Chapter Six
Zavier yanked off his shirt. Walked it over to the lab section of the armory beneath Metafora to find a tall glass container. It looked like what barbershops stored combs in to clean them. But the brilliant blue liquid filling this one was infused with Dead Sea water and infection-fighting nanites.
Together, they should neutralize the vampire demidemon’s blood splattered all over his shirt. He stuffed it in, swished a few times, then closed the lid. He wished, just once, that a vampire would turn to dust like on TV. The worst part of a mission was the cleanup.
Just like when Gideon cooked and forced Zavier to wash all the dishes.
The mission had been simple. Too simple. The demidemon high as hell on witch blood hadn’t even put up a fight. All it did was burp right before Rhys and Zavier stabbed it from opposite sides. Heart impalement should’ve been good enough.
But no . Gideon had to be all showy and decapitate the thing. To be fair, he was testing out a new scimitar. But that beheading was what had splattered Zavier’s shirt. Now he was left with a whole bunch of adrenaline, revved for a fight that never happened.
He’d clean his sword first. Every warrior knew to do that like they knew to take their next breath. Then he could go a few rounds with the heavy bag. It just didn’t sound like enough to burn off his need for a fight.
He knew exactly how his friends were working off that bottled-up adrenaline.
With sex.
Which, yeah, good for them. But it just made his current situation a little more of a poke in the eye.
Zavier set down his sword on the island of the laboratory. No need to get that toxic blood anywhere else. Then he rummaged in the drawer for a square of silk and oil for the blade.
A clatter from the outer section of the armory shot him back to standing.
Nobody else was here. The doors and the waterfall portal were biometrically locked to himself, Rhys, and Gideon. So while he grabbed the knife from his ankle sheath, his wings pumped him out the door to the wall of weapons.
“State your business!” he roared. His arm drew back to put the knife at the perfect attack angle. A figure lay crumpled on the floor.
Could be a ruse to get Zavier to lower his guard. He swooped over. Lifted his boot to kick the figure onto its back when he heard a gasp.
Then a bigger one, as Liss pushed herself halfway up, braced on her hands, to where her face was an inch from his steel-toed boot.
His stone-cold, long-padlocked heart jolted into his throat at realizing how close he’d come to attacking her.
“ What are you doing?” Liss demanded to know.
“What are you doing here ?” he countered. Liss was still gasping and shivering. Zavier cursed. Dropped to his knees and started patting her down looking for wounds. “Were you attacked? Are you bleeding?”
“No. Just hard to breathe.” Her eyes widened as she looked around. “Whoa. When I was, um, in between.”
That made zero sense. He settled his fingers on her wrist. The pulse was steady, but fast. “Can you breathe now?”
“Yes. Just catching up on all that sweet, sweet O 2 .”
Zavier leaned back on his heels. It wasn’t safe to keep his hands on her any longer than absolutely necessary. Pink colored up her pale cheeks. Her chest was moving in an even rhythm. That was when he took in her outfit. A bathrobe. Pajamas. Ridiculous slippers. This whole thing made less and less sense.
“Look, Liss, you’ve got to pull it together and tell me what happened. Because what I see is a gigantic security breach.” And a terrified woman he had zero idea how to calm. Soothe? Fix .
The stink eye aimed his way could pollute all of Buffalo. “Don’t call me gigantic. It’s rude.”
“I didn’t…” he broke off. They excelled at arguing. Now didn’t feel like the time, though. Her dark, mesmerizing eyes were popped wide and her breath still came too fast. However she got in here, it’d shaken her.
“Can I have some water?”
“Sure.” In a blink, he had the glass filled. Once it was in her hands, he touched it. Channeling the elements, he frosted over the glass.
She let out a wordless ooh . “That’s really impressive.”
“So is you breaking into a wholly secure room.” He looked at the single set of doors. They were still closed. Zavier couldn’t take himself off alert until he knew what was going on. “How’d you get in here?”
Liss’s lashes brushed her brows as she suddenly scrambled to roll back onto her ass. She pulled a ring off her finger and tossed it into the center of the armory with a full-body shiver. “That’s how.”
“That sentence isn’t structurally complete. And it contains even less information.”
