Chapter 12
Although she landed on top of Michael, she wasn’t fooled. His body hummed with power and potential. And the few feet she’d fallen as he’d lain back on the bed had been as exhilarating as their midnight escape in the vintage sports car when they’d flown through the twinkling night sky. Michael was the Firebird and the driver. She was only along for the ride.
She held his shoulders to prop herself up as she straddled his bare stomach. The muscles beneath her fingers were taut. The Brimstone burning beneath his skin was high-octane fuel. When his hands urged her hips lower and she settled on his swollen erection, he tilted his head back in pleasure and his eyes closed. He groaned through open lips and his chest rose and fell as if he’d suddenly gone winded and weak.
Lily moved against him. Her name sighed from his lips in a plea. For what? Maybe she was the driver after all. She was still flying. Her stomach was light and her heartbeat fluttered as if there were still hundreds of feet left to fall. But Michael’s heat buoyed her. She ran her hands from his shoulders down his scarred arms. Every slight ridge only seemed to define the beauty of his masculine curves. He enjoyed her touch. Hadn’t she wanted to touch him this way when to do so would have meant certain detection by Rogues? She wouldn’t resist now even though there were reasons she should.
She explored all of his exposed skin while he held himself still beneath her. He breathed heavily but his only other movement was the quivering of his skin beneath her fingers. She trailed them across his chest. She circled his pecs. She was careful around his recently healed injury, but he didn’t push her hand away. He seemed to wait and watch while his excitement built. She placed her palms on either side of his flat stomach, and all the while the undulation of her hips was automatic. She was finally rewarded with the soft, low sound of her name from his lips again and again.
She was a virgin and inexperienced to the extreme. She’d been sheltered her whole life. Michael’s had been her first kiss. His had been the first male hands to touch her in a sensual way. Though she felt like she was flying without reliable wings, the thrill was glorious. He burned beneath her hands. His trembling had increased until he shuddered beneath her. He allowed her this control. He’d given her the keys. Slowly, she leaned down to place her face close to his. His eyes were slightly open now. He watched her come closer and closer.
“I should warn you I’m approaching my limit,” Michael said in a hoarse whisper.
“I’m not cold anymore. I never realized how cold I’d become,” Lily said. “How much colder it was after I touched you, then was forced to let go.”
“Don’t let go, Lily. It’s going to get hotter. Much hotter. Don’t let go,” Michael said.
His lips were parched. Heat waves shimmered in the air around them. Lily’s affinity protected her even as it caused their temperatures to rise higher. She wasn’t afraid of the heat. But the lightness in her stomach wasn’t the pure flight of adrenaline. She was afraid of falling. Michael took her too high. He lifted her from the depths of hell, and hell was the only thing she’d ever known.
Her pause roused him from his pleasured reverie and Michael’s eyes opened fully to search her face. Whatever he saw there stilled his shudders. He lifted his hands to gently cup her cheeks. His fingers were steady against her skin.
“I’ve got you,” he said. It wasn’t a daemon deal; it was a masculine promise. One she believed. Her fear eased. He urged her the last millimeters to bring their lips together. His lips were rough, but she’d quickly become addicted to their sculptured perfection. She traced their familiar curves with her tongue, desperate to absorb the heat, shape and taste before circumstances separated them forever. “We’ve got this respite. For now. Let’s enjoy it,” he continued.
Michael rose up and rolled Lily over to the side. He allowed their lips to part only for the seconds necessary to change position. Then he was the driver once more. Slowly and hungrily he devoured her mouth and plundered its depths with his tongue. Her dress was scrunched to her waist. It seemed a relief when he drew back to pull the white silk up and over her head. He tossed it to the floor. The soft thump of the treasures in its pockets barely penetrated her senses. Her breasts were bare. The only covering left on her body was a tiny scrap of white low on her hips and moist between her legs. The kachina was forgotten in the arms of the actual Brimstone prince. The flute wasn’t necessary to call forth the affinity they shared.
