Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels) (16 page)

“If we’re going to go by what Hollywood dreams up, we’re
doomed.” After a few last decisive keystrokes, he abandoned the laptop to stand
before her, arms crossed. “Do me a favor and tell me again exactly what
happened, especially the part when you felt the demon inside your head.”

With a shrug she did so, unsure of what he was looking for. How
could she? None of this was what she could call familiar territory. She’d left
everything she’d known about the universe in the rearview mirror some time ago.
It was a new world for her, an unfamiliar one where demons, angels and hybrid
beings walked the earth. She couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, no matter how
much she might want to. The only thing she could do was try to catch up.

By the time she was done, Nate looked puzzled. “Rainier called
the demon by the name of the image of the dead woman it’s adopted?”

Ella nodded. “He called it
darling
,
and they stood so close together it almost seemed like they wanted to share the
same space. Maybe Richard doesn’t know the thing he’s traveling with is a
demon.”

He shook his head. “Rainier sold his soul—the flash of red in
his eyes is unmistakable. That means he made a deal, and since the only hell
spawn around happens to be his travel buddy, I’m going to assume he made that
deal with the demon.”

“What would Rainier have possibly bartered for?”

“I’m much more interested in how you could feel it messing
around in your head. That’s something I wasn’t expecting.”

“Rainier seemed pretty passionate about his darling Lana,” she
went on after a moment, more unsettled by the notion of a demonic mental
invasion than she wanted to admit. “When all those cuts started showing up on
her face, he seemed genuinely shaken. It makes me wonder if he knew the real
Lana before Charles killed her.”

“The only person who’d know besides Richard himself would be
his attorney Archibald. Considering he just fired me via email, I’m pretty sure
he wouldn’t welcome a chat with me.”

Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Due to my ‘reckless accusations’ against Richard Rainier
and his office in the so-called accidental deaths of Gabrielle Litte and Briella
Fields. Or something like that.”

“You must be upset.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally torn up about it.”

She grinned at his indifferent tone and rested her hands on his
hips, her fingers sliding through his belt loops. “Do you need to be
consoled?”

The change in him was palpable. The edgy restlessness lurking
in his expression dissolved as if it had never been. In its place rose a vivid,
all-encompassing fire that lit his eyes with a hunger that seemed to border on
insatiable. The sheer magnitude of it radiated from him like a heat wave,
reaching out to engulf her even as his hand lifted to caress a lingering path
along her cheek. “Definitely.”

Chapter Fourteen

He shouldn’t be doing this.

That was the one thought echoing through Nate’s brain as he
stood between Ella’s knees and simply held her for a small eternity, bending
over her so that he could bury his mouth into the lush softness of her dark
hair. He should focus on figuring out how to use the new and improved powers
stirring to life inside him. Putting them into play by finding Rainier and his
demon before they found them was vital. Only he didn’t have a clue how to spark
a vision—if that was what they really were—and he couldn’t do anything until he
had more to go on when it came to finding out the identity of the demon
itself.

As much as it sucked, it was now a game of sit back and wait.
And nowhere was it written that he couldn’t enjoy himself while he waited.

“I hope this bed’s sturdier than the last one.” He smiled at
the memory, tingling with a flush of desire that was so intense it made him
light-headed. It was as though he was drunk on her—the feel of her, the taste of
her. In that moment, his main ambition in life was to wallow in the sensations
she created in him and never resurface.

Her purring little laugh turned him inside out. “We’re good,
but we’re not so good I expect the furniture to break every time.”

“I don’t know about that. There’s no way I can hold myself back
once I’m inside you. Just the feel of you...you don’t know. It’s like I lose my
mind. Myself. Everything.”

“It’s the same for me.”

“Good.” His hands rubbed over her back, and the veil of her
clothing was suddenly an intolerable barrier. When he tugged at the fabric, she
helped him pull it off, then discarded the sports bra beneath in quick,
naturally graceful movements. Naked from the waist up, Ella rose to meet the
ravenous descent of his lips.

Her mouth was a perfect fit for his, when Nate knew there was
no such thing as perfection. Her taste wasn’t just addictive; somewhere along
the way it had become essential to his continued existence. The alluring dance
of her tongue was a tease he had no hope of resisting, pulling him down so deep
he thought he might drown in the glory of a single kiss.

The world did a quiet fade. Her hands roamed down his back
until they cupped the contours of his ass, her fingers squeezing as if she liked
what she felt before sliding them beneath the edge of his shirt. She caressed
the small of his back until she kicked off a shiver of pleasure, then flattened
her palms to push him closer until not even light separated them.

The bulge behind his zipper grew, pulsing with an achy
heaviness that made his breath shorten until he was all but panting. Dizzying
need throbbed through his veins, tightening and lengthening sensitized flesh
until the ability to think trickled away. He whispered her name while the
constriction of his clothes squeezed him, an exquisite frustration to bear, and
he was happy to endure it to savor what was to come.

