Skylar’s heart pounded as she gripped her seat, watching the bastard thrash for air beneath Toren. He deserved it. He… Skylar came off her seat. “Stop it! You’re killing him.”
The angel jerked a bright liquid gaze to her. “What he did is deserving of death.”
What? “He…he didn’t—”
“He didn’t once consider you.” The angel looked back down at Ezekiel. “He only cared about himself. And worse than that, he uses God to justify it.” Toren jerked him off the floor and held him by the throat in the air before him. “How dare you put his Holy name on your filthy ideals. Zealots like you disgust me. She is more precious to God than all the men on this earth like you put together. And do you know why?”
Ezekiel could only grunt as he flailed his legs and gripped the angel's arm with both hands.
“Because she is a woman!” Tears came to Skylar’s eyes at how he said that one word. With such awe. Such immaculate reverence. For the first time in her life, all her pain and sorrow had a voice, echoed in his words. “She is a gift! To be protected! Nurtured! Cherished! Not used like an animal, you disgusting human!”
The vicious animosity faded. "You think you're strong. That all men are stronger than women. Don't you understand? She submitted. She took you inside her. She endured you. You ruined it. You took what she gave like the ungrateful lout you are and gave nothing in return. You were willing to protect her from the demons, but…" His voice trailed off. "Never mind." He dropped Ezekiel to the floor where he gasped and choked.
“I’m sorry.” Ezekiel truly sounded it.
Nearly dying had that effect Skylar supposed.
“Prove it. Because what you just did was a joke where power is concerned. Without her pleasure you have nothing. And if you ever do that to her again, the relief of death will become your heart’s desire.”
Ezekiel continued to gasp as he nodded, and Skylar suddenly realized the weight of the entire event. This angel meant for them to be married. And that meant…that meant she’d have to play the game again. With him.
Skylar suddenly couldn’t breathe and rushed to the room she’d just left. She paced up and down, trying to think. Trapped. She was trapped. She needed to run. She didn’t want to do this, screw saving the world, she wouldn’t sacrifice herself this way. Couldn't. What was she thinking? Who was she trying to kid? She wouldn’t marry him. He didn’t love her. He hated her.
She spun when she heard the door open and Ezekiel came in, his head down. Like a dog that had been beaten into submission. To love her.
God, this was humiliating.
She sat on the bed and crossed her arms, fighting for courage just to keep from flying apart. Tears pooled in her eyes and she fought to keep them back, to stop them from breaching the control point.
God don’t sit next to me.
But he did.
** ** **
Ezekiel wanted to beg at her feet. What the angel had done to him hadn't just shown him his error, but made him feel to the deepest depth of his being.
She’d thought the angel was strangling him, but when Toren's hand was around his throat, he’d allowed Ezekiel to fuse with his angelic power. There had been a whirling rope of silver looking fire tied to Skylar’s soul and during those endless seconds, he experienced every sexual encounter that she’d suffered. And not one was pleasurable. Except with him. For just a millisecond.
And even though he hadn’t cared a thing about her pleasure she’d cared about his. She’d cared about him. Which explained her anger with him. Not anger—hurt. Devastation. He'd given hope then selfishly snatched it away. He was lower than a worm. And if he didn’t show her how sorry he was, he’d die.
Only how did he do that without looking like a lying fake? Why should she believe such a drastic turn around?
Ezekiel slid to the floor and decided begging her for forgiveness was the least he could do. He held on to her legs and didn’t let her resist. “Please you have to believe me, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I had no clue, I’m so sorry, so sorry, please forgive me.” Pain constricted his chest until he couldn’t breathe. “Please forgive me.” He laid his head on her lap and wrapped his arms around her.
He stayed there as long as she allowed, whispering his regret over and over to her. When her fingers found their way into his hair and began stroking, Ezekiel looked up at her and found her staring toward the window with tears brimming in her eyes and her chin trembling.
