“I am a hunter.” He adjusted his sword and settled his hand on the hilt.
“Makes sense.” Taylor couldn’t resist the opportunity to cast her eye over him again.
He looked as though he could handle hunting. Bronzed skin stretched taut over powerful muscles, and the weapon hanging at his waist could slay her any day of the week. She coughed to clear her throat and chase such thoughts away. She was not going to fall for an angel. Her mother would laugh in her grave.
“I’m a hunter too.” If she’d had a blade on her, she would have twirled it, showing off her skills.
Einar had made her leave all her toys at his place though.
He didn’t say anything, just lifted his head towards the sky, stood silent and pensive for so long she wondered if something was wrong with him.
He dropped his gaze to her. “Where is Cloud Nine?”
Her eyebrows rose.
She saw a chance to tease him and took it. “You’re an angel. I thought you’d be able to answer that one. I’ve never been on cloud nine myself, but I’ve heard good things about it. I bet it’s pretty crowded though, unless it’s really big. Do angels get to go to cloud nine too?”
He didn’t look impressed. He was quiet again, as pensive as before, and then nodded as though agreeing with something. Her? She looked up at the night sky. Or someone else?
“It is a club, apparently, in this city. The demon we apprehended has pointed us in the direction of it. Do you know where it is?” His deep luscious voice made her eyes half-close.
She nodded absently and then her eyes shot wide when she remembered exactly what sort of club Cloud Nine was. “Are you sure you want to go there? I mean, it’s an—”
“Exotic club?” He smiled, bright and dazzling. “I got the memo.”
“Where, in your head?” She looked around his ears for a sign of anything that could serve as a communications device.
He nodded. “Of course. Where else would I receive orders?”
The way he said that made it sound as though it was perfectly normal to have voices talking to you in your head, telling you to do things. As far as she knew, that sort of thing usually got you committed.
“Whatever you say.” She tugged her leather jacket closed over her chest and started towards the park exit.
Cloud Nine had a reputation as a sleaze pit and for a good reason. It was the sort of club a human went to when they wanted to get off their face and do things without any strings attached and no consequences.
Unfortunately for the mortals, half of the patrons were of the demonic variety, and some of them had dangerous habits.
The sort that could get angels asking questions and hunting them down.
He had said that he was after the three demons because they had worked with an angel to kill over one hundred humans, and he needed to know why.
Did it have something to do with what happened at Cloud Nine?
She shook that theory away.
Cloud Nine had a reputation, but not for murder.
There had only ever been the occasional accident.
If it had been the scene of so much death, she would have heard about it. Besides, she was sure that the boss wouldn’t condone such things. They had always kept a strict eye on the demons who frequented the club, and most of them obeyed the rules. The boss dealt with those who didn’t in a way that was a warning to the rest and kept them in line.
It had to be something else that had killed the humans, or at least somewhere else.
“You are very quiet.” Einar’s voice drifted into her thoughts and she made a small noise of agreement. “Thinking?”
“About Cloud Nine. I get the why, but I’m not sure it’s right.” She looked across at him.
He strode beside her, tall, dark and too handsome for his own good, especially when he smiled at her.
There was something mischievous about it this time.
“You can tell me all about it while we are en route.”
Before she could agree, he had swept her into his arms and had kicked off, beating his broad tawny wings and lifting them both into the air. She grabbed him around the neck and curled up.
“Put me down. I thought we went through this last night? I am not flying with you.” She beat his chest with one hand and clung fiercely to him with the other.
The ground drifted farther and farther away and her stomach turned.
“I will not drop you. There is no reason to fear.” His grip on her tightened, offering comfort she refused to accept.
There was every reason. “If God had wanted me to fly, he would have given me wings.”
“Well, he gave me wings, so we are flying. It is far quicker and I am tired of walking.” The stubborn set of his jaw told Taylor that she wasn’t going to get her way this time either.
The world rushed by below. She baulked and hid her face in his neck. It wasn’t strong or very like her, but she couldn’t face seeing how high she was and how easily she could fall.
Einar’s strong grip on her ribs and knees said that she couldn’t fall that easily. It had taken her beating him up last night to get him to let her go. He wouldn’t drop her. She trusted him that much.
“You do need to direct me,” he said in a loud voice over the sound of the wind.
She emerged from her hiding place, steeled her stomach and looked around, trying to make sense of the alien world below her. The BT tower glowed in the distance like a beacon. She pointed towards it. Once they were there, she would be able to direct him.
“Do you think Cloud Nine is the sort of place our demons might have contacts?” He twisted in the air, heading towards the tower.
She looked up at him. His profile was a far better distraction than hiding against his chest. She put it to memory. The straight line of his nose, the sharp edge to his dark eyes, and the chiselled stroke of his jaw. The wind ruffled his short ponytail, freeing strands that whipped against his face. She held her own long black hair with one hand and on to him with the other.
