Chapter 32 Lavender and Ash #3
His head dropped forward, forehead pressing against my sternum.
“You don’t even realize what you’ve done,” he breathed against my skin. “Melanie, you marked yourself with our symbols before you remembered. You’ve been wearing my claim on your skin for years, and you didn’t even know.”
The heat between my thighs intensified. He snarled and flipped us in one swift motion, pinning me beneath him on the bed.
“Mine,” he growled, trailing his lips down my body to my tattoo, kissing and biting at the sensitive skin around it. I gasped, arching into him, desperate for more.
His hands tore off my underwear, the fabric giving way with a sharp rip. He tossed the ruined scrap aside, leaving me bare before him.
His breath ghosted across my skin, and I shivered. His hands gripped my thighs, spreading them wider. The exposure should have made me self-conscious, but the look in his eyes as he glanced up at me—full of hunger and dark promise—made me feel wanted in ways I had never experienced.
His mouth descended on me, and I lost all ability to form words.
The first swipe of his tongue through my folds made me cry out, my hips jerking.
He groaned against me, the vibration sending sparks through my core.
He licked and sucked, circling my clit before dipping lower to taste me fully.
My hands fisted in his hair, his name a needy moan on my lips.
His hands held me open as he worked me higher, his grip firm enough to leave marks.
I was already close, pleasure building with every pass of his tongue.
Heat coiled tighter in my belly, spreading through my limbs.
He slid two fingers inside me, curling them just right, and my orgasm ripped through me in waves.
My back arched off the bed, whimpering his name.
He didn’t stop, working me through it until I was trembling and oversensitive.
He gentled his touch as I came down, pressing soft kisses to my inner thighs. The tenderness after such intensity made my eyes sting. I looked down to find him watching me, his lips glistening. The sight sent another pulse of heat through me.
He crawled up my body to seal his lips over mine, my taste lingering on his tongue. He snapped his fingers, and his remaining clothing vanished into shadow. Then he settled himself between my thighs, his weight pressing me into the mattress.
Our eyes met, his stare so intense it nearly stole the breath from my lungs.
Then I looked down. He was huge—thick and long, flushed dark with arousal. Suddenly, Persephone’s boldness evaporated, and my confidence shattered like glass.
This was real. This was happening. I was Melanie, twenty-three, mortal, and despite Persephone’s memories blazing in my mind, I had never done this before. Not in this body or this lifetime. The fear was visceral, a cold knot in my stomach that made my breath come short.
He must have felt the way I tensed because the feral hunger in his eyes banked, replaced by concern—the predator becoming protector in a heartbeat.
“Hey,” he said, one hand coming up to cup my face. “Look at me, Tealeaf.”
I met his gaze, my heart racing for entirely different reasons now.
“We don’t have to do this,” he murmured, his thumb stroking my cheek in slow, soothing circles. “Not if you’re not ready. I’m not going anywhere.”
I leaned into his touch, taking a breath to steady myself. He pressed his forehead to mine.
“If you want this, we’ll go slow. I will never hurt you, Mel.”
Gods help me, that only made me want him more. I brushed my nose against his. “Kian?”
“Yes?” He asked. I nipped lightly at his bottom lip, and his breath hitched.
“Stop talking.”
He kissed me, deep and achingly tender. I felt the tension drain from my body. He positioned himself at my entrance, the head of his cock pressing against me. He paused, finding my eyes.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough but gentle. “If it’s too much, if you need me to stop, you tell me. Understand?”
I nodded.
He pushed carefully into me, just the tip, watching my face. I gasped at the stretch. It was intense, not quite pain but a fullness that bordered on too much. My hands gripped his shoulders, nails digging in.
“Breathe,” he murmured, holding perfectly still. “Just breathe, love.”
I focused on my breathing, willing myself to relax. The stretch eased as my body adjusted. He pushed in another inch, and I whimpered at the sensation of being filled.
I was panting now, my body taut as he pressed in more and more, groaning low in his chest. One more slow push, and he was seated inside me, buried to the hilt. For a moment, I couldn’t think or breathe. I could only feel.
“Fuck,” he rasped, forehead pressed hard to mine. “You’re perfect. So tight—”
His words dissolved into a moan as I clenched around him, testing the sensation. Pleasure began to build, replacing the discomfort. I wrapped my legs around his waist, changing the angle. The shift made him slide even deeper, sending sparks through every nerve.
