Chapter 21
Twenty-One
The kiss starts slow.
Not like the training room, all aggression and competition. Not like the lust purge, where we were both drowning in someone else's need. This is just us. Choosing each other. Finally letting ourselves have what we've been circling around for weeks.
His mouth moves against mine, deliberate and thorough, like he's memorizing the shape of me. His hands frame my face with a gentleness that makes my chest ache. And his wings, those broken, scarred, beautiful wings, curve around us both until I'm surrounded by silver feathers and candlelight.
I pull back just enough to breathe. "Seraph."
"Tell me to stop." His voice is rough. Wrecked. "Tell me this is a mistake and we should go back to pretending we don't want this. I'll do it. I'll walk away right now if that's what you need."
"Is that what you want?"
"No." The word comes out low and fierce. "But I'm giving you the option. Because once I start, I don't think I'll be able to stop. And I need you to be sure."
I think about Croesus. About the bond between us, still open, still humming with connection. He'll feel this. Not the emotions, I can shield those, but he'll know. He'll know I'm with Seraph, know what we're doing, and there's nothing I can do to hide it from him.
He told me to stop fighting what I feel.
He told me he'd rather share me than lose me.
I don't know if he meant it. I don't know if anyone can really mean something like that until they're tested. But I know I can't keep pretending I don't want this. Don't want him.
I reach for the bond with Croesus, that golden thread that connects us across miles and houses.
I don't sever it. Don't block him out entirely.
But I build a wall around my emotions, thick and high, so that whatever he feels from me tonight will be muted.
Distant. Like hearing music through a closed door.
It's the best I can do. The kindest cruelty I can offer.
Then I look at Seraph, at his eyes burning in the candlelight, at his broken wings trembling with the effort of staying still.
"I don't want you to stop," I say.
Something in his expression shatters.
He kisses me again, harder this time, his control finally slipping.
His hands slide from my face into my hair, fingers tangling in the strands and tugging just hard enough to make me gasp.
The sound seems to ignite him. He walks me backward until my shoulders hit the wall, his body pressing against mine, all lean muscle and barely contained power.
"Do you have any idea," he breathes against my mouth, "how long I've wanted this? Wanted you?"
"Tell me."
"Every night since you arrived." He drags his lips down my jaw, finding the spot below my ear that makes my knees buckle. "I'd lie awake listening to you breathe and imagine what you'd sound like if I touched you. What you'd taste like. What noises you'd make when I finally got my hands on you."
Heat floods through me, pooling low and urgent. "And you never did anything about it."
"I was trying to be noble." He laughs against my throat, the vibration sending shivers down my spine.
"Trying to maintain distance. Trying to remember that wanting you was dangerous.
" His teeth graze my pulse point and I moan.
"But I'm done being noble, Raven. I'm done pretending I don't think about this constantly. "
"Show me."
His hands find the hem of my shirt, and he pauses, a question in his gaze. I answer by reaching down and pulling it over my head myself, letting it fall to the floor.
His breath catches.
I'm not wearing anything fancy underneath. Just a simple black bra, practical rather than pretty. But the way he looks at me, eyes darkening with hunger, is nothing like the frantic glances during the purge. That was necessity. This is want.
"Beautiful," he murmurs. His fingers trace along my collarbone, down the curve of my shoulder, leaving trails of heat in their wake. "I've imagined this. Having time to actually look at you. To appreciate you. Not rushing through it because we were burning alive."
"Your turn."
He holds my gaze as he reaches for his buttons, undoing them with slow, deliberate movements.
Putting on a show. Making me wait. The fabric parts to reveal pale skin over lean muscle, and when he shrugs out of the shirt, I let myself look properly for the first time.
During the purge, everything had been too fast, too desperate. Now I can actually see him.
He's beautiful in a way that almost hurts. Every line elegant and precise, like someone sculpted him from moonlight. But there's warmth in him now. Vulnerability. The cracks in his perfect facade have spread through his whole body, and he's letting me see all of it.
"Like what you see?" There's a hint of uncertainty beneath the confidence. The angel of pride, actually worried about my answer.
"You know I do."
"Say it."
