Jason stepped up to the railing beside her. “There’s a strange sort of calm to the city at night.”
That made her snort. “Maybe because the dickhead angels instituted a curfew. Uh…no offense.”
“My kind tried to burn me alive,” he replied. “So none taken.”
Sensing the note of reluctant humor in his voice, she turned her head to gaze at him…and immediately regretted it. The lights from the bridge caressed the corded muscles of his back, as well as his taut abs and pecs. Despite the chill, he didn’t seem the slightest bit cold, which she knew came from his angelic constitution. Normal heat and cold didn’t bother angels the way it did humans.
Damn, but the man was built, and not the sort of muscles you got from lifting weights at a gym, but the natural, lean muscle of a man who constantly moved his body. An angel trait, and one that made it all too easy to see how humans could fall for all their bullshit. These majestic creatures looked as if they were made for worship.
“How did you get away?” she whispered. She’d always wondered, all the while mourning the fact that her own father hadn’t been able to escape.
Jason shrugged and the corners of his lips tugged upward, but she sensed his discomfort at the topic. “There were twenty-five of us who championed mankind. The others decided we were too dangerous to live. They knew that if we were to warn humans, their agenda might never be met. So they shackled us to two iron bars set deep into the ground inside a straw hut and set it afire. As you probably know from your father, fire is the only thing that can kill an angel. It counteracts our natural ability to regenerate.”
She swallowed hard. God, what he must have gone through. Condemned by his own kind. Left to die a horrific death. “Twelve of you escaped, right?”
“Yes. There was a blast inside the hut. It bent one of the poles just enough that we were able to force it from the ground. The twelve of us were shackled to that pole.”
Which meant her father must have been bound to the other pole. So it was only by a twist of fate that Jason stood before her today rather than her own father.
Jason’s throat worked as he gazed sightlessly out at the water. “We tried to save the others, but it was too late. The fire had already fully consumed them.”
Somehow she knew he was reliving the horrors of that event in his mind. Her heart constricted and she reached out to close her hand over his, doing her best to ignore the electric currents of energy that wound up her arm and sent a shiver of unrestrained lust through her body. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I know,” he answered grimly. “But I wish there had been.”
After a moment, he turned his hand over to clasp hers, meeting her gaze with an unsteady grin that bespoke his desire to change the subject. “Ready to fly?”
Reaching out with her senses, she confirmed there were no angels within their vicinity. Since she’d perceive the presence of an incoming angel long before the angel sensed her, there was no point in denying it. “Yes. I’m ready.”
His grin broadened, and a boyish look transformed his face. Before she could process the stark beauty of it, he flexed his shoulders. Out of nowhere, a mass of black feathers grew from his back, spreading high over his shoulders and cascading to the ground in a flurry of down. She couldn’t hold back the sharp gasp that escaped her lips. While she’d witnessed the process before, thanks to her father and to her first encounter with Michael, it had never been from this close. The heat of their heavy weight practically enveloped her, instantly warming her front by several degrees.
“Awfully good parlor trick,” she managed once she’d picked her jaw off the ground.
Jason gave her a cheeky wink. “You should see what else I can do.”
Before she could respond, he snatched her into his arms and shot up toward the sky with a speed that tore the breath from her chest. Sucking in a lungful of air, she wound her arms around Jason’s neck. While shirking his touch would normally be the safest strategy, it certainly didn’t apply at a time like this. She might be half angel, but she sure as hell couldn’t fly on her own.
A stream of hot hair flowed over her face as he beat his wings hard, propelling them toward the bridge. She hooked her ankles over his for support and stared at them unabashedly, noting the strength of the sinew beneath the down. Hell, she wanted to touch them…badly. But she knew better. She shouldn’t even be staring at them so closely. An angel’s wings were sacred to him or her, and beyond sensitive. She might as well reach down and close her hand over his package…not that the thought of doing that didn’t tempt her, either.
The memory of their earlier encounter washed over her, leaving her hot and bothered, and more than a little embarrassed. Oh God, how could she have given in to her desires like that?
But then he began his descent, powerfully angling downward so that the strong muscles in the front of his thighs made contact with hers, and she came to terms with the reality of the situation.
Of course I jumped him. I’m only human.
And he was so deliciously not.
After touching down on top of the nearest limestone and granite column, Jason set her to her feet in a gentle motion that almost seemed forced, as if he wanted to keep her in his arms. She knew the feeling. Fighting it with all her might, she pried her unwilling hands from around his neck.
The moment he took a step back, the full force of the biting breeze buffeted Ruby’s thermal-clad upper body. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself.
“Sorry.” Jason’s wings reached out to furl around her, the strong sinew enclosing her like a blanket and immediately warming the temperature by several degrees. “I forgot you aren’t impervious to the cold in the same way I am.”
“Thanks,” she replied, too grateful for the warmth to put up any sort of token protest. When she turned away from him to face the glittering Manhattan skyline, his feathers lowered slightly but stayed wrapped around her.