She snorted out a laugh. “For the record? It’s hilarious when you guys suddenly talk all formal like you did back in the fifties when you grew up.”
“For the record?” he sarcastically echoed. “I’m about to lose my shit. Answer the question.” Had she been put here as a dupe? A way to get him to open the doors and the portal and then he’d be flooded with demons? Was she under a spell?
Had someone used her?
Zavier needed facts.
“I told you. That ring. I put it on. I thought about you, and then everything went dark. Like I was sucked into the middle of a black hole. Which I happen to know is a vacuum, which explains why I couldn’t breathe. It only lasted a few seconds, and then I slammed into the floor here.”
That actually made marginal sense.
Zavier barely puffed his wings to scoot closer to it. “Moonstone. Shungite. Both crystals of safe travel. This is a relocator ring.” He used the tip of his wing against the floor as a fulcrum to spin back around. “Did Aradia give this to you?”
“No. I found it. In the study, with all of Harold’s artifacts. I was trying to find something as useful as the Scythe.”
At least now he understood how she’d made it through his layers of protection. She hadn’t used the doors.
But he was left with a bigger problem. The Scythe had killed fucking Titans . If she’d touched something with even half of its power, she’d be dead. “Liss, you were toying with objects of power way outside your ability to control. That’s incredibly dangerous.”
“No, it isn’t. Every object’s cataloged.”
Her logic had a hole in the center big enough to hold Lake Erie. Why did she have to make everything ten times harder than necessary? “Then why are you sitting on my floor?”
“The name of the ring was in Latin. Or Greek. Or just old. I didn’t bother to look it up. And I really wish I’d been thinking about a Tiffany’s store when I put it on, instead of your stupid face.” It appeared that arguing with him had finally settled her. Liss breathed normally now. She’d rolled up onto her knees to insult him.
“I’m trying to protect you,” he growled. The woman was eight kinds of impossible.
“Where would possibly be safer than ending up here with you?” she yelled back.
“Almost fucking anywhere!” The words echoed off the glass and steel in the room. Before their roar dimmed, Zavier was on her.
Almost .
He hovered an inch off the ground, and an inch away from her tautly stretched body. The thought of how close he’d come to hurting her still thrummed in his mind.
How close he’d come to losing her—either by his hand, or by touching one of those artifacts imbued with the power of gods.
“You are not safe with me right now. My control is at the breaking point.”
“Pfft. You’ve been balanced on that knife’s edge since I met you.”
Her wrongheaded, simple assertion nearly distracted him enough to let that control snap. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Zavier Carranza, you are the most churned-up man I’ve ever met.” One soft hand reached out to smooth a semicircle outside of his left eye. “You’ve suppressed every emotion, good and bad. Tamping them down doesn’t make them not exist. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.”
“I don’t need your armchair psychology.” But he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from her touch.
“You do, actually. Desperately . But I can flip the script. Let’s ignore what you need.” She switched from a soothing tone to something huskier. Darker. Like whiskey poured over a smoke-infused ice cube. “What do you want, Zavier? Right now. More than anything.”
“You, damn it!”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
No. He would not be goaded into doing the wrong thing. The harmful, hurtful, selfish thing. “You’re not mine for the taking.”
“Correct. Glad to know you’ve evolved from the patronizing, misogynistic decade into which you were born.” Liss untied her robe and shrugged it off her shoulders. Then she hinged forward. The movement pressed her flush against his chest. His bare chest that instantly noted everything he felt through her thin pajamas. “I am, however, offering myself up to you.”
He had to be the only man, Nephilim , angel, or demon on the planet who interpreted that as a bad thing. Liss was off-limits as Maisy’s friend/pseudo-sister. That sideways connection ruled out a hookup…
…which was the only connection, sexual or otherwise, that Zavier was capable of. That was all surface crap, though.
There was a far bigger reason he couldn’t take Liss up on her, ah, generous offer.
He might be a broken man, but he refused to turn around and pass that darkness down to her.
“We covered this already, Liss. I’m a broken man. I was held prisoner. Hostage. Tortured.” Zavier couldn’t ask her to take on that burden. He wouldn’t ask any woman—which was why he hadn’t pursued anything besides hookups ever since—but especially not the shining brightness that was Liss. It’d be like snuffing out a candle flame.
