Chapter 10

Zoe

“What putyou in such a good mood?” Bifiel said with a sneer, her pert little nose all scrunched up.

I paused in humming and swaying my hips from side to side to the quirky melody playing in my head and blinked at her. I’d just emerged from the bathroom, all clean and fresh and pampered to the extreme in preparation for meeting Aziel again.

And just thinking his name brought a hot flush to my skin and a fizzing eruption of excitement to my belly.

“Oh, you know,” I said with feigned nonchalance. “Just imagining how I’ll switch out your shampoo with hair removal cream one of these days.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.” I nodded with emphasis, a placid smile on my face. “That is absolutely, one hundred percent not a thing I would ever dare to do. There is no need for you to worry.” I made sure to pitch my voice to a tone that just skated the edge of being exaggerated enough that she would, in fact, worry.

The slight frown sneaking onto her face and the spark of concern in her eyes let me know I’d succeeded. “I hate you,” she muttered under her breath as she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

“Hate is unbecoming to an angel!” I hollered after her.

The way she slammed the door shut made joy bounce in my chest. Damn, my good mood from my encounter with Aziel yesterday was like some amazing armor against bullshit that even extended to making me better able to handle my annoying roommate.

Ever since I’d left the cave last night, I’d floated on invisible clouds, my spirits buoyed and my heart bursting with happiness. Nothing could bring me down. I’d never felt this way in my life, hadn’t known it was possible to walk around with a perpetual smile on my face and enough goodwill to even manage cantankerous Tabris.

When I’d entered his box for my shift earlier today, I’d greeted him with so much cheerful enthusiasm that it had somehow short-circuited his brain. The poor pointy horse hadn’t even dared to attack because he’d been so confused. I’d sung happy songs—completely out of tune, not that I cared—while cleaning his box, and all the while, he’d cowered in a far corner and eyed me like he couldn’t pinpoint my threat level.

I’d been so friendly and chipper, practically glowing with joy, that many an angel who usually wouldn’t look at me twice had done a double take, stopping in their paths to speak with me. Just on the way to and from work, I’d gotten three proposals to maybe hang out later, all of which I’d politely declined.

I was already spoken for.

And that thought made another wave of fizzy happiness roll through me.

I made my way outside, dodging more advances by angels drawn to me by my blissed-out attitude, climbed the opposite building once more to get help with launching into the air, and then took off.

The wind felt like a caress underneath my wings, the pressure and brush of each gust reminiscent of the way Aziel had touched them. Good Lord, I’d never be able to fly again without getting inappropriately aroused.

By the time I landed in front of the waterfall again, I was so high-strung that I needed to take a moment to catch my breath and calm down my boiling desire, lest I jumped Aziel the second I entered the cave. He was still bound to the favor he owed Naamah, which meant we needed to use our time in the cave for actual training exercises…in addition to exercising each other in a wholly different way.

My arousal successfully reduced to simmering, I finally rounded the bend behind the waterfall.

I’d taken but a single step inside the cave when I was pushed against the wall, Aziel having moved so fast I hadn’t seen him coming. His hands framing my face, he claimed my mouth in a kiss that fanned the barely banked flames of my lust into a blazing inferno.

I made a desperate, hungry sound against his lips and grabbed the front of his armor-covered tunic, sinking into the kiss and giving as good as I got.

Several rapid, gasping breaths later, I managed to get some words in. “I thought—we should have—started with the training?”

His thumbs stroked over my cheeks as he nibbled on my lower lip. “Not when you walk in here smelling like you doused yourself in arousal.”

Oops.

“But we should definitely train,” I said, suppressing a moan when he trailed kisses down to my neck. “You’ll get in trouble with the favor you need to pay if you don’t actually teach me to fight.”

It wasn’t so much that I was super keen on training—to be quite honest, my goal of moving up the ranks seemed suddenly inconsequential compared to pursuing the blazing hot thing between me and Aziel and seeing how many of those dreams might come true. I totally wouldn’t mind if we spent every single minute of our time together here getting to know one another, physically and beyond.

But I didn’t want him to face problems because of me.

He paused with his lips against my throat. “Right,” he said with a strange note in his voice. “The favor.”

“Did you just forget the very reason you came here in the first place?” I asked with a surprised laugh.

He straightened to meet my gaze, his fingers brushing gently against my jaw. “Can you blame me,” he asked, his voice an intimate murmur that stroked me in all the places already primed for his touch, “when I found a better reason to be here, and that reason erases all thoughts and obligations?”