“You’re too perfect. Look at your skin. Smoother than the silk you wore,” Michael said. The ridges on his fingertips trailed over the skin he praised and Lily shivered beneath the calluses caused by his guitar strings. This time her shiver wasn’t caused by fear. And her adrenaline was all desire. She looked down to see his hand’s roughness against the pink flush of her areolae and distended nipples. He teased her nipple until it grew harder and then he cupped the globe of her breast to offer it to his lips. He bent to suck and she continued to watch his fingers and lips on her skin. Her hips ground into the mattress. Heat and electricity arced straight from the nipple he tasted to the aching flesh between her legs.
“You’re one to complain of perfection,” Lily breathlessly teased. She touched the curve of his cheek and jaw. Scars or not. Daemon or human. The sharply cut angles of his face were beloved and perfect to her. She’d longed for him before she’d met him.
“No complaints. Only humbled. You bring me to my knees with a glance, a touch, your song,” Michael said against the breast he’d made tender and damp. The moisture from his tongue dissipated quickly in the heated air. He appreciated her reaction to the temperature change when she released the breath she’d held in a long sigh. He slid his hand from under her breast to her stomach. Feeling the rise and fall of her quickened respiration. “I’m going to touch you, Lily.”
She wasn’t sure if it was a considerate warning or a sensual promise. Her breath caught again. Her attention flew from his hand on her stomach to his face. Their gazes locked. He had drawn back to watch her reactions. He pressed his hand firmly to the quivers his words caused deep in her abdomen.
Then he lightened his touch and gently continued the downward journey of his fingers to trail along the band of her low-riding panties. She followed the direction of his gaze when he dropped it from hers and a sigh rose, shakily turning into a groan as his rough fingers teased beneath the silk to find the light dusting of hair between her legs.
Fire. Brimstone or not. Affinity or not. Fire from his fingers to the bud he had sought. Lily cried out. She reached to hold on, but ended up stilling his hand with hers gripped around his arm. Afraid once more. Too hot. Too much. She would be alone again. This couldn’t be always between them. And once she’d flown with Michael how could she survive the cold, lonely ground again?
“Shhhh. Let me warm you. Forget about everything else. Just feel,” Michael urged. His voice was a deep, sensual vibration against her side. He met her eyes again. Fire flickered in his, deep and dark. All hazel consumed by its glow. Lily’s fingers loosened and she slid her hands from his arm to his shoulders.
He dipped to take her lips as his fingers continued their movement. Lily gasped into his mouth. Her tongue desperately twined with his. So hungry. So hot. Heat waves and the glow of affinity surrounded and embraced them.
The Firebird escape had seemed like flight, but when his dexterous touch played her as expertly as he played any instrument he touched, Lily cried out in a long release of all tension and control. Every cell in her body was thrummed and warmed, touched and thawed.
She wasn’t ashamed of the moisture that flowed down her face because it evaporated as it tracked down her hot skin. She looked up at the man above her. Her warrior angel. Her daemon prince. Hers always, come what may. He watched her, intensely. He might detect the tears before they disappeared. He might see the spiky droplets on her lashes. But he didn’t speak. He only watched her as he tore the cloth f
rom her hips. He watched her breast rise and fall as he impatiently ripped his zipper down.
His erection was thick and intimidating, but Lily was too hungry to care. She still had a hollow that only he could fill. Whether it was caused by her affinity or by her cold heart, she couldn’t be sure. She no longer cared. He moved away just long enough to remove his jeans and to remove a foil packet from the wallet in his pocket. When he settled between her legs after a brief pause to sheath his erection, she spread to welcome his weight. She wrapped her legs and her arms around him.
There was fumbling as he used his hands to fit them together, but then nothing but movement and fullness and a friction she’d never known could be so right. She was slick, but there was still pain as he worked his hips to fit his swollen length inside. Then there was only pleasure, sharp at times, but pure pleasure more intense for the sharpness as he rocked, burying himself in secret depths no one had ever plumbed.
