Chapter Four Charlotte
Chapter Four
Charlotte
The moment I confess to Azrael what I’ve been aching for, something inside me breaks. Like a dam. The rush of emotion pouring out makes me feel like I’m finally free.
From the weight of it all.
For the first time in weeks.
I need this, need him, more than my next breath. If I’m supposed to keep moving forward—keep fighting this apocalyptic nightmare we’re trapped in—then I need to leave everything I was before behind.
The whole world is counting on me.
And tonight, I choose this.
I can’t leave another second up to fate.
Slowly, Azrael cups the back of my head, his touch tentative but certain. “Are you sure, little siren?”
I give a quick nod.
We’ve been taking things slow, trying to see where this leads, but I’m finally prepared to plunge headfirst into the abyss with him.
Consequences be damned.
Fuck fate. Fuck my father. Fuck anyone else trying to make my choices for me.
I want this for myself, goddammit.
For the relief I know he’s going to bring me. The way he doesn’t ask me to be anything more than I am.
Azrael grounds me in the here and now. Reminds me of what it means to be human.
Even if that’s not who I am any longer.
I glance down at my hands. “I’ve been afraid that if I let myself have you, I’d . . . really fall, and I wouldn’t know how to stop.”
Azrael inhales, his mouth parting, the longing in his eyes making something deep inside me ache.
The only thing that’s been holding us back is fear.
Fear of what we both know this could be.
He traces his thumb over my cheek. “Do you know what it’s taken for me to deny myself this?
For me to stand at the edge of every moment, watching you with him, wishing I could be the one in his place?
” He leans forward, his mouth hovering above mine as a soft, appreciative growl rumbles from his chest. “I won’t be like him.
I’m going to worship every breath you give me. ”
Death’s mouth crashes into mine, and his touch is like a reckoning, a new beginning and an end all in one, his tongue sweeping over the inside of my mouth until . . .
All I can feel, all I can taste, is him.
Until nothing else matters to me.
“Fuck, you’re perfect.” He drags his lips down the curve of my jaw. “But we can’t do this. Not here.”
There’s a sudden whoosh as Azrael’s wings flap. He wraps them around us, and when they pull back, I’m lying on top of a stone sarcophagus under the cover of an old mausoleum.
A panoramic view of Manhattan glitters in the distance. I recognize this place from a tour Jax took me on when I first moved to the city. Greenwood Cemetery. In Brooklyn.
I should feel cold, especially with the Angel of Death standing over me like this, and maybe I would if I were still human, but now all I can feel as Azrael leans into me is the heat of him on my neck, my breasts, until . . .
“Why here?” I whisper, glancing at the snow-covered graves.
Azrael’s expression is thoughtful, serene, even as his scarred brow furrows. “This place is beautiful to me,” he answers, before . . .
One of his large hands falls to my breast, pinching my nipple, and I—
I practically come up off the tombstone as he rolls it between his fingers.
Thank God I didn’t meet him until I was immortal.
With that deadly touch of his, I would have been a goner instantly.
Azrael’s hands continue to explore, brushing, teasing, until I’ve long since forgotten all about the cold.
“Do you . . . want this because I’m made from Lucifer?” I pant, just as he starts to toy with my other breast.
Azrael pauses abruptly, those cool blue eyes capturing me from where he’s now knelt between my legs, and the look he gives me is so intense, so transfixed, that breathing feels impossible.
The whole of Death’s attention is on me.
“You’re everything that’s good in him and more, little siren. This isn’t about him. This is about you and me.” He peels down the front of my designer dress so I’m naked from the waist up, exposing my breasts to the cold night air, and my nipples start to—
“Fuck, baby girl, do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” Azrael licks his lips over one of my nipples, kissing me there.
The way he concentrates on me is so overwhelming—like I’m the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen. It’s almost . . . unnerving.
“Tell me.”
His cool eyes darken as he strips off what remains of my clothes. The lust and hunger in his eyes heighten with each revealed inch of skin, until the need and adoration in his face are so . . . unguarded, I’m not sure it’s something even Lucifer could ever give me.
One look and Death’s cleaved me in two.
Whittled me down to the basest parts of myself.
With him I don’t need to earn his affection. I can just simply be.
And he won’t ask me to do anything to show I deserve it, because to him I . . .
I deserve it already.
“You unravel me, Charlotte.” Azrael’s voice is low and deep as he gently pushes against my stomach until I’m propped back on the grave on my elbows, my legs splayed open.
