CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
T he Vatican’s familiar hallways were theirs alone. Everyone else was at Carnival. Selene led Jules by their linked fingers. Though not to her rooms. Instead, she drew him up the angular spiral stairs of a clock tower, turning to face him now and then and coax him on.
She tried not to let him burn her through her clothes. Through her skin. Through the air itself. But it was impossible. He was light and heat, and she’d be lucky to burn alive throwing herself against him like a moth.
A familiar door with a familiar lock barred the way.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked, his hands sliding to her waist as he pressed against her back.
She laughed, swatting away his hand as he dipped his fingers beneath the silk bodice to feel her skin, delicately brushing the sensitive skin beneath her breast. ‘Wait and see.’
If he didn’t stop, she’d drop the key, then they’d never get in.
‘You’d hate if I said that to you,’ Jules murmured, drawing her hair over one shoulder to press light kisses to her skin. ‘ Wait? Who do you think I am, peasant? I wait for no one .’
‘I do not sound like that,’ she protested half-heartedly, distracted by his lips. ‘And don’t judge—patience is overrated.’
Selene felt the curve of Jules’s smile against her throat.
‘You’re telling me,’ he murmured, then trailed liquid fire across her skin as he kissed down her neck, pausing only long enough to move aside her beaded strap to nip her shoulder.
The scrape of his teeth was like lightning down her spine, igniting low in her stomach. A soft moan escaped her lips. In reaction to the sound, he surged against her, pressing his hips against her rear. She tipped her head back against his shoulder, as her whole world narrowed to the heat of him.
Jules slid his hand along her arm, his long fingers tangling between hers to guide the key to the door. Together they unlocked the room and stumbled in. The door hadn’t had time to close behind them before Jules was turning her with his hands on her waist.
‘Beautiful Selene.’ His voice lit fires in her.
One night. She would burn him out of her system until there was nothing left of how much she wanted him but ashes. Pressing him back against the door, she took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply.
Jules made a soft sound against her mouth and one of his hands drifted to her hip to pull her flush against his angular body, while the other dipped into the low-cut back of her dress, making sparks shoot up her spine.
The frosted glass of the clock face bathed the space in faint golden light. Then the ghostly shadows of the clock hands came together and the bells chimed, rumbling midnight through the space.
Jules pulled back, peering toward the oaken roof beams. ‘Selene … where are we?’
She tipped her head back, looking up at the raw beams overhead. ‘Clock tower. I used to come here as a kid.’
Jules’s fingers trailed absently up and down her sides as he looked around, the golden lights of Rome softly illuminating the tower room. ‘That’s so weird …’
She was silent, sensing he had more to say.
He looked at her. ‘At the orphanage, there was a clock tower. It was nothing like this, though.’ He stepped away from her, and the empty places where his hands had been felt ice cold. Jules leaned on the sill, looking down over Rome. ‘It was kind of squat and—’
‘Ugly,’ she supplied, stepping up behind him so she could lean her chin on his shoulder. ‘I recall.’
He grinned. ‘Excuse you.’
‘You said it was squat!’
‘And I would have said it was ugly too. But I’m allowed.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Ah, I see. Far be it from me to insult your squat little tower.’
He laughed, pulling her in front of himself so he could lift her up onto the window ledge, pressing her wrists back against the glass. ‘Don’t make me make you stop talking.’
Her breaths were coming shorter and the silk of her dress felt thinner by the moment as his body heated up. She arched up against him. ‘You’d be surprised what I’d do to get your attention.’
Jules groaned softly, pushing her knees apart and ruching the dress up her thighs so he could step between them. ‘Mission accomplished, Captain Alleva. You have my attention.’
She bit her lip and slid her hands to his trousers, thumbing his button. ‘And? What else do I have?’
His body pulled taut at her proximity and she could feel the bulge in his trousers. She palmed it, not taking her eyes off his face as his lashes fluttered. After a beat, he said hoarsely, ‘Anything. Everything.’
She swallowed. The cold window at her back sent a tremor down her spine. His heat was all she wanted.
Everything , he said.
Everything was all she wanted.
Even though he was a demon. Even though he was her enemy. Even though tomorrow she’d have to say goodbye.
‘Please …’
He groaned softly, sliding his hands to her hips beneath the dress. ‘You do not need to say please, mon amour .’
