Chapter 14
Fourteen
Lilith
Rapt, I buried my fingers in some of his long feathers. They were softer than silk, so thick and luxurious my eyes fluttered closed and I exhaled loudly.
Castiel made an odd noise in the back of his throat, though he didn’t move out my grasp.
It jerked me back to the present. I pulled my hand away, flushing again. “I’m sorry. I…I shouldn’t touch.” His words from earlier came back to me. Why do you let them touch you?
It did bother me, I was slowly realizing, and I didn’t want to do that to Castiel.
But Castiel unfolded that left wing, stretching it out in one glorious arc, and a few of the vanes caught in the candlelight. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of the sight. He maneuvered to the edge of the bed beside me, then turned until his wing draped across my lap.
I couldn’t breathe. It felt so unbearably intimate, but I couldn’t pull back. I didn’t want to.
“If you wish, you can comb them straight again,” he murmured, voice husky. Those words in that deep, gravelly tone made my core throb with need, and I clenched my thighs together. His wings shifted under the movement, and I stared in fascination.
“Are you sure?” My voice was a whisper.
“Please,” he ground out.
Hesitantly, I lay my hands near the bottom of his wing, where the primary feathers were largest and longest. His wing trembled beneath my palms. Castiel’s back was rigid, and he faced squarely away from me so I couldn’t see his expression.
But somehow, through the growing thickness in the air, I knew he wanted this, perhaps yearned for this even more than I did.
I ran my fingers through the primaries, combing and straightening and smoothing each feather. My heart finally slowed to a relaxed, contented pace as I worked up his wing, growing more confident the longer he let me touch him.
At one point his neck dropped forward and he sighed, the sound of utter contentment filling the air—and making my insides squirm.
He was so different from any other man I knew, and not merely because of his wings.
He laughed, he teased, he watched, he spoke honestly.
Castiel was not some remote, emotionally distant man who wielded his power without care.
He was warm and sweet, protective and gentle.
His laugh made me laugh—something I’d never imagined doing with a man.
I was in danger. I’d never truly fallen for a man before, and of course it would be my luck to become smitten with the one I couldn’t have. Castiel would want one of his own kind—who wouldn’t? He was trying to get home, and wouldn’t want the weight of a human interfering with his plans.
My hands inched close and closer to the beginning of his wings.
The skin underneath the layers of feathers was smooth and fine.
I could feel powerful tendons rippling with muscles beneath, impossibly thin yet strong enough to cut through windstorms. I didn’t want it to be over.
Touching him was the best part of the day—of the year.
My own muscles relaxed as I stroked his feathers.
Eventually, though, I couldn’t put it off.
One hand clasped the curved crest of the wing, feeling the silky feathers grow tighter together, smaller, and slicker.
Castiel let out a faint moan.
My breath stuttered. I’d never been so close to another person before. I’d avoided it, even when I’d allowed myself to be kissed by boys. It was…beautiful. It was frightening, yes, but beautiful and comforting, too.
Our breathing filled the room. Was he as affected as me?
Castiel shifted, and I drew back so he could easily pull his wing off my lap and fold it back where it belonged.
A sense of loss gripped me as the wing left my lap, and my legs turned cold without his comforting weight. It was foolish, really. It’s just a wing. It’s just one time. I shouldn’t be so troubled.
He turned to finally look me in the eyes. “Thank you,” he said simply.
“You’re welcome,” I stuttered. “It was my pleasure.”
Castiel smiled. It wasn’t his carefree teasing smirk, but something gentle. “Would you be willing to do my other wing?”
My heart leapt. I schooled my face to remain impassive. “If that’s what you wish.”
I must not have done a good job, because his eyes brightened and his smile turned sharp, as if he was holding back a chuckle. Before I could retract my offer, he turned on the bed and unfolded his right wing, draping it again across my lap.
As my fingers sank into the primary feathers at the bottom, he said casually, “In Aerie this is something very intimate, something we only do with people we trust.”
My hands stilled. My heart beat faster. I didn’t know how to reply.
“My mother did this for me when I was a child, when my wings were still downy and soft.” His voice ached with something. Longing, maybe? “Lovers do this for one another, too.”
The silence between us grew thick. I swallowed, trying to think of how to respond to that. I forced my fingers to keep moving.