She moistened her top lip with the tip of her tongue. Oh, she knew exactly the effect she had on him. Liss was purposefully stoking the fire. “Almost fifty years ago.”
“Exactly my point. I haven’t moved on in all that time. I nurse my bitterness. It fuels every demon battle. I’ll probably never get my revenge. The need for that burns in me so strongly that it doesn’t leave room for anything good.”
Her warm breath puffed against his chin. “I’m not looking for someone good right now. I’m looking right at you. And I want you, Zavier.”
Fuck almighty.
Why wouldn’t she let him do the right thing? Why wasn’t she backing down?
“I could hurt you.” It wasn’t a threat. Just a fact. One he always kept at the forefront of his mind when having sex with a human.
“Technically, sure. Just like if I got off a lucky stab with one of those razor-sharp swords on the wall, I could hurt you . Thing is, though? You wouldn’t. You’d break your own wings off before hurting me.”
Zavier closed his hands around her shoulders. With a burst of speed, he flew to the opposite end of the lab. It was obvious from the way her legs banged against his that the speed caught Liss off guard.
It took an enormous flex of his shoulder blades to stop his trajectory right as her back touched the wall. Most other Nephilim wouldn’t have been able to stop that quickly. They would’ve put her through the wall.
But Liss was right. He’d never allow her to be hurt. Zavier did, however, allow just enough force in her connection with the wall to show her a glimpse of what could happen.
“I’m not one of your soft human men.”
“The last thing I’m looking for right now is softness. The harder, the better is what I always say. Well, me and every other woman in the world who wants good sex.”
“Liss.”
“Zavier. Will you freaking do me already?”
He pinned her to the wall with only his hips and thighs. “Say the word and I’ll take you home.”
“Fuck me, Zavier. Hard. Fast. And for the love of whatever you half-angels hold holy, right the hell now!”
…
Liss was a balls-to-the-wall type. (She’d told an ex-boyfriend that phrase didn’t work when it came to women. He’d just laughed and said “it does with you.” The jury was still out, three years later, on whether that was a compliment or a vicious parting shot.) So she’d thrown her pride out the window and herself at Zavier.
Not once did she believe that it’d actually work.
But Liss knew she also couldn’t live with the regret of not trying .
Zavier had always fascinated her.
Intrigued her.
Aroused her.
And, yes, scared her. A little. At first.
When she’d come out of that blackness, that… void , it’d been with only one thought—breathing again. Until she saw Zavier.
Shirtless.
Wings fully outstretched, with their utter inky blackness at the top morphing down into the same rainy-sky gray as his eyes at the tips. Muscles gleaming with sweat. They’d been all tight and bunched, ready for attack. The fact that he’d been ready to attack her hadn’t mattered. Because she knew she was safe with him.
So since that moment when she both regained her breath and had it sucked out of her at the sight of his abs, Liss had one thought.
This was her chance. To channel all that brooding, snarky darkness into brooding, snarky sexiness.
The kiss in London proved that he’d been having at least somewhat similar thoughts about her. Her request from that night—and the logic behind it, of the world balancing on the brink of destruction from an angelic coup—still held true.
But the man was stubborn.
Oh, he was stubborn about a lot of things. Zavier insisted that ketchup only belonged on hamburgers and never hot dogs. That Americans should call “soccer” football, “like the rest of the freaking world.” That all humans drove poorly, regardless of gender, because their reflexes weren’t quick enough.
Tonight, though? Zavier was being stubbornly noble . About protecting her.
To hell with that.
So she’d pushed, teased with her eyes, and argued to get past his brain to a lower organ. Now here she was, pinned to a wall by the hardest, largest penis of her life, and she still wasn’t sure it’d worked.
Until he blinked.
Metaphorically and physically. One second, she’d been laser-locked on those storm-gray eyes. The next, he’d blinked.
And then Zavier kicked it into gear.
