A Touch of Crimson

“The stain appeared when I severed the wings from Syre. I was the first to spill the blood of an angel.”

“The first ever?”

“Yes.”

Lindsay touched the nape of his neck, then slid her fingertips between his wings down the length of his spine. His back arched with a serrated groan, his body trembling.

“Is this-?” She cleared her throat. “Is this erotic to you?”

Reaching behind him, Adrian caught her right hand. He pulled it beneath his wings and around to his front. She was forced to step closer, her breath near enough to sink through the down to his skin beneath. He wrapped her fingers around the rigid length of his cock.

She made a soft sound, one he recognized as a cry of vulnerability. Ruthless, he pressed his advantage, stripping the pants from his body with a terse thought and pressing her palm against his bare flesh.

There was a moment of breathless stillness. He waited for her to jerk away or take over.

Her voice, when it came, was quiet. “You did that with the shotgun, too, didn’t you? You took it from the vampire and sent it to me. You did it with the straw in the airport. You can move things, just by wanting to.”

“Yes.”

Her hand closed around him.

His arms fell to his sides, his fists clenching. The clean scent of her body and the rich undertone of her arousal permeated his senses. Lindsay was intoxicating-certain to be addicting.

“You’re burning hot,” she whispered.

“You make me that way.” His blood had gone cold the moment he’d learned of Phineas’s death. It had turned to ice when Lindsay had collapsed to the ground with blood splattered all over her. It wasn’t until now, under the heat of her touch, that he finally felt… human again.

She fisted him at the root, then stroked to tip. “And big. God, you’re so thick and long. I want this. I want you. So badly. From the moment I first saw you.”

“Take me.” His voice was a rasp.

“I can’t.”

His jaw clenched. She had every right to be afraid. She was smart to be. It was only going to get more difficult from here.

Lindsay pumped him again, harder. Then again.

“Yes,” he growled, thrusting into her hand. “Jack me off. Make me come.”

“Jesus…” She released him.

Adrian shook with his hunger. He needed her touch. Two hundred years without it had left him dead in all the most fundamental ways. Now every sense and nerve ending was alive again, and desperate for her.

She came into view, rounding his right wings.

He stood there, exposed in every way.

Her gaze locked with his. “Tell me the truth, angel. Is this just you and me? Or is this you, me, and a motive I haven’t figured out yet?”

“Just you and me.” His chest tightened with the half-truth. In reality, everything stood between them. His mission, her father, the rules that would deny him the solace of Lindsay’s body…

Tell me the truth, angel.

He choked on the truth. It wrapped around his throat and squeezed so tightly he could barely breathe, let alone give her the disclosure she deserved. I’m going to pit you against your own people. I’m going to train you how to kill your father. I’m going to send your soul from this earth once and for all. My love will destroy you, and me, and everything we care about. I can’t stop it.

She slid her recovering left arm around his waist, tucked beneath his wings. Her right hand reached for him again. His breath hissed out between his teeth.

She stroked him firmly. His wings trembled as lust surged through him. The next pump of her fist was so perfect it was painful.

“Faster.” He gasped, pulling her closer with an arm around her shoulder.

Lindsay widened her stance, stabilizing herself with her arm at his waist. She faced him directly, standing perpendicular to his body. He was seared by her proximity. The side of his torso was tucked between her breasts, while her thighs were planted on either side of his. Anchored, she used the leverage she’d gained to fist his aching cock with greater power and speed.

Adrian’s head fell back in supplication. His wings lifted and curved around them, sheltering their precious intimacy.

All the while her hand moved on him, her grip strong and the tempo steady. His chest lifted and fell with rapid, heaving breaths. Her breath, too, came quick and hot, gusting over his chest. Her nipples were hard and tight against him, her hips moving in quick, needy little circles. He pressed his lips to her forehead, his eyes stinging.

“You get thicker before you come,” she breathed. “And harder.”

Her hand flew as she worked him, pumping him, her speed preternaturally quick-and just what he needed. Two centuries of pent-up desire demanded release now. Then he could seduce her properly. He would lure her into his bed, where he could wrap himself around her and pretend that nothing and no one existed but the two of them. No consequences, no deception, no inevitable and eternal parting.

“Yes,” he panted against her perspiration-damp forehead. “I’m almost there…”

Need coiled around his spine and pooled like molten iron at the base of his cock.

Ever his temptation, she coaxed him with a voice made husky by her own desire. “Show me. Come for me, Adrian. Come hard.”

“Keep touching me… don’t stop.”

“I won’t. I can’t. Let me see you-”

His entire body jerked with the first wrenching spurt. “Lindsay.”

She made a soft sound of hunger as he shuddered through the explosive climax, her arm tireless as she brought him off with the dedication of a woman who wanted nothing more than to pleasure him.

I love you. The words clawed their way up from the depths of his soul, threatening to escape.

Unable to stem the rush of feeling, Adrian smothered the truth with the softness of her mouth.

Lindsay’s knees buckled the instant Adrian’s mouth sealed over hers.

He turned in her embrace, cupping her face with gentle hands. As ferociously lustful as he’d been while desperate for orgasm, he was devastating with his tenderness now. His lips were light against hers, his tongue a velvet lash. She caught his wrists, so lost to the scent and taste of him that she didn’t realize they were moving until her back came up against a wall.

“Thank you,” he whispered, before licking into her mouth.

A low whimper escaped her. He moved his head slowly, from side to side, sliding his parted lips back and forth across hers. His fingers pushed into her hair and kneaded her scalp. Heated delight coursed through her, permeating her overeager body and soothing her frantic desire. Growing languid under the surprisingly delicate onslaught of his mouth, she reached for his lean hips, pulling him closer.

“Stay out of my head,” she warned.

“It’s not your head I want to get into right now.”

The feel of his cock against her belly, still hard as steel, made her breath catch. Adrian breathed into her mouth, filling her lungs with air from his own. The intimacy was more potent than his fingers sliding down and across her shoulders, pushing aside the thin straps of her camisole. Her back arched, offering her breasts.

In her mind, she knew it was wrong to be this way with Adrian. She knew she had to stop, that she had to make him stop. Her hands fell away, her palms pressing flat against the wall. But the feel of his touch on her bare skin, his fingertips following the line of her waistband before slipping beneath her top, was sublime… so perfect…

She gasped out a laugh, her stomach concaving to flee his questing fingers.

His beautiful lips curved against her mouth. “You’re ticklish.”