I touch his cheek, kiss his mouth and hug him tighter with my legs.
“I want to steal you away. Hide you. Keep you.” He’s moving faster, the fucking harder. The frenzy is coming.
We kiss again, our mouths open, tongue on tongue, hands gripping.
“I want to fuck you day and night. And I’m going to do just that. Lock you in this room. Tie you to my bed. Never let you go.”
“Kiss me, Hades.”
I gasp with the last of those words as he kisses me, lifting me a little, shifting our position a little, just enough that he hits that spot and I’m coming. I’m coming and my breath is his name and our eyes are open and he’s not alone in this, in wanting me like he does because I can’t be without him either. What have I been without him?
“I love you, Persephone. I love you.” The words are a rumbling breath as he stills inside me and we watch each other as we both come and he’s so beautiful. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“I love you, Hades,” I tell him, pulling him close when he collapses on top of me and I feel his heart racing against my chest. “I’ve always loved you. Only you.”
41
Persephone
I hear the muffled sound of a phone ringing in the distance. I open my eyes, groggy as I try to make out where I am.
Hayden is beside me, his arm heavy across my chest.
The ringing stops and I turn my head to look at the clock. It’s late afternoon. Is it only afternoon? This day has stretched too long.
I look at Hayden whose eyes are closed. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him sleeping. The few times we’ve slept together I’ve always fallen asleep first.
I watch him, think how beautiful he is, how fiercely protective. Possessive. Two sides of the same coin. One aggressive toward the object of its obsession, the other toward any threat to that object.
The ringing starts again, and I turn my head to see my purse at the far end of the room under our clothes. When I move, hoping to slip out without waking him, he groans, pulls me to him.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I turn to find his hazel eyes on me, more gold than green right now.
“My phone. Someone’s trying to call me.”
“You’ll call them back.” He pulls me closer, but then his phone rings too.
I get out of the bed first but by the time I locate my phone in my purse, the call has gone to voicemail. I look at all the missed calls. Most are from a number I don’t recognize but a notification tells me someone left a message.
“What is it?” Hayden asks.
I turn to him, thinking he’s talking to me but he’s on his phone. I’m about to click in to listen to the voicemail when the phone rings again. Same number.
Without hesitating, I answer. “Hello?”
“God, Percy! Where have you been?”
“Lizzie? What’s happening?” Panic makes my voice higher.
“I’ve been calling and calling.” She doesn’t have her cell phone which explains why I don’t recognize the number.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“You have to come now.” A brick drops in my belly. “Come to the clinic now, Percy.”
“What’s happened?” I ask and hear Hayden mutter a curse from behind me.
“His heart stopped.” She chokes on the words and my heart breaks. “He,” she sucks in a sob. “I thought maybe…”
“Oh God.”
“They have him on a ventilator, but it’s bad.”
“I’m on my way,” I say, already pulling on my clothes as I drop the phone back into my purse.
“Persephone,” Hayden starts behind me.
“My father,” I say, pulling on my pants as I turn to him and I see from his face that he already knows. “You know?”
“That was the driver who took you and your sister this morning. I’ll call down for a car.”
We get to the clinic in record time and I rush to my father’s room expecting to find a team of doctors working on him, a buzz of activity as they try to save his life, but I’m surprised when the only person in the room is my sister.
I look at my father, at the new machine he’s hooked up to in addition to the others. I listen to the sound of the ventilator operating his lungs.
Lizzie wipes her eyes and stands. I hug her and for a long minute, we just hold each other. We just stand like that and hold each other until I hear the door open and Hayden enters along with a doctor.
“Where’s Celia?” I ask when Lizzie pulls away.
“Her daughter’s school called. She wasn’t feeling well so Celia left a few hours ago.”
“Ms. Abbot?” the doctor walks over to me. “I’m Dr. Nicholson. I was here when your father took a turn this afternoon.”
“What happened?”
“I thought he was going to wake up,” Lizzie says. “I thought—”
I take her hand, squeeze it and pull her to me. Dr. Nicholson looks at her with an expression of pity. This isn’t the first time he’s seen something like this.
“His heart gave out,” he says to me. “It’s not uncommon for a man in his condition. We were able to revive him, but he hasn’t been breathing on his own since.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll need to think about what you want to do.”
I look at my father lying there, and he looks old and frail and so small.
I already know what I have to do. As much as it will break our hearts, I know. It’s what I should have done already. What I know he would have wanted.
“I’ll give you some time alone,” Dr. Nicholson says and turns to exit the room.
“Doctor?” I call out.
He stops and turns to me, eyebrows raised.
“There’s no chance he’ll wake up from this, is there?”
“No, Ms. Abbot, outside of a miracle, I don’t believe so. I’m sorry.” A moment later, he’s gone.
Hayden puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezes it while Lizzie brushes her fingers through our father’s thinning hair.
“We should let him go, shouldn’t we?” she asks, surprising me. She drops into the chair she was sitting on earlier. “He’d hate this.”
I nod, my eyes still on my father.
42
Hayden
Quincy Abbot died two days later with his daughters holding his hands.
I stood back and watched and I can’t say that I felt anything for him. No sadness or regret. Justice, maybe? What he did with Nora was wrong any way you slice it. He’s guilty of that.
I don’t care about what happened to Quincy Abbot. But I do care that Persephone is suffering.
And I know that that suffering is on my father’s hands.
I stand beside Persephone at the cemetery now and I still don’t feel anything as I watch the casket lowered into the ground. Persephone wanted a private ceremony for family and close friends only but there are still reporters along the periphery because he was a senator, after all.
Irina turned up for the funeral, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me because the reading of the will would follow directly.