He didn’t start with her lips. Almost as if to prove the point that he wouldn’t be sweet or tender. No, he started by flipping her so that her cheek pressed against the wall. He wrapped her hair around his fist as if it were a ribbon, tugging her head to the side. Then he scraped his teeth across the joining of her neck and shoulder.
Oh, and he shoved a hand up her pajama top.
Pjs, so no bra to stop him. Just the roughness of his dagger-caused calluses chafing gloriously against her underboob.
Heat ignited in her veins, her nerves, her every cell.
This was what she’d craved.
“Say no and I’ll stop.”
“Don’t you dare.”
A growl pushed hot breath along her skin. His palm covered her nipple, ground against it the same way his hips ground against her butt. Ooh, that was good. Part of Liss could happily stay like this for another hour.
It was a small part.
Most of her couldn’t wait for what he’d do next.
The only bad, well, unsatisfactory part was that she wasn’t touching him . Liss reached backward, frantically seeking skin.
Ahhh, There it was. Still a little tacky with sweat, which only turned her on more. Her fingertips skimmed along his ribs and whatever long muscles covered his back. They were hard. Tensed.
Everything about Zavier was hard. Except for the lips sucking her skin up and off her vertebrae.
That was when she realized that her feet still weren’t touching the ground.
That was so cool .
He gave another slow tug of her wound-around hair. It bowed her, forcing her breast even more against his hand. Only her abdomen and hips still touched the wall. Her feet had loosely hooked around his calves. Because Liss simply couldn’t touch enough of him.
“Ditch the slippers.”
Liss complied in an instant. She bristled against taking any of his suggestions, let alone orders. The Nephilim was downright bossy most of the time. But tonight? Now? She’d do whatever he commanded. There was an inherent guarantee that if she complied, there’d be a reward of pleasure.
Zavier hooked his thumb at the vee of her top and ripped it apart. She’d moved her hands up to his shoulders—an awkward stretch but well worth the tactile payoff—and his muscles barely budged at the motion. Now his hand roamed freely all over her stomach and breasts.
Liss twisted. Jolted. Okay, she writhed at his touch. Scratchy and firm, it woke up all her nerve endings. The cold silver of his belt buckle had pushed down the waist of her bottoms. This position, intriguing at first, was now infuriating. She had zero control.
Oh.
Ah.
Someone who’d been chained up and tortured for months on end probably went out of his way to always be the one in control. That was a glimpse at a side of Zavier she’d never expected to see—his vulnerable side.
She’d just have to get him to decide it was time to move. “I have a question.”
“Now? The only question in your head should be how many orgasms I’ll give you tonight.”
His words jolted heat straight to her groin a split second before his hand shoved her pants off. “Math’s not my strong suit. Happy to wait and be surprised.”
“You will be.” The smug certainty in his tone promised her soooo much goodness ahead.
“Look, I know we’re at Metafora.” To her left was the long lab island, and just past it an antique apothecary cabinet full of things you’d expect to hear chanted by the witches in Macbeth . To her right was the jagged stone wall that backed up to the elevator. “You don’t keep condoms at work, do you?”
“Don’t you?”
In the desk of her roving office temp jobs? No. In the desk back when she used to teach high school? OMG no. “That’s why purses were invented.”
“The last thing we need is to accidentally spawn another generation of partial angels. Condoms are stocked in all our locations, along with emergency surgical kits, antivenom for seven types of demons, and protein bars because Gideon gets mean when he’s hungry.” Zavier licked at the side edges of her lips. “We could use a condom…or…”
Nope. She’d heard that line before. She’d also never fallen for it. “We’re using something, buddy. I don’t care how old or how celestially magical you are. I don’t want a timed-release souvenir of this night in nine months popping out of me.”
Zavier’s teeth bit into her earlobe. “Remember what I did to your water?”
She shuddered. She loved that he used his teeth so liberally. “You chilled it.”
“I could do the same thing. To my seed. Chill it just short of freezing. A pregnancy would be impossible. And the sensation for you could be…interesting.”
Liss swallowed hard. It was a pragmatic, modern conversation to be having. Aside from the old-fashioned word he’d used for sperm, which was a jolting reminder of their age differential.
And the fact that he’d inserted two fingers into her while making his case. She shuddered again, squeezing her thighs tight around his wrist.
