HADES Page 8
Taking a deep breath, I head back to his bedroom at the end of the upstairs hallway.
No more fretting. I don’t stop long enough to let myself feel intimidated. I just turn the knob and walk right in—only to gasp out loud when I see the suite.
The bedroom sits on the house’s corner, so instead of one window wall, there are two. Thanks to the room’s dim lighting and none of the other houses on the lake having any lights on, it feels like I’m stepping into a starry night sky.
“It’s like a dream, isn’t it?” Galen’s voice says behind me.
And speaking of dreams….
I almost gasp out loud again when I see Galen standing in the bathroom doorway. Oh, my word.
First of all, he has a tattoo. A full sleeve, covering his entire right arm. My fingers itch to run along it. Had I done that before, touched him? Satisfied my curiosity like a real wife?
I don’t remember anything from her relationship, but taking in the rest of him, I become quite sure the answer to that question is yes.
Apparently, Galen didn’t just put me in mind of a Greek god when we met, he is chiseled like one too. We are in the dead of winter, but his skin remains on the olive side—a gift from the Greek father who died before his birth. And he appreciated the gift. Like, appreciated it for hours in the fully equipped basement home gym I only ever walked past when I had a load of laundry.
But he’s definitely been doing more down there than washing clothes.
Mountain ranges of heavy muscle run up his arms and legs. And his abs are so defined, it looks as if someone drew thin lines on his stomach beneath his pecs. Four across, one straight up and down, and two that create the top of a Y at the sides of his six-pack before they disappear underneath the towel.
My throat goes dry as I imagine the unit of flesh at the bottom of that Y. The rigid length I’d felt against my stomach earlier.
“You brought a suitcase,” he says, nodding toward my rollerboard. “Good idea. Let me put that in the closet for you. Nice nightgown.”
I glance down at the peach-colored chemise I donned after taking my own shower and am a little embarrassed to see my nipples have budded into hard peaks underneath the silky fabric. They’re standing at full attention, even though Galen hasn’t even touched me yet.
If he’s as affected by the sight of me in my nightie as I am by him in a towel, it doesn’t show. He walks right past me to grab the suitcase I left standing near the foot of the large but simple bed.
“I’ll just put this in the closet for tonight,” he says in the same quick tone I’ve heard him use on the phone with business associates. “Tomorrow, I’ll make some room for you in the drawers, okay?”
There’s a flash of rows and rows of suits before he disappears into the closet with my suitcase. Then he comes back out a few minutes later, dressed in a gray tee and a pair of sleep joggers. So, I guess, I don’t get to see what he’s packing underneath that towel.
I don’t realize my disappointment must have made it all the way to my face until he says, “Ah, ma belle, don’t look like that. I can make room in there for you tonight if you’re that eager to unpack.”
“No, tomorrow’s fine. Completely fine. I was just…”
Perving out on my husband.
“Wondering which side of the bed I should sleep on,” I substitute out loud for my real thoughts. Not that I plan on getting much sleep tonight. If he does these kind of things to my body just standing several feet away, imagine what he’ll actually do to me in bed.
“I’m always right, ma belle.”
“Yes, you are,” I agree heartily.
He gives me a quizzical look. “I mean, I always sleep on the right side of the bed, and you always sleep on the left side of the bed.”
Oh.
Yes, of course, that’s what he meant. He was just answering my question with no sexual innuendo whatsoever.
I actually prefer the right side of the bed myself, but no arguments from me. I hustle into bed on the left, just happy to have something to cover up my gaffe.
There are butterflies galore in my stomach. I feel like a virgin, even though after seeing what he’s packing underneath all those suits, forget the celibate roommate hypothesis. I’m sure we must’ve had sex before. Lots and lots of it.
In fact, this might be exactly how I felt the first time we made love on our wedding night. Like I was on a roller coaster ratcheting up toward a thrilling drop. I just wish I could remember any of it, even one moment of our time as husband and wife.
“Thank you for moving in here with me, ma belle,” he says as he pulls the levers for the dim lights all the way to off. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed having you in my bed.”
My heart thrills at his words.
He wants me here. He missed sleeping by my side. Maybe this won’t be awkward and weird after all. I smile in womanly anticipation as he climbs into bed, and…
Nothing.
Instead of pulling me into his arms, he just lies there on his back. Doing nothing. Doing nothing for so long, his breaths begin to take on a steady rhythm, and I have to speak up for fear of him falling asleep.
“Ah, Galen?”
“Hmm?”
“The doctor cleared me for sex,” I blurt out since this is another topic that wasn’t covered in any of my Southern decorum lessons. “That means we can have sex.”
Silence. So heavy and loaded, it feels like a weight pressing down on me. Then he says, “You want sex, with me?”
“You sound surprised. Did we not have sex when we were married?” Again, I have to wonder what our original relationship was like. The celibate roommate hypothesis rears its head, along with the whole other host of possibilities on the sexuality spectrum.
