Kristina Douglas - The Fallen 1 - Raziel (19 page)

She was no demon. I was as sure of that as I could possibly be, short of taking her blood. She was human, and vulnerable despite her attempts to shock me. She was vulnerable, and the best thing I could do was leave her alone.

I couldn’t. Not after the Grace of Knowing. Looking so deeply into her had been an act of intimacy from which there was no coming back. There was a bond between us that I didn’t want, but it existed anyway, and it was purely sexual. An animal need that I wasn’t going to fight anymore. I was going to fuck her. I could imagine Uriel howling, and I thought the word again.
Fuck
. I was going to take her bed and wear myself out with her, and when she was climaxing I would look into her eyes and know the last bit of her, the place where even a demon couldn’t hide. I would fuck her and make her come and know her.

And if she was a demon, I would kil her.

She stirred. She was going to be angry with me for what I’d done to her, and I didn’t blame her. It was an invasion, one she’d accepted. One of many she’d accept.

I could scoop her up and carry her into the bedroom, have her clothes off before she realized what I was doing. It would simplify matters. But just as she had al owed me to look inside her, she would have to al ow me to be inside her. And if she had any remaining defenses, they would shatter as she did.

She moved, then lay stil . “You son of a bitch,” she said quietly.

“I’m not the son of anything. How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been violated.”

“That’s about right.”

She sat bolt upright and glared at me, ready for battle. “And I don’t suppose you feel any remorse.”

“Why should I? I needed to see if you were a demon.”

She looked at me blankly for a moment. “A demon? Do they even exist? Hel , of course they do. Angels and demons and vampires and cannibals. What other treats do you have in store? Shape-shifters? Werewolves?”

I didn’t move. I was hard, and had been since I’d gone into her, my body desperate to fol ow. And I knew, even as I’d pul ed back, that I’d left enough behind that her defenses would be down.

I needed them that way. More than anything on this earth or the next, I wanted to be able to walk away from her. To leave my rooms, report to Azazel that she was an innocent, and leave her disposal up to them.

But I was afraid
disposal
would be the operative word. And even in such a short time, we’d come too far for me to let them take her.

Too far for me to turn my back on her.

If Uriel had sent her to infiltrate us, then he would have sent her wel armed. The Grace of knowing was powerful, but underestimating Uriel was always a mistake. I was sure she was innocent, caught by a series of coincidences. But I couldn’t afford to be wrong.

She was stil glaring at me, her eyes shuttered. I had seen al she would let me see. If I wanted to be certain, to protect Sheol as it needed to be protected, then I had no choice.

I was prepared for resistance. I had kept out of her head as much as I could, but there was no mistaking that she felt the same bond I felt. The same intense, sexual need that I was an expert at denying, had been denying since the moment she had come into my world, thanks to those terrible shoes that had caused her death. I’d been counting on that resistance, along with my own, but that was out the window. The Grace of knowing was not enough.

I rose, and reached my hand out to her. “No,” she said.

I waited. I could do anything I wanted with her. I could force her, then wipe the memory from her brain. I could simply take her blood, just enough to read her, not enough to make me sick. Blood from anyone but the Source or my bonded mate was dangerous, even in smal amounts, but it was a risk I had to take.

“Come with me, Al ie,” I said. And I made her move, because I could. “Come.” And she rose.

I DIDNT WANT TO MOVE. It didn’t matter. He pul ed me up and stood over me. I hated tal men—they made me feel weak and inconsequential.

I was stil wearing his clothes, his black jacket, his black T-shirt, his black silk trousers. He took the lapels of the jacket and pushed it off my shoulders, down my arms. I stood stil , knowing I ought to argue, protest, anything but stand there and let him slide the jacket off me and toss it behind him onto the sofa.

He reached for the hem of my T-shirt, and I wanted to back away, but my feet were rooted to the floor. I tried to stem my panic. This was the fulfil ment of a fantasy that obsessed half the teenage girls in the world. It didn’t matter. Having sex with a fal en-angel-slash-vampire was a real y bad idea.

