Wounded Wings (Cupid Chronicles)

by Allen, Shauna

  He brushed his thumb across her cheek, catching a stray tear. “But it’s true.”

  She studied his eyes as if she was gauging whether to believe him. “If you’re not a human, then what are you?”

  “I am human now. It’s what I used to be.”

  She blinked, disbelief painted all over every fine feature. “Fine. What did you . . . what did you used to be?”

  The breath raged in and out of his lungs as he realized these next moments would determine his fate for the rest of his earthly life. He watched another tear hover and catch on her lower lashes. He longed to ease this for her somehow. He sighed. “It might be easier if I just showed you.”

  “Showed me?”

  He eased to stand again and tossed up one last prayer for help as he tugged his T-shirt from his jeans. He ignored her startled gasp.

  “Eli—Elijah . . . what are you doing?”

  He yanked the shirt over his head and tossed it to the couch. He faced her and took a breath, met her gaze. Emotion clearly poured from her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she asked again, her voice shaking.

  “Showing you the truth the only way I know how.”

  He sucked in a deep breath, tucked away his nerves, and slowly spun to present her his back. His former shame.

  She said nothing at first. Only their ragged breathing filled the room until her refrigerator kicked on and hummed to life.

  He heard the shuffle of her standing, smelled the scent of her sweet perfume—like a meadow of wildflowers. He remained motionless, vulnerable. A broken thing unworthy of her perfect love, but asking all the same.

  “Your scars,” she breathed.

  He said nothing.

  She moved to face him, forced him to meet her eyes. “What happened to you?”

  “I cut off my wings.”

  “You . . .” She put a hand to her mouth. “Wings?”

  He didn’t move. She would have to believe him, believe in him, for this to work. “Yes.”

  She swallowed, obviously not convinced. “Why did you have, um, wings?” She nearly squeaked out the last word. But she was listening.

  He clenched his fingers, willing himself still. “Because I was . . .” He glanced down. Do it. Just say it. “I was an angel.”

  She froze. “You’re serious?”

  He nodded.

  “An angel?”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize how crazy you sound, right?” She reached over, grabbed his T-shirt, and handed it to him. “You should probably go.”

  He still didn’t move. “I realize it sounds crazy. But it’s true. What can I say to make you believe me?”

  Seconds ticked by painfully slow as she stared him down. “Nothing,” she finally said, forcing the shirt into his hands and brushing past him. “Go.”

  Desperation urged him on as panic set in and he moved purely on instinct, sinking to his knees. “Please. I’m begging.” He bowed his head. “Naomi. I love you. I would not lie to you.”

  She was within a step of him, her scent still wafting around him, teasing him. He could reach out and touch her if he wanted to. But he remained with his eyes downcast, at her mercy. His heart at her feet.

  “Elijah, you need—” Her soft, warm hand touched his left shoulder, barely skimming the top of his shoulder blade and his scar. “. . . some help . . .” Her words died off in an awed whisper as her fingertips brushed further down his scarred back.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped at the same time the stunning warmth cascaded through his body, lighting him like a newborn star.

  He raised his head and met her eyes.

  Tears were collecting and overflowing, making her eyes glow like emeralds. “I see . . . I can feel you,” she said with awe, pressing her other hand to the right side of his back. “My, God, Elijah. The pain.”

  He rose and tried to collect her into his arms, but she pushed away. “No.” She rounded him so she faced his back and gently placed both hands to his scars, and again the heat rushed through him like a river.

  “How could you stand it?” she murmured behind him.

  He couldn’t reply, the sensations too intense.

  But then, as if sensing his need, she wrapped her left arm around his chest and pressed her lips to his scarred back.

  He nearly broke then. “Naomi. Stop.”

  “No,” she whispered against his skin. “I’m sorry. I see now. I see . . .” She whispered it over and over like a chant as she pressed kisses to his flesh. “Elijah . . . you’re telling me the truth.” She heaved a ragged breath. “The agony was so brutal, yet you’re so tender and kind. How can this be true?”

  God, he wished he knew what was happening. What she saw. But this connection was more than he could’ve hoped for. He reached up and interlaced their fingers and brought his other hand up to brush across her forearm. Her scars. If only he could heal her. But he realized she did not need that. She was a strong, beautiful woman, who had overcome her own painful past. Just as he had.

  But the moment he touched her, they both gasped as a white-hot bolt of electricity shot through them and he drew back.

  “Did you feel that?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he whispered back, his heart a bit frightened at the intensity. The magic.

  The heat thrummed in arcs between them as awareness grew. Her breath moved hot and moist against his back. “Touch me again, Elijah.”

  He closed his eyes. Prepared himself. Slowly, he moved the pads of his fingers and caressed her wounded arm as she continued to love his scars.

  Behind his eyelids brilliant sparks flew, sensation flooded his body from every nerve ending. He felt like he could float away. And instantaneously, he knew what she saw. Because he saw, too. But this time it wasn’t just his pain. It was their pain to share, no longer tethering them down.

  Sarah.

  His fall.

  Her parents.

  The day she was burned.

  Vi selling the business, leaving her bereft. Lost.

  The day he’d left her.

  Their aching loneliness without the other.

  Finally, someone understood his pain. Understood him. Slowly, he slid his eyes open and adjusted to the room as it quit spinning. He glanced down to her hand still in his.

  There was a soft intake of air behind him and he felt her forehead against his back. What would she say? He swallowed back the nerves crowding his throat and focused on the feel of her body pressed against him.

  “Naomi?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  He squeezed her fingers, still interlaced with his. “For being strong enough to see past my scars. For hearing the truth.” He glanced over his shoulder. “For being you. Strong. Beautiful. Giving.”

  “You’re the strong one, Elijah,” she insisted. “And so much more.