Chapter 16

Chapter 16

When I resurfaced,I was lying on the bed in my new suite. I had no recollection of Azazel taking me back to Hell. Of reconnecting my soul with my body. I wasn’t really there, mentally.

Staring at the gloomy ceiling, I drifted in and out of sleep. I was dimly aware of something big and furry snuggling up to me with a whine. Of someone talking to me. Azazel? Azmodea? I didn’t have the presence of mind to check.

Food came and went. I barely touched it. I should have felt hunger, but there was only this giant, numb hole where any feeling was supposed to be.

Time went by in a sluggish stream. It could have been hours. It could have been days.

I hardly moved, and when I did, it was in a trance. Mostly, I just lay on the bed.

Until a deep voice murmured in my ear, “Enough.”

Strong arms slid under me, lifted me up against a hard chest. Warmth and dark power enveloped me, the scent of leather, fire, and spice filling my nose. Azazel.

He carried me out of the room, into a space of humid heat and fragrant aroma. My feet touched marble tile when he set me down. I blinked, with little interest, at my surroundings.

Steam rose from the water filling the basin in my bathroom. Only a few candles burned in the holders on the walls, casting the space in intimate, low lighting.

Azazel grasped the seam of my tank top. “Arms up,” he said with calm command.

I obeyed, and he pulled the top off me. My bra followed. His fingers went to the button on my jeans, popped it open and pulled down the zipper. Going to one knee in front of me, he shoved my pants and underwear down and helped me step out of them.

The fragrant, steamy air curled around me as I watched him strip his own clothes off with practical efficiency. Scooping me up again, he took the stairs into the basin.

I gasped when the hot water closed around me. The first real sensation in what seemed like a surreal eternity.

He sat down and pulled me into the space between his legs on the bench in the tub, my back to his front. Water trickled over my head as he began washing my hair, ever so gently, the press of his fingers on my scalp and the soft tug on my strands a soothing melody of touch and care.

I didn’t realize I was crying until he tilted my face to the side, kissing tears off my cheeks.

“Tell me.” His voice was an intimate, coaxing murmur in the cocoon of humid heat around us. He laid his hand over my heart, pressed down a little. “There’s too much in here. It’s choking you.” He rubbed over that aching beat of my heart, then brought his hand up to stroke over my throat. “So tell me.”

I inhaled on a shudder. “I didn’t think it would hurt this much,” I said haltingly, as if I only realized what I wanted, needed to say in the very moment when the words left my mouth. Which was true. Speaking it out loud gave form to the chaos.

“I thought I was numb,” I said as he continued to wash my hair. “But there’s so much pain.” My breath hitched. What I had taken for lack of feeling was in reality an overload of it, so much so that I couldn’t handle it.

“After my mom confronted him,” I went on, a decade of hurt unraveling before my inner eye, “he just left us. He didn’t fight for us, he simply dropped us like an unwanted burden he was finally rid of. I waited—” My voice broke. “I waited for him to call me, to visit, to ask me to come over. He never did.” I swallowed hard. “Not until years later. And I—” Shaking my head, I caught my breath. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him back into my life. It was too late, you know? I adored him. Before he left, he was my hero, and I was his princess. And he turned his back on me when it truly counted and abandoned me for years. He chose his other family, his other daughters over me.”

Old hurt mingled with fresh anguish, turning my breathing choppy.

Azazel’s hand on my nape, massaging me with sure, unwavering support.

I found more words to untangle my pain. “When he tried to get in touch again years later, I was so bitter, so angry. I shut him out. And it felt good, at first. Like fair turnabout, you know? Show him what it feels like to be ignored. I imagined it hurt him, and it gave me this sense of retribution.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. “And of control.”

“You rejected him before he could reject you,” Azazel said, running his fingers through my wet hair, untangling the strands. “Again.”

“Yes.” I sucked in a breath, the humid, aromatic air like a balm to my soul.

That was it, wasn’t it? I cut my father out of my life in a sort of preemptive strike, out of fear of him abandoning me again somewhere down the line. The human mind worked in complex, mysterious ways, and so often we didn’t realize the why behind what we did until much, much later.

When it was too late.

