Erin shrugged. “I’ve just been busy with work and haven’t been out much other than to stay with my boyfriend.”
The mortal male’s blue eyes shot to him. His smile was nothing short of flirtatious.
Veiron stiffened.
“Well, hello handsome.”
Veiron took a step backwards and the man chuckled, his attention returning to Erin. “I take it he isn’t into same sex partners?”
Erin shook her head and looped her arm around Veiron’s. He was still trying to catch up. This was the man who Erin had said she would flirt with to make him jealous? A man who had a partner called Allan and who was looking at him as though he was a wet dream come true?
“He’s one hundred percent straight and one hundred percent mine,” Erin said on a smile and Veiron’s gaze shot to her, his blood burning for a different reason now.
Mine.
You. Are. Mine.
He wanted to growl it and kiss her, to reach right down to her soul and shake her to her core so she knew it. She belonged to him now.
And forever.
“I didn’t call by to show off my new toy though. I forgot my keys at his house and need to get into my flat. Can I have my spares?” Erin stroked his arm and Veiron couldn’t take his eyes off her, or his mind off that one word as it hammered inside his skull and beat in his blood.
Mine.
She had said it too. Did she feel the same way as he did? Did her blood heat in her veins whenever their eyes met and her heart pound whenever they touched? When they had made love last night, had she felt connected all the way down to her soul, as though they were made for each other?
The man disappeared, shifting to the periphery of Veiron’s senses. He jingled as he returned and held out a set of keys to Erin.
She took them with a smile, said something Veiron didn’t hear, and took her leave. Veiron followed her, hazy and lost in his thoughts, trying to decipher whether Erin had experienced the same depth of feelings as he had in her arms.
Had she meant what she’d said or had it just been an act?
He needed to know.
She unlocked a plain white door and pushed it open. Veiron caught her arm when she went to walk straight in, pulled her back in line with him and turned her to face him.
“Wait here,” he said and stalked into the apartment. It was spacious and open plan for the most part. There was a wall on the right of the huge white room, dividing what he discovered was the bedroom. Massive windows to his left let the fading evening light flood into the equally white room. The only colours were the rich purple covers on the double bed in the middle of the room and a wall of lilac glass blocks to his right that separated the bathroom from the bedroom.
Veiron turned on his heel and backtracked into the main room of the loft apartment. The ceiling was open and industrial, all silver pipes and dark concrete, and a contrast to the pale wooden floor and the crisp white walls. A bright red sofa stood in front of a large flat screen television screwed to the wall of the apartment nearest the door. At a right angle to it was a black chaise longue scattered with paper and books. A glass coffee table equally swamped with books filled the space between them.
He cast a quick glance at the open kitchen. The cupboards lining the wall and floor were a shocking shade of pink that matched the island that formed a barrier between the kitchen and living room. That was the only startling thing in the apartment. He had never figured Erin as a Barbie pink sort of woman.
No one was here.
He nodded to Erin.
She entered and closed the door behind her. A flicker of nerves shone in her eyes, a potent reminder that the last time she had been here, one of his kind had come and dragged her down to Hell.
Veiron felt sorry for her as she moved around the apartment, cautious, alert, and afraid. This place was clearly her home but she obviously no longer felt that way. What had happened had left her feeling wary of the place, scared that something bad would happen to her again.
“I’ll just get some things together and we can go,” she said and hurried into her bedroom.
Veiron occupied himself by looking around her apartment. The sun had set beyond the bank of windows along one wall of the expansive room. He strode over to them and looked out at the hotchpotch rooftops, and then at his surroundings. It was a beautiful apartment, modern and clean. He was surprised when his gaze fell on an area close to the windows. A large monitor took up most of the space on the white desk against the wall that closed off the bedroom. It was almost as big as the television. Other equipment filled the rest of the desk. Some large black flat thing with something that looked like a pen resting on it. A wire attached it to the computer tower beside the monitor.
What really took Veiron’s breath away was the stack of canvases leaning against the wall next to the desk. He picked one up and couldn’t stop there. Each one was more beautiful than the last, scenes of incredible alien lands and enchanting forests and mountains. The colours in them vibrated, bursting with life. In the corner of each, small neat letters formed Erin’s name. These were her paintings. There were no art materials in the room though. Had she painted them elsewhere? He looked closer at the canvases and realised they were printed. His gaze slid to the wide black thing on the desk and the pen. Had Erin drawn these on her computer?
He had never seen such vivid imagery captured by the human hand before. It looked so real, as though he could step into each painting and find himself in that world born of her imagination.
“Veiron, I just want to—” She stopped dead in the doorway of her bedroom. “What are you doing?”
He frowned when she hurried over and tried to take the canvas from his grip. Her cheeks blazed red. Was she angry?
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I just saw them and I couldn’t help taking a closer look.”
“I’m not upset, really... they’re silly... just... give it to me please?”
Not angry. Embarrassed. Why? They were amazing.
“They’re beautiful, Erin. Did you do all of these?”
