Kristina Douglas - The Fallen 1 - Raziel (20 page)

He was exquisitely beautiful, even more so without clothes. I’d always found naked men to be sort of sil y, with their drooping parts bouncing as they walked. Raziel wasn’t sil y. He was magnificent, with white-gold skin stretched over a lithe, strong frame, and his sex didn’t bounce. I jerked my face away, refusing to think about it.

I felt the bed sink beneath his weight, and I turned and looked at him, startled. He was looking at me with a troubled expression, one I couldn’t read. He took the washcloth out of my hand and pressed me back against the bed, his hand gentle. I clutched the sheet that covered me, but he pul ed it away effortlessly, and I let it go rather than get into an undignified tug of war I was bound to lose.

“Open your legs,” he said, putting one hand on my thigh.

I considered ignoring him. I didn’t want to face him, didn’t want to talk to him after that hot, urgent coupling that undoubtedly meant far more to me than it had to him. I closed my eyes, letting him pul my legs apart, and the wet warmth of the washcloth made me shudder in unexpected reaction. Those were his hands, washing me with an unlikely tenderness, and for some reason I wanted to cry.

I lay perfectly stil beneath as he took care of me, my eyes closed, just wishing he’d go away and leave me. He was going to, sooner or later, and he might as wel get it over with.

“I’m not going away,” he said.

“Stop reading my mind!” I cried, my voice catching on a sob. I didn’t tend to become emotional after sex, but this was an anomaly on every front.

He cursed under his breath. And then he simply moved over me, between my legs, and before I realized what he was doing he’d pushed inside me again, ful y hard, and I let out a little yelp of shock as I shifted to accommodate him.

He held very stil , and I opened my eyes to look at him, to see the expression on his face. He was staring down at me, his long fingers cupping my face, his gaze intent.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. He made a smal gesture, and the lights dimmed, covering us with shadows. His head dropped, his mouth against my neck, his breath on my skin. “Am I hurting you?”

I tried to find my voice. It felt as if I were sinking into a dark place of pleasure and forgetfulness. The feel of him inside me was like nothing I’d ever known before, and now that the first, fevered rush was over I could let my body experience it ful y. It felt like a blessing, a benediction, a powerful act of claiming that stil somehow eluded me. I shook my head, unable to speak, and I knew he smiled against my skin.

“Good,” he said softly. He kissed my shoulder, and I could feel his tongue, his teeth, lightly graze the base of my neck, and I suddenly went into overdrive. My body reacted instinctively, tightening around him, and I could feel his smile again. “No,” he whispered. “You don’t want that.”

I wanted to tel him yes, I absolutely did want that, but my voice had disappeared. Just as wel —I would probably have begged him.

“You don’t have to beg,” he said. “Just hold stil and let me do this.” He slid his hands beneath my butt, pul ing me up close against him, and I wrapped my legs around him. The faint ache disappeared in a second, almost before I felt it, and the shift of position brought him in deeper stil , and I reacted once again with that instinctive tightening.

He lifted his head to look down at me, and I stared up into his strange eyes, mesmerized. I no longer wanted to hide, to look away.

He was invading my soul again, just as he had earlier, only this time he was invading my body at the same time, and I wanted more.

“There’s a limit to what you can take, Al ie,” he whispered in my ear, reading me again. “I don’t want to hurt you.” And he began to move, a slow, sweet slide, and I found I could make noise after al , a deep, longing moan, as I slid my arms around his back and held him close, feeling his muscles bunch and release against my hands, wanting the feel of him, the taste of him, al around me.

The slow, steady rhythm of it was shattering. Al I had to do was hold on to him as he moved, and each time he fil ed me I felt a dancing shimmer of delight wash over my body. There was something devastating about the measured, steady ease of it, no rush to completion, no rules, no judgment, just the thick slide of him inside me, touching places I hadn’t known existed, building toward a climax so powerful I wasn’t sure I could survive.

