’m gone for good.”
He searches my face with those dark, dark eyes. All amusement flees his expression. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Megaera—”
I drop my hand and push to my feet. “Good night, Hades.” I nod at Hercules, who’s watching us with a stunned expression on his face. “Sleep well.”
I don’t bother to retrieve my dress before I leave the office and take the back stairs down to the residential floor. Tomorrow, I have to spend more time in the club, to see and be seen. The old saying about the mice playing while the cat’s away is never truer than with a bunch of kinky criminals in a sex club. They’ll push just as far as we’ll let them, so likely I’ll have to make an example of someone tomorrow. Once upon a time, the thought would fill me with glee. There was nothing I loved more than bringing a proud person down a few notches, to strip them to their core self and rock their world. Now? I’m just tired. So fucking tired.
Hades won’t change whatever his plan is for Hercules. I know him well enough to know that. No matter how much he cares about me, no matter how much he claims to want to fix things, he’s been harboring the need for revenge for thirty years. Justice for his wife and child. I stop. How goddamn selfish do I have to be that that is the thing that trips me up? Not his vengeful, potentially murderous, intentions. No. It’s the kid who ma
kes my chest hurt and my eyes burn.
I don’t want kids. I never have. It was something I thought Hades and I had in common, a total and complete lack of desire to procreate. But I know what I heard in his voice when he mentioned his son.
Longing.
I am selfish beyond measure to be hurt by that longing, so incredibly selfish to hate that he’s lied to me. Ten years we’ve been together, and he’s wanted children this whole time? I hate the guilt that eats away at me. I haven’t done anything wrong. If he’d communicated with me—and the very idea is laughable now—then we wouldn’t be together. Some things a person cannot compromise on, and having children numbers among them.
How dare he hide this from me?
I shove through my door and drop the blanket to the floor. I can’t do this. I thought I had a clear understanding of my life and relationship. Nothing is perfect, but at least I know the boundaries I’m willing to compromise on. I thought I knew him. It hurts beyond measure to realize I didn’t know anything at all.
A quick shower does nothing to clear my spiraling thoughts. I wrap myself in my robe and stare down at my bed. The thought of sleeping alone is unbearable, which might make me laugh if I had anything resembling a sense of humor left after tonight. The temptation rises to call Jasmine and make the drive over to Jafar’s penthouse, but we don’t have that kind of relationship. Fucking and friendship, yes, but not the depth that allows me to crawl into bed with them and take comfort from their presence.
I’m being a coward.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I walk out my door and pad down the hallway to Hercules’s suite. I lift my hand to knock and it’s only then that I pause to consider that he might not have come back to his room. Even now, he might be settling into Hades’s giant bed. I lower my hand. This self-pitying spiral is exhausting. I’m not fit company for anyone right now, and looking for a shoulder to lean on is just as selfish as everything else I’ve done today. This week, this year, this decade.