“All these years,” I said, my voice hoarse, “I held on to the memory of my hurt and anger—and fear—as if they were still the reason I kept him out of my life. I never really questioned if I still felt that way. But over time, I think, some of that pain and resentment...lost its edge. And it became more of a habit than real intention. As if…” I struggled for the right words. “Continuing to keep him cut off was easier, I guess, than facing the possibility of rebuilding something with him. The real possibility, that is.” I trembled as I took a deep breath. “Because somewhere, in the back of my mind, I just sort of counted on the vague, far-away, hypothetical possibility of reconciling with him. As in, I could, if I wanted to. Because he was still there.”

Azazel’s fingers glided through my hair, petting me, soothing me. “But now he’s not.”

“Now he’s not,” I repeated in a voice as broken as the naive, shattered hope inside me. I closed my eyes, shook my head a little. “Even with me down here and the uncertainty about how I’d be able to visit, I held on to that possibility. And now he’s gone, truly gone, and any chance for reconciliation or just closure is gone too.” My breath hitched, my chest aching. “I’ll never see him again. I can never say—” I clenched my hand to a fist and rubbed it over my breastbone. “I have so many words in here. So much to say. But now I’ll never get to tell him...any of it.”

A sob worked its way up my throat. “And it hurts—so much. I could have—” Another sob. “I could have had years—with him—” Every breath I took burned going in, burned going out. “All this time, lost between us—how much of that was on me?” I sniffed. “He tried. He really tried, you know? He wrote to me, for every birthday, every holiday. He called. He wanted to meet with me, talk to me. But I never gave him the chance. I threw his letters away without reading them. I refused to even hear him out.” Tears blurred the flames of the candles. “I’ll never know what he would have told me. What he wanted to say.”

More sobs wracked me, rising up from that shredded place in my chest, and I was beyond words. The chaos inside me had spilled out, leaving behind a hollow, damning ache.

Azazel’s arms wrapped around me, pulled me tight against his chest, where the steady beat of his heart was a beacon at my back, anchoring me. He held me while I cried, his cheek pressed against mine.

I couldn’t seem to stop. The tears just kept coming. I don’t know how much time went by, but by rights the water should have long cooled around us, yet it held the same temperature, likely Azazel’s doing.

Even with the heat of the bath, with his arms locked around me, I felt chilled to the bone, and so, so brittle. Scraped raw and cut open. Small and crushable. I shivered, my shoulders hunching forward.

Azazel’s voice at my ear, quiet yet hypnotic. “You asked me about my mother once.”

My breath caught. I stopped trembling, my awareness turning to him.

“She was Lucifer’s favorite daughter,” he went on, his lips on my neck. “Few things make him truly happy. She was one of them. She could do no wrong in his eyes. Even when she fell in love with an angel and began an illicit affair.”

I had grown very still, all my focus on the soft words spoken against my skin.

“Neither Heaven nor Hell like to see their people fraternize, but my parents managed to keep it secret for a while. When Lucifer eventually found out, he turned a blind eye at first, so deep was his love for Naamah.”

“Naamah?”

“My mother.” Old pain echoed in his voice. “When she fell pregnant and bore two children, Lucifer could no longer ignore the relationship. He pressured Naamah to cut ties to Azrael, but she refused.”

“Your father’s name is Azrael?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds an awful lot like yours.”

“Not a coincidence.” His breath tickled my nape. “Naamah loved him so much that she gave both her children names reminiscent of his.”

That seemed a bit obsessive. “What happened next?”

“Since Lucifer couldn’t—or rather, wouldn’t—force his favorite daughter to do anything, much less reject her lover and the father of her children, he went the other way.” A heavy pause. “He informed Heaven of Azrael’s illicit relationship and the fact he had sired progeny with a demon, which caused Azrael to fall.”

“Wait—they kicked him out?”

“Yes. He fell to Earth, and Lucifer claimed him.”

“Claimed?”

“When an angel falls, they don’t automatically become a demon and enter Hell. They plummet to Earth, their wings burned off, and unless a demon claims them for a territory in Hell, the fallen angel remains on Earth as a being neither angel nor demon. They retain some of their powers and can act for either good or evil. They have been called many names in different cultures, but the one that seems to have stuck is jinn.”

