“Not yet…?”
“When the dawn comes, I’ll take you to bed.” Casziel’s tone became thick and heated. “I’ve waited centuries to feel you again. I can wait a few more hours.”
“No.” I took his face in my hands, staring directly into the dead black of his gaze. “We only have a few hours left. I want them all. I don’t want to wait.”
“My brave woman,” he said and kissed my eyes closed. “There is a hell in me, Lucy. Look into my eyes long enough and you will see your death.”
“I want to see it. Our last night.”
“Lucy, no—”
“You’re doing it again.” I pressed myself into him, tilting my chin, blindly seeking his mouth. “Trying to protect me. From that night. From your touch. I want you to touch me.”
“Gods, woman. You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said gruffly into the small, heated space between us. “It wouldn’t be what it is with a human. I am distinctly inhuman.”
“Would you hurt me?”
“Never. But gods, you’re an angel, to take me in this body.”
“I want to,” I said, even as my heart hammered against my ribs. “You are this way because you loved me. Besides…” I smiled, my own boldness shocking and thrilling me as I slipped my hand down to the immense erection straining against his pants. “Maybe I’m not as pure as you think.”
His eyes flared and he captured my mouth in a searing kiss. The sensations—hot and cold, fire and ice—rushed back in. His kiss devoured me, raw and feral. Overwhelming.
And this is just kissing.
A twinge of apprehension shuddered through me but was burned up in the need that electrified my every molecule, calling out for his skin on mine, his mouth and hands on my body, him inside me…
Just the thought made me dizzy.
He carried me to the bed, kissing me hard and working fast to strip me out of my clothes. The cardigan fell to the floor and then he pulled my dress over my head, leaving my curves on full display, my breasts spilling from my bra. I knew a moment of uncertainty, self-conscious that there was more of my body than he wanted.
But Casziel licked his lips, his hungry gaze grazing over me as if he didn’t know where to feast first.
“Gods have mercy,” he breathed. “I’ve dreamed of having you. Every night for years. Every lifetime, wanting to kiss and touch and fuck you until I was nearly mad.”
And just like that, my self-consciousness burned up like a dried leaf.
I removed the last of my clothes and lay on the bed, stretched out and waiting. “Come here,” I said, my voice trembling at the edges.
“Close your eyes, Lucy, and keep them closed. No matter what happens.”
I nodded and did as he asked. The demonic despair lessened but I’d never felt more vulnerable in the dark, with a storm raging outside and the rustle of wings over me. The bed dipped with Casziel’s weight as he moved into the circle of my arms, heavy and hard on top of me. My pulse thundered while want and nervousness twined together and danced along my skin.
I felt him place a kiss to the hollow of my throat, his hair tickling my chin.
“Lucy, your heart…”
“Is yours,” I said, pulling him closer. “I want this. I want you.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
The weight of his body on mine was solid and real, everything I’d been yearning for. It slowed my crashing pulse and blanketed me with the solidity of him. This was real. He was real and not a dream. This wasn’t someone else’s story but ours. His and mine.
“If you need to stop, we stop,” Casziel said, his lips brushing, tongue flickering, sending icy hot licks down my throat and chest, hardening my nipples. “You tell me if it’s too much.”
It was already too much and not enough. A rush of adrenaline-laced lust was flooding me, every particle of my being wanting him. Needing to feel him at long last. I couldn’t remember all of us, but I felt every minute of the long centuries when I didn’t have him. My body deprived of him.