Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  He roped my waist to keep me in place, and then, in the most serious voice I’d ever heard him use, he said, “The only way they could hurt me would be by taking you away.”

  I traced the ridge of his brow, thinking about a long-ago conversation I’d had with Eve. I’d asked her if she believed in soul mates. Instead of asking me where I’d come up with that harebrained idea—I was certain she assumed I’d read it in one of my human books—she’d answered, Yes.

  I’d been so surprised that I’d gaped at her for two solid minutes.

  And it’s terrible when it happens, because it means the Malakim did a subpar job of wiping away the souls’ memories and giving them the blank slate they need to start their new lives. Usually those souls—the ones who remember—spend so much time hunting down souls from past lives that they don’t work on improving themselves. They just squander their time on Earth.

  After that, I’d balked at her, but for a completely different reason.

  Maybe you shouldn’t be a Malakim, Leigh.

  Wh-what? I’d stuttered.

  You’re so governed by your love of love that sometimes I think it might not be the best calling for you.

  I’d gotten very defensive, then. Just because I’m a romantic doesn’t mean I’d disregard celestial ordinations.

  She’d come to sit on my bed and had hooked a hand around my shoulder. Leigh, I didn’t say this to upset you. I just don’t want you relegated to working as an Ophanim because you didn’t have the heart to scrub souls of their previous lifetimes.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jarod asked, stealing me out of the memory.

  “A conversation I had with a friend a long time ago.”

  “Are you sure it was with a friend? You look about ready to punch someone.”

  His comment gave me pause, because I realized that sending me to Paris wasn’t Eve’s first unsympathetic act toward me. For years, she’d made me doubt myself. Why had I been so intent on not seeing her for what she really was, which was not a friend?

  “She’s the reason I’m here.” I traced the stitching in the hem of my T-shirt. “She suggested I take you on, because she must’ve known your score was locked and I wouldn’t be able to earn my feathers in time for—” I stopped talking, not thinking it wise to remind Jarod of my prior desire to marry the archangel.

  “In time for what?” When I didn’t respond, he imprisoned my restless fingers. “In time for what, Leigh?”

  “Remember that bet I told you about?” I stared at the span of the hand cocooning mine.

  “The one to marry another man? The one you had forty days to win?” He made a sound at the back of his throat. “How could I forget?”

  “I didn’t understand it then—because I didn’t think anyone in the system could be irredeemable—but she sent me to you to remove me from the competition.” I peeked at him through a lock of hair that had tumbled into my eyes.

  He tucked the strand back. “I’ve never felt such conflicting emotions toward a person—part of me wants to break her neck and another part wants to prostrate myself at her feet.”

  I couldn’t decide if I was horrified or moved by his declaration. Both. I was both.

  “How did this girl know so much about me?”

  I bit my lip. “Apparently, she tried to reform you.”

  He bobbed his head a few times. “What color feathers does she have?”

  “Why?”

  “Many angels have shown up on my doorstep. I find remembering the color of their wings, when they display them, easier than their faces or names.”

  “Yellow with gold tips,” I said.

  When the corner of his mouth curled up, I took it he remembered her.

  Even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to get an answer, the masochist in me asked, “Did you take her to your bedroom and give her a strip show too?” I was deeply disturbed by how jealous I sounded.

  He ran his thumb over the edge of my jaw, no longer smiling. “You’re the first person—besides Muriel and Tristan—who’s seen the inside of my bedroom.”

  I was sure he was just saying that to quell my jealousy. Then again, he didn’t need to be in his own bed to have sex. And why was I thinking about Jarod having sex? Ugh.

  He returned the hand he’d set over mine to my waist and dragged me closer. “To tell you the truth, I was just as shocked as you were to have let you inside.”

  “You didn’t look shocked.”

  “Probably because most of the blood in my body had gone south, incapacitating my brain and facial expressions.” He shifted and something dug into my thigh. Something too hard to be a wallet and too thick to be a cell phone. “Same way I’m so turned on right now I’m afraid I’m going to end up bruising your thigh.” He dropped his voice. “Or my dick.”

