Chapter Twenty six
Eve
I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the exhaustion of the last day caught up to me. I woke around dawn, warm and safe in my love’s arms. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I glanced over.
Gabriel lay on his side next to me, arms and legs wrapped around my body. His eyes were shut, his long, black lashes resting against those high, sharp cheekbones. Breath gently blew across my face.
Carefully, I took stock of my body. I tightened and released muscle groups, starting with my toes and working up.
Most of my body was sore, and I winced as I tensed my abdomen.
Even though I was healing at an impressive rate, I wasn’t back to normal yet.
I couldn’t complain, though. Gabriel was convinced yesterday that I had been dying.
I didn’t remember anything besides overwhelming pain, so I had to believe him.
I tenderly brought my hand to my side, the worst of my injuries. Wincing, I traced the beginnings of a scar across my new skin.
The movement woke Gabriel, for he stirred, then smiled drowsily at me. His wings shifted. One was pinned halfway between his body and the mattress, and he’d used the crest of his wing as a pillow. The other now slid up and around us, covering us like another blanket, exactly as I loved.
I’d never grow tired of his wings. Ever. I lifted up a hand and trailed my fingers down the inside of his secondaries. The purest white I’d ever see.
His wing shivered in response, and I smiled at my effect on him. It still seemed impossible to believe that I, a common human, could have captured this seraph’s heart and body.
Gabriel nuzzled my neck. “How are you feeling this morning, my mate?”
The word sent a spark through my body that made my belly flip and my toes curl. His mate. How could I be so lucky?
“I feel well enough for this.” I bit his jaw.
His deep groan rumbled through both of us. “Eve.”
I pushed up and rolled on top of him. He obliged, falling onto his back and letting his wings spread wide. His span took up the rest of the bed, and some of his primaries even hung off the edge.
I leaned down and kissed him ferociously, capturing his lips in a frenzy of desire and lust and life and love. My bare breasts pressed against the heat of his chest, and my nipples tightened.
“Eve,” he groaned again, wrapping his arms around me. But just as he made contact with my naked back, he paused. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Only his fingertips touched my flesh, burning points of connection that made my skin yearn for more.
“You’re not hurting me,” I murmured into his mouth. To prove my point, I rubbed my pelvis against his as I bit his upper lip.
His cock responded immediately, going from interested to rock hard in a heartbeat. I gasped at the hot length of him, and he rolled his hips.
“Yes,” I hissed, closing my eyes to better relish the way it made my own body respond.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, but my tongue entered his mouth and stopped further speech.
I let my body speak for me, running my hands up and down his pectorals, his abdomen, flicking his flat nipples, then spreading outward to stroke his tertial feathers close to his skin.
His whole body shuddered, and I grinned. I’d never grow tired of that, either.
As our mouths mated, our tongues taking turns thrusting into one another and twisting our desire for one another higher and higher, his hands strayed from my back to grip my ass. He grabbed both handfuls and kneaded the flesh.
Heat built in my body, a growing fire that needed soothing. “More,” I moaned, nipping his lip and then trailing kisses up and down his jaw. I licked his ear, and he huffed a laugh. His hands gripped my bottom tighter.
I let my legs fall to either side of his narrow hips, and I rubbed my naked body against his trousers. The seam of his clothing bit into my sensitive flesh. “Get these off,” I told him. “Now.”
“As my mate commands.” He released his hold on me to push himself upright. He moved carefully to avoid pulling on his feathers, but then quickly opened his trousers. I helped him, grabbing the waistband and yanking them down his hips.
His cock emerged, fully erect and already weeping with desire.
I licked my lips at the sight, ready to devour him whole.
Gabriel grunted, half in pain, half in amusement. “If you look at me like that, I’ll spend right here. Behave, or this will be over before it’s begun, my love.”
I gave a mock pout, scooting backward to wriggle his trousers all the way off. After tossing them behind me, I grinned at Gabriel and prowled up his legs, pausing to bite his skin here and there as I went.
“Get up here.” His tone was guttural, like a man barely holding on. He reached for me, and I came nearer, sitting on his erection.
“Skies, you’re wet already.” His jaw clenched. “You must be soaking if I can already feel it.”
Just to see his reaction, I rubbed myself against his shaft. The sensation shot through me like wildfire, and I barely held back a whimper as I stroked myself with his penis. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his wings quivered.
I did it again, and then again, enjoying the tease.
His eyes snapped open. They were as green and hard as jade. “Enough,” he growled with a fierce glare.
Before I could react, he grabbed my hips and lifted me several inches in the air. I gasped, grabbing his forearms to hang on.
“Put me in you,” he demanded.
Lust scalded my body from head to toe at those words, and I could only obey. I reached down and gripped his cock. Pearly liquid dripped from the slit in his crown, already leaving a pattern of his arousal against his hard stomach.
I notched him at my entrance, then let my hand fall to his abdomen.
