Archangel of Mercy (13 page)

“No.” He sounded oddly reluctant. “Not here. I don’t bring women here.”

Before she could make any sense of that he turned and marched from the room. He had a perfectly proportioned butt, tight and sexy, and his powerful bronzed legs were a sculptor’s delight. She let a muffled sigh escape as he disappeared through the doors.

Then she stiffened as the realization hit. He’d walked out on her. What was she supposed to do now?
What had she talked herself into?

Chapter Eighteen

A
ND
then he was back, striding toward her across the room, his gaze as intense and his body as irresistible as ever. Her lips parted in a soundless question.
Where did you go?
But the words floated in a haze as the answer hovered on the horizon.

He’d probably just taken care of protection. But even as the thought whispered through her mind, even as her drugged gaze slipped to his groin, doubt scraped along her senses in discordant unease.

His glorious erection remained unsheathed. And a wicked-looking dagger glinted in his hand.

Her heart pounded and she reared off the bed, struggling futilely against her restraints. He stood over her like a conquering barbarian: naked, aroused and
holding a deadly dagger
.

He straddled her with ease, despite her flailing legs, and sat on her thighs. The weight was enough to immobilize her but not enough to hurt. It was also, infuriatingly, more than enough to cause renewed tremors of desire to spiral through her sensitized core.

“Miss me?” He brushed her hair from her face. She wanted to swipe his hand away. She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist. Most of all she wanted this crazy lust vanquished so she could once again think clearly.

“Untie me.” Her voice was raw. The thought of bondage might have been exciting, but in reality the loss of mobility was . . . frightening.

“I will.” His finger trailed along her face, over her throat and traced the frayed edge of her tiny leather top. Then he raised the dagger. “Trust me.”

Was that a question or a demand? She stared, hypnotized, as he lowered the dagger to her breasts and a whimper escaped. Shouldn’t she be terrified?

But it wasn’t terror that caused her ragged breathing or liquid heat to bloom between her thighs. Because despite how she’d changed her mind over the whole bondage idea the last thing she wanted was for Gabe to stop . . . whatever he was doing.

“Aurora.” He savored her name as if it was an exotic treat. “Do you trust me?”

It was a question. She struggled to remember all the reasons why Gabe was the last person in the world she should trust. And couldn’t.

And it didn’t matter. Because no matter how bizarre the conviction, deep in the fundamental essence of her psyche, she did trust him.

“Yes.” It was surrender, yet felt like a benediction. As if, against all perceptions, it was not Gabe who held ultimate power in this game.

Something flickered in his eyes, an emotion too fleeting to comprehend, but she had the strangest sensation that he hadn’t expected her unhesitating acceptance. He didn’t say anything, didn’t break eye contact, but she felt the tip of the blade slice through the leather as if it were silk.

He peeled the severed leather over her breasts, leaving her exposed to his gaze. But still he looked into her eyes, and despite the fact she was tethered to his bed and that he pinned her beneath his powerful body, it was the mesmeric beauty of his irises that held her truly captive.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d imagine your silence was due to reverential awe at the skill of my magnificent dagger.” His voice was smoky and curled around her senses like a potent aphrodisiac.

Her mouth was dry and the echo of her heart fluttered erratically in her throat. It was hard to breathe, impossible to think, but still a breathless laugh escaped.

“Your dagger is pretty”—she momentarily lost her train of thought as he leaned forward so his erection teased the swollen lips of her pussy—“big.
Amazing
,” she corrected hastily as he began to grin, and then realized that wasn’t the right word either. “Egotistical,” she sighed, and stirred restlessly beneath his imprisoning weight.

The tip of his nose brushed hers. A featherlight touch, hardly a touch at all, and yet the pit of her stomach knotted with an absurd pleasure that bordered on pain.

“How gratifying to know my weapon meets with your approval.”

His breath against her mouth was an erotic caress. She wanted to spear her fingers through his hair, wind her arms around his shoulders and drag him onto her ready body. But still he maintained a whisper of distance between his chest and her aching breasts. And there was nothing she could do because she was . . . tethered.