It would be a good death. He pul ed me tighter against him, going deeper, and I cried out as the first climax hit me.

We were both covered with sweat, sliding against each other, and I bit his shoulder, tasting him, tasting the salt-sweat of him, and I wanted faster, harder, but he wouldn’t be rushed, thrusting into me at a steady rate that was going to make me scream, I knew it, he needed to stop, I couldn’t bear any more, I needed him to go faster, harder, I needed more, and I clawed at his back in desperation, reaching for a completion like I’d never known.

He reached behind him and took my arms, slamming them down on the mattress as he rose up, pumping into me. The second climax hit me, and then I couldn’t stop. I needed nothing more than the steady movement of him inside me to bring me to a place I hadn’t believed existed, and I threw myself out into the stars as his hands pressed down on mine and the iridescent darkness closed around us once more.

I could feel him inside me, coming, and I arched back, wanting his mouth on me, wanting his teeth on me.
Please,
I thought, and I felt his mouth against my neck and the first sharp bite of his teeth.

And I was complete.

I
COULD TASTE HER BLOOD ON MY tongue. I touched my mouth, drew my fingers away, and saw the blood on them. I brought my hand back and licked it, the richness of her blood pulsing through me. It had been nothing. The slightest puncture. No veins, not the pulsing artery at the base of her neck that was only al owed for bonded mates.

This was barely more than a scrape of my teeth against her soft skin. And it was intoxicating.

I had left her asleep in the middle of the big bed, a smal figure wrapped in a down blanket. She looked exhausted, as wel she might. I had done my level best to wear her out, and she’d sleep for a long time.

I could see the mark on her neck, the place where I’d bitten her. At least some tiny portion of sanity had remained and I’d managed to pul back. There was a love mark where I’d sucked at her, and the tooth marks were already fading. It had been dangerously close, though. We were already too tied to each other, with breath and now with semen. If I took any more of her blood, there would be no way out.

It had been enough to give me the answers I needed. Uriel could cloud a great many things. He had the harsh powers of a Supreme Being, without the mercy or compassion or any interest in them. But even Uriel couldn’t keep a veil up when she reached her completion and lay cocooned in my wings. And there was no way her blood would be so pure, so rich, so nurturing, if Uriel had touched it. It would have been as bitter as acid.

I should have stopped with the one time. No one in Sheol could deny her right to be here from this point onward. I had claimed her, tasted her. No one else could touch her now. She was my responsibility, nothing more, I reminded myself. Little wonder that I’d lost myself in the sweet welcome of her body. I’d been celibate too long.

But with my mouth on her neck, breaking through the frail barrier of her flesh, I had almost made an irrevocable mistake. At least I’d managed to pul away before I’d poisoned myself. She’d been reaching for it, not knowing what she sought. Arching her neck against my mouth, offering herself, but it was my fault, my responsibility. And after that first light taste, I was consumed with need.

It was a need I could control. I washed and dressed, then headed out onto the narrow balcony. I could sense where she’d been sitting, and it jarred me. It was a long terrace—she could have chosen any number of places. Why had she sat in the same spot where I usual y stayed, looking out over the ocean, my wings outspread to the night air?

I didn’t think she’d noticed my wings wrapped around her. She’d been too caught up in her climax to realize when my wings unfurled and surrounded us tightly, a protective hood.

It doesn’t always happen. It hadn’t with any of the women I’d used over the last decade or so to relieve my needs. It should have surprised me that it happened this time, but it didn’t. Nothing about Al ie Watson surprised me anymore.

My body was stil humming with satisfaction and rekindled desire.

I could have stayed in that bed, but the closer to her I got, the greater my hunger.

It would be so much easier if I could send her somewhere else to sleep, but that would cause too much gossip. With luck I’d be able to convince the Council that she was no threat, and I could keep my distance, keep the ties between us from growing any stronger. I’d been very careful not to touch her more than strictly necessary in a vain attempt to keep the act impersonal. If I could just shut off this sudden raging need for her, I’d be fine.

