by Nalini Singh
Eyes on him, she ran her hands down her rib cage, then back up to palm her breasts. Liquid heat in that gaze, but he didn’t move from the doorway. “More, Elena.” It was a command, given in the tone she only ever heard in bed, sexual and demanding and, sometimes, without mercy.
“Always with the orders,” she whispered, rolling and tugging at nipples that begged for a harder, bolder touch, yet so unbearably sensitive that she thought she might shatter if he so much as put those strong hands on her. “Maybe I want to be the one giving orders in bed.”
“What order would you give?” An intimate question, his gaze lingering on her lips with unhidden intent before dropping to the hand she slid provocatively under the sheet.
Breasts flushing under the sexual kiss of those eyes, she took in the hard power of the magnificent body braced against the door. “I’d say come here”—stroking her fingers between her legs in sinful emphasis—“so I can show you how very ready and willing I am.” The physical connection ... they both needed it on the deepest level tonight—to burn away the cold, dark places in the soul, to lock them together in an earthy glide of flesh.
“I,” Raphael said, “do like it when you do wicked things to me,” and it was an echo of something she’d said to him once.
The memories of the velvet heat of his cock against her tongue made her thighs clench around the intrusion of her hand. “Then why,” she asked, fisting her free hand on the sheets, “aren’t you moving?” He hadn’t touched her, and she was liquid-soft with welcome.
“Because tonight, Guild Hunter, I have wicked things of my own in mind.”
She stopped breathing. When he skimmed his eyes down to linger where the sheets pooled at her waist, the command might as well have been spoken, it was so very direct, so very male. Taking a jerky breath, she used one hand to push the sheet to the top of her thighs, where the bunched material continued to hide her from his view ... and stopped.
Elena.
She shook her head. “The shirt has to go.” When dancing with an archangel, a girl had to play dirty.
Pushing off the door, he raised his fingers to the buttons of the black shirt, undoing them with a quick efficiency that made her mouth water. Those fingers, they knew her body so well, had touched her both with exquisite tenderness and in dark possession. It was clear what she’d be getting tonight, she thought as he shrugged off the shirt to the floor and raised an eyebrow.
God but he was beautiful, his shoulders and chest heavy with muscle, his skin a gold that invited her mouth, her touch. But that wasn’t the bargain they’d made. Removing her fingers from her desire-slick flesh, she brought her knees to her chest before sliding the sheet up and over her thighs to gather at her feet. “There you go.”
The archangel folded his arms. “Legs down.”
Shaking her head, she focused on the proud push of his erection against pants the same shade as his shirt. Tiny internal muscles clenched. “I want something in return.”
“No.”
She went to protest the flat refusal, but he’d already crossed the room to close his hand around her nape. His mouth, that lethal, knowing mouth, was on hers a fraction of a second later. Raising her hands to grab at his waist as he leaned above her, she gasped when he moved his other hand down to cover her breast with a confidence that said she was his and he knew it. The squeeze was proprietary, his skin just rough enough to tantalize her nipples.
That was when she realized she’d dropped her knees. “I guess you think you’ve won.” A husky whisper as he lifted his head and pushed her back onto the bed with a hand splayed on her breastbone. Maybe she should’ve resisted, but she wanted him on top of her, inside her, his cock parting her wet, passion-swollen tissues in hard demand.
“This round, yes.” Raphael simply stood there for long seconds, indulging in the sight of his consort. She had the body of a warrior. Strong, sleek with muscle. Pleasing to his every sense.
The eyes that watched him were hazy with desire, her lips curved in the slight smile of a woman who knew her lover would satisfy her, one leg cocked up at the knee as she lay languorous and warm and aroused in their bed. When she turned over onto her front, her extraordinary wings spreading out on either side, he didn’t stop her. Instead, climbing onto the mattress, he straddled her on his knees before sweeping the silken threads of her hair off her back, to run his finger down the line of her spine.
She shivered. “Archangel.”
