Chapter 14 #3
No, this is the kind of stunning that sneaks up on you, layered and devastating.
Seeing him naked for the first time is a gift I don’t remember asking for but one I wouldn’t dream of ever returning.
His body is lean, all lines and quiet power.
Broad shoulders, narrow waist, muscles defined out of necessity, not vanity.
And his chest.
Fuck, his chest.
A trimmed spread of dark hair lies across his pecs, perfectly manicured, just enough texture to make my fingers ache to touch him. It narrows into a thin line down the center of his torso, inviting my hands…my mouth and entire soul…to follow it.
I reach out without thinking, fingers brushing the soft hair over his chest, and his breath catches. The sound shoots straight through me.
“Jesus, Hayden,” I whisper before my brain can interfere. “You’re…ridiculously beautiful.”
His eyes flick down to where I’m touching him and I swear the air thickens.
I drag my hand lower, tracing the hair down his stomach, and he exhales like I’ve undone him…just a little. My fingers skim along the sharp line of his hip, and that’s when my gaze drops.
His thighs.
Thick, strong, and beautifully cut. The kind of thighs you want wrapped around you. The kind you want to sink between and stay there forever. Heat punches low in my stomach. Those thighs alone could end me, revive me, and end me all over again.
“All of…this,” I pant, “should require a permit. A big one. With signatures.”
His cock twitches, thick and quickly hardening against his thigh, as a small, dangerous smile curves his lips.
And I’m gone.
He presses me back onto the bed, slow but certain. There’s urgency, yes…but not desperation. It’s reverent. Every brush of his fingers, every graze of his teeth against my collarbone, feels like a question asked without words.
And I answer in kind. Arching into him, pulling him closer, threading my fingers into his hair, mussed and falling into his eyes, as he slides my briefs down my legs.
Hayden’s kisses burn. His breath stutters. And then…his shadows move.
At first, a twitch at the edge of the room. Then I feel it. We’re tangled in bed, and my hands are on him everywhere, and suddenly, there’s another sensation. A touch that isn’t hands. Like satin against skin. It drags up my thigh with the reverence of prayer and the intent of sin.
I freeze, just long enough for him to notice.
“Levi?” he whispers, his voice raw.
I blink. “Is that…you?”
His brows pull together, panic flickering across his face in the dim light. “I—shit. I can stop. I didn’t…”
“Don’t,” I breathe against his lips, grip tightening in his hair. “Please don’t fucking stop. I want them.”
The shadows ripple in response, almost like they’ve heard me. One curls behind my neck; another grazes my shoulder. It should feel strange. It should feel terrifying.
But it doesn’t.
It feels like him. All of him.
I gasp when one of the shadows trails higher up my thigh, twisting behind my knee. The sensation is icy and warm, like static and the promise of more.
“Holy shit,” I pant, my voice dropping. “That feels insanely good.”
Hayden stills, breath hot against my chest. “They aren’t…normally like this.”
I slide my hand up the back of his neck, my thumb brushing behind his ear. “I’m not complaining.”
Surprise breaks through the practiced control of his face.
And god, if that isn’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
His shadows are bolder, wrapping my wrists, sliding over ribs and hips. They glide across my skin like water the moment it becomes a wave. Cold and warm, grounded and otherworldly. Disorienting, and oh so Hayden.
“They’re my echo,” he says, his breath hot at my neck, and fuck, the intimacy of it punches the breath right out of me. “You touch me, they answer.”
Every inch of my body is his playground now. Every shiver, every moan, every desperate grind amplified because with his shadows, he doesn’t need his hands to touch me everywhere at once.
I wrap a leg around his waist, dragging him closer, pressing my forehead against his. “Wait.”
He goes still instantly. Eyes dark, jaw tight. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, hand resting over his thrumming heart. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I just…before this goes any further, we should…”
His shadows pulse at my hips, like they’re waiting, too.
Hayden’s lips twitch. “The talk?”
“Yeah,” I say, fingertips tracing the dip of his spine. “The talk.”
He nods, all serious again. “Recently tested. You?”
“Same. And I’m on PrEP.”
“Me, too.”
I grin, letting my palm flatten against his ass. “Hades on PrEP is my Roman Empire. To be a fly on the wall at that appointment.”
