Page 14 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Hugo

T he sound of her labored breaths were my guide.

My hand crept into the space between us, until my fingertips grazed her shivering abdomen.

“Hugo,” she whispered, and I heard her shuffling in the inky blackness.

I didn’t need to see her to know that Calissandra was here. I could feel her. Her pomegranate scent perfumed the dank space around us, shooting a sensation down to my groin. My cock stood so rigid, that I thought I would lose my mind.

I grabbed the fabric of her shirt and pulled it to me. We blindly threw our arms around each other, as her sigh turned into a whimper, which I swallowed in my mouth.

No more words. No more spying.

I had been away from her too long to bother with niceties. I plunged my tongue in deep to taste her lips, her tongue, her teeth. My hunger had made her even sweeter. But not like the damning, crass flavor of sugar that soured the teeth.

She was sweet like a peach warmed by a yellow sun, with the scent of a flower that blooms for the first time in spring. She was hot like the first sip of tea, and I needed to burn in that fire.

I was ready to consume her here.

But then her palms flattened on my chest, and she pushed me away, separating our mouths with a loud smacking sound.

“I can’t see you, Hugo. I need to know it’s you.” Her voice was that familiar whisper again.

The same one she had used a decade ago, when we had made love in my barracks room in Afghanistan. The journalist, sneaking into my quarters for a cheap thrill that turned into something so much more.

We had almost lost our lives, and she needed comfort.

I had comforted her three times that night, her body begging me for more. Another three, the sleepless night after. Then a third night, where I let her speak into my chest as she unburdened the things that weighed down her heart.

I didn’t need to say much. My fingers did the speaking, as they stroked her skin, coaxing more words, more stories… more pain from her mouth. I had unlocked her, and with each confession, I fell a little bit more into her depths.

The adrenaline of death and sex, the taste of cheap wine on our lips, and the knowledge that a rocket could land on us at any moment spiked us into a fevered lovemaking that haunted me even now.

The thrill had never lessened over time.

“You know it’s me,” I whispered, as I tried to take her lips again.

I fleetingly wished that I was clean, and not covered in my own blood and sweat. My Goddess, who smelled like summer sweet berries should only be touched with clean and worshiping hands.

But, at the same time, I was selfish and greedy. I would take her as I could - covered in dirt, blood, dust and sweat.

“No.” Her fingers covered my lips, silencing me.

I took the pad of her index finger in my teeth, nibbling on it because I had never tasted anything as good as her on my lips. I was starving for her.

“Prove to me that it’s you,” she demanded.

“You don’t recognize my voice?” I asked in the darkness.

Of course she didn’t recognize it. My own closest friends may not recognize me from voice alone since it was seldom used.

Well, except for Rose. But in my heart, I wanted Calissandra to be the woman who could know me, and feel me. That she would know me by the sheer electricity in the air. By aura, or by spirit… as ridiculous as all that was.

“Why can’t we turn the light on?” Her fingers lightly traced my chest hair.

I had seen her so often over the years. I had watched her from the shadows with the obsession of an addict. So to have her in darkness was right. She lived in the light, and I brought her into my blackness - into my Hell.

“Because it’s a janitor’s closet,” I explained.

She laughed, even though I hadn't made a joke.

I adored the sound of it.

“There you are.” She laughed, and I could hear the warmth in her voice. “Hugo. I can’t believe it’s you.”

“Will my tongue help you believe?” I pushed her against a wall - the bare one I had seen before I turned the lights out on myself to wait for her in the dark.

I was always in the dark, waiting for her summer light.

I felt my way down her body, down her thighs, until I found the bottom of her skirt. I clutched it in my hand, lifting it until I could feel the sweet roundness of those luscious thighs.

I wanted to tear her clothes and bite her skin, but I knew that I couldn’t. She’d have to walk out of here, and I’d be damned if anyone saw the evidence of her being freshly fucked outside of these walls.

And what if Dick Davenport saw those marks?

I had seen pictures of the body fished from the river in Marseilles.

