Bride of Fire (3 page)

“You say you will not be my queen.” He shifted one hand, stroking it over her belly. “Will you change your mind if I get you with child?”

Her breath caught. Could the lord of death give life? Was such a thing possible? “If you give me a child, I will cherish the gift.”

“But you will not be my queen.” His eyes flashed. “You are stubborn beyond words. And since words will not serve us, it is time to be done with them.” His hand moved lower, cupping her pubic mound. The bold touch undid her. Her eyes shuttered as if to guard some inner part of herself while he had his palm pressed against the petals of her sex.

“No.” His voice, low and commanding, was underscored by a light squeeze of his hand between her legs. “You will not look away. Open your eyes, Persephone. Watch what I do to you.”

He stroked her, an intimate caress along her folds without attempting to part them. The heat and pressure of his hand soothed the ache inside her, but not enough. She wanted more. She raised heavy lids and let him see the desire in her eyes.

“You want me.” Triumph lit his gaze and determination hardened his face. “Sweet Persephone, give yourself to me. I will give you everything you want.”

He tempted her. How he tempted her. But if she lost her wits, she would be lost forever. “You cannot give me the sun shining on the fields,” she answered.

“I can give you gold shining in the heart of the earth.”

Cold metal. Beautiful, but not alive. He could offer her nothing but death. “I will not drink or eat while you keep me.” If she did, she would bind herself to his kingdom. Refusing any sustenance would force a time limit on her captivity; unless he meant to starve her, he would have to return her to her world. If time was short, surely she would not weaken in the face of his temptation.

His lips tightened. “I will change your mind. I did not take you for a day’s dalliance.”

If he bent all his will on persuading her, could she withstand it? She would be wiser not to find out. Better to distract him with what they could both have here and now.

“Show me how you would use your slave.” She fell back on the bed in a pool of her own hair, her bound arms arching her spine so that her breasts her upthrust as if in offering. She slid her knees further apart, giving him easier access to the gateway to her body. Soon more than his hand would touch her there.

“I will give you no cause for complaint,” Hades murmured. He rose up on his knees on the bed and lowered himself over her until his lips brushed hers in a fleeting caress. “I will give you no reason to wish to leave me, but you will be discontented with the role of slave. You will take your rightful place at my side. Your pride will allow nothing else.”

Pride would keep her from surrendering her heart and her future, but nothing could keep her from surrendering to the passion he awoke in her. “Kiss me again,” she whispered. The brief pressure of his lips on hers had been the merest tease. Not enough to satisfy.

“I will do as I please. You refuse to taste, but I make no such vow.” His mouth took hers, hot, hard, hungry. Heat to match his flooded her body. She opened for him, wanting a taste that held no substance and could not bind her. His tongue swept inside at her invitation, invading, seducing and conquering. As he intended to invade and conquer her body.

Persephone trembled beneath him. She struggled against the satin ribbon that bound her, wanting her arms around him, her hands exploring his sinewy build. But it held her fast.

He lifted his head, his expression too knowing. “Say the word, and I will free your hands.”

She forced herself to relax. “You wish your slave bound so I will not forget my place.”

“Your place is with me, stubborn Persephone. You will admit it before long.” His mouth trailed down her throat, lower, to the cleft between her breasts. He kissed the upper curve of each, then curled his tongue around her nipples by turn. Heat swirled and pulsed in her center. When he drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked, her inner muscles contracted and liquid heat coated the petals of her sex as if she blossomed for him here in this dark place.

The erotic torment went on and on. He kissed and licked and suckled as if he had all the time in the world to amuse himself while she squirmed beneath him and felt her breath coming faster. The hot pleasure of his mouth on her breasts was not enough. Finally, he turned his attention elsewhere. He kissed his way down her torso, down to the soft skin of her belly, pausing to take a sharp nip at the sensitive indentation of her navel that made her pelvis rock up. He slid lower, settling himself between her open legs. His hands gripped her inner thighs and urged them wider apart. And then his mouth claimed her in a kiss that made her cry out.

