Chapter Twenty
Eve
I slipped inside the heavy front door, immediately kicking my dirty shoes off.
I sniffed, the cold air making my nose runny and my eyes weepy.
Or maybe it was my exhausted heart. Putting my shoes in a dark corner, I turned to tiptoe through the Great Hall.
I didn’t know if Castiel and Azrael were still with Gabriel, but it was nearly supper.
I turned toward the kitchen to prepare something.
A whir of wings startled me. I put a hand to my chest and looked up to see Gabriel dropping from the gallery above.
He descended, the personification of male grace, and his gaze locked on me.
His white wings seemed to glow in the shadowed room.
I resisted the urge to reach up to stroke his feathers.
He landed silently in front of me, a fierce expression on his face.
I shivered. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” But his brows were furrowed, his jaw tight. Passion flashed in his eyes.
At first I thought he might be angry with me, but his wings fell slack behind him, uncharacteristically, and he reached both hands out to me, palms up.
His bare chest rippled with the movement, muscles at play under his skin.
“You’re home.” The words were nearly a growl, and I finally understood. He wasn’t angry, he was hungry. For me.
I’m leaving you. I opened my mouth to say something, I don’t know what. I didn’t want to tell him, to mar this last night we had together.
“Eve.” It was a plea, a prayer, a gasp of hope.
“Gabriel.” My emotions hit me like a wall. I needed him. I wanted him. I had to leave, not for my safety, but also because I didn’t want any part in what Zorababel planned with him. But my body yearned for Gabriel, ached to be sheltered in his wings.
He stepped forward, as if reading my mind, and wrapped me in a tight embrace. His arms went around my body, his wings slid around both of us, creating a canopy of the purest white. “I missed you.” He kissed my ear, my temple, my hair.
“I needed something from the shop.” The lie tasted sour in my mouth. I changed the subject. “You feel wonderful.”
“I need you.” His words echoed in my bones. “I need you, Eve.” His hands slid around my body, one gripping my hip and the other cupping my breast.
I moaned, arching into his touch. “Yes, I need you, too,” I whimpered. “Now.”
His grip on me tightened, and then his wings spread and beat downward.
I gasped as our feet left the floor and clutched him tighter. I could hear his heartbeat as it beat in time with my own. Softer, underneath the heartbeat, was a softer whooshing sound in pulsing beats. The ayim, I guessed. What did that mean?
He shifted me in his powerful, bare arms, cradling me with one behind my back and one arm under my knees, then captured my mouth in a fierce, nearly punishing kiss.
I closed my eyes and allowed the kiss to overtake me.
Our tongues clashed, our teeth nipped one another’s lips.
His tongue delved deep into my mouth, and I felt his guttural groan as I bit his lower lip.
It was deep, hard, and demanding. We pushed ourselves to the brink, commanding one another’s attention and presence.
Reminding us of exactly who we were and what we expected from each another.
I barely noticed when we landed back in the gallery. Wings disappeared from the corner of my eyes. I shut them again, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pressed every part of me against every hard plane of him.
He stalked down the hall toward his chambers. He kicked the door open, never loosening his grip on me. My blood heated and anticipation made my skin tingle and my mouth dry.
Gabriel effortlessly dropped me on the bed, making me instantly wet. I felt so empty. I needed his cock immediately. I reached for him. “Hurry.”
He smirked, seeing me splayed out across his bed, the pins fallen from my hair, my face flushed from our kisses. “Undress.”
It was a command I hurried to obey. I sat up and began unbuttoning my clothing, stripping as fast as I could. I could feel his eyes on me, smoldering. My skin burned under his gaze.
When I tossed my clothing over the side of the bed and glanced back at him, he was also naked.
His wings were pressed tight against his back, high enough no feathers trailed on the ground.
His cock jutted from the sparse, dark wisps of hair at his groin.
The crown was swollen and red, and already it wept with desire.
His hands were braced on his hips, which made the rest of his body look strong and delectable.
I licked my lips, eager to get my hands and my mouth on him.
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his eyes gleamed with lust.
Just to see how he’d respond, I lazily dragged my fingers up my stomach and cupped one breast, spreading my legs enough for him to get a peek, then closed them again.
He growled. “Eve, you’re killing me.”
I smiled. “Then get over here.”
Heat flared and he started toward me. Then he paused, halfway on the bed. “Eve, I learned something today.” His voice sounded serious.
I blinked at the sudden change in tone. “What?”
He rubbed his chest as he knelt at the end of the bed. His wings loosened. “I…I need to tell you something.”
I didn’t want to hear it. Whatever he wanted to say would be moot by tomorrow afternoon anyway. If it was bad news, I didn’t want to hear it. If it was something sweet and good, I definitely didn’t want to hear it. I was having a hard time leaving as it was.
I had to relish this one last time together. I would take this moment and crystallize it in my mind, holding it close so I could always bring it out to comfort me during hard times ahead. I’d never forget Gabriel, and I never wanted to. But that was for tomorrow, and tonight was still tonight.
