Falling Hard

by J. K. Coi

  He wanted to tell her it was going to be all right, both of them could find a way out of this mess. Instead, he lowered his head and took her puckered nipple in his mouth, listening for her ragged moans.

  Her fingers twisted in his hair and tugged sharply. Gabriel fumbled one-handed with the belt buckle at her waist. He was being too rough, but it didn’t matter. Lifting his head, he ravaged her mouth, sucking hard on her tongue.

  His fingers found their way past denim and lace to the slick warmth between her thighs.

  “Oh God.” He slid two fingers deep.

  She was wet. So wet, so ready. “We really should go inside…I should do this right. Gentle.” He didn’t want to go gently. Didn’t want to bring her inside. He felt the wildness howling in him, and he wanted Amelia right here and now, up against the wall with the night’s breeze twisting her hair around his arm and wrenching the cries from their mouths.

  Amelia shook her head. “No,” she whispered, her breath coming fast. She started to squirm in his arms, reaching for his belt. “I don’t need you to be gentle. I just need you now.”

  “Yes, now. Right here. God, Amelia. Are you sure?”

  She kissed him, her demanding mouth telling him she’d achieved the same height of urgency.

  Bending, he helped with her boots and roughly pulled her jeans over her hips and thighs, until she kicked them off completely while he shoved down his own pants.

  Quickly scooping her into his arms again, he curled one hand behind her knee and pressed her against the wall. “Put your legs around my waist.”

  When she obeyed, opening her body to him, Gabriel immediately sheathed himself in her wet heat, groaning from the intensity of the pleasure that speared him through the center of his heart, soul and groin all at once. He kissed her as she tightened her arms and legs, hips thrusting forward.

  “Hold on,” she murmured. Her eyes were tightly closed and she continued to repeat the words, making them a whispered refrain he knew he wasn’t really meant to hear. “Hold on. Hold on.” She was talking to herself, desperately trying to stay in control of everything even while she bravely opened herself up to the pleasure he was offering her.

  Gabriel wasn’t having as much luck in the control department. Unable to stop now, pushing faster, harder. He couldn’t have cared less if Amelia’s protection wards fell away and the rest of the world could see exactly what they were doing. He wouldn’t have given a shit if all the angels descended on them at this very moment. He’d take every one of them on if it meant keeping Amelia in his arms, in his life, forever.

  Shaking his head and burying his face in the deep curve of her neck, he breathed deeply, needing to surround himself not only with the warmth of her skin, but everything. The smooth, liquid tones of her voice, the intoxication of her scent, and her lustrous aura.

  “Gabriel, please. Make me a part of your world.”

  Suddenly, it was too much. As he hurtled them both closer to the sharp edge of orgasm, Gabriel struggled to be as strong as she was. “Hold on.” He repeated her words, battling with the other side of himself.

  He felt the other rising again and fought to remain the dominant force in his own body. It was stronger and more determined than ever. As hungry for Amelia as Gabriel was.

  Was it because he and the fallen angel had already become so closely connected that their desires mirrored one another’s? Or could it be that Lucifer had always been drawn to Amelia as well? Either way, the result was a frightening surge of dangerous, covetous desire that threatened to spill over and consume him.

  Gabriel planted his fist against the wall just above Amelia’s shoulder, his other arm clutching her hard against him as he thrust into her. Please. Please. Please.

  His own mantra remained a silent one. He couldn’t afford to let her see how close he was to giving in. How close he was to giving in to all of it.

  Amelia was coming apart. He felt it in the trembling limbs she tightened around him and her broken breaths in his ear. Gabriel ruthlessly beat back the devil inside, making his movements longer, deeper, more deliberate until her cries echoed in the cool night air.

  Finally, he let the waves of pleasure break over himself too—aware all the while that something important was missing.

  Out of fear and distrust, each of them was still hiding vital pieces of themselves from the other. But instead of being relieved that he’d persevered, that he’d managed to hold onto his soul for a little while longer, Gabriel felt frustrated and oddly hollow, as if, in this momentary victory he’d lost something even more precious.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gabriel was avoiding her.

  Amelia had given up on patience, long strides taking her back and forth in front of the cheery, crackling fire in the hearth of their cozy one-room cottage.

  Gabriel sat on the porch steps with his guitar. His haunting music floated to her through the slightly open window to pull at her heart and bring an uncomfortable stinging sensation to her eyes.

  In the last few days, Amelia had come to realize just how rare and impressive Gabriel’s talent really was. He had a gift for song that went far beyond any of the angels’ capabilities, coming from the part of him born not of Lucifer but of pure human emotion.

  Beautiful and raw and strong. It surprised her how much the music touched her, how desperate she was to preserve that beauty. Not because it was her duty, but because she couldn’t bear for something so wonderful to be lost.

  When he stopped singing and the accompaniment of his guitar fell suddenly silent, she looked up. He stepped into the entrance, framed by the doorway. With only the light of the moon shining behind him and a soft golden glow coming from the fireplace inside the cottage, he was shrouded in dancing shadows and she couldn’t see his expression.

  He stepped across the threshold and set his guitar on the small dining table.