“Please don’t,” I said, trying to sound calm and sure of myself. If he did this, I’d have nothing with which to fight him. If he did this, it would matter too much, and I wouldn’t be able to break away. If he did this, it would break my heart.

He pul ed my T-shirt up, and I unwil ingly lifted my arms to let him peel it off, so that I was standing there in nothing but his loose pants low on my hips. I felt conspicuous, vulnerable, and it took al my self-control to just stand there and look at him.

“I should point out,” he said with surprising gentleness, “that my favorite period of time was the Renaissance.”

With al those voluptuous beauties. He was probably lying, but I gave him points for trying. I stil didn’t move.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He was leaning down, his mouth so close I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face. “I wouldn’t do this to you if it wasn’t necessary.”

I’d been ready for his kiss, but at this my eyes flew open. “What do you mean, ‘necessary’?”

I was silenced, not by one of his slight gestures, but by his mouth on mine as he pul ed me into his arms.

It was no sweet kiss of seduction, no chaste, heavenly kiss. It was ful and openmouthed and carnal, and I stood frozen in shock as he put one arm around my waist, pul ing me against his hard body, and the other had caught my chin, his long fingers cradling my face.

I’d been kissed before, of course. But never like this, with an almost cosmic sense of urgency and longing. I could feel my nipples harden against the solid warmth of his chest, and I could feel the heat between my legs, the clutch of longing in my bel y. Who the hel was I trying to fool? I was turned on every time he was in the room.

He dragged his mouth away. “Stop thinking,” he said a little breathlessly, and if it were anyone else, any other circumstances, I’d have thought he was turned on.

In fact, I could feel his cock against my bel y, a hard ridge of flesh.

Must be some angel trick, I thought dizzily, to be able to perform on command, even if he was doing it for obscure reasons that had nothing to do with desire—

“Stop thinking,” he said again, his voice hot. “I want you. Al right? I don’t want to—you’re nothing but trouble. I wish I could just walk away from you. But I can’t.”

“I’m not getting into that bed with you,” I said, one last attempt to preserve my self-control. “If you say so.”

There was no escape. Particularly because I didn’t want to escape. I turned my back to him, but he simply pul ed me against him, his arm around my waist, and carried me into the bedroom.

After the dimness in the living room the lights were blindingly bright, and I shut my eyes. I was pressed against him, his strength and heat spreading through me, and I wanted to sink back into him, letting my body flow into his, and I knew I was past protesting. Who was I fooling? I wanted this so badly my heart was pounding, my hands shaking, and I knew I was already wet. Ready for him.

He must have felt it. “Yes,” he said, a low murmur of approval as he set me on my feet, my back stil turned to him. His hands were on me, pushing the silk trousers and my underwear down with one movement so that they pooled around my ankles. He lifted me out of them and turned me so that I faced him, naked, total y vulnerable.

He looked at me, and the heat in his strange eyes was palpable, burning away the last of my doubts. And the last of his. I could feel his reserve melt away in the heat between us, and his breath was coming sharp and fast. “Were you sent here to torment me?” he whispered, sliding his arm around my waist, pul ing me against him.

“Did he know exactly what I needed, what I couldn’t fight?”

He? Who? But before I could ask the question, he kissed me again, and I was lost, needing to get closer to him, needing his skin beneath my fingers. His tongue was in my mouth, and I welcomed it, reaching between us and pul ing his shirt apart so I could touch his skin, his hot, smooth skin. His heart was racing, and I wanted to put my mouth against it, wanted to taste his flat nipples, wanted my mouth al over him.

Before I realized what he was going to do he slid his arm under me, lifting me. I twined my fingers through his thick hair, kissing him back, using my tongue, hearing my own quiet moan of surrender as surely as he unbuttoned his jeans. And then I could feel him against my sex, hard and heavy, and I knew it was going to hurt. He was too big, and he hadn’t even touched me there, and I was the kind of woman who required a lot of foreplay, and if he was going to try this he was going to have trouble and it was going to—

He slid into me, smoothly, no pul ing, no resistance, and reaction spiked through my body. I was sleek and wet and welcoming, and I shivered in primal delight. The more I had of him the more I needed, and the heat of his skin against my breasts was unbearably arousing. I was burning with need, shaking with it. He started to pul out, and I clutched at him, suddenly terrified he would leave me.