Oh, wow. “So, the claiming for Hell...how does that work? Does the jinn have a say?”

“Not really. Some would prefer to live out their now mortal lives as jinn on Earth rather than serve in Hell, and if they’re lucky, they can evade capture. But if the jinn is found, and caught, by a demon with the authority to claim them for their archdemon, the jinn has no choice but to follow the demon to Hell.”

“And become one themselves.”

“That’s how it works. Their wings will regrow once they are in Hell, their essence now bound to this realm.”

“So, Azrael…”

“Became a demon, and lived here with Naamah and the children she had borne him.”

“You and Azmodea.”

“One happy family,” he said, the darkness in his tone belying the literal meaning of the words.

“I take it that didn’t work out.”

The candles flickered in the silence that followed. I waited for him to pick up the story again, knowing he would.

“Naamah was overjoyed to have Azrael down here with her,” he finally continued, his voice quieter than before. His fingers played along my neck. “And for a time, it was well. The few good memories I have of them are from those years.”

I leaned back into his touch, my stomach knotting in anticipation of the momentous But that surely would follow.

“As time passed, Azrael became restless. He struggled with his new life in Hell, was never really able to cope with his changed identity. Naamah realized he was unhappy and tried to fill the growing chasm between them. She poured the riches of Hell onto him, twisted herself into knots to please him. But he longed too much for his old life in Heaven, for the grace of God, and in the end, her love wasn’t enough to hold him.” A kiss to my temple. “And he didn’t love her enough to stay.”

Or loved him enough… I sucked in a breath, noting the part Azazel left out—that his father cared so little for his own children that he could simply walk away.

My chest ached for him, the sting all the keener because I knew exactly how it felt to be abandoned this way.

I clasped his arm that was wrapped around my middle, my fingers interlacing with his. “What happened then?” I whispered.

“Behind Naamah’s back, Azrael petitioned Gabriel for a return to Heaven.”

“The archangel?”

“The very one. He has the power to grant pardons. From what I heard—” his voice dripped acid “—Azrael crawled before him, begging him to let him come home. It is a rare thing that a demon should be pardoned and welcomed back into Heaven. But for whatever reason, Gabriel relented, though not without conditions attached. For Azrael to be accepted back into the fold, he had to repudiate Naamah, disavow the children he had begotten with her, and reject any claim to his care. And as a reminder of his transgression, he would serve as angel of death for all eternity, ferrying souls to Heaven and marking the ones slated for Hell. Azrael accepted, and he ascended that same day.” A pause charged with so much tension, the flames of the candles crackled. “He left without a word to Naamah, or us.”

I squeezed his fingers, my heart twisting in sympathy. The callousness of that abandonment…

When he spoke again, his tone had dulled. “It wasn’t until days later that Naamah found out where he’d gone. She tried to reach Azrael, to no avail. He would not see her, or even acknowledge her existence. Once she realized he had truly repudiated her...she broke.”

I swallowed hard. The way he said that word, it indicated far more than a crying fit. “What, exactly, happened to her?”

“She became a shadow of herself. Much like a wraith, she only knew two states of being—complete apathy, or mindless rage. When she turned the latter toward Azmodea and me, Daevi took us from her.”

“Wait—she attacked you?”

“I don’t think she was conscious of it. Her wrath was all-encompassing, uncontrollable, random. And in the end, it destroyed her too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked despite dreading the answer.

“She tore herself apart.”

“Figuratively.”

“No.”

I shuddered, the image forming in my mind too vivid, too horrible to dwell on. The memory of the wings pinned in the entrance hall flashed before my inner eye, a brutal reminder of the fact that, yes, demons were entirely capable of ripping off limbs with their bare hands.

“How old were you?” I asked into the weighted silence.

He seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Barely adolescent. Not old enough to have a say in my allegiance.”

“What do you mean?”

Picking up the soap and a washcloth, he started washing me, lathering my shoulders first. “Full-blood demons can choose which side of their bloodline they want to pledge themselves to when they reach maturity. Before then, the parents negotiate the care if they don’t live together. The child has no say in that until they are fully grown.”

Pieces clicked together in my mind. “Lucifer demanded your allegiance after Daevi took you away from Naamah.”

“Just so.”

