Chapter Thirteen
Years of suppressed rage finally exploded inside of me, bursting through my mouth in a silent scream that sent my echolocation rippling through the penthouse. And yet, I still didn’t have it in me to hurt Adam. Lamps imploded around me, lightbulbs shattering in a cascade of sparks and glass.
I was panting in the shadows where sunlight didn’t reach, my adrenaline still high but my rage fading, replaced by something hotter, more intense. The moment Adam’s hands wrapped around my shoulders, I moaned at the electricity streaking through me.
Rage wasn’t the only thing I’d suppressed. My passion had also been tempered for far too long.
It was as if the release of my powers had unleashed the desire that had been throbbing between us. All the months of resistance, of denying the ache beneath my skin, crumbled under the weight of his touch.
That he needed me as much as I needed him only added fuel to our fire.
His fingers traced along my jaw, down my neck, and every whisper of skin against skin sent sparks racing through my veins. “Bella,” he murmured, his voice thick with something I couldn’t name. Desire. Regret. Something darker?
I wanted to lean into him, to drown in the heat of his presence. But my mind screamed at me to pull away. He was the man who’d created me—and others just like me. He was the monster who’d financed the nightmare that had stolen everything from me.
Yet here I was, betrayed by my own body.
I closed my eyes, fighting against memories of sterile labs and suffering, but his touch promised something different. Something dangerously real.
His breath caressed my neck. “You don’t have to fight me anymore. You're not a science experiment...you never have been,” he whispered, his voice rough. Something in his words gave me pause, but before I could think more about them, he added, “You’re the one real thing I’ve been holding onto.”
A shiver raced through me. Not all of it was fear. So much of it was hope. Even more was blazing desire.
I shoved back the snide voice reminding me once again that he’d been the one who’d funded the nightmare. But in that moment, wrapped in the heat of him, none of it seemed to matter.
He traced a slow, deliberate path along my arm. “And you’re not my asset,” he said, his voice low and fierce. “You’re mine, in every way that matters.”
I should have hated the reminder of what I’d once been. Instead my guard crumbled further. This wasn’t about being his possession. This was something raw and real. He wasn’t investing in me for what I could give him. He was invested in me. And that scared me more than anything.
His voice dropped to a fierce whisper. “You know I collect priceless things. You could blow every one of them up right now and I wouldn’t care.”
“If only I’d known, I would have gladly shattered more than your window when I escaped.”
Except fleeing had been the only thing on my mind.
He moved his mouth closer to my ear. “When you used your echolocation to shatter that window...when I saw what you were truly capable of,” his low, rasping voice sent currents of pleasure through me, “I realized I’d been drawn to your power all along, even when I didn’t know its extent.
You’re the only thing in my life I truly care about.
You’re more valuable to me than anything else, more than all the risks, more than all the wealth I’ve accumulated. ”
Adam was a man of restraint, of talking only when it mattered. He commanded and others listened. Perhaps that was why I believed him, why I shoved all my bitterness down, beneath the ache gathering in my chest.
And I fell.
The world shrank to just us, with all the danger, all the pain forgotten.
His hand came up slowly, threading into my hair before he tilted my face back up to his. His breath brushed across my brow, warm and reverent.
Then he tipped my head even further, and kissed me.
Not like someone claiming a possession. Not like a man staking his territory. But like someone who had waited a year just to feel me again.
And I broke all over again.
With his words still echoing in my head—you’re the only thing in my life I truly care about—I kissed him back.
Hard. Desperate. Wanting more. Needing to forget.
His mouth never left mine as he moved, one hand guiding me gently, the other anchored at my waist. It was like a dance, every step effortless, choreographed by something ancient and unspoken.
He turned me with him, his grip firm but reverent, and before I knew it, the backs of my knees met the edge of the bed. I sank down, breathless, and he followed, lowering us both with the same deliberate grace.
His lips still moved against mine, slower now, deeper. A kind of worship threaded through the heat, making my chest ache. This wasn’t control. It wasn’t domination. It was something far more dangerous.
Trust.
His body pressed to mine, warm and solid, his weight grounding me in a reality I didn’t want to face, yet couldn’t turn away from. Our mouths moved together, no longer tentative. No longer careful. Every kiss tasted of longing denied, of things left unsaid, of too many nights spent apart.
Adam’s hands slid beneath my cropped leather jacket, then up along my ribs, dragging my T-shirt along with it, revealing skin inch-by-aching-inch. He broke the kiss only long enough to pull the leather jacket and T-shirt fully from my shoulders.
I was left panting and lightheaded in the shadowed bedroom in nothing more than a lacy black bra, my once upswept hair almost fully undone.
His own breathing shallow, his eyes locked onto mine like he didn’t dare blink. Like I’d disappear into the shadows I’d created. “You’re shaking,” he said thickly.
I stiffened, then nodded. “You’re turning everything upside down and inside out.”
Lord help me, I wanted to believe in him. But I’d seen what he’d done. I’d lost people who were like family to me...the only family I’d ever known.
His brilliant gold stare held mine. “I waited for that whole year with you in my home, waited to prove I wasn’t the monster you imagined.”
He’d been waiting until I was twenty-one, proving he was human when I’d too often seen his inhuman side. But right then, in this moment, I only saw the man who desired me, a man I desired right back.
I drank in his stare, yearning pushing above all else as I whispered, “Then show me.”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. He stripped me within seconds, his big, capable hands, ones that had been part of such destruction, touching me reverently, like I was priceless. Irreplaceable.
I gasped as his knuckles grazed between my breasts, my breath hitching, my heartbeat suspended, as though waiting for something more. He gave it to me in one single swipe of his tongue across my nipple, and I mewled like the kitten I’d once seen in one of my rare outings with Adam.