But he was already pushing back into me, deeper than the first thrust, slick and sure, deeper, thicker, harder, and when he pul ed back I let out a cry, desperate.

This time he slammed into me, al the way in, pushing me hard up against the wal , and my body suddenly shattered. I let out a muffled scream, burying it against his shoulder, against the smel of clean cotton and warm skin, and another wave hit me, and then another, until I was sure I couldn’t take any more.

If anything he seemed to grow bigger stil inside me, and he pul ed away from the wal , supporting me in his arms, and he was so strong it seemed effortless. He was moving faster now, fil ing me so deeply I thought I could taste him, and I convulsed in helpless pleasure at the thought. He gave in, pushing deep inside me, and I felt the hot pulse as he climaxed, my body milking him with answering contractions, and as the final wave washed over me I lost myself, as everything dissolved around us.

It was darkness, shimmering, shattering darkness, iridescent blue folding down around us, tightly, as soft as feathers wrapping around my back, sealing me into a cocoon of such infinite delight that I felt a stray climax sweep over me before everything vanished and there was nothing but pure, healing warmth.

I had no idea how long that blessed, velvet darkness lasted. I must have fal en asleep, because I opened my eyes to find that I was lying in the middle of his bed, naked, a sheet wrapped around me, and Raziel was nowhere to be seen. Of course. What man stayed around long after the fact?

I tried to turn over, then groaned in sudden discomfort. It had definitely been too long since I’d had sex, I thought dimly.

It must be the middle of the night. I managed to sit up, wincing slightly at the discomfort between my legs. I stil felt the faint lingering of postcoital bliss, that heavenly warm feeling that washed over me, when I knew I shouldn’t be quite so happy. Something was wrong, something was off, yet I couldn’t remember what. I stil felt as if I were floating, so pleasured that I probably could have climaxed again just thinking about it.

I’d told him not the bed, and he’d taken me at my word. Up against the wal . I hadn’t ever done that before—my erstwhile lovers weren’t what you’d cal adventurous. That was good as wel —the up-against-the-wal part. Everything was good, except for that nagging worry.

I needed to put it in perspective. It was sex, for God’s sake, no big whoop.

Though in truth it certainly
had
been a big whoop. This was a far cry from the pleasant little shimmers that Jason had been able to coax from me at his most creative. A far cry from the fast, efficient orgasms I’d managed on my own. This was like nothing I’d ever experienced.

I was wet, dripping between my legs, and I realized with a shock that he hadn’t used a condom. Wel , why should he? There were no pregnancies in Sheol, and presumably no sex-borne il nesses. God, this was the first time I’d ever had sex without a condom.

That was it. That explained the whole multiple-orgasm, best-Iever-had, oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-die reaction. Sex must be impressively better without a condom. It was the lack of a thin rubber sheath getting in the way. Nothing at al to do with Raziel, thank God.

I heard the shower stop, and for a moment I panicked, looking around me for escape. I hadn’t even realized the water was running

—otherwise I would have been up and out of there. It was too late, and in truth, there was nowhere I could go. If I were a good virginal Victorian heroine, I could fling myself from the ramparts, though I would have to do so stark naked, somewhat ruining the effect.

But I was neither virginal nor a heroine. It had been fast and erotic and inexplicably wonderful. And for some reason I expected it was something he wasn’t going to want to repeat.

He walked out of the bathroom, and he was naked. Total y and comfortably naked. He had something in his hand, not that I was looking at his hand, and he tossed it to me.

I reached out and caught it automatical y. It was a warm, wet washcloth, presumably to clean myself off. I didn’t move, holding it in my hand, slightly dazed.