Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2) Read online

  “I didn’t realise it was a heart.” Her eyebrows rose.

  “Aphrodite thought it would be funny, apparently.”

  Eva smiled. “It does make him look a little…”

  “Girly?” Valen had always thought so, and the twinkle in Eva’s blue eyes said she thought it too.

  Her expression turned serious and she pressed her palm to his scar. “What was yours like?”

  She just had to ask, didn’t she?

  He hated thinking about it. It was a constant reminder of what he had done and that his sister was gone.

  But there was hope now, a chance that they might be able to save her, if her soul hadn’t become corrupted.

  He cleared his throat. “Like purple lightning. It was beautiful. I used to stare at it so much as a kid, convinced I would be as strong as my uncle one day because he had given me his favour… and in the end I was weak. I let my power control me, let my anger consume me, and I still keep doing it.”

  She swept her fingers across the distorted skin of his scar, her touch tender and gentle, and a soft light entered her eyes.

  “Don’t look at me that way.” He pushed her hand away. “I don’t need your pity.”

  “It isn’t pity, Stronzo,” she whispered and tiptoed, and he stilled as her lips pressed against his.

  Gods, her kiss was so soft and light, so tender it overwhelmed him and he wasn’t sure what to do, didn’t know how to behave.

  Because no one had ever kissed him like this.

  He was used to roughness, to passion pushed to its very limit, consumed by desire and driven by need. If she had kissed him hard, bitten his lip and given him pain, playing as rough as they had before, he would have been able to handle it.

  But he couldn’t handle this.

  It was too new, too powerful.

  He had thought that the way they had been together the last two times had been everything he craved, everything he needed.

  How could he have been so wrong?

  How could she undo him so thoroughly with nothing more than a light brush of her lips across his?

  He told himself to move, to do something before she thought he really was an idiot, but he couldn’t convince his body to obey him.

  Her kiss destroyed him, tore down his strength and made him weak, but it built him back up too, piecing him together in a new way, one that felt stronger.

  Because this kiss was meant to tell him something.

  Her feelings.

  He had waited so long for someone to love, and someone to love him, that he hadn’t thought it possible, had become convinced that Zeus’s curse had been real.

  Now he could see how blind he had been.

  All that time he had been waiting for her.

  He hadn’t wanted to get involved with the females in the Underworld in any lasting way because they hadn’t been the one.

  They hadn’t been Eva.

  Her kiss grew uncertain, spurring him into action, and he took the leap, returned it as softly as he could as everything overwhelmed him, hoping she would know that he felt the same way.

  That he loved her.

  He drew her against him and kissed her softly, losing himself in it as it warmed him right down to the marrow of his bones and filled him with a lightness that carried away all his doubts and fears, leaving only Eva and this moment.

  Her hands came down against his chest and he groaned against her lips, his mind leaping forwards.

  She whispered against his lips, “So if you used to live here, does that mean you have—”

  He cut her off by teleporting her into the room she wanted to see.

  She pressed harder against him, but her kiss remained light, gentle and teasing. He moaned and gathered her closer still, but his little assassin resisted, pushing him back and breaking her lips away from his.

  She glanced around the room.

  Other than two wide sets of drawers against one of the walls, and a low wooden table that had been pushed back against the opposite wall, it was empty.

  Esher had kept the bed down though. Valen didn’t miss the unforgiving hardness of Japanese sleeping arrangements. Not even the thick blanket that acted as the mattress beneath the duvet was enough to stop him waking with an aching back in the morning whenever he slept over.

  Still, he didn’t intend to do much sleeping.

  He was going to make love with Eva.

  Gods, that shouldn’t terrify him as much as it did.

  Eva seemed to sense it, because she flashed him a wicked smile and pressed back against him, and her mouth claimed his again, a little rougher than before.

  He groaned and pinned her against his body as he lost himself in the kiss, stroking his tongue along hers and teasing her with it. She moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck, and leaped. Her legs snaked around his waist and he grabbed her backside, holding her in position, her weight nothing in his hands.

  He supposed she was right, and making love was just a matter of the feelings that went into it, the emotions they both felt.

  It didn’t have to be gentle all the time, as long as it was slow.

  Which was good, because the way she nibbled his lower lip pushed him way past being gentle with her.

  He growled and paid her back, nipping her plump lower lip between his teeth, tearing a quiet moan from her as she trembled in his arms.

  Wicked little assassin.

  He dropped to his knees and lowered her onto the bedding, covering her body with his as he continued his assault, alternating between kissing her softly, and being rough with her lip. She mewled beneath him, her hands coming down on his shoulders and fisting his t-shirt.

  “More,” she breathed against his lips and he groaned and surrendered to that command, bringing his body down into contact with hers.

  He ground against her, driving his hard cock between her thighs, but rather than giving him the pleasure he needed, it only frustrated him. He needed her naked, bared for him.

  He kissed down her chest, over the swells of her breasts, and savoured the way her heart beat frantically against his lips.

  Sweet Eva.

