Free Hades by Larissa Ione

and evil was so strong, my work was a little more interesting.”
    She was interesting. “How so?”
    “Well, all humans are a blend of good and evil, but they’re mostly good. They almost immediately cross over to Heaven when their Earthly bodies die.” She sank down in the chair again, gingerly, as if it would splinter. It might. Hades had made it himself, discovering in the process that he was a better Lord of Souls than he was Lord of Furniture. “The evil ones are collected by Azagoth’s griminions and brought here. But if there’s any question at all about their level of evil, griminions are supposed to leave them alone so they can either remain in the human realm as ghosts or cross over to Heaven on their own. People like that are a very specific mix of equal amounts of good and bad. And others, the ones humans call sociopaths, are even more complicated.”
    Huh. Hades had never really thought about that. Yes, he knew there were more shades of good and evil than there were stars in the sky, but it never occurred to him that there would be those who walked such a fine line that they would be difficult to place in either Heaven or Sheoul.
    “So you worked with the oddballs?”
    “We called them Neutrals. Or Shuns.” She sipped her rum, her freckled nose wrinkling delicately at that first swallow. “And yes, my job was to feel them out, I guess you’d call it.”
    He’d like to feel her out. It was probably best not to say as much. “How did you do that?”
    She smiled and gestured to her bare arms and feet. “Our skin is our power. We can’t discern good and evil the way animals, some humans, and other angels do, like a sixth sense. For us, awareness settles on our skin. That’s why I cover as little of myself as I can get away with, and what clothes I do wear need to be tight, or sensation can’t get through and I feel like I’m suffocating.”
    Now that was interesting. He’d never met anyone who shared his affection for form-fitting clothing. Most people thought tight clothes were binding, but Hades had long ago found that garments that fit like a second skin were more freeing and allowed him to feel the world around him. The air. The heat or cold. The touch of a female...when he could get it.
    He took a swig of his rum. “So did you perform your job naked?”
    Her eyes caught his, held them boldly, and damn if he didn’t stop breathing. He’d been teasing; she was not. “Some of my colleagues did.” She reached up and twirled a strand of hair around her finger, and he swore it was almost...playful. “I preferred our standard uniform of what humans would call a tube top and miniskirt.”
    He pictured that and got instantly hard. But then, he liked her in the ripped jeans and belly-revealing corset she was wearing now, too. He watched her lift the cup to her lips almost in slow motion, watched her throat work as she swallowed.
    Damn. He threw back the entire contents of his cup, desperate to get some moisture in his mouth. “And what does good and evil feel like?” he rasped. “On your skin, I mean?”
    “I’ll show you.” She moved toward him, every step popping out her hips and making her breasts bounce in a smooth, seductive rhythm. His mouth went dry again, but then it began to water as she reached out and placed her palm in the center of his chest.
    Very slowly, she dragged her hand along the contours of his pecs, her touch so featherlike that he barely felt it, and yet, he was hyper-aware of every move her hand made, every centimeter of skin her palm passed over.
    “Goodness and light,” she said softly, “is like bathing in Champagne. It’s tingly and effervescent. It wakes you up even as it relaxes you.”
    “Like sex,” he murmured. “With someone you like.”
    “With someone you like?” She blinked. “Why would you have sex with someone you didn’t like?”
    A rumbling purr vibrated his chest. “Baby, it’s like fighting, but with orgasms.”
    “And less blood, I