She sucked on his lower lip once, twice, as if she couldn’t get
enough of his taste. Then she looked up at him with those unfamiliar blue eyes
now burning with a hunger that almost buckled him in two. “What do I have to do
to get you out of these clothes?”

Thank
you
,
God
,
for
this
woman
. “Are they bothering you?”

He felt the material of his shirt tighten a moment before she
yanked it up and over his head, only to toss it to the floor where her bra had
landed. “Does that answer your question?”

“I like the way you communicate.” He sucked in a ragged breath
that tore through the silence when she pressed her mouth to his chest. The whorl
of her tongue against his skin made his already hard flesh thrum so fiercely he
thought he’d lose his mind with the sweet agony. “Damn. You have a definite way
with words.”

“Life is too short for subtlety.” She nuzzled her face against
the place where his heart hammered away, as if she couldn’t get enough of the
feel of him, and something deeper than mere muscle clenched in his chest. How
strange, that a touch like that could move him more profoundly than anything
else they’d shared. “When I’m with you, skin against skin, you make me believe
there’s a heaven.”

“Ella.” Nate couldn’t find the words. She made him weak, even
as she gave him the strength to take on the universe. She spawned both an
unquenchable desire and a tenderness that shattered him, even as he yearned to
throw her on her back and take her like a savage.

Hard and soft. Crazed and careful. She made him feel
everything, because she gave everything of herself. That was a gift he couldn’t
begin to measure.

The pop of his jeans had his breath hitching to an unsteady
halt. “Too fast.” It nearly killed him to say it. But with her looking like a
wet dream come true with those small, pert breasts so pale and perfect with dark
pink tips pebble-hard and begging for his mouth, he had to somehow put on the
brakes. “Keep rushing me along and you’ll be the only one who regrets it.”

“I haven’t even started.”

He would have laughed if he could have breathed. “Yeah, that’s
the problem.”

“You don’t seem to understand how this is for me. I think it’s
time for me to take you to school.” She rubbed her face against him once more
before she ran her tongue around one of his nipples, then gently bit the
hardened nub of it. “Your pleasure excites me to the point where I can hardly
stand it. To know you want me like I want you... I can’t tell you what
satisfaction that brings me. That’s all I care about.”

“And your satisfaction is what I care about, lady.” He could
hardly get the words out between breaths. “I want to spoil you. Make it so you
won’t be able to stand the thought of anyone else touching you. I want you to be
able to feel me inside of you even when we’re apart. That’s not too much to ask,
I don’t think.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.” Her breath was almost as
shallow as his as she drew his zipper down and pushed his jeans and underwear
past his hips. With his hardened flesh free at last, he closed his eyes on a
broken groan when she took him in hand. “Let’s spoil each other.”

In desperation he speared his fingers into her hair, begging,
demanding, he didn’t know which. Thankfully she understood his need and brought
her mouth to his even as she slid her hand along the red-hot length of his
arousal. A harsh sound ripped from deep in his throat when she teased the
super-sensitive ridge with an exploratory caress that sent a jolt of drugging
delight into his system. Pleasure flirted with him, inching higher, ebbing away.
So sweet. So ethereal.

So close to surging out of control.

It took every last ounce of strength he had, but he pulled away
before he could explode and held still while the frenzy inside him reluctantly
eased to a dull roar. But goddamn, he just might be the first man to die from
being too generous a lover.

“Nate...”

“No complaints.” The words were barely intelligible, a
breathless growl pushed out between gritted teeth as he fought against throwing
her down and plunging into her until they were both screaming. “It’s my turn
now.”

Before she could speak he kissed her like his next few minutes
of life depended on it. It was the only way he knew how to convey what she did
to him. That she made him helpless in a way he loved, when he’d always believed
being helpless was some kind of hell on earth. That she shared so much of
herself with him, she now filled every corner of his mind. That her acceptance
of who he was and what he’d been born to be was the greatest thing she could
have ever given him. That if he’d spent years imagining the ideal fantasy woman,
he still wouldn’t have come close to the reality of her.

He didn’t know how to tell her any of that without sounding
like a sappy greeting card. But he could damn well show her.

Her flavor lingered on his lips when he pulled away. “God,
you’re exciting. Just looking at you gets me so hard I can hardly control
myself.”

She tried to kill him by brushing the taut tips of her breasts
against his body. “I like it when you lose control.”

“If I’m going to lose my mind, I want some company along the
way.”

“I’m right here.”

