Taken by Sin

“I once took a life. I’ll be redeemed when I can save a life.”

She frowned. “But don’t you do that as one of the hunters? Don’t you save lives every time you kill a demon?”

“Indirectly.”

“So what is it going to take for you to earn your redemption?”

Her brows knit together as she pondered what he had said.

Come on, Isabelle. You’re smart. You’ll put it together.

He felt her tension as soon as she connected the dots. “Me. You mean me.”

“Yes.”

Isabelle slid off Dalton’s lap and backed away from him. Too much information to soak in all at once. First finding out he was an angel, putting all the pieces together about the white light she’d seen, the miraculous healing after his injury. Then hearing the story of his heroic deed, how he became damned, the terrible and beautiful sacrifice he’d made, and the unfairness of it all. And the hideous punishment he’d suffered because of it.

And now, to discover that he meant to obtain his redemption through her? Had he always felt that way, from the first moment he’d discovered she was a demon?

She stared at him, not knowing what to say. She wasn’t even certain what she felt.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He hadn’t moved from his spot on the chair. Part of her wanted to crawl back in his lap and give him comfort. What it must have cost him to tell her his story, the pain that had to be gutting him inside, the horrible memories his tale had dredged up.

The other part of her was afraid-because she realized she might be nothing more than a means to an end for Dalton, that he was quite possibly using her to obtain his own redemption, to once again become the angel he used to be.

She thought he felt something for her. That maybe he loved her, like she loved him. When she told him she loved him, she meant it.

Was she a fool?

“I’m thinking a lot of things,” she admitted.

He came to her, grasped her hands. Warm. Alive. Human. But he wasn’t, was he?

“Talk to me. Don’t let the questions eat you up inside.”

She let him lead her to the sofa and sat next to him, needing the comfort of his body next to hers. Weak, she knew, but right now he was all she had, even if his motives were suspect.

“How do you know I’m the one you need?”

“The life I save has to mean something. Saving you from the Sons of Darkness … stealing you from their grasp … that’s meaningful.”

“Okay. That makes sense.” So was she his target? Had she been since that night in Sicily? Maybe he was using her. Then again, maybe she was using him, too. Maybe she needed this redemption as much as he did. But could you build a love based on ulterior motives? Did that even matter anymore? How could they even have something together now, knowing what she knew about him? And what happened …

“What happens if I am your redemption? If this works and you …save me?” she asked. “Do you become an angel again and disappear forever?”

He looked at her for a while before answering. That meant she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“Ideally, yes. When I redeem myself, I become a Guardian once again, and everything that entails. It means I’m invisible to the human realm.”

She would not cry. It wouldn’t be the first time she lost someone she loved. She’d get over it. She’d be human again. Or at least human enough that she’d have control over the demon inside her. That’s all she wanted, right? “I see.”

“No, you don’t see.” He picked up her hand, squeezed it. “I hadn’t counted on any of this when we started.”

“What?”

“Falling in love with you. I love you, Isabelle. I don’t want to leave you. But it may be the only way to save you. So what do I do? Let myself love you and let the Sons of Darkness have you? That would be the ultimate selfish act, and it would only allow us to be together a short period of time.”

Damn. He loved her. Or maybe he was just saying that to get her to agree to all this. Why couldn’t she believe in him, or in herself?

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

She almost laughed at the look of shock on his face. “I do. I mean I’d like to. Oh, hell, Dalton, it’s not like I get declarations of love every day.”

He pulled her against him, swept her hair away from her face. “You should. Goddammit, you should.”

He kissed her, and she sensed his anguish, his un certainty, and all his regret. It equaled everything she felt, which somehow eased her. She leaned into him, wrapped her arms around him, needing to lose herself in something that had nothing to do with what was going to happen between them in the future, and everything to do with right now.

All she wanted, all she could handle, was this moment. She no longer wanted to think about the future. The future didn’t seem full of hope and promise, or full of anything to fear. It was simply a place she didn’t want to go- not if that future was without Dalton.

She loved him. No matter what his reasons for being with her, for saving her, for bringing her here for whatever kind of otherworldly merger he had concocted with Georgie, she loved him. That wasn’t going to change. And if the demon inside her could give him his redemption, she’d make that sacrifice. For him.

As she moved against him, touching him, memorizing every part of his body under her hands, she was filled with a sense of wonder.

So this was love, this all-encompassing sensation of being filled to bursting with so much emotion she felt she couldn’t contain it all. She felt like she could explode, like she couldn’t sit still, yet there was nowhere else she wanted to be but right here next to Dalton.

They spoke no words, just pulled at each other’s clothes. Isabelle wanted only skin against her, his heat touching hers. Consumed by a sense of urgency, she wanted access to his body. Who knew how little time they had left? The clock ticked, the sound echoing in her mind.

When he stood and dropped his shorts, she scooted in front of him, rolling her palms over the angled planes of his hips and buttocks.

“I should have known you weren’t human,” she said, her voice a whisper in the darkness. “No man is this beautiful, this perfect.”

There wasn’t a single mark on him, nothing to mar the perfection of his body. The wound on his stomach was gone, as if it had never happened. She’d never noticed before that he didn’t even have scars on his body. He really was perfect. Ideal coloring, ideal body shape, and as she encircled his shaft and it slid into her hand, pulsing with life, she smiled.

“Yes. Perfect.”

She stroked him with both hands, deriving the greatest pleasure at watching his head roll back, his lips part and a wild groan escape his lips. And when she took him between her lips, he focused on her with a fierce gaze of utter possession, his hand cupping the back of her neck to guide her movements. He was like satin over steel, the softest skin over hard stone. She cupped the sac that hung between his legs, squeezing him gently while she rolled her tongue over his shaft.

Dalton muttered an oath and pulled away, knelt down and pressed her against the sofa, then spread her legs with his shoulder. He kissed her inner thighs, his silky hair tickling the skin there.

But she didn’t laugh. Not when his warm breath caressed her sex, not when his mouth covered her. She gasped, arching upward against all that wet, hot delight, reaching for more of that sweet pleasure. He held her hips and licked her, his tongue loving every part of her until she was shaking, hanging on a ragged edge. And when he slid his finger inside her, she rolled over that edge, gripped his wrists, and bucked against him, completely out of