He licked at her folds as he kissed her there, searching out the entrance to her body and penetrating it with a thrust of his tongue. He withdrew it, only to thrust it inside her again, and again. His mouth searched out all her secrets, finding a hidden bundle of nerves that made her cry out again when he suckled her there.

He kept up the pressure of his lips and tongue on that sensitive nub of flesh while he drew a hand up to trace the her intricate folds, first the outer, then the inner, and then his finger pressed deep within. She clamped tight around that invading pressure, but he would not retreat. He kept it buried inside her, stroking her inner walls with his fingertip until she relaxed by degrees. And then he added a second finger, beginning a rhythm of pushing deep and withdrawing that he echoed with the pressure of his mouth.

It felt strange and unfamiliar, but so good. She began to crave the rasp of his tongue against that nub of flesh, the pressure of his fingers inside her, widening her, opening her. When he added a third finger, the sensation of being stretched to capacity made her breath catch in her throat while her hips worked frantically as she strained for something more.

There must be more. Wouldn’t he give it to her?

“You said you would give me anything,” she protested in a voice gone throaty with desire. “Give me what I need.”

He raised his dark head. “What do you need, little slave? Do you demand something of me?”

The words broke through the haze that clouded her mind as compulsion gripped her body. Could he outwit her so easily, tempt her to forget herself in the heat of passion? She forced herself to relax again, fighting the urgency that thrummed inside her. “It is not my place to make demands.”

But she wanted. Oh gods, she wanted.

His fingers moved inside her, hard and deliberate. Persephone let her head fall back, arching up, reaching for something with all her being. “Perhaps it pleases me to hear what my slave desires.”

“You.” She spoke without hesitating. “You, Hades. Give me all of you.”

He sat back on his heels. One hand ravished her sex. The other gripped the heavy shaft of his cock and stroked it. “Is this what you desire?”

That, and more. There would be more when his body joined with hers, but what that more might be, she could not say. She nodded in silence, watching as he worked both himself and her with his hands.

“It will be a tight fit the first time,” he warned her. He brought the head of his cock down to rub against the sensitive point his mouth had licked and sucked and continued to stroke the turgid length himself with his hand. “I will make it as easy for you as I can.”

What was easy about this? She ached. She burned. She needed, and what she needed remained out of reach. She wanted to scream, but instead she rocked her hips in time with his hand, taking his fingers deeper when it was his cock she wanted there. She could feel the head of him, hard and hot above his penetrating fingers, but instead of thrusting it deep for her inner muscles to grip, he pleasured himself with his own grip.

The feel of him there made her inner muscles clench and spasm around the fingers he pushed inside her. Need spiraled tighter. She jerked helplessly in the throes of it, and then her spine bowed as he pressed deeper and she found release in a blinding rush.

She could feel his cock jerking against her, spilling hot liquid seed that coated her slick, swollen sex. He withdrew his hand from her, drew the head of his penis down to her opening and pushed it inside her with little resistance. He was still coming in thick spurts as he thrust all the way in, the fluid lubricating his shaft and easing his way. He lowered himself over her and kept thrusting in while her body struggled to accommodate the thick length of his cock.

“Your cunt is so snug, so hot, so sweet,” he rasped as he drove deeper. “Spread your legs wider for me. I want my slave’s tight, virgin cunt wrapped around my cock while I empty my balls.”

Oh gods, he was so large, he went so deep, and the liquid heat of him as he spilled himself inside her bathed her insides, turning her molten. She arched up under him, taking him deeper still, wanting to feel all of his body against hers. He held himself just above her, braced on his hands, so she had to raise herself up to feel his chest against her breasts. She knew he was keeping his weight off her so her arms, bound behind and beneath her, wouldn’t cause her any pain, but she ached to feel him fully atop her, covering her with his heat and strength.

“Hades,” she whispered. She kissed his chest, rubbed her cheek against him, rocked under him as he rocked into her. He filled her, stretched her body to the limit, and still she wanted more.