“Um, I’m game to try new things. But this is our first time—something new right there—and there’s the whole wing issue to contend with—also new—and any other surprises that might come up. Maybe save that for later?”
Zavier withdrew his fingers. Gently set her down on the floor and dropped to one knee next to her. His demeanor didn’t show any of the stern dominance he’d portrayed moments ago. Crinkles of concern bracketed his warm brown eyes. “Are you nervous? Did I do something to scare you?”
It was such a careful, caring question. Liss hadn’t expected them to share any emotions. Simply sensations. His thoughtfulness warmed her heart. “Yes. I mean, no. Not really. You’re a whole different species. We’ve gone from zero to worthy of a speeding ticket in ten minutes. I don’t know how it’ll be with you.” She touched his tautly muscled forearm. It was tan in November, even in Buffalo, and covered with dark hair that she couldn’t wait to feel rubbing against her. “But I’m not scared. I promise.”
“Liss. I don’t want you thinking about our differences.” Zavier scratched the top of his head. “So touch my wings.”
She wanted to. Absolutely. Liss had gone back in her mind over and over the few seconds she’d had that feeling of melted velvet across her fingertips. But she also didn’t want to risk doing anything that would make him cut this night short.
“Are you sure? That didn’t seem to go so well last time. In London. You basically threw yourself as far away from me as possible.”
The crinkles at his eyes disappeared, and his lids drifted half shut. “Because it felt so good. Wing play is highly arousing.”
“Okay, then.” She walked behind him. Stroked the flat of her hand down the broad outer arch at the top. The rows of feathers shuddered in a cascade from her hand to the tips flared across the floor. “Is that painful?”
“No.” Zavier drew his wings together toward his spine. “Go underneath.”
Liss decided she needed to see his face as she did this. She crouched, ducking her head as she moved to his side. He dropped his wings, creating a dark cave around her. Her shoulder rubbed against his hip as she reached up a tentative hand to where they joined his body. She decided to treat the feathers as gently and teasingly as she would his balls, and barely traced her nails out and up.
Zavier jolted and let out a guttural moan. “Holy fuck, that’s good.”
So Liss did it again, adding her other hand to cover more area. She only managed to do it three times before he rolled back on his heels and lay on the floor. One arm pulled her against his side.
“Nobody’s touched me there in a long time.”
“Why not?” God. What a stupid, intrusive question.
“When I’m with humans, I retract my wings. With other species…there’s a level of trust involved with wing play. You know I don’t trust most people.”
“Then thank you. For letting me, ah, pleasure you.” Awkward. Honest, but awkward. Like she’d been masturbating him. Ugh. Too much of Liss was still hung up on having sex with a half- angel .
“No thanks necessary. This is a two-way street. There will be plenty of pleasuring tonight. For both of us.” His wings disappeared. Zavier sprang to his feet and shucked his pants in one motion.
There was no time to appreciate him naked as he tucked her beneath his arm and surged to the apothecary chest. Right next to the drawer marked “cloven hooves” was one marked “condoms.” Zavier grabbed a handful and thrust them at her.
Liss was forced to clutch the foil packets to her chest. “There’s at least a dozen here.”
He winced. “I know. It doesn’t look like enough. But we won’t be there all night. Can’t risk getting caught.”
Not enough ?!?!? “Where would we be caught? Where are we going?”
Deep, rich laughter rolled out of him. It also rolled his six pack in a delightful way. “Did you think we’d finish this for the first time on the floor of the lab?”
“Yes. We can finish it right now.”
“No, senorita . We can do better.” Zavier snatched her in a cradle hold. His teeth flashed in a wide, thoroughly uncharacteristic smile. “We’re going to Brazil.”
Like hell. Liss didn’t struggle too hard, as she didn’t want to fall onto the concrete floor. But she did shove an elbow into his diaphragm. “We’re naked ! ”
“Where we’re going, only the parrots will see us.” Still laughing, he flew her to the biometric sensor that opened the door to the underground waterfall. Zavier huffed his breath onto it. The door slid into the rock face, revealing the high, thin stream of water across a deep chasm.
“Why Brazil?”