“It’s alright.” Her whisper held that melodic twangy accent. How had he not seen how sweet it was? “It isn’t your fault. You weren’t taught any better.”
Ezekiel closed his eyes at how amazing her forgiveness felt. Nearly as good as her fingers stroking at his neck now. He went back to his spot in her lap, arms embracing her, recalling what else the angel had imparted to him. How much she enjoyed when he’d…God, he needed to make that right. Show her. But how? He was so inexperienced.
** ** **
Skylar was fighting herself and losing. Half of her fought to hold on to the bitter anger she kept inside but there was a part of her that was too damn hungry for what he was offering. Real affection, real regret, real…anything.
It felt good in that desperate moment. His short cropped hair felt good. His words felt good. His hot breath penetrating her jeans felt good.
It was like a dam where the water slowly rose and pushed against its barrier. With every second, it pushed a little more until Skylar was at the breaking point. The problem was, what needed out didn’t feel very lady like. He already saw her as the great and terrible whore of America and lo and behold she could feel her inner slut, that hidden woman in her, the one desperate for real love and passion, raging to live for the first time.
Fresh memories of how he felt when he was inside her erupted her core with a heat so hot and hard, she whimpered from it.
He lifted his head from her lap, concern on his cute—no, freaking gorgeous—face.
“Are you okay?”
She bit her lower lip and shook her head. She couldn’t even speak. She was bursting at the seams with need and longing. Oh God, so much need.
“What…can I do?”
The sound in his voice, what his words meant, oh Lord help her body function. Wait…did he just ask what to do? Didn’t he know?
As though he’d read her mind, or maybe her face, he whispered in utter shame and distress, “I…I wished I hadn’t spent my entire life learning only how to fill my own needs.”
Wow. But he’d done so well when…
“Show me. What you want.” He licked his lips, his eyes sparkling with sincerity. “Whatever it is, I will do it.”
Oh shock and awe. Now if only she knew the answer to that. She recalled when he had took control of their first kiss. How passionate it had felt. Even if they were about to die, it had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
Skylar looked at his mouth. “Kiss me.”
She slowly gripped the covers as he moved to kneel before her. He leaned in and placed a barely kiss on her lips only making her dizzy with need. The need for so much more.
With her eyes still closed, she whispered, “Like you did…at the cabin.”
He hesitated until she opened her eyes and looked into his distraught face. “We were going to die, I—”
She gasped and met his pretty blue gaze, fighting to breathe around the boulder in her chest. “I am dying.” The words seemed to untie the bindings on her heart and her need poured forth. “Dying to be loved,” she sobbed.
She sat there unable to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. No turning back now. She was wide open, it was all or nothing. She watched Ezekiel digest her words and their meaning, watched them take root. And wondered what they might produce.
He reached up and stroked her face, from her temple, slowly down to her chin. Then her neck.
Her heart raced as she watched his face, those amazing blue eyes focused on his hand. She gasped when his finger brushed over her painfull
y erect nipple. He raised his gaze to hers, a knowing look in the blue depths. He stroked again. The pleasure it caused was dizzying and she sat there as he built a raging inferno inside her with only one finger, back and forth over her nipple. “Oh God, yes.” She finally surrendered and closed her eyes.
Ezekiel carefully lifted her shirt and removed it. Skylar placed her hands behind her, offering him everything. The longing to be touched with passion mixed with the newness of never having been, produced a shy hesitancy.
Ezekiel wasn’t hesitant.
He tormented her with both hands now, stroking over her nipples with a slow deliberation. “You are very beautiful.” The ache in his voice turned the fire higher between her legs. Its molten fingers seemed to slither over her muscles, forcing her thighs open with the need to be…touched...with….
She gasped as warm fingers skimmed over her breasts to her waist, delicately tracing muscles along the way until he ended at the button on her jeans.