Ignoring him, she pushed the jacket off his shoulders. ‘Jules, please …’
The words broke him.
She could feel the moment his control snapped and his strong hands tightened on her thighs, dimpling the skin as he lifted her and slammed her back against the stone an inch to the side of the window, crushing his lips to hers and pressing his hardness between her legs.
Jules’s kisses were greedy and hungry and they stole her breath, so she fought back with enthusiasm, stealing nips from his full lower lip and battling his tongue with hers until he groaned and pinned her wrists over her head with one hand.
‘What do I have to do to make you behave?’ he murmured, voice husky.
She laughed. ‘Do you really want that?’
The following kiss was answer enough. He slid the straps from her shoulders, pulling her dress down so he could palm one breast, his lips dropping from hers to trail down her collarbone. Then she felt teeth, gasping at the starburst of sensation.
She wasn’t certain how but she got his clothes off, shedding his shirt, troublesome button by troublesome button, only swearing when she couldn’t get his trousers undone.
He leaned back, looking down with hazy eyes. ‘Here, let me.’
‘I’ve got it!’ she argued.
He groaned, pressing his forehead to the stone beside her shoulder. ‘This … all of this is very hard on me, you know.’
She smirked, glancing at him. ‘It certainly is very —’
‘Oh, ha, ha. Amusing.’
Finally she growled and yanked his trousers open, the button pinging against the windowpane. He kicked them off and stumbled back between her thighs.
There was a beat of stillness as he held her eyes. A moment between their frantic need and the answering of it. At last he pressed a slow kiss to her mouth as he entered her.
She cried out, hand bunching in his hair as she wrapped her legs around his waist, every inch of her clamouring to be part of every inch of him. Stars danced behind her eyes, or maybe they were in the sky as Jules lowered her onto his jacket below the window and captured her lips again. None of it was enough, she wanted more of him. More hands, more kisses. Until it all became too much.
She gasped, heart fluttering. She had to tell Jules that something was terribly wrong with her, but her fingers wouldn’t obey her commands and only buried themselves deeper in his hair, and her own voice begged him for more.
And, God, she became the fire and it was glorious.
Jules bundled her against his chest and covered her with his jacket, pressing kisses to her hair.
He chuckled. It was infectious. Soon she was laughing too, trying to smother the sound against his collarbone. Her eyelids were heavy. She sighed, overwhelmed by the duelling urges to kiss every inch of skin she could find and close her eyes. Jules burned like a furnace against her, lulling her into the warm embrace of slumber.
Jules drew Selene’s smooth thigh over his waist, tracing lines against her skin with his thumb.
She was battling sleep with all the stubborn discipline she’d honed in her training. But tonight she was only a girl, and he brushed soft kisses to her ear, whispering, ‘Sleep, beautiful Selene.’
She smiled, lashes trembling against her cheeks. ‘I don’t want to sleep.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then this will be over.’
He shifted to lean over her, eyes trailing the length of her body to memorize every inch.
‘Sleep, beautiful.’ He would never be able to use the word again—she’d ruined it for all other things. He lay back down beside her and traced up her ribs to her collarbone, gently thumbing a kiss mark he’d made, like an inexperienced boy. ‘Not everything should last forever.’
Her brows tugged together, but sleep had her in its grip. She murmured in denial, but the words were lost. Jules frowned against her skin, unsure if he could have refused her if she had argued that no, some things should last.
But—heartbreakingly—she did not. There was nothing left for him within the Vatican. No answers he didn’t know. Only the all-consuming pull of the Deathless God.
Not even Selene could protect him if they learned what he was. He continued to draw patterns on her body with his thumb, mapping her. And if she ever discovered the truth, she’d hate him for this.
The thought was an iron spike through his heart.
She could never know. He never wanted her to regret tonight.
Carefully he eased up to a crouch, reaching for his clothes. The jacket slipped from her shoulders and ever so gently he moved it back over her. A rustle of paper drew him to the pocket, where he found a folded note.
Angling it to the dim light from the clock face, Jules read indigo words inked in a looping hand with aggressive horizontal slashes. Even before he read his name, he knew it had to be from Sparrow.
Kian is with me. Safe. When you come, come alone - Sparrow