Did I hurt you?
Never. Stroking her hands down the skin of his back, making sure to rub her knuckles along the sensitive undersides of his wings, she said, “Kiss me, Archangel.” At the same instant, she squeezed her muscles around the steely part of him that was lodged so deep inside of her.
Fisting his hand in her hair, he took her mouth as he moved his other hand to pin down her hip. The first stroke made her body arch, a scream pouring into his mouth. The second had her clenching convulsively around him as pleasure broke her into a thousand iridescent pieces.
18
His consort, Raphael thought as Elena lay quivering below him, his mate. Again, Hunter. Gritting his teeth against the urge to thrust, he flexed his cock within her, had the pleasure of hearing her gasp.
But she didn’t surrender. Eyes hazy, she kissed his jaw, his neck, before pushing at his chest. “My turn.”
He let her reverse their positions so that he lay on his back, his wings covering the bed on either side. Palms pressed to his chest, she rose up on him, a vision of breasts flushed a silky rose with passion; pale, winter-light hair tousled from the play of his hands; wings a stunning midnight arching above her shoulders; and sleekly muscular thighs. The rest of her legs remained covered—he hadn’t wanted to wait long enough to pul off what remained of her jeans. As for her feet . . .
Boots. She stil wore her boots.
His consort, he thought again. Magnificent and wild, and his.
When she bent down to kiss him, the act lushly intimate within the cage created by the silken fal of her hair, he surrendered, let her take him. Her body moved in rhythmic counterpoint to the teasing strokes of her tongue, and he knew his hunter was about to push him over the edge.
Not without you.
Trying something he’d never before attempted in their lovemaking, he dropped his shields. She was a young immortal, didn’t know the rules, didn’t know how to keep her own shields up at such a time. He’d never invaded her—that was an intimacy to be given, not taken. But he al owed her mind to sweep out, to invade his.
Her body jerked above him, her beautiful eyes turning a pleasure-washed silver as she cried out and came in a clenching burst of damp heat. That was al it took. He fel , throwing up his shields only because the impact of that much sensation could hurt her—and even in this extremity of passion, he would not hurt her, this hunter with a mortal heart who held his own in her hands.
Elena didn’t say a word when Raphael scooped her up in those powerful arms—after she’d kicked off her boots and socks, the remainder of her jeans—and took her through to the bath, the water set at a bone-melting temperature. Sinking into it with a sigh, she felt her butt connect with one of the smal ledges and figuring that was enough, let her head fal back, reasonably certain her eyes were stil rol ed up inside her head.
A wash of water against her skin, her archangel getting in with her.
Temptation rose, and she opened her eyes, ran her gaze over the muscular strength of his legs, the ridged plane of his abdomen. It was a very private pleasure, and one she intended to indulge in as often as possible. “How’s your back?”
“Healed.” He sank down into the water, bracing his arms on the rim of the bath. “A miscalculation on my part—I flew too close to the steel girders of a construction project in progress.”
Forcing her body to move, she floated over to sit next to him, placing her head on one of his shoulders, her palm over his heart. It was a position she’d never have taken with another man—but Raphael, in spite of the frustration he was causing her with the constant bodyguards, understood who she was, understood that a smal surrender didn’t equal a larger one. “You don’t make miscalculations like that.”
He curled his arm around her, fingers painting lazy patterns on her skin. “We had a windstorm hit perhaps an hour after the earthquake shook part of Boston. I was able to compensate for the shove of wind, but not fast enough.”
That made more sense. “That quake was real y weird, Raphael. It was so localized.” Reaching up, she ran her fingers along the arch of his wing with delicate precision.
Elena.
Smiling at the warning, she tilted up her head and brushed her lips over his jaw. “The earthquake?”
The endless blue of the deepest part of the ocean held her gaze before she dipped her head to kiss the line of his throat. His fingers clenched in her hair, but that big, powerful body remained relaxed, an archangel at rest in his consort’s arms.