I smooth her hair back from her face, moving my hips slowly, the urge to come as strong as I have ever felt it. “What is it, my queen? What?”
“Turn over.” Persephone pushes at my shoulders, and I roll onto my back, bringing her with me.
She sinks down on me, arching her back, and drags her nails over my chest. Fucking hell, she’s delectable and her desire for control is heady.
“Like this,” she gasps, and circles her hips. “Like this. I want you to come like this. While I ride you.”
My fingers dig into the flesh of her hips, and I guide her on my hard cock. Persephone moans, folding forward to wriggle her hips onto me, then arches back again. She comes again, insatiable, then looks down at me with a glint in her eyes.
“You look…as if…” It’s more work for her to ride me, but she does it beautifully. Persephone puts all of her body into each movement, going down as far as she can, throwing her head back. “As if you might come.”
I thrust up, pulling her down at the same time, then do it again. Persephone gasps, her pussy beginning to flutter around me. I find her clit with the pad of my thumb and circle it relentlessly, thrusting as I do.
Persephone tries to stay in control as she rides, but she melts under my touch, the circles of her hips trembling. I’m on the edge of losing myself inside her.
She parts her lips and cries out as her orgasm races through her. I pull her down, buried in her as deeply as I can get.
My release is so intense that I cannot tell I am shouting. I only know it is me after a few minutes, when another surge comes and my voice falters with it. The pleasure seems to last forever. It is the longest release I have ever had, and it erases some of the loneliness I have felt. It makes those moon cycles seem as though they passed in hours, not weeks.
Everything is more intense.
Persephone bends down with my cock still inside her. She kisses my neck and my cheek and my lips as I come down.
It takes a long time. Persephone is so warm and soft in my arms, and my release was so strong, that my vision stays dark for a while. I run my hands over her back, tracing the line of her spine, then run my fingers through her hair.
When I can finally see again, Persephone is smiling down at me, her face pink and her hair tangled, radiant and satisfied and completely at peace.
“Hello,” she says softly, brushing her fingers through my hair.
“Hello, my queen,” I say, and kiss her again.
We kiss like we have all the time there ever was in all the realms. When we finally break away, Persephone laughs with a happy sigh.
“I missed you.”
“And I you.”
Epilogue
Persephone
* * *
The fire before me is warm and bright, roaring in the grate. It doesn’t matter that the days have been growing longer so gradually. We have such strong firelight that our rooms are lit with the warmth of the flames.
With nothing but comfort, I lounge on a sofa before the fire, leaning against my king, his arm around me and a book in my lap. It’s pages are worn and the cover is a leather binding with no name.
It’s the book Silvie brought for me. I have studied it, little by little, during this year’s moon cycles with my king. I’ve taken each word, and each sentence, and each spell slowly, letting them sink into my mind and bloom there while we go about our days. The grimoires in the Underworld are ancient magic, some lost to those in Olympus, and I will return it.
In winter, the days are shorter in the Underworld as well. That means we have more time to walk the paths and tend to the various places throughout the realm. It means there is a slower pace to all that happens, so when we meet a soul in the realms, there is no rush. We can pause and speak to them for as long as we wish.
Many more souls speak with Hades now. Silvie has told me that he was not so open before he took me as his queen. He did not spend much time at all coming to know the souls who dwell in his realms. He was lonely, Silvie will admit if I press, but he absorbed himself in his work and his duties and did not reach out to find connections.
Now, we have found a balance. There are sessions at court and meetings with advisers. There are walks among the realms with Cerberus and without him. There are places to visit to ensure they remain in good repair. There are souls to speak with. There are chances each day to break bread with others. There are celebrations in Elysium and peace in the meadows.
And there are quiet evenings alone. There are the meals we linger over, taking a blanket and glasses of wine to the floor in front of the sofa, sharing grapes and sweets until we cannot keep our hands off one another and must go to bed.
Or at least we must clear away the food so that it is not crushed in the midst of our passion.
