Read Hot as Hades for Free Online Page A

palace floated in the Underworld, he had no garden, but it didn’t take long for Persephone to scurry around his home as if she owned it. He couldn’t get away from her. He found her studying the books in his library, polishing silver in his dining room, leaving the baths looking wet and sultry from the heat. She always greeted him with a warm smile and tried to converse with him as if he were a normal god and not the terror of godlings everywhere. When she wasn’t around, her flowers and her scent filled the room.
    Despite their close quarters, he did his best to avoid talking to her, which if he wasn’t mistaken only increased their run-ins and made her more determined to chatter at him. He responded with grunts and one-word sentences and stalked away as quickly as possible. Any more interaction and he feared he would rip her dress off and throw her to the ground. Or press her up against the wall. Or toss her on the table. Or…really, any flat surface was fair game.
    His fingers literally itched when he was around her. Never had he felt so utterly driven to possess a female, one he was fully aware was off limits. Fuck her and then have her sobbing that it was rape? That might enhance his already fearsome reputation, but he wasn’t going to go around feeling like a bastard. No thanks.
    So it was understandable why he found himself creeping like a criminal in his own home one morning. I should lock her up , he thought grimly as he stuck to the shadows of the hall, ears perked for the soft shuffle of feminine slippers or her lilting laugh as she chatted with Bob. He considered confining the goddess to her room about twelve times every day. Keep her in one place so he’d never have to see her beautiful face or smell those damn flowers that followed her everywhere or hear her laughter ringing through his stark, silent halls. It was still a possibility.
    Liar.
    Fine. Maybe it wasn’t.
    He made it to his office and almost breathed a sigh of relief. That is until he opened the door and found her sitting in his chair— his chair—sorting through the papers on his desk. Her hair was dark and shiny, pinned up to reveal the nape of her neck, and she wore one of the many dresses he’d conjured into her closet. This one was black silk, a corset top that pushed her breasts up and over the rough lace neckline. He imagined her nipples peeking through that lace, and his body instantly hardened.
    He was going to die of blue balls before Zeus got this female out of here. He should have materialized some nuns’ habits for her.
    Pent-up lust and frustration had him snapping, “What the hell are you doing?”
    He was gratified that she at least jumped. “Oh. Hello. Um, I was bored, so I thought I would try to help you by organizing some of your papers.”
    His papers were organized. He had a system. A very complex, messy-to-everyone-else-but-understandable-only-to-him system. He stalked over, prepared to be irritated.
    But then she looked at him. Which sounded all trite and sentimental in his head, but her look knocked the bluster out of him and made him want to fall to his knees in front of her—or, alternatively, have her on her knees in front of him. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought I could be useful.”
    And being useful was, for some reason, important to her. Resigned, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to blow up at her over the papers on his desk, now sorted in neat piles, probably alphabetized. “It’s fine,” he heard himself say. And though he choked on it a little, imagining the work in front of him, he lied, “Thanks. I appreciate your help.”
    She beamed as she pushed back her chair and stood. “You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
    He was fairly certain that “fellatio” was not the answer she was looking for. “No, not at the moment.”
    “Um. Okay, then. I guess I’ll go back to my room and read for a while.” She leaned forward, and for a second he wondered if she