  She arched as he tugged aside the right cup of her green halter-top, pulling her bra with it, exposing her nipple. It tightened in the cool air, calling to him, and his cock ached and throbbed in response, driving him into obeying that call.

  He groaned and lowered his lips, wrapped them around the sweet bud and suckled it. Eva moaned and writhed beneath him, tangled one hand in his hair and clutched him to her. Delicious. He would never get enough of how she reacted to him.

  He shoved at the other side of her top, freeing her breast, and toyed with the tight bead as he suckled her other one. She jerked and moaned as he tweaked it, squeezed it between his fingers and plucked at it.

  “Valen,” she breathed, voice low with need.

  Gods, he would never get enough of that either.

  Hearing how much pleasure he gave to her almost undid him.

  He growled and released her nipple, and shifted across to latch onto the other one. She arched against him, pressing her breast into his mouth, and he hungrily devoured it as he skimmed his hand down her side. She giggled as he traced his fingers over her bare flesh beneath the hem of her top and then moaned again as he found the fly and began working on it.

  He needed her naked.

  Bared to him.

  He undid the button and lowered the zipper, and pushed his hand inside, a groan escaping him as he found her moist centre. So warm. Wet. Aching for him as he ached for her.

  He sucked hard on her nipple, tugging it as he pulled back, and she shuddered on a moan as he let it go and loomed over her. Her eyes opened, dark with need that echoed inside him.

  But need wasn’t the only feeling shining in them. There was acceptance there too, and a hell of a lot of love.

  That shot him past sweet, straight into wicked, filling him with a fierce hunger that demanded he sate it, a need to be one with her again, buried deep i
n her and claiming her as his own.

  He growled and that hunger in her eyes only grew more intense, beckoning him.

  She moaned as he yanked her jeans down to her ankles, taking her knickers with them, and didn’t resist as he removed her trainers and then them, tossing them to one side. His t-shirt followed it and he rolled onto his backside and kicked at his own boots. He needed to feel her skin on skin with him again.

  Needed to claim her.

  It seemed she was on the same wavelength, because she yanked her top off and tossed it aside to join the rest of her clothes, and he could only stare at her, his fingers paused against his fly.

  Eva grinned wickedly, shifted onto all fours and crawled over to him.

  He scowled at her. “I’m meant to be making love with you.”

  A blush stained her cheeks. “This is making love.”

  It was?

  He stared at her, unsure about that. Making love was meant to be slow at the very least, and the look in her eyes said she was proposing something markedly different from that.

  She crushed his ability to think by running her hands over his thighs and up to his hips, and he sat there staring at her like an idiot, on fire with a need that consumed him.

  A need she seemed all too happy to fulfil.

  She pressed her hands against his bare chest and gently pushed him back, and he hit the mats but didn’t feel it as she kissed down his chest, lavishing the healing wounds with attention.

  Gods, that felt good. Wonderful in fact.

  Another first for him.

  He had never had a female fuss over him like this.

  She swirled her tongue around his left nipple. He grunted as she bit it, sending hot tingles racing across his torso, and then melted into the floor as she continued downwards, trailing her lips over his stomach. She moaned low in her throat, a murmur of appreciation that stoked his male pride, rubbing it the right way.

  Her hands reached his trousers and he waited as she opened his fly, holding his breath as his hard length throbbed with need, aching to feel her hot little hands on it.

  Cool air washed over his cock.

  Warmth followed it, slick and moist, driving him out of his mind.

  He groaned and tipped his head back into the mats, his entire body going rigid as she licked down his length and back up again, and took it in her hand. He grunted as she fisted it hard, a few rough pumps that had his knees shaking, and then released him and took him into her mouth.

  Sweet gods.

  The feel of her mouth on him, her warmth surrounding him as she sucked him, slowly taking him as deep as he could go, unravelled him.

  He lay at her mercy, panting hard as feelings collided within him, swirled together and flooded him so fiercely he feared he might drown in them.

  Gods, he hadn’t lied that first night, when he had told her he could die right that moment and he wouldn’t care.

  That same feeling swept over him now, the bliss of her touch so intense that only it mattered.

  He shuddered as she stroked a hand over his balls and then grunted as she tugged them, rolled them and found a new way to drive him out of his mind.

  Too much.

  He fisted her hair and pulled her away from him, dragged her up for a kiss that he had hoped would give him time to get himself back under control.

  His little assassin had other plans.

  She rubbed her body against his and let her legs fall away from him so she was straddling him.

  Issuing a startling reminder of just where they touched.

  He groaned and grabbed her bottom, trying to force her into contact with his cock.

  She denied him, rolling off him on a giggle.

  Valen growled, rolled onto his side and caught her around the waist. He dragged her back to him, plastering his front against her back. She moaned and wriggled in his arms, her protests just a little too weak to be real.

  She liked this.

  Wicked little assassin.

  He caught her throat with his left hand and kissed the back of her neck as he lay on his side with her, trailing his right hand over her curves. She moaned again, lower and softer now, revealing her need to him. She stilled as he lifted her right thigh and slid down her body, and sighed as he fed his cock into her slowly, easing it as deep as it could go, until he met with resistance.