The police ruled there was no foul play…

even with the black crack in her skull and the blue marks on her throat.

If he could get away with that murder, then what could he do to my sweet Calissandra?

I shuddered at the thought.

“I think your cock would make me believe,” she moaned.

My blood rushed south, to the aforementioned cock.

I was practically lightheaded with desire. I thrust forward, rubbing my engorged member over her covered slit.

Her underwear was in my way. I pushed my shorts down, releasing myself into the cold air. I was less than graceful, but it had been so long… ten fucking years since I had been inside a woman. Ten long, painful years.

I bunched the fabric of her underwear in my hand, tearing at it until it split apart. I kept it woven around my hand as I pulled her thighs up higher, placing her where she belonged. Her sweet entrance at my tip.

“Your skin is so warm,” she groaned, as her wetness coated my tip.

“Your body remembers me,” I said, pushing just a little into her.

It was easy, soft, hot… inviting.

I lowered my head until my forehead pressed against her neck. She wrapped her arms around me, her forehead in my hair. The scent of her curls - more pomegranates and berries - made me think I was in a dream. A very, very good dream.

I groaned as my body shook with the effort not to just thrust in all at once.

I knew that she’d be tight.

In ten years, she had been as alone as me. As celibate as I was. This was our reward.

No, not a reward. Not yet. It was a tease. It was a taste of what was to come. An aperitif for the main course that would be the rest of our lives as soon as she unleashed me.

Stolen moments were meant to happen in the dark.

They should happen in rushed, and frantic motions, where you steal pleasure as if you are stealing fire from the Gods.

Her hands went into my hair, pulling me in, wanting more from me, and I gave it all willingly.

I gave to her because that was what she demanded. My sweet, sweet lover.

“Do you remember now?” I kissed her jaw as her body adjusted.

Patience was a virtue I had in spades, but still… it was hard not to give in to my animalistic desire to take, and take, and thrust until we both shook in agonized, pleasured screams.

“Yes! Yes! I remember you, I remember everything.” She threw her head back and moaned. “Sometimes I think it’s all a dream. Like I made you up.”

In and out. I slowly thrust my way in and out of her, savoring the exquisite friction of desire.

“Hugo, I’m…”

She was going to come for me. I knew it. I knew the signs as I had watched them over and over again from behind my screens. The bowing of her back, the tensing of her fingers, the way her toes curled until I felt her calves straining against my waist.

She screamed as her body clenched around me, her nails digging into my skin. I kissed her pleasure into silence, swallowing the sound like it was sustenance.

Bracing her against the wall, I did my work. Hard, fast, deep, and angry.

Angry at the world for keeping us apart. Angry at her husband for being cruel to such a treasure.

Angry at myself, for my own madness.

I released deep inside her, and I groaned in the sweet ecstasy as she held on tight, even as her relaxation took over her body as we rode down from our high.

It had been so long. Far too long. Another ten years of waiting wouldn’t work for me.

I would burn the world down before I separated from her for that long again.

“Hugo,” she whispered. “I love you.”

I kissed her throat, licking the light sweat that had formed there.

She was devoted in her love. To me, to her sister, to her sons. She loved fully and unconditionally. It was so easy to love her back. To love her from a distance. To love her the way I did.

To know, even after ten years, that she belonged in my arms.

For now, the world was perfect.

If I died at this moment, the only thing I would care about was making sure I didn’t drop Calissandra - I would hate it if she hurt herself on a broom, or whatever sharp objects might be in this darkness.

I did, regretfully, lower her legs down.

Soon she would be mine. All mine.

Even if it killed me.

I held her face against my naked chest. Her warm cheek against my skin. I stroked her curled hair in my palm, memorizing every twist of them as I had done years ago.

She still smelled the same. Like ink, and leather books, with the floral undercurrent of those sweet berries - one of the few things I could still eat.

The warm moisture of her tears made me draw her into me. I did not need to ask why she cried. She did not need to tell me.

I just held her.

“ Je t’aime, mon amour, ” I whispered into her hair. I love you, my love.