“Cachoeira Santa Barbara is in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s summer there. Warm enough that you won’t miss your clothes.” Zavier took her mouth. The pressure was on the edge of bruisingly hard. Liss closed her eyes and gave herself over as his tongue twined with hers.
Warm, thick air blanketed her. Oh. He’d been distracting her because he remembered she didn’t love the waterfall portals. The water roared behind them. The full moon above let her see the moss-covered rock ledges, as big as the floor of her kitchen, jutting out along the sides.
Zavier landed there. “I’m worried.”
“About what?” Liss twisted her neck around, but couldn’t see into the depths of the forest walls. She dropped the pile of condoms onto the moss. “Are those parrots you mentioned demonic at all?”
Another one of his knee-melting laughs rolled out. “Relax. We’re safe here. I’m worried that we got a little off topic. That you’re not as aroused as you could be.” Zavier shifted the arm beneath her thigh to grasp her hip. Then his other arm joined on the opposite side. He lifted her…and lifted her…until his mouth was positioned right between her legs.
It was precarious. Liss was bent backward in the air, looking at the stunning Brazilian falls upside down. It was also the most erotic position she’d ever been in. The only support was his hands. Wetness drenched her before he even touched his tongue to her slit.
Turned out that Zavier’s tongue was just as epically strong and agile as the rest of him. He strummed her clit like a guitar string, fast and hard, and it was all Liss could do not to come right then. She did let out a moan that no doubt would waken those parrots.
“Don’t hold back, carino,” he urged.
“I want you inside me.”
“We’ll get there. I promise.” Then Zavier gave three long, slow, thorough licks that jolted her right to the edge. When he returned to his fast strumming, that was all it took. Liss bucked against his mouth as heat burst through every cell in her body.
It wasn’t until she was reduced to panting gasps that he shifted his hold to her back and slid her down to the mossy ledge.
Slowly.
Inch by inch, skin dragging against skin.
“Hang on to me,” he ordered.
Her limbs felt boneless, but Liss was motivated to comply. She’d follow any command of his right now.
Zavier crouched. She heard the rip of a foil packet. Then his hands moved to support her butt. He lowered her another inch. The tip of his penis slid in. “You good?”
“Very.”
“Trust me?”
“Yes.”
He launched into the air. The force of his leap, coupled with gravity, pushed him all the way in. They both groaned, together. He flew them to hover right in front of the falls. Just far enough from the forceful water that mist coated their already sweat-slicked bodies in a cooling spray.
Liss forced her eyes open. She didn’t want to miss any of this. She took in the roar of the water, the sweet scent of some night-blooming bush, the constant rustle of leaves in the surrounding forest. Above was the moon and what looked like an entire galaxy of stars in the inky blackness. Below was a swirling pool interspersed with mossy-green rocks.
And in front of her was Zavier.
It was a shock to discover that his eyes were open, too. Just behind his head, the arch of his wings beat in a slow pattern. Her hands dug into his back, making sure to skim the underside of his feathers. Because she was ready again, and wanted him right there with her.
Looking at each other was way more intimate than she’d planned this encounter to be. Yet Liss didn’t mind it at all . It suddenly wasn’t just sex. Not mindless sex, anyway. They were connected. And she couldn’t not acknowledge it.
So as he kept rhythmically stroking into her, moving faster and faster, she echoed his question, knowing that his answer would reveal so much more. “Trust me?”
“Fuck yes, Liss.”
That admission jolted her to her climax immediately. Liss kissed him, heels drumming against his back as sheer pleasure engulfed her. She swallowed Zavier’s hoarse cries a moment later as he jackhammered into her, and they shot up at least a hundred feet in a tight spiral.
“You were right,” she murmured into his ear. “That was way better than ‘good.’”
“Oh that?” He tilted his head against hers. It was tender. Endearing. Why was he making her feel things? “That was just the warm-up.” His smile, even in the darkness, was pure boyish joy, and it thrilled her. “You okay? Up here?”
“With you, yeah. Completely.”
Oh boy. It was the truth. Wasn’t always safe or smart to admit the truth, however. Because falling for the brooding, sexy Nephilim was not in the cards.
And it was most definitely not smart.