  My mind blanked, and my pulse scattered throughout my body like embers from a fire. I didn’t move and neither did he, as though handing me the reins to whatever it was we’d started mere hours ago.

  I turned toward him before gliding off his lap to straddle him instead. “I think it would be wise that I didn’t completely damn my soul tonight. But perhaps, we could test the boundaries?” My sore back was apparently not sore enough to keep me from rebelling.

  His hands rose to my ass but didn’t apply any pressure. Which I doubted was for lack of want. The strain in his posture told me he was waging a war with himself not to drag me any closer. “What do you have in mind, Feather?”

  What I didn’t have in mind would’ve been an easier question. I really had read way too many romances. Or perhaps, I’d just been bridled for far too long.

  I rocked my hips, and the bulge in Jarod’s pants rubbed against my underwear.

  The sensation that shot through my core made both our breaths catch. It also made Jarod clench his jaw and his fingers.

  “Our clothes stay on,” I whispered into his ear at the same time I shifted my hips.

  He made an unintelligible sound that was part groan, part growl.

  The third time I did it, he ensnared my mouth and lashed my tongue, doing to my mouth what I wouldn’t allow him to do to my body. As I rocked back and forth, his zipper began to chafe the sensitive skin beneath my black lace underwear. One of his hands left my ass to cradle the back of my head while his other dragged me nearer.

  When heat started to build between my thighs, my spine tightened as though preparing for feathers to loosen and rain down around us.

  Jarod ripped his mouth off mine, his breaths coming out in hot, hard pants. “Your wings? How are your wings?”

  The fact that he cared shot emotion through my chest. “They’re fine.”

  I tried to grind into him, but he held me away, his gaze skirting the carpet and bed. When he was satisfied the Ishim weren’t admonishing me, his hold relaxed, and I moved over him. He shuddered and closed his eyes, his lashes fanning his cheeks. I kissed one lid, then the other.

  “Fuck, Feather.” He sounded angry, feral almost, as though the pressure of his zipper was hurting him.

  “Want me to stop?”

  His eyes flew open, and he barked a laugh that was not a laugh at all considering how tense his lips were. “What I want is for you to come before I cream my pants.”

  I blushed. “Oh.”

  He shook his head, seemingly surprised the girl who’d come up with the idea of dry-humping could go red in the face. Or maybe, I was tossing my insecurities out on him, and he wasn’t surprised in the least.

  As his hips danced against mine, his mouth slid down the length of my throat, nipping and suckling every piece of exposed skin. Heady sensations whirled deep inside my belly, racing like thunder on scorching summer nights, popping like lightning, threatening to drown our world.

  Thighs trembling, I closed my eyes and rocked, and the power of that single, slow stroke rent me in half, smiting Jarod’s name out of my lungs, liquefying my bones, singeing my flesh. A choked curse spewed from Jarod and echoed against the walls that had seen him grow
from an innocent child into a man who was a lot of things, but not innocent.

  But who truly was? Not Eve who’d spent her life pushing me down. Not Asher who’d ranked a man unjustly. Not Celeste with her sharp tongue and sharper wit. Not Tristan who’d removed fingernails from a man. And not me.

  Not anymore.

  As Jarod’s wet heat absorbed into my underwear’s lace, filling the air with a sultry, musky scent, I realized I hadn’t lost a feather. For all their rules and dictates, pleasure wasn’t heresy to my kind. I wasn’t sure whether to feel outraged that I’d been spoon-fed lies or grateful that it wasn’t a sin.

  “You might destroy my soul after all,” Jarod said slowly, lazily strumming the base of my spine with his fingers.

  I smoothed back his wild hair. “Your soul is safe, Jarod Adler, but I won’t make the same promise about your pants.”

  He tossed his head back, and the dark, radiant waves of his laughter lapped at my heart, all at once dashing it to pieces and solidifying each beat.