He bites my lower lip gently, eyes flashing with amusement. “I take all my responsibilities seriously.”
Swoon.
“Broody and responsible? Are you trying to kill me?”
He smiles, but there’s something behind it. A flicker of honesty.
“Truth is, I don’t really get sick. Not like most people do.
But I also don’t know how any of it would affect me.
And I’ve been living long enough to know that just because I’m not exactly like everyone else doesn’t mean I get to ignore the rules.
” Hayden exhales softly. “I may not age. I may not break easily. But I live here now. I don’t get to treat other people’s bodies as less than mine. ”
He looks at me, steady and so certain.
“So, yeah. I get tested. I’m on PrEP. I take precautions.”
His admission cracks open my chest. It’s…intimacy. Ownership. More care than I was expecting from him. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me but it does: how much it turns me on when someone shows up with that kind of quiet responsibility.
“That,” I whisper, fingers tracing the edge of his jaw, “might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said.”
His face shifts, just a little. As if the words hit somewhere deeper than they should. So, I kiss him again, slower now. Not claiming. Not asking.
Just…savoring.
He kisses me back and his shadows move with us, against us, around us.
When I push him down on the bed, they rise like smoke.
His hands grip my shoulders. His breath hitches when I move lower, and when I take him into my mouth, they’re there, too.
Extra hands holding me while he falls apart.
He gasps, half wrecked, because he can feel them, too.
Feel them curling under me, touching me where he can’t.
They coax me forward, guiding me gently but insistently, encouraging me to move so that my knees straddle his hips. His hands dig hard into my thighs and my hands press his chest, his heartbeat steady under my palms. Warm. Real. Mine.
I brush my nose along his jaw. “Do you have”—I pause, the need in my voice making the words stick in my throat—“lube?”
He nods, breathless. “Top drawer,” he says, tipping his head toward the sleek nightstand beside the bed.
I reach for it, fingers fumbling, and flip the cap open with a soft click. The liquid coats my hand, heat and adrenaline coiling low in my stomach.
Hayden’s eyes follow every movement, pupils blown wide, lips parted, chest rising and falling in shallow pulls of breath. His shadows mirror him. Arching, swirling, draping across the sheets, as desperate as he is.
When I finally wrap my hand around his thick cock, his hips jolt, and a low groan escapes him.
The shadows react instantly, pressing along my spine, grazing the inside of my thigh.
They guide me lower, wrapping around my calves like they’re tethering me to him.
When I position myself over him, the sensation of his head pressing against my hole causes my eyes to roll backward.
We don’t rush. Every touch feels like a question; every answer, my body giving in.
When I finally sink down onto him, inch by greedy inch, it steals the air from my lungs.
He stretches me open, wide and aching and perfect, until I’m blinking through stars behind my eyes.
His hands tighten on my hips as I pause at the base, giving me a second to get used to the sensation of him filling me.
My breath catches in my throat as he thrusts upward for the first time, his cock stretching me in all the ways I like, and I see it in his face.
The way he falls apart from the feel of me. From this.
He’s underneath me, undone, but his shadows trace the slope of my neck, gentle and possessive. I lace our fingers, and cool smoke wraps around them, too.
It’s like Hayden is everywhere…beneath me, inside me.
We move together, slow and desperate, the room gone quiet as I ride his cock with intention.
His hands are on my hips, guiding me, grounding me, and every time I move, he exhales like I’m teaching him something he never knew he needed.
I lean forward, palms braced on his chest, sweat slick between us, so he can get a better angle with each thrust.
“Fuck,” Hayden mutters, his voice rough and reverent. “You feel…unreal.”
I grin, breathless. “You’re one to talk.”
He opens his eyes, barely, and looks up at me like I’m the one who’s divine. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
I shift my hips, squeezing slightly just to watch his face contort as my ass grips his throbbing cock, to hear the groan that rips from his throat. “Little late for that, isn’t it?”
He laughs, wrecked and unguarded, before pulling my lips to his. The room goes quiet again, all skin and shadow, and it makes me feel drunk. Drunk on him. On this.
Mid-thrust, mid-moan, it hits: I’m riding the god of the fucking underworld. His cock buried inside me while his shadows stroke me as if I’m their newest obsession.