“Move,” I whispered. “Please.”
He pulled back almost all the way out, the drag of him against my inner walls sending sparks of pleasure through me. Then he thrust back in. I cried out as his cock hit something deep inside me that made stars burst behind my eyes.
He set a slow rhythm at first, his body trembling with the effort of restraint. Each thrust was deliberate and controlled. The sounds of our bodies joining filled the room, mixing with our gasps and moans.
“More,” I begged, dragging my nails down his back.
His control faltered. His hips snapped forward with more force, each thrust pushing me higher, unraveling me stroke by stroke.
Pleasure built with each movement, coiling tighter in my belly.
Shadows licked at the ceiling, writhing around us.
The temperature in the room dropped, my breath misting in the air even as his body was furnace-hot against mine.
“Hades,” I gasped, arching against him.
He made an inhuman sound, between a growl and a moan, and hiked one of my legs up over his shoulder, driving even deeper. The new position let him hit that spot inside me with every thrust, and my mind went blank. I trembled, pleasure building to a peak. A whimper escaped my lips.
“Come for me,” he commanded. “Let me feel you fall apart.”
The coil in my belly wound tighter and tighter until it snapped. I shattered, my orgasm ripping through me with a force that left me sobbing his name, my body clenching around him.
“Fuck—” he choked out, and then he was following me over the edge. He buried himself as deep as he could go and came with a roar that shook the walls.
He collapsed on top of me, both of us gasping for air.
His weight was heavy but grounding, his heart pounding against my chest. I hardly noticed the shadows receding or the temperature returning to normal.
We lay there wrapped in each other, neither of us able to move. Every nerve thrummed with aftershocks.
He propped himself up on his elbows to look at me. His eyes were soft now, the wildness fading into something tender. I moved to smooth the damp hair from his forehead, the strands silky and sweat-dampened. He caught my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm before holding it against his cheek.
“You undo me,” he murmured, his voice breaking just enough to betray how much truth sat in those three words.
I could have told myself it was Persephone he was seeing, that this intensity came from a millennium of history. But the way his gaze softened when it landed on me made something inside me crack wide open.
He rolled to the side, nestling me against his chest. I sighed as I rested my head above his racing heart.
“I think,” I murmured after a long moment, “we might be terrible at taking things slow.”
Kian chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest.
“Horrible,” he agreed. “Catastrophically bad at it.”
“Epic failure,” I added with a grin.
I tilted my face to look up at him. The lamplight bathed his features in amber, his curls a complete mess from my fingers, jaw rough with stubble. But his eyes…
His eyes were quiet now, worshipful in a way that made my breath catch.
“I can feel you thinking,” he said, thumb brushing from my temple to my cheek. “Loudly.”
“I’m trying not to,” I confessed, sighing.
“What’s getting in the way?”
I hesitated, fingers trailing over the ridged scars on his ribs. “I don’t know which feelings are mine and which ones are hers. Persephone’s, I mean.”
His hand stilled on my spine, listening.
“The way I feel when I look at you,” I continued, “is that because my soul remembers loving you for millennia? Because Persephone loved Hades so completely that it’s written into my bones?
” I pressed my palm flat against his chest. “Or is it because I—Melanie—am falling for you? It feels like me, but it’s hard to be sure. ”
He was quiet for a long beat. Then: “What if they’re not so different?”
I propped my chin on his chest to look at him. “What do you mean?”
His thumb stroked along my skin. “You talk like she’s a stranger living in your skin.
Like, Persephone is someone separate, someone you have to compete with.
But every version of you I’ve known has had the same heart.
Fierce but gentle. Compassionate and uncompromising.
Terrifyingly brave when it comes to protecting people you love. ”
He lifted my wrist and pressed a kiss to the mark there. “You’ve worn so many faces, but at your core, you were always you. The circumstances changed, the faces changed, the names changed. But your soul? Your essence? That’s remained constant.”
“I don’t think it’s about separating Melanie from Persephone,” he continued.
“I think it’s about recognizing you’ve always been both.
She’s not someone else—she’s you. Just you in a different time.
And you’re her, evolved, changed by new experiences, but fundamentally the same person making the same choices. ”