with one impulsive roll in the grass with a demon, but Reaver couldn’t be sorry. The Horsemen’s existence had caused countless tragedies and measureless destruction, but angelic intuition told Reaver everything had happened the way it was supposed to.
Than and Ares left, miraculously without an argument, leaving Reaver in the cool Greenland breeze with the female he wanted to prop against the battlements and ravish. The burn of battle still rushed through his veins, heightening his senses and laying a fine line between bloodlust and good old-fashioned sexual lust.
Fuck it. He wasn’t an angel anymore, didn’t have to play nice. Not that he ever had.
Before Harvester could so much as blink, he lifted her onto a merlon and stepped between her legs to kiss her.
“Now this,” she murmured against his mouth, “is the way to come down from a fight.”
He couldn’t agree more, and while she tore open his jeans, he shoved up her skirt. They didn’t waste time with foreplay; this was going to be raw and swift, as much a needed release of tension as a way to mark his female in a way she’d never forget.
Because this would be the last time.
He entered her in a powerful surge that made them both cry out. He didn’t pause, didn’t let either of them get accustomed to her tightness or his size. There was only a single, driving instinct to possess. As if she felt his desperation, she clung to his neck with her arms and wrapped her legs so tightly around his hips that he couldn’t have broken free if he’d wanted to.
He thrust against her, fueled by the way she met every pump of his hips with a frantic roll of hers. And when she whispered hot, dirty things in his ear, things she wanted to do him and that she wanted him to do to her, he nearly short-circuited with lust. She wanted to do
Awesome.
Voices drifted from below, but he wouldn’t have cared if they were coming from a few feet away. Nothing was stopping him, nothing was getting between him and the female he loved. Not yet. Right now, in this very moment, she was his, and he didn’t share.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Oh… yes.” She wedged her hand between their bodies and cupped his balls. A wicked vibration hummed through his sac and up his shaft, and holy…
“I’m glad,” he said between panting breaths, “that you still have that power.”
“Oh,” she purred, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Groaning, he melded their mouths together as he rocked against her. Sweat broke out all over his body and his pulse drummed loudly in his ears. They were out in the open, in a precarious position and right there for anyone to see, but it was perfect. He had no doubt that no matter where or when he and Harvester made love, it would always be perfect.
Except that it wouldn’t happen again.
Harvester clung to him as if she heard his thoughts, her nails digging into his back. Stiffening, she clenched around him and let out a keening cry of sheer pleasure. Her core rippled along his cock as she came, and he was done for.
The orgasm tore him in two. He threw his head back and roared her name, engulfed in an churning maelstrom of ecstasy that went on and on. Harvester came again, arching her spine so violently that she tipped backward, her upper body hanging perilously forty feet above the ground. Panicked even though he knew the fall wouldn’t kill her, he gripped her thighs tight as her wings shot out, leaving her supported on a raft of air. He hissed with pleasure, the crazy position forcing him so deep inside her that he swore he felt her soul.
“Mine,” he moaned. Another release gathered, his come boiling in his shaft as his balls pulsed, filling her again. “You’ve always been mine.”
Harvester panted through yet another climax, and this time when she finished, she sagged in his arms and let him haul her back up onto the castle wall.
“Oh, Reaver,” she whispered against his chest. “Our lives have been so fucked up.”
“I’m sorry for everything I did to you as Yenrieth,” he murmured into her hair.
“But will you still be sorry if you remember?” She pulled back, creating distance between them he wasn’t ready for yet. “You’re okay with what you remember so far, but you’re still missing so much. What happens if you remember more to hate me for?”
“Is there more?”
“No.” Her lips flattened into a thin, grim line. “But with all the blanks filled in, maybe it’ll change how you feel.”
“I don’t see that happening, but if it does, we’ll work through it.” Shit, now she’d gotten him to talk as if they had a future together.
A wave of doubt came off her, and it occurred to him that even if he’d found a way for them to be together, she’d never fully trust him. Not until he got his memories back and dealt with what he and Verrine had gone through.
But none of that mattered, and reluctantly, he withdrew from Harvester’s warm body.
“Reaver?” She jerked her skirt down and watched him with growing alarm. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “I’m still working on a way for us to be together.”
“You need to hurry. I have to go to Raphael in a few hours.”
“I know.” He cupped her cheek, committing her soft skin to memory. “I know I have no right to ask you this, especially after everything you’ve done for me already.” He inhaled her scent, memorizing that, as well. “But if anything happens to me, I need you to promise to take care of the Horsemen.”
“Of course.” She frowned. “You know I will.”
“And Limos’s baby.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were liquid with unshed tears. “I swear to you, I’ll make sure she gets her baby back. But I will hate Raphael forever.”
“That,” he said, “I can deal with.”
The idea that she’d hate Raphael made the fact that she was going to have to have sex with him tolerable. Okay, not tolerable. Not even close. The mere thought made him want to rip the archangel’s head off and shove it up a Gerunti demon’s slimy ass.
Because the reality was that after Limos’s child was restored to her, Harvester wouldn’t be off the hook with Raphael. There was no way the bastard was going to sit idly by and let her get away. He’d gone to extremes to get her. Without Reaver’s life to hold over her head, he’d find another way, and Harvester would once again be blackmailed into being with him.
Damn, but he hoped she’d make his life a living hell.
Abruptly, shame washed over him. In the fantasyland of his head, the prospect of her hating Raphael forever was awesome. But Harvester deserved better. She deserved to be happy and to be in love. He’d rather she grew to love Raphael—the fucking bastard—than live for eternity with someone she hated.
And wasn’t that just magnanimous as all hell, he thought sourly.
“Why are you asking me this?” Harvester rubbed her face against his palm. “Nothing is going to happen to you. We know Raphael won’t kill you—”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to let you go, and you know it. He’ll blackmail you with something else, and you’ll be forced to accept his offer.”
“I’ll find a way out of it,” she swore. “I won’t stop looking for a way to be free of him.”
“You’ll have to give your word, Verrine,” Reaver said, reminding her of who she was, who she’d always been. “You aren’t one to break an oath, and I’d rather see you with him than suffering with a broken promise. It would eat you alive, and you’d grow to resent me.”
But would she resent him even if he wasn’t around? Because he was going to the Dome of the Rock as scheduled. It just wasn’t going to be Raphael who he offered up as a sacrifice.
“Reaver—”
“Shh.” He silenced her with a kiss. A kiss he hoped conveyed every soul-deep ounce of his love and respect for her. A kiss good-bye. “I have one last favor to ask,” he murmured against her velvet lips.
“Anything,” she breathed.
