CHAPTER 13
Amelia stared at the distant world below her and then at the horizon. The sun broke it, bathing the world in warm golden light, sending a shiver over her skin. Now the warmer clothing made sense but she still wasn’t sure what Marcus had planned. Was he going to just hover here, slowly beating his wings to keep them still in the chill air?
She looked up at his face and found him watching her, his pale blue eyes warm in the sunlight and a faint smile on his lips. She wanted to kiss him when he looked at her like that, with affection brightening his eyes and turning him even more handsome than usual.
Marcus beat his wings again, harder this time, as though he was going to fly off somewhere and she tensed.
“Wait.”
He stopped dead in the air and cast a quizzical look her way before adjusting her in his arms, tightening his grip on her ribs and her knees. “As interesting as London is from up here, I doubt you had this in mind and the flight path over the city can make it treacherous.”
Amelia looked around again, taking everything in. She just wanted a few more seconds to bathe in the sunrise and soak up the fact that she was hovering in mid-air in the arms of a gorgeous angel.
When she had said about wanting to get away, she hadn’t considered that he would fly her somewhere. She had thought they would walk a while or maybe get the Tube to a nearby park. Now the choices seemed infinite and she found the fear that had been gnawing away at her insides since Veiron’s appearance starting to drift to the back of her mind.
Amelia met Marcus’s icy blue gaze. “How far can you travel?”
“On an empty stomach?” He smiled and then turned thoughtful. “I could probably reach France.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s quite a way… on an empty stomach?”
He nodded. “I need to eat if we are going to reach our destination and we need to pack some clothes, so I thought we could return home for a few hours before heading off.”
“Heading off where?” Her eyebrows fell into a frown. He was being mysterious and she didn’t really need any more mystery in her life right now.
“Paris.”
Paris?
Amelia looked around her in all directions, trying to figure out which way Paris lay, and gave up when she couldn’t get her bearings. They were going to Paris.
“Why?” she said.
“To meet a fellow angel and ask for his assistance. Apollyon can gain me access to Hell and I need to go there in order to find out what Veiron saw.”
Amelia didn’t like the idea of going to Hell. She backtracked and frowned again when she realised that Marcus was talking about himself and not them. He was going to go to Hell without her. This was her fight too, and as much as it was frightening the living daylights out of her, she wanted in on it all. She wouldn’t let him go without her. When they met this Apollyon, she was going to insist on going with them. It was her future they were talking about and her life on the line. She had a right to go with them.
Marcus swooped lower, catching her off guard, and she curled up against him, tucking in close to his chest as he flew. The world drifted by below them, silent in the warm light of morning, and it fascinated her when she started to recognise landmarks and then places near their apartment building. Marcus’s firm grip on her didn’t stop her from fearing falling from his arms. She kept her hands locked around his neck, using her fear as an opportunity to remain close to him.
“Won’t Einar worry about us?” she said over the noise of the wind.
Marcus shook his head. “He is arranging travel for himself and Taylor while she tries to get a message to Veiron. If you need to tell them anything, or perhaps request something, I can send Einar a message.”
“How?” Amelia had the distinct impression he wasn’t talking about phoning him.
A smile lit his eyes. “Telepathically. I can receive orders and messages in much the same way.”
She stared at him, trying to telepathically order him to fly higher so people wouldn’t spot them. A small plane drifted past them, whirring eerily through the warming air.
“It can’t see us,” he said, as though he had received her message, and then she realised she had grabbed his shoulders and tried to steer him away.
She settled her arms around his neck again. “Can anyone see us?”
“Not if I don’t want them to.” Marcus’s frown hardened.
Amelia watched the buildings gradually coming closer and then looked at Marcus’s wings. The sunlight turned them golden and even more beautiful than they had been in the shade. She couldn’t quite believe that she was flying with him and she wasn’t scared. When he had first revealed his wings, they had fascinated her and she had tried to imagine what it would be like to fly with him, and at the time she had decided that it would be frightening to be so high up without being strapped safely into a seat like she would be when on an airplane.
Would Einar and Taylor have to fly to France in a plane or take the train? Einar didn’t have wings, so they had to be travelling in a human way. Marcus was going to fly her there. He had mentioned he could only fly so far without food. Did he use it like fuel?
She took her eyes off the world below and watched him instead. He was concentrating hard. Was he afraid that something would happen to his wings whilst they were airborne?
She wanted to ask him questions about himself and life as an angel but was afraid to break his concentration in case it was the only thing stopping his wings from disappearing.
“Something on your mind?” he said without looking at her.
“Does flying use a lot of energy?”
“Flying, hiding my wings, using my powers, all of it drains me when I am in the mortal realm.”
“So you have a healthy appetite for food too then?”
His eyes shot to meet hers and a blush burned across his cheeks. It brought a smile to her face. There was no need for him to be embarrassed about the voraciousness of his sexual appetite. She liked it. They were equally matched in the passion stakes, just as she had suspected they would be.
