She didn’t even see Elena standing to the side of the cubicle, she was so focused on her man. “Ransom!” Stroking Ransom’s hair off his face where he sat on the bed, she checked his wounds with delicate, tender touches. “Baby, you’re so hurt.”
To Elena’s surprise, tough as nails Ransom didn’t shake off his lover’s hands, but instead leaned into the touch. It was the first time in Elena’s life that she’d seen him al ow anyone to tend to him—and it made her deeply curious about the woman who’d captured his heart. That curiosity, however, would have to wait until another day. Keeping to the shadows, she slipped out while they were wrapped up in each other.
By the time she jumped off the chopper onto the wet green of the grass outside the house, it was wel after midnight. “You bunking here tonight?” she asked Venom.
Shaking his head, he pul ed the door shut in her face.
“Wel ,” she muttered, “goodnight to you, too.” Wings dragging like that of an exhausted angelic child, she walked straight into the arms of the archangel who waited for her. Those arms clamped around her as he shifted a few degrees to shield her from the wind generated by the rising machine.
Drawing the rain-laced scent of him into her lungs, she released a breath, then repeated the action until she felt something inside her sigh and lay down its weapons. “How was your night, Archangel? Mine was interesting.”
You carry marks on your skin, Elena. It was a demand for an explanation.
When they’d first met, she’d probably have bristled at that. Now ... it was kind of nice coming home to someone who bothered to notice that she’d gotten a little banged up on the job. “I’l tel you if you feed me and let me use that decadent bath of yours.” The bath where they’d first touched each other in a hungry passion that stil made her breath catch each time she thought about it.
“Come.”
Feeling a frisson of awareness at the sexual edge in that command, she slipped her hand into his as he drew her inside the house and toward their room. That was when she saw the blood on his shirt. “Hey!” She stopped. Or tried to.
When he kept going, she decided to beard him in the bedroom.
Soon as the door closed, she broke away and put her hands on her hips, the cuts on her palms no longer tender, though they didn’t look pretty. “Take off your shirt.”
Raising an eyebrow, he pul ed the shirt over the top of his head, the wing slots sliding over the glory of his wings with a soft hush of sound. A second later, he dropped the shirt to the side, his expression moody in a way that made her want to push him to the bed and ride him until both their brains were scrambled. Fighting the temptation, she circled around to his back. “You’re hurt!”
Three massive gouges marked his skin.
Blinking, she looked closer, felt her mouth fal open. “They’re healing right before my eyes.” Which either meant the injury was recent, or the damage had been worse before. She glanced at his shirt, measured the blood, decided the injury had been worse.
“I’m an archangel, Elena. It is but a scratch.” Turning, he slammed her body to his. “Take off your top.”
It was suddenly difficult to think, but she sucked in a breath, found the wil . “How did you get so badly hurt?”
Placing his hand on the shoulder of her long-sleeved black top, he gripped ... and tore. Her top was in shreds around her a second later, her breasts bare to his gaze since the bra had been built in. Abdomen taut with need, chest rising and fal ing in an uneven rhythm, she licked her lips. “Feel better?”
His answer was to dip his head, bend her over his arm, and suck one tight little nipple into his mouth.
Shuddering, she thrust her hands into his hair and pul ed. He used his teeth on her. She hissed out a breath. “Raphael.” It was meant to be an admonishment but it turned into a moan as he covered her other breast with his hand, squeezing and caressing with a confidence that turned her knees to butter.
That was when she thought, “Hel with it,” and arched her body into the voracious hunger of his mouth. It didn’t surprise her in the least when he moved the hand on her breast down to the front of her jeans . . . and tore them off. Her panties were next. A second later, she was being thrown onto the massive sea of a bed, her wings spreading out on the cool softness of the comforter even as Raphael gripped her legs at the knees and pushed up and out, baring her to him.
Searing blue met her eyes when she looked up. Then his wings began to glow. She hadn’t seen him get rid of his pants and cried out as his erection began to part her most delicate flesh. “Raphael.”
A kiss that demanded, his body al golden muscle and heat above her own.
“Faster,” she ordered, and when he continued to thrust into her slow and deep, she wrapped her legs around him, using her own strength to tumble him onto the bed.
“Elena!” He caught himself before he would’ve crushed her even as she screamed at the shock of sensation as his cock drove in al the way.
For an instant, they both lay unmoving, connected to each other with an intimacy Elena had never experienced before him.