He unfastened them and slid down the zipper like he were unwrapping something spectacular. She lifted her butt off the bed when he began to work them over her hips. She was eager to be free of them, wanting his touch. Down there…however she could get it.
Once free, desire, the new and delicious liquid courage, flowed through her limbs and she opened her legs for him. His sexy lips remained parted as his stern gaze riveted to what she showed him. No, flaunted. Her most secret place. She didn’t want him to think she was a whore but she couldn’t stop herself from behaving like one. A desperate, wanton, whore. God she never wanted anything so much as for him to…to touch her there. With his fingers. The way she did many nights. The way she once fantasized how a good man might touch a woman.
Again desire rolled through her body, moving her hips in small inviting tilts toward him. Oh God, touch me. Please. He looked up at her finally and her tummy tickled at what she saw in his eyes. Innocent desire, raw and potent, and unskilled. Unrestrained. He’d given Reckless a face and name.
The vague surety of what he was capable of caused hungry butterflies to swarm her stomach and bite her lower lip. She silently prayed he’d ask the questions haunting his blue eyes.
“Can I touch you?”
Oh thank you Jesus. She nodded. “Yes, yes.” Desperate, she licked her lips and opened her legs wider just in case he was confused about what she wanted.
He leaned back on his haunches and gasped at the view as he placed his hands on her inner thighs, just above her knees. Fear flashed through her at what he thought of her bare parts. Did he consider it an abomination for a woman to be shaved? God she hoped not.
She moaned when he pushed her legs open wider. What would he do? She wished he’d figure it out and do it already. She was burning up with need.
He glanced up at her, seeming unsure. Damn.
She wanted him to kiss her there. She’d heard of such a thing but never dreamed of a man doing it, but having his sexy mouth so near it, well, it was suddenly all she could think about. What would it feel like to be kissed there? Passionately. Should she just ask him? God how…slutty that would seem.
Imagining his lips and tongue there was all it took to gain the courage. “Kiss…me.” She pulled her knees back more, not wanting him to think she meant on her mouth.
As though he’d been fervently praying for those words, his eyes rolled shut and he muttered words in another language as he sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. His lips found her inner thighs, first the right then the left, all soft and reverent kisses as he worked eager fingers under her butt. The hunger in his grip made her whimper, the tell-tale signs of an eternal need about to be unleashed. She had no clue what that would feel like, what that would—“Oh God!”
Ezekiel’s mouth was suddenly buried in her privates. His lips and tongue slid and swirled everywhere all at once, like she might melt away before he could have a chance to really…taste her. That’s what he was doing, he wasn’t kissing, he was tasting. Oh God it was wonderful. She couldn’t take her eyes off of what he was doing, it was both shocking and mind blowing.
His tongue flicked over her clit and she cried out with a gasp. He moaned on her and used his thumbs to open her folds, licking up and down the length of her until she was gasping. She pushed her hips on his mouth, feeling what was coming. He was going to bring her orgasm this way, the way she made herself, only he’d use his mouth.
She couldn’t resist falling back onto the bed and grabbing his head, holding it right there, right on her clit while she grunted and flicked her hips on his mouth.
He groaned on her, the sound of a man near undone with desire. His fingers bit harder into her ass, holding her tightly to his face. Skylar raked her nails in his soft velvety hair, barely aware that her moans were far too loud for neighbors, desperate and high pitched, on the verge. “Zekiel,” she gasped. “Please…please yes, don’t stop!”
He groaned hard on her, an almost painful sound, as he dug his fingers into her butt, holding her where he wanted. And he wanted her all over his mouth it seemed. God, so hot yes.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Ezekiel had never dreamed in his life that he could get off on something quite as extremely as he did doing…that to her. Skylar’s plump bare folds were heaven no matter how his mind screamed blasphemy. And her clitoris. God, yes, he loved that tiny bit of flesh that made her wild under his mouth and in his hands. He’d never felt more purpose and worth than he did bringing her such intense pleasure. And when she forced his face harder onto her desire and moved her hips in little frantic pumps followed by those sweet sounds of ecstasy…wondrous! He’d nearly climaxed in his jeans. She was beautiful. In every way. Even as he sucked her little clitoris into his mouth, he made plans of what he wanted next. How he wanted her. How many times he wanted her. How long he wanted her. God and how much he wanted her.