“And then he...tortured you?” Disbelief dripped from my voice. “Because he was angry at your father? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Fury rarely does.” He continued washing me limb by limb, his movements efficient yet gentle. “Lucifer had just lost my mother to violence and madness, my father—who caused this—was beyond his sphere of influence, and here I was, the spitting image of the male who broke his favorite daughter, the living reminder of Lucifer’s own failure to protect Naamah. He needed an outlet for his wrath, and I was conveniently handy.”

His tone was so casual, nonchalant even, in such stark contrast to the horrid reality his words painted. My stomach turned.

“But...you’re not just Azrael’s son, you’re Naamah’s as well. If Lucifer loved her so much, shouldn’t that fact have counted for something?”

A dry, humorless laugh. “It’s the only reason he let me live.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to process this kind of dysfunctional family dynamic. “What about Azmodea?” I asked after a minute. “Where was she in all of this?”

“Azmodea is fortunate to look like our mother, enough so that Lucifer could never bring himself to harm her. He let her stay with Daevi, though, because he also couldn’t bear to see her often. The resemblance to Naamah was too much.” The water sloshed as he washed my back. “Once I reached maturity, I petitioned Daevi to join her court. She agreed and claimed me as her kin. I’ve been earning my place ever since and proving my worth to her.”

“Your worth?” I asked, a bite to my voice.

“Power is currency here. Progeny is valued because of the potential strength they bring to a demon’s bloodline and territory. The more high-ranking demons an archdemon’s domain has, the stronger that archdemon’s standing among their peers. The territories often quarrel over land and resources and other petty disputes, and Lucifer mostly lets them, as long as the bloodshed doesn’t get out of hand. The more power an individual demon has, the higher they can climb in rank.” He brought the washcloth to my front, stroking it over my breasts and belly in moves more intended to clean than to arouse. “I made sure to climb high and fast.”

I considered that for a moment. “What’s your rank, exactly?” He’d never mentioned it, and it hadn’t occurred to me to ask.

“Cherub.”

If I had taken a sip from a drink right that second, I’d have spit it out in a burst of laughter. As it was, I choked on the amusement bubbling up from a place of unexpected hilarity, untouched by the earlier anguish.

“A cherub?” I asked in between barely suppressed giggles. Images of the chubby baby angels with tiny wings so often depicted in European art over the centuries filled my mind. I giggled some more.

“Glad to see you’re still capable of merriment,” he muttered, his tone warm.

I squeezed his hand, all too aware of how he’d managed to pull my attention away from the maelstrom of sadness that threatened to drown me before. I wasn’t done processing it, not by a long shot, and what he’d just told me about his own family was sure to hijack my thoughts again later. All the more reason, however, to grasp onto what little humor I could find, wherever I could find it. Laughter had always been my lifeline in times of pain.

“Okay, but seriously,” I said with a grin. “Cherub? You have to admit that’s funny.”

He scoffed. “The term has been around much longer than the human artistic misinterpretation of it. It’s the third-highest order among angels and demons.”

“What’s the highest?”

“Archangels and archdemons. Below them are seraphim, and below them the cherubim.”

Interesting that demons would keep the same terms for their hierarchy in Hell as angels did in Heaven. Perhaps some unconscious form of trying to retain a sense of legitimacy among them.

And thinking of angels…another thing occurred to me. I pursed my lips and slowly said, “So your mother got pregnant with you before Azrael fell…”

He paused in washing my legs, his tone carefully neutral. “That’s correct.”

“Does that mean,” I said, a grin building on my face, “what I think it means?”

“Zoe.” A low growl.

The grin made a full appearance. “It does!”

I gasped, wanted to turn around to see his expression, but his arm around my middle tightened, holding me in place. His energy pulsed over my skin, dark and zinging, but without the bite of real anger. If anything, it felt petulantly annoyed.

I craned my neck to peek at his face. He gave me some major side-eye, but the glint in his eyes spurred me on.

“You,” I breathed, holding his gaze with a shit-eating grin, “are half angel!”

He narrowed his eyes, but the twitch of his lips gave him away. “Don’t ever say that again.”

“Do you have a halo?”

“Stop insulting me.”

“A flaming sword?”

