I blinked at him, the words, the pure sex and sin in them sending shockwaves through my body. Being momentarily blinded by my desire, I forgot about the fact I should be totally and utterly pissed at that statement.
Hades, being the villainous badass that he was, took advantage of that and turned around and left.
And just like that, I went to bed with my dog and a gun and no one else. Despite how much I wanted to, needed to, I did not open my bedside drawer to grab one of my many vibrators to relieve the tension in every limb of my body.
Because I was obeying Hades.
Parts of me hated him for it. Hated myself for obeying him when I was supposed to be a strong, independent, sexually free woman. If I wanted to come, then I was going to make myself come.
But I didn’t.
And Hades did not come home that night.
Chapter Eleven
I purposefully woke early the next morning. Before Hades got back from club business. Whatever ‘club business’ meant. Whatever it was that tore him away from me just when we were finally about to have sex. Whatever had kept him out all fucking night.
Or the club business could’ve wrapped up promptly yet he‘d decided to go back to the club to get laid by someone else. Someone less complicated ... or whatever.
We weren’t married. We weren’t even dating let alone together. He just happened to be living at my house because someone connected to his club may or may not try to harm me and because my crazy ex-boyfriend may or may not come back to beat me up or worse.
He was well within his rights to get laid by a club girl or whoever if he wanted to. It was with that at the back of my mind that I got up before the sun and went to a spin class with Marilyn. She was surprised to see me there since she’d been inviting me for months, and not one single time had I taken her up on the offer. I was certain she’d made a deal with some kind of demon or supernatural entity making her able to dance until three in the morning then get up three hours later to do an hour of torture disguised as exercise.
Though I had to admit, it was a good way to take out my anger, frustration and all the excess energy coiled in my limbs. My ribs had protested ever so slightly since they weren’t completely healed yet. They definitely weren’t healed enough to go back to work. The doctor said it might be a few more weeks, and Kallum refused to even consider me coming back until I was completely healed.
I showered at the gym, something I’d never done in my adult life. I had no idea how often gym facilities were cleaned—although this place was pretty swanky, especially for a small town—and there were things like foot fungus. Then there was the fact I had a very rigorous skincare, makeup and hair care routine that took me over an hour with a whole bunch of products. Obviously, I couldn’t commence said routine in front of a poorly lit gym mirror without ample counter space or outlets, nor could I lug all of the products required for said routine in a small gym bag.
There were ample, very good reasons why I hadn’t showered at a gym, especially when my house was a ten-minute drive from the aforementioned gym. But now I had someone to avoid and punish just a little. So I made it work.
After a bare-bones skin and hair care routine, I had breakfast with Marilyn. She had some chia seed pudding thing. I had Nutella French toast. What was the point in killing yourself for an hour working out if you couldn’t eat Nutella French toast? Plus, I needed carbs and refined sugars in order to get through the day.
My phone had begun buzzing on the surprisingly spacious counter at the gym while I was drying my hair. My stomach dropped the second I saw his name on the screen. I had programmed the number in there when he’d demanded I save the numbers of all the club members. He’d never called me, and I’d never called him, so some pathetic, needy, desperate part of me itched to answer it immediately. Fortunately, that part of me was very small, so I held back. I ignored his call. And the one after that. And the three texts.
Marilyn glanced down at my buzzing phone halfway through our meal. “Someone is really insistent about getting hold of you before eight in the morning,” she commented evenly.
I swallowed my toast. “Mmm-hmm.”
She quirked an expertly manicured brow. “It doesn’t happen to be that hotter than Hades,” her eyes twinkled as she said that, “biker who has been attached to your shadow lately?”