Page 372 of The First Taste

I rush toward him, drawn in like a moth to a newly lit flame. “I want to lie down.”

That isn’t exactly the truth. I’m not tired anymore, not after sleeping for several hours in the car. And my thoughts keep drifting back to work, back to ink and paper and all that comes with it.

But I do want to be near Hades. I can’t help it. I want to be closer to the thing that causes me pain, because it’s so damnedmoving.

Hades looks a little surprised. But he points to the bed, holding the blanket draped over his arm. “In the bed with ye, then.”

I lie down on the pillowy mattress. Hades presses his body up against me, covering us both with the comforter. I shift onto my side, uncertain.

Will Hades think I’m being too forward if I?—

He rolls over on his side, spooning me, tucking me against his big body. In the summer air he’s already like a furnace. I can tell that if I do manage to fall asleep, I will wake up sweaty and clawing at the blankets, trying to get free.

Hades brushes my hair out of the way and lies his head just behind mine. His breath teases my neck; I suck in a breath when I imagine him placing the softest kiss just where my neck and my shoulder meet.

I shiver and Hades puts his arm around me, pulling me flush against the hard wall of his body. I’m trapped, ensnared so wickedly.

My breath seizes in my body.

“Shh,” he whispers. “I can hear yer mind workin. Just settle down now, lass.”

And after a moment? I do.

I listen to his calm breathing even out, growing deeper. Before I know it, I’m pulled into a light doze, aware no more.

Persephone

When I wake, I find Hades gone, his side of the bed cool to the touch. Judging by the sunlight slanting through the warehouse’s dingy, dust-covered windows, it’s only early evening.

My stomach rumbles and I think of my last meal. A hastily-chewed vending machine sandwich, a handful of mixed nuts, a can of sparkling water. It was the best that the gas station had to offer.

Now I look around the warehouse, pursing my lips and wondering where my next meal will come from. I stand and wander over to the worktables, my curiosity from earlier still piqued.

Heading to the stacked boxes of supplies, I bite my lip. My heart skips a beat as I tear into the first box. Despite having been literally torn from my life and kidnapped to be here now, I still feel it.

The thrill of opening new art supplies. Whether it be a new bright paint palette or fresh blank pages of paper or the crispness of unused charcoals, I still have the same giddiness. The sense of untapped potential, of materials needing only to be molded by my hands to be something great.

The first box is heavy and on the small side. Ripping the top open, I find all varieties of inks in tiny plastic bottles, each labeled by hand with numbers corresponding to their hexadecimal code. Some of the inks have more heft than others. Those are quite old and might even be a little gunky, having gone a bit solid in extended contact with air. Others are fresh and new, light and completely liquid.

I close that box, setting it aside. The next box I open is a heavy, wide, flat one. One of several such boxes, this one is thousands upon thousands of sheets of the thin clear plastic membrane that makes up contact paper.

My excitement begins to grow, tingling along my fingertips, making me smile almost reflexively.

The front door of the warehouse slides open with a loud thunk, making me jump. I turn to see Hades nudging the door closed. His hands are full of paper grocery bags and he walks them straight over to me, putting them down on the end of the worktable.

“You’ve been busy.” I amble over to him, pressing up on my tiptoes to peer in the bags. The aroma of buttery bread wafts up to my nose. “What did you bring me?”

He shoots me a quelling glance and reaches into one of the bags. “I got new phones for both of us. And I stopped at a boulangerie on the way back.”

“Oooh,” I say. As he hands me a phone and opens a box of croissants, I have trouble deciding which I want first.

“There are French macarons too. And a little pot of forest honey.”

He nudges the box of macarons toward me. I look at all the goodies for a long moment before I decide on a croissant.

In the end, I grip the phone in one hand and the pastry in the other, taking a huge bite. It’s maybe the best bite of anything I’ve ever had in my whole damned life.

Buttery, flaky, chewy. It melts in my mouth.