Her sleeping mind was a blank to me, and her waking mind was fading with each sex act. If she’d known that, she probably would have jumped me earlier. Between bonded mates, the mental link lessened and evened out between the two. It was easy enough to read human sex partners, but after multiple couplings that ability lessened, probably from lack of use. The women I’d slept with were straightforward and simple to read, just as Al ie had been in the beginning. I’d known perfectly wel that she wanted me, or at least thought she did. But I’d also known she was uncertain about something as simple and logical as sex, despite her experience.

And that she didn’t like her body, which amazed me, since I thought she was close to perfection. Her body had distracted me from the very beginning, the sheer lushness of her curves, the delicious softness of her thighs, the high, round butt. I’d done very wel not thinking about it, skittering out of her mind whenever she al owed herself to fantasize.

I’d been too caught up in my own reactions during sex to see hers, beyond her blind pleasure. For me the sex had been disastrous—so much worse than I’d expected, because I’d been shaken by it, so overwhelmed by the power of it that I’d had to repeat it immediately.

The wiser thing to do would have been to walk away from her.

Instead I’d thought I’d tend to her, be gentle and distant, and within moments I’d been inside her again, lost in her.

With luck, she’d be disappointed. I’d heard and seen her fantasies—no one could live up to that. With luck, my ability to read her would have faded enough that I wouldn’t see anything that might .

. . precipitate something. Touching her again would be very unwise.

Now, if only my cursed body understood that.

IT WAS EARLY AFTERNOON WHEN I final y awoke, alone. I knew he wasn’t in the apartment, though I wasn’t sure how. I could drag myself out of bed and into the shower without running into him. It was a smal blessing, but I’d take it.

I wasn’t sure what I’d say to him. How to react. I knew instinctively that this wasn’t the start of a love affair. If I went up to him, touched him as a lover would, I could just imagine his reaction, and I shuddered. I would have to do my best to read him. If he was suddenly affectionate . . . the thought was seductive in ways far more dangerous than simple sex. Not that sex was simple, in particular sex with Raziel. Sex with an angel. Sex with a vampire. The best sex of my life, afterlife included.

But that wasn’t the way it was going to be. As sure as I knew he was gone, I knew he was going to act as if last night had never happened. And I could damned wel do the same.

I was going to have to be careful, though. He could read my thoughts, see my fantasies, and he’d never believe my lies. Real y, that was as close a definition of hel as any. A place where you couldn’t fool your lover.

Your lover
. He wasn’t my lover. He was the man who’d taken me to bed last night for reasons I hadn’t quite understood. It had been necessary, he’d said. For an act of duty rather than desire, he’d managed pretty damned wel , I thought, letting the shower pound down on my body. But why had he done it a second time?

I wrapped myself in one of the huge bath towels, white terry cloth, of course, and went to the closet, resigning myself to white cult couture. Instead my eyes were met with an explosion of colors, rose and green and aqua and pale yel ow. For the first time, my heart lightened. Sarah had come through. And how Raziel would hate it. It was enough to cheer me up.

I pul ed out a swirling dress of rainbow colors. The neckline was too low, exposing my abundant charms, and I almost chickened out.

But I pul ed it on anyway, heading back into the bathroom to check it out.

It fit perfectly. I stared at my face in the mirror, shocked. I looked like me, and yet like a stranger. My thick brown hair curled around my face, my eyes were huge, my lips . . . I had to admit it, they were swol en from his mouth.

But that wasn’t the only place his mouth had been. I saw the mark on the side of my neck. Not the distinct puncture marks from vampire movies, but a scrape, made by something sharp. His teeth? He’d tasted me, I realized, but he hadn’t fed.

He’d had sex with me, but we hadn’t made love. And I was suddenly depressed.

As far as I could tel there were no clocks in Sheol, but I surmised it was somewhere around midday, both by the level of the sun in the misty sky and by the growling of my stomach, which was impressive.