She had clients coming in early, but they were regulars, a group of eight Army soldiers who worked the local munitions terminal. She could take some time. “If you can keep me dry.”
“I can keep you warm and dry.” He motioned to her to get onto his back. The wings disappeared, but she saw red lines like two scars curving along the inside of his shoulder blades, evidence of where they emerged. From earlier, she knew they would disappear, but she traced them now. When he bent to take her weight, she wrapped her arms around his chest. He guided her legs to clasp his hips.
“Hold on tight for this first part.”
She did, and he leaped with a breathtaking flex of muscle and graceful movement of limbs, catching the first branch and then climbing up from there, taking them to a triangular cradle between two thick branches and the trunk. He helped her dismount, steadying her, and then lowered her to a seated position between his thighs, bracing his back against the rise of one of the branches, their feet against the trunk and the prop of the other branch. He combed her damp hair from her face as she tilted her head back, traced the beads of water rolling down his jaw. Running her fingers through his much wetter hair, she slicked it back on his skull. When he leaned down to kiss her again, he stopped with just a space between their lips, registering her pensive expression.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’ve never been romanced, Mikhael.” She allowed herself a tight smile. She’d played plenty of sensual games, understood the lines and boundaries of them. “But I’m certainly not romance material, and neither are you. I want to know what you think this is.”
“No male has ever romanced you?”
The truth stung a little, but she lifted her chin. “I’ve had a lot of sex, Mikhael. No relationships.”
“Well, that makes two of us.” He gave her a direct look. “No woman has ever inspired me to walk with her in the rain, or crush peanuts for her sundae. Whether or not we’re romance material—your words, not mine—why shouldn’t we be allowed, if only for a few days, what so many others have? Life is short, whether you live one year or a thousand.”
She nodded, touched his lips. “So that’s all this is?”
“It is what it is. We’re attracted to one another. Not just physically. I like you, Raina. I admire you. You intrigue me.”
He curved a strand of damp hair around her ear. “I pursued Isaac here. You were unexpected. How that affects why I’m here or your responsibilities, I don’t know.” His attention moved to her mouth, that heated intensity suddenly back in his eyes, making her aware of everywhere their bodies touched in their current half-reclined position. “But I do know I want to kiss you.”
“I know I want to be kissed.”
The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Then why don’t we leave it right there? We’ll be like teenagers, like Bella, Edward and Jacob, believing that’s all that matters.”
Her lips curved. “Mikhael, we’re adults.”
“Yeah, thank Lucifer.” The dark gaze held her, that heat growing. “That means no one can stop me from what I want to do to you. Except you.”
She eased back a little, not ready to lose her mind to that kiss. Yet. “You never smile. You chuckle in that dry way, you have that cynical smirk, but you don’t smile. What makes you smile, even if just inside?”
Okay, there it was. She was going to stick her feet into those tricky waters. Turning over to straddle him in his partly reclined position, she sat up, letting her bare feet hang down on either side of the tree. He kept her secure in his grasp, but then she adjusted, clasping his hands to hold them palm to palm between their two bodies. They twisted and turned over each other, idle caresses of fingertips as he thought over a response. Since she tilted her head back, eyes closed to catch the stray raindrop on her face, his words hit her from the quiet darkness inside her head.
“A thief pulls in another man to work a job with him, a man whose character he doesn’t know. When they break into the house, they’re surprised by the wife. The new partner decides he’s going to rape the wife, but the thief pulls him off her. The partner is a bigger man, a much better fighter, but the thief fights him anyway, makes the decision to set off one of the house alarms. Then he keeps the fight going until the police get there and arrest them both. He went to prison for ten years. But the wife is safe.”
Raina opened her eyes. He’d laid his head back on the comfortable prop of the branch, was looking up through the trees, though as she watched, the raindrops made his eyes close as well. He continued speaking, encouraged by her attentive silence. “A junkie gives up on her drugs for two days to be clean enough to go to her daughter’s dance recital. Her daughter is happy, even though Mom has the shakes, because she smiles at her and tells her she did good. The mother will be stoned by nightfall, won’t remember anything else after that, but they’ll both remember that moment.