Oh hell, why not take advantage of this moment? After all, when would she ever be wrapped in an angel’s wings again?
Leaning slightly forward, she allowed the weight of his wings to caress her body like a soft, heavenly kiss. “That was pretty amazing, I have to admit. Makes me wish I had wings of my own.”
Jason let out a hearty chuckle. “Just say the word and you’ll have use of mine.”
Mm…his wings weren’t the only thing she wanted to use. And it was just plain scary that she was feeling this way. She barely knew him, for God’s sake.
Keeping her gaze on the horizon, Ruby asked, “Isn’t it dangerous to keep your wings out? I mean, the color is pretty conspicuous.”
She felt his shrug from the movement of his wings against her. “No more dangerous than standing perched atop a bridge, or being out past curfew to begin with. Besides, you’ll know of an angel’s approach well before he or she manages to spot us.”
All good points, even if the thought of standing out here so exposed did give her the heebie-jeebies.
Shifting her gaze downward, she stared past the mess of cables running from the towers down to the deck. How crazy to imagine that the now-deserted bridge would have once upon a time housed a steady stream of traffic at this time of night.
“Things have changed so much since your kind landed in our dimension,” she murmured.
“For us too,” Jason said softly, his hot breath stirring her ponytail and causing a shiver along the back of her neck. “Imagine waking up to find your world gone. To find yourself stranded on another dimension, with no hope of ever returning to the world you once knew.”
She couldn’t even begin to.
“How did it happen?” She turned her gaze to the Central Park angel tower whose pinnacle now soared above the Manhattan skyline. “Does anyone even really know?”
“I don’t believe so,” he responded. “I’ve often wondered whether our world ceased to exist entirely, or whether all of its inhabitants were merely uprooted by some metaphysical twist of fate, like a
temporary compression of both our dimensions.”
Shaking her head, she whispered, “My mind can’t even begin to process the way these sorts of things work.”
“All I know is this, sweet one. If we don’t stop the rest of my kind, then your world hasn’t begun to see the magnitude of changes that will soon occur here.”
“You mean annihilation of my species,” she said flatly.
“Yes.”
His blunt words caused her chest to tighten. She whirled around so quickly she caught the surprise in his eyes and the oh-so-erotic way his chest muscles twitched as his wings tightened around her in automatic response. “We have to stop them. No matter what it takes.”
Something in his eyes darkened, turning them to pools of bottomless hunter-green. “We will, Ruby. Michael and I and the others, we’ll give our lives to protect the human race.”
Somehow she knew he wasn’t lying. Maybe it was because of what he and the other Fallen had already been through in their defense of mankind, or maybe because her father had proven that angels had the capacity to be kind, but she knew he would be willing to give his life. The thought made her fiercely proud and, on a whole other level, more than a little sad.
Giving in to the urge, she lifted one of her hands to his cheek. The contact with his warm flesh heated her frigid palm, and for once she was glad angels didn’t feel the cold as humans did.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Because, Fallen, I would truly hate to see you die.
His full lips curved into a smile that rocked her entire foundation, the movement highlighting the pure perfection of his features. She swore she could look at him for days on end without getting tired of the symmetry of his face.
True to her prediction, Ruby lost track of how long she stayed frozen in her spot, staring at Jason. It was only when the niggling tickle of warning in her spine grew to more alarming levels that she realized what it was.
“Oh shit.”
One of Jason’s brows crawled upward. “What?”
Tearing her gaze from his, she instinctively scanned the horizon. “An angel approaching. Fast. I didn’t realize at first.”
His gaze focused toward the Manhattan skyline, eyes zooming out of focus, and she knew he was seeing way farther than she ever could.
“Shit.” His body stiffened. “It’s a white-wing, and he’s closer than I’d like. Another mile and he’ll be able to sense us with no problem.”
Panic had her whirling back toward the location of her below-grounds safe haven. “I don’t think we’ll make it back in time. He’s flying faster than I anticipated your kind could.”
Jason’s wings unfurled from around her body. Before she could even process his movement, he’d snatched her into his arms, with her back to his front, and zoomed off toward land.
She breathed in hard as the intensity of the sensation prickling her spine increased. “It’s no use,” she called over the whistle of the breeze. “We won’t make it in time. We’ll only end up giving the location away!”
And she’d rather die than betray her gang.
“I’m not going there,” he answered, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.
Then where?
She didn’t have the opportunity to ask before he zoomed down toward the docks adjacent to the bridge. The area had been turned into a park before the angels had arrived, which often attracted a decent crowd during the day. Of course at this time of night, past curfew, it was completely deserted.
Jason bypassed a row of benches and headed straight for one of the columns dug into the ground on the underside of the bridge.
“What are you--?” She stopped in mid-sentence when he wedged them both beneath an iron overhang that had been set into the lower part of the column above a metal doorway. About four feet over his head, it couldn’t have been more than a foot or two wide.
Whoa, she’d never noticed this overhang before…or the doorway leading into the column. Staring dubiously at the somewhat flimsy piece of metal, she asked, “Do you think it’ll work?”