Her cheeks burned a deeper shade and she averted her eyes. The smallest nod in the world was her answer. An artist who couldn’t take compliments. Or perhaps it was because he was the one complimenting her that she blushed so deeply.
He smiled to alleviate her nerves. “If I had an apartment like this, I would want art like yours on my walls. They really are beautiful. You’re very talented.”
She nibbled her lip and came forwards, standing close to him so she could see the one he admired. It was a dragon curled around a spire of rock, its leathery wings furled close to its spiky back. A wintry landscape stretched far beyond it. A white castle loomed in the distance, and snowy pines stretched high and dark to the left, filling the middle of the painting and enclosing the castle on one side and a lake on the other. Pale sunlight streamed down through broken clouds and made the frozen lake in the foreground twinkle.
It was the dragon that fascinated him though. So much detail. Its scales sparkled, iridescent like a beetle’s shell, a multitude of colours. Its eyes were amber and bright, red flecks burning in them. Smoke curled from its crocodilian jaw, escaping from between sharp hooked teeth.
“It’s one of my favourites,” Erin whispered and then stepped away from him. “I have the dragon tattooed on my back.”
She turned around, removed his leather jacket, setting it down on her desk, and then tugged her black baby-doll t-shirt up to reveal her back.
Veiron put the canvas down with the others and stared at her back. He ran his fingers over her soft skin, following the elaborate design of the dragon that curled around her spine just as the one in the painting curled around the rock. It disappeared into her flesh and reappeared further down, as though it really was wrapped around her spine, a part of her. This one had its wings spread though, stretched across her shoulder blades.
Wings like his.
He traced them and she shivered, and he felt the mood shift and his desire rising.
It didn’t stop him. Nothing could. Not even Hell erupting on Earth.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured and she looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes dark with arousal. “You’re beautiful.”
Erin turned to face him. She smiled, wicked and mischievous, bewitching, and took hold of his hand. She walked backwards, bringing him with her, leading him towards the bedroom.
“Where are we going?” he said, eyes on her and only her.
Her smile hit him hard. “You’re dirty... I think we need to scrub you clean.”
Oh, he was dirty all right. His mind homed in on her suggestion and it only made him dirtier. Erin. Naked. Shower. Wet. So damn hot.
So everything he needed right now.
CHAPTER 14
Erin stripped as she walked through the bedroom, Veiron hot on her heels, his gaze following her every move and drinking in each inch of skin she exposed. He unbuttoned his black shirt and cast it off. Undressing manually was torture but one he endured. He couldn’t use any more of his power, not without alerting scouts who were probably in the area by now, looking for him and Erin. That thought made him reconsider what they were doing, but only for a split second, a flash of time before his mind said to go for it and screw the consequences. If someone dared interrupt them while they were in the shower, naked, writhing against each other, he would separate them from vital parts of their anatomy with his bare hands.
He growled and Erin paused on the threshold of her bathroom. She looked over her shoulder at him, a coy smile on her lips, and he growled for a whole other reason.
Veiron reached out, grabbed her wrist and spun her into his arms. She gasped, the sound music to his ears, and her eyes widened. They met his and he drowned in them, in the desire they showed him, like windows right into her emotions. He slid one arm around her lower back and splayed his other hand out between her shoulder blades, anchoring her to him, and kissed her, claiming her lips with his own. His. She was his woman. His Erin.
God forbid anyone try to change that.
He kept kissing her as he moved with her, taking her into the bathroom. Her bottom hit the vanity unit directly opposite the door and he grasped her waist and lifted her onto it. She had managed to get out of all of her clothes except her jeans. He made fast work of them, his fingers undoing the belt and then the button and fly, his mouth working against hers at the same time, savouring her taste and her warmth. She moaned and then gasped again when he yanked her jeans, whipping them out from under her backside. Her giggle echoed around the white tiles and she lifted her legs. Veiron snarled and pulled her black jeans down them, and tossed them over his shoulder.
Erin ran her bare feet over his chest and he caught her ankles. He frowned and rested one of her feet on his shoulder, turning all of his attention to her other one. He stroked the sole of her foot, following the arch, and she giggled. Veiron remained serious. She was healing, the cuts and scratches already past the scab stage, but the scars were red, angry. He kissed them, lavishing each one with care, as if that alone could heal them completely and take her pain away. He wished it could.
When he had kissed every scar on that foot, he moved to the other, giving it the same attention as the first. Erin sighed with each kiss and the mood shifted again, away from a dark hunger to have her to an equally black need to protect and care for her.
She took her leg from him and settled them on either side of his hips. He looked down, eyes drifting over the dusky pink buds of her nipples that tipped her beautiful small breasts to the flat plane of her stomach and down past her navel to his new heaven. Lilac knickers. Definitely hers and not borrowed from Taylor. He liked seeing her in something that belonged to her. This was Erin. Colourful inside. Full of vibrant life.
It was almost a shame that they had to come off.
He hooked his fingers into the waist of her flimsy lace underwear and she raised her bottom off the vanity top. He slid them to her thighs and then tugged them over her knees and down her calves. He tossed them onto the floor with the rest of their clothes. Before he could set to work on making Erin scream his name again, she was undoing his belt and his jeans, pushing them down to his knees and freeing his raging erection. She dropped to her knees before him and he hissed through his teeth at the first contact between her soft mouth and his hard flesh.
