Hot as Hades

Dedication

If I could dedicate every book to my editor extraordinaire, Sasha Knight, I would, but I fear her suspicions over my weirdness would then be confirmed. Therefore, I will just make it clear now that such a dedication is eternally implicit.

Chapter One

Hades, also known as the extremely badass Lord of the Underworld, was accustomed to souls dropping into his kingdom. He couldn’t say the same for naked flesh-and-blood females dropping into his lap.

“Well hello,” he said to the wet, naked, shaking, warm, soft—and wait, did he mention naked?—female sprawled over him, straddling him where he sat on his throne. “Can I help you?”

Rapid panting was her only response. Her breath skimmed over his neck where her face was buried. All he could see was hair, wild corkscrews of damp black silk which covered her back. It looked springy and alive, already frizzing in its half-dry state.

Her arse felt round and full as it nestled upon his thighs. Hard nipples drilled into his own bare chest where her breasts flattened against him. Her heart pounded in triple time.

Patience was not one of his virtues, but his brain had clearly shorted when the nude woman appeared in his lap, because he didn’t clap her in chains and demand an accounting of her presence. Instead, he sat there bemused until she raised her head and straightened away from him with some effort, shaking her hair back from her face.

The movement caressed his rapidly hardening cock. This was nice. Alas, but her breasts were no longer squished against him. This was not.

He consoled himself with the thought that he could at least see her now. Her eyes were stunning chips of emerald ice, perfect except for their dazed appearance. No fault could be found with the rest of her—smooth bronze skin, full ruby red lips and a face that was so perfectly carved, it could have been mounted on any temple wall. Because he was male, and because—hello!—she was naked, he catalogued her pretty face quickly and followed the glistening rivulets of water down her body to what he could see of her flesh playing peekaboo with that glorious hair. Her breasts were firm and large, the nipples brown and tightening from the cool of the room. The rest of her was similarly lush—round, soft thighs, the heat of which he could feel through his leather pants, that healthy handful of a derriere nestled against his crotch, wide hips and a tangle of black curls over her mound that looked as touchable as the strands on her head.

Her heart continued to beat fast, he noted, as he tried to drag his gaze back up to her face. No, wait. She wasn’t pressed against him any more. That was
his
heart.

“Hello.” He purred the word this time. His hands automatically clamped over her giving, wondrous hips when she shifted.
You’re not going anywhere.

“Where…? Who…?” A frown pleated her smooth forehead and she shifted, raising a hand to her temple, as if she had a ferocious headache.

The light from the gas lamp closest to him fell on her upraised arm. The flame danced along her skin, her sudden motion bringing out a heretofore unnoticed pearlescent glow. The subtle inhuman coloring made his breath catch. Not in lust.

In fury.

“Goddess,” he spat out. His hands tightened. Oh no, she definitely wasn’t going anywhere now.

He didn’t know if it was the venom in his tone or his harder grip that jolted her. Her lashes fluttered as she blinked hard and shook her head once. Rapid-fire emotions flickered over that heart-shaped face—confusion gave way to fear which gave way to horror when she glanced down and took in her lack of clothes. With a small, feminine shriek, she pushed her hands against his chest and tried to launch herself out of his grasp. It was laughably easy to subdue her by wrapping his arms around her and pinning her hands between them.

Those unearthly light eyes narrowed. “Release me, you sick bastard.”

He considered that laughable edict for all of, oh, point three seconds. “No thanks.”

“That’s an order, not a request.”

“I never did take orders well.” Along with his inability to share his toys, it was one of his many vices.

Her little stubborn chin lifted in an annoyingly regal manner, as if she was the one in the throne and not naked and subdued in his arms. “Release me, or suffer.”

“Suffer what?”

“Suffer…my wrath.”

“Aren’t you cute.”

Those pretty lips thinned. “Even if you aren’t scared of me, you should be terrified of my family. They’ll rip you limb from limb for abducting me.”

He raised an eyebrow, equally amazed and impressed that she dared to continue to accuse and threaten him. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Nope. Don’t know, don’t care, and I particularly don’t like that you ripped me out of my bath to fondle me and ask me stupidly irrelevant questions.”

Seriously? She actually thought he would be fooled by her going on the offense? Since he was charged with fondling anyway, he allowed himself the pleasure of stroking the sides of her breasts, savoring her gasp of outrage.

“I ripped you from nowhere. I was minding my business when you tumbled straight into my lap.” Was she some minor deity? Granted, he never left the Underworld anymore, but he knew most everyone at Olympus by description, if not by sight. No one had ever described someone so…delicious.

“Lies. You’re saying that I happened to step out of my river and, with no foul play, fell into…” She looked around, her eyes widening at his skillful décor. He rather thought the skulls mounted on the walls were a nice touch. “Where am I?”

Her voice was heavy with dread so he knew that she knew. Since he was half-enjoying the novelty of this playacting, he told her anyway. “The Underworld, love. To be more specific, you’re currently in the throne room of the palace of the almighty and great ruler of said Underworld.”

She swallowed, and didn’t that just conjure up all sorts of dirty thoughts? “Which would make you…?”

He bowed his head in greeting. “Hades. I know, you’re wildly pleased to make my acquaintance.”

“Send me back, dark one.” Her voice contained the slightest hint of tremor to betray her fear.

His mouth twisted. And why shouldn’t she be afraid? She’d probably been told all her life what a mad, bad bastard of a god he was.

All those rumors really made him want to live up to that hype.

