HADES Page 9

  The house, the car, the craft room, the job, and all the money donated to her older sister’s shelter—it’s nothing less than what she deserves. He’s making things right.

  At least that’s what he tells himself to justify what he’s doing.

  But Hades knows….

  It doesn’t matter that he’s officially stepped down from the motorcycle gang he cofounded and attached his real name to a legitimate multi-million-dollar real estate acquisition and construction business. The darker part of him knows what this is really about. What it’s always been about with every version of Stephanie Perreault…

  Keeping her.

  For the first few months, he wakes every morning with the knowledge that this might be the day she recovers her memories. He’s constructed a bubble for them here in Ohio. One where everyone knows him as a mysterious real estate mogul and nobody is aware of his ruthless alter ego. But there isn’t a construction material strong enough to make a bubble completely safe. If there was, he would’ve paid any price to acquire it.

  Also, the story about his cousin Woods is true. Hades is deeply aware that one download of memory on Persy’s part is all it would take to pop the dream bubble he’s blown up around their current reality as husband and wife—the reality that only exists here in Ohio on top of a pile of doctored paperwork.

  As happy as he is living outside of Columbus with Persy, he can’t count on that happiness lasting forever. Unfriendly reminders of the ephemeral nature of their happiness pop up on the rare occasion he has to turn down one of her requests.

  Once, while walking around their rapidly filling up neighborhood, she suggests getting a dog from the Minnesota-based rescue of some woman Tess met at a conference for Black women in nonprofits.

  “I wouldn’t mind a dog at all, ma belle. Always wanted one growing up, but my Nanan Cherise claimed to be allergic. But that’s a permanent change, and you know, we should…”

  She rolls her eyes before he can finish. “I know, I know, wait for me to get my memories back.”

  Putting her off inviting his sister, Ellie, up for Christmas is even harder.

  “I know Ohio doesn’t have anything on New Orleans when it comes to Joyeux Noël,” she concedes after he tells her Ellie already has plans.

  More lies.

  Ellie is currently living in the Midwest herself, but she took him quitting the Reapers hard. He checks in on her occasionally, but their calls are always strained. Christmas with her would be a catastrophe. He knows his hotheaded sister would never play along.

  How ironic they both have sisters who don’t approve of their relationship.

  But of course, this is one of the many things he can’t share with Persy.

  “Maybe next year,” he says noncommittally. At the same time, he thinks, One day, she’ll remember what happened between us, and that will destroy us.

  However, until that inevitable day, he wants to…well, trap her isn’t quite the right word.

  But does he hope to set up a life so appealing to her that she’ll maybe, just maybe, think twice about leaving him when she remembers the truth of what their relationship was prior to their time in Ohio?

  Yes, he wants to fix the past and make up for everything he did to her. But the motorcycle gang leader still lurking inside of him know he’s also doing whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to keep her beyond the very short window of memory loss he has with her.

  Except, that window isn’t as short as Hades expects. Woods’s memories came back in a matter of weeks. But over half a year passes while Hades focuses on building a life that Persy won’t want to leave behind once she gets back her own memories.

  And shortly after her birthday comes her request to share his bed.

  How innocent and trusting she looks, gazing up at him. Baring her neck to her husband without any idea of the beast salivating inside of him.

  She doesn’t know, he tells himself.

  She doesn’t know about the hell of the nightmares he suffered after his mother’s death.

  She doesn’t know those nightmares only came to an end because she made him the same offer to share his bed back when he called her Persy out loud.

  She has no idea how he suffered during their time apart. That he still suffers. That he put an office and an over-the-top craft room between their bedrooms so she won’t hear how he occasionally still suffers without his Persy sleeping by his side.

  She stands outside his bedroom doors with no idea that having her back in his bed is the thing he’s been yearning for ever since she left him.

  He has no business saying yes to her request.

  He can’t say anything but yes to her request.

  Both are true.

  Stephanie Fairgood is the one standing in front of him, but Persy continues to haunt him. Perhaps she always will. Persy—not God—damn him.

  Putting a baby inside of her is something Hades wants on a primal level. It is, after all, man’s most ancient trap when it comes to the opposite sex. And he’s aware that during their time apart she’s not only had her back tattoo removed but also her seed-blocking intrauterine device. But there are some moral lines even the darkest parts of him won’t cross.

  He won’t do that. Or take pleasure from her. No matter how bad he wants to claim her. She might want to give herself to him fully, but he knows he doesn’t deserve her.

  Even giving her pleasure is a dubious thing to do.

  But he can smell her in the darkness, wanting what any woman would expect from a man who claims to love her beyond all others. She aches. For him.

  He shouldn’t touch her.

  He cannot not touch her.

  Both are true. Persy damn him.

  He gives her relief, morning and night. Slakes her immediate need, ignoring her soft little whines and his straining dick when she asks for more.

  He takes the high road. As best he can.

  But days of abstinence turn into weeks, then more months.

