Page 392 of The First Taste
I arch a brow, not sure what she’s talking about. Or how her little hands can be like two blocks of ice.
“What’s that now?”
She sighs, her hazel eyes slipping closed. “I think, after you saved my life, you can call me Penny. Persephone is like… some ancient woman that I don’t even know. You should call me Penny.”
My hands stop rubbing small circles into her back. I tilt my head, taking her measure for a moment.
She opens her eyes and peers up at me, her face both sleepy and completely, utterly open. Her brown-green gaze spears me; in this moment, touching her innocently, being so damned close to her heady scent and lovely warm curves…
It’s bewitching. Almost without thought, I say her name back to her, staring into her eyes.
“Penny.”
The word is soft, light on my tongue. I let it drift away. The corners of her mouth turn upward in the hint of a smile.
Her eyes close again. “Thanks,” she whispers.
I start rubbing her back again. She lets out a sigh, so soft as to be all but silent.
This girl?
She’s dangerous. I have no idea if she even realizes it. But she is definitely angling to entrap me.
For what purpose, I have no idea. But I can feel my heart thumping in my chest. Feel her soft, supple skin as I stroke it reassuringly.
I know what is happening. I am starting… beginning to…
Feel… things.
But for the life of me, I can’t pull away. I stare down at Penny, gently rubbing her back. And I wish that I could be different.
I wish… I wish I could be the type of man that keeps girls around him. The kind of man that could…
Could make her want to stay.
I know I can’t.
I know that trying would be a painful and embarrassing failure.
I can’t be like any other man. I know no other way.
But just for now… just while we are here, in this manor, in this place that’s full of ghosts… I can pretend.
I gently push her back. She protests but I scoop her up in my arms, taking the chair for myself.
Penny yawns and immediately makes herself at home in the crook of my arm. I stay like that, stroking her lovely raven hair and enjoying the feeling of her light weight against my lap until the house falls dark.
Persephone
“Were ye trying to run away?”
Brows arching, I look up from my breakfast tray in the huge navy-hued bedroom I woke up in this morning, Hades is leaning against the doorway, cutting a dark figure in his dark shirt and pants. Pushing away the toast and half-eaten egg, I try to sit up.
Pain radiates from my scabbed-over wound.
“Ahhh,” I hiss, pressing my fingers over it lightly. The dressing has been changed, although I don’t know by whom.
Things just seem to happen around Hades. Unseen hands do much of the dull work.