“Once again: I didn’t bring you here.” No doubt she’d hoped to slip in, accomplish whatever foul deed she was up to and slip away again, with him none the wiser. Like that was possible—if a soul farted down here, he heard about it. How she had managed to enter his palace at all was a mystery, one he’d be solving immediately. The only god or goddess who was powerful enough to conceivably break past his many safeguards into the Underworld was Zeus—and baby brother knew better than to interfere in Hades’s job.

Long story short, beautiful or not, this little goddess should have been perched on a cloud somewhere and not his lap. He gave her one last chance. “We’re starting with your name, goddess.”

Her mouth set in a mulish line. “Bite me.”

Hades’s blood fired at the flat refusal. “Would love to. First things first.” Keeping her pinned with one hand, he grasped her chin with the other and stared into her eyes.

Reading a mortal’s past was child’s play—he looked at a soul, and the person’s history was an open book, every thought, every screwup, every moment of rapture projected into his brain in Technicolor.

Deities were harder, but not impossible. Normally he could get snatches of their life story here and there, particularly if they were lesser gods and goddesses.

As the full force of her power hit him, he recognized one huge fact: this female was no lesser goddess. Facing a power that possibly rivaled even his awesome talents was a little like staring at the sun. It blinded him to everything else. With sheer force of will, he gritted his teeth and attempted to at the very least study the delicate core of strength for any familiar traces. Genetics were everything in their circle. If he knew her father or mother, he could potentially use that knowledge to fight her.

Unfortunately, this conglomeration of power was utterly foreign to him, which meant she hadn’t been born of any deity he was familiar with, including his siblings. Not that he had really thought she was of his blood. When one overthrew one’s parents, one got in the habit of keeping tabs on one’s remaining family members and their offspring.

He had to close his eyes from the effort it took to dig out even that small scrap of information. When she commenced her feeble squirming again, he opened them. His suspicions, already heightened, grew even more now that he was aware of the depth of her power. He wasn’t holding her that tight. Why wasn’t she fighting him properly?

Unless, of course, this show of weakness was all part of her plan. Her plot. Her plot to…well, do something. If that was the case, she’d underestimated him.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me, female. Name, purpose for being here. Or we do it the hard way.” Because the easy way, plucking her memories out of her brain, wasn’t an option any longer, but she didn’t know that.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me. Let. Me. Go.” She punctuated each word with a jerk of her body.

Hard way, then.
Which, actually, on the basis of his cock, was aptly named. “And maybe…” He pulled her wrists together in front of her and enchanted them to keep them bound together, which left his hands delightfully free to explore. “Maybe I’ll keep you right here, since you so conveniently threw yourself at me.” Though he meant his words as a threat, he found the thought of keeping this stranger naked, bound and at his mercy particularly attractive.

She yanked at her hands and glared when she realized they were caught. He waited for her to quit this act and break his hasty bond, but instead she looked down her nose at him and sniffed, the very picture of courage in the face of a fate worse than death. If he didn’t know better, he might actually believe her.

“Listen, you backwards behemoth. You may have the upper hand now, but you so much as touch—” Her words ended in a shriek of outrage as he cradled her breasts.

He’d meant to silence and intimidate her, or at the very least force her to show her hand, but it was difficult to remember that when the plump grandeur of her tits made the blood leave his head and drain into his cock so fast he got a little dizzy. Balls, but it had been too long since he’d had someone as lovely as her tempting him. Mortal female souls threw themselves at him all the time, of course, but after centuries, that desperation and sick fascination had lost its appeal, if it had ever been there to begin with. He hadn’t left his world to seek females, mortal or immortal, in a long time.

He carefully squeezed the flesh in his hands, fascinated with the way it felt and looked overflowing his large grip. He had to taste her.

Because it would make her talk?

No, because he
had
to taste her. He leaned forward and slid his mouth along the pulse beating in her neck. It fluttered against his mouth. When he spoke, his voice sounded unnaturally gruff. “You have a lovely body, female.”

She snorted. “I know.”

His lips curved against her skin, and he nuzzled that intriguingly pounding pulse. “No modesty?”

“What good is modesty? Many men have found my body appealing.”

Was that a hint of bitterness he heard? “Ah. Are you a disciple of Aphrodite, then?”

“I’m under no obligation to tell you anything. Release me and send me back to my river.”

“Your river? Are you part nymph?” He nipped at her shoulder, and her body jerked. He couldn’t quite see her as a water nymph, those svelte, accommodating females, with their slick bodies and slicker…

Ah, he’d had some good times with nymphs in his youth.

“Are you deaf? I’m not telling you anything.” She squirmed again, like that futile motion would accomplish anything.

“By all means, keep moving. I’m enjoying it.”

She froze, her eyes shooting sparks at him. A curl shimmied with the force of her outrage. “How dare you…?”

“My house, my rules.”

“Zeus—”

Just the sound of that name made him want to strip his clothes off and roll around naked in broken glass. There was no love lost between him and his siblings. Particularly since he knew any of them would cheerfully cut his throat if it gained them an ounce of power. “Zeus has no say. This is my world, and you breached it. Surely you’ve heard of how I deal with trespassers. If I want to imprison you in Tartarus, no one would intervene. If I wanted to toss you to my hellhounds, same. If I wanted to do this…” He leaned forward and slipped her nipple into his mouth. He’d meant it to be a quick nip, a show of his dominion over her. Alas, the taste of that sweet little berry hit his tongue and everything spun out of control.

He softened his lips, sucking at her nipple, somewhat cognizant of her gasping and arching body. Arching toward him, not away. Combined with the buzzing noise in his brain, that spurred him to open his mouth wide, trying to suck in as much of her as he could. He lifted his head, savagely pleased to see the wetness of his mouth all over that hardened tip. He switched breasts, determined that they both be similarly decorated.