His pupils widened, swallowing the silver-blue of his irises, and something told Amelia that if she kept on the subject of sex that he would be touching down a little quicker than anticipated and then touching her up.
She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“Devil,” he muttered and she screamed as he plummeted towards the ground and then beat his wings, shooting along a street only a few metres above the cars.
He had a vicious way of repaying her for teasing him. She had thought his wings had disappeared and they were in trouble. While he could land soundly from a leap like he had made the other night, she doubted he could land so easily when dropping from the sky.
Marcus set down in the street outside their apartment building and lowered her to the ground. It took her a moment to find her feet again and Marcus held her waist while her legs slowly stopped trembling and drew her in for a kiss. She smiled against his mouth. It was handy having an angel for a lover. It definitely beat having to ride the Tube on what was threatening to be a scorching hot day.
Marcus eased away from her and sniffed. “Something smells good.”
He looked around them and then stopped and his pupils narrowed. Amelia looked over her shoulder at the café across the street that had a board outside advertising bacon baps and other breakfast goods.
His stomach rumbled so loudly that she looked at it and her desire flared back into life as her eyes settled on the toned ridges of his bare stomach. If it wasn’t for the more practical matters popping into her head, she would have run her hands over his muscles and forgotten their surroundings.
“I think we have a problem. Actually, two problems,” she said and then sneakily reached out and ran her fingers over his stomach, unable to resist. His muscles rippled and hardened beneath her touch, deepening her ache for him. “You’re not dressed appropriately and I have no money in my apartment or keys to get into it.”
/> “Neither of which are a problem.” He took her hand from his stomach and kissed the back of it. “To human eyes, I appear mortal, wearing a rather fetching white shirt and cream linen trousers.”
“No wings?” Amelia said and he shook his head. It was a relief to know that her suspicions the night they had walked to Einar’s home had been correct and that people couldn’t see a man wearing armour as she could. “Why can I see you like this and they can’t?”
He hesitated, a glimmer of awkwardness briefly flashing in his eyes.
“I do not want to deceive you,” he said and she couldn’t help smiling. “It is difficult to maintain such a glamour, but if you look at me directly, you can see through it to my true appearance. I want you to see me as I am.”
She was glad of that and had felt as much when he had confessed his sins to her in that other world where Taylor had sent them. It was beautiful of him to desire to be so open with her, to want her to see the real him and not some false appearance.
Amelia twisted her hand free of his and brushed the backs of her fingers across his cheek, silently thanking him for being so honest with her.
Marcus smiled. “As for money, I can just compel people to give me whatever I want.”
“Isn’t that like stealing? I don’t think I can condone that sort of behaviour.”
He raised a dark eyebrow and opened his mouth, starting a new sentence several times, and then shrugging. “I am hungry.”
“Too hungry to last to your apartment and get your walle—what happened to your clothes when you rescued me?”
“I disposed of them.” He took hold of her hand. “By which I mean that I used my power to remove them and send them somewhere else.”
The look he raked over her as they entered their building made her feel as though he was considering using that power on her right that moment.
A frown settled on her face. “Have you compelled me to give you what you want?”
He laughed. “No… never.”
He dipped his head and kissed her again, and it threatened to turn into serious petting as his hands slid around her waist and cupped her backside. Amelia broke free and chided him with a frown.
“Food.” She pointed to the white building through the glass doors behind her and the store there. “We get some money, we come back down, and then we eat. Keep your eye on the prize.”
His gaze narrowed on her body. “I am.”
Amelia flushed with prickly heat and couldn’t hold his gaze when he looked at her. “Maybe I should just let you magic us some money or compel them… I have a feeling that if we set foot in your apartment, you’re going to forget all about eating.”
The lift pinged and the doors opened.
He grinned. “Not all about it… what I’m hungry for might change though. I might need to eat you instead.”
Amelia’s eyes widened when Mrs McCartney came out of the lift just as Marcus finished speaking. She eyed them both from beneath the brim of her large pink sun hat and Amelia’s blush deepened, burning into her cheeks. The old woman smiled knowingly when Marcus greeted her and then slowly moved to the doors. Marcus left her side and opened them for the old woman, his eyes on Amelia the whole time.
She had created a monster.
A very sexy, passionate and irresistible monster.
Marcus grabbed her hand and bundled her into the lift. She moaned when he pressed her against the steel wall and kissed her so hard that she couldn’t keep up with him. Her teeth clashed with his but he didn’t laugh when she did. He slanted his mouth over hers and plundered hers with his tongue, leading her mind to dream up visions of exactly what she wanted him to do to her with that instrument of divine torture.
The lift doors opened and he scooped her up into his arms, carried her along the neat cream hallway, and stopped outside her door.
She didn’t have keys.
Marcus looked at the door and, before she could mention her problem, it opened. Another power of his?
He kicked the door closed behind them and started kissing her again, stealing the world away until all she could focus on was how good it felt to have his mouth on hers, his lips playing gently against it and their tongues sliding over each other. She wanted more.