A delicious shiver raced over her arms, across her breasts and circled her nipples. His eyes darkened, as if he could sense the shift in her arousal, and then he sucked one ripe nipple into his mouth.

She clenched her fists and arched her back in a futile effort to assert control. He cupped her breast, held her firm and suckled hard, and spirals of agonizing pleasure ignited between her erect nipple and sensitized clit.

He transferred his attention to her other breast, licking and sucking and dragging his teeth across her flesh. The sensual onslaught was like nothing she’d experienced or had dreamed before. His fingers stroked and caressed and his mouth and tongue were instruments of sweet torture.

“Killing me,” she managed to gasp as she clung onto the fishnets as if they were an anchor to sanity.

Gabe raised his head, his jaw still grazing her tender flesh. “Thought that was your plan for me.” His voice rasped and he sent her another one of his sinful smiles. “Don’t die yet. I haven’t finished.” He inched farther down her body, and she felt the tip of the dagger slice through the skirt before he flung the ruined garment onto the floor.

He rose to his knees and she saw him looking at her, but right now she didn’t care how cheap and nasty the crotchless G-string was. Because the expression on Gabe’s face caused a fierce pain in her heart as the knowledge punched through her that he found her
irresistible.

An archangel.

Another ragged gasp escaped and between her thighs wet heat trickled. She knew the G-string covered next to nothing. Knew Gabe must see how desperately aroused she was. And still she didn’t care.

“I will die,” she croaked, tugging mindlessly on her restraints, “if you don’t hurry up.”

Without taking his gaze from her wantonly exposed crotch he slowly peeled the G-string over her hips, then in one swift glint of metal the last of the leather ripped from her body.

“I don’t do
hurry up
.” But even as he spoke he roughly kneed her thighs apart, the savage gleam in his eyes denying his words.

Legs free at last, Aurora wrapped herself around him, rising off the bed to plaster her groin against his rigid cock. God, it felt so good and she squirmed helplessly, frantic with need, mindless with primal lust. He let out a hiss and his hands smashed down on either side of her head, bracing his weight. His tangled hair framed his face, his tautly muscled shoulders filled her world and the head of his erection nudged her swollen clit.

“Archangel.” Barely aware she’d spoken aloud, the evocative image spilled through her mind. “Gabriel.” She dragged out each syllable, savoring the taste of his name on her tongue.

He growled a curse in his own language—surely it was a curse by the wild look in his eyes—and slid the head of his cock over her wet slit. The exquisite pressure teased and probed but did not penetrate, no matter how she squirmed.

“You want something, Aurora?” He panted into her face, looking nothing like an archangel and every inch a hedonistic demon of pleasure.

“Yes.” Her fingers clawed in useless frustration and she glared up at him. “
Yes
.”

“What is it you want?” Again he dragged his engorged shaft across her sensitized lips and her womb quivered with agonizing anticipation. “My cock inside you? Is that what you want?”

She dug her heels into his butt, her muscles straining with the effort of bending him to her will. But he was as hard as iron and as immovable as a mountain.

“Yes.” God, had she screamed? And did she even care?

His mouth all but touched hers, their erratic breath mingling, their gazes meshed as one.

“Tell me. Say the words.” It was a growl, an erotic command, and primal need scalded her blood. She’d never articulated her desires before. But the thought of doing so now, to Gabe, was overwhelmingly seductive.

“I want your cock inside me.”

His eyes glittered with heightened lust and raw power sizzled through her veins. She’d never imagined saying such a thing could be so . . . liberating.

“And?” He sounded rabid and she stared up at him, uncomprehending. “What else do you want me to do, Aurora? Tell me.”

She flicked the tip of her tongue over her dry lips and saw how he watched, hypnotized.

“I want you to . . .” The word lodged in her throat, a crazy inhibition that had no place in a world inhabited by angels and demons and cold-hearted goddesses. “Fuck me. Hard and fast and I want it
now
.”

He thrust into her so
hard
and
fast
the breath stalled in her lungs and she wheezed incoherently, fingers clenching and toes curling. Sensation consumed her, a pulsing maelstrom of friction and flesh and harsh, hot breaths. His brutal possession enslaved her body and shattered her mind, as his cock invaded her willing sheath and his balls slammed against her tender flesh.

