The Deep End of the Sea (20 page)

His eyes, so emerald in this light, meet mine. There’s lust there, yes. But so much love and concern it rocks me to my core.

I swallow hard and say, “I need you.”

He groans again, leaning up to capture my mouth as his hand once more dips into my panties. The air in my lungs stills as he skims his fingers lower still until they slip in between my legs. And then, sweet heavens above, he touches a part of me I never knew existed.

If I’d thought I’d come undone before, I was wrong.

Everything blurs and heightens as he kisses me—my mouth, my breasts, my neck—and all I am is feeling: feeling him, feeling his fingers, feeling this hot
need
in me build and I ache, just ache in a demand for something I can’t quite reach. And then, his fingers ease inside me and my mind just scatters, just up and explodes out of my head and floats away in the breeze. My body follows suit and shatters, too, until his name is ripped out of me and I go limp against his hand.

Before I can process the miracle that just happened, though, he kisses me—hard—and then shifts so he can slide his pants off. Just seconds before I thought myself to be a puddle of bliss, but the sight of Hermes naked—sculpted, golden muscles that would make an artist weep—sends my heartbeat back into overdrive.

“I adore you,” he whispers hoarsely. “There’s only ever been you for me.”

It’s my turn to grab his head and pull it toward me. Our tongues are at war with one another as we kiss, and it’s hotter than ever before. I thought I’d found relief to whatever need he’s ignited in me minutes before, but I was wrong, because it’s back and stronger than ever. “Please,” I tell him again, not knowing what it is exactly I’m asking, but knowing all the same that he’s the only one who can help me.

A long, deep kiss follows before he pulls back—just far enough for his forehead to rest against mine. His hot breath hits my mouth; his racing heart beats against mine. And then slowly, gently, the tip of his need presses into me. I gasp; not in pain, not like the first time so very long ago, but because spikes of ecstasy threaten to tear me apart again.

His moan only serves to intensify the ache consuming me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m ...” I gasp again as he pushes further into me. “Yes. Just ... stars, this is ...” I cling to his shoulders, my hips instinctively rocking into his. “Hermes ... please ...”

He pauses, his breath coming out in hard, short bursts. Is he afraid of hurting me? Because nothing could be further from the truth right now. So I thrust my hips once more toward his, driving him in deep and sure. I eat up another one of his delicious moans. “Dusa ... you ... I have never ...” He doesn’t finish, though. Slow thrusts which make speech impossible eventually give way to frantic ones as we memorize one another. And when I fall apart a second time, it’s only moments before he suddenly goes still in me, my name falling from his lips.

And I am content, truly content, for the first time in ages.

“Have you had a chance to look at the list yet?”

Hades doesn’t look up from his iPad, on which he’s been reading the morning’s news and reports from the Underworld. “No.”

Persephone sighs and sets her fork down and stares at him, hard.

Her husband reaches for his coffee. “I gave it to Talos.”

She picks her fork up only to drop it again, making sure it clatters loudly. He finally looks up and says, “Light of my life, the two of us have gone over the plans for Friday at least a dozen times each. It is in the hands of the Automatons now. Have a little faith that things will go well. When have any of your parties ever gone badly?”

“I can think of a few,” she mutters darkly.

He sets his cup back down. “Let me rephrase—when have any of your parties in the last millennium gone wrong?”

This prompts her brows to crease. The next thing we know, she’s standing up and heading out the door, shouting for Talos.

Hades angles one of his droll smiles toward me with a small shrug of his shoulders as if to say, “What can you do? She is who she is, but I wouldn’t ever have it any other way.”

I hide my laughter behind my own cup of coffee. Persephone has been planning Hades’ birthday party, set for three nights from now, for months. I find it humorous that she does so, as he’s repeatedly mentioned how he doesn’t feel the need for one, especially now that he’s reached “middle age.” Of course, this makes me wonder just what “middle age” for the Assembly entails, but I’m not going to be the one to ask him.

That said, Persephone is on edge about the attendance list and security, and while nobody will confirm why, I have an unsettling suspicion that it has to do with me. I’m always told it’s because these are typical issues for members of the Assembly—there are those who will always try to crash the parties in efforts to curry favor from the gods. But as I know I’m under constant surveillance, I can’t help but worry once more that something is going on that I don’t know about yet.

What I do know is that the last week has been heavenly. Since Hermes and I finally admitted our feelings for one another, my feet have finally found firmer ground. We had a conversation the morning after making love for the first time that really shook me to my core yet strangely strengthened my happiness.

“Last night,” I asked him as we ate breakfast in my room, “you said something strange.”

He looked up over the toast he was buttering and flashed me that dazzling smile of his that gets me every single time. “Was me telling you how much I adore and love you the wrong thing to do? Because I can’t take it back, love. Now that it’s finally out there, there it will stay.”

I blushed furiously. “Not that. I liked that very much. I meant ... you said you’ve been in love with me for a long time.”

He reached over for the pot of strawberry jam on the table. “That’s bad?”

I was nervous all of a sudden, which was unsettling. Having known him most of my life, I shouldn’t feel this way. But since the moment we decided to alter our relationship, those pesky butterflies in my chest won’t leave me be. “Hermes,” I said to him quietly, “I was a monster just a few weeks ago.”

His eyes, still a vivid green that morning, met mine as he slathered the jam on his toast. “And?”

“And ...” I twisted a piece of my hair in my fingers. “I mean ... there is no way you could have been in love with me longer than the past few weeks.”

He looked at me like I was insane.