  “It’s been a long night.” Keeping his distance from her, he pulled his fingers through his hair with a sigh. “I’m going to try and get some sleep.”

  They didn’t have any time left. Not for sleeping, not for arguing, not for loving. But the objection died on her lips. She shut her mouth without saying a word, feeling a deep pang of remorse. There were dark circles painted beneath his reddened eyes. The scruff of beard on his cheeks and chin was heavy, and dragging his hands through his hair repeatedly had only added to Gabriel’s already mussed appearance.

  Amelia felt guilty for putting him through this. Even guiltier because her body seemed not to care how tired he looked. She found him irresistible. Her blood pumped faster and the peaks of her breasts tightened beneath her soft white sweater.

  As hard as it was, she pushed that aside. “Gabriel.”

  She tried to say something more, but his expression tightened defensively and no other words came. Why did she look at him and feel so awkward, so inadequate? How odd was it that each of their intimate episodes had only managed to make it more difficult to talk to one another? In fact, sex had driven them farther apart rather than the other way around.

  Her eyesight blurred. The hard lump in her throat threatened to choke her, but there was so much that needed to be said. “Gabriel, I—”

  She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to force back the overwhelming ache. It was going to rend her in two. Why was it so hard? Why did it hurt so much? A noise broke from between her lips that sounded distressingly like a sob.

  Suddenly Gabriel was no longer on the other side of the room. She blinked back the miserably uncomfortable pools of water stinging her eyes, and he was standing right in front of her.

  Wrapping her up in his arms, he whispered into her hair. “Shh, baby. Don’t. God, please don’t cry. Not unless you’ve decided to rip my heart out after all.”

  Crying? Tears?

  All Amelia knew was that she wanted to stay in Gabriel’s embrace until this pain went away. It felt as if she were bleeding out onto the floor. As if all the breath had been kicked out of her. She didn’t like these fe
elings.

  Despair. Hopelessness. Fear.

  Love.

  Amelia was in love, and it was killing her.

  Tilting her face up, Gabriel leaned down and kissed the tears that had left wet trails down her cheeks.

  He undressed her with care, dropping light kisses as he revealed her skin inch by inch. When she finally stood naked before him, her tears had dried.

  He stepped away to pull off his shirt and then paused to look down into her face. “Let me see you, Amelia. Don’t hide yourself from me.”

  “What do you mean?” She’d already shown him her wings and he’d seen the glow of her aura. Thinking that’s what he wanted from her, she shrugged. Flexing her wings, she made them visible to him and spread them wide.

  Gabriel watched, a small frown crossing his face. Was he disappointed?

  “Is this not what you wanted?” she asked.

  “You’re beautiful, but is this the real you? This physical form, is it truly yours?”

  She laughed then, finally understanding what he had so diplomatically been hinting at. “You think I’ve taken over some poor soul’s body to be here on this plane?”

  He had the grace to blush but didn’t apologize. “I guess I’ve watched my share of sci-fi shows. You said your angel realms have no physical substance, and—”

  “And you wanted to know if the same were true of me, is that it?” Amelia bit her bottom lip, suddenly feeling awkward again. What would he think of her unbound angel form?

  Gabriel waited patiently. After a few moments, Amelia closed her eyes as she envisioned her own aura and purposely made the subtle alterations that would free her from the shackles on her metaphysical form. When she opened her eyes once more, she looked down on Gabriel, having floated a few feet into the air.

  “My God,” he whispered.

  She’d thought he would be afraid, but she should have known better. Gabriel felt a lot of things and had never been shy about showing her any of them, but fear was not something he tolerated for long. No, he wasn’t afraid. But his expression warned her that something wasn’t right.

  Gabriel couldn’t quite believe the sight suspended right before his eyes. Of all the things he’d imagined, the reality of Amelia’s true angel form was nothing like any of them. His wildest dreams would have come up short.

  He wanted to reach out and touch her, but couldn’t. Something stopped him.

  When she closed her eyes, he hadn’t really expected much to happen. Or at least he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Not this. Definitely not this transformation from solid, touchable woman made of flesh and bone to the radiant, half goddess, half feylike being who floated before him, bathed in light.

  So different. And yet, not. The familiar blue of her eyes gazed down on him.

  “It’s still you,” he said.

  Amelia smiled. “Of course it’s still me. Exactly who were you expecting?” Her sultry voice remained the same as well.

  Gabriel’s gaze raked over every inch of her. Her angel form retained the physical shape of a human, and her wings were still pure, flawless white, but it seemed as though each soft, tiny feather was more sharply delineated, while all the formerly smooth, fleshy parts of her body blurred, became almost dreamlike as a result of the bright aura that shimmered around her—from within her—in a rainbow of radiant, golden color. It was the same light he thought he’d imagined in the alley. And now, instead of giving her a healthy angelic glow, it enveloped her entire body until the woman he loved seemed made completely of light. She was the light.

  “It isn’t really that the form I take on earth is concealing the real me—although I purposely hid the wings, for obvious reasons—but it is necessary.” She spread her arms. “This form is the raw expression of an angel’s self, and in many ways it’s very vulnerable. You humans are able to protect your own true selves within bodies of flesh and blood.” She shrugged. “While I’m here, I have to do the same.”