“They might. We don’t often get their sort around here though. They tend to keep a low profile.” She found herself shouting too, even though she was sure there wasn’t any need to. Both of them had superior hearing thanks to their breeding. “Normally I hunt the boring type that just keels over and dies the moment I look at it. I prefer a man with a bit of spunk and fight.”
His gaze snapped to meet hers, full of questions. Her cheeks burned. There was no way she had meant him. Not a chance in Hell. Her heart trembled in her throat and her palms sweated. She didn’t. She couldn’t.
Einar swooped lower and she took to directing him towards the club, thankful for the distraction. She had to get her head on straight. All she had done since meeting him was flirt with him and she had promised herself that she wouldn’t get involved.
No matter how much she wanted to.
They landed in the alley outside the club. The neon sign above the entrance was dark. The streets were empty. Einar set her down and she went to the black doors, gripped the handles and rattled them. Locked.
“Guess we’ll have to come back tomorrow.” Taylor struggled to hold his gaze.
She should have said that he would have to come back tomorrow, should have made up some excuse about having something else to do like washing her hair and left him to find his demons alone. It would have been the most sensible course of action. But then, she hadn’t done anything that could be considered sensible from the moment she had met him. He had turned her world upside down and her with it.
She moved back a step, placing more distance between them. “I mean, you’ll have to come back.”
She turned to leave but he caught her arm. She looked down at his hand, at his fingers engulfing her slender wrist, and then up into his eyes.
“I thought we were partners?” His dark eyes searched hers, his eyebrows knitted hard above them.
She cursed that word.
Partners.
Perhaps they were, but not th
e sort that she wanted. That was something they could never be. It was too complicated and it would never work.
If Heaven found out that he had worked with her, or healed her, or anything about them, then they would punish him. At least she only had to answer to herself. It wasn’t like that for him though, and she didn’t want to be responsible for getting him kicked out of his job and his home.
And she didn’t want him to hate her when he realised what she was.
“I really should leave.” She tried to take her hand back but he wouldn’t let it go.
“Why?” Einar stepped up to her, so close that his hip brushed hers, and she trembled at the feel of him.
She couldn’t say the answers that came to her. Her voice wouldn’t work.
Because it was forbidden.
Because she wanted so much more than just helping him find some damned demons.
Because he was going to break her heart.
Because he would hate her.
Instead, she stood there, staring into his eyes, losing a battle she didn’t have the heart to fight.
“No reason,” she said and he released her hand. She managed to fake a wicked smile even though she ached inside. “I guess we should stick together for now then, Partner.”
She traced her fingers along the top of his breastplate, following the gold edging around the moulded dark brown leather, and his gaze tracked them.
It hurt to flirt with him, but using it to cover her feelings was far easier than facing her fear by telling him what was on her mind and confessing that she was the sort of thing he was out to kill.
Einar swept her into his arms again and took flight with her. She looped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder as her thoughts weighed her down, silencing her tongue.
He held her closer, as though he had sensed her need for reassurance, and his cheek brushed her forehead. He remained there, his warm skin touching hers, and she realised something.
She wasn’t the only one battling their feelings and desire.
But she would be the one to surrender to them.
CHAPTER 7
Einar held the door to the hotel suite open for Taylor. She passed him and flicked on the lights. The living area between the two bedrooms held her attention in a way that wasn’t natural.
There wasn’t much to look at. Two gilt-framed cream couches facing each other across a wooden coffee table and a flat screen TV on a side cupboard between the two tall windows opposite the door.
Was she avoiding looking at him?
Angels had acute senses. He could feel her fear and desire. They mirrored his own feelings so perfectly that he hadn’t noticed them as hers at first. It didn’t help that she insisted on flirting with him one moment and trying to push him away the next.
Was she as confused about this as he was?
Both of them knew it wasn’t right, even if it did feel as though it was.
Taylor walked to the door of the second bedroom.
Einar watched her backside sway, appreciated the hell out of her curves as he raked his gaze over them. She was more than tempting. He wanted her without a doubt, but no good would come of it. She knew what he was, and why they couldn’t do this.
She stopped at the door and looked back at him. Her black hair swept over her shoulder in a graceful wave, blending into her leather jacket, and her blue eyes held his, mesmerising him.
He went to her without thinking, his feet moving of their own volition, carrying him towards the one thing he shouldn’t want but the one thing he couldn’t resist.
Taylor.
She was beautiful.
And he was starting not to care about her blood or what she was, because all of that made her into the woman standing before him. This beautiful woman with so much passion and fear in her eyes, so much conflict that he wanted to touch her cheek and kiss her, and show her that it didn’t matter where they had come from in life.
It only mattered that they were falling for each other.
He almost laughed at himself.
What foolish thoughts were those?
She flirted with him but that didn’t mean she actually wanted him. For all he knew, this was some devious demonic game to her, a challenge to make an angel fall.