“The Angel of Death brought to his knees by the curve of your mouth.” He smears what’s left of my lip gloss.
“The sound of your voice.” He strokes a hand over my cheek, and I lean into Death’s touch eagerly.
“And the sounds you make.” His large hands fall to my breasts again, and he cups them, testing the weight of them, before he rolls one of my nipples, and I arch into him, gasping. He growls in approval. “You make restraint a torment, little siren.”
“So do you,” I gasp, wishing he’d move closer to where I want him to be.
I’d give anything to have him inside me right now.
But Death won’t be hurried.
“Now that I have you, I’m going to ruin you.”
“Azrael,” I pant.
He dips his head between my thighs and kisses me there, inhaling like he can’t get enough of my scent as his mouth grazes over my—
“Fuck, you’ll taste so good for me,” he growls against my pussy.
I feel the vibration of it all the way down to my toes.
His praise is so delicious, so raw . . . it’s almost embarrassing.
“Azrael.” I grip the sides of the tomb, begging.
He chuckles again, that deep sound in his chest vibrating through me, but nothing I could ever say would make him hurry.
Death has been waiting for me for a long time.
And not even the devil could keep him from me.
He spreads my legs wide, my whole body growing impossibly hot, despite the falling snow, as he pushes two fingers inside me, sliding his fingers in and out as his thumb massages my clit.
“I’ll make you feel so good you don’t know which way is up or down, baby girl.
I’m going to pleasure you until you break apart, until I’m the only one who can put you back together again.
I’ll make you feel so certain, so sure of yourself, that even when you’re with him you never have any doubt that you’re worthy. Do you understand?”
He traces his large thumb up the seam of my pussy before he adds another finger, working it into me, until all I can hear is my own heartbeat, my own breath. “Will you let me?”
I’m no longer capable of speaking.
So much for Death not being much of a talker.
Clearly, he’s been holding out on me.
“Yes.”
The tension in the graveyard changes.
If I thought Death, of all immortals, was going to be soft with me, he proves me wrong.
He stands, and there’s a sudden shift in his posture, the cool blue of his eyes changing.
The moonlight overhead disappears, the skeletal side of his face flashing, and then his power, that chilled feeling whenever he’s near, seems to consume everything.
Even me.
Death’s power is suffocating, dangerous.
Everything I need.
And I’m his to destroy this evening.
“Lie back,” he commands, stripping off his leather jacket and his shirt, revealing those solid abs I’ve become so familiar with during training.
I want to run my tongue all over him.
Anywhere I can get my mouth, honestly.
He casts his clothes aside, the jacket’s leather and the shirt’s fabric passing through his wings easily. As if they aren’t really there at all.
A ghostly illusion.
Though only a few moments ago I touched him there.
Caressed all those soft feathers as he shivered for me.
But now it’s me who’s shivering, trembling beneath his touch.
“May I?” I whisper, scooting to the tomb’s edge. I gesture at his wings.
“They can be an erogenous zone.” He smirks, nodding, and the moment my fingers connect with the downy black feathers, our shared groans echo throughout the graveyard.
Azrael’s wings are the softest thing I’ve ever touched, but in the dark like this, the more I think about it, the more devastated it makes me feel for . . .
“Don’t think about him. Look at me,” he grumbles, his voice eerily similar to the one he uses when we’re training. Like he just expects me to be a good girl and listen, without question. “When we’re like this, Lucifer’s no longer the only one you call sir, understand?”
Uncertainly, I glance up into his haunting gaze.
“Yes, sir.” I lower my eyes, instantly prepared to behave for him.
He doesn’t need to ask for it. I just know it’s what he expects of me.
For me to behave like I’m already worthy.
“Good girl,” he purrs.
A shiver of desire runs through me, my already swollen clit throbbing. “What’s our safe word, sir?” I glance at the surrounding gravestones.
An eerie backdrop to the distant lights of the city.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Azrael’s slow grin turn wicked.
“Look at you. You’re already doing so well, being so mindful of your own safety, and I haven’t even put you on your knees yet.
” His cool gaze rakes over me, making me impossibly hot even as I tremble from the fear and anticipation building in me.
“But I’m going to.” Death growls, his movements slow and predatory.
“The safe word is oblivion. Tap my leg if you need to breathe.”
I feel myself slicken.
Azrael’s scarred brow quirks as he prowls around the sarcophagus. “You’re already wet, aren’t you?” His grin widens.