They moved together, flesh to flesh. He took her and gave himself and the pleasure of it left her wordless. This heat, this need was real; everything else was a distant dream. He possessed her utterly and she surrendered to him, his slave in truth, enslaved by the dark desire he awoke in her that nothing else could satisfy.

He grew even larger inside her and then she felt a deep pulsing begin along his shaft, a pulse echoed in her womb. Something burst inside her, like a hidden sun going nova, lighting up her entire being in a shockwave of light and heat as the two of them reached a second consummation together, this one more intense for being fully shared. The glory of it faded by degrees, leaving her aware of the sheen of sweat that coated her skin, the slick satin beneath her, the leashed power of him above her. Inside her. Still wondrously, gloriously deep inside her.

“You are generous to your slave.”

He tilted his head to hers, a knowing smile slanting his sensual lips. “I am not finished fulfilling your request.”

She had asked him to give himself to her. She swallowed hard as his meaning sank in. He withdrew and turned her onto her stomach, stretching out beside her as he stroked her back and her naked buttocks. She wiggled her bound hands, shrugging her shoulders to ease the strain from the unaccustomed position.

“Say the word, and I will untie you.”

“But you won’t free me,” Persephone answered. She turned her cheek against the cool satin, feeling it against her breasts and the sensitive skin of her thighs, and stretched, luxuriating in the caress.

“No, Persephone. I won’t free you.” His tone was gentle but implacable. “I warned you I would not relent. You are mine. I will never let you go.”

“Will you mount me when I am weak from hunger?”

He made a low, rough sound. His hand came down sharply on her backside. The smack made her eyes fly wide open as her inner muscles contracted sharply in a way that was…unexpected. Pleasurable. “You will cease your stubbornness. You will eat and drink. You will bind yourself to me, and to my kingdom, and you will rule it by my side. Or I swear I will keep you my naked slave for eternity.”

“You would not dare,” Persephone said. But fear cracked her certainty. If there were none outside his kingdom who knew who held her, who knew how she was treated, he could do anything he pleased. He might dare to flaunt her before his subjects as she was, and she could do nothing to stop him. Nothing except give him what he demanded of her. He would not humiliate his queen by parading her naked and bound, perhaps even mounting her before an audience while she could do nothing but submit as a slave would.

Oh, he had her in a clever trap. Was there no way out?

“Do you care nothing for my happiness?”

His hand on her backside soothed and caressed away the sting of his smack. “Your happiness is everything to me. Were you happy alone on that bluff, Persephone?”

Alone. The word struck her like a blow. She had been so alone, and she had wanted something more. Look what wanting had wrought. And despite the dilemma she found herself in, she would not choose to go back and ignore the flower, to keep them in their separate realms, never to meet, never to touch. She had not been happy alone.

“You know I was not,” she admitted. “Which changes nothing. Trading one unhappiness for another is no improvement.”

“You do not have to be unhappy with me.” He stroked her, fingers gripping and releasing, massaging her buttocks, moving lower until his fingertips brushed her sex. She shifted her thighs apart so he could pet her there, shameless in her need for his touch. “I can show you wonders you have never guessed exist. I can shower you with jewels and precious metals. I can dress you like a queen. I can introduce you to a world of pleasure you have only begun to sample.”

He would give her anything. He’d said so, and his word was law in this realm. He would deny her nothing, not even himself. But he would not give her his heart. He could not. The dark lord had no heart to give, and while he might continue to take pride in the queen he had won over the centuries, his desire for her would fade. Lust without love was like a flower cut from the stem that gave it life and color and fragrance. It would fade and wither.

And she would wither and fade from the lack. She had always been beloved. If he could not love her, he must send her back to her world.

“Let me go.” Her voice thickened from unshed tears.

“I cannot.” He covered her body with his, his penis pressing into the valley between her buttocks. “I will not.” He moved on her, the heat of his body seducing, persuading. “You are mine. I will make you mine again and again, until you admit you belong to me.”

“I am your slave.” Her body was enslaved by his, and would only become more so.