Erin moaned, deep and throaty, a sound that vibrated down the length of his cock.
Veiron tipped his head back and struggled for control, mind overloading from the way she moved her mouth on him, up and down, teasing the crown with her tongue, swirling it in the most delicious way. He groaned and fisted his hand in her black hair, guiding her on his cock. The groans soon reduced to guttural grunts, animalistic sounds but he wasn’t capable of doing anything more civilised. He pumped his hips, gently rocking his cock into her warm wet mouth, imagining it to be another part of her.
Fuck, he needed to get back inside her.
Veiron grabbed her arm, dragged her up to him and kissed her hard. She moaned, her arms instantly looping around his shoulders, short nails scoring his back. He angled his head and deepened the kiss, claiming possession of her mouth, seizing control of the moment. Erin’s clawing subsided into stroking.
She ran her fingertips down the lines where his wings hid and they erupted, springing from his back so quickly that he didn’t have a chance to stop them. They smacked into the wall on one side and the shower cubicle on the other, and an ache raced up their bones.
Fucking fuckety fuck.
That wasn’t good.
“Shit... sorry,” Erin whispered and bit her lip as he stepped back and quickly focused, forcing his wings away and praying that he hadn’t just made an army of heads snap in his direction. If there were any Hell’s angels in the area looking for him after his earlier outburst, they would know that he was here still.
He stared at Erin, torn between stopping and continuing.
Continuing won.
But the shower would have to wait.
“Need you,” Veiron said, more a statement than a request for her permission.
Erin blushed delightfully and held her arms out to him again. He growled and stepped into her, pulled her flush against him and kissed her again, losing himself in how good it felt. She wriggled against him, moist centre against his hard cock, torturing him. He groaned and grabbed her bottom, and lifted her off the vanity.
She mewled a protest when he turned not towards the shower but the bed. It was hard to move with his jeans around his ankles but he made it to the purple double bed and fell onto it with her. She laughed when he growled at his jeans, trying to kick them off without releasing her. He gave up, rolled off her, and managed to toe his boots off and shuck his jeans in record time.
Erin crawled backwards on the bed, her wicked smile still in place, bare body calling out to him. He knelt on the mattress, grabbed her ankle and pulled her to him. He caught her wrist, tugged her up into his arms, and crushed her lips with another hot demanding kiss. She moaned and wrapped herself around him, straddling his knees as he knelt on the bed. Veiron couldn’t wait. Her heat pressed against him, slick and ready, and a need to have her right that moment drove him to comply. He raised her up his body and then slowly lowered her onto his cock. He entered her gently this time, breathing hard with her, savouring how good it felt as he inched into her warm depths.
“Veiron,” she whispered into his mouth. A plea. A command. A praise.
“Erin,” he murmured against her sweet lips, grasped her hips and rocked with her, as slowly as he could manage when the feel of her pushed him to take her completely and let her know that she was his, that he inside her was more than sex. It was possession. Plain and simple. A claiming.
His woman.
He kissed her, focused on her sliding up and down, taking him into her body, welcoming him and giving him bliss in return. She moaned, sighed, and whispered his name in a broken voice that made his heart rejoice. He laid her down and covered her body with
his, held her as he kissed her and rocked into her, slow and steady, long and deep, stretching out the moment. Not sex. Making love.
He had expected their second time to be less explosive than their first but he was wrong. It went deeper this time, the connection between them searing him beyond his soul, stamping her name on every inch of him as he sought to brand his on every fibre of her.
She moaned and sighed again, held him to her, her hands gentle on his back now, swirling and shifting, caressing. She raised her hips to his, granting him deeper access, tearing a groan from his throat. He wanted this to go on forever.
Veiron kissed her lips, her cheek, her throat. Every inch of her that he could reach without breaking his stroke. He worshipped her, savoured her and lost himself in her, until he felt as though they had blended, linked by their desire and passion, slaves to sensation. She peppered his throat with licks and kisses, buried her face in his neck as she arched up and groaned, her feet hooking over his backside. He pumped her harder and deeper, filled with a need to possess her, to utter words in her ear that would be his downfall. He could never leave her if he said such things to her, not without breaking her heart, not even when they were true.
Erin was his everything.
How it had happened, he didn’t know, but happened it had.
He kissed her, tongue tangling with hers, tasting her and claiming her lips as surely as he claimed the rest of her body.
And she claimed his.
He was no fool.
The possession thing worked both ways. He was a slave to her, a warrior at her command, a beast at her beck and call.
She rolled them over, landing atop him, not breaking their slow deliberate stroke. He ran his palms up her thighs to her hips and guided her on his cock, staring deep into her eyes. Her hands settled on his chest, flat against it, so hot on his skin, and she rode him.
A woman had never looked at him the way Erin did, as though she could see straight down into his soul and cherished what she saw there, thought he was strong because of it not weak. Loved him for what he was.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 48