  By the time March rolls around, all the other Carnation Estates new builds have been sold, and Hades realizes why people tended to talk about taking the high road as a short-term thing—a decision made during crucial moments for a defined length of time—not as a general way of life.

  It’s torture to lie next to his beautiful dream every night. To smell her desire for him. To hear her helpless moans as he brings her to pleasure. Sometimes it becomes so intense between them, she begs him with curse words he never thought he’d hear coming out of her pretty little Southern belle mouth.

  “Please fuck me,” she begs on breathy moans as her sweet pussy contracts around his tongue.

  But it’s the one request he refuses to grant.

  It takes everything inside of him not to give in, to keep on holding back. But he manages it. For months, he manages it. Until one evening in March when he comes home from work to a disaster.

  They’ve fallen into a routine here in the Midwestern state where she inadvertently chose for them to live. They were new to Ohio when he first brought her to Carnation Estates, but rich, with an attached nonprofit. After having to blackmail and claw his way into society events back in Louisiana, it amused Hades to see how fast their calendar filled up with invites to various charity galas and balls.

  On the rare occasion they don’t have an event after work, Hades makes sure to end his day around six PM. Persy only works until the end of the school day, when she picks her sister up. He usually finds her in the kitchen on non-event nights, putting the finishing touches on her latest French recipe. Yet another detail of their life together that makes him hate the three years he squandered, stubbornly punishing her for her father’s crime.

  But that evening, she greets him at the door.

  Dressed in nothing but a slutty pink bodycon dress and a pair of stiletto heels. Nearly an identical match for the outfit he made her wear when he forced her to attend their first Louisiana society event together.

  What the…he thinks, right before she lifts her arms
in the air and yells out, “Joyeux Anniversaire!”

  CHAPTER 12

  GALEN

  “Joyeux Anniversaire!”

  “Happy Anniversary!”

  How had he forgotten? Their anniversary was one of the many lies he’d told her toward the beginning of their second chance here in Ohio. He made up a quick courtroom ceremony right before their Tessier Ball debut on the first day of spring.

  And today is March 20, he realizes. The date on which the first day of spring falls most years. His heart sinks with dread, even as he takes in her…intriguing…outfit.

  As of late, Persy has taken to dressing business casual. Fashionable pieces that can be put together in different ways and paired with the cardigans she likes to crochet while they watch television together in the evenings.

  The dress she’s chosen for tonight is the opposite of a sensible, well-made cardigan, though. But not an exact replica of the one he made her wear to the Tessier Ball, he notes upon closer inspection.

  It’s made from hot pink latex and poorly constructed. The cheap material clings to her every curve, and the low neckline does little to contain her breasts. The chance of nip slippage isn’t just a possibility but a certainty he could bet on with a 100% guarantee of doubling his money. And if that’s not bad enough, the dress’s skirt is so short, it barely covers her round ass.

  He becomes hard as steel in a painful instant, and that makes his voice come out harsher than intended when he asks, “What are you wearing?”

  “Oh, I…” Persy shifts uncomfortably. “I was looking for ideas online about how to celebrate our anniversary since there’s no Tessier Ball to attend here in Ohio. And I found a picture of us. I guess it must’ve been our first anniversary night—the one where we made our debut at the ball.”

  More memories flood his mind—real ones, not the ones he made up for her. They really had attended the Tessier Ball together. And yes, he had made her wear a dress similar to this one. But instead of thin spaghetti straps, it had sported a halter that connected at the back of her neck and thus allowed for the tattoo he’d commissioned to go uncovered: PROPERTY OF HADES.

  She’d gotten the tattoo removed during their time apart. He’d discovered only smooth ink-free skin while re-dressing her at the hospital. But the night of the Tessier Ball, she walked around the ball with his stamp on full display.

  The dress hadn’t been a gift. It had been a punishment. His way of declaring his ownership of the society flower to her gilded world.

  “I know it’s not the exact same dress from that night,” she says with an apologetic wince. “I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find anything like it online. Maybe it was put out by one of those companies that went out of business during the pandemic? But anyway, this is the closest I could find.”

  Of course, she hadn’t been able to find it on any online outlet.

  He’d had that dress, and many like it, custom-made with only two requirements in mind. They had to be constructed well enough to not actually allow for any nip slips while putting the entirety of her back on display.

  When he went out with Persy, he’d wanted every man to know she was his possession without actually getting a peek at her breasts or ass.

  “That’s not you,” he says on a harsh breath.

  She cringes. “That’s what I thought. But when I saw the picture, I thought maybe we were trying to make some kind of point about our love. Like, forget all those people who didn’t approve of us.”

  He wishes. But no, no, that wasn’t it at all.

  Regret for all the things he can’t go back in time and undo swirls inside of his chest, along with an unreasonable rage. Not at her, at himself.

  Yet, it pitches him in an instant back into their old Persy-Hades dynamic.

  “Take it off,” he commands as if she’s still something he owns. An agentless blood debt paid to him by her father. “Change into something else.”

  All the joy she greeted him with fades from her face, leaving crushed confusion in its wake.