He stopped close beside her, staring deep into her eyes and trying to decipher her true feelings. A sparkle of tears wet her lashes and for a flicker of a moment, pure fear replaced any trace of desire in her eyes.
No.
This wasn’t a game.
This was real, for both of them. They were both scared. She was just fighting it better than he was.
He had given up the moment he had touched her, and she had touched him, last night.
Taylor stepped up to him, pressed her hand against the breastplate of his armour, and tiptoed.
He couldn’t move as she brought her mouth towards his, her eyes closing. Froze solid when she kissed him.
It was soft, tentative, and mind-blowing.
Any hint of reservation and restraint he had shattered in an instant.
He started to kiss her but she pulled away and took a step backwards towards the open door of her room, her fingers trailing down his breastplate as she smiled.
“Thanks for the date, Romeo.” She turned, stepped into her room and closed the door on him.
Einar stood staring at the white panels, breathing hard and struggling to regain control as the need she had ignited in him raged just below the surface, fighting to get free.
Was she trying to break him? Was she just toying with him or was she serious?
He fought the urge to kick her door down and ask her, and kiss her, and make love with her. Every inch of him tightened at the thought of burying himself in her sweet body and slaking his thirst for her.
He pressed his hand against the door and drew deep breaths, wrestling for some sort of command over his feelings.
She moved around on the other side, coming closer one moment and drifting away the next. He listened, trying to convince himself to turn around and go to his room. It was impossible with the taste of her on his tongue and the memory of how good her mouth had felt against his rampaging through his mind.
He didn’t care if it was real or not.
He didn’t care about the consequences.
Einar kicked the door and it burst open, slamming against the wall on the other side.
Taylor gasped and his gaze sought her out.
She stood at the foot of the white double bed, clutching her black top to her bare breasts, her blue eyes wide.
His chest heaved as he stared at her, as he raked his gaze down over her wicked curves, his heart pounding faster at the sight of her.
He crossed the room in two strides and pulled her into his arms.
She dropped her top and pressed her hands against his breastplate when he dipped his head and captured her lips. He crushed them with a passionate kiss, holding nothing back as his tongue delved beyond the barrier of her teeth to tangle with hers.
She moaned, leaned into him, and slid her hands up, settling her arms around his neck. Tingles cascaded down his spine as she buried her fingers into his hair.
It didn’t matter that it was forbidden.
It only mattered that they wanted this, needed this, and had feelings for each other.
To Hell with it.
Taylor gasped again as he scooped her up, his mouth still playing sensually with hers, and kneeled on the bed. She giggled when he laid her down on the soft white bedclothes and covered her.
He relinquished her lips and looked down at his armour.
She was right.
It had to go.
He undid the leather strap over his right shoulder with one hand and stilled as she unbuckled the other, her actions slow and tantalising, teasing his senses. She brushed her fingers over his bare skin and swept them down the solid armour to his side, and all he could do was watch as she undid the side strap on his left and then dealt with the one on his
right.
Her soft pink tongue swept across her lips as she removed the breastplate and her gaze fell to his body. She tossed the armour to one side and her eyes darkened when she ran both of her hands over his bare chest. He tensed beneath her delicious touch and she moaned.
“Like a god,” she whispered and traced the lines of his abdomen and chest, her gaze burning into his body, leaving a fiery trail.
He dragged his eyes away from hers and held his own groan at bay when he saw her bare full breasts, their dusky peaks taut and begging for attention. He wanted her. It screamed in every fibre of his body, a hunger so intense that it felt as though he would die if he couldn’t satisfy it.
There was something he needed to do first.
Einar focused hard.
She frowned. “What’s the ma—”
He pressed his finger to her lips and concentrated.
Her eyes widened when his wings began to shrink into his back.
When they had disappeared, he stood and removed the back plate of his armour. She sat up on the edge of the bed, her eyes on him, following his every move as he undressed. He unbuckled his greaves and boots, and kicked them off. When he went to do the same with the vambraces protecting his forearms, she stopped him.
Einar stilled again and let her have her way. It was far more enjoyable when she undressed him after all.
She ran her hands over his left one, her movements leisurely as she turned it so his palm was face up. He swallowed when she carefully undid each buckle on the armguard, her fingers lightly teasing the patch of skin that action exposed. When she reached the final buckle and had dealt with it, she slowly removed the vambrace and set it down on the bed beside her. He thought she was done with him, that she would move on to his other arm without hesitation.
She swept her hands up the thick toned length of his forearm instead and her thumbs caressed the soft skin on the inside of his elbow.
He stared into her eyes when she held his elbow with one hand and brought her other back down to his hand. She lured it towards her and he swallowed again, his mouth drying out as she moulded his fingers around her right breast. His eyes slipped shut and he palmed her, loving the warm weighted feel of it in his hand.
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