Tempt Me (20 page)

He stroked her back through her dress with one hand, reaching in his pocket for a condom with the other. “Someone told me, not that long ago, that to make my woman desire me above all others, I had to find out what her wildest fantasy was, and give it to her.”

Her high-pitched “Oh?” made him laugh softly.

“I think I’ve found one of yours. Shall we test my theory?”

In the darkness of the room he reached for the hem of her dress, lifting it to her waist. She was wearing another lacy thong. This one was black to match her dress. Gabriel slid his fingers beneath the elastic and dragged it over to one side, revealing her to his gaze.

He hummed. “Mmmmm, now I wish I’d let you turn the lights on. This is a beautiful sight.”

“Gabriel.” His name was a plea on her lips.

“I know.” He didn’t want to wait anymore.

He slid the condom onto his erection, but the darker forces in his mind were resistant. There should be nothing between them. She belonged to him.

Not yet
. The
yet
soothed him enough to allow him to continue. “Anybody below us, baby?”

“I don’t, um . . . No.”

He held her hips once more and slid his cock between her legs. “Too bad. I know from experience how beautiful you look when I do this.”

Gabriel couldn’t hold back his groan of pleasure as he filled her with one deep thrust of his hips.

Angelique covered her mouth with one hand, the other gripping the railing for white-knuckled dear life.
Don’t scream, don’t scream.

Oh, but she wanted to. So good. She couldn’t believe this was happening. That she was bent out the window of her hotel room while Gabriel took her from behind.

It was insane. Probably illegal. The sexiest thing she’d ever experienced. And after last night she’d have thought that impossible.

His hips pumped against her, rocking her, pushing her barely covered breasts against the rough, aged iron. The chain of the locket and her cross both made the smallest jingling noises, noises that someone on the street could hear if they were listening. It threw her, how erotic it was. How something so illicit could feel this good.

She couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t stop them from scanning the street below. When she saw a small group of people, laughing and talking to one another as they walked toward their next adventure, she tensed.

Gabriel leaned against her back gently, looking over her shoulder. His whisper brushed past her skin, its own caress. “I knew it. Felt it. You got wetter. Tighter. You love this. And I love how hot it makes you.”

She watched them disappear without looking up, gasping with relief and arousal. Gabriel’s hands left her hips, one circling around to slide through her sex, the other going to the low cleavage of her dress, his hips making shallow thrusts that were driving her wild.

“I love your breasts. You know how lush they are. How men stare at them when you’re not looking.” His rough fingertips traced the flesh over the fabric, and she knew he could hear how fast her heart was beating.

“Most of the time I want to keep them all to myself. Want to be the only one to see them. But I can feel your sweet pussy melting around my cock, know how hard I can make you come . . . so I’m feeling generous.”

He tugged her top down, freeing her breasts from the snug, stretchy fabric. Cool air brushed her sensitive nipples, the feel of steel on her bare flesh nearly making her cry. “Oh my God.”

He pushed her hair to one side to get a better view. She felt his lips brush her shoulder as he sighed roughly. “Now, that is what I call a view.”

“Please.” She tried to keep her voice down, but her body was like one raw nerve. She felt everything. Every sensation. Cold, hot. Pain, pleasure. Fear and hope of being seen. All of them making her ready to beg.

The fingers in her sex tilted her higher against him, his strokes getting deeper. Harder.

“Yes. That. Please do that.”

She noticed a glimmer of movement in the shadows on the corner. Two men, around her age. “Oh shit,” she whispered harshly.

They were looking right at her.

Gabriel had straightened, hips pumping hard against her as he started to lose his own control. She loved it. She wanted him to fuck her hard. Wanted him to claim her.

The men hadn’t turned away. She watched the taller one step closer to the other until he was standing behind him. The smaller man with the spiky black hair went still, his eyes widening in surprise, then pleasure.

Angelique looked down and bit her lip to hold back the sound threatening to escape. The tall man was touching him, cupping him, while they watched her in silent fascination.

The next moment Gabriel picked up his pace, and all Angelique could do was hold on to the bars, arching her back and feeling the weight of her breasts rock with his powerful thrusting.

“They still watching you, angel?” Gabriel’s low words were so rough it took her a moment to realize. He knew. He knew she was being watched.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s show them how pretty you are when I make you come.”

He pressed on her clit, thrusting his cock so deep inside her she couldn’t stop her short, sharp cry. The iron rattled with the tightness of her grip as her climax shattered her into a thousand pieces. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to put them back together. Or if she even wanted to try.

Gabriel’s hoarse voice called out her name as he joined her, his damp chest warm against her back as he kissed her shoulder, her neck.

“I don’t see anyone.”

She looked down, amazed to realize she’d forgotten their audience. Forgotten everything but Gabriel and the way he made her feel.

They were gone. Maybe they’d gone back to their own room. Maybe they’d only been in her mind. She silently thanked them for helping her in fulfilling one of her secret fantasies.

Gabriel wrapped one arm around her shoulders, tugging her back inside the unlit room. “You are one dangerous woman, Angelique Rousseau.”

“Yes, she is.”

She gasped and spun around in the darkness at the sound of the strange male voice. “I thought you locked the door. Who is that?”

 

 

EMMANUEL WATCHED GABRIEL SIGH AS HE REMOVED HIS
condom before pulling Angelique back in his arms.

“That’s the blue-eyed man I’m always talking to. The one with a lousy sense of timing. Emmanuel, meet Angelique.” He looked around, irritated. “This would probably be easier on her if you showed yourself.”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He wasn’t sure why he’d let them know he was here. He should have left them alone instead of spying on them again. Though this time it looked as if Gabriel wouldn’t have minded.

