This conversation is beyond the pale. Every movement in the air, every movement of his hand—all of them are magnified, intensified. A whisper of air, of breath, and the hem of my dress lifts.
Every inch. I feel every inch of my legs as he exposes them, little by little, torturing me. The dress reaches up above my white underwear, and a sob rips from my lungs. I’ve had my thoughts, late at night, about someday lying down with a man, someone like Decker, somebody normal and gentle, probably fumbling. It never seemed like such a big deal, like something that would swamp me so completely with feeling. With humiliation and desire and the tug of linen up to the small of my back. The desk vibrates beneath me, the train vibrates beneath me, and I shake along with it, my body out of control.
Hades curses behind me, voice laden with something dark, edging on needy.
“You’re a liar. These clothes are all for show, aren’t they? You want people to believe you’re as innocent as these panties say you are.”
“I didn’t think anyone would ever see them.” I don’t know what could possibly be a performance about what I’m doing now. If I had anything else to wear, I’d have worn that, but my mother threw out my school uniforms a long time ago.
“Except your boyfriend. You thought he might see them.” He puts one finger under the elastic and traces a fiery path underneath, and then it’s gone. “Did he like to play games with you, Persephone?” I’ve never heard a tone so deadly in my life. “Push you against a tree somewhere and let his hands creep up beneath your dress?” One big hand caresses the back of my knee and slips upward, upward, another inch upward. “Did you let other things beneath your dress?” My legs betray me. I’m frozen, hardly able to breathe, but at the touch of Hades’ hand, I move one thigh out another inch.
He laughs. I squeeze my eyes closed, which does nothing to keep the tears in.
“You gave yourself to me all for the boy who taught you about getting pregnant?”
“No, he didn’t,” I finally manage. His fingertips play at the edge of my panties. He slips one underneath again, tugging the elastic out, letting it snap back against my skin. He’s getting closer and closer to the softness between my legs and—and the dampness, and if he touches it, if he finds out, if he can see, I won’t survive. There’s no way I can live with it. I’ll be disgraced.
The moment comes anyway.
Hades cups a hand over my panties, fitting it between my widespread legs, and it forces a cry out of me. “Oh, God,” I sob, rising up on tiptoe.
He goes still but doesn’t move his hand.
He waits.
Each horrible moment bleeds into the next.
“That’s right,” he murmurs. “Push back into my hand.” My body obeys him, even if the rest of me wants to collapse to the floor. He fits his thumb into the cleft of my ass, and his fingertips brush a place only I have ever touched, and only secretly, only furtively. I would never have let Decker lift up my dress like this, not until we got married and moved into a house together. “You’re wet,” he comments, a gravelly edge to his voice.
There’s no arguing with him. I can feel it too. And I can feel the tendrils of electric desire moving outward from that pressure. I grit my teeth. I will not move my hips to get him to make contact with my clit. I will not, I will not. But my hips betray me too. It’s hardly any movement, but it’s there. I hate myself. I hate him.
“Who taught you to play this game?” He’s searching for something. Some piece of information. I don’t know what.
I never saw Decker inside the fence. We could never touch each other like this, and right now I don’t think I wanted him to touch me like this.
But you want Hades to touch you like this, says that viper’s voice.
I don’t. I don’t.
“How many of the other farm boys did you fuck?”
As Hades asks, he works his fingers into the waistband of my panties, and the entire world grinds to a halt on its axis. There’s only the vibration of the train beneath me, my hands somehow gripping the other side of the desk, and my toes trembling on the floor in my soft, ridiculous shoes.
He’s going to take the panties off, and then he’ll be able to see everything.
He’ll be able to do everything.
Hades’ fingers curl at the waistband of my panties, and the spiky edges of anticipation tear through me like a clawed beast. The words follow on a gasp, on a cry.
“I didn’t fuck anyone.” Tears, rain, there’s no difference. “I’m a virgin.”
Hades pulls the elastic away from my skin, hard enough that it digs in. The hard snap when he lets go brings me to my senses and restarts my lungs. I’m still wet between my legs. There’s nothing I can do about that. But at least I have my panties.
This momentary relief doesn’t last. My stomach turns over. Hades walks to the opposite side of the desk. I don’t dare move until he reaches down and lifts my face from the wood, holding my chin in his hand.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t—”
Something in his cold eyes chases the shakes from my muscles. I’m not fast enough for him. He plucks me off the floor, my knees barely clearing the surface of the desk, and positions me in front of him in a heap of linen. My legs burn from standing on tiptoe. They sigh with relief.
As always, it doesn’t last.
Hades pulls me to my knees. Wraps a hand around the back of my neck. Holds. He’s inches away, smelling like leather and cedar and something else, something I’ve only ever smelled on him, looking into my eyes like he’s seeing all my thoughts skittering away. He’s waiting, menace embodied, and every breath makes my breasts rise, aching for something. His touch? Not likely.
“I said don’t lie to me.” A voice like a blade. “Be a good girl and tell the truth.”
Hades twines his fingers through my hair, tugging my head back an inch. I’ll do anything. That’s what I said. Telling the truth is part of anything.
“I was telling the truth before.” I swallow, and his eyes drop to the front of my throat and come back up to meet mine. I sound hoarse, pained. “I’m a virgin. Nobody’s ever done that to me.” My voice dries into a whisper.
And Hades—
Hades smiles, displaying a row of perfectly white teeth that must be sharp enough to tear my skin. “But you’ve been waiting for it. Longing for it.”
“No. I don’t want it.” I want it more than I can say. I want it enough to run away from home. I want it enough to leave my mother and everything I’ve ever known. But it’s not just sex that I want. It’s everything that comes along with it. Everything I thought came along with it. “I especially don’t want it from you.”
“Liar. You threw yourself at me. I’ve never seen a woman more desperate to be fucked.”
Something breaks inside me, crumbling under the tension and exhaustion from the night.
“You were going to kill him. I had to do something. I had to offer you something. And now—”
“Now you’re going to get what you wanted.”
A painful sob changes into a laugh in my mouth, and I fall, tipping forward. I can’t hold myself up anymore.