Page 105 of Raising Hell
“No,” Hades and Zotera said at the same time.
I frowned at Hades.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want her knocking to wake you.”
“Pfft. Nice try. You were begging me to open my eyes yesterday because you were lonely without me. How do you think she feels? I understand being lonely and don’t mind if she knocks on the door. If I’m really tired, I’ll sleep through it. But I know you don’t sleep. So maybe instead of staring at me all night, you can play some games with her.”
Hades flushed and started to look angry.
“She means games of chance like we played last night, Father.”
“What did you think I—Oh. Oh! Geez, no.” I shook my head at him. “Persephone was seriously messed up in her head, and I’m not. If you want to jump to conclusions, pick the human-oriented ones first. Not the goddess ones.”
My reaction calmed him a bit.
I glanced at Zotera as we approached our room. “And what’s wrong with knocking on our door?”
“You need your rest, Mother.” Her gaze flicked to Hades before returning to me. “I saw how exhausted you were last night.”
Was she only saying that because Hades had?
“I won’t die if I’m woken up. I promise.” We walked past our room, but there were no more doors in this stretch of hall as far as I could see. I stopped walking and looked at Hades.
“Make a room here, please.”
He crossed his arms and glowered at me.
I grinned openly. His scowl only deepened.
“I’ve watched movies where the popular girls always do some obvious thing to the boy to try to get their attention. It usually doesn’t work on the guy because he’s crushing on the Plain Jane girl. But here I am. The Plain Jane girl having a stare-down with the guy obsessing over her. Do you want to guess how my attempt to get my way is going to play out?”
“It often sounds like you speak another language,” Hades muttered. “I don’t understand what popular girls and crushing them has to do with—”
I stepped close and slid my hand up his chest. While I did that, I looked up at him from under my lashes and bit my lip.
His stunned expression and the way his arms fell to his sides loosely almost messed me up.
“This is what I meant,” I said. “I’m looking sweet and doing something I think you’ll like in an attempt to get my way. Is it working?”
I trailed my hand down his chest, teasing his abs with my fingers.
“Yes,” he rasped when I hit the top of his pants.
“Will you create a room for Zotera? One close to ours, pretty please?” I stood on my toes, tilting my chin back to offer my lips.
“You seek to manipulate me?”
“Yep. But I warned you about it first to keep things honest. You can tell me to stop at any time, and I will.”
His hands closed around my arms, and his lips crashed down on mine.
I didn’t know how long we stood there kissing in front of Zotera, but by the time he had the sense to pull back—I had no sense at all—my fingers were in his hair, my legs around his waist, and I was panting like I’d been underwater for several minutes.
“I like when you manipulate me honestly,” he murmured. Then he gave me a sweet kiss and eased me to my feet. “The room. As you requested.”
Dazed, I looked around.