I gasped, the feeling so sharp it was nearly painful, as his cock entered my body in one, single thrust and hit far inside. I didn’t think he’d ever been this deep before.
“Go on,” he got out through clenched teeth. “Fuck yourself. Find your pleasure on my cock. I need to be soaked. I want to feel a puddle after you’re done.”
Arousal swooped through me, then fell into my stomach and my womb, making me throb with passion and driving me toward our release.
I did as he said, rising and falling on his cock.
He rolled his hips, finding an angle that made me see white each time I fell against him.
My head tilted backward, and I was lost in the pleasure of his body, the pleasure of our joining. Nothing could ever equal this.
Closer and closer we climbed. As I tired, still not fully recovered from my ordeal, Gabriel held my hips and lifted me up and down.
“That’s it,” he urged. “Take your pleasure. I want you to wring it out of us. Cover my balls in your need, my mate, let it soak into my skin as proof we belong together.”
I bit the inside of my cheek against the onslaught of pleasure. “I’m close,” I gasped.
He grunted in reply, and thrust faster and harder.
My breath came in little pants and moans, as I reached the climax and then tumbled over the edge. “Gabriel!” My vision went white, the pleasure radiating through every fiber and pore of my body. I went rigid as it tore through me like wildfire, unable to do anything but surrender to the climax.
“Eve,” he groaned, and his last thrust came jerky and deep. Hot, thick seed pumped deep inside my body. He shook beneath me, his own climax taking over his body.
It went on and on, until finally the feeling drifted away, leaving the aftershocks rippling across my bare skin. I slumped onto his chest, depleted.
He kissed my head, his arms sliding up my hips and waist to stroke my back. We lay together, still joined, still drenched in our lust for one another, for a long time.
My eyes drifted closed, and I’d never been happier before now.
“Eve, will you be my mate?” Gabriel whispered, breaking the silence.
I was too tired to look up. “I thought I already was,” I murmured against the beat of his heart. “The ayim healed me, remember?”
I felt him nod. “Yes, but…you accept our bond? You will live with me as my mate for the rest of our lives?”
I kissed his chest, right above his heart. “Yes, my love, yes. Did I not tell you yesterday?”
He made a noise deep in his throat, which reverberated in his chest and against my cheek. “Will you stay here in Mirkwold with me?”
Realizing this was a conversation that wouldn’t be delayed, I stretched my legs to lie flat on my stomach on top of him.
I folded my arms on his chest and propped my chin on my forearms so I could look down at his face.
“I love this manor,” I admitted. “I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s grown on me.
It needed some attention. I’ll love making this into our home. ”
A shy smile stretched across his face. I had a hard time believing this warrior who so ruthlessly rescued me and killed for me and flew through a thunderstorm for me was suddenly shy.
“I want to make this into a refuge for my seraphim,” he said.
Nodding, I thought of the gallery he was transforming.
“I want to build that with you.”
My smile grew so wide it stretched my cheeks. “We will stay here, in our home,” I agreed. “Though I don’t know if you can keep your place here a secret for much longer. Word will spread.”
He hummed in thought. “I suppose I should go to the village, show them they do not have to fear me.”
“That’s probably for the best.” I thought of the barmaid and the way the other villagers would grudgingly say positive things about Castiel, but never Gabriel.
“I understand why you want to stay away from humans, though. As powerful as you are, I see how humans can overwhelm you.” I’d hire some villagers and get the rest of this manor into shape.
My thoughts soured as I remembered Zorababel. “We should probably retrieve the bodies and return them to their families.” Absalom was married to Silence, and she deserved to know what happened to her husband.
I hoped I could speak with her soon. I missed her.
“Where is your sword?” I asked. “Surely I didn’t imagine that sight.”
He smiled. “You saw that?”
I shivered dramatically. “I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. I was awestruck.”
“I left it on the cliff. You were more important, my starlight.” He rubbed soothing circles into my back.
I sighed happily. “And we will live for hundreds of years together. Happily ever after.”
His huff of amusement blew my hair. “I certainly hope so. I can easily imagine a happily ever after, as you call it, here in your world if you’re with me.”
Melting, I stretched forward and kissed his lips. “Starlight?”
He tenderly stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Because you are precious and beautiful.”
Slowly I reached for my necklace and withdrew it from my neck.
Gabriel’s eyes widened as he watched.
Heart full and eyes stinging with happy tears, I set the necklace down. The key clunked against his wooden nightstand. “I don’t think I need this anymore.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Eve,” he rasped, “I know that’s impo—”
I smiled. “It served its purpose. I promised myself when I found a place I could call my home, safe from the cult, I would take it off. And I would instead focus on making my home a place of hope and love and joy.”
He stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers, the look on his face more eloquent than words.
“We’ll build a refuge here, together,” I promised. It was early January, the beginning of a new year, and a perfect time for new beginnings.
His answering smile was as bright as one of the stars he loved so much, and I knew we would be happy together.