“I want you to see what I see when I look at you.” With that,
he turned her to face the bureau’s mirror and watched her gaze zero in on the
hand he slid past the waistband of her pants and into her panties. His other
hand cupped the rounded flesh of a breast, his thumb and forefinger relentlessly
abrading the velvety flesh until she arched on a moan that nearly broke his
mind. Addicted to the knowledge he could give her so much pleasure she couldn’t
contain it, he explored the cleft between her thighs, obsessed with driving her
as crazy as she so effortlessly drove him. She dissolved against him in a
boneless way that made everything masculine inside him roar in triumph. Deftly
he worked his hands in simultaneous rhythm, mesmerized by her reflection. Her
eyes were closed, her head tilted back against his chest in helpless
supplication—completely, utterly his.

It was the greatest aphrodisiac.

The hidden flesh between her legs was slick and wet, a response
that told him she was more than ready to be filled. But just to make it
memorable he circled the secret nub, shocking a brittle cry from her even as her
body spasmed with an overload of delight. With the single-minded thought of her
pleasure driving him, he tormented her endlessly until she half-collapsed onto
the bureau, her head down while her hips pumped against his relentless massage.
Excruciating sweetness built deep in his groin as the rounded curves of her
buttocks writhed against his rock-hard erection. Part of him wanted to keep her
suspended there in the madness forever, but their shivers of shared rapture were
coalescing into a crescendo no force in the world could stop. He left her long
enough to retrieve the condoms from her bag, while she shucked the remainder of
her clothing before once again resting against the chest of drawers in a
position he couldn’t resist.

“You’re going to see how beautiful you are when you come.”
Breath hitching, he spread her legs wide with his own and reached one hand to
the front of her to resume her torment, while the other slid under her to search
for that velvety entrance he ached to fill. “I want to make it so good you’ll
never forget it.”

“Nate...” Whatever she wanted to say vanished beneath a shiver
as he found her threshold, her legs spreading wider to accommodate the
experimental thrust of his fingers. She was so hot, so ready for him, and her
cry echoed in his ears when he replaced his fingers with his steel-hard staff
and surged into her. Her depths were exquisite—so tight, so scorching. Sweat
broke out as he trembled on the razor’s edge of release on that first powerful
thrust. He curled over her, scrabbling for sanity, his whole body pulsing with
tremors of shuddering sensation, and rocked. He moved his hand in time with his
hips, driven by every primal instinct he possessed to fulfill her, to be
everything she hadn’t dared to even dream of, to be her fantasy...

A fractured cry erupted from her, a sound so filled with
overwhelming pleasure it shot straight through him to coil the muscles deep in
his lower region. The coiling tightened, tightened, a torturous tension that
pushed him to the agonized edge of euphoric insanity...

Ecstasy slammed into him, swallowed him. Destroyed him.
Mindlessly he drove into her, chasing the glory of pleasure even as it sank into
him until it was all he knew. His cries joined hers while deep in his mind he
cherished the unfamiliar sensation of being utterly complete.

* * *

With Nate napping, his head buried under a small
mountain of pillows to hide from the afternoon light that was only partially
shut out by the hotel’s curtains, Ella huddled in front of his laptop. After
sending an email to Jacob and Phoebe that she was taking a few personal days,
she focused a broad search on demons, unsure of what she was looking for, but
determined to empower herself the same way she had after she’d escaped the
madness of Charles Rainier. She didn’t care what the demon was, who it was, or
why it was targeting Nate.

She just wanted the bastard gone.

In her naïvety, she’d thought the answer would be easy to find.
After all, how many answers could there be when it came to banishing a demon?
Half an hour later, she was still slogging through the various cheats on video
games, had learned that MMORPG was an acronym that stood for “massively
multi-playing online role-playing game,” and Linda Blair was alive and well.
Beyond that, she had zilch.

If only the demon didn’t keep showing her the one face that
made her freeze. She sighed, and it was a sound of impatience as she crossed yet
another blog off her list. She was a strong woman, damn it. Why the hell did she
go to pieces over the image of a man she knew was dead? Charles Rainier couldn’t
hurt her anymore; she was only handing a weapon to the creature using his face
every time she allowed her fear to get the best of her. She’d worked too damned
hard to regain a modicum of control to just give it away like it was nothing.
She had to get a grip on herself now, before she became a liability to Nate.

Something twisted in her chest at the thought. Nate. His life
had been one long nightmare after another, and her histrionics weren’t helping.
He’d almost died once already in saving her from becoming a grease spot under
the wheels of a city bus, and that was one time too many. She had to be
stronger, and not just for herself. She needed to do it for him.

She clicked on a promising theological university website even
as her wayward thoughts crystallized. The reason she needed to be strong for
Nate’s sake was simple; he meant something to her. For two years she’d done
everything in her power to protect her own safety, working at guarding herself
to the point of obsession. But now, instead of walking away from a man who was
being targeted by a demon, she instead burned with the determination to protect
him from any threat that rolled his way. Her safety meant nothing,
because...