She’d never tangled with him when he was like this, never been so close to the deadly strength of him that she could feel the icy burn of it against her flesh. The sensation was both exhilarating and terrifying. Ignoring the fear, she moved closer ... and rubbed the softness of her bel y against the hard ridge of his erection.
Raphael shifted their positions without warning, slamming her back against the wal , her wings spread out on either side of her. She sucked in a breath and then he was taking it from her in the most primal of kisses as he tore off her remaining clothes, leaving her naked and vulnerable. When he put his hands under her thighs and lifted, it was instinct to wrap her legs around his waist.
The cold, cold burn of his power kissed her in her most sensitive place.
6
Shuddering, she broke the kiss. He refused to let her go, pul ing her mouth back to his with the hand he had fisted in her hair. It should’ve scared her, but al it did was make her more determined to win this battle, to bring Raphael back from the abyss she could see in the wintry black of his eyes. She’d seen many colors in those eyes, but never that vast, forsaken darkness.
Archangel, she whispered into his mind, trying to keep her sanity as he plucked at the taut peak of her nipple with fingers that knew her every weakness. Raphael.
No response, the icy caress of his power so strong that she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She shoved her hands into his hair as her world became dark, squeezing her thighs around him at the same time. Something was very, very wrong, but she wasn’t about to be scared away, even if fear was a tickle at the back of her throat, a jangling accent to the hunger that turned her body damp and ready.
Because lethal as he was, he was stil hers, and her body knew him, knew the pleasure he could give. Today, however, that pleasure might wel be spiced with a little sensual cruelty. It was tempting to surrender, to al ow him to play her body with consummate skil , but instinct told her that that would be the quickest way to lose this battle. To lose him—to the demons that had turned the agonizing blue of his eyes to a harsh, unforgiving midnight.
My lovers have always been warrior women.
He’d said that to her at the start.
Ripping away her lips from his with force, she turned her head to the side, gasping for air. He took a firmer grip on her hair, threatening to wrench her back. She blocked his arm with her own.
A blaze of arctic white around them, so potent and blinding it felt as if her eyes were open, not closed. “Raphael,” she said, fighting to breathe past the press of it, so pure, so cutting, “either turn off the power, or give me my weapons.”
A pause.
Why would I give you your weapons? A silken whisper in her mind.
“Because,” she said, feeling as if her lungs were being squeezed to emptiness, “you don’t get off on women who can’t fight back. You like warriors, remember?”
Laughter in her head, tinged with a kind of ruthlessness that made her fear turn knife-edged. There is, I find, something exquisitely pleasurable in having a warrior helpless and spread before me.
It was dread that licked through her veins now. There wasn’t any hint of the lover she knew in him at this moment, nothing she could reach or touch or reason with. “It’s hardly a chal enge, though, is it?” she murmured, fighting the hunter within her, the part that told her to claw at those amazing eyes, rip at his wings, anything to get away. “I walked into your arms.”
Lips along her neck, the fist in her hair tugging her head farther to the side. She felt teeth ... and lower, the rigid push of his erection. That, she understood. It was real and earthy and wild. Making a snap decision, she whispered, “Take me, Raphael. Take your warrior.” The words were deliberate, a reminder of the bonds between them.
He froze against her. Giving in after all?
Pul ing up his head with the hands she’d clenched in his hair, she kissed him her way. Al wet heat and wild passion . . . and a love that was becoming ever more intertwined in her heart. This power stuff is sexy, but I want you inside me, thick and hard and now.
Raphael squeezed her thigh. Elena.
Her heart skipped a beat. Because that voice, that tone, she knew it. Raphael. I need you. He was the only man she’d ever said that to in her adult life, the only man who’d won that trust from her. “I need you.”
A shudder in the big body that held her pinned to the wal , the frigid bite of his power turning into a molten caress that was a thousand featherlight kisses over her skin, and then the blunt tip of his erection nudging against the entrance to her body. Sucking in a breath before he reclaimed her lips, she held on tight as he pushed into her with a slow, measured intensity, not stopping until he was buried to the hilt within her.