He liked the way she said that, the sound a throaty pleasure on its own. Leaning to place his hands palms down on either side of her head, he kissed the back of her neck, felt her lower body rise toward him. As he continued to lave kisses along her spine, stroking his fingers along the sensitive inner edges of her wings at the same time, her breathing got choppier, the small shifts of her body more and more insistent ... the earthy scent of her arousal infusing the air.
His cock jerked, but he wasn’t done yet.
Caressing the base of her spine with a swirl of his tongue, he lifted himself up again and said, “It is time for the first wicked thing, Elena.” He slid his hands under her hips and pushed upward.
“Not from where I’m lying.” Her voice was breathless but she heeded his silent request to bring herself up onto her knees and elbows, spread her thighs.
Unable to resist, he moved both hands down the sensitive insides of her thighs, heard her make a quintessentially feminine sound of pleasure. In this position, she was open to him—luscious and flushed, her plump folds pure erotic invitation. Not giving her any warning, he put his mouth on her. She would’ve jerked away in sensual shock except that he had a firm grip on her thighs.
A shudder rippled over her as he took his first taste. He needed this, needed her. The day had taken a brutal toll, but here there was only his consort who had not shied at witnessing the ruthless reality of what it took to keep the Hudson from running bloodred, who had come into his arms though her anger at him had been a harsh whip.
“Raphael, please.” A sensual plea.
Lifting his mouth from her, he reached down to tease a single finger through her damp heat. It caused her hand to clench on the sheets, her heartbeat to accelerate . . . but she was a hunter, a warrior. Making an unexpected move, she pulled away and onto her back with a grace that had one of her wings shimmering above him for a single second. The first thing she did was clear away the tangle of her hair. The second was to rise up onto her knees and claim his mouth in a kiss that tasted of a feminine possession he had no intention of denying.
Using the opportunity to caress the lush weight of her breasts, the sensitive peaks of her nipples, he halted her when she went to push him to his back. “No, Guild Hunter. Not tonight.” He had never been loved with such fierceness as his hunter lavished on him. But the instant she put her hands, her mouth on him, he would be undone—and tonight, he wanted something else. I would pleasure you.
“Torture me you mean.” In spite of the soft complaint, she lay back, let him come over her, stroke her from shoulder to breast to hip. He plucked at her nipple, rubbed his thumb over her collarbone, ran his lips over the curve of her hip. Started again. Her mouth was a kiss-wet enticement, the pulse in her neck an inducement to suck, to mark, the leg she curled over his hip sleek temptation.
When she rose up toward him, he rocked his clothed lower body against her.
Oh. The friction of Raphael’s pants, the press of the zipper . . . It had Elena digging her nails into his shoulders. “I ache for you,” she whispered, her need a wide-open gash in her heart.
Raphael stopped his languid strokes to reach up and push back the sweat-damp strands of hair off her forehead, cup the side of her face. “You have me, Elena. Always.” His kiss was a dark claiming that had her gasping for breath, the taste of him in her every cell.
“Now.”
“No.” Shifting to slide his fingers between her legs, he pressed down on her clitoris, making her cry out. “Tell me,” he said, gliding his fingers through her quive
ring flesh to the slick entrance of her body, “if I move too fast.”
“You,” she said, hands clenching on his shoulders as he pushed two of his fingers inside her with blunt deliberation, “are a tease.”
Firmly embedded in her, he began to spread his fingers, causing her inner muscles to spasm ... but he stopped just before she would’ve gone over, keeping her balanced on that finest of edges. “Not a tease”—his fingers coming together, spreading again—“but there is something to be said for patience.” A single hard, fast withdrawal and thrust.
Raphael. Gripping at his biceps, she rolled her hips in an attempt to urge him to finish it, but he returned to the tormenting indolence of his movements even as he dipped his head to suck one of her nipples into his mouth, tasting her with that same leisurely pleasure.
Her entire body hovered on the brink. “You’re in a devil of a mood.”
