She realized he had to have left New York as soon as Dmitri arrived. “Do vampires suffer from jet lag?”
Venom removed his sunglasses, giving her the full impact of those eyes slitted like a snake"s. It didn"t matter that she"d seen them before—her skin still crawled in visceral shock, a gut-deep response to the alien intelligence in those eyes. Part of her wondered if it was only his eyes that had been changed when he was Made—did Venom think like a human, or was his intellect a far more cold-blooded thing?
“Offering to soothe my aches, hunter?” the vampire said, flicking his tongue over one long incisor and coming away with a golden droplet full of poison. “I"m touched.”
“Just being friendly,” she said, matching snark for snark.
Venom"s pupils contracted the instant before he slid his sunglasses back on.
She couldn"t help it. “Why isn"t your tongue forked?”
“Why can"t you fly?” A smirk. “Those things on your back aren"t accessories you know.”
She gave him the finger, but part of her was glad for his annoying presence. He"d pulled her firmly into the present, the past locked in that cupboard where she preferred to keep it the majority of the time. “Aren"t you supposed to act as my guide?”
He waved a hand. “Follow me, milady.”
Despite his words, they walked side by side as he led her to Raphael"s main office, something she hadn"t even known existed until then. “What"s the mood like in Manhattan?” She"d spoken to both Sara and Ransom about it, but a vampire"s take on things, especially a vampire as strong as Venom, was likely to be different from a human"s.
Of course, Venom didn"t give her any kind of a straight answer. “People are starting to believe the rumors of your resurrection were greatly exaggerated. Most think you"re dead and buried somewhere. So sad.”
She ignored the deliberate provocation. “The truth still hasn"t gotten out? I know Raphael"s people wouldn"t tell, but the others? Michaela?”
“All jealous. Raphael"s the first archangel in living memory to have Made an angel.” A glance at her from those mirrored frames that showed her nothing but her own face floating in darkness.
138
REB
“You"re a unique prize. Be careful you don"t get bagged and put up on some wall.”
Raphael was sitting behind a huge black desk when she walked in, Venom having left her at the door. Déjà vu hit her with relentless force. He had a desk like that in his Tower, too.
“If I were to splay you out on my desk and thrust my fingers into you right now, I think I’d find different.”
Raphael looked up at that instant, his eyes smoldering with an unequivocally sexual heat that said he knew exactly what she was thinking. Holding that gaze, she closed the door and walked to him with slow, intent steps. Instead of stopping when she reached the granite, she jumped up and, sweeping the papers out of her way, swung her legs over the other side, spreading them to bracket him in between.
The archangel put his hands on her thighs. “Again you come to me with nightmares in your eyes.”
“Yes,” she said, pushing her hands through his hair. “I come to you.” It was a trust she"d given no one else.
He squeezed her thighs, pulling her closer with an effortless strength that made her heart race.
The Archangel of New York was in a dangerous mood today. Bending down as he lifted up his head, she kissed him. Her dominant position lasted a bare second. A subtle shift in his hold and he had her in his lap, her legs on either side of his, the damp heat between her thighs pressed to the rigid line of his cock.
Gasping at the sudden, electric contact, it took her a second to realize she"d spread her wings over his desk. “I"m messing up your papers,” she whispered against lips that had tempted her into the most erotic of sins.
He moved up his hand to close over her breast.
A shock of sensation. Her spine arched.
“I"ll take recompense for your misdemeanor in flesh. Are you ready to pay?” A question full of a sensual cruelty that made her survival instincts ripple in fear.
But instead of fighting she relaxed. Raphael, she thought, was more than terrifying enough to banish even the worst nightmare. When his teeth closed over the pulse in her neck, when his hands ripped away her top to leave her upper body bare, she gripped his shoulders and hung on.
Then those strong white teeth moved lower.
Her stomach swirled with an addictive mix of fear and desire. “Raphael.”
139
REB
He flicked out his tongue, one hand on her back, the other plumping up her breast so he could lave the nipple with a slow focus that had her entire body going taut in expectation. “Are you planning to bite?” It was a husky question.
Perhaps.
Hearing the chill in that, she found herself hesitating, even as her body craved his touch. Was she anywhere near strong enough to take on the Archangel of New York in this kind of a mood?