“No, we had sex, ma belle,” Galen assures me in the dark, his tone wry. “We once spent an entire week in my boyhood home on the bayou doing nothing but making the beast with two backs and talking about my plans to develop Bayou Falls. That’s also when you gave me the suggestion to start the Amy Fairgood Foundation. But then your father died, and things fell apart for us. Then you left me. And I was...in a real bad place—just a real bad, dark place for a while after that.”
The hurt and pain our breakup caused him still rings clearly in his voice, and my heart pangs with sympathy…and guilt.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, even though I can’t remember what I’m sorry for or why I did what I did. “But this is a new chance for us, a new start. And based on the last few months, I think we fixed whatever disagreement we had in the past.”
Another long silence. Then he says, “I want to please you. That’s the only thing I desire in this world. I just want to make sure you want that from me.”
“I do,” I quickly assure him. “You have no idea how many nights I’ve lain awake in the dark, wanting you to touch me. Touching myself because you’re not there.”
He lets out a harsh, rattling breath.
And the next thing I know, there’s a heavy weight on top of me.
Galen, I realize, right before he fuses his lips over mine and excavates a sound I didn’t even know I was capable of making. A moan somewhere between a needy mew and a groan of relief.
Finally, we’re here. He’s kissing me hard and rough, and I’m writhing my hips against his cock, loving the sensation at the same time I’m cursing the barrier of our clothes.
But Galen doesn’t let clothes stop him. He trails kisses down my throat and sucks at my nipples through the fabric of my chemise. The sensation is so weird, but silken bolts of pleasure ripple from my breasts into my lower belly.
And forget tugging. I clench helplessly below. My sex milks the air, and the bud I rubbed at when I was alone in my room feels like it’s vibrating.
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“Oh, God, that feels so good,” I breathe out.
But he’s not done yet.
Leaving two large wet spots above my pebbled nipples, he kisses the rest of the way down my body and pushes the hem of my chemise up, exposing the mesh peach-colored panties that came with the satin nightgown as a set.
Back when this night was only a hopeful plan, I imagined taking the panties and chemise off under the blankets before we started having sex in the missionary position, like a proper wife and husband.
But there’s nothing proper about the way Galen strings my legs over his shoulders. His lats ripple underneath the back of my thighs as he does the same thing to the bud between my legs that he did to the two on my chest.
He licks at me through the thin mesh, somehow finding my sensitive clit, despite the fabric barrier, and lapping at the material until I’m a sodden mess down below.
From his relentless mouth or the slick wetness I can feel issuing from my sex? I have no idea. And I don’t remember him doing this to me, but my body must. I grind myself into his mouth, somehow knowing what will happen next if I push my sex into his hungry mouth.
But then he raises his head to say, “I’m sorry I made you wait so long, cher bebe. You know how much it hurt this husband of yours to hear there was something you were needing? Something he could give you?”
“It’s fine.” I’m beyond apologies. Beyond caring what happened in the past or how needy and desperate I must look writhing on the bed underneath his now too-far-away mouth. “Just please, keep going. I want to…”
I trail off, not able to put it in words.
But unlike my request outside the doors of Galen’s bedroom, I don’t have to spell this out.
“I know what you need, ma belle,” he assures me, his voice rough as he falls back into French. “Believe, I studied this clito of yours like it was the last answer on the final exam.”
Clito, clitoris. “Yes. Touch me there,” I plead. “Lick me there. Please.”
I’m shamelessly begging, and he always gives in when I ask him for anything.
But in this case, he shakes his head and says, “Non, non, non, ma belle. You don’t want me touching you on your clito, bebe. You’re too sensitive there. You want my fingers here….”
The crotch of the panties gets pushed aside, and two thick fingers push into my passage, filling me with a pressure I didn’t know I was craving. My thighs tremble around his thick wrist, even as my body writhes with gratitude. He’s in a place I could never reach myself, so deep, I can actually feel myself becoming even more slick to accommodate his invading fingers.
“Ah, feel the way this cunt gun’ squeeze my hand to say hello.” Galen switches back to English, but his Cajun accent thickens as he pumps his fingers expertly into my sex. “You want this pussy satisfied, cher bebe? You want me to take you there?”
“Yes, yes!” I cry out, not caring where there is. I just want him to keep going.
“Please don’t stop!” I beg.
“Ain’t no worries about that,” he assures me.
Right before he yanks the front of my panties down and covers my entire mound with his hungry mouth. At first, he just kisses me down there, his tongue lapping and plunging between my folds until I’m dry sobbing.
It feels so good. But it’s also torture.
“Galen, Galen, I can’t take anymore,” I gasp. “Please….”
He’s been so accommodating since the moment I woke up in that hospital bed, but instead of honoring my request, he lifts his head, leaving my sex cold and bereft.
Until he says, “Listen to me, ma belle. Listen to me tell you this true. Moi, je t’aime, cher bebe.”
Everything on my body, inside and out, is pulsing with need. But in that moment, it doesn’t matter.
“I love you too,” I tell him in English. Then, in his brand of French, “Moi, je t’aime gross.”
I love you very much.
There comes a long, silent beat, vibrating with emotion.