I step forward and press my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath my hand. "You're gorgeous. You're infuriating. And I've wanted to touch you like this for longer than I want to admit."
His eyes flutter closed for just a moment. When they open again, the silver has gone molten.
"Get on the bed."
The command sends a thrill straight through me. I back toward the massive bed that dominates his chambers, the one I've slept in for weeks while carefully maintaining distance between us. He follows, stalking me like a predator, his broken wings half-spread behind him.
When my knees hit the mattress, I sit. He stands over me, looking down with an expression that makes my mouth go dry.
"I'm going to take my time with you," he says, his voice dropping low and dangerous. "I've been waiting too long to rush this."
"What if I don't want you to take your time?"
"Then you'll learn patience." He kneels in front of me, hands sliding up my thighs, and the position puts his face level with my stomach.
He presses a kiss just above my navel, then another, working his way up.
"I want to taste every inch of you. I want to learn what makes you gasp and what makes you moan and what makes you scream. "
"Seraph." His name comes out breathless.
"I want to find out if you're as responsive everywhere as you are when I touch your neck." Another kiss, higher now, at the curve of my breast above the bra. "I want to see how many times I can make you come before you beg me to stop."
"That sounds like a threat."
"It's a promise." His hands reach behind me, finding the clasp of my bra. "May I?"
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He unhooks it with practiced ease and draws the straps down my arms, letting the fabric fall away. Then he just looks, his gaze traveling over my bare breasts with an intensity that makes me want to cover myself and arch toward him in equal measure.
"Perfect," he breathes. "Absolutely perfect."
"I'm really not."
"Don't argue with me." He cups one breast in his hand, his thumb brushing over the nipple, and I gasp at the sensation. "When it comes to aesthetics, I'm the expert. And I'm telling you, you're exquisite."
His mouth replaces his thumb, hot and wet, and I stop being able to form coherent thoughts. He licks and sucks and teases until I'm squirming beneath him, my hands fisting in the sheets. Then he switches to the other breast and does it all over again.
"The sounds you make," he murmurs against my skin. "I knew you'd be vocal. I used to imagine it, late at night. Touching myself and pretending it was you."
The image that conjures, Seraph alone in the dark with his hand wrapped around himself thinking about me, sends a fresh wave of heat between my thighs.
"You thought about me while you..."
"Every time." He looks up at me, eyes wicked. "Did you ever think about me?"
I should lie. Should preserve some dignity. But we're past dignity now.
"Yes."
His smile turns predatory. "Tell me."
"I thought about the training sessions. The way you'd pin me down.
The way you'd correct my form with your hands on my body.
" I swallow hard as his fingers trace down my stomach toward the waistband of my pants.
"I thought about what would happen if I just..
. gave in. Let you have me right there on the training room floor. "
"I thought about that too." He pops the button on my pants, slides the zipper down slowly. "I thought about bending you over that marble bench and fucking you until you forgot how to be defiant."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I wanted you to come to me." He hooks his fingers in my waistband and tugs, pulling my pants down over my hips. I lift up to help him, and then I'm left in nothing but my underwear. Simple black cotton to match the bra. "I wanted you to choose this. Choose me."
"I'm choosing."
"I know." He presses a kiss to my inner thigh, and my hips jerk involuntarily. "And I'm going to reward you for it."
His mouth moves higher, breath hot against the thin cotton still covering me. I can feel how wet I am, know he must be able to see it, but he doesn't comment. Just noses along the edge of my underwear, teasing, making me squirm.
"Please."
"Please what?"
"Touch me. Stop teasing."
"But I like teasing you." Another almost-touch, his lips ghosting over where I need him most. "I like watching you get desperate. Watching that composure crack."
"Seraph, I swear to God..."
"Wrong deity." But he takes mercy on me, hooking his fingers in my underwear and dragging it down my legs. And then I'm completely naked in front of him, spread out on his bed, while he kneels between my thighs still wearing his pants.
The power imbalance should bother me. Instead, it just makes everything feel more intense.
He looks at me, really looks, taking in every exposed inch. "I'm going to remember this for the rest of my very long existence," he says quietly. "You, like this, in my bed. Wanting me."
"Less talking. More touching."
He laughs, low and warm. "So demanding."