“Zekiel, oh God, oh God!”
Zekiel. The shortened form of his name on her sweet voice tugged at a place deep inside him, making him crave something he didn’t understand. How he loved to hear her say it as he watched her breasts rise and fall with her cries. She continued murmuring it like a fervent prayer of sweet torment.
It occurred to him to slip a finger inside her. The second he sank into the hot silk, she climaxed everywhere, her hands clutching his head. Her high pitched cry and shudders were a fascination that lit him on fire unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Ever. Before, he was a hardened soldier on a useless mission. Sex was no different. Just another mission, another rung on the ladder of life to prove himself a man.
But he clearly had no clue what a man was. Surely this. This was a man. He didn’t stop his delicate sucking and licking until she’d shuddered her last. With his lips still nestled between hers, he gazed at her heaving breasts from between her legs, loving the lingering mews in her voice. He stared at the perfect mounds and tight peaks. He wanted them. In his mouth, while his cock was buried deep. Her in his lap, facing him. He wanted to kiss her.
He dipped his tongue into her slit needing to taste what he’d done to her. He very soon lost himself in her flavor, overcome with the need to name it. As he licked it all up, he finally settled on succulent silk petals of wild honey suckle. It was unlike anything his tongue and lips had ever encountered. She was paradise in human form and he could easily lose himself in her.
Ezekiel waited for guilt and shame. What he’d done ranked up there with sexual lewdness. Perversion. Sex was for procreation and male domination. Not this. And certainly not with an American woman. The white devils.
She moved a little and he looked up from kissing her soft inner thighs. Propped up on her elbows, she gave him a scorching look that sent his heart on a marathon run. Delicate pink kissed her cheeks and her eyes glistened with…something unfamiliar, but whatever it was, made his stomach jump through hoops of fire.
“My turn.”
Her turn? Did she mean…
For some reason, the idea of her doing that seemed more wrong than ever.
He would never treat her like a whore. Ever again. “No. Absolutely not.”
She sat up and he tried to understand why she appeared hurt about that. Why on Earth would she?
“I’ll never ask that of you. Ever.” He sat on the bed next to her, his cock painfully erect in his jeans still, as he stroked his thumb over her silky cheek, looking into her confused gaze. “You’re too good for that.”
Where relief should have been, Ezekiel found an odd disappointment. “But…I want to.”
What? “But why, it’s not necessary, you don’t have to.”
Her forehead puckered and he leaned and kissed it. “I know I don’t have to. Don’t you want me to?”
“No, I don’t.”
“What?”
He pulled back and searched her face for signs of the misunderstanding they were clearly having. “Women who do that are…” Ezekiel wasn’t sure how to say it without offending her. Especially since she seemed bent on doing it. “They think they’re supposed to because it’s their…duty. But it’s not. Not yours. Ever.”
A few seconds of wide eyed wonder and she whispered, “Oh my God.”
“What?”
She shook her head a little, her pretty face blooming with a smile. He was relieved that she finally realized what he was saying. Sparing her from.
“Can you…take off your pants for me?”
His heart picked up speed as he thought of making love to her properly. If he even knew how. He was sure he’d figure it out. Worse case scenario, he’d happily die trying.
** ** **
Skylar couldn’t believe her ears. The man didn’t know that a woman might actually want to do that? Grant it she’d never wanted to do that, but she did now. Very much so. And how sweet of him to excuse her from the dreadful sex task. He surely liked her a lot to do that, she thought.
Summon Toren (Archangels Creed #3) Page 20