He raised a brow. “Do I need to reacquaint you with my sword? It’s not flaming, but then again, if it were, I should probably get medical attention for that.”

I giggled and set out to turn around, fully intending to needle him further, when he bit my neck and clasped me tight, keeping me in place. I shrieked at the sudden move, tingles coursing down my body, and when he playfully nipped up and down my neck and shoulder, tickling the sensitive part behind my ear, I completely lost it.

“Stop it, angel!” I cried out with a flare of theatrics, the sincerity of which was sadly undermined by my recurring giggles.

He kept nibbling at my neck, snarling against my skin, and single-mindedly tickling the treacherous spot that made me dissolve into fits of squeaky giggling.

“How very unholy!” I squealed, now laughing outright, and thrashed in his grasp.

His chest shook behind me, his growls underlaid by low chuckles that did fuzzy things to my stomach. Something fluttered in my chest, a strange lightness, filling me with bubbles of warmth. I liked his laugh.

And I liked it even more that I brought it out of him.

“I’m not finished washing you,” he now purred against my ear.

“Oh?”

The energy in the air shifted as Azazel dipped the washcloth between my legs...and there was simply no way that touch would stay non-arousing. I would have had to be comatose in order not to respond.

“Um,” I got out a tad breathless, wiggling under the sudden onslaught of sensation, “actually, you shouldn’t use soap—” I gasped “—there.”

“Is that so?” The innocent-sounding question contrasted with his targeted moves between my thighs.

“Just water,” I wheezed.

“Hm.” He dropped the washcloth in favor of using his fingers directly. “I agree.” He parted my folds, stroked along rapidly sensitizing skin. “This is better.”

Panting, I arched my back, and he held me still with his other arm slung around my waist as he continued to caress me with merciless patience. His large frame caged me as effectively as if I were lying underneath him, his strong thighs on either side of me, the massive wall of power that was his chest at my back.

I let my head fall back onto his shoulder, and he pressed hot kisses against my ear, my neck, my cheek. The water sloshed as I writhed, scissoring my legs helplessly at the desire coiling ever tighter in my core.

“Azazel,” I moaned, and brought up my arm, my fingers curling into his hair.

He made a low sound of approval and pulled me even closer. “I could listen to this all day.” He slid two fingers inside me, pumped in and out with increasing speed. “My name on your lips as I make you come.”

“Yes.” I bucked into his touch, riding his hand with shameless abandon. “Please.”

“Again,” he murmured into my ear.

I obliged, saying his name, over and over, until it turned into a keening cry of pleasure as my climax rolled through me. He wrung every last drop of ecstasy from me, then petted me down with exquisite care.

Catching my breath, I tilted my head and sought his mouth. The kiss was surprisingly tender, a thing of fragile beauty and quiet affection, pulling at something soft and neglected inside me. Our breaths mingled in the steamy air, and I half-turned in his embrace. My hip brushed over his hard length, and I bit my lip, my hand already halfway toward grasping his cock when he caught my wrist.

“In my bed,” he said roughly. “I want you in my bed.”

He rose and pulled me up with him. The water splashed as we stepped out, the light of the candles dancing over the raw masculine beauty of his honed body as he grabbed a towel and rubbed me dry with lightning in his eyes. The intensity of his focus made me shiver.

With quick, unassuming efficiency, he toweled himself off too, and the next second he’d hefted me up and was already carrying me out of the bathroom, through my room and into his own. He laid me down on the mattress with unexpected gentleness, given the tension humming in his energy. As if I were something precious, delicate, and his hunger for me in need of tempering lest he break me.

Well, now, I had no intention of tempering anything, least of all him.

When he set a knee on the mattress and started for me, I lifted one leg and stopped him with a tap of my foot against his chest.

He raised a brow in a question.

“Lie down,” I said.

Narrowing his eyes, he paused.

“So suspicious,” I muttered, curling and flexing my toes against his pecs in the hint of a caress. “One might think you don’t want my tongue on you.”

His gaze heated, one corner of his mouth tipping up. “No flying necessary?”

“Not this time.”

He sprawled on his back, arms crossed behind his head, one leg bent...displaying the full splendor of his package without a touch of modesty. Lips twitching, I crawled over to him.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” I warned, “or I’ll stop.”

His eyes flared. “A challenge?”