Then he lowers his mouth and lightly flicks his tongue over my sensitive clito.
I go blind.
Nothing…nothing in the world could have prepared me for the lightning storm of pleasure. It fries every nerve in my body, even as it rockets me into the stratosphere. Then drops me, light as a feather, back to the ground.
“I do all right by you, ma belle?” he asks somewhere in the distance as I float down to the bed.
“More than all right,” I answer without breath. “I am very, very grateful, mon beau.”
I’m not even joking about that. As mind and body blown as I am, I haul myself up and position myself between his legs to return the favor.
“Non, non, non, ma belle, that ain’t a good idea.” He grabs me around the shoulders before I can fully bend forward.
His tone was teasing before, but now it’s turned dead serious.
“What?” I ask, strangely disappointed. I’ve never given a blow job in my life—at least not one I can remember. But I find myself begging. “Please? I want to make you feel the same way I do.”
“I appreciate that, ma belle,” Galen says, even as he lifts me up from between his legs and gently but firmly sets me back on my side of the bed. “But you didn’t do that for me when we were together. And I’m not sure how you will feel about giving me this gift when you get your memories back.”
“I’ll feel fine with it,” I insist. “I don’t know what kind of stuck-up Southern miss act I was pulling before, but I want to pleasure you. In fact, it would be my pleasure to pleasure you. I also want to do the rest of it with you. Have you inside of me, making babies, like you said—”
“Ssh, I know what I said.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me tight. But not like a lover. He holds me like I’m a child who’s gotten out of pocket, somebody he has to hold fast to keep her from hurting herself. “But we’re not going there either.”
He shifts me to the side of his body so I’m no longer in the vicinity of his manhood. “We’re just going to wait for you to get your memory back before we do anything like that. Nothing permanent. That’s the rule if you want to keep on sleeping in here with me.”
He’s probably right. But tears of frustration spring to my eyes as we settle into sleeping positions in the dark.
That was the best orgasm I’ve ever had. Seriously, he rocked my world. I can see why my first-year lesbian roommate at Tulane never seemed unhappy with her sex life. I’ve never been so thoroughly pleasured in my life.
But pleasured doesn’t mean satisfied.
That tugging ache remains in my belly. I’m still hungry, even though Galen turned me into a puddle of jelly without expecting anything in return.
I suppose I should be grateful. How many of my sorority sisters complained about boyfriends who only got theirs and didn’t bother to finish the job? This was the opposite of that. Galen had not only finished the job, he had asked nothing of me in return because he didn’t want to risk going against what I would’ve wanted when we were estranged.
To some women, this would be the ultimate dream.
Still, I want more.
And though I let him fall asleep this time without asking him for anything else, I lay awake in the dark.
We said I love you. And sharing a bed under any circumstances is a step forward.
So why does it feel like there’s a dark cloud now hanging over my happily ever after?
CHAPTER 11
GALEN
Persy is no longer Persy. But she is also no longer Stephanie Perreault.
He only met Stephanie Perreault once, and there was much blinking on his part to ensure she wasn’t an illusion. Some kind of swamp siren messing with his head. He was twenty-one back then, and she was on the verge of turning sixteen. Too young for him. But that hadn’t stopped him from imprinting on her in an instant.
She was his. Age was only a matter of years—five and a handful of days, to be exact. That was how long decided to gift her before he would
establish his claim. Five years to grow, to attend her rich-folks university, to experience a life that didn’t include him.
But five years was all he would give her. She would become his after that. That was true when she was Stephanie. And it became especially true when her father offered his only daughter as payment for the blood debt he owed Hades.
That was when Stephanie had become Persy.
Stephanie Perreault was his dream. Persy was his blood debt.
But Stephanie Fairgood is something else altogether—something much more unsettling.
The very personification of what they could’ve been.
Before all the bitterness and rage. Before all the punishments he inflicted upon Persy in the name of avenging his mother. Before all the things he did.
Things that couldn’t be undone.
Until suddenly they were.
By some miracle, she forgot everything—every terrible thing that had passed between them.
On the inside, he continues to think of the woman now sharing his life as Persy.
But in truth, Stephanie Fairgood is a blank slate. Stephanie Fairgood remembers nothing of him beyond the few moments they shared in the backyard of her father’s plantation house.
If somebody were to ask Stephanie Fairgood if she still hated Hades, she would answer, “Hades? Who’s Hades?”
The answer to that question is, “The man who would sacrifice anything to undo the pain of your accident.”
Yet, he also can’t believe his luck when her memory loss leads to her choosing him.
It reminds him of their time at his bayou stilt house. When she told him that she hated him and she’d fallen for him—that both were true.
He would do anything to spare her the accident.
He would also do anything to erase all the dark parts of their past relationship from her mind.
Both are true.
And having a chance to be with her the way he wanted to from the start—before he did all the things that couldn’t be undone, that…
Well, that seems too good to be true.
Hades spends the first couple of months after she moves into the Carnation Estates mansion simply making all her dreams come true—even the ones she doesn’t remember she had.