Chapter 9
For an angel, Dusk’s responding smile is devilishly alluring.
His grip on my waist tightens, and in one fluid motion, he tosses me back onto the bed. Faster than I can comprehend, he’s on top of me, his hips straddling mine. He leans forward, his mesmerizing eyes searching mine. A slight concern mars his brow.
“You’re trembling,” he whispers, his voice both sensual and carnal.
My breath shudders. “Not from fear.”
“My beautiful, sweet Dawn.” Sighing, he brings his lips down to my ear, brushing his face along mine. “Tell me you haven’t been aching for this since the moment we met, and I’ll stop. Just say the words.”
“I… I can’t do that, Dusk.”
He pulls back, just enough to look me in the eyes, before brushing a stray hair away from the side of my face. “You can tell me no.” His voice wavers with something akin to human-like vulnerability. “Are you sure you really want to cross this line?”
I’m slightly taken aback, caught off guard by the sudden display of emotion.
Emotion.
Recognition sinks into me.
If it hasn’t been clear to me before, I can see it now, clear as day: His emotions are every bit as real and complex as my own.
Being an angel doesn’t make him invincible.
He’s afraid. Of what, I’m not sure. Maybe me, maybe himself.
And if I’m being honest, I’m afraid, too.
A part of me knows I’m playing with fire, but it doesn’t make me want him any less.
I’ll take my chances of being burned if it heats the hollowness in my soul.
With everything that’s happened, everything that’s going to happen, I feel an overwhelming need to cling to these good moments.
“Yes, I’m sure—” The words have barely left my tongue before our lips collide like the early morning sun meets the twilight.
The wildness of the kiss is exponentially sinful. We breathe in each other with greed, lust, and gluttony. It’s everything I wanted, everything I imagined it to be.
His hands slip behind my neck, pulling me into him, angling my head in a fight for dominance.
Instinctively, I grab his hair, slipping my fingers into his impossibly soft curls.
I’m momentarily distracted by how incredible it feels—like silk, clouds, whispers, and sunlight.
I’m floating, my whole body relaxed as I let him devour me.
Until I’m jolted back to reality when he pulls my lower lip into a sharp bite.
My eyes flash open, a gasp escaping me in the brief moment of air he allows me. I’m slightly surprised, but I’m even more shocked by the amount of pleasure it gives me.
Dusk pauses, only for a few seconds, to smile against my lips. “Do you like that?”
“Mm—” I gasp, cut off by the intoxicating feeling of his lips suddenly on the crook of my jaw. He kisses the skin gently at first, savoring the taste of me, before trailing down my neck. An eagerness builds in his path.
It’s entrancing. Intoxicating. A drug that I never want to stop using.
When he reaches my shoulder, he bites me again, perfectly positioned over a pressure point I didn’t even know existed.
Every muscle in my body tightens. The pleasure runs through me like lightning.
For a second, I wonder if he did slip a little electricity in there—but then he does it again to my other side and, holy fuck, that is nothing but pure bliss.
Sweet, erotic ecstasy that leaves me gasping up at him and desperate for more.
Suddenly, he pulls back, leaving my wet skin open to the air.
I scowl in frustration, but before I can complain, he leans back on his hips.
Everything I need presses against me, hard as a rock under his clothes.
My annoyance evaporates. I watch, captivated, as he pulls his shirt off.
A second later, I’m blinded by a bright flash of light—quickly followed by the absolute vision of the gold-tipped, alabaster wings on his back.
For a moment, I forget how to breathe.
An angel, my mind whispers. Here is an angel.
The first time I saw his primary evidence, I was too terrified to breathe in the magnificence of it all.
Now, I’m acutely aware of how I’m gazing upon a slice of divinity.
I have not earned this beautiful, extraordinary thing—a man sculpted by God and cured by sunlight.
Yet, here I am, regardless. So eager to join our bodies in ecstasy.
I am dying of thirst, and he is my oasis.
I can’t stop drinking him in.
He reaches out a hand to stroke my cheek, gently, just once.
His eyes darken, filling with the lust of an unrepentant sinner, and suddenly, his lips are on mine again.
His hands find the bare skin between my shirt and pants, gripping me tightly.
Need presses into me. His tongue slips into my mouth, consuming me.
I drag my fingers across the hard planes of his torso, exploring the perfect ridges of his abs, his chest, his back. When I reach his ass, he grinds against me, flexing his muscles.
My gasp breaks our kiss.
“Dawn,” he whispers, almost in warning.
I take it as an invitation. Leaning up to bring my mouth to his throat, I flick my tongue down the side of it, tasting his skin.
It’s far sweeter than I expected, as if the salt in his sweat was replaced by sugar.
It gives me ideas, vivid images that spill into my head, and I become ravenous.
My lips melt into him, sucking deep and long on his neck.
He releases the sexiest moan I’ve ever heard in my life, just before rasping, “Kae.”
It’s so insanely attractive, I could spend my whole life hearing it and never get enough. My nails dig into his hips, and I pause to breathe. To beg for him. “I need you, Malak.”
His whole body stills, turning my smile devious. I know I’ve won. He’s a predator, coiled and ready to pounce. I’ve never been more willing to be prey—
He pulls back suddenly, looking at me with an intense, maybe even fearful expression. “We should stop here.”