“I was a monster,” I reminded him. “I ...” I had had to swallow, and then whispered, “Killed people. Had ... snakes on my head. My skin was ... not right. Scaly. I didn’t even look like a
person
. There is no way you could have ever loved that. I get why you would now—now that I’m not hideous—”

“Stop.” He put the toast back on his plate and got up, coming round the small table so he could kneel down in front of me. “I hope you don’t think me so shallow that the moment the curse reversed, I decided I suddenly had feelings for you. Dusa ...” He took my hands in his and kissed them. “I’m afraid I fell in love with you shortly after we met. I told you last night, you fascinated me from the very beginning. The more I got to know you, the more I found myself falling. You were, and are, unlike anyone else I’ve ever met before. You have a goodness in you others would have long let die away in such circumstances.” He pressed a hand against my heart. “This is what I fell in love with. Not your body—which, I won’t lie, I enjoy very much,”—I blushed again—“or your beautiful hair (because you know I most certainly was fascinated with your snakes, too), or those eyes of yours I find myself so easily lost in on a regular basis. Dusa, I love
you
. Who
you
are. I hadn’t tried anything before now simply because I never thought you would go for it. It was hard enough ensuring you’d keep me around as a friend. I wasn’t willing to risk declaring anything else until you were ready.”

I cried many more tears of happiness, and he kissed them away and made love to me again. And now here I am, hopelessly in love with my best friend and delighted to be so. We didn’t make a grand proclamation of our new relationship, although I know Hermes talked to Hades about it at one point shortly afterward, but it didn’t matter. Everyone seemed to already know. In fact, Aphrodite took me to the side when she came to visit so she could tell me how relieved she was that I “finally came to my senses” and put her poor brother “out of his misery.”

“You knew?” I asked her as I looked across the room at where Hermes was talking with Hephaestus.

Wind chimes filled the room. “Of course I did. I am the Goddess of Love.”

And now here she is, bounding into the room while Hades and I finish brunch, carrying what must be a half dozen shopping and garment bags and already talking a mile a minute. “I popped down to Paris yesterday and found this amazing boutique,” she says, breezing past Hades with a kiss on the top of his forehead, “and I saw a dress I had to have for the party. Obviously, I bought it. Better yet, Dusa, I found a dress for you! I know we’d talked about going shopping here in Olympus, but when I saw this one, I knew that nothing local would do you as much justice as this. It’s like it was made exactly for you.”

“Paris!” I sigh when she sits down next to me. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. It’s been one of my favorite cities to read about.”

She quickly presses kisses against both of my cheeks. “Well, there’s no reason now at all that you can’t go. Tell Hermes to take you there—stars above, we know there’s precious little he would ever say no to you for.”

One of Hades’ eyebrows lifts as he smirks, making me blush uncontrollably again. I really need to learn how to get a handle on this because it’s humiliating to resemble a tomato most of the time.

“Where is my brother?” Dite asks, looking around the room, like he’s hiding behind the drapes or the like.

It’s Hades who answers. “Work, niece. Some of us have it.” He gives her a pointed look, which only makes her giggle all the more.

“I’ve taken the day off. I just wanted to come by and give Dusa this dress I found. Want to see?” She unzips one of the garment bags and extracts an emerald green silk dress that shimmers. At first, I think it’s gorgeous. But then ...

Then I realize it has a slight print to the fabric. And that print is a python pattern.

I jerk back in my chair, refusing to take what she holds out to me. Is this a joke? She must see the look on my face, because she quickly says, “Wait. Listen to my reasoning for this. Dusa, you have nothing to be ashamed of.
Nothing
. The truth is, yes, you were ... altered for many years. But I think the worst thing you could do is pretend like it never happened. It did. Sometimes, terrible, awful things happen to people, things you can’t predict or wish for differently that happen just the same. But you can’t let them consume you. You can’t wish it away. All you can do is pray you’ve learned from it, that it’s made you stronger, and that you will move on. I bought this dress because it’s beautiful, but also because it’s
you
. I felt like if you wore it, embraced who you are and what you’ve been and done ... it will help you move on.”

I’m not a huge fan of her logic here—I mean, I’d spent the better part of my life part-reptilian—but I can see her point. I glance down the table at Hades, who is watching us carefully. I no longer fear that I’m some sort of pet of theirs, or a charity case. And I sincerely believe that Dite would never give me a dress like this for the sole purpose of humiliation. It’s not her style, nor any of the gods that I’ve begun to let into my heart.

But still. I don’t know if I’m ready to embrace such a dress.

She unzips another bag. “Here’s the one I’m going to wear.” She pulls out a blue dress that matches her eyes perfectly. And this dress, like the one she’d bought for me, also has a python print. “But I’ll leave it up to you with what you want to wear. If you still want to go into town and pick out a dress, then I’m down with that. But this one would be lovely on you.”

I take the green dress from her and stare at it.

“How about this,” she says. “We’ll go to town anyway—you need shoes no matter what dress you’re going to wear—”

“There must be thirty pairs of shoes in my closet already,” I tell her wryly.

“A girl can never have too many shoes.” She waves at Hades. “Am I right, or am I right, Uncle?”

“Stars forbid me from ever denying any woman shoes,” is his answer. He’s amused, though.

This seems to satisfy her. “We can lunch—”

“I am just now finishing brunch,” I smirk.

“
After
shopping. If not lunch, then tea. C’mon. You’ve barely left the villa in days. We’ll take Kore and that thug of my uncle’s and I bet you anything we can sweet talk Heph to come and join us. He’s been working on something for Hera, but I know he’ll be glad to get out of the workshop for a bit.” She grabs my arm, nearly bouncing in her seat. “Shoe shopping is a wonderful treat, Dusa. Let’s go spend my brother’s money, huh?”

“You might as well go,” Hades says from his end of the table. “She’s annoying when she doesn’t get her way.”