“Damn.” His intense gaze scorched as he panted against her lips. “You’re a good fuck, Aurora. You’re so tight and hot. It’s fucking insane.”

Words hammered in her mind but she’d forgotten how to speak, forgotten how to think. All that mattered was the man,
the archangel
, between her thighs, who looked at her with such focused intensity and who
fucked
her as if the world was about to end.

And then the world did end. In a cascading torrent of pure sensation that consumed and ignited in simultaneous delirium. And without even realizing it, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on tight as he rammed into her and came with ecstatic abandon.

Chapter Nineteen

E
YES
closed, breath scorching his lungs, Gabe’s muscles slowly relaxed. Aurora was soft and warm beneath him, her arms still clasped around his shoulders, and it felt oddly right.

Idly, he played with her hair, enjoying the feel of her heart hammering against his chest, the uneven gasps of breath against his throat and the tremors that raced through her body at satisfyingly frequent intervals. He breathed in deep, savoring the scent of woman, of sex and the unique flavor that was Aurora and waited for the inevitable fissure of disconnection. But the usual disinterest to prolong any kind of contact after orgasm didn’t wash through him. No overpowering need to untangle limbs and sink into his own private space thudded through the post-euphoric haze. And his cock, still buried inside her tight cleft, stirred. Again.

He should have known once—twice—would never be enough to sate the madness in his blood when it came to Aurora. She aggravated him too much, fascinated him too much to be cleansed from his system so easily.

But that still didn’t answer the fundamental question of why he continued to lie here, in the aftermath. He was content to wind her hair around his finger, breathe in her evocative scent and enjoy how she clung to him as her erratic breaths gradually calmed.

“You untied me.” She sounded drowsy, sated and slightly surprised. As if she hadn’t expected him to cut her loose in the moments before they’d come.

He didn’t know why he had. It had been an instinctive action. Certainly had nothing to do with wanting to feel her arms around him because why would he want that?

Her fingers caressed his shoulders, perilously close to where his wings had once been. Females without number had touched, kissed and licked him there. But they ultimately ignored the question as to
why
and
how
an archangel could possibly lose his wings.

He knew Aurora conformed to no such unspoken etiquette. But gods, he didn’t want to shatter this strange sense of peace by once again deflecting her curiosity.

She slid her fingers into his hair, caressed the nape of his neck. A gentle, soothing gesture, but instead of enhancing the abnormal warmth curling around the left side of his chest a dark, alien sensation twisted deep in his gut.

Muscles tightened and he lifted his head enough so he could see her face. Her eyes were half closed, her cheeks flushed and a small smile tilted her lips. She looked satisfied and happy and why that combination heightened his unease he had no idea. But it did.

Wouldn’t it be better for her to fall for him, considering she had no option but to stay with him for the rest of her life? That had to be better than having a woman who hated the sight of him and threw verbal abuse his way every time they crossed paths.

But that tiny coil of panic continued to twist deep inside. He didn’t want her to fall. Didn’t want to witness her inevitable slide into bitterness and recrimination when she finally realized that he’d never return her feelings. Because unlike other lovers who’d made that fatal mistake, this time he couldn’t just walk away. He was stuck with Aurora for as long as she lived.

The panic—an outrageous emotion for an archangel to experience—spiked deeper. But he might as well confront the issue now. If she made unreasonable demands on his time when he no longer desired her, his only alternative was exile from his own island.

Slowly she opened her eyes and looked up at him. The devastating terror that had consumed her in the seconds as he’d brought her back had vanished. No matter how unorthodox his methods at least they’d worked. She’d been so distracted by his seduction her sanity had failed to tip into the abyss.

Equally, there was no awe of his status in her sultry gaze. She looked at him as if they were equal. As if this crazy interlude meant something more than primal sex.

What was he waiting for? Any other time, with any other woman, he’d already be telling her how things were. But somehow he couldn’t shatter this moment with the truth.

