32. Guardian angel – Elijah
32
GUARDIAN ANGEL
ELIJAH
“W hat are you at now?” I ask Sev as I slip the suture needle through his skin, stitching up the exit wound in the back of his shoulder. “Four lives left?”
“You kidding? This shit doesn’t even count.”
Aurora lifts a brow, ready with scissors in one hand and a fresh bit of gauze in the other for when I need them.
“We figure he’s got nine lives,” I tell her. “Like a cat. If this counts, which I think it should, then he’s down to just four.”
Her amused smirk twists into a wince as she comes to the realization. “One of those was from me, wasn’t it?”
“Forgiven,” he says as I pull the sutures taut and knot the thread. My hand aches as I finally release the tweezers and stretch out the nerve endings. The guy Aurora took out fucked it up bad when he managed to disarm me.
I take the scissors from her with a soft thank-you and snip the end of the thread before beginning to bandage the wound. We’ve already dealt with the entry wound, and he insists that he isn’t injured enough anywhere else to warrant me fussing over him.
I offered to check Aurora’s feet since she’d been barefoot all night, but she’d already cleaned them up in the small bathroom at the back of the jet, shrugging it off as just a few shallow scratches.
“There.” I pat the bandage on Sev’s shoulder for good measure, making him let out a growly sigh.
“Ow?”
“Just had to do a job in Paris.”
“Hey, I just put the cards on the table, bro. You didn’t have to pick them up.”
“I—” I stop myself before I can say any more. There’s no point in arguing. He’s right. I could’ve said no. I should’ve. But I didn’t. And now Aurora will need to live with the choice she made tonight to save my life for the rest of hers.
“It’s your turn,” she says, bringing me back to the present as the plane hits a soft patch of turbulence and my stomach drops.
“I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”
Despite my reply, she still kneels in front of me, her eyes lifting to mine with a knowing look.
“Liar.”
I clear my throat and sit back, forcing myself to focus on what she said instead of how it feels having her looking up at me like this.
“Your hand.”
She reaches for it, and as her fingers brush over the raised silver and fleshy pink scars, I pull away.
Her big eyes find mine again. “Trust me?”
My teeth clench behind my lips, but when she reaches for my mangled hand a second time, I let her take it.
“I can tell it’s bothering you,” she says, almost to herself as she starts to carefully knead her thumbs into my palm.
The sweet relief is almost instant and I sag into my seat, letting my eyes close just for a second as she tests how deeply she can massage the aches without causing pain. For a few months after surgery, I had to have Atticus give me hand massages just to get through the day without painkillers.
“Is this okay?”
My breathy exhale is almost a moan. “That feels incredible.”
Fuck . She’s way better at this than Atticus was. Or maybe it’s just because it’s her.
As I blink my eyes back open, it’s to find Aurora with a slight smile on her lips. The grin is at odds with the little knot of concentration between her brows, as she carefully works the base of each finger before switching back to broad sweeping movements with her thumbs that feel like heaven.
Sev parks himself in the low sofa along the wall to the left of the cabin, lounging with his uninjured arm slung over the back and one leg up as he watches Aurora. Watches me.
I try to ignore him, instead focusing on the relief that every rounded sweep of her fingers brings me.
The knot between her brows deepens as she works, and I can tell she’s holding in so much. So many questions she deserves answers to.
The sight of her with the gun raised comes back into my mind, and I remember how she’d looked as the body of Ambrose’s thug fell to reveal her.
Ivory satin dress splattered with red. Hands trembling. Eyes wide and wild. Face pale. Not breathing. Hauntingly captivating.
This girl—this angel—saved me.
“I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you,” I whisper, feeling my Adam’s apple bob hard in my throat. “For doing what you did.”
Her fingers freeze on my hand for an instant before starting to move again. She won’t look at me, and I don’t blame her, but I hate it.
I’ve already apologized, but I’ll do it a thousand more times, in a thousand different ways, if that’s what it takes. “I promise this won’t happen again.”
“Don’t make me promises you can’t keep,” she says quietly, but the words are loud in my head, each one a knife twisting in my gut.
She’s right. “Are you okay?”
She sighs. “I don’t know. How are you supposed to feel after committing grand larceny and murder on the same night?”
“Depends on the person,” Sev says, injecting himself into the conversation as he pulls the cork top out of a small bottle of scotch with his teeth and takes a little swallow. “I’m angry as fuck about that goon getting the jump on Eli, that came way too close, but as far as eliminating the threat? I feel like a million bucks.”
He takes another swallow, and I give him a look that says to slow down before he fucking bleeds out.
“That’s five less assholes in Ambrose’s arsenal.”
“Not helping,” I tell him, but Aurora shakes her head, and I think maybe I’m wrong.
She laughs. “That’s the thing. I’m not sorry. I don’t regret it. If I didn’t pull the trigger, he would’ve, and you’d be dead.”
I can see her gears turning in the way her focus narrows on my hand as she continues massaging on autopilot. She still doesn’t look at either of us as she continues. “Maybe this makes me a shitty person, but I don’t care that he’s dead…because it means you’re not.”
My stomach flips and I lean forward to close my other hand over hers, and finally, mercifully, my angel looks up at me.
“It’s okay to not be all right,” I assure her, needing her to know that neither of us expects her to be composed and collected. We don’t need her to be strong.
Her brow furrows. “Is it okay that I am all right?”
My lips part, and I search her eyes for any hint that she might be lying—putting on a front because she feels like she has to, but there’s nothing false in her sharp emerald stare.
She’s so much stronger than I ever gave her credit for, and I’ll be the first to admit that I absolutely misjudged her.
After a moment, I nod. “Yes. It is.”
