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 tu
rned 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.
The look in her amber eyes promised him that she would always look at him this way, as though he was the centre of her universe, regardless of what he did. She knew. She knew all of him, every facet of the man that he was—the killer, the warrior, the protector, and the demon. She knew the good and the bad in him, and she accepted it all.
And by God did he love her for it.
Erin threw her head back and moaned his name, the sound so utterly delicious that he moaned too, thrilled by the pleasure he heard in it.
She bit her lip, white teeth sinking deep into soft flesh.
Veiron growled.
His focus zeroed in on her teeth and her lip. He wanted to bite her.
Her eyes fluttered open and dropped to meet his. No fear in them. Just quiet acceptance as she nibbled her lower lip and stared down at him, rocking her body on his cock, flooding him with heat and emotions that he had tried to stamp out so many times in the past few days.
He couldn’t break the spell she had placed on him.
His addiction to her ran deep in his veins, in his soul and his heart, and he couldn’t fight it. All he could do was hope that he wouldn’t lose her, that nothing would take away this woman that had become his life, because he would die without her.
She leaned over him and he raised his hips, clutching her bottom as he slid in and out, thrusting deeper as he captured her mouth again. Her moans deepened, filling his ears, mingling with his own. He needed more of her. All of her. He couldn’t get enough.
Erin gasped into his mouth and jerked, her body milking him, quivering and trembling around his cock. He groaned and moved her harder, plunged deeper, his possessive streak taking control again. He wanted to brand her body. Claim it as his and his alone. No other man would touch her. Never again. Erin was his now. No doubt about that. He would kill anyone who so much as looked at her.
She tensed her body around his and he groaned, his balls tightened and he thrust deep into her core, jetting his seed into her. He throbbed discordantly to her, each pulse stealing a little of his tension until he was limp beneath her, sated for now, but not for long. At the back of his mind, he already wanted her again, needed to have her in a different way, in every way imaginable until she knew that she belonged to him.
Erin settled on his chest, a contented sigh escaping her lips and making him smile.
Awareness of his surroundings slowly returned and with it came a cold prickling down his spine. Was five minutes to bask in their afterglow too much to ask?
“We need to move.” He tried to rouse her but she moaned and scrunched her nose at the order before curling up. “Erin. It isn’t safe here. We’re moving. Now.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond. He lifted her off him and gathered their clothes, tugging his on as he went and tossing hers at her. She sat up on the bed, alert now, the post-sex haze gone from her amber eyes. She hopped off the bed and went into the bathroom. Veiron finished dressing, grabbed his leather jacket from the desk and slung it on.
Erin appeared a moment later, a black holdall in her right hand and a pair of black army boots in the other. She dropped the boots and slipped her feet into them. Veiron paused to watch her, losing track of his surroundings as he set eyes on the real Erin for the first time.
She wore a purple tartan pleated short skirt over black leggings, a black baby-doll t-shirt trimmed with lace, and a black flared winter coat that only reached to the bottom of her skirt. Impish. And boy did he love it.
“Ready,” she said and straightened, and caught him staring. He expected her to blush and look away, to react the shy way she had when he had complimented her artwork. She didn’t. She twirled on the spot, one foot coming up off the floor, her coat flaring outwards, and stopped facing him. She smiled. “You like?”
Veiron growled his appreciation and then showed her just how much he liked her in her own clothes. He stalked towards her, slung his arm around her narrow waist and dragged her up to him for a long deep kiss that threatened to take them back to square one and back into her bedroom.
“Mmm,” she murmured against his mouth and he pulled back. Her smile was brilliant. “As much as I want to get wicked with you again, shouldn’t we be making tracks?”
Tracks. Right. Fleeing. Something that didn’t sit well with him but was necessary. He couldn’t fight without placing Erin in danger. He wou
ldn’t make that mistake again.
He took her black bag from her and slung it over his right shoulder, and held onto her with his left. He guided her out of the apartment, waiting while she locked it and made sure it was secure, and then led her down the white hall to the lifts. They would be too obvious, so he took the stairs with her, his boots and hers pounding the concrete steps.
Veiron kept his senses on high alert. The prickling feeling of awareness was growing worse, meaning whatever was nearby was getting closer.
They reached the foyer without incident, crossed it and broke out into the night. The number of people on the streets had dropped but there were still enough that they could blend with them. He turned to his right, intending to head back the way he had come with Erin.
No sign of one of his kind.
What the hell had his senses blaring then?
Erin gasped and stopped dead, yanking back on his arm to stop him too.
Her eyes were wide when he looked at her, fixed beyond him. Veiron looked at the people milling around, going about their lives. No Hell’s angels. Just mortals.
A man raised his head and looked over the mortals at him.
White hair. Green eyes.
Those eyes flashed brightly and then a frown darkened them.
The man from Erin’s nightmare.
Her guardian angel.
CHAPTER 15
Erin didn’t wait to see if the man was friend or foe. She pulled on Veiron’s arm and ran in the opposite direction, heart pounding and lungs squeezing. Veiron grabbed her around the waist, swore a black oath under his breath, and leapt. He cleared the heads of the crowd, causing a stir. His right boot hit the roof of a parked car and he pushed up into the air.
Erin expected to fall.
Instead, they lifted off and she looked back to see that Veiron had unfurled his wings and was now wearing his armour. Her bag was gone too. Where?
Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) Page 16