  Chapter 39

  The divide between wrong and right frayed further that night. After stopping by his bedroom for a shower, Jarod returned wearing his black robe over a pair of black briefs molded to his body. He locked the door, then tossed the robe onto a valet stand.

  The soft glow of the bathroom light edged the solid span of his shoulders, the muscles swelling his long thighs, and the dark curls of chest hair that became a mere scattering over the ridges in his abdomen before thickening again below his navel. The man was a masterpiece of flesh and muscle, tortured and torturous.

  He watched me looking at him but didn’t make light of it, didn’t ask if I liked what I saw. There was probably no doubt in his mind that I found him—all of him—to my liking.

  “Would you rather I don’t sleep here tonight, Feather?”

  His question jolted my gaze off the sharp dents in his narrow waist. “It’s your house.”

  He smiled. “Might be my house, but it’s still your choice.”

  I tugged my bottom lip into my mouth. Was inviting him to lay beside me a good idea or the worst one I’d had yet?

  I lifted the comforter and slid toward the middle of the huge bed. Apparently, I wasn’t done making questionable decisions.

  A vein throbbed in his neck and along one of his arms. I watched his skin palpitate as he approached the bed. I still couldn’t believe he’d grown up sleeping in a king-sized bed, then again, he’d grown up like royalty, and princes didn’t sleep in bunk beds.

  When his thumbs hooked into the elastic band of his briefs, I freed my lip. “Please keep it on.”

  I neither trusted him nor myself. Now that I’d dipped a toe into the forbidden lake, I wanted to submerge my entire body, but my mind and heart weren’t ready for more. Not so soon.

  “I don’t want to use you any more than I already have,” I added, as his body aligned with mine.

  He quirked a dark brow. “Use me?”

  “I’m angry at angels tonight.”

  He stroked the side of my body, raising goose bumps underneath my T-shirt. “I have no objections to being used by you.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “Am I laughing?” He wasn’t even smiling. “Leigh”—his voice was low and serious—“do you regret tonight?”

  “No, but what if I do tomorrow?”

  He rolled onto his back. As he studied the white ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “In the morning, you’ll head to your guild and sign off from me.”

  My mouth fell open, and I rasped, “Jarod—I don’t—”

  “Wait. Listen.” He turned his face toward mine. “I’m surrounded by people whose scores are probably high double-digits. I’ll help you reform them so the feathers I stole from you grow back.”

  His words wrung a gasp from my parted lips. As I scooted onto one elbow, I blinked down at him. I had no regrets about ridding my wings of feathers. I just didn’t want to regret sleeping with him to test the boundaries of our system.

  “You’ll complete your wings.” His jaw clenched. “Maybe even in time for Asher’s—”

  “Jarod, stop! I don’t want Asher.”

  “But do you want me?”

  From the pain lancing inside my chest, all of my doubts about being intimate to test the limits of my world left me. His altruism made a tear slide down my cheek and fall on my tensed forearm. I tried to answer him, but instead of the word yes, I choked on a sob.

  Jarod started to raise his hand but paused in midair. When a new tear dripped off my chin, he sighed and tunneled his arm beneath my bent one, toppling me onto him before pressing my shaking body against his.

  I pressed away from him so he could see my expression. “Yes,” I croaked. “I want you.”

  He gave me a kindly smile, the sort people put on to be polite. “You don’t have to say—”

  “Shut up, Jarod Adler. Shut. Up. I’m never signing off from you. And not because of your soul anymore. I’m not signing off because of your damn heart.”

  The planes of his face readjusted, his confidence slowly blazing back and extinguishing the uncertainty my stupid tongue had caused.

  “I was talking about regretting losing my virginity when I felt so mad. I’m a romantic, remember?” I said gruffly.

  His lips quirked. “My damn heart thanks you and promises to make your first time”—he rolled us over, caging my head with his forearms and my thighs with his knees—“and all the ones after, fucking romantic.”

  “I’m not sure those two words fit together.”

  He lowered himself a fraction, and his hard length stroked up the inside of my leg. “I think they fit what I have in mind to perfection, Feather.”

  My entire body went on high alert. “Jarod,” I warned.

