She moaned against it as his fingers found her folds, dipped inside to tease her bundle of nerves, sending her shooting into the stars. Her hips lifted of their own accord, hungry for his touch elsewhere. Her breath burst from her nose when he slid his fingers lower, teased her core and drew them back up, bringing moisture with them to make her nub slick. He stroked it, his eyes on hers, a fierce hunger in them.
Not for pleasure or release for himself.
He wanted to see her climax.
Fuck.
She bit into his hand over her mouth, moaned and writhed beneath him as he worked magic on her, swirling his fingers around her nub before dipping them down to tease her core. He slid two into her, stretching her, and rubbed her sensitive spot, giving it a few strokes before he went back to work on her pert bead, teasing it mercilessly until she was panting against his hand, hers gripping his shoulders, clinging to him like an anchor.
It was game over when he slid two fingers back into her and hit upon a very wicked idea—using his thumb to tease her bundle of nerves at the same time.
A look of smug male satisfaction crossed his handsome face as she positively screamed against his hand, her hips jacking up off the grass, face contorting as ecstasy crashed over her, sending her mind spinning as her body quivered with release.
Asteria sank against the grass, breathless and dizzy, losing awareness of the world as Rey gently kissed across her chest, laved her nipples and lightly teased her with his fingers. Desire built again, hunger that he hadn’t quite sated because it stemmed from her need to feel him filling her.
Her senses slowly fell back into place and she lowered her hand to his waist, opened his belt and then popped the top button of his black jeans. When he realised what she was doing, he pulled back and lowered his hand to help her.
She didn’t need it.
In one swift tug, she tore his fly open, popping every button with ease. He stared at her, a stunned expression on his face that quickly morphed to hunger again when she settled her hand on his silken length. She stroked it from root to blunt sensitive tip, loving the feel of him, iron covered in silk.
“You definitely wouldn’t be lying even if you said you were twelve inches,” she husked up at him.
His eyes darkened and he swooped on her mouth, kissed her hard as his left hand came down on hers and he forced her to stroke his cock, to feel every inch of him. She moaned into his mouth and let him guide her movements, enjoying the way he made her clutch him tightly, and how he grunted whenever she thumbed the tip.
She wanted to suck him again as she had in their dream, but he had other plans. He pulled his hips back and guided his cock down, and she moaned as the blunt head stroked through her folds, teasing her with what was to come and cranking her anticipation up, until it was almost unbearable.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the head nudged into her core and he released her hand, claimed it with his and threaded their fingers together. He pinned it to the grass above her shoulders, and then caught her other hand in the same way, pinning it on the other side of her head.
He moaned in time with her as he slowly inched into her, stretching her and filling her so completely she wanted to sigh again.
His mouth found hers, his kiss soft and controlled as he edged deeper to the furthest point he could reach and settled there, as if he wanted her to feel just how perfect they were for each other, how he completed her so beautifully.
She stroked her tongue across his lower lip and he began to move, his hands pinning hers to the grass as he slowly thrust into her, curling his hips with each one to strike her deepest point. She moaned, lost in the powerful sensations flowing through her, crashing over her, and wrapped her legs around him, held him against her as they made love.
His chest rubbed hers, teasing her sensitive nipples, and his pelvis stroked her nub, sending ripples of pleasure through her that began to swirl in her belly, until it felt ready to burst into flames.
Asteria kissed him harder and he obeyed her, his lips claiming hers in a fierce kiss as he thrust deeper, harder, tearing moan after moan from her. Bliss.
He had truly been made for her.
She unhooked her legs from around his waist and pressed her heels into the earth, and pushed her hips up.
Rey grunted as he slid deeper, more of his thick cock filling her, and surrendered his grip on her left hand. His hand fell to her hip and he clutched it tightly, holding it off the ground as he drove into her, his pace gaining as the hunger she could feel in him mounted. Hunger that flowed through her too.
She barely resisted the temptation to bite his lip, to suck on it, aware that if she gave in to that need, she would damn them both.
She couldn’t take his blood.
She couldn’t trigger a bond between them.
No matter how fiercely she wanted it.
Rey shattered that thought when he demolished her ability to think by pulling her hips higher and plunging deeper into her. He grunted and she smiled wickedly against his mouth when she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist again, and he barked out a moan, his cock sliding deeper still.
They lost it at the same time.
The feel of him filling her with long hard strokes, his pelvis slamming against her nub with each meeting of their hips, his chest rubbing her nipples, and his mouth fiercely possessing hers, sent her hurtling over the edge.
She cried into his mouth, body convulsing in his arms as the tension that had been building within her detonated. Stars burst and swirled above her wide eyes as fire swept through her, lightning striking along her nerves in its wake.
Rey threw his head back and roared as he exploded inside her, his thick cock throbbing and pulsing, pumping hot seed into her. Each pulse of his cock sent tremors through her that tore a moan from her lips, aftershocks of bliss that he swallowed in a kiss that slowly softened, turning tender and filling her with warmth.