It’d come trotting over to us and Adam had picked it up and stroked it until it purred, apparently safe in his arms. Then he’d put it back down and turned his back on it. I’d been horrified, appalled...until the mother cat had come trotting out, searching for it with alarmed meows.
Adam had looked at me and said, “One day you’re going to stop believing I’m the villain in your story.”
He licked my hardening nipple again, jerking me back to the present. “What are you doing to me?” I gasped, arching toward him.
He looked up, his burning eyes holding mine. “I’m making your walls come down.”
Such simple words, but the truth had never been clearer. He wasn’t just making me forget, he was taking away all my festering resentment and fear and making me see the sun again through the dark clouds. He was saturating my senses, feeding the emotional hunger I’d managed to suppress.
Our dormant chemistry had sparked, then ignited into a fierce, all-consuming fire. One I couldn’t put out, even if I’d wanted to.
It was in that moment I realized my surrender wasn’t weakness, it was the only way I could reclaim parts of myself I’d imagined were lost forever.
All the emotions I was pushing past. The mistrust, the guilt for betraying those who’d suffered and died, the family I’d left behind, and my grand canyon of vulnerability as I opened up to a man who had the power to destroy me.
The anger that had protected me even as it’d isolated me, faded away, as did my lingering shame for my body’s honest response to him.
Adam seemed all too aware of my epiphany.
He reached behind me and traced the edges of my wings.
I inhaled sharply, jerking them away. His burning touch seemed magnified on the sensitive membranes that had all too often been pinned down and examined, the tissues so very fragile and yet steely-strong.
“You’re so god-damn beautiful,” he whispered fiercely. He didn’t retreat, his eyes seemed to glow as he murmured, “Let me show you how I see you.”
His touch returned, feather-light this time as the tips of his fingers skimmed across the base of my wings, to where the appendages met my biologically reinforced spine.
I let out a shuddering sigh, the lingering echoes of shame and self-consciousness fading away under the stark honesty of his touch. Scientists had made me feel abhorrent, a creature to be mocked thanks to the wings that made me different from them.
Then he drew out one of my wings by its tip, the huge leathery membrane fanning out on the mattress beside me. His stare was awed even before he bent and pressed his lips to my appendage.
My breath caught. Then I sighed, giving myself to him fully.
My other wing fanned out from beneath me, framing either side of me. Something to be admired, not abhorred.
His growl showcased his wonder, his desire. And I didn’t resist when he drew back and took off my boots, then unbuttoned my jeans and dragged them free along with my panties as I lifted my hips off the bed.
He stared down at me as he stripped off his own clothes, and I suddenly wished I could flick on all the lights and fully illuminate my naked body with my wings that shivered so delicately under his scrutiny.
But it was enough that I could fully drink in his exposed masculinity.
Though it was no later than the middle of the day, with his penthouse shut up from the daylight and all his lightbulbs blown out, the interior stayed shadowy and dark.
I was only glad my enhanced vision meant I could see all too easily his strong shoulders, his defined abs and narrow hips, his large cock that reared up like it had a mind of its own.
I exhaled softly as I reached up and touched the white, puckered scar on his chest. The healed wound was one I’d made thanks to my hooked wing tip, my panic at leaving my people behind when Adam had taken me away from the facility.
His hands moved to hold mine over the scar, as though imprinting my touch to his scarred flesh. His eyes glittered as he looked down at me. “Every time I see this mark, I think of you. I yearn for you.”
My pulse thudded a little faster, my emotions tumbling. “I’m sorry,” I said breathlessly. “I never meant to hurt you.”
His hands tightened over mine. “Don’t be sorry. I’ve never once felt disfigured or blemished. I’ve only ever felt honored to have this permanent reminder of you.”
I swallowed hard. He was serious, truthful. I could hear the passionate intensity in his voice; see the glowing ferocity in his eyes. Feel the conviction through his every cell.
He exhaled. “If you only knew just how perfect you are. You’re my winged angel, Bella, the woman I intend worshipping for the rest of my days.”
His words were nothing short of a benediction, a language that pushed me so close to rapture I wondered how I didn’t orgasm in my head alone. Reuben’s efforts seemed pathetic now in comparison, my bodily pleasure with him fleeting.
Then Adam released my hand and he bent, pressing kisses along my skin as though he really was worshipping me.
I reached for him, my fingers curling through his hair as he kissed my navel, the tip of his tongue swirling the edge before dipping in completely.
The sparkles turned into electric bolts that danced and sang, my hips pushing off the bed to get closer to him.
Any willpower to evade him, to run away again had faded as though it’d never existed.
I was his now.
I was so lost in sensation I didn’t realize Adam had moved lower until he parted my outer folds, then rolled my intimate flesh beneath his tongue.
I jerked and gasped, then moaned as he sucked that same fleshy bud into his mouth and proceeded to uncoil the pleasure from my center right to the tips of my toes—to my wings—and back again.
I forgot how to talk, how to think, even how to breathe. All I knew was how to feel as sensation crested up and over, then crashed over me in a wave of bliss that made my toes curl, my wings shiver, and my heart thud like a runaway train in my ears.
Holy crap.
I’d never imagined intimacy could be so...magical.
I was still coming down from my high when Adam moved over me, then pushed one of my legs back so that my core was angled directly to the tip of his big, long cock.
I stiffened. He was about to—
My pained scream pushed away any further thought when he filled me beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Holy shit. This wasn’t pleasure, it was terrible, horrible pain. It was torture, as bad as what the scientists had inflicted upon me.
Adam froze, his eyes holding mine in the semi-darkness, his voice a dark croak in the still air. “You’re a virgin?”