23 GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN
GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN
R AUM STARED AT THE ANGEL STARING BACK AT HIM. H E knew what she was waiting for.
He wanted to speak, but he couldn’t seem to make any words come out. He’d never been great at expressing himself, and now that he actually had something important to express, it was even more difficult.
It didn’t help that he was still reeling from everything that had happened back at his place. Bel and Mist had launched an insane angel-trap operation, and then Sunshine had convinced him to dissolve their contract after confessing she didn’t have the book.
Of course she didn’t have it.
If he’d actually thought about it for two damn seconds, he would have figured that out himself.
She’d never actually said she had it, only that she’d found it.
She hadn’t been able to meet his gaze whenever he asked her about it, and she’d quickly changed the subject every time.
He’d been happy to keep living in his delusional dream world and pushed the doubts aside.
But she’d confessed that she’d lied because of him. Because she wanted to stay and spend time with him. She’d claimed she wanted it more than she wanted the book.
He’d heard it straight from her lips, but he still had doubts. As self-deprecating as it sounded, he found it hard to believe he could mean that much to her. She’d said getting her promotion was her ultimate goal, and now she didn’t care … because of him ?
The pressure to speak suddenly became too much.
Normally, he would’ve jumped out the window and flown off by now, but he didn’t want to do that to Sunshine.
Instead, he turned away, heading toward the kitchen sink where he began awkwardly washing the blood off himself.
There wasn’t much; it was mostly to give his hands something to do.
But his turning away was evidently the end of Sunshine’s patience.
“I just told you all my secrets and you haven’t said a word,” she snapped. “It’s not fair that you pushed me into saying what I did only to suddenly turn mute. I don’t see why I should have to expose myself and share my feelings while you stay locked up and refuse to—”
“I care too,” he muttered, wincing at his ineloquence. The water was still running, so he shut it off.
She fell silent.
He stared into the sink as he admitted, “I care about keeping you safe more than I cared about getting out of the contract. That’s why I didn’t want to break it.”
Silence.
He forced himself to turn around. “I’m not good at feelings.” An understatement. It was taking all his self-control not to leap out the window. “I’ve never really had them. At least, not in the last few centuries. And before my lost memories, I was just … cold. I don’t like thinking about it.”
Sunshine held perfectly still, as if the slightest disturbance might spook him into silence again. He wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t.
“But …” He stared at his claws and then watched Luna sprawl on her side in a patch of sunlight with an epic doggie sigh of relaxation. He swallowed, feeling pretty much the opposite. “I feel things now. Since you came along. I—”
Fuck. Inwardly, he was panicking.
He glanced at Sunshine. Her eyes were soft. So damn inviting. He stared into their depths.
“You make me feel … warm,” he admitted, feeling stupid. “Safe, I guess. But also violent, but in a possessive way, like I’d kill everyone except for you.”
“Raum …”
“I trust you. Maybe it’s stupid to trust an angel, but I trust you as much as I trust my brothers. Maybe more. I don’t know if that even matters, but—”
“I trust you too,” she whispered. “And it does matter. Your feelings matter. You matter.”
Why did his throat feel tight? He rubbed the back of his neck. “I have this feeling like … Never mind. It’s stupid.”
“Nothing you say is stupid. You can tell me.”
He swallowed. “It just feels like … we were meant to meet, and maybe …”
“To be together,” she finished softly.
He stared at her. “Yeah.” He wanted so badly to share his suspicions that they’d known each other in the past, but she’d already told him she’d never met him before, and he didn’t want to dredge all that up right now anyway.
She nodded. “I feel the same way.”
His heart tried to soar but reality kept plucking its flight feathers. “Does it even make a difference? You’re an angel, I’m a demon. We were doomed before we even began.”
“I don’t think I care anymore,” she whispered, taking a step closer to him.
He took one too. He was still in his half-demon form, and he had to drop his head to meet her eyes while she craned her head back, but he didn’t think about shifting.
For once, he wanted to shed the human disguise he’d become so accustomed to wearing. He hadn’t lied—he trusted her. And part of that was wanting her to see him, the real him. Claws, scales, ugly past, crippled emotions, and all.
As if she read his thoughts, she lifted a palm and placed it on his chest. Her hand was so damn soft.