He sank against her, lowering her to the grass, and released her other hand.
She wrapped her arms around him, holding him as she kissed him, savouring this moment.
Because she still wasn’t sure what happened now.
Her half-breed origins and her uncertain future seemed like nothing as another revelation hit her, one that had her clinging to Rey as he gently kissed her, afraid of what he might say or do if she released him.
Because she wasn’t merely falling in love with an angel.
She already loved him.
CHAPTER 12
“We run.”
Asteria looked up from fastening her purple-and-black striped skirt. The seriousness of Rey’s green eyes warned that he meant that. Her heart began to pound against her ribs, a painful thumping that she tried to control by breathing slowly and telling herself he really hadn’t meant it.
She shook her head. “You don’t get it. My orders… let’s just say the Devil made it pretty fucking clear that if I didn’t return with Julianna in tow, I was going to meet a very grisly end.”
The sort she wasn’t going to tell him about, because something told her that if she mentioned the Devil’s plan to turn her into his plaything before killing her that Rey would go all crazy angel as he had with that demon back in the fae town. He would get himself killed. He didn’t have the power to stand against the Devil, not when Hell stripped angels of their light and left them weakened.
“So we run.” He took a step closer to her, the earnestness of his expression melting her thundering heart.
By the Devil, she wanted to believe that was possible, even when she knew it wasn’t.
“The Devil will kill me, Rey.” A hot lance pierced her heart when she thought about what she was saying, that she was going to hunt down Julianna even though the half-breed had begged them to leave her alone.
She wished that she could, but she didn’t want to die and she would have to forfeit her life in exchange for Julianna’s freedom.
“That isn’t going to happen, Asteria,” he ground out, t
he flecks of gold in his eyes growing bright as his jaw muscle popped and his hands fisted at his sides. “I will not leave your side. I will run with you.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, or that it touched her as deeply as it did. He was willing to leave everything he loved behind, his life and his duty, to become a fugitive. It was such a sacrifice.
So damn noble. Typical of him really.
“I am serious, Asteria.” He moved another step closer, narrowing the gap between them on the grass.
Moonlight kissed his skin, the shadows only adding to the seriousness of his expression. As if she could ever doubt that he meant every word that left those wicked lips.
There was a stirring of doubt in his eyes as he stared at her though, a hint of fear that grounded her and stopped her from running with his idea. This was difficult for him, she knew that because it was difficult for her too. He had served Heaven for centuries, and she had served Hell. It was all they had known after choosing a side and having their memories erased.
It was the fear in his eyes that pushed her to speak though, to lay it all out there so he knew exactly what he was saying and they were clear about one thing.
“There’s only one way to stop this… to end their interest in you… so don’t pretend you’re just going to run with me and say what you really mean.” She edged closer to him, her dark eyebrows furrowing as she looked up into his eyes and saw the doubt growing stronger, the fear rising in them, and pain now. “Say what you really mean, Rey… that you’re going to run with me to Hell.”
For a moment, she thought he would look away but he stood firm, his eyes locked with hers.
“I know I have to fall.”
He said it so casually but she could see the hurt that thought caused him, the deep pain he experienced by only considering it. The agony he would feel if he went through with it didn’t bear thinking about.
It was too much for her.
She didn’t want him to do it. She was a sentimental idiot, a complete fool, but the thought of him giving up everything for her just made her ache inside and she couldn’t let it happen. She wouldn’t let him sacrifice everything for her.
She couldn’t put him through that pain.
To spare him, she would hurt herself instead.
“I don’t want that,” she bit out and tears burned the backs of her eyes, stung her nose, but she pushed on before he could speak, silencing him. “I don’t want you.”
He staggered back, the hurt in his eyes tearing at her and she wanted to look away but forced herself to keep looking at him, to see that this pain was infinitely more bearable than what he had been considering.
“What we had was a moment of madness. A fucking glorious one, but still insanity. It was nothing more than lust, Rey… a lie. It wasn’t real.” She had to stop to swallow at air in an attempt to stop herself from starting to sob and showing him how much this was hurting her.
He stood only a few feet from her, so close she wavered on the edge of reaching out and taking hold of him, and never letting him go. She didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want to break her own heart. But it was the only thing she could do to save him.
Saving him meant bringing up something she knew was going to rattle him just as it had rattled her.
“That urge you’ve been feeling is nothing more than a potential bond to me. You’re my fated mate, Rey… a fact that was probably engineered by our masters tinkering with us both. It’s all a lie. There are no real feelings here. You just feel an urge as my mate. That’s all this is and all it would ever be. I feel nothing for you and you feel nothing for me.”
“Lies,” he barked and his face darkened, his eyes glowing gold in the night. His whole body tensed and trembled, and he shook his head as he clenched his teeth, his pale eyebrows dipping low above his eyes. “You lie. Even if this is because of a bond… it’s real, Asteria. I feel it. I love you.”