I bit my lip, warmth buzzing in my chest. He’d just echoed my own feelings on the matter, signaling that we were very much on the same page. What had started as a pragmatic acquaintance had turned into an unforeseen—on his part, hehe—entanglement.

“We can train later,” he went on, his eyes flashing. “For now, I need to take off your pants, spread you wide, and lick up every last drop of you before your scent drives me to insanity.”

I clenched my legs against the near-violent throb of desire at his crude words.

“Okay,” was all I got out, my voice breathless.

The next second, I found myself sans pants, courtesy of yet another summoning. My boots followed a moment later, and Aziel tossed all of it carelessly over his shoulder. The whisper of air against my legs and my most private parts, dripping wet with my need, made me shiver despite how heated my skin felt.

Carnal intent hardening his features, he leaned in and brought his mouth to mine in a demanding kiss while his fingers brushed against the inside of my thigh. I jerked at the touch, whisper-soft though it might be, unaccustomed to the sensation of someone else stroking me there. I’d felt it in a dream, yes, but experiencing it in real life was a different matter. It sent a shock wave of sensation through me, the arousal pulsing in my core gaining an edge.

On and on he kissed me, plundering my mouth and making sure I fell deeper into the feel of him, all while that teasing dance of his fingers skated ever closer to the apex of my thighs. My breathing turned ragged.

Instead of going straight up and touching my slick folds, though, he slid his hand in a wide arc around the center of my need, over my hip and to my belly—only to arrow down from there. A single, targeted finger glided with heavy pressure over my clit, and I careened into an orgasm.

I uttered a helpless moan, clutching his neck for purchase as he slid that finger lower, circled it around my entrance, and then pushed it inside me while shoving the base of his palm against that tight bundle of nerves that was still pulsing with aftershocks from the climax seconds ago.

Writhing against him, I came again, losing myself in the spiral of pleasure.

When my mind returned to normal once more, I realized he’d divested me of my tunic and armor again in the meantime and was tugging me forward with his hand grasping mine. With a soft whoosh, an entire bed-sized cushion appeared on the floor behind him.

He must have summoned it from his home territory—like Naamah, he was apparently able to call objects to him that weren’t physically in the domain he was currently in. Another sign of his immense power.

At my raised brows, he said, “Someone mentioned something about sitting on my face.”

And with a wicked grin, he let himself fall backward onto the cushion, pulling me along with his grasp on my hand. A squeak escaped me as I tumbled down with him.

He’d grabbed me around the waist with both hands as I fell and smoothly guided me so that I ended up with my knees on either side of his head, my core only inches from his face. He held me fast, making sure the tumble didn’t throw my upper body forward and out of balance. The heat of his breath fanned the inside of my thighs, so close to where arousal still pulsed in time with my quickened heartbeat.

When I glanced down, I met his luminous silver gaze, and the roguish smirk on his lips as he turned his head a little and placed a kiss on my thigh while not breaking eye contact made me shiver with delight. The next second, he nipped at the spot he’d just kissed, elongated canines flashing with the quick move.

It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, not even enough to hurt, but the shock of it still made me jerk in his grasp.

Which effectively shifted my hips forward, and he lifted his head at the same time and brought his mouth to my most intimate flesh.

A gasp turned moan rose from my lips, sparks of lust firing through my blood from the erotic touch. With a hum of utmost enjoyment, he moved one hand to my ass, pulling me farther down onto his face. His tongue delved into me, leisurely licks up and down, and then he closed his mouth over my clit and sucked.

I exploded.

Pleasure rushed through me, blanking my thoughts and subsuming everything but the awareness of his mouth still wreaking havoc on my nether regions. My thighs trembled, though not from any exertion of hovering over his face. I wasn’t allowed to hover—he kept tugging me back down when I made the slightest attempt to lift up because I worried he wasn’t getting any air.

He really, really wanted me to actually sit on his face.

Skin feeling hot partly from bashful self-consciousness and partly from the incessantly building ecstasy, I eventually gave up trying to take any weight off him and just surrendered. He groaned against my slick flesh, his energy darkening with lust.

“That’s it,” he growled, pushing me up just a little so he could speak. “Ride my face.”

Tunneling my fingers through his hair, I gave in and sought my pleasure by rocking against him. He kept licking me, spearing his tongue inside me, and the combination of my own movements and the way he worked me with his mouth shoved me over the edge.