“You have a way of...distracting me.” I leaned over his chest and placed a kiss on his heartbeat. “But I want to explore you.” Another kiss, this one on the hard muscle where his neck met his shoulder. “And you’ll let me.”

“I’ll let you?” His voice was a low rumble.

“Mhm.” My mouth on his throat, his pulse jumping against my lips. “Because I think, for once, you’d like to let me do the pleasuring.”

“Hm.” He watched me with hooded eyes as I straddled him without sitting down.

“And I think,” I murmured, leaning down to brush my lips over his, “you’re curious and want to see what I’ll do when you give me free rein.”

Ifhe gave me free rein. The jury was still out on that one, judging by the glint of feral hunger in his gaze. Everything I knew about him said taking and maintaining control in all aspects of his life was as intrinsic to his nature as breathing. To lie there and keep his paws off me while I took my sweet time to lick every inch of him would be akin to torture for him.

I so couldn’t wait.

Keenly aware that his restraint might snap at any second, in which case I’d be flat underneath him with him buried deep inside me in the blink of an eye, I kissed his jaw, licked down his throat to the hollow between his collarbones. The muscles in his throat worked as I let my lips glide over his skin, his power a prickling charge pressing against me. A thousand tiny taps of his energy on my body made me gasp with my mouth over his heartbeat.

“I said no touching.” I cast him an arch look.

“No, you said to keep my hands to myself.” His expression was all feigned innocence as he wiggled his fingers where his hands rested on the pillow above his head. “This is me with my hands to myself.”

Devious demon.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I kissed his left pec, licked around his nipple—and lightly bit it.

His power washed over me in a wave of electric sparks. The bed rattled.

Insanely pleased at his reaction, I trailed more kisses down his chest, let my lips and tongue explore the dips and ridges of his muscled torso. So close to his skin, his alluring scent filled my nose—bonfire and dark spices, mixed with the lighter fragrance of the bath soap, and aromatic heat that was purely Azazel. Hmm. I hummed against his skin, delighting in his taste.

Scooting down, I followed the thin trail of dark hair down over his abdomen, making sure to plant a kiss each on those two muscled lines on his hips that formed an arrow to his groin. My loose hair might have brushed over his hard cock straining for attention.

Fire crackled in the air. When I looked up, the expression on his face was so carnal, it made my stomach flutter and my inner muscles clench.

Desire was a liquid lure as I finally directed my focus to the enormous erection jutting up from among close-cropped hair. As with the first time I’d seen his cock that day he’d stripped in front of me before taking a shower, the raw, erotic sight of it made lust pool in my core. I licked my lips, pressed my thighs together, anticipation a thrill in my blood.

Reaching out, I let my fingers lightly dance over the silken skin stretched taut over steel. His dick jumped at my touch, and I grasped it, unable to wrap my fingers fully around its girth. My hair fell around my head like a dark curtain as I leaned forward and licked along the line from the base to the top, the tip of my tongue lapping up the bead of precum that had appeared.

Power pulsed in the room.

The muscles in his thighs tightened, and his hips jerked ever so slightly, as if he’d barely kept himself from thrusting into my mouth. I sent him a knowing glance, a small smile on my lips as I flicked my tongue around the broad head and teased the sensitive front.

A whisper of hot energy along my inner thighs, like molten honey poured onto my skin, moving up toward my intimate flesh. I jolted, stopped, and glared at him.

“I am not technically touching you,” he murmured, a sly smirk curving his mouth. He waved his hand. “Do go on.”

Shooting him another glower, I leaned down again, took him into my mouth in one quick move and sucked.

Flames rolled out from his body and danced over the sheets.

I reared back, heart thudding, but he’d already extinguished the fire.

Eyes sparking with lightning, he gave me an unrepentant grin and crooked his finger. “Proceed.”

“You are so cocky,” I muttered.

“Fully justified.” He gestured at the length of his undeniably swoon-worthy body.

I rolled my eyes, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Bending down again, I closed my mouth over his dick and swirled my tongue around the head while I sucked.

A sound that was half groan, half growl escaped him, his hips bucking up. The phantom touch of his energy returned to my inner thighs, licks of heat coming ever closer to my folds. I gasped against his shaft as his power pushed and pulled on the lust-swollen flesh between my legs, an energetic imitation of the sensual havoc his mouth could wreak on me.