  Eva arched her back, taking him deeper still, and he groaned against the back of her neck and grasped her right thigh, holding it over his legs.

  “Valen,” she moaned, a soft plea.

  He shifted his left hand up to her face, twisted her head towards him and kissed her as he pulled out of her, swallowing her moan as he made her feel every inch of him and what she did to him.

  What only she did to him.

  She moaned again as he drove back in, and he tried to keep the pace slow and steady, managed it for a few strokes before the feel of her and the way she responded to him hijacked control of his body. He kissed her harder as he plunged deeper, more forceful strokes as the need to claim her took over. She moaned with each one, arched and pressed back against him, encouraging him.

  As if he needed it.

  He tightened his grip on her throat and her thigh and drove deeper, hard thrusts that had her groaning sweetly, whispering pleas for more that intoxicated him. She reached a hand down and he grunted as she fondled his balls whenever they came into reach, tugging on them and then stroking her fingers over his shaft as he withdrew.

  Sweet gods.

  He broke away from her lips and pressed his mouth against the back of her neck as he plunged into her, harder now, drinking down her moans and how she was touching him as he took her, lighting up all of his senses until he couldn’t take any more.

  He dropped his hand from her thigh and fondled her bundle of nerves, pushing her closer to the edge with him.

  She tightened around his cock, her voice strained. “Valen.”

  “Eva,” he moaned against her neck and squeezed her bud.

  She cried out, her body going rigid against him as he thrust into her, and then shattered in his arms, her legs shaking violently and core milking him, quivering around his cock.

  He lightly bit the back of her neck and screwed his eyes shut as he joined her, release blasting through him as he felt her shaking, heard her heart pounding and listened to her panted gasps of pleasure.

  Gods.

  She completely undid him.

  He held her to him, shaking with the force of his release, trembling as violently as she was in his arms, barely able to breathe.

  Eva placed her hands over his, holding him gently, and he sank against her, pulled her closer and refused to let her go. She stroked his hands, her touch light and tender, a message to him.

  She wasn’t going anywhere.

  That touched him deeply, soothed his heart and calmed his mind.

  Even when he feared that she was.

  Even when he feared he would lose her.

  CHAPTER 31

  Eva sat in the black leather wingback armchair in Valen’s apartment, staring out of the window at the moonlit rooftops of Rome, waiting for him to come back. Her heart beat unsteadily, loud in her ears, and it was hard to focus her mind and stop it from conjuring images that unsettled her.

  Visions of Benares.

  She pulled down a deep slow breath, held it for a second and then released it just as slowly.

  It was only a matter of time before he came for her.

  And he would come.

  Every instinct screamed that it was inevitable, and although it was all part of the plan, her plan, it still had her on the edge, fighting a losing battle against fear.

  How many lives had she taken as an assassin? How many times had she faced odds stacked against her so strongly that she had been convinced it was the end? She had always emerged the victor though, scraping through somehow, living to see another day.

  How many of those days had she squandered?

  Now it felt as if she
should have done something with them, should have saved them somehow to use them with Valen, as if they were a resource she could hoard and use as she wanted, when she wanted.

  Hell, she wanted more time with him.

  She could have it if she survived the next twenty-four hours.

  She just had to fight for it.

  And she would.

  She would fight for it with all of her heart, every drop of blood in her body and breath in her lungs. No matter how frightening things got, she would keep on fighting for what she wanted.

  Valen.

  She closed her eyes and blew out her breath, wishing he was here with her. He had been reluctant to leave her alone, and she had been afraid of it too, knowing what would happen when he stepped away to the gate.

  The way he had savoured every last second with her, as if it were their last, had left her feeling empty and bereft when he had teleported, as if the connection that had been blooming between them had been severed by the distance.

  As if she would never see him again.

  She pulled her legs towards her and pressed her feet into the edge of the seat, and leaned back into the chair, resting her forearms on her knees. Her eyes opened and she fixed them on Rome, aching with a need to see Valen.

  She would see him again.

  She only had to fight for it.

  Just one more fight, the biggest of her life.

  She could do it.

  For Valen.

  A noise off to her left had her gaze shooting in that direction, heart rising and warming as she looked for Valen.

  Purple-black smoke curled outwards from a single spot around four foot above the tiles, spreading until it was around five foot wide and eight foot high, and had formed an oval that flickered with green and violet sparks.

  Not Valen.

  Eva shot to her feet as an immaculate black Italian leather shoe emerged from the shimmering smoke, the crisp leg of tailored dark silver slacks following it. Her heart lodged in her throat as her mind screamed that this was it.

  Benares had come for her.

  She steeled herself and shook away her fear and her nerves, set her face in a scowl and considered reaching for the blade strapped around her ankle beneath her black jeans. She forced herself to remain away from it, because it would be her only weapon, and Benares would easily disarm her. She needed to keep it a secret.