A smile against her breast as he released her nipple with a wet sound to kiss the skin around it. “I wish to enjoy my consort. You will allow it.”
Thrusting her hand into his hair, she pulled up his head. “This consort has a knife under the mattress that she won’t hesitate to use if you don’t give her an orgasm soon.”
He smiled. A brilliant, blinding thing. So rare were smiles such as these from her archangel that her heart stopped for a second. Mine, she thought, you are mine.
That smile grew wider. Yes.
It was only then that she realized she’d sent the thought to him. That he hadn’t hesitated for an instant . . . it vanquished the ugliness that had awoken in her earlier, the painful echo of rejection and loneliness. She knew it would rise again—the scar was too deep, too vicious not to—but this man, her archangel, he kept hold of his own; his possessive will was her shield.
“Why are you smiling?” Her own lips curving, she stole a kiss.
“Because I have my warrior in bed, so tight”—two teasing pumps with his fingers—“hot”—teeth on her jaw—“and wet.” Dipping his head, he lavished her neglected nipple with attention. The long, deep tugs pulled at things low in her abdomen, making her squirm, squeeze down on his fingers. Reaching up with his thumb in response, he circled around . . . then finally rubbed at the pulsing nub of her clitoris with the firm touch that he knew drove her crazy.
So close. So close.
He lifted his thumb.
“I am never going down on you again,” she threatened, chest heaving.
Laughter against her skin. What if I ask very nicely? With that, he began to move those knowing fingers in a rapid rhythm, bending his head to suck hard at her nipple at the same time ... before biting down with his teeth.
The orgasm rocked her so hard, she didn’t only see stars, she saw whole constellations exploding in a flash of white-gold. It was glorious, leaving her a wreck. When she was able to lift her heavy eyelids at last, she found Raphael rising to strip off the rest of his clothes. The beauty of him struck her anew. That body—powerful and dangerous, his cock a heavy thickness. Eyes of a blue as vivid as the mountain sky at noon. Wings that could take him above the clouds in an unrivaled burst of speed; the breadth of those wings was exceptional.
As she watched, he reached down, fisted his cock. Pumped once. Twice.
The embers in her body flared to smoldering life. This time, when she raised her arms in silent invitation, he came. No more teasing, no more words. Her archangel pushed her thighs apart and took her with a hard, hot thrust that was an exquisite burn through flesh already swollen from the force of her first orgasm.
“Your mouth,” he said, and then he was taking that mouth as he moved his cock in and out of her in a demanding rhythm that had a rich, dark heat rolling up over her body. This pleasure, it was primal and thick and visceral. It curled her toes, made her breasts swell, and the delicate flesh between her legs flush anew with a rush of blood.
She’d never felt so possessed, so indulged. The orgasm built slower, lasted longer, hit harder. But this time, she felt the scalding rush of Raphael’s own pleasure, heard her archangel’s powerful wings snap wide above her as the muscles in his back flexed and bunched.
Her thoughts splintered.
13
There was only pleasure, no assault of nightmare that night, but Elena was still in no mood to speak to Jeffrey the next morning. “When am I ever in the mood?” she muttered as she landed in front of the tony town house guarded by metal gates on the eastern side of Central Park. She’d expected the meeting to be at his office at Deveraux Enterprises but had received a message an hour earlier moving things to this location.
It was a lovely home, as genteel and elegant as the woman who was Jeffrey’s second wife. The small area of greenery around it—an incredible luxury in the middle of Manhattan—was landscaped with a graceful perfection that somehow didn’t cross the line into severity. Elena couldn’t fault Gwendolyn’s taste, for all that some small part of her resented the woman for taking Marguerite’s place at Jeffrey’s side. But then, Marguerite wouldn’t have recognized the man her husband had become, so it was just as well.
Walking up three shallow marble steps with that hollow realization ringing in her skull, she pressed the doorbell to her father’s home, a home she’d never been invited to, never been welcome in, until this moment. The bell echoed inside, as if the house was empty. A minute, then two, passed without footsteps. Fully capable of believing Jeffrey had decided to leave her standing on the doorstep, she’d turned to head back down when the door was pulled open.
