He swallowed hard and pressed his fingertips into her soft skin, his heart thundering against his ribs. “What do you want?”
She smiled and stole his breath with it. “I want you.”
Nevar tugged her against him, dipped his head and captured her lips in an unhurried kiss that he felt sure would reveal the feelings growing inside his heart, emotions he hadn’t believed himself capable of feeling anymore. He gathered her in his arms, cupped her backside and raised her up his body, his lips never leaving hers.
She moaned softly into his mouth and wrapped her legs around his waist, and her arms around his neck. Her fingers pushed into the shorter hair at the back of his head, twined around the longer lengths on top, and pinned him to her. He groaned and deepened the kiss, showing her without words that he wasn’t going to pull away this time.
He needed this too much.
He wanted to take everything she was willing to give him and drown in her, forgetting the world and the things he had done, and whatever might lay ahead for them.
All that mattered was this moment with her in his arms, held close to him where she belonged.
She broke away from his lips and kissed along his jaw, her fingers tugging his head back. He went willingly, a deeper groan escaping him when she tongued the marks she had placed on his throat, making them tingle and his cock throb. He wanted to feel it again but he wasn’t strong enough to feed her, not when he was still starving himself. The need to have her fangs in him and that incredible connection it forged between them, strengthening their bond, was strong though and drove him to find someone to feed on so he could then feed her.
He shut out that dangerous thought and focused on her instead, on each soft swirl and swipe of her tongue across his flesh.
He palmed her bottom and she tightened her legs around him, drawing his steel hard length against the apex of her thighs and pressing it between them. A little gasp escaped her and she rocked against him, rubbing him through his shorts. He couldn’t take that.
He carried her towards the shelter of the palms and the shade there, afraid she would lose her control over the clouds and they would dissipate. He wanted nothing to spoil this moment. He wanted to show Lysia that he could be gentle for her and could be the tender lover and devoted male she deserved.
When he reached the fringe of the forest, he kneeled and laid her down on the soft white sand, and sat back to admire her.
She stretched her arms out to him, her hazel eyes imploring him to come to her, and he refused, instead running his hands over her bare legs, from her knees down to her thighs. They fell open, inviting and luring him, and he frowned and groaned as he caressed the inside of her thighs, feeling their softness against his calloused fingers.
“Nevar,” she whispered and he sensed her desperation, the urgency that she still hadn’t become accustomed to or knew how to handle.
He leaned over her, pressing his knuckles into the sand on either side of her hips, and dropped his mouth to her bare stomach.
She half-gasped half-moaned as his lips brushed across her pale skin, her stomach tensing and rippling beneath his questing mouth. He closed his eyes and explored her, seeking out every patch of skin that made her shiver and moan. She arched against him when he swirled his tongue around the sensual dip of her navel and clutched his head, twisting his hair in her fingers and raising her backside off the sand.
He produced a blanket between her and the sand, a soft span of black velvet fit for his beautiful destroyer.
Before she could sink back onto it, he moved his hands to her backside and held it, a low growl leaving him at the feel of her tiny shorts. He would have to have words with Erin about their length and how revealing they were. He felt certain that his ward had done it on purpose, teasing and testing him where Lysia was concerned. She was playing matchmaker and he didn’t appreciate it.
Lysia relaxed into his hands as he kissed down her stomach and slowly shifted his grip, so he clutched her hips. He reached the waist of her shorts and lowered her backside onto the blanket before sliding the button free and gently tugging the zipper down.
Her gaze bore into him, intent and focused, her heart beating wildly in his sensitive ears.
Her hands trembled in his hair.
She had no reason to be nervous but he wasn’t going to let the trickle of fear flowing through their bond deter him. He wanted everything to be different with her and he wanted all of her, and that meant introducing her to wicked new acts that he was sure she would enjoy once she overcame her initial fear.
He sat up and held her gaze as he tugged her shorts down her long slender legs. She placed her bare feet on his thighs and raised her bottom to help him with his task. He groaned and couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting down the luscious plane of her stomach to the neat thatch of dark hair at the apex of her thighs.
Another groan escaped him, this one more of a guttural growl as he thought about spreading her thighs and delving his tongue between her sweet folds.
His cock jerked against his shorts.
He grunted and tossed her tiny shorts, eased her thighs apart and wedged his shoulders between them.
She tensed, her legs locking against his shoulders.
“Relax,” he murmured and looked up the length of her as he kissed his way down her right thigh, heading towards heaven.
Her throat worked on a hard swallow and her eyes grew darker as he approached his target, desire and arousal overwhelming her fear.
He held her gaze as he slowly parted her petals and delved his tongue between them, sweeping it over her nub. She gasped and threw her head back, her following moan like music to his ears. He stroked her again, harder this time, eliciting an equally addictive response. She jerked her hips up, pressing herself against his mouth.
Nevar growled at the taste of her, sweet and drugging, everything he had expected from his new addiction. He couldn’t get enough of her.
