Archangel's Storm (Guild Hunter 5)

Jason, she knew without asking, wasn’t a man who allowed anyone as close as a familiar lover would become. Her chest ached at the knowledge of the hurt that must have shaped him to such endless aloneness, but she also knew she must be so, so careful not to fall for him, not to seek more than the dark sexuality that swirled between them, hot and beautifully violent as a desert storm.

* * *

Jason knew he was walking a dangerous edge with Mahiya, but he also knew he craved her touch too much to turn back. Clenching his jaw to control his shudder as her fingers touched his scalp, stroked down, he forced himself to remain motionless when all he wanted to do was turn, pin her to the wall, and thrust into the lush heat of her body.

He heard the bones in his jaw grind against one another as she stroked again, and suddenly, her touch was gone. “I’m distressing you. I’m sorry.” An edge of horror in her tone. “I would’ve never—”

Pushing off the railing, he halted her apology by the simple expedient of taking her delicately lovely face in his hands. “Stop.”

Her breath rasped in her throat as she sucked in air, her eyes huge. But instead of flinching at the rough speed of his touch or pushing him away, she fisted one hand in the soft cotton of his T-shirt . . . and rose up on tiptoe.

It took every ounce of control he had not to accept the silent invitation at once. “You must understand,” he said, and his voice was a harsh scrape, “this won’t make me stay with you, won’t make me commit. I don’t have that ability.” To bond, to open his heart, to trust that the one he gave it to wouldn’t savage it.

Mahiya’s breath whispered over his lips as she maintained her position. “I know.” Soft words. “I also know that I’d like to share myself with a strong man who doesn’t court me with lies, is honest in his desire.”

He saw her swallow, knew she wasn’t as confident as she was attempting to appear. “Be certain. You’ll never be able to take this back.” And he would not taint an innocent with his darkness, would not turn her bitter because of the lack in him.

Her lips brushed his.

Thrusting both hands into her hair, the strands beginning to unravel, he slanted his mouth over her own, intent on devouring . . . when he felt her spine go taut.

Slow Jason. Slow. She is not a bedmate who is accustomed to seeking pleasure.

It took gut-deep self-control, but he gentled the kiss, suckling her upper lip into his mouth and releasing it, only to court her with sipping kisses that enticed rather than demanded.

Her fingers flexed on his waist, her muscles losing their tautness. Having gone down flat on her feet, she now rose up toward him again, her wings beginning to open. Coaxing her with another petting kiss, he nudged her into her living room, the area lit only by the glow from a single table lamp. He’d used his abilities to cloak them from curious eyes thus far, but the ability required focus, and all of his was now on Mahiya.

Breaking the kiss once they were inside, he murmured, “The front door.”

Pulse a stutter in her throat, she gave a jerky nod and walked to lock the doors into her suite as he shut and locked the ones to the balcony. “I’ve—” Her words ended in a gasp, his chest pressed to her back, his head bent over the curve of her neck.

22

Placing his hands on her hips, he held her in position as he tasted her skin, as he drowned in the sense of connection, of being real, if only for the fleeting slice of night he’d spend with the woman in his arms. Her scent, that wild spice, it made him drunk, her skin so soft and warm, her body all graceful curves. He wished she wore a sari so he’d have only to stroke up his hands to caress the na**d skin of her waist.

Her wings, trapped between them, shifted in tiny, restless movements as he reached up to remove the remainder of the pins she’d used to hold her hair in place. It tumbled over his hands in a cascade of unexpected curls, lush and thick and satiny soft. Fisting one hand in the strands, he tugged back her head, arching her neck for his mouth.

A tremor quaked her frame, her fingers splaying against the wood of the doors.

The flick of his tongue, the intoxicating taste of her.

Her pulse thudded a rapid staccato, her wings moving in as erratic a rhythm. Lifting his free hand from her hip, he closed it firmly over the edge of her left wing and stroked down.

A choked-off sound, her pupils hugely dilated when her lashes flicked up. “Jason.”

Halting the intimate touch before it became too much, he spread his hand flat on her stomach. “How do I get you out of this?”

“The buttons that hold the wing slits closed.” Husky words. “There’s also a hidden zip at the side.”

Wanting her skin against his own, he took a single step away and swept her hair off her back and over her shoulder. The buttons were faceted black crystals, shimmering in the soft light. Slipping out the top buttons without touching the sensitive arch of her wings, he reached down and found the matching buttons at the bottom of her wings.

The center panel at the back fell down, over her lower curves and he watched as she tugged the front section off her arms, holding the crumpled fabric to her chest with a modesty that paradoxically made him burn. Using her free hand, she reached up to her side and pushed down a concealed zipper that went from her ribs to the slit at the bottom of her tunic.

Heat met his knuckles as he brushed them down the centerline of her back, fine tremors traveling over her skin. Were he a better man, he would stop this—Mahiya didn’t respond like a woman who’d had lovers enough to lose her shyness.

“. . . who doesn’t court me with lies, is honest in his desire.”

His desire held no deceit, was a fist in his gut.

Not forcing her to release the front of the tunic, he put his hands on the curve of her h*ps and pressed up against her again, his wings spread wide behind them. She shuddered at the intimate contact, because while she’d been busy with her tunic, he’d peeled off his T-shirt.

The softness of her feathers against his na**d skin rushed sensory information through his mind, a molten river that held him captive. Bending to the sleek slope of her neck once more, he used a finger to brush aside an errant strand of hair, felt her responding shiver through the place where their bodies connected. Even as he pressed his lips to her sensitive skin, he stroked one hand down her arm to close his fingers over the ones she had fisted on her front, holding the tunic in place.

He didn’t force, just gave a gentle tug.

The tiniest hesitation before she uncurled her fingers and allowed him to take one hand, stretch it out to press against the door. When he traced his return journey down the slender warmth of her arm, she kept her hand where he’d put it. Switching sides, he swept her hair over to the other side with luxuriant slowness . . . because now that he was touching her, the fever in him had transformed into a dark sexual patience that promised crushing pleasure.