She glanced over her shoulder, a cutting retort ready on her lips. It died the instant she met the composed blue eyes of the society beauty twenty years his junior whom her father had married one fall while Elena had been at boarding school. “Gwendolyn,” she said with a politeness Marguerite had drummed into her. She’d run into her father’s second wife once or twice over the years, but neither of them had made the effort to strengthen the relationship beyond a cool formality.
“Elena. Come in.”
Glad that Gwendolyn at least didn’t seem to insist on using her full name, Elena walked in, conscious of the fact the other woman was studiously not staring at her wings. “I expected a maid,” she said, looking down the long foyer lined with small, softly lighted cubbies that held what were no doubt priceless objects d’art.
“This is family business,” Gwendolyn said, tugging at the sleeve of her jewel green silk shirt.
Elena frowned, not at the words, but at the restless movement—Gwendolyn was one of the most “together” people Elena had ever come across. But now that she was paying attention, she saw that the other woman’s eyes were shadowed, smudges of purple marring the rich cream of her skin. “What’s wrong?” she asked, suddenly realizing this might not be about Jeffrey playing power games after all.
Gwendolyn glanced down the corridor, stepped closer. “I know you don’t think of them as your sisters,” she said in a low, intense tone, “but I need you to stand up for my baby.”
Elena went to ask what the hell was going on when a door opened down the hall. Jeffrey’s tall form appeared a moment later. Dressed in charcoal pants bearing a faint navy pinstripe paired with a white shirt, the buttons undone at the collar, he was as casual as she’d seen him in the years of her adulthood.
Before ... She remembered the dreams, remembered the laughing paint-covered man who’d thrown her into the air and caught her on a sunny day flavored with the mingled scents of freshly cut grass, ice cream, and burgers. Long before the blood, before the death. Before the silence . . . and the shadow on the wall.
Steeling her spine against the devastating impact of the memories, she met his gaze, shielded as always by the clear glass of his metal-rimmed spectacles. “Why am I here, Jeffrey?” She knew Gwendolyn would say nothing now. Having seen them in public, she understood very well who held the reins.
It was nothing like the marriage Jeffrey had had with Elena’s mother—a woman who’d teased her husband as often as she’d kissed him. A woman whose b
ody might have survived, but whose spirit had broken under the hands of the serial killer drawn to their small family home because of Elena. That was a guilt that threatened to turn her feet to lead, leave her defenseless in the face of what was almost certainly going to be a knock-down, drag-out confrontation—her meetings with her father never ended any other way.
“I’m glad to see you have some sense of family obligation,” Jeffrey said in that razor blade of a voice. “I suppose you have had more important people to visit in the days since your return to the city.”
Anger, wild and hurting, slammed through the guilt. “They cared when you threw me out onto the street,” she said, glad to see him flinch. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand that kind of loyalty.” She didn’t know what she’d expected—that her father would be taken aback by her wings to the extent of dropping that glacial mask? That he’d look at her with wonder and awe? If she had, she was a fool.
“Jeffrey.” Gwendolyn’s mellifluous voice.
Jeffrey’s jaw was tight, his eyes glittering behind those thin metal frames, but he gave a jerky nod, said, “Come into the study. The girls?” The latter words were directed at his wife.
“In Amy’s room, with strict instructions not to come out.”
The tendons along Jeffrey’s neck went white with strain, but he said nothing as he walked into the study. Elena followed at a slower pace, wondering at the undercurrents she could sense. Maybe she’d been wrong about Gwendolyn. It certainly seemed like the other woman was flexing her claws.
Chewing on that, she found herself in a large room with mahogany bookshelves lined with leather-bound tomes, a solid desk of the same wood taking center stage. That still left plenty of room for the deep armchairs set to one side, near the French doors. It wasn’t only a masculine room, it was devoid of even the slightest feminine touch.