He flicked his tongue around her and then swirled it, using her moans and the way her thighs fluttered beneath his hands as his guide. When he delved lower, probing her entrance, she snatched hold of his head with one hand and cried his name. He did it again and again, thrusting his tongue inside her and lapping at her honey, devouring all of her and driving her right to the edge before he pulled back. She growled.
Nevar smiled as she blushed.
“Growl all you want, Baby,” he murmured and her blush darkened. “I love it.”
He dropped his mouth back to his wicked work and stroked his tongue over her pert nub, feeling it pulse in response. She moaned and undulated her hips, rocking against his tongue, and he gave her what she wanted. He circled her entrance with two fingers and then gently eased them inside. Her heat scalded him, the wetness of her tearing a low possessive growl from him and making his length kick in his shorts. He wanted to be inside her and feel her around him again, milking him.
Nevar forced himself to focus on her instead and slowly pumped her with his fingers as he swirled his tongue around her, teasing her back towards the edge, letting her think he would give her release this time. He was too greedy to do such a thing, too needful of her and selfish. He wanted to feel her climax on him again.
“Nevar,” she moaned, her body stiffening, and he relented again. She growled and tried to thrust his fingers into her, and he took them away. The snarl that left her lips drew a smile from him and he lifted his head, looking up the beautiful length of her body and meeting her eyes.
She swayed her hips beneath him, rubbing her thighs against his shoulders, and smiled, a siren’s call that he couldn’t resist.
He pushed himself up onto all fours and crawled up the length of her.
When he went to kiss her, she stopped him dead by fumbling with the buttons of his shorts. She had three free before he could even look down and he was in her hand before he had a chance to steel himself for her touch.
He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as she palmed him, stroking up and down his length,
and then rubbed her thumb over the sensitive head.
“Lysia,” he whispered, more a warning than a plea for more. He wouldn’t last if she kept stroking him like that, pushing him towards the edge just as he had pushed her.
He cracked his eyes open and grabbed her wrist to stop her.
She pouted.
“I wish to play with you too,” she said, the innocence and bluntness in her words making him smile.
“Later,” he murmured and she released him. “I thought you wanted this?”
He took hold of his cock, lowered his hips and rubbed the head down between her folds, over her sensitive flesh. She moaned and rocked her hips upwards and he gave her more, teasing her by stroking up and down before almost nudging inside her.
“Nevar,” she whispered and tangled her hands in her hair, tugging it free from the pins that held it. “Please.”
He couldn’t deny her. He didn’t think he ever would be able to when she asked him so sweetly.
He dropped his hips and groaned as he eased into her hot wet sheath inch by inch, refusing to rush this joining. He wanted to savour it this time and the way she reacted, her body flexing around his, drawing him in deeper. When he reached as deep as he could go, he leaned above her on one elbow and clutched her right hip, pulling it off the velvet blanket, and slid deeper still.
She moaned and trembled beneath his fingers.
He would do things right this time.
He kissed her as he slowly rocked into her, keeping the pace between them even and steady, long strokes that had him almost coming free of her before he drove back inside as deep as he could go, his pelvis brushing her sensitive flesh. She moaned and clutched his shoulders, her short claws digging into his skin, leaving marks for him to remember this moment by.
She tried to shift her hips and he held her firm, keeping her at his mercy but increasing his pace to give her what she needed. She moaned into his mouth, the sweet sound encouraging him to go faster, and he resisted the temptation to do what she wanted this time. He curled his hand around her shoulder and maintained his pace, until she was moaning with each long slide of his cock into her and each meeting of their bodies and he was too.
His balls tightened, drawing up as shivers raced down his length each time he reached as deep as he could go. She arched into him, pressing her breasts against his chest, and clawed at his shoulders.
“Nevar.”
He obeyed her, could feel how close she was as she clenched and unclenched him, desperation flowing from her and into him. He kissed down her jaw to her throat and buried his face against her neck, licking and kissing it as he finally quickened his pace. She tilted her head to one side and he fought the change that came over him, keeping his fangs at bay as he kissed her throat, feeling her pulse hammering against his lips.
Her claws sliced into his back and the scent of blood filled the air.
Nevar grunted and his fangs dropped.
He closed his mouth and pulled away from her throat, pressing his forehead against her temple as he thrust harder. Release coiled at the base of his length and he groaned as he felt the beginnings of her climax.
She moaned into his ear, a beautiful sound drenched with pleasure, and her body convulsed against his, her sheath fluttering and pulsing around his length, drawing him deeper into her. He growled against her cheek and screwed his eyes shut as he joined her, his cock throbbing and spilling his seed inside her as her body continued to milk him.
She slowly relaxed beneath him and he sagged against her, breathing hard against her face as he fought to slow his racing heart and hot shivers tripped through him, making his knees shake.
Lysia tilted her head and pressed kisses to his cheek, moving towards his mouth. He eased himself up and kissed her, savouring the softness of it and the warm glow running through every inch of him, and the feel of her beneath him, satisfied because of him.
