I pointed at him, not registering the way his face had changed since I had started talking. I was too far gone for that. “No. I’m a good person, even though the majority of people I encounter, present company included, are assholes. So you have not one single reason not to like me, whereas I have plenty not to like you. Yet I still do.” I pursed my lips before I said anything more. Before I said that I liked him. That I pleasured myself thinking about his hands and lips all over me.
“I did not force you to move in here,” I continued, fury still coursing through my veins. It was either yell at him or cry in front of him. Obviously, I chose to yell. “You were the one who went all macho and alpha, deciding that you were going to move in here. And you haven’t even been here.” I threw my hands up. “Because you obviously can’t stand to be around me. Because you don’t like me. And that’s fine, that’s totally fucking fine. You don’t have to like me.”
Then I just ran out of gas, standing in the middle of the room panting, heart thundering, my limbs suddenly feeling heavy and my soul suddenly feeling lighter. I’d just yelled at Hades. I’d just yelled almost everything I was feeling at him, and he’d heard me. I’d made him hear me. I made it impossible for him to ignore me.
I didn’t know much about Hades, but I knew some things. I knew that he probably wasn’t used to being yelled at. By a woman, no less. I assumed that he was going to yell back. Fuck, I hoped that he yelled back. Hoped that he would not be yet another person walking on eggshells around me.
But he didn’t yell.
Nor did he walk on eggshells. No. He stomped on them. His strides were long and quick, but so was my retreat. I would’ve gone farther had my back not slammed into the wall.
“I have too many reasons to fucking like you,” he murmured, caging me in with his arms.
I held my breath, staring at his face, the angles of his jaw, his full lips, stark against his blanched skin. His eyes were roving over my face with pure hunger. Pure fucking need. Mine responded in kind.
Fervently.
He moved one of his arms from the wall to slowly brush down the side of my face, gently tracing the bruised skin.
His touch was an inferno. I must’ve been breathing, because if I wasn’t, I would’ve passed out. My heart must’ve been beating, because if it wasn’t, I would’ve been dead. Regardless of these facts, it felt like every single cell in my body paused. Everything stopped working under the weight of Hades’s stare, under his gentle yet rapacious touch. It was as if he was the commander, the conductor of my body, and he demanded that it sing for him. Scream for him.
“I like you too much, Freya,” he growled, his voice tearing away at the loaded silence between us. His eyes were on my lips. The ones that felt swollen, desperate for his, eager to taste him on my tongue. “That’s the fuckin’ problem.”
Then he stalked off.
Again.
He spent the rest of the night chain smoking outside, leaning against his bike. I knew that because after I eventually found the use of my legs, I’d managed to get my night-time routine down, slipped into my bed and fell into a fractured sleep. I kept my curtains open a crack so I could see his dark silhouette whenever I opened my eyes. I saw everything else when I closed them.
Chapter Ten
We were watching Game of Thrones.
Not a word had been said about my little outburst the night before or what Hades had said after it. But he was here when I woke up. And he was still here when Marilyn arrived. Hansen—the bald, attractive, muscled president of the club—had come by, being gentle and kind to me before heading out to the patio with Hades to have a man huddle. He’d stayed for cookies and coffee and showed me pictures of his kids.
Hades had sat there with four cookies of his own, not offering any conversation. But he was there. He’d been here all day.
Things weren’t awkward between us. They should’ve been, but they weren’t. Things were energized, that much was clear. The majority of the day, there’d been buffers. Marilyn. Jed. Hansen. Even Sirius, needing his walk, which Hades accompanied me on while letting me babble about all kinds of shit that didn’t matter.
I’d come back to shower, to put on jeans that looked amazing on my ass and could pass off as casual. And a thin-strapped cami with lace around the top and the bottom. No bra.
Because I was done with this. With him getting me worked up and nothing coming of it. Yeah, I probably should’ve waited a little longer for my body and soul to heal before I seduced the dangerous biker, but I was going insane.