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Especially when paired with a pair of wedges that wrapped up my calves.
I dabbed perfume on my wrists, then behind my ears, staring at myself in the mirror. The bruises were a slight shadow underneath the light makeup, just barely visible. My cut was still red and angry but muted by the concealer I’d dabbed on. Yes, I looked good. Fucking great. My eyes then flickered to the door, the one that was still closed.
I had taken my sweet ass time in here, and there was no way a phone call lasted that long. He wasn’t coming in. Sure, I could’ve strutted down to the living room and made the first move. I’d done it before. I liked the power of it. It was a confidence booster, that was for sure. I abhorred most of the conventional rituals surrounding dating. Rituals that gave men all of the power, that made women submissive, that left them sitting by the phone or led them to spend two hours in their bathroom.
But I wasn’t going to do that with Hades. This wasn’t about power. We were both powerless in this. I knew that he had been battling it, the attraction, this thing between us. I knew that it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced with a man, and it scared the shit out of me. Nothing about this was conventional.
I pulled the door open with the same passion that I’d recently closed it. My gaze flickered out the window, facing the driveway. His bike was still here. Of course it was. I hadn’t heard it roar off, and I’d been listening for that. But Hades wouldn’t roar off, not while my life was still in danger. Although I didn’t think it really was. I had not seen or heard from Derek since that night. No heavy breathing phone calls, no threatening notes on the windshield of my car.
I wasn’t sure if he’d scared himself off or if he thought he’d killed me. Or maybe he had been following me and realized that I was constantly in the presence of some kind of armed, alpha male wearing a patch that declared them an ultimate badass. Derek would definitely be threatened by that. He was not an alpha male. He got manicures weekly. Not that a man couldn’t be an alpha male and get manicures, but Derek was not.
It was terrible of me, but I’d pretty much forgotten about Derek. Sure, he was front and center when I jerked awake from nightmares where he’d done a lot more than beat the shit out of me, but other than that, I barely thought of him.
My mind was preoccupied, fixated on the guy who was meant to be protecting me from Derek. My mind was also focused on teaching the aforementioned guy a lesson. The lesson being me leaving the house while he was still, presumably, on the phone.
Earlier, I’d put my purse on the sideboard in my entryway, my keys in the jade bowl in the middle of it. I couldn’t hear Hades murmuring on the phone from the direction of the living room, so I figured he was taking Sirius to ‘walk the perimeter’ as he did sometimes. Or he was chain smoking on the patio as he did often.
“Where are you going?” a cold voice demanded.
I jumped, my keys clattering to the floor. Hades was leaning against the door jam, staring at me. There was challenge in his eyes, like he’d caught me doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. Like he was going to punish me for something.
Fuck did I want him to punish me for something.
I bent down to retrieve my keys, Hades’s gaze following me the entire time. That did nothing to tamp down the fire burning inside of me.
“I’m going shopping,” I answered, my throat dry.
“Shopping,” he repeated, in his predictably flat tone. There was no inflection at the end of the word, but it was a question, nonetheless.
“Yes, I’m going shopping, Hades,” I snapped, forcing my tone to be snippy because I didn’t want it to be all breathy and turned on. “Because Macy and Hansen are having a party.”
I had never met Macy, but I’d seen photos of her after while I was stalking her and all the Old Ladies on social media. I had no idea how Macy had gotten my number or knew anything about me, but I knew that I was going to her party.
“Because Macy has a boho-chic thing going that is absolutely fucking amazing,” I continued, showing off just how deep my digital stalking had gone. “Because Scarlett dresses like a sex goddess. Because Macy told me Gwen and Amy are coming, and I stalked their social media, and I think they may be the most glamorous creatures to walk planet Earth,” I rambled on. “I know you’re going to say that you’ve seen my closet and I have plenty of clothes, that I couldn’t possibly need another outfit for a party, but don’t you say that. Don’t you dare.” It was around now that I began pointing at him.