“I don’t know.”
He flexed his shoulders and his wings disappeared. Part of her marveled at how quickly and easily he could go from other to human-looking, but the greater part of her was freaking the hell out. There was an angel above them…and not one of the good guys. She’d never come this close before, and the blame was wholly to rest on her apparent stupid fascination with the Fallen before her.
His body close to hers, he murmured, “I would have tried getting into the door, but there wasn’t enough time. He’ll be close enough to sense us at any moment.”
Her heart pattering in her chest, Ruby plastered herself against said door and hooked her thumbs around the belt loops of Jason’s jeans, pulling him tighter to her. This most definitely wasn’t the time for propriety. She didn’t know what would happen if the angel discovered them, but she didn’t want to find out either. Who knew whether their kind had some sort of personal tracking system? Even if Jason and the angel went head-to-head and Jason defeated him, she didn’t want to risk attracting any kind of attention to their neck of the woods.
Plastering a hand to either side of her, Jason effectively caged her between him and the wall. She stood there silently, drawing in the warmth of her breath against the hot skin of his chest and not daring to utter a sound. Angelic sense of hearing was almost as developed as their advanced sight.
When Jason’s muscles stiffened against her, she sucked in her breath, her heart clenching tight, but after an interminable number of achingly long minutes, he slowly relaxed.
“His wings stopped beating for a moment directly over us,” he rumbled. “I think he might have caught a glimmer of our essences, but the iron did the trick. After a brief pause, he moved on.”
“Good.” She breathed a sigh of relief, her rigid muscles losing their tension. But then awareness of her current location crept in, and her muscles tightened for a whole other reason. Holy hell, was he close. His body pressed so tightly against hers that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed and the heat of his bare skin seeped through her thermal shirt. Not to mention the proximity of their lower bodies.
As if he too just noticed their closeness, the muscles of his thighs went rigid, and there was a sudden, unmistakable hardness pressing against the waistband of his jeans, right where they met the sensitive flesh of her lower stomach.
Oh my freaking God.
Clearly it wasn’t just the muscles of his chest that were stiff and defined, and… well…built.
A moan of harsh longing built deep in Ruby’s throat. She swallowed hard in an attempt to dissipate it, but it was all but impossible. She wanted. Lord, but she hungered for him.
His upper body slowly pushed away from her, though his hands remained lock in place on either side of her head.
Summoning the courage to meet his gaze, she stammered, “I-I think we should head back.”
Something dark and hungry flashed in his eyes. “Not yet.”
“But—”
Before she could further object, his mouth swooped down to crush hers, his tongue plunging unceremoniously inside. All thoughts of protest fled, fueled by raging, passionate desire.
She needed him. Now.
Chapter Seven
Ruby wrapped her arms around Jason’s neck, her fingernails digging carelessly into his flesh. He let out a growl against her mouth and his hands moved to her hips then slid between her and the wall to cup the curves of her ass. Before she could even process the delicious sensation, he lifted her feet from the ground, fitting himself to the juncture of her thighs. She didn’t think to protest the intimate act, just wrapped her legs around his hips. It felt so amazingly good to have his rigid heat pressed to that part of her that ached so badly she wanted to scream from it.
“Please,” she cried when his lips moved from her mouth to her throat, trailing heated kisses along the sensitive skin. Her voice was rough and garbled,
unrecognizable even to her own ears.
“Yes,” he whispered against her throat. His hips undulated so that the stiff heat she so desperately longed to feel slid along her crease, creating an amazing sense of friction there. She clung desperately to his body as his hands released their grip on her thighs. He slid her tight shirt up her body until he encountered the softness of her bra and her heavy pendant fell between her breasts. The cold temperature of the stone made her gasp.
“So tempting,” he whispered, pressing light, teasing kisses on her lips as his fingers crept to her back and expertly unclasped her bra. When his hands slipped under the loosened fabric to cup her breasts, she didn’t fight the moan that bubbled from her throat.
“That feels so good.”
It was also the farthest she’d ever gotten with a man…and wasn’t that just plain scary considering her age?
When his mouth lowered to one of her breasts, nibbling and licking the sensitive flesh before he took the hardened bud into her mouth, stars exploded across her vision. The sensation of electricity where his mouth touched her flesh was unbelievable.
She swallowed the rough cry in her throat and let her head fall back against the metal door, reveling in the utterly incredible sensation of his lips and tongue. Hell, she’d never imagined it would feel so good. If she had, she might not have waited.
Who are you kidding? Her conscience prodded her. It’s not so much the act as the man doing it to you.
Yeah, maybe her conscience had a point there. There was surely a reason she’d never been tempted before Jason.
His lips moved to her other breast and one of her hands cupped the back of his head, playing with the softness of his dark, silky hair. The other hand trailed down his shoulder and along his back, memorizing every curve and ridge of his muscular flesh. Sparks of electricity zinged wherever she touched him, sending tremors of desire through her entire body.
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