  “You’re right, this isn’t me,” she admits, folding her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Merde. He’d hurt her feelings. “Ma belle—”

  Before he can come up with an excuse for his inexcusable behavior, then or now, she turns and dashes toward the stairs.

  Leaving Hades to stew in a gumbo of self-recrimination.

  Cursing himself, he heads toward the kitchen with the thought that maybe he can start on the big pots and pans she hates dealing with before they sit down to eat. Some small gesture to convey how very sorry he is for talking to her like that. Like Hades. Not like Galen Fairgood, the husband she deserves.

  However, the sight of the dining room stops him in his tracks before he can reach the kitchen. The room is festooned in what must be thousands of flowers and plants, including strands of delicate blooms dripping from the ceiling. It’s the main room for the Tessier Ball recreated, just on a much smaller scale, Hades realizes.

  There’s even a cloth with fleurs-de-lis covering the table, along with a couple of fine plates and heavy silverware in anticipation of supper.

  The only real difference? There’s a veritable feast of his favorites of her French dishes, instead of the four-course meal he and Persy didn’t stick around for that evening.

  She’d gone into work today, same as usual, before picking her niece up and dropping the high schooler off at her mother’s shelter.

  She must’ve rushed right back here and spent the entire afternoon cooking and decorating. For him. For the fake anniversary that didn’t even exist.

  She was good at coming up with the perfect gifts, he realized. She’d given him the gift of a peaceful night’s sleep, a hat and scarf he hadn’t realized he’d need for his first Midwestern winter, and now this.

  His gut curdles with guilt.

  And when she comes back downstairs wearing a dark blue cocktail dress, he does something he never did—never allowed himself to do—when they were together. Apologizes right away for the terrible thing he did.

  “I’m sorry, ma belle. I shouldn’t have talked to you that way.” He tells her a partial version of the truth. “When I think of that night, I think of how I failed you as a husband. How I pushed you away and left you up here unprotected, riding a bike, when you should’ve had a car.”

  Persy shakes her head. “You don’t have to apologize. I was the one who decided it would be a good idea to ride around on a bike at night without a helmet. And I know this hasn’t been easy on you. I haven’t exactly been the wife you hoped to win back with this memory thing.”

  “Non, ma belle, you’ve been perfect,” he insists because she has no idea what a gift she’s given him. “You are perfect. Just the way you are. And you didn’t need to do all of this. All my favorite dishes. Merci beaucoup, cher bebe. Merci beaucoup.”

  She glances at the food as if embarrassed to have made it. “I tell you what. Let’s just eat.”

  Hades does as instructed, filling his plate and bowl with heaping portions of everything she cooked. And he does his best to keep acting like Galen Fairgood.

  But the past tolls so loudly in the back of his mind. It’s hard for him to think straight, much less enjoy the meal she made just for him.

  Not for the first time, he considers telling her the truth. The entire truth about their past relationship.

  And not for the first time, he can’t bring himself to do it.

  He can’t stand himself for lying to her like this. It’s gone on too long, way longer than he ever thought it would.

  Yet, he can’t bring himself to tell her the truth, to risk losing her after all these unexpected months of having her.

  Both are true.

  She doesn’t look at him throughout dinner. And forget French. She barely offers more than a few “hmms” and “un-huhs.” No enthusiastic chatter about her day or stories about Daphne and Tess. And when he tells her how good the food is, she answers with a nonco
mmittal sound and starts clearing the dishes.

  He jumps up to help her, and they make quick work of the mess in the kitchen with the two of them cleaning together.

  “Look at us,” he crows after they manage to fit everything but a few soaking pots and pans into the dishwasher. “We make a great team, don’t we, ma belle?”

  She stares at him. Then stares at him some more.

  Then she asks, “Are you okay with skipping TV tonight and going straight to bed?”

  “Sure,” he answers, keeping his voice light. Even though it feels like there’s a gator lurking in the air above their conversation.

  After turning off all the lights in the kitchen, he follows her upstairs like the devoted husband he swore he would be when she agreed to come home with him.

  As they ascend the stairs together, but not really together, the need to fix this new rift between them rides him hard.

  “How about we go to Paris this weekend?” he suggests when they get to the bedroom they now share at her request.

  Usually, she goes straight to their walk-in closet to get changed into one of her pretty nighties while he showers before bed.

  But something flashes in her eyes, and instead of making a beeline for the closet, she reaches back and unzips her dress.

  The garment’s descent down her body reveals another surprise.

  She’s wearing nothing underneath. Not one stitch of clothing. Just her flawless brown skin. She’s gained weight since the last time he saw her like this. Needed weight. She wears it well. And… bien Dieu….

  Her bare pussy glistens under the room’s dim lights, already wet with need.

  “Galen?”

  “Hmm,” he answers, his voice shaky as a Saturday night sinner in Sunday morning church.

  “There’s only one gift I want for our anniversary,” she informs him. “It’s the only thing I want for Christmas, and for my birthday too. And it doesn’t require getting on a plane to Europe unless that’s your kink. I just want you to fuck me.”