“Azazel,” I ground out, my voice somewhere between snarling and moaning.

The look on his face was distinctly feline in its smugness. “Hearing you moan my name while you have my cock in your mouth,” he purred. “The ultimate delight.”

“You’re insuffera—” The sentence ended in a helpless cry of pleasure as his energy locked onto my clit and pulsed in a rapid-fire rhythm. Not unlike… I sucked in a breath. “Did you study my vibrator’s settings?”

He wagged his brows once, his smile dripping with masculine arrogance. “You still have some exploring to do.” His cock twitched against my jaw to underscore his point.

Oh, you cheeky—

I narrowed my eyes and proceeded to dole out some sensual torture of my own. Or tried to. It was increasingly difficult to focus on sucking him to within an inch of madness when his unrelenting energy play between my thighs drove my own arousal to the point I was ready to hump his leg right then and there.

Gasping, I released his cock with a wet plop and closed my eyes for a second. “Fuck this,” I growled, crawled up his body, grasped his length and slid down on it.

His throaty laughter almost drowned out my moan. Pleasure sparked all along my nerve endings, rushed through my blood and burst in my mind as his girth stretched me just on the right side of painful. Filled. I was so deliciously filled. Savoring the incredible sensation, I threw my head back and closed my eyes.

“Still want me to keep my hands to myself?” His voice was an erotic thrum, his power licking over my skin.

“Hell no.”

A pleased growl. “Good answer.”

His hands were on my breasts the next second, and I arched into his touch. Squeezing and massaging, he lavished his attention on my curves as I started riding him, sliding up and down his cock. I tilted my hips on the downward glide to hit the spot just so. My fingers curled into his chest. Pleasure built in my core, my breathing turning ragged.

His mouth on my breast, teeth closing on my nipple. Electric heat licked right over my clit. I grabbed his neck, desperate for purchase in the storm that hovered, ready to sweep me away. His energy wrapped around me, suffused me, until I wasn’t sure where I ended and he began.

This. I’d needed this. To lose myself in him. Feel my desire mirrored in his own, consume him as he consumed me.

“Azazel,” I whispered hoarsely, my hands in his hair, my mouth seeking his.

“Here,” he murmured against my lips. “I’m right here.”

He met my kiss with fissures in his composure, letting me see, feel, taste the naked, raw, unbridled need within him. For me.

Me.

My breath shuddered, something hard inside me cracking open.

His fingers tangled in my hair, pulled my head back to expose my throat, and then his teeth were on my neck, the sharp prick of his fangs teasing the skin over my racing pulse as he bucked to meet my hips in a rhythm of primal urgency.

He uttered a word, half feral and choked with the kind of need that shook me to my core, and it took me a moment to understand what he’d rasped. “Zoe.”

I shattered. A crescendo of bliss and deep, open vulnerability wrapped in pleasure, and when he followed me right over the edge, his wings erupted from his back with a deafening whoosh, the flame-licked onyx enveloping us both.

* * *

When I wokeup what felt like hours later, I blinked against the semi-darkness, expecting to see the faint outline of my own room. Much like the first night I’d spent with Azazel, I fell asleep right in his arms, and I fully expected he’d later deposited me back in my own bed, as he’d done before.

Not this time.

His scent wrapping around me like a sensual blanket, Azazel lay behind me, my back to his chest, his skin against mine the sweetest brand. The silken sheet covering me and him was so incongruously warm and heavy, like a weighted, heated blanket. I sighed, snuggled further into him, and pulled the sheet more snugly around me—and stilled.

“Try not to dislocate my wing,” came Azazel’s sleepy murmur.

My eyes shot wide. Flexing my fingers against the silky brush of feathers, I uttered a muffled squeak and yanked my hand back. “Sorry!”

He harrumphed and shook out his wing, then settled it over me again. “You’re wiggly.”

“I can always go sleep in my own bed.”

With a sound I liked to interpret as a contemplative growl, he snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me closer. Splaying his hand possessively over one of my breasts, he squeezed. “No.”

I pressed my thighs together against the tingle of arousal and smiled into the darkness.