Amelia wriggled out of his grasp, landed solidly on the floor, and took hold of his breastplate. She frowned at it and then reached up and unbuckled the straps over his left shoulder. He drew in a deep shuddering breath when she tackled the strap on his left side next, her hands grazing his bare skin as she did so.
“Wait,” he said and she thought he was going to stop her when she caught him frowning at her.
His wings shrank, gradually disappearing into his back, and he tugged the chest armour off over his head. Amelia hurried to remove the armour around his waist, eager to touch him again and have him touch her. She wanted to feel him for real this time, needed to lay her hands on his delicious body and know that what was happening between them was reality and not a shared fantasy.
“This is taking too long.” Marcus stepped back and looked himself over and his armour disappeared, leaving him nude in the middle of her living room, his cock rising out of its nest of dark curls.
Oh. She really wanted to touch him now.
Amelia stepped forward to do just that but he held his hand up and her clothes disappeared too. A wave of heat washed over her and she swore that she had blushed head-to-toe over her sudden nudity. Marcus didn’t seem to notice. He stalked towards her, caught her wrist and tugged her into his arms, so the full length of her bare body brushed against his. His hardening length pressed into her stomach, the heat of it heightening her desire and filling her with an urge to wrap her hand around it, drop to her knees, and ravish it until Marcus lost control as he had in that other world.
“You are so beautiful.” He pressed kisses to her bare shoulder, working his way along the curve of her neck to her jaw, and she slid her hands up his arms, sweeping them over his strong muscles to his shoulders and then down his chest.
The firm muscles of his torso tore a groan of hunger from her and she looked down at her hands, her gaze intently following her fingers, the sight of them running over his body only increasing the pleasure she felt from touching him. She curled her fingers as she reached his nipples, raking her short nails over them and his chest, and Marcus exhaled sharply, a groan following in its wake. She didn’t stop there. She dragged her nails down his stomach, scoring red lines on his pale flesh, and her groin throbbed at the thought of where she was heading.
Marcus stilled when she reached his navel and his stomach tensed, revealing the compact muscles of his abdomen to her hungry eyes.
Amelia broke free of his grip and eased her hand downwards, fingertips pushing into the dark curls surrounding his cock, and watched his face. His eyelids dropped, hiding his beautiful icy irises from her, and his sensual lips parted, tempting her into kissing him and claiming them. She held back and kept watching him instead, seeing the pleasure he felt as she wrapped her hand around his hard length and gave it a gentle squeeze. He sighed and frowned when she moved her hand down, and then inhaled sharply again as she slipped her thumb over the sensitive head, teasing it and smearing the pearl of moisture there into his skin.
“Amelia,” Marcus groaned and his whole body tautened as she thrust her hand down his length and back up again. His cock hardened in her hand, as tense as the rest of him, straining for her touch and attention.
Amelia lowered herself to her knees and looked at his erection. Was he ready for this? They had covered the basics back in that other world, making love several times, but there had been minimal foreplay. She hadn’t put her mouth on him then, and he hadn’t done similar to her, but she wanted that now. She wanted to know every inch of him intimately. She wanted to taste him.
Marcus loosed another husky moan as she ran her tongue over the blunt head of his cock and then jerked his hips forwards when she took him into her mouth. His warm length filled her, his taste as de
licious as the rest of him, and she moaned as she slowly sucked him, savouring the feel of him under her tongue. She swirled it around the head when she withdrew, eliciting a deep rumbling groan from him, and his hands came to rest on her shoulders. He clutched her tightly as she teased him, investigating every inch of his beautiful cock with her tongue, and then pushed her back when she sucked him into her mouth again.
She looked up at him.
The way his teeth cut into his lower lip and the intensity of his frown said to give him a moment before she tried anything.
Amelia bided her time by running her hands down his lithe muscular legs. He chuckled when she stroked the backs of his knees and she did it again, trying to draw another laugh out of him. His knees bent and then she was standing before him, his hands firmly clutching her upper arms, and his mouth descended on hers.
She moaned and tackled his tongue with her own, too drugged by the feel of it sliding against hers to care that he had stopped her fun. He lifted her again and continued to kiss her as he carried her into her pale purple bedroom and then lowered her onto her double bed.
Amelia lay there in the middle of the bed at an angle, her gaze on his face, watching him as he looked her over from head to toe. His pupils widened as he swept his eyes over her breasts and down her stomach and by the time he reached her groin, they were dark with hunger.
“I want to taste you,” he said thickly, sending a rush of heat through her, and caught hold of her knees and pulled her towards the edge of the bed.
He glanced at the bedside lamp and Amelia was glad when he didn’t turn it on. Her closed curtains were barely a shade darker purple than the walls and let enough light through. If he had turned on the lamp, she would have felt as though she was at the doctors. The hunger in his look didn’t fade as he eased down onto his knees before her and she found herself propping herself up on her elbows so she could see the desire that she stirred in him.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 16