So I nudged him with my foot. “Tell me later,” I murmured seductively. I trailed my foot along the inside of his thigh to graze the head of his penis. His sac tightened at my brief touch.
“Skies,” he rasped. “Fuck, Eve.” And then he was on me, his hot, hard body covering mine. I reached up over his shoulders and flicked my fingernails against the edge where his wings met his skin, and he shuddered above me.
“Again,” he pleaded, his voice sounding like ground gravel.
I arched my neck, and he bit the skin at my pulse.
Pleasure sparked through my body as the wet heat of his tongue sent my arousal to greater heights.
In response, I moved my arms under his, so I could reach the underside of his wings.
The softest wisps of feather greeted me, and I drifted my hands across them in a soft caress—who was caressing who, I didn’t know.
His hands stroked my skin, warming all the places the cool air had chilled, and it brought me to life. I kissed his forehead, his temple, his ear—anything I could reach as he marked a path down my neck, nipping and licking and sucking. I hoped he didn’t stop there.
As if he read my mind, Gabriel brought his mouth lower. He traced my collarbone with his tongue, then dipped toward my breasts. Between his large hands and his magnificent mouth, I was in heaven. His cock nudged the inside of my thigh as he adjusted his weight over me.
I ran my foot up one of his calves, enjoying the feel of his skin against mine.
“Need you. Need you fast, hard,” he gasped, pulling up and away from me.
I moaned in protest, trying to grab his shoulders to drag him back down, but he wouldn’t be deterred.
“Let me look at this sweet cunny.”
His dirty words made my core pulse and throb, and in a haze of glorious desire, I spread my legs to give him what he wanted.
“Look at these lips, so flushed and full. For me?” He glanced up at my face as two fingers trailed down my slit. He pulled them away and stretched the fingers apart, eyeing my wetness spread like spun silk between them with ravenous hunger.
“Now you’re teasing,” I got out between gasps. My nipples, hard and aching, pierced the air, trying to regain his attention.
But he peered down at the apex of my thighs as his eyes gleamed and a predatory smile curved across his face.
“I look at you, and my balls hurt, Eve,” he told me, eyes never leaving the sight of my sheath.
“They’re full all the time. They hurt whenever you’re around because my body knows what it wants, and it wants you.
I’m always ready for you, always aching and hard for you. ”
Passion itched under my skin, begging for space to flourish. I ground my teeth as he touched me again with those two fingers. Thankfully, this time he slid inside.
“Just sucked me right in,” he marveled, and twisted his hand to rub the sensitive places inside me. “You want me that badly, starlight? Need me this much?”
I nodded, moaning. “Please, Gabriel, please.”
With two fingers still inside me, he brought his other hand to my clit and began to stroke. I gasped and nearly flew off the bed.
He smiled at me, all smug male. “Good?”
“More than good and you know it,” I said through gritted teeth. “I want to come on your cock. Get over here.”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I want to see this cunny drench my fingers when you find completion.” Then he did wicked, magical things with his fingers.
At one point I reached down and grabbed his wrist with my hand, shaking with the need to climax.
“Please,” I begged. I didn’t know if I was begging him to continue or to grant me mercy.
Then, unexpectedly, my climax shot through me.
Radiant delight shot out of the pores of my skin, leaving me dazed and sparkling.
I felt as if the sun had exploded inside me.
I gasped for breath, trying to draw my legs close now I was so sensitive.
Instead of letting me, Gabriel fit himself down between my thighs in one fluid movement, notched his cock at the entrance to my body, and shoved in.
My eyes flew open at the sudden sensation. My lungs emptied of air and I couldn’t breathe for a heartbeat.
He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his hot breath turning me weak with want and need. “Eve, oh Eve.” His words turned to gibberish, then to a different language.
I pushed my hips up to meet him, thrust for thrust, my arousal returning as his composure crumbled under his desire for me.
Faster and faster he pumped, driving us to heights of passion I hadn’t experienced before.
My second orgasm swept over me, and my whole body convulsed. I tightened my core around his shaft.
Gabriel moaned into my neck and his wings stood straight on end, nearly brushing the ceiling.
He froze, then slumped against me. “Eve.” He peppered me with kisses, from my collarbone up to my forehead: on my eyelids, my ears, the bridge of my nose, the divot above my lips, and more.
“You’re perfect. I can’t believe I found you.
I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
I stroked his back, basking in the radiant delight and pleasure that made my whole body tingle and my toes slowly uncurl. “Gabriel,” I whispered. “I lo—” I cut my words off in time, my teeth clicking as I snapped my jaw shut. I love you.
Now I really ought to leave. Even if he did protect me from Zorababel’s wrath, I didn’t think I could bear pining away in the same house as the man—seraph—I loved. He wouldn’t choose to love me. Even if he was open to the idea, I’d age and die centuries before him.
If he knew I loved him, he’d probably pat me on the head and promise it would pass. He’d be extra gentle with me, which is as painful a rejection as I could possibly imagine.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered again. For a human. Gabriel rolled to his side and tucked me under one wing.
I closed my eyes as the soft feathers became my mattress, his arm my pillow, and drifted to sleep.