Damn him for saying that.
The tears she had been trying to hide spilled onto her cheeks and the pain that crossed his handsome face when he spotted them robbed her of her breath. He reached for her and she somehow found the strength to back away, to keep some distance between them.
She shook her head. “It isn’t a lie. I don’t love you.”
By the Devil, that was the biggest lie she had ever told, and it ripped her apart together with the way he looked at her, the phenomenal pain in his eyes. Pain that was still less than what he would have felt if she had allowed him to fall.
“I mean it. I don’t love you.” She slowly moved backwards as he advanced on her, a formidable male in the darkness, his face filled with determination that tore at her defences, made her want to surrender to him and scream that she loved him and she was doing this for him.
It was for the best.
She would find Julianna and drag her to Hell, and as soon as she was free of the Devil, she would run and wouldn’t look back.
Rey’s eyes narrowed on her and he gritted out, “I love you.”
She shook her head and held her hands up when he kept stalking towards her, his expression only growing more determined.
More handsome.
By the Devil, he had to stop doing that, stop looking at her in ways no other male ever had. As if he would die without her.
She had never felt like this either. She could feel her heart breaking in her chest as she kept denying him and everything she wanted to do, forcing herself to push him away.
“I don’t love you.” Cold crept in as she said those words, throwing them at him like barbs, wanting him gone but fearing it at the same time, already mourning the loss of him in her life.
“You do,” he snapped and quickened his pace.
By the Devil, she did, and that was the reason she was doing this.
She didn’t want to hurt him, but the pain in his eyes said she already had, so a little more wasn’t going to do much harm, even when she would hate herself for using it against him.
If she was going to hurt him this way, she might as well do it with the truth, even when he wouldn’t be able to understand her words.
She spoke in the demon tongue. “I do love you.”
Rey slapped his hands over his ears, threw his head back and roared at the starry sky as he fell to his knees.
Regret shot through her and she took a step towards him as he fought the pain she had caused him, filled with a need to soothe him and apologise, to tell him in English that she truly did love him.
She forced herself to turn away from him instead, intending to teleport back to Hell to get away from him and then return for the female half-breed.
A very muscular chest blocked her view of the country house.
Dread pooled in her stomach.
She looked up into the eyes of a familiar demon.
The guard from outside the Devil’s fortress, and he wasn’t alone. Another equally massive male demon stood beside him, cold eyes fixed on Rey.
Her heart leaped into her throat and she turned back to face him, reached for him as the familiar male grabbed her shoulders.
Darkness swallowed her, but in the split-second before the portal to Hell opened and the demon dragged her to her doom, she saw Rey.
Saw the white-blue arcs of electricity striking around him as he staggered onto his feet.
Saw the determination in his golden eyes as his white wings burst from his back, white armour covered him from neck to toe, and his sword appeared in his hand.
And she knew that he was going to keep the vow he had made.
He was going to protect her.
He was going to stay by her side.
He was going to rush in where even angels feared to tread.
Not her one.
He was going to follow her to Hell.
She knew that in her heart, knew it in her soul.
And knew in that instant why she loved him.
Her crazy angel had some balls.
CHAPTER 13
Rey w
asn’t sure where they would take Asteria, but the image of her in that moment when that damned demon had placed his meaty paws on her and she had reached for him was branded on his mind, her fear burned on his soul, and he was going to do all in his power to rescue her.
The thought of losing her tore him apart, pushing at his control and driving him mad with a need to reach her.
He willed the teleport and blasted through the bridge between the fae town and Hell. Lightning struck around him, white-blue bolts snapping across the black ground as he landed in unfamiliar territory. He rose onto his feet and an unsettling sensation immediately swept through him. He could feel his power leaking from him, drained by the darkness of the realm, affected by it.
More so than he had considered.
The last few arcs of light that lashed at the black ground were crimson, matching the flames that licked along his white blade.
He looked down at it and grimaced as a sharp rush of tingles bolted down his spine, a command to return to the mortal realm.
Rey gritted his teeth and ignored it as he scoured the land, trying to get the lay of it and figure out where they might have taken Asteria.
Everything looked the same, bleak and grim, as if a volcano had spewed lava across the entire land, covering it in a uniform layer of basalt.
He spread his white wings, closed his eyes and focused, calling his Echelon gift. When it triggered, the mark burning hot against his right inside wrist, he harnessed it to locate the strongest source of demonic power. He charted the lands around him in a sweeping circle, pinpointing small fluctuations of dark power all around him, and then stilled when he hit a massive outpouring.
The Devil had to be in that direction, and that meant Asteria was there too.
His eyes flicked open and settled on that point in the distance. A ridge of mountains blocked his view. He beat his wings and kicked off, and grimaced again as they ached. He hadn’t anticipated that the drain on his powers would affect even his wings. Damn, even his sword felt heavier in his hand.
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