“Another mother croons a lullaby to a baby outside their hut. She can hear artillery fire in the distance. Their small world is surrounded by tribal warfare, guns and drugs. It’s very likely the child will never reach adulthood. If he does, he won’t have a mother by the time he gets there. She’ll be raped, mutilated, murdered. Knowing the likelihood of that, she still takes the time to sing him a lullaby by the firelight.”
She swallowed, but he kept going, painting those stark pictures. “A homeless person sees a group of teens kicking a stray dog, planning to throw him in a Dumpster and set him on fire. He goes to the aid of the dog, and their cruelty turns upon him. They kick him until his kidneys rupture and he dies. But the dog has gotten away and a few weeks later is adopted by a family that finds him in the park. He becomes their cherished, beloved pet for many years.”
The words were simple, unembellished. But the aura of intensifying energy around him showed the significance of the images, their importance to a world that often seemed terribly lost. He opened his eyes, stared up into the trees. “These are things of nobility, a special kind of valor created against a backdrop of evil and violence. Noticed by no one except the recipients or those like me. Those moments don’t make me smile, but I find a different…warmth there.”
“There’s a hopelessness to it,” she said at length. “The idea that we only find the best in ourselves when we face the worst in others.”
He said nothing, and her mind drifted toward darkness, toward memory. “Where Elceus held me, there was a small window. One night, the full moon was in the right position for a few short minutes. It filled that view, the light falling on me. A moth came to the bars. Beautiful, silky wings. Orange and blue body. It got in, couldn’t get out, because that happens. It can’t see the way. I was chained, so I put my hand on the cold stone, waited. Eventually it crawled on my knuckles, went still, as if it was waiting, trusting me to take it to that window. So I put it back between the bars, watched it crawl away, then fly. It tore my soul out of my chest. I wanted to be that moth, because even in its short life, it had far more freedom than I could ever remember experiencing at that point. But when I helped it, it kindled a small spark inside me. Something good. Your stories remind me of that.”
She pressed her lips together. “I also felt exhausted, like I’d just fought a war. Because the whole time it was crawling on the stone floor of my cell, beyond the reach of my chains, I had to fight the need to kill it before it figured out where that window was. But then it trusted me to get it there.”
“Therein lies the balance,” he said. “This is Purgatory. A testing ground, as I said. The choice is always ours, no matter the circumstances.”
She lowered her gaze to find him looking at her as if she were one of those things that brought warmth to him. “Those who can make the right choice under duress,” he said, “they’re truly the extraordinary ones, Raina. You’re extraordinary.”
She had no desire to answer that, to do anything but look at him and give him what he wanted. He knew it as well, for now he slid his hands under her arms, straightening to lift and turn her with that casual strength so she was straddling him still, but facing away from him. He pushed her shirt up, took it over her head. As he set it aside, he kissed her shoulder, cupped her breast, tightening his grip so the curve swelled above the strapless bra. Sliding his fingers over the nipple, he made it respond through the thin lace. “Put your arms back against me, Raina.”
She threaded her arms under his, her palms finding a home on the curve of hip and muscular buttocks, thumbs sliding along the crease of thigh. When he put his mouth to her rain-kissed throat, she sighed, thighs quivering in reaction.
“You can trust me, Raina.”
“What…” Then she felt the conjuring, her wrists bound by his magical steel chain, connected across his lower back so she was chained to him in truth. Or chained around him. Panic leaped in her throat as the same kind of binding wound around her thighs, holding them immobile and bound to his, spread over the oak branch, feet dangling together on either side, her toes curled into his shins.
“Take it off.”
“No. I’m right here, Raina. I’m only going to give you pleasure.” From the tilt of his head, she could tell he was studying the pleasing visual effect of her breasts cradled in his grip.
“You have breasts a man would die for. Just the right weight. I want to tie you down and suckle you all night long.”
She squirmed, which rubbed her against him. He was getting hard against her ass and lower back, and his thighs flexed against hers as she moved, an enticing coital hint.
“You’re imagining me sinking my cock into you right here, making you mine.”
She was afraid she was already his, for she’d allowed him to possess her in ways she’d never permitted another to do. So she didn’t answer, just turned her head, seeking his mouth. He evaded her, teasing her, and she bit his neck hard, earning a growl, a pinch of her nipples that had her squirming further. His growl became a muttered oath.