Lily cried out his name. Behind tightly clenched lids she saw the handsome kachina doll but its features fogged and in their place was Michael. All Michael. She opened her lids to watch him. The beautiful, familiar face clenched intently as he began to shudder with his release. Her orgasm followed in response to the spasms of his erection inside her.
“Together,” she managed to say, softly, as he collapsed in her arms.
* * *
Michael fell asleep. She watched him beside her for a long time before she slipped from bed to the shower in the next room. Even the hottest water was cool against her skin. She lathered up, more aware of her skin than she’d ever been. There were some tender aches and pains, but mostly there was a sensitized physical memory of everywhere he’d touched and tasted on her body. Her fingers followed the paths he’d taken. Remembering. Recalling. Reexperiencing every moment of the time they’d stolen together.
Because it was stolen.
They had to leave the palace once more. They had to go back out into the world to retrieve the wings. And once they were found, Lily would have to face Michael’s reaction to Ezekiel’s scheme. She’d have to walk away. She might never experience his touch again.
His heat still seemed such a part of her. Maybe it would warm her forever even after they were apart.
Towels were a poor substitute for the warmth of Michael’s touch, but she dried the water from her skin and dressed quickly before she gave in to the temptation of seeking him out again. If they didn’t leave the palace soon, Ezekiel might come to urge them on with their quest. Lily wasn’t ready to face the daemon king and the Brimstone prince at the same time. Not now. The birthday celebration would be soon enough to handle the fallout from the daemon deals as they converged.
Not to mention the D’Arcys.
Lily pulled on boots and laced them tightly. Paired with jeans, a button-up shirt and a black leather jacket, the boots helped her to feel serious and back on track when she left the bathroom to wake Michael.
But her warrior angel was already awake.
In seconds she took in the scene and guessed what had happened. He’d risen from the bed to join her in the bathroom, but he’d stepped on the dress she’d forgotten on the ground. He’d felt the hard lump of the kachina doll beneath his foot and he’d retrieved it from the pocket. She should have removed it to a safer hiding place herself before Michael woke up. But she’d been lost in the heated reverie of her time in his arms. She hoped those memories would stay with her to soften the look she saw on his face right now.
Shock. Anger. Disbelief. And all the flame gone from his eyes. They were as pale as she’d ever seen them. Pure hazel and cold as ice.
“What is this?” Michael asked. He held the kachina doll toward her in a fist that was white-knuckled and trembling.
“A gift from my mother. And her mother before her. It was carved by one of our Aztec ancestors many years ago,” Lily explained.
“I’m supposed to believe that one of your ancestors knew my face this well before I was even born?” Michael asked. His voice dripped with an acidic sacrilege that burned worse than fire.
“My beliefs aren’t dimmed by your disbelief. Kachinas represent the spirit world. They give us wisdom and messages from our ancestors. They connect us to the unseen. I’ve treasured that warrior angel since I was child,” Lily said. She stepped toward his towering figure. One measured tread at a time.
“So you didn’t carve it to summon me the way you summon your elemental spirits? You haven’t used it against me?” Michael said.
Lily wouldn’t change his mind. It had been made up in an instant when he’d seen his face carved in wood and placed in her pocket. Still, she would promote whatever truth she was free to promote between them. Her embarrassment had kept the kachina doll hidden for too long.
“I’m not a sculptor, Michael. Look at the doll. It was carved by a high priest centuries ago. Look at the wood. Its patina. It has been held by many more than me. Although I’ve loved it long,” Lily said. “I think it foretold our meeting. My ancestor must have had a vision of you.”
“A vision of me wearing Lucifer’s wings,” Michael said. He raised his arm to dash the doll to the ground, but Lily was there before he could complete the move. She stilled his arm with her hands. Her body inadvertently pressed all along his side. Michael closed his eyes and swallowed. His Brimstone was completely damped. But their affinities still came together like pieces of a song. A verse and a chorus meant to be sung together.