She rubbed her face against my chest and wiped the tears away on my skin.

“I hate this,” she said, her nose a little stuffed. “I get a moment of happiness, but I know it has to end. I’ll be plunged back into the misery that I live in.”

I wound my fingers through her curls, bunching them at the base of her neck, tilting her head up to me, as if she could see me in the darkness.

My eyes had drunk her plenty over the years.

But my hands? They were taking their fair share now.

I was hungry to feel her, and blindness made the sense of touch so much stronger.

I felt the goosebumps on her heated skin, the slight tremble of her shoulders.

I felt it all, and I wanted to feel more.

I wanted to feel her joy, her sorrows, her fears… I wanted to cradle her face in my hands, and let my thumbs roam her features as each expression passed those beautiful features.

“It’s easier to be miserable if you don’t know what joy feels like.” I swiped her tears away.

My poor summer sweetheart needed sunlight and nurturing. She needed to be cherished and adored, or she would wilt. That was what I was. The adoration every flower needs to grow. I just had to work harder at it with her, because…. Because of that bastard.

“Ask me for help,” I choked out. “Ask me, and I will come. I will fix it all.”

“How?”

“I have a plan.”

“What plan?” Her voice was full of disbelief, but she did not know me. Not like that.

She had known me as a soldier, and as an adoring lover. Back when they called me Hades, and I was some dark, silent figure that lurked to impassively kill an enemy. It had been for her protection. She had liked that. I had given her warmth.

I had sheltered her.

But now I had to break open the windows and set her free. I had to let the sun shine on her.

Even an autumn berry cannot survive in darkness.

“The boys are almost eighteen,” she whispered. “Almost.”

Children ruin everything.

She was waiting for the children’s independence - so that they could be free. So that their inheritance would not be in the control of Dick Davenport.

“Then we’ll all be free to go. At least the boys will be.” She pulled away from me on unsteady legs.

I wasn’t ready to let go of her hair, or her shoulders. I needed to touch her skin just a moment longer, though I knew we’d need to separate soon. I gripped her biceps in my hands, feeling the heat of her skin, letting her tether me to this world.

“If they’re safe, I don’t care what happens to me.”

“ I care what happens to you.” I pounded my chest like a caveman.

“I’d rather you keep my boys safe,” she said, her fingertips trailing up my chest and over my Adam’s apple, before resting on my chin. “And Chloe.”

Then she cupped my jaw in her hands, her soft skin scraping against my stubble.

“Please, if you do anything for me at all… keep them safe.”

“I will do all of that,” I said, through gritted teeth. “And take care of you, too.”

Chloe. The boys. They made the bars that caged my sweetheart away. I hated them for it… but I loved her enough to do as she requested.

“You’re always watching me, aren’t you?” She was clinging for comfort. “Sometimes I think I feel it… sometimes I feel like you’re the guardian angel I can’t see, but I can feel. But I know that’s silly…”

“I am,” I interrupted her. “I’m always watching.”

I felt the tension crawl up my neck and into my jaw.

Was it possible that she felt my eyes on her? No. There was no scientific data that could possibly back that up. But wouldn’t it be poetic if she could?

But poetry was not reality. She had no idea how much I had done. She probably thought these were just platitudes. But it was very, very real.

I had kept her safe. Every riot, every bomb. I was there. If not me, then one of my colleagues. Any moment she was in harm’s way, we were there.

Except once… one time, when things got out of hand.

The image of a single incident that caused her harm - the one I could not rescue her from - came to mind then, haunting me the way it often did when I raged at the distance between us.

I had failed her once.

And it would never happen again.

“You have no idea how much I have seen.” And I always kept score.

“When can I see you?” she whispered.

“Soon,” I promised. That was the only honest answer that I could give.

“Please…” she whispered, “If anything happens… make sure you take care of my family. Please, protect them.”

“I will,” I said, hating that her thoughts were always for others, never herself. The fact that she took so much. She had made herself the whipping boy, no more free than the girl beside the She-Bear. “I am at your service,” I swore, again, as I had ten years ago. “Always.”