She was right and he had needed this more than he had needed to speak with everyone. He had needed a moment alone with her, lost in her, and seeing that she wasn’t going to turn her back on him because of what he had told her. He had shown her the darkest part of himself and she had stayed with him, her feelings constant and unswerving.
He couldn’t thank her enough for that.
He had felt that he had lost everything, but she had given him back something.
She had given him hope.
He hadn’t realised how much he had needed it, but he knew how much he needed her.
Let Heaven and Hell come.
He would never let them take her from him.
She belonged to him now and he was going to fight for their future.
CHAPTER 17
It was getting dark by the time Nevar reappeared with Lysia in tow. Erin finished closing the snaps on Dante’s black modified romper suit that allowed his tufts of wing feathers to stick out of the back and bounced him in her arms as he gurgled. She tried to contain her smile as she watched Nevar approaching the fire where everyone sat discussing the woman firmly attached to his hand. It appeared her former guardian angel had been busy today, picking up where he had left off last night if she had to guess.
She wasn’t the only one who had noticed that the relationship between Nevar and Lysia had definitely altered overnight, or the only one who had been subjected to a little TMI moment when settling Dante down for the night.
Veiron had muttered things about keeping the noise down, a touch of jealousy in his tone and gruff behaviour as he had tidied their small home on the island. Erin had caught her big oaf around his waist and shown him that he had zero reason to be jealous of Nevar, because she was still playing catch up in the down and dirty stakes after the last few months of her pregnancy and the early days of Dante being around.
She let her smile out when she thought about how they had probably given every other couple on the island a little TMI moment last night too.
Well, it was more like three TMI moments, but who was counting?
She had the sneaking suspicion Veiron was as he eyed the couple heading towards them, his dark scarlet eyebrows meeting above near-black eyes edged with a corona of fire. She knew that look and heated to a thousand degrees as he slid his gaze towards her and narrowed it on her, slowly raking it down the length of her body and setting her on fire. Her smile turned wicked.
Dante threw up on her shoulder and she grimaced as it ran down her back.
It hadn’t taken long after finally getting him out into the world for her to realise that her son had a jealous streak as wide and deep as his father.
She had figured it out when he had cried every single time she had started kissing Veiron, and had shut up whenever she had stopped.
“Who’s a little mummy’s boy?” she murmured to him as Veiron came over to her, produced a cloth out of thin air and wiped the sick off her shoulder.
Dante giggled.
“Laugh all you want, Kiddo… won’t change a thing… it’s still bed time for you, and mummy time for me.” Veiron grinned as Dante’s laughter died and then grimaced as he unleashed a high-pitched wail.
“Gee, thanks for that.” Erin struggled to contain Dante as he wriggled and kicked, crying at the top of his lungs, which was about the same volume and pitch required to burst eardrums.
Apollyon muttered something to Serenity about a spell to block his ears.
Erin shot him a glare. “You want to hold him, Uncle Apollyon? It can be arranged.”
The dark angel’s face paled, his blue eyes round and filled with fear as he eyed her squirming child. It was rare to see him afraid of something, and that it was her kid who had inspired fear in him had her torn between feeling affronted and laughing.
“Can I?” Asmodeus stood and she stared at him blankly, unsure how to respond to that or whether she had even heard him correctly.
Veiron stared at him too, his hand paused with the cloth resting against her back.
Erin shook herself. “Um… if you really want to… I mean, if you
think your brain can handle the noise.”
She wasn’t sure how Dante would react to being held by a person other than her, Veiron or Amelia. No one else had dared to pick him up or give him a cuddle.
Asmodeus approached with confidence that faltered the moment he held his hands out and she planted Dante into them. He stared down at the wailing boy, holding him at arm’s length in front of him.
Erin waited to see how Dante would react, her breath lodged in her throat.
“Hello,” Asmodeus said, a quaver in his deep voice, and finally drew Dante closer to him, holding him higher in the air at the same time, so they were face to face and just inches apart.
Erin really hoped that Dante didn’t throw up on him. She wasn’t sure how the angel would react to it if he did. She was still struggling to process the fact that Asmodeus had been the first to actually ask to hold her baby. She had never given Amelia a choice. She had forced Dante upon her just a few days after his birth so she could get a picture of them to send to their father. Well, Amelia’s father and her adoptive father. The man who deserved that title more than the Devil did because he had raised and protected her.
She moved a little closer, just in case Dante did something that made Asmodeus react badly, hovering to the side of them.
Dante opened his eyes and instantly quieted as he stared up into Asmodeus’s golden ones.
They looked so alike that it was uncanny, but then she supposed she looked a lot like Asmodeus too, because they both looked like her real father, the Devil.
Dante laughed and bounced, kicking his legs with enthusiasm. His little hands reached for Asmodeus.
“Holy hell!” Erin looked around to make sure everyone was seeing this. Dante had never reacted like this to Amelia. He normally kicked up a royal fuss whenever Amelia held him. Her little tyke had a thing for the so-called King of Demons, an angel born of evil. She probably should have guessed the two of them would get along like a house on fire. “You are so babysitting when we need a break from him. Sucker.”
Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) Page 17