“It’s a lie. Whatever it is. Wherever it came from. It’s a lie,” Michael swore. But he released the doll when she reached for it. He allowed her to take the ageless treasure in her steady hands.
“When you first stepped into my life, I thought the shadows that clung to you were wings. I’d always seen you like this,” Lily said. She stepped back from Michael with the kachina cupped in her hands.
“You didn’t say anything. Why were you carrying it in your pocket? And your flute in the other?” Michael asked. She followed his glance to the bed where the discarded flute lay. He had found it as well.
“My two prized possessions, Michael. That’s all. I took them with me when I spoke to Ezekiel,” Lily said. “For comfort. To boost my nerve. I don’t know how any of this works. I follow instincts and urgings from the affinity or my ancestors. From the spirits I call. This isn’t an exact science. It’s more ephemeral than that. I wasn’t using the doll against you. Not in any conscious way.”
“But you admit you don’t know how it works. So besides the affinity and Ezekiel’s meddling I have to assume there might be other things at play between us,” Michael said. He zipped pants he’d only pulled on without fastening when he’d left the bed. His accusatory tone was more acidic than his disbelief.
“There’s more between us than I can explain. I agree,” Lily said. His suspicions about the doll came dangerously close to the truth. She wasn’t using the doll to manipulate him and she refused to use her affinity, but Ezekiel used her. Of that she was certain. She was hollow again. In the shower she’d been certain that the memory of their joining would be enough to keep her warm forever. She’d been wrong. Separation she might have been able to handle. But his reaction to her supposed betrayal was insurmountable. The secret of the kachina doll was nothing compared to the secret that Ezekiel wanted her to be Michael’s queen. If he reacted like this to the doll, there was no hope of an amicable parting between them when their quest was over and he learned the truth.
He wouldn’t refuse to be king. The doll foretold his capitulation to his duty. But she would have to walk away. She could never be his queen. She had lived without love for too long. He might desire her, but he would always resent her. The affinity they shared wasn’t love.
“Wrap the doll and place it back in your pack. If I see it again, I’ll burn it,” Michael said.
He walked toward the bathroom without waiting to see if she complie
d. She let him go even though his impersonal brush by her hollowed her out even worse than before. She didn’t go after him. She would hide the doll away rather than risk him destroying it. Besides, even she wondered about the tiny kachina. She had used it in the circle when she called the fire that burned the attacking Rogues. She had felt it grow chilled beneath her fingers when she’d confronted Ezekiel in the throne room. She’d been honest about not understanding exactly how her affinity worked with her kachina dolls and her flute. She was a conduit for greater powers than anyone could define.
The warrior angel went back into its wrappings with the ease of an object in the place it belonged. She would respect Michael’s wishes until she was compelled to take it out once more. But she would use it again if she had to. Even if it meant risking his wrath. Lily placed it back in its spot in the bottom of her backpack. Michael hadn’t told her to put the flute away, but she polished it while he showered and then returned it to its velvet pouch.
All the while, hot moisture burned the back of her eyes and her tight chest fought every breath. Her body was still tender from their lovemaking. That was the hardest thing to take. She tried to ignore the constant reminder of their passion every time she moved. It didn’t match the hollow left inside her. Without passion, her tenderness was only pain.
* * *
As hot water sluiced over his body, its heat was a faint echo of what he’d experienced when he’d made love to Lily. He’d sworn he wouldn’t let the Brimstone drive him. Finding the Kachina in Lily’s pocket had shaken his certainty that he was in control. He’d had to completely shut down his burn to reassure himself that he wasn’t a slave to it.
He wasn’t.
But he was also incapable of being as cold as he’d been in the past. Lily was awakening the daemon in him. It wasn’t only his blood. His heart throbbed painfully with every steady beat, filled with emotions much stronger than a human man could endure. He’d seen what being driven by those passions had done to his grandfather. He’d heard what they’d done to his father. And what those passions had left in their wake to the mortals they’d touched.
Brimstone Prince Page 12