  He kissed my nose, then pried himself off me. “It’s going to be a long, hard night,” he said, dragging out the word.

  I smiled. “Your sense of humor leaves me speechless, Monsieur Adler.”

  Letting out a soft chuckle, he gathered me against him, locking my back against his front.

  His very hard front.

  Was he really expecting me to fall asleep like that? The heat of his skin and the bulge prodding my tailbone made me squirm. I didn’t manage to put more than an inch between our bodies before his big palm erased the space.

  He slid himself a little lower, settling his stiffness underneath my ass, then dropped a kiss on the top of my spine. “Better?”

  I was too focused on all the points of contact on our bodies to answer.

  When he pressed his mouth to the curve of my neck, my body finally softened and molded to his. “I’m not hurting your back, am I, Feather?”

  How long would it take me to get used to how sweet he was underneath all that snark? “You’re not.”

  “Good.” His palm was a warm iron on my stomach, all at once keeping me close and branding me.

  “Jarod, are you going to stay all night?” I prayed my voice didn’t smack of desperation.

  It wasn’t that I was scared of staying alone in this bedroom, but I was in the home of a Mafia boss. For all his guards and security, what if bad people came in the middle of the night? The irony of my deliberations hit me. The mob wasn’t made of saints and innocents.

  I realized he’d never answered me. His breaths had gentled against my neck even though the hand holding me hadn’t. He’d slipped into sleep so easily I had trouble believing that spending the night next to a woman was a first for him.

  Frustratingly, that new deliberation kept me awake long into the night.

  Chapter 40

  Three knocks followed by Muriel’s voice announcing I had a visitor had my lids flipping up. I tried to get up, but a hand tugged me back, and I only managed to sit. I stared down at the hand, then at the body attached to it, and my heart went haywire.

  I’d spent the night in the Court of Demons.

  I’d slept next to Jarod Adler.

  He and I had . . . we’d . .
.

  One side of Jarod’s mouth perked up as he observed my heating complexion.

  He chucked me under the chin, probably to slam my lips shut before answering Muriel in a languid yet authoritative tone, “Mimi, tell Leigh’s guest to make themselves comfortable in the study,” which caused my mouth to gape wider.

  Oh . . . sweet . . . baby . . . cherubs.

  Muriel now knew Jarod had spent the night with me. She’d probably imagine all sorts of things.

  I decided that I would never again leave this room. Not even for my guest. And why did I have a guest? It wasn’t my home. Had Muriel mentioned a name? I wanted to ask, but by the time I located my voice, Jarod bumped the inside of my elbow, and I tumbled onto his bare chest with an oomph.

  I hissed his name as I struggled back up, my palm pressing against the surprisingly soft dark curls on his chest.

  “Yes, Feather?” His voice was deliciously deep and infuriatingly sprightly.

  Once I managed to lever myself up, I said, “Muriel’s going to think—she’s going to think—ugh . . .”

  The second corner of his mouth ticked up. “What is it she’s going to think?” He gently combed back my mad hair. “That I spent the entire night inside of you?”

  “Yes. I mean, no.” I almost wished I could’ve started smoldering, because I was pretty certain my color rivaled the Demon Court’s porte-cochère.

  When Jarod chuckled, I rolled onto my back and smacked my forearm over my eyes to make the world disappear since I couldn’t make myself vanish. The mattress dipped. I waited for Jarod to move my arm, but it wasn’t my arm he touched, and it wasn’t his hand that touched me. His hot mouth landed on mine, and my arm stumbled off my face, plopping onto the brassy mane fanned over the pillow.

  A moan fell from my lips as his hand glided up my waist, my ribs, and . . . oh. I gasped as he palmed one of my breasts, crinkling the washed cotton T-shirt over it. He swallowed the sound, keeping up his steady assault and adding one to my nipple.

  The hands trying to lift him off wound around his neck, tangled into his hair, and deepened the kiss. When he settled his lower body between my legs and pressed his thick bulge against my entrance, sanity finally clocked me.