“Gabe.” Her voice was as seductive as her eyes. He heaved himself up onto his hands, willing her to remain silent. With another mortal he’d not even hesitate to enter her mind and manipulate her into compliance. But this was Aurora. And he couldn’t bend her to his will in such a way. A shudder inched along his spine as he realized he didn’t even want to.

“Not now.” With more reluctance than he cared to admit he withdrew from her enticing body and rolled onto his back beside her. “Go to sleep.”

She wriggled onto her side, flattened her hand over his chest and pushed herself up. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see her. So she’d realize this conversation was over before it could even begin.

“Gabe,” she said again, completely ignoring his attempts at saving the fragile construct of her heart. “There’s something we have to discuss.”

“There isn’t.” To underline his point he flung his arm across his eyes and hoped she now took the hint. He didn’t feel like having an argument. If he was honest he wanted to have her again, but to hell with that. He wasn’t a slave to the lust Aurora aroused in him.

“It’s important.” She leaned against him and her breath drifted across his jaw, as if she was gazing down at his face. “At least it is to
me
.”

This strategy wasn’t working. He rolled on top of her once again, pinning her to the bed. He’d managed to save her sanity already this night. It would be no problem seducing her once again so she forgot about her declarations of love and devotion.

“Be quiet.” His mouth grazed hers and his cock hardened in anticipation. Maybe this was the answer. Fucking her into compliance until she was too damn exhausted to think never mind speak.

“We might have got away with it twice,” she said with an edge of panic. “But it’s really pushing our luck three times.”

Irritated that she’d managed to snare his interest with her bizarre comment he raised his head and frowned down at her.

“What are you talking about?” It didn’t sound like a confession of love to him. And he’d been on the receiving end of some pretty strange ones over the centuries. “Got away with what?”

Her breath shuddered out between her teeth and she broke eye contact to focus on his nose. “We didn’t use any protection.”

For a second he thought he had misheard. But the fact Aurora refused to look at him, combined with the way the words were still ringing in his ears, confirmed the astounding truth.

She was concerned that he might have passed something on to her.

“Let me assure you . . .” He was doubly annoyed that her insult had done nothing to diminish the extent of his erection. “I don’t carry diseases. It’s impossible for me to have”—he resisted the urge to grind his teeth—“infected you.”

Her eyes widened in apparent horror. “Infected me?” She sounded as shocked as she looked. What was she playing at?

“Yes.” Now would be a good time to leave her. Except it felt too damn good wedged between her thighs. “But if that wasn’t your problem then it applies equally the other way. You can’t infect me, either.”

From the late morning sunlight that spilled into his bedroom he saw her cheeks flame with mortification. Obviously that hadn’t been her inference either. Not that he’d for one second thought it was. But the way she was now looking up at him unaccountably rubbed his phantom feathers the wrong way.

“I wasn’t—” She bit off her words and avoided his gaze. He narrowed his eyes, waiting. He wasn’t the one who’d started this. If anyone should be offended here it was him. Yet her clear distress at his accusation ate into him like acid.

By rights he should kick her from his bed. But still he remained where he was, as if he craved this excruciating torture.

“That didn’t occur to me.” She sounded hurt. “I was thinking more of . . . me getting pregnant.”

A dull pain spiked through his heart and for a moment he embraced it, allowing the ancient agony to wash through him in a self-indulgent wave.

Helena.
The child of his heart. The child of his love. His miracle.

“No.” His voice was devoid of emotion while regret wrenched through his chest. “You won’t get pregnant.”

“But I might. I’m not on the Pill or anything. I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it?” Again he heard the thread of panic in her tone as if the possibility of conceiving the offspring of an archangel truly horrified her.

And she was right to be horrified. Except Aurora would—
could
—never conceive his child.

He closed his eyes and once again rolled onto his back. No other woman had ever thought or dared to raise this with him. It was no issue with those who possessed immortal blood, and as for the others they either knew the chances of conception were zero or else they harbored a secret desire to bear his child against all the odds.

“Archangels don’t procreate.” They hadn’t done so for millennia. “Trust me. You don’t have to worry about that.”

She stirred and he knew she was once again looking down at him. He kept his eyes shut. Tried not to see Helena’s sweet smile, the unruly curls that framed her face or hear her enchanting laughter echo through his brain.