Hades.
Bringer of death. Myth says he’s the end of stories. Tonight, he’s my favorite beginning. He’s gasping under me. Gripping my waist. Pumping in and out of my ass. Letting me touch him like I’m the one in power.
Holy shit.
His eyes flutter open, lips parted. “Did I…miss something?”
I blink, stunned. “Sorry. Just…minor epiphany.”
Hayden grabs my ass with a vise grip, thrusting upward as he holds me firmly in place. Fuck. He arches a brow, amusement shimmering behind his hooded eyes. “Should I be concerned?”
I lean down, kissing the corner of his mouth as I rock back onto the length of this beautiful man. “Not unless you’re easily offended. I just remembered you’re literally Hades.”
Hayden groans, head falling back against the pillow. “Are you seriously thinking about that…right now?”
“Kind of hard not to,” I breathe, rolling my hips again just to prove a point. “This feels…mythic.”
His shadows surge in response, snaking up my spine in agreement.
“Focus, Levi,” he growls playfully, dragging my mouth back to his as the tempo of his thrusts increases. “You can worship me later.”
I laugh into the kiss. “Already am.” I say it like a vow. My body means it.
“Mmm, you’re right to do so,” he hums, bringing my lip between his teeth, and the thought of being good for him sends me into uncharted arousal territory. We find our rhythm again, breathless and desperate for the space between us to shrink to nothing.
Shadows sweep up the sheets, holding me in place as he works over my ass. My hands can’t decide what they want to touch more, his chest or his hair or my dripping cock. Every time I roll my hips, taking him deeper, he gasps, low and ragged.
“Do you like my ass?” I pant, grinding down. “Do you like seeing yourself slide in and out of me?”
“Mmm.” His jaw tightens, the tempo of his thrusting increasing. “You’re taking it so good. So fucking good.”
He’s close. His breath stutters, hands shifting from guiding to gripping, bracing for impact with every thrust.
His voice breaks on my name.
“Levi—” It’s a warning. A plea.
I slow, my hole teasing the most sensitive head of his cock.
“Let go,” I whisper, chest heaving. “I’ve got you.”
He grips my hips hard, thrusting upward once, twice, and then I know he’s about to finish.
“Oh my…” he pants, his lips feverish against mine.
“I’m going to cum. Levi, fucking hell, I’m going to…
” Hayden’s body tenses, shadows writhing wildly around us, then softening as he exhales as if he’s never needed anything so badly in his life.
His forehead presses to my shoulder, his body shuddering as he pours into me.
I moan as his cock throbs deep, rope after rope of his nut filling me whole; the shudder goes through me like a bell.
I hold him through it. Every second.
And then his hands slide down my spine, slipping between us, taking my aching cock in his sure hand, and suddenly, I’m the one unraveling.
He’s still hard. Hard enough to get me over the edge, as his shadows push me down onto him, phantom limbs coaxing the orgasm out of me.
“Fuck,” I groan, trying to hold back, but he knows exactly what my body craves.
“Cum for me,” he commands, pumping me with ruthless precision. “Be a good boy and show me how beautiful you are when you fall apart.”
Fucking kill me.
It doesn’t take long. I’m already shaking, already too far gone from the sensation of him breeding me, using me.
And with one more brush of his hand and the shadows pushing me down on his cock, I snap.
Spilling over the edge with a hoarse oh my fucking god, my hands clenched in the sheets, anchoring me to this moment.
Hayden watches in awe as I paint the lines of his stomach with thick cum. He trails a finger through the mess I just made and brings it to my lips, a sweet offering, and I nearly finish again.
He pulls me down into his arms as my orgasm reverberates through me. For a long minute, neither of us speaks.
Finally, he exhales into my hair.
“Holy fu…” is all I manage, turning in to his chest, and I feel him laugh, low and delighted.
“Accurate,” he murmurs, voice gravel soft.
The shadows recede, slow and languid, slinking into corners like voyeurs. Satisfied and sated, they’ve had their fill of pleasure and intimacy for the night.
But I don’t move.
I curl into Hayden, still pulsing with the echo of every thrust, our legs tangled and hearts racing.