Three Kinds of Trouble by Anne Malcom

Chapter Ten

We were watching Game of Thrones.

Not a word had been said about my little outburst the night before or what Hades had said after it. But he was here when I woke up. And he was still here when Marilyn arrived. Hansen—the bald, attractive, muscled president of the club—had come by, being gentle and kind to me before heading out to the patio with Hades to have a man huddle. He’d stayed for cookies and coffee and showed me pictures of his kids.

Hades had sat there with four cookies of his own, not offering any conversation. But he was there. He’d been here all day.

Things weren’t awkward between us. They should’ve been, but they weren’t. Things were energized, that much was clear. The majority of the day, there’d been buffers. Marilyn. Jed. Hansen. Even Sirius, needing his walk, which Hades accompanied me on while letting me babble about all kinds of shit that didn’t matter.

I’d come back to shower, to put on jeans that looked amazing on my ass and could pass off as casual. And a thin-strapped cami with lace around the top and the bottom. No bra.

Because I was done with this. With him getting me worked up and nothing coming of it. Yeah, I probably should’ve waited a little longer for my body and soul to heal before I seduced the dangerous biker, but I was going insane.

So I put on the outfit, did my hair. Makeup was still a crapshoot.

Hades had gone still when I’d walked into the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner. His eyes had stayed pinned to my chest for five seconds—I’d counted—his jaw marble. Then he’d stalked outside to smoke.

He’d sat across from me at the dinner table silent. I had been too turned on, too nervous to even babble. The only sounds were the music coming from my speaker and the clattering of our utensils against our plates.

When we were done, he’d snatched my plate from underneath me and refused to let me help with the dishes.

“Find somethin’ for us to watch,” he’d demanded.

Find something.

For us.

I’d never been more nervous. It’s what I imagined an inexperienced teenage girl might’ve felt like. I had never been an inexperienced teenage girl, never gifted with that giddy, overwhelming yet exciting fear.

I was not a girl. I was a woman. A smart one. Which was why I chose Game of Thrones.

Hades finished the dishes, refilled my glass of wine then sat on the other end of the sofa. Sirius immediately hopped over and pressed himself as close to Hades as physically possible. I pouted at my dog over my wine, very jealous of his ability to show his affections to this man without fear of rejection.

With great difficulty, I moved my attention from the hot, tattooed, muscled man cuddling with my dog on my sofa.

I’d picked the episode carefully. It was one I’d watched before. More than once. The episode that included the scene where Daenerys, the small, blonde queen takes control of Khal Drogo, a large, dangerous, deadly man. I really hoped it would tip Hades over the edge.

We watched in silence, Hades not asking questions about the show or why we hadn’t started at the beginning. He just watched. My body was coiled tight from tension and Hades’s close proximity. I kept moving on my side of the sofa, watching Hades out of my periphery. His attention seemed to be wholly on the show, and I couldn’t very well stare straight at him, so I pretended that my attention was also wholly on the show.

Then the scene began.

My grip around the stem of my wine glass tightened, and my breathing became shallow. Suddenly, I regretted this. I regretted this very fucking hard.

Okay, watching a graphic, very well-done sex scene with a dangerous, sculpted, muscled, sinful biker sex god in the same room as me had to be the most embarrassing thing in the entire world. Not the kind of embarrassment that you had when you watched a graphic sex scene with someone who was related to you, where you pursed your lips, looked straight ahead and non-verbally agreed to not say a single fucking word nor acknowledge what was going on, hoping it would fucking end.

No, not that.

Something else that sent heat up my neck to my flaming cheeks. Then more heat down, all the way down between my legs. I swallowed, refusing to look in the direction of the man who was no longer watching the scene on the television. His stare was zeroed in on me. Sirius, as if he’d sensed the sexual tension in the room and it was inappropriate for him to be sitting here, chose that moment to jump off the couch.

Without the canine barrier between us, the air became thicker, hotter, heavier. I could barely breathe around it. I didn’t want to breathe, to accidently puncture this moment.

“How long has it been since you’ve been fucked, Freya?”

My heart stopped beating. My skin flamed with fire, my body was thrumming with need, with shock at what he’d just asked me.

I’d been sure something was going to happen. Something like Hades getting up and walking out to chain smoke in the driveway again. Another kind of rejection, more walls being erected between us.

But not this.

“It’s been ... a while,” I admitted, picking at lint on my jeans, uncomfortable with this conversation, with this man, and uncomfortable with the hunger that had been steadily building since the first night I met him

His stare was unyielding. Even though he was at the other end of my large sofa, it seemed like he was right next to me.

Right fucking there.

His Adam’s apple moved visibly as he swallowed, his eyes devouring me. There was no second guessing it now, Hades wanted me. He really fucking wanted me. Sitting here with bruises covering my face, no makeup, in more clothes than I usually wore, he wanted me.

“How long has it been for you?” I rasped.

Hades went still. I shivered as the air changed.

“Go to bed, Freya,” he ordered. “And make yourself come thinking about me.”

I stared at his back as he left for the front yard, frozen by his voice, the words, the gaze that turned my nipples hard and left my panties soaking.