“Does it trouble you I’m doing it then, if this is only something you share with people you’re close to?”
His gaze swung to meet mine, and gone was the lazy, drowsy posture of his body. His eyes burned with desire and unstated passion, pupils blown wide. His hand reached out and cupped my cheek, his thumb sweetly caressing my skin. “Lilith, you are someone I would share this with.”
My eyes widened. “Oh.” I tried again. “Oh.”
Words failed me. My fingers dove into his wing, higher up, and he shivered. His hold on my jaw tightened, and his eyes flared even hotter.
“Did that…did that hurt?” My voice was ragged, a thin, fraying string leading somewhere I didn’t know.
A muscle feathered in his jaw. “No.” His voice was even rougher than mine. “The closer you get to where my wings meet my back, the more sensitive it is.”
I nodded, pretending a calm I certainly did not feel. “Sensitive in an, uh, arousing way?”
He just looked at me.
“Ah.” The way he admitted his lust shocked me. But then, he was well over a hundred years old. I was the naive, sheltered one. His plain speaking—or perhaps plain gestures—made me want to be brave and honest, too.
I straightened, watching him closely, and ran two fingers up his wing, then around to the underside, and grew closer to where his shoulder blade should be.
His breath stuttered, and the heat in his gaze turned molten. When my fingers reached the seam of where his wings met his back, his eyes closed and his body went rigid.
“Lilith,” he gasped, and he was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Harsh control, lush lips, lavish wings, and desperate desire trying to break free. “Stars, Lilith, you’re—you need to be careful.”
I smiled as my fingers swept up and down the crevice.
Castiel’s eyes snapped open and he tucked his wing away so fast it knocked my hand away. He smiled, something altogether different than I’d seen before now. It was slow, curved, and wicked. “Oh, Lilith,” he murmured in a seductive voice. “That was a bad idea.”
I tossed my hair back, pretending bravado. “Why’s that?
Castiel
I stared at this tiny human, full of curves and sharp angles somehow together, this amazing woman who challenged me and pushed back, going toe to toe with me whenever she damn well pleased.
Who was clearly wounded even though she tried to hide it behind the walls of her heart, who yearned for connection and safety although she couldn’t admit it.
Who was a survivor, a warrior in her own way.
I surged forward, kissing her. She gasped in surprise, and I took that moment to slip my tongue inside her mouth. This was not a gentle kiss, as before. This was desperate, greedy, passionate, and wild. I couldn’t go another minute without her mouth against mine.
Those moments with her hands on my wings were pure torture, and I could take it no longer.
I had spent the last half hour with a cockstand so hard I could hammer nails, gripping my knees with whitened knuckles so I didn’t grab her before she was done.
When her arousal bloomed around us, I’d gnashed my teeth against the instinct to touch her.
I needed this woman more than I needed air, more than wind, more than a fucking way back to Aerie.
She was my godsdamned mate, and I accepted that. I still didn’t know how to tell her, but I knew I couldn’t lie to myself. The way my hands fisted her hair and her fingernails dug into my shoulders as she moaned my name into my mouth told me so.
“Lily, Lily,” I gasped, my heart pounding louder than thunder. “Skies and stars, Lily, how I need you. You can’t imagine all the images running through my head right now—all the different ways I’d have you. The secret places I’d touch you.”
She panted as I dragged my lips across her cheeks, along her jaw, down her neck. I nipped at the pulse there, then drew my tongue across her collar bone.
“Yes,” Lilith cried, her head thrown back to grant me better access. “Castiel, oh, Castiel—!”
One of my hands left her hair, brushing a path down her chest to cup one of those perfect breasts. I squeezed gently, wishing I could rip her dress off her. I tugged at her neckline, planting a kiss above the beginning cleavage. “Lilith, you are beautiful. I’ve never known such beauty before.”
She froze in my grasp, turning to ice.
I stroked her hair, kissed her pulse again.
Lilith pushed my hands away, jerking backward so fast she nearly toppled off the bed.
I grabbed her wrist, halting her tumble in time. “Lilith, what’s wrong?”
Her eyes were wide, but not with desire. “What did you say?” Although her pulse still pounded, her body was hard. She crossed her arms, eyeing me suspiciously.
“You are beautiful,” I repeated, my brows furrowed.
Her eyes shuttered, blocking off the glimpse of panic hidden behind them. And I knew I’d said the worst thing.