Angelique yanked up the top of her dress, which was a shame. She was a goddess. A glorious flesh-and-bone goddess. And he
was
a Peeping Tom.

Emmanuel allowed her to see him when she looked like she was appropriately covered, and she jumped in Gabriel’s embrace. “You.”

He noticed Gabriel’s jaw tighten. “You?”

Emmanuel shrugged, slipping his hands in the pockets of his long coat. He knew this already. “I was watching through the window the other night.”

Angelique tilted her head. “I thought I saw you; then you disappeared.”

“That’s what he does.” Gabriel lifted one eyebrow. “Any particular reason for this visit, Manny?”

There had been. He was sure of it. He’d wondered how the experiment had gone, though he could see it had taken an unexpected turn.

He wanted to spar with Gabriel so he wouldn’t have to think about how difficult his conversation with his sister had been. How he hadn’t shown himself to her so she wouldn’t see the sadness on his face when she told him what he’d already suspected.

Bethany was pregnant. When she was Isabel, a lifetime ago, she had been like a mother to him. The only person who truly loved him. There’d been a time he’d thought . . . but now another soul, a new soul, would be born into her life. And he was happy for her.

And he felt farther away from her than ever.

He’d asked her about Angelique’s locket. Bethany had told him she’d seen Angelique with it and told her to ask the Mambo’s permission before taking it. Only Emmanuel knew Mambo Toussaint would never have allowed Angelique to take the necklace. Even a trained hougan or mambo would have trouble dealing with the negative energy that locket was emitting. He’d been surprised Gabriel hadn’t seen it more clearly.

Bethany had promised to look through the journals she’d been given. Talk to the Mambo. Try to find out more. He knew she would; she’d always been good at puzzles. Then he’d left without telling her why he’d come. Without telling her he loved her.

“Are you okay, Emmanuel?” Angelique had taken a step closer to him without him realizing it. Her sympathy radiated off her in waves.

He didn’t want pity. Especially from her. She was his. Well—he glanced up at his charge—not
his
. It was clear now she was Gabriel’s woman. But she was Emmanuel’s Venus. His ideal. He shouldn’t let her see him this way.

Before he could speak, Gabriel’s voice broke through the silence. “Angelique, do you think Manny here is handsome?”

“Of all the rude—” She turned to look at Gabriel, her expression incredulous. “Why would you ask me that?”

Gabriel studied her, his smile tight. “You’re blushing.”

Emmanuel wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he could see he was upsetting Angelique. “Gabe, stop. She doesn’t have to answer that.”

“Oh, but she does. You see, tonight is the night we give her everything she wants—isn’t it, baby? All her wildest fantasies. A rule is a rule.” Gabriel didn’t sound like he liked the rule. And Emmanuel still wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

He watched Angelique shift from one bare foot to the other, her arms crossing and uncrossing, the expression on her face changing from disbelief, to suspicion, to excitement.

“Do you think he’s handsome?” Gabe repeated.

“Yes.”

Emmanuel shouldn’t feel as good as he did, but he couldn’t help it. She liked the way he looked.

Gabriel lowered the timbre of his voice, looking directly into her eyes. “Go to the bedroom, take off your clothes, then sit at the edge of the bed and wait for us.”

When she turned and walked directly to the bedroom without argument, Emmanuel felt his jaw drop in shock. That didn’t seem like her. “What have you done to her?”

His charge smiled, green eyes darkening with a knowledge Emmanuel didn’t have. “Not as much as I want to. Yet.”

Together they watched the line of her back revealing itself as she wriggled out of her black dress and underwear, slipping something over her neck and dropping it into the pile before disappearing from view.

Emmanuel took a shaky breath. “What are you up to, Gabe?”

“You want her.”

He opened his mouth to deny it but Gabriel shook his head. “That wasn’t a question. You’ve watched us. You’ve seen her. You’d have to be dead not to want her, and as you keep telling us, you aren’t dead anymore. I do have a question, though. You’ve never been with anyone before, have you?”

Emmanuel ran a hand through the hair at his temple. “What do
you
think, genius?”

“Want to?” Gabriel’s face was serious, no threat or artifice in his gaze. Emmanuel still couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Why are you doing this?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Call it testing my new abilities. I think I still have some jealous energy to work off from the bar. A large part of me wants to maim you just for looking at her, but the more important parts want to please her. Want to give her everything. Anything. Hell, I don’t know why.”

But Emmanuel knew. He may not know as much about desire, but he knew love when he saw it. And it was changing Gabriel, making him seem . . . lighter . . . despite his posturing. Had this been a part of the plan all along? No one had told him about Angelique, but then, they hadn’t told him a lot of things.

Like how flexible the rules could be. He wasn’t supposed to interfere or let anyone else know he was, and yet, nothing had happened when he’d shown himself.

He also hadn’t been told how hard it would be to remain on the outside looking in. Something Gabriel seemed to be offering a solution to.

He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do. Could he touch her? The idea sent a tingle of pure excitement up his spine and made his jeans grow uncomfortably tight.

Gabriel gripped his collar. “Just once, Manny. I won’t make this offer again. And you have to listen to me for a change.”

He could do that. If it meant she could know he was there. That she would know him. He nodded swiftly and Gabriel let him go.

Watching as he headed into the bedroom, Emmanuel followed slowly behind him. A part of him was sure he would be ripped away or struck with a bolt of lightning by the ones who sent him here. This wasn’t why he’d come. This wasn’t his mission. He was here to guide, to watch, to look after. He shouldn’t allow himself to get distracted.

If they wanted to take him, they would. Until then, there was nothing on Earth or the other side that could stop him from walking through that door.