Her full lips pull into a small smile and there it is again—that feeling. Like the earth under my feet is unsteady; like being fifteen thousand feet off the ground and knowing that if you start to fall, there’s no safety net to catch you.
But maybe crashing and burning wouldn’t be so bad if it was with her.
Aurora bites her lip and looks away, slipping her hands out from mine to continue massaging my injured one. I don’t move to sit back in my seat, instead studying the curve of her face close up. My chest tightens as my gaze lands on the thin line that I hope won’t scar on her cheek. She’ll still be just as beautiful with it, she would be no matter what. But I can’t stand the thought of her carrying any trace of the coward who gave it to her, being forced to have a constant reminder of the past she didn’t deserve. I know what that’s like.
I let my gaze trail down her delicate cheekbones to her jaw. Her neck.
She’s washed away what remained of the blood, and her old bruises are almost healed now. I note the elegant way her neck curves down to her shoulders. How her collarbones rise and fall with each breath. I’m consumed by the urge to touch her, imagining how soft and sharp she would feel at the same time.
If I could properly capture the way her tiny hairs stand upright as my gaze drags over her flesh. It would require whisper-soft paint strokes. And the lighting would have to be just right.
“She’s stunning, isn’t she?”
Sev’s low voice brings me out of my head and I blink as if coming out of a trance to find Aurora blushing violently, dropping her head even lower so I can’t see her expression.
“She is art in its purest form,” I say without hesitation, and her face tips up in surprise.
Steeling myself for the possibility of her rejection, I pull my injured hand from hers and sweep her dark hair back from her face so I can properly admire it, tucking the strands behind her ear.
“Stunning, indeed,” I confess when she doesn’t pull away, the tortured thing in my chest aching for acceptance.
“Imagine the masterpiece we could create together, the three of us,” Sev says, his voice rich with intent, and the implication of his words goes straight to my fucking cock.
“You should see how she tastes,” he adds, and Aurora’s breath hitches as we both whip our heads around to look at him.
He grins coyly at her, swirling the little bottle of scotch between his fingers.
“I’ve seen how you look at him,” he says.
Aurora stiffens, and for a second, I think he must be wrong. She hasn’t looked at me in any sort of way. Not that I’ve seen. Not the way I’ve seen her looking at him.
“No, I didn’t—” she blurts, stumbling over her words. “I didn’t mean—it’s just?—”
“Ro,” he says, stopping her. “It’s okay.”
She reels from his response. “What?”
Sev pushes the cork back into the scotch bottle and leaves it on the floor when he leans over his knees. “He’s my fucking family. My brother in every way that counts. There’s no one I’d rather share you with, and I’d never deprive him of someone that makes him happy.”
I’m about to tell him to shut up, worried he’s going to talk her into doing something she’ll regret. But when Aurora turns her attention back to me, there’s a fire burning in her stare, and I forget how to speak.
“There’s light in his eyes again,” Sev continues, and I want to hide from the truth he speaks, but I don’t. “And you’re the one who put it there, Ro. I’d never dream of taking that away…as long as it’s what you want, too.”
Aurora bites the inside of her cheek. She’s nervous, but there’s a spark beneath it, desire flickering in her eyes that she’s trying to keep hidden.
She doesn’t know we’ve shared before, but this is different. With the women Atticus brought in, it was always prearranged and pre-agreed to. They offered themselves to be shared. Signed off on what they were cool with and what they weren’t.
This is…natural. And there’s a part of me that isn’t sure I want to share this girl. That part wants to take her all for myself.
But as Sev eases off the sofa and sinks to his knees behind her, reaching out to run his fingertips over the back of her neck, she melts into his touch. Her eyes get heavy and her lips part, and I want this for her. I want her to have everything she wants, and if that’s Sev, too, then I’m glad it’s him and no one else.
Because Sev is right. My brothers are the only men I would share anything with. I pity any other man who tries to touch her from this moment forward.
Aurora lets out a soft sound as Sev curls his fingers around the back of her neck, easing her forward until there are only inches of space between my face and hers.
His voice is nothing but a rumble of sound when he says, “Taste her, brother.”
My angel blinks her eyes open, looking at me through a haze that I can feel starting to cloud my own vision. I would give anything to taste her. To show her my appreciation for what she did for me today. To apologize for any and every bit of wrong I’ve done since the moment I met her. But first I have to know.
I brush my knuckles along her jaw and feel her shiver under my touch in a way that goes straight to my cock. “If this isn’t what you want, say the word, Angel, because I’m about three fucking seconds from losing all self-control.”
Her cheeks turn scarlet and her eyes widen at my words, sparking when Sev presses a kiss to her back. He begins to untie the strings at the back of her dress and she gasps and sighs.
The sounds she makes are even better than I imagined.
“Go on,” Sev urges her. “Tell him how much you want us both.”
I hold my breath. Sev flicks his hooked blade out of his pocket and slices through the delicate laces at her back.
“Yes,” she breathes out as what remains of her dress loosens around her. “I want you.”
My resolve snaps and she barely gets out the last word before I tilt her chin up and crush my lips to hers. Aurora moans into my mouth as I steal the air from her lungs, letting her oxygen breathe new life into my wearied soul.
Her lips are soft and smooth, sugary sweet in a way that has me starving for more.
I pull the straps of her dress from her shoulders as Sev works to get the rest of the destroyed satin from her body, my lips never leaving hers. Fuck , they’re so soft. A perfect fit, like they were made to be on mine.
The rhythmic thudding in my ears is echoed down below, where I’m already hard as steel for her, my cock pushing insistently against my leg. With every electrifying second spent touching her, hearing the song of her pleasure, I only crave more, more, more .
And I know I’ll never feel sated with another woman again.