“I think I should go home.” She turned and made to get off the bed.
“Wait!” I grasped her wrist again, gentle, with my fingers uncurled to show I wouldn’t keep her against her will. “Cirra, please. Why can I not call you beautiful?”
She paused, watching me. I felt like I was being weighed on a scale, but I wasn’t sure what I was being weighed against. I held my breath.
“Please, Lily.” I released her hand, letting it drop into her lap. “I only want to bring you pleasure and joy.” Open to me.
She took a deep breath and gave a tiny, sharp nod. She didn’t trust this vulnerability, but she was prepared to give it a try.
Pride welled up in my chest. My brave, brave Lily. I would not let her down, not when it caused her such trepidation to speak her mind.
“I am so tired of people commenting on my body, as if it is available for public consumption! I did not ask to be beautiful. I do not want to be beautiful.” Her lower lip trembled as her voice broke. She paused, fighting for composure.
I waited, knowing I had to give her the space she needed to speak this through.
Lilith took a breath and tried again. “You said I let people touch me too often.”
I nodded, suddenly regretting how impatient I’d been with her. I hadn’t known what she’d lived with, who she’d lived among. I hadn’t realized she didn’t know that wasn’t normal—at least, wasn’t normal compared to my experiences. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
She brushed my words aside, focused on putting words to her feelings. “I don’t want you to want me because I’m beautiful.” Her eyes lifted to mine, and the stark need in them ravaged me. “I want you to want me because you like me. All of me.”
My heart wrenched, the ayim pulsing through my body at the realization my mate was in distress. I hated this. My hands tightened to fists, and I fought to release them so she didn’t get the wrong impression.
“Cirra,” I said, voice rough with pain and desire—desire for her to be seen and loved. “I do see you. I do like you for who you are, not what you look like.”
She held her breath, watching me warily, as if afraid to trust the words coming from my mouth.
“You are beautiful to me, Lilith. In every way. I do not look at you and wish to possess your beauty, to bottle it up and make it mine alone. No, my cirra, your beauty possesses me. Enthralls me. Your heart, your spirit, your strength—the beauty of your soul has enraptured me, and I never wish to be free from you.”
Tears filled her eyes. She angrily wiped them away, glaring at me.
But I smiled, because I knew what that glare meant. Those tears were evidence of her heart thawing. I reached over, cupping her chin with both hands, and wiped away her tears with my thumbs.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Lilith asked, blinking to stem the flow.
“It doesn’t matter,” I murmured. “Right now what matters is you, Lily.”
She gave me a watery smile. “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”
Again, my heart lurched in my chest painfully. “You didn’t,” I assured her.
She scoffed. “We were kissing and now we’re not.”
I ignored the burn against my fingers, pretending I didn’t feel like my skin was being eaten away by acid. “When you’re ready we can try again.”
“I’ve never done that much,” she said, a mixture of hope and shyness crossing her face. “Is it always so wonderful?”
No. Only with mates, I almost told her. But this wasn’t the time. Tomorrow, perhaps. After I’d found the manuscript.
I brushed my lips across her forehead. Her eyelashes fluttered against my cheeks, and she took a deep, steadying breath. Then she tucked her head under my chin and snuggled closer. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, hoping it would comfort her. We stayed that way for several moments.
I wanted, more than anything, for her to be happy with her body. Eventually, I hesitantly offered, “I would like to show you how to find your own pleasure, your own beauty.”
She pulled away to look at my face, her eyes brightening. “What do you mean?”
“Let me show you how you can use your body to feel good, to find satisfaction. Use your body so you can experience beauty rather than something a man takes from you.”
“Ah. Um, yes, we can try.” She shifted on my bed, eyes darting away from my face as if she was nervous.
I gently leaned in and pressed another kiss to her forehead. “Nothing to be worried about. I won’t even touch you at all if you don’t want it.”
“I like your hands,” she admitted.
I bent my head further and nuzzled her throat. “Alright. We’ll do it together,” I purred, and smiled into her neck as I heard her heartbeat speed up in response.
I ran my lips up and down her neck and across her mouth until she relaxed and I could smell her arousal fill the air around us again.
“Now,” I whispered, running a hand down her arm and wrapping it around her own hand. I picked up her hand and placed it over her breast. “Touch yourself.”