I came with a drawn-out moan.

He continued his erotic assault through the waves of my orgasm, firing off smaller explosions again and again, until I’d long stopped rocking my hips against his face, my mind somewhere in a blissful alternate reality.

Through the haze of my post-orgasmic warm fuzzies, I noticed that he sat up while guiding me down to sit on his lap, my legs straddling him. I grimaced when the position brought my oversensitive core right against the unmistakable hardness of his cock—still covered by his pants.

“Hold on,” he murmured and removed his hands from me in favor of proficiently taking off his armor and tunic.

The instant he let it drop to the side, he brought forth his wings and wrapped them around us both. Lying back on the cushion, he pulled me with him again, and I found myself snuggled between his chest and the soft weight of his wings.

It was the silkiest blanket against my back.

With a sigh, I let myself fall into his embrace, my hands tucked in between us, my head nestled into the crook of his neck and shoulder. His scent enveloped me—leather and bonfire, laced with a hint of dark spices—and for a moment, for the span of several calming heartbeats, I was in my own personal slice of Heaven.

Until I realized he hadn’t sought his own pleasure—again.

I lifted my head under the canopy of his wings and peered at him.

He opened one eye and peered right back at me, the hint of an amused smile on his mouth. “You look like you’re scheming.”

“And you look like you’re in need of some attention.”

“Is that so?”

I deliberately rubbed over his erection.

The way his features twitched and his eyes darkened brought me no small amount of glee. He’d just played my body like a master musician would his beloved instrument, always in control, never a doubt about who was in charge. The fact that I might have a modicum of the same effect on him as he’d had on me, that I might just be able to make him shudder with pleasure with a targeted move, emboldened me.

Not that I knew much about what I was doing, but my extensive reading experience and the snippets from my dreams would have to count for something.

Pushing against the hold of his arms wrapped around my back, I tried to slide down his body.

He stopped me by tightening his embrace. Eyes alight with an inner flame, he studied me for a moment. “I’m not about to complain,” he said, and the timbre of his voice let his chest vibrate deliciously underneath me. “I just need you to be sure it’s what you want.”

I lightly slapped his chest—as much as I was able to with my hands still wedged between us. “Stop playing the gentleman.”

His laugh was swift and surprising, the spark of mirth in his eyes the sweetest aphrodisiac. “That’s a first,” he muttered. “I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being a gentleman.”

I grinned at him. “That’s why I said playing. I’m pretty sure your true nature is far more devilish.”

He stilled beneath me, his power doing that thing again where it hung frozen in the air like a caught breath. “You could say that,” he murmured after a second.

He loosened his hold on me, lifting his wings off of us, and I shimmied down his body until I was sitting between his legs, my hands coming to rest to the left and right of that impressive bulge in his pants.

I tentatively stroked my thumbs over the hard length and felt it jerk against the confinement of the fabric. My eyes flicked to Aziel’s face, an intriguing thrill coursing through me at the sight of his features having drawn tighter.

How much more could I affect him when I touched him here?

Only one way to find out.

I opened his pants and freed his erection, pausing for a moment to look my fill. I had no prior experience, of course, but damn, it seemed huge. And thick. I felt a flutter of nerves—would I even be able to take him inside me? My inner muscles clenched as if in response to that thought.

“It won’t bite,” he drawled. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

My eyes darted to his face again. His smirk made desire curl in my belly.

“I’m just wondering whether it’ll even fit.” I gestured toward my hips.

“It will,” was his quiet answer, some deep conviction lacing his tone.

Well, going by those visions I’d had…yeah, it would. Quite enjoyably so.

With a grin teasing my mouth, I reached out and ran my fingers over his cock, from the base to the tip. It jumped at my caress, and the muscles in his abdomen contracted for a second. Wrapping my hand around his shaft—my fingers didn’t even touch—I leaned forward and licked at the top, right at that point where the head flared out and prominent veins ran down.

According to many a romance novel, that was a sensitive spot, and one of the areas to focus on.

The way his breath left him on a rough exhale at the touch, and judging by the intense pulse of his energy, my knowledge was spot-on.

I did it again, holding him upright, and then swirled my tongue around the head before I closed my mouth over the entire top.

He uttered a strangled groan and bucked up, but then apparently caught himself. One hand grasped the fabric of the cushion while the other reached for my head. His fingers tangled in my hair with just enough pull to let me know he held me there, but not enough to hurt or to guide me in my movements.