  “How?” Gabriel’s amazement intensified as he realized that, in essence, Amelia was baring her very soul to him in this moment. She’d stripped away every barrier between them until what remained was nothing more or less than her pure, vulnerable spirit.

  It humbled him that she’d shared this simply because he asked her to. The serious trust she showed him right now was huge. He thought about whether or not he could give her that same degree of trust should she ask him to and was almost positive the answer would be no.

  “We angels have learned a few things in all our years of existence,” she continued. “And one of them is the manipulation of our own physical and spiritual composition. In order to leave the angel realms and remain on earth for a time, I recoded my molecular structure into a solid, more durable form.”

  “And all the angels can do this?”

  “At one time we all could. But after the great battle, to keep our kind from earth, the Archangels put wards on the physical realms, and in our own minds, too, impeding our ability to do this. The wards inhibited our capacity for emotion and also stemmed the propensity for rebellion. Now very few angels know how to circumvent the barriers and leave the angel realms. Even those of us who can aren’t able to stay on earth for long because the need for angel song will always pull us back to where we belong.”

  “So why exactly is it that you, in particular, have retained this ability?”

  She paused before answering. The light of her aura was more than just a golden glow. He was able to see the entire color spectrum in varying degrees. Different colors seemed to shine more brightly as she experienced different emotions. They all dimmed briefly as she opened her mouth to respond. Almost imperceptible, but he caught it.

  “I was chosen to act as a guardian of the Archangels. For thousands of years I enforced their judgment, which included retrieving angels who managed to circumvent the wards and escape the angel realms.” She stopped and looked into his eyes. “That is, until recently, when I was given a new duty.”

  “Me.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a wealth of meaning and intention behind the one word. She implied that her job remained unfinished, but Gabriel refused to get into that particular argument now. “Can you change back?”

  Her body lowered slowly. She was not quite standing but at eye level with him. A fine wince ghosted across her face as she nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable.”

  Gabriel wanted to reach for her hand, but wasn’t certain he could touch her when she was like this. “Any time I look at you all I want to do is drag you into my arms and kiss you until we’re both sweaty and breathless. I want to spend days tasting every inch of your body and make love to you over and over again. I want you screaming and begging me for more. You would take my breath away in any form, but this—” His gut churned. “I see you like this and the truth is harder to ignore.”

  “What truth?”

  “That someone like me should never be allowed within ten feet of someone like you.”

  Amelia winced and her eyes closed. He took note of the concentration she expended to draw all of that ethereal radiance back into herself. Gabriel released a long, tense breath as she hid herself again, but not because he couldn’t stand to look at her. He regretted asking her to reveal her vulnerability, especially now that he realized he wasn’t ready to trust her in the same way, not when his future was so uncertain.

  The future. Gabriel hadn’t ever thought about it much, at least not beyond the next album or the next stop on the tour, and he’d absolutely never considered that his future might include something so risky and insecure as love. Or purpose. A purpose that was both frightening and ambiguous.

  “I wish you didn’t feel that way, Gabriel, because I’m not sorry. I’m glad for the experience you’ve let me share.” Cloaked in human skin once again, she took a step away from him. “But I am sorry for other things. I’m sorry I wasted so much energy denying my feelings, and now there isn’t any time left for us.” She sounded wistful and
all too human. Standing naked and proud before him, she reached up and pressed her fingers to his mouth. A gentle touch.

  The top of her head reached his shoulder. So tiny, he thought. A tiny, valiant warrior with such hidden depths. Such determination. And despite everything…such passion.

  Maybe because of all the strange dreams he’d been having, Gabriel understood keenly what Amelia hadn’t said, understood that maybe she just couldn’t put into words her worry, her fears. Not for him or anyone.

  He knew she’d barely scratched the surface of explaining what her role as the Archangels’ judge, jury and executioner had been, the things she’d done all those years in the name of obedience to their will. He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that, but he admired her commitment, even when she believed it would mean killing him.

  Bullshit. You’re mad as hell at her.

  Hell yes, damn it.

  Even as he pulled her close and kissed her, he wanted to rail at her. He was scared. He was confused. Both love and hate flowed through his veins like rushing hot lava. And yes, he was angry. So angry he could roar to the heavens…and he wasn’t even sure all that rage was his.

  It wasn’t because he’d bought into all that bullshit about protecting him and actually trusted her, only to learn of her back-up plan—he could understand that and even respect her for it. No, he was furious at her insistence that the responsibility for this mess was hers alone, and her calm acceptance that she deserved to lose her life because of it.

  Well, fuck that.

  Maybe neither of them would live through this, but he wasn’t going to let her stand alone. He was only one man against all the angels, but despite what Amelia seemed to think, the definition of human didn’t equate to weakness, and it didn’t translate into an automatic win for the angels. He’d long ago taken charge of his destiny, never letting anyone dictate his future, and by God, he wasn’t going to start now.

  Amelia might believe she had everything figured out. She might believe this plan of hers was their only option, that her decision was the final decision. But she had a few more things to learn about humans—and him in particular—if she thought he was going to go along with her suicide mission.