Angel Fire: Angel Fire, Book 1

by Johnston, Marie

  She maintained eye contact as she massaged his balls. Slowly, she licked him from tip to base and back up again.

  He swayed, resting his hands on her shoulders, his grip pulsing like he didn’t want to squeeze her. She allowed herself a smug smile before flicking her tongue across his wide tip and swirling it around the ridge.

  He groaned and circled his hips as if trying to keep up with her movements. She opened her mouth wide and sucked him inside as far as she could.

  “Odessa.”

  She worked his length, keeping her attention on his balls at the same time. They drew up tight, his release near.

  Odessa licked and sucked. Bryant’s head fell back as she kept him helpless against the pleasure. He tunneled his hands in her hair as much as he could around her ponytail. He didn’t jerk on her head, didn’t try to control her movements, just held her like he couldn’t believe she was doing this for him.

  She increased her rhythm, and his hips bucked faster. His release jerked up his shaft, and he tried to pull away. She was going to get all of him. Firming her grip on his balls, she gave them a slight squeeze.

  He roared. Hot jets released into her mouth, but she didn’t let up. She worked him until he was spent, and then gave him one last lick.

  He shuddered, swaying again. “You’re amazing. You didn’t have to do that.”

  She cocked her head at him. Her lips must be puffy and red and damp from his release. And the way he couldn’t take his gaze off them? Euphoric.

  “I wanted to.” For once, that had been her only motivation.

  Uncertainty flickered through his gaze before it turned predatory. “You know what I want to do?” he growled, helping her to her feet.

  A delighted gasp escaped her. She couldn’t wait to find out.

  Instead of talking, he showed her. Flipping her back on the bed, she landed with her wings splayed. Bryant came down, not quite on top of her, moving down her body.

  “I constantly dream of these long legs wrapped around my neck.”

  “They were not too long ago, if I remember correctly.”

  His heavy-lidded stare hovered inches above her sex. “Too long ago. I think I could have you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  With that, he opened her legs wider and dropped a kiss on the feverish skin of her sex. “You’re wet.”

  “Because of you,” she gasped.

  He parted her folds and tongued her clit, not letting up, not pausing. She was about to careen over the edge when he backed off.

  “What are you doing?” Why didn’t he let her finish?

  “Playing.” He spoke the word against her sensitized clit. She bucked her pelvis off the bed. He chuckled and lapped at her, driving her to the brink before once again backing off.

  “Bryant,” she cried. “Let me come.” Damn, she said she wouldn’t beg, but he was driving her crazy.

  Her feet were on his shoulders. She clawed at the bedspread and arched her hips into him, searching for the finish she was looking for.

  He replaced his tongue with his thumb and inserted two fingers inside of her. She gasped again before moaning her approval. Thumbing her nub while hitting her most sensitive inner spot, he raised up to watch her fly apart.

  “Bry-ant!” Her knees had moved farther up with him, opening her even more. Her climax hit.

  She cried and shook the entire time she rode her orgasm. He watched her and it was like giving him his own private show.

  “You. Are. Stunning.” He repeated her words back to her.

  Odessa barely had to time to recover when he grabbed her knees, stretching her wide. He looked down to watch himself impale her while her tight channel still quivered.

  She only had time to grab onto his shoulders before he started a ruthless pace, pumping hard. With pewter wings flared wide to keep his balance, he watched himself move in and out.

  The pressure built again, and she wasn’t sure she could take another powerful release so soon. But she trusted Bryant with her body.

  His thrusts increased in force, and he grunted each time he pounded into her. “You. Are. Mine.” It was like he needed to prove it to himself.

  “Yes!” Her nails dug into his shoulders as she crested another impossibly strong orgasm.

  He pushed against her knees as he thrust, once, twice, before watching himself, driven into her up to his balls, release within her thoroughly pleasured body.

  When her vision cleared, he was sagging over her, spent.

  “Oh no, I scratched you.” Mortified, she couldn’t ignore the score marks from her fingernails running down his shoulders to his well-defined pecs.