I blink, my brain lagging, before falling into bewildered confusion. “We should absolutely not stop here.”
What a ridiculous suggestion. How many times do I have to consent to appease him? I don’t care how long we have or haven’t known each other, how mythical his very existence is, or what this might mean to our relationship. I do not care to limit myself any longer.
But, much to my dismay, Dusk rolls off me anyway.
He falls still and quiet by my side, leaving me with a body that aches from the loss of him.
I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong. Even worse, I feel rejected. Undesirable, humiliated. Like I shouldn’t have believed for a moment that he’d lie with a person like me, even out of desperation. I am a human, a piss poor mortal, wholly inadequate for him.
Before my anxiety can spiral any further, I decide to demand answers—
“I know,” he stops me the moment I open my mouth. “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t want you to rush into anything. There’s this… This innate attraction that humans have to us.”
Seriously? That’s what this is about?
“Yeah, no fucking shit.” I turn onto my side, making sure he can see how utterly unamused I am. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re gorgeous. A ten out of ten. Of course I’m attracted to you!”
That only makes him look more concerned, turning his head towards me with his brows set deep. “I can’t tell how far it goes, Kae. I care about you enough to want you to be able to fully consent.”
I can’t help but feel infantilized. “If you really think I’m not capable of deciding for myself what I want, Malak, then why did you bother to make all these lusty advances, hmm? You could have tried much, much harder to repel me.”
“I…” He seems caught off guard, but then his expression becomes colder. “There are some very old rules forbidding angel-human intimacy. I’m willing to accept the potential consequences for myself, but I hadn’t stopped to think if you could also be at risk.”
“Dusk, have you never slept with a human before?”
“No, I have, but—”
“But you didn’t care what happened to them,” I finish for him, then bite my lip. That came out more as a presumptuous statement than the question I meant for it to be… God, this angel is sending me on a roller coaster of emotions.
“Honestly? Yes.”
My heart flutters and halts at the same time, and he looks at me as if he can hear the damn thing in my chest.
“It’s easier than you’d think for us to become detached.
” His voice becomes pensive, almost to the point of being hollow, or lonely.
“Our entire culture is built on us being higher beings, which inadvertently devalues human life. Not only must we keep our nature a secret from you, but your lives are so painfully short in comparison to our long, immortal existence. Forbidden or not, I gave up on having a meaningful relationship with any human long ago.”
“But…” I struggle to find the right words. “I thought you spent a lot of time on Earth. What have you been doing all your life, then?”
He shakes his head. “I have spent a lot of time on Earth. So much time, I’ve forgotten all the aliases, faces, and personalities I’ve used.
That is simply my fate as a Messenger. I am to be a drifter until the day the Earth burns, or until I am called home to Heaven.
” He pauses, smiling sadly, as he gently tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Now, imagine my surprise when I’m sent to deliver a message to someone, right before the world lights on fire, just to find she’s as unique as I am. ”
Empathy, the bane of my existence, rears her ugly head again. Dusk has just made it abundantly clear that I have no idea who he truly is, but I still feel a sting from behind my eyes. My traitorous heart bleeds for him, a total stranger.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he continues, “but I was selfish. I put my own feelings before you. I just want you to be safe and strong enough to handle this calling. I want to help you, and I know that if we continue down this path, it will only complicate everything.”
I try to swallow my pride and accept his reasons. He’s being logical, after all. There’s nothing good that would come from us pursuing something that is doomed to failure.
But why do his words still hurt me?
Maybe it’s just the sting of disappointment. The embarrassing, foolish, unworthy feeling of being rejected. I trusted him with something special, after all, just for him to hand it right back to me.
Or maybe it’s the crushing realization of every challenge I’m about to face, knowing I’ll have to endure it all alone, an emotional cap placed on my relationship with my one companion here—
“I’m really sorry, Kae.” He brushes his thumb over my cheek, wiping away the one shameful tear that escaped. “I was selfish and thoughtless. I should have done better.”
I’m torn. He seems sincere, as if he’s genuinely disappointed in himself. I want to forgive him, if only to alleviate the pain on his face, but I’m also beyond frustrated with him. It’s going to take me a little time to get over this.
I release a breath, averting my eyes. “Even angels can make mistakes, I suppose.”
“We do. We make a lot of mistakes.”
“And I really wanted to, you know, cross that line, obviously. That was my decision, and I made that choice willingly.” I narrow my eyes and look directly at him, making sure he gets my point.
“But if this is what you think is necessary, then who am I to say otherwise? I don’t know what kind of rules your people have.
I’d like to, someday soon, if you’ll indulge me.
I’d like to understand you. And your people, whoever they are.
..” I’m definitely rambling. “But uh, I just… I need to know where this leaves us.”
He grins, leaning up on his elbow. “Awkwardly lying together in a very uncomfortable bed, apparently.”
“You know what I mean.” I roll my eyes, ignoring his poor attempt at humor. “What are we? Can we still be friends? Platonically?”
“Promise you won’t fall in love with me?” His tone is joking, and he still looks light-hearted, but I get the feeling he means it.
I struggle to swallow the lump in my throat, deciding to answer honestly in the easiest way I can. “I can’t promise shit, but I’ll certainly try not to. Though if you’re not going to cuddle me now to avoid catching feelings, can you at least get us dinner? I’m starving.”