His touch there felt like a prayer and a blessing in one.

He watched me switch between licking him and taking him into my mouth as far as I could, his eyes a storm of silver in a face of harsh beauty. New arousal heated my core at the sight of him at my mercy, at the feel of his hard cock pushing into my mouth, at his taste on my tongue.

I was sure I was a fumbling novice at this, that my ministrations must’ve no doubt seemed clumsy compared to the skill of others he’d been with, but I tried not to let it get into my head. The fact that he looked at me as if tearing his eyes off me would physically hurt him, as if his entire world had narrowed down to the feel of my mouth on him, helped a lot.

It bolstered my confidence and let me glance up at him with a sly grin before I dove back in, pressing my tongue against his length as I went down, sucking hard as I came up again. His power in the air darkened enough to make the light of the crystals dim, his fingers twitching in my hair.

As if he could barely hold himself back from taking control and thrusting up.

My core grew slick with want.

“Wings out,” he said roughly.

I willed them to appear, and they curved around us, the primaries nearly touching his sides. His intense focus riveted on my face, he brought up his free hand and brushed his fingers over the fan of large primary feathers, like one would play a harp.

I shuddered under the immediate spike of arousal, the overwhelming feeling of each feather being somehow linked to a cord deep inside me, expertly strummed in a harmony of pleasure.

Seriously, how had I lived years as an angel among angels and only now learned of the vital role wings could play in bed?

My attention on his cock faltered for a second, but then I resumed my sensual assault, the building lust inside me adding a note of frenzy to the way I licked and sucked him.

Without dislodging me, he sat halfway up, just enough that he could reach behind my back and—oh, God.

He stroked his hand with deliberate pressure over one of my wing arches, his fingers massaging like one would a purring cat.

And I flew apart.

I moaned with his cock still in my mouth, pleasure bursting inside me, and I barely noticed how he grasped the back of my head and held me in place as he thrust up, once, twice, just a touch short of making me choke, before his hot cum splashed against the back of my throat.

He emptied himself in my mouth with a deep, delicious groan, and his power felt like a shower of sparks over my body.

Still riding the ebbing waves of my own orgasm, I swallowed everything down, my wings trembling, a shiver overtaking me.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered as I released his cock with a pop. “That was so—holy fuck.”

“Not yet.” His voice held dark amusement as he pulled me into his arms and lay back on the cushion. “But we’ll get there, too.”

I giggled, feeling extraordinarily blissed out and pumped full of all the good endorphins. Could life always stay like this? Me, wrapped up in post-orgasmic happiness with the most amazing male I’d ever met? It felt like arriving at a long-craved destination, like coming home from an eternity of wandering, like the entirety of me fit the entirety of him, making us both whole and more than each of us was on our own.

He’d magicked his wings away at some point, now lazily stroking mine as they draped over my back, the primaries touching the cushion beneath us. The brush of his hand over the feathers felt sinfully good, though it didn’t stir the embers of my desire as much as before—he steered clear of touching the upper arch, instead focusing on the lower secondaries, his caresses effectively keeping me in a perpetual state of semi-aroused nirvana.

Was this what being on drugs was like for humans? Because, yeah, I could see the appeal.

“Next time,” I said drowsily, my head resting on his chest, the steady thump of his heart lulling me more into relaxation, “I get to play with your wings, too.”

“They’re yours to touch,” he said, his voice quiet. “Only yours.”

“So there’s no one else for you?”

I’d kind of gathered as much, mostly from the vibe of my visions—each of my dreams of him was woven through with a deep, deep, abiding love, the kind of devotion that excluded anything else. But taking an educated guess based on clairvoyant dreams was one thing; hearing it from him directly was a different matter.

“Hasn’t been for a long while,” was his murmured answer.

My eyes still closed, I gave in to the grin stealing onto my face, fueled by a kind of primal sense of possessiveness. “So you’re mine.”

A beat of silence, his heart underneath my ear thumping a touch faster. “More than you know.”

I hummed with contentment, happiness a honeyed rush through my blood.

He kept lightly stroking my wings, and the combination of his heartbeat, the steady caress of his hand, and the heat of his body and power enveloping me let sleep beckon me closer. I’d already begun to descend into the velveteen darkness of my mind taking a break when the last holdouts of my consciousness caught the faintest murmur.

Only, the words didn’t make sense. Maybe I was half dreaming already…

“Remember,” Aziel whispered. “Please remember, love. I need you to come home.”