“Why don’t I? You’ve got all the right equipment. And you can’t tell me angels don’t procreate, because I know they do.”

He looked up at her, but couldn’t summon the energy to glare. Because she was right. But she had no
right
to throw that in his face. No right to question his word.

Had he really thought she would accept his denial without contradiction?

Resignation at the knowledge that Aurora would never simply accept his word without discussion weaved through his mind as he weighed up what to tell her. But then her eyes widened in apparent alarm and she brushed the tips of her fingers over his shoulder. Oddly, the gesture seemed conciliatory, but that made no sense.

“I’m sorry, I mean, well, if the myths of angels are true I’m just guessing so are the stories of the”—she hesitated for a second, clearly searching for the right word—“Nephilim?”

Fuck, would she not just shut up? This conversation was killing him from the inside out. And Aurora didn’t have a clue.

“Yes.” His voice was harsh and he sat up, dislodging Aurora’s soothing caress. “But like everything from antiquity humankind has corrupted the truth.” He knew the stories that polluted the histories of Earth when it came to the beloved Nephilim. It was one of the reasons why he had little time for those born on this planet. “Despite the fact that we have all the right
equipment
archangels were never intended to procreate. And yet some did. But only with what you might quaintly refer to as their soul mate.”

Soul mate.
The words tasted sour on his tongue but the appalled look on Aurora’s face told him she had instantly understood all the implications associated with that hated term.

“I’m sorry.” Her whisper brushed against his shoulder and something in her tone pierced through the memories that threatened to overtake him.

“It’s all right.” It wasn’t all right. It would never be all right. But Aurora sounded so genuinely distressed, and looked so convincingly contrite, that he couldn’t help but try to reassure her.

Didn’t make sense. Neither her reaction to his admission or his instinctive need to convince her there was nothing for her to apologize for. He dragged his fingers through his hair and craved alcohol to deaden the ache in his brain.

“I didn’t mean to pry.” Her voice was soft, as if she confessed to a great sin. He sighed heavily. She had not the first conception of how mightily
he
had sinned. Or how horrific a price his loved ones had paid.

She never would.

“Go to sleep, Aurora.” He looked at her then, as she sat facing him on his bed. She was only a mortal, a human from Earth, and yet in the last few moments he had shared more with her than he had with anyone in millennia.

The knowledge caused his gut to tighten and again that inexplicable rope of panic coiled like a poisonous serpent. Before he could be tempted to pull her into his arms and lose himself once again in the welcoming heat of her flesh he turned, picked up the dagger and left the bed.

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to stop him. At the door he battled against the urge to turn once more and look at her. To see if she was watching him.

But he didn’t. Instead he went into his office, his haven, and pulled open the top drawer in his desk.

Helena laughed up at him from the one and only picture that remained of her. His gaze slid to her mother and even now, even after all these endless centuries, the familiar pain of futile fury and hopeless devotion ripped through his heart. He had been unable to save either of them. They were gone. And they could never return.

Eleni. His first love. His only love.

Eleni had driven him insane with her smart mouth and inability to acknowledge his archangelic superiority. But then, Eleni hadn’t been a mere human. She’d had the right to question him and insult him. She possessed noble blood and status of her own. Her pride in her Nephilim heritage shone through everything she said, everything she did. She bowed to no man and no immortal, and despite fighting her charms for more than three years, his surrender was inevitable.

He’d irrevocably fallen the moment he looked into her fearless dark eyes. Had fallen more surely every time they spoke, every time she refused his advances, and every time she laughed at his attempts to dominate.

Because she’d known. Right from the start she’d known they belonged together and theirs was a partnership of equals.

Forty years. That’s all they’d had together. And the miracle of creating Helena.

He shoved the memories back into the dark corners of his consciousness and opened his laptop. Eblis, who had no compunction listening into the thoughts and telepathic communication of those who frequented his den, recalled a group of pirates had been discussing the home solar system of the missing child, Evalyne. Gabe logged on and accessed all the information he could find on the small galaxy of Fornax, where Eblis said the pirates had originated from.

It wasn’t much to go on, but at least it was a start.