Chapter Three #3
“Not a body-shot kind of girl?” I pull the cigarette from my mouth and exhale the smoke to the side, trying to imagine this serious woman splayed out on the bar top, her little sweater with the buttons tucked to her chin.
Her long limbs splayed loose. My mouth, working a wet line from her belly button to her hip.
Pinning her delicate wrists above her head and—
“No,” she interrupts with a laugh. “I am not a body-shot kind of girl.”
My daydream pops like a soap bubble. I inhale against the cigarette until my lungs burn. Exhale, and try to get my bearings.
“That’s a shame,” I say, keeping my voice light.
She rolls her eyes, then nods at my Marlboro. “Got any more of those?”
“Thought you said they kill you.”
Her smile is all mischief. “We all have to die of something, don’t we?”
I laugh. “Sorry, sweetheart. This is my last one.”
“I don’t mind sharing.”
Awareness lights me up better than the nicotine. My head swims. “Yeah. Neither do I.”
I hold the cigarette out for her to take, but she surprises me.
She curls her fingers around my wrist and guides my hand to her mouth until my palm is glancing along the curve of her jaw and her bottom lip is just barely brushing against the edge of my thumb.
Her eyes grow heavy, and I watch, spellbound, as she takes a long drag from the remains of my cigarette.
Her cheeks hollow slightly, her nails dig into the delicate skin of my wrist, and I’m—I’m done with whatever game this is we’re playing.
I pull the cigarette from her mouth and crash mine against it instead, scooping her closer with one hand while the other tosses the cigarette to the side.
I kiss her the way I’ve wanted to all night.
Hard. Biting. Devouring. I let myself be selfish, and that voice in the back of my head that’s always advising me to be patient, be kind, be noble and good—it’s deliciously silent.
She had her hooks in me from the second she walked in the door, and I can’t explain it. I don’t particularly want to.
I let myself give in to something I rarely allow. I let myself take something purely for the thrill of taking. Just this once.
It’s a messy kiss. Partly because I’m too impatient to slow down enough to do it properly, and partly because she’s too demanding to meet me somewhere in the middle.
She knows what she wants from me, and I’m desperate to give it to her.
Her nails scratch up the back of my neck before fisting roughly in my hair, angling my head to the side.
I smile against her mouth, then band my arm around her lower back, hitching her closer.
She follows beautifully; a gorgeous, low moan caught in the back of her throat.
“That’s right,” I whisper against the corner of her mouth. “Just like that.”
I trace my palm up the column of her spine until I can get a good grip on the back of her neck, walking her backward until she’s pressed firmly between the brick wall and my body, my bones practically vibrating.
“Stop talking,” she demands, and I laugh into our next kiss.
“Got it.”
She tastes like cigarettes and orange peels. Something darker. Awareness hovers just out of reach as I sink further into her, a dark cloud of desire curling around my middle. She feels so good. Tastes even better. I groan out a rough sound and reach under her knee, hitching her thigh at my hip.
“So fucking pretty,” I mumble into her bottom lip. I press into her and she sighs out my name, the whisper echoing in my ear.
I hear it like an echo. A siren’s song. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Billowing black smoke over my eyes and burning ash on my tongue.
Gabriel, she breathes, and the shadows echo the sound.
Gabriel, they say. Gabriel.
I wrench myself away with a gasp, breathing heavily. I know that feeling. That muted press, like the slide of a dull blade over the back of my neck. It’s not urgency or the pound of desire.
It’s magic.
I grip her jaw and tilt her face to the light as the shadows in the alley shift and roll between us. Her mouth is kiss-bitten and red, her lips parted around each heaving breath. It’s almost enough to have me tipping back into her, but … no. There.
Darcy stares back at me with wide, startled eyes. Black expands beyond her pupils, reaching out like tendrils of smoke.
She swallows heavily, and the shadows abruptly stop dancing. Her eyes go back to normal.
But I’ve seen it. And I know what death magic feels like as surely as I know my own.
I put space between us, shoving both hands in my hair. My own magic unfurls in response to the threat. Power explodes from the middle of my back, a cascade of sparks that illuminate the narrow alley as the gossamer threads of my wings expand.
She makes a soft sound of surprise.
It’s a fine act, but I know her kind. We’ve been trading blows since time immemorial. Everything I’ve ever lost has been at the hands of someone like her.
“You’re a Reaper,” I manage through clenched teeth.
She drops her head against the brick wall and closes her eyes.
“And you’re a Guardian,” she sighs.