“I thought you had the book but stayed anyway,” he admitted. “I thought that meant you wanted—”
“I may have lied about having it, but I didn’t lie about my reasons for staying.”
He searched her gaze.
“The contract is broken, Raum. I have no book, no leverage, and no desire to use it even if I did. There’s nothing keeping me here anymore.” She ducked her head and glanced at him from beneath her lashes. “Nothing except you.”
“I should’ve asked why you stayed earlier, but I didn’t want to fucking jinx it. I couldn’t believe my luck.”
She smiled, fingernails curling against his scaled skin.
“Then I’ll tell you now. I stayed because I wanted to spend a hundred days waking up in bed like we did.
I wanted to do human stuff like buy vegetables from a market and look in thrift stores.
I wanted to walk Luna and your hellhound in the park where we met.
I wanted to hold your hand when other people were around and have them think we were a normal couple.
I wanted—” She swallowed. “I wanted to feel free. I just didn’t want to be alone anymore. ”
“Sunshine …”
A tear formed at the corner of her eye, but before it could escape, she dashed it away.
“We can do all that stuff,” he said. He’d give her any damn thing she wanted when she looked at him like that.
He stroked her cheek, trailing his claws and fingertips along her proud bone structure. Her skin was so soft, it made him feel like he was touching glass. He wanted to treat her like she was made of it.
He also wanted to grab her by the throat and throw her down on the bed. He wanted to own every inch of her. The dichotomy was infuriating. Intoxicating.
She swayed into him like she sensed his thoughts. Their bodies were so close they were flush from nearly head to toe, but it still wasn’t close enough.
“I know this should feel wrong,” she whispered, “but it doesn’t.”
He gave into his urge and wrapped his palm around her throat. In this form, his hand was so big, his fingers nearly touched on the other side. He wanted to push her, to test her to see if she would recoil from him. From who he was, what he was—especially when he looked like this.
She relaxed into his hold instead, surrendering control. His blood heated.
“It’s the kind of wrong that feels right.” His voice had deepened.
She murmured her assent, unable to nod.
“I want you,” he said. “More than I think I’ve wanted anything.”
“Me too.” Her other hand landed on his chest beside the first.
“I want to do things to you …”
She swallowed, and he felt it against his palm.
“Bad things. Things that should scare you.”
“What things?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t even let me touch you.” “What things?”
His eyes narrowed.
She met his stare unflinchingly.
All right, then. “I want to own you, Sunshine. I want you on your knees, begging for me. I want to fuck your throat until you choke. I want to take you in every possible way. I want to make you so fucking dirty, they’ll turn you away at the gates of Heaven. Baby, I want to ruin you.”
Her mouth opened but no words came out.
His brow arched. “You should’ve left when you had the chance.”
And then she shocked the hell out of him by rising to her toes and saying, “I want everything you just described.”
He froze.
With her on her tiptoes and him stooping, their faces were so close he had to look between her eyes, flicking from one to the other, taking in every detail of her face. Every eyelash. Every tiny freckle on her skin. The proud arch of her nose. The curve of her brow.
He bent and crushed their mouths together.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, her breath making a hoarse sound in her throat as she exhaled. She wanted him the same way he wanted her. He wouldn’t have believed it possible, but the proof was in her actions.
Releasing her throat, he fixed his hands around her waist, spreading his fingers and digging into that soft flesh.
She was all curves, but he was still a lot bigger than her, especially in this form, and he loved the way he could almost wrap his hands around her. Just another way for him to own her.
God, the urges in his head were fucked up. He wanted to crush her, break her down into nothing. But he wanted to do it in a way that would simultaneously build her up, in a way that she would beg him for. In a way that would change her irrevocably.
He was a goddamn demon, the epitome of all the darkest things in existence, yet he had the audacity to try to claim something so pure for himself. And not only that, but he wanted to sully it. He wanted to make her so dirty, she would learn to love the darkness right alongside him.
He knew how wrong that was. He knew that if he was better, he would let her go.
But he wasn’t better, and he didn’t want to be. So he was going to do exactly what he wanted to do to her.
He angled his head to dig deeper into the kiss, pulling back and diving in again, prying her lips apart with his own to lay siege to her mouth. She met him head on, more than up to the challenge.