  He shrugged. “Don’t feel ’em.”

  She smiled lazily at him and opened her arms for him to fall into. After a moment of indecision, he pulled out and collapsed to her side, folding one wing behind him and intimately draping his other over her.

  Snuggling in, she inhaled his scent deep into her lungs. It was mixed with hers, and it felt right.

  “We still have time before the others get here,” he said.

  She turned her head to the side, giving him an incredulous look. “You’re ready to go again?”

  “With you? Yes.”

  * * *

  Bryant cleared his throat to get started. All of his team was here, except Jagger, who was with Felicia at her apartment. Something tickled his mind when he thought of Jagger, but it was like a thought he couldn’t complete. He gave himself a mental shake. Maybe he should check in on his warrior when they went searching for fallen. The poor bastard might have the hardest assignment of them all.

  Odessa hadn’t come into the office yet. He’d kept them both too late. It seemed he couldn’t get enough of her delectable body, and she met him every step of the way. He had cleaned up quickly, dressing to blend in with humans, and let her have more time to prepare herself for the meeting.

  God help him if she wore that dress again. He’d forever have the image of it drifting down her body seared into his mind.

  Finding his team quiet and waiting for him to speak, he realized he’d gotten himself distracted again thinking about his mate’s divine curves.

  “All right, let’s get started.”

  “I just want to say, boss,” Bronx interrupted, “that I’m happy for you.”

  Harlowe and Dionna nodded, and Sierra and Urban squinted at him as if they were looking for a change. Then they nodded their heads like they’d found the answer.

  “Nice,” Urban added.

  And bugger if it wasn’t uncomfortable standing in a room where a bunch of people knew he’d just gotten laid like it was tattooed across his arse. Did he look happier? More relaxed? Glow? They worked so closely together his team just knew.

  Bryant felt like he had to say something about it. “She’s stuck with me now.” Damn if his guilt at trapping her into their sync didn’t hover in his statement.

  “She’s not stuck anywhere,” Harlowe said. “She’s always been into you. It’s not like she hasn’t been obvious about it.”

  Bryant frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Dude.” Bronx shook his head. “When she strode into the gala, like a boss, and claimed you? Or when she marched into the barracks demanding to know where you were?”

  Harlowe chimed in. “You should’ve heard her when she thought you didn’t like her goth getup.”

  Didn’t like it? He’d fucking loved it. Not as much as that sundress…

  “Or when she was frantic because she thought she couldn’t heal you?” Dionna added.

  All the instances his team listed Bryant attributed to Odessa needing him around, wanting his protection. He just couldn’t imagine her not regretting her decision when she was finally free of her past.

  “I may have missed a lot,” Sierra said. “But even I knew she was into you.”

  “Sorry I’m late.” Odessa rushed in.

  The drawstring bag was slung over her shoulder and tucked under a wing. Her hair was out of its ponytail.
It hadn’t been secured well after he’d gotten done with her. The long, glorious locks hung in a loose knot at the back of her head. Her wings were morphed in and she wore blue jeans, a tee, and slip-on shoes. She would blend in beautifully on Earth in their search for fallen.

  Blend might be optimistic. No matter what Odessa wore, she would turn heads.

  “I was just going to tell them about the plan,” he informed her.

  She settled next to him with a hesitant smile, blushing, and handed over the bag. He resisted wrapping an arm around her while he filled in the rest of his team about how they were going to split up and search.

  “We’re sticking to the fallen from the last two centuries. The scrolls say where they were dumped in the human realm, usually in a populated city to attract as little notice as possible. If they perished, their bodies would just be another John Doe. The city is often one they had ties to as an angel. It’s the only courtesy shown to them.”

  Bryant dug out the scrolls.

  “I’ll go with Odessa. We’ll search for two fallen and then check in with her sister.” He handed three scrolls to Urban and Dionna, and three to Bronx and Harlowe. “Sierra, you can run the information to us when you have leads. Everyone have their phones?”

  They used regular cell phones to communicate when they were split up. It sure beat the days of having to arrange regular shuttles to continually exchange information.

  They all nodded. Good. They were almost ready.

  “Sierra, what’d you find out on the club owner?”

  His tech-savvy warrior straightened, her no-nonsense expression in place. She was the shortest one of the bunch, but for some reason she always reminded him of Harlowe. She was also blond, but kept her hair short and spiky. Her eyes were cornflower blue and she was curvier than Harlowe’s more athletic build. Maybe it was their facial structure—heart-shaped faces with full lower lips and high cheekbones.

  “His name is Jameson Haddock and there’s not much information on him. Nothing that stands out anyway. He has a clean record, and he runs his club legally. I found no history on him other than he had ties to a prominent crime boss in Vegas. Jameson worked for him until he had enough money to purchase his own property and turn it into Fall from Grace. Doesn’t seem like he was mentored into the mob way of life, though.”

  “None of our fallen trace back to Las Vegas, but maybe we’ll find out he’s one of them. What happened to the guy this Haddock used to work for?”

  Sierra shook her head, telling him there was no lead there. “He’s dead. Died in his sleep of a heart attack. I couldn’t find anything that said he left his money to Haddock, but there is a sizable chunk I couldn’t trace anywhere. Either Haddock is truly legit, or he’s good enough to keep us off his trail.”

  “He knew what we were,” Odessa spoke up.

  “It’s possible we stood out or they know their regulars. Maybe someone saw our tattoos and could tell they were fake?” Harlowe didn’t sound like she believed it, either.

  “He’s definitely involved.” Bryant knew his intuition wasn’t the only one screaming at him about this Haddock. “We’ll find our fallen, then concentrate on the owner.”

  He waited for his team to descend in case they had any more questions, before turning to Odessa. “Ever been to London?”

  Chapter 21

  Sandeen’s skin still crawled. He was roaming the Gloom, looking for a suitable human body to “borrow” for a few days. After that blond Amazon warrior beat the shit out of his host, he’d popped back to Daemon to recharge his abilities.

  He spent as little time as possible in his home world. It wasn’t Hell, but that didn’t mean it was a friendly place. Numen thought they all ran amuck, wreaking havoc, fighting, and fornicating.

  Wrong. Those were hobbies. His kind was more cultured and organized than Numen gave them credit for. To the Numen’s defense, no angelic species were able to enter Daemon any more than Daemons could enter Numen. Actually, less so. An angelic creature tainting their realm would cause chaos with creatures suspicious of good deeds being done under the table.

  Numen were charged with protecting the human species so they could live long, full lives and enter Heaven. Likewise, Daemon were charged with orchestrating their downfall, paving the way for more souls to get assigned to Hell. And just like Numen, they had a hierarchal society. Maybe with a bit more devastation, humiliation, and, of course, fornication.

  Sandeen’s sire was one of the most devious demons, overseeing legions of archmasters. Zadren was sadistic, manipulative, and irreprehensible—a male any son should be proud to call sire. Maybe at one time Sandeen had idolized him, had wanted to learn from the evil master of masters and dominate this realm. Then his sire had killed his puppy.

  Never touch another male’s dog.

  Sandeen had rescued the wolf pup, Hound, from the Gloom when he’d been accidentally dumped there on the coattails of a demon crossing back from the human realm. He’d had big plans to create his own brand of hellhound. The pup had been trained to do tricks and worked his way up to more protective maneuvers. Hound had been an avid learner, intelligent and instinctive. Sandeen planned to try to mate him with another ferocious canine breed. Hell, maybe even one of the more attractive gargoyles.

  His plans had come to an abrupt end when his sire dropped by for his annual this-is-how-to-take-over-the-realm lesson. Zadren dropped in on Sandeen, who was fornicating with one of the more humanoid archmasters. His father had thrown the female out the window and started berating Sandeen for his lack of ambition.

  Sandeen never won a fight against his sire, so he had learned to take a more logical route. He attempted to elaborate on his plans of forming a new breed of Daemon, a loyal, personal army. Zadren, as always, had thought it was another reason for Sandeen to be weak, an epic fail of a son. Hound had heard them arguing and broke through the door.

  Zadren had grabbed Hound by the throat but hadn’t killed him. Digging his claws into the raging wolf’s neck, he delighted in watching Sandeen’s anguish and despair over watching his only friend perish. Then he’d thrown Hound to the floor and stomped on him, flinging Sandeen easily off as he’d tried to intervene.

  Sandeen had retracted from Daemon life that day, seeking instead to find an escape in the human world. It was very undemonlike of him to want to avoid pain and despair. Sure, he got the occasional thrill out of it. But he felt like there was more to his long life. He was addicted to the feelings ordinarily forbidden in his realm—enthusiasm, excitement, adventure.

  He could crush a million more human souls than he’d already had. Nothing would change. It wouldn’t equal being able to walk freely in a realm where he didn’t have to worry about recovering from constant familial maiming.

  Once he solved the problem of being able to roam among humans in his own body, then he could tackle conquering his own little corner of the world. He could be like one of the ancient pharaohs with harems feeding him clusters of grapes.

  Until then, he was back to wandering the Gloom, spying on various humans. Unlike the Mist, the Gloom overlaid the human world. He wasn’t a ghost, but an observer.

  It was a good way to pass time. He was mostly recovered from his latest bashing. Or attempt at. His sire liked to pair him against some of his finest archmasters, for shits and giggles.

  Sandeen cracked his neck. He had been beaten, but not beat. Many demons assumed that just because he didn’t get off on killing and destruction, he was weak. He might even aid them in thinking that by nearly throwing his fights.

  Wandering through a casino, Sandeen stayed away from the locales on the Strip. Too many out-of-towners. He didn’t need anyone to come looking for his host, so he was searching for long-term possession. He liked to stay in the realm and get some work done.

  This casino brokered a little too much in the older crowd. He didn’t care to inhabit a body plagued with high cholesterol and arthritis, but maybe Sandeen could kill two birds with one stone. As he drifted through the
Gloom, he could make out Numen, performing their divine duties of human protection.

  And there was one now. Not a warrior, but Sandeen could sense a small blade tucked into the waistband of the male’s pants. How the male got his hands on Daemon steel was probably an interesting story Sandeen didn’t care about.

  He focused on the Numen. Older, possibly centuries old, and the way he was eyeballing the blue-haired ladies punching their slot buttons, he was looking to get physical. His natural angelic charisma was drawing a fair amount of attention.

  An idea formed.

  He kept following the older angel, watched as he sat and struck up a conversation with an attractive older woman who must have worshipped the sun in her younger days from the thick, dried skin that was deeply creased. They talked and laughed, her deep smoker’s rattle cackling at the male’s jokes.

  Fascinated, Sandeen watched as the angel and the woman wandered through the casino into the adjoining hotel. He could’ve drawn farther back into the Gloom and wait it out, but he wouldn’t be a proper demon if he didn’t practice his voyeuristic skills. Who was he if he didn’t use his ability to remain in the Gloom while spying on people? Not many of his kind had the same finesse.

  Whaddya know? The angel had a hotel room ready that he brought the woman to. Oh yeah, it might give him nightmares to watch an old angel do the horizontal, but Sandeen was going to stick this out.

  Some of the male’s moves made even Sandeen raise his eyebrows. Kinky angels. The woman seemed to enjoy it. Sandeen waited, hoping his gamble paid off, that the angel would drift off while the woman snoozed.

  Their races were similar in their increased sex drive and stamina. Sandeen hoped the male would take advantage of a willing female and keep her around as long as possible. Sometimes it was an arduous task to find a new partner, starting a new hunt with each new host. Not that many demons had enough patience to find willing partners. Ever the black sheep, Sandeen preferred to demonstrate his superiority over the female’s body by eventually getting her to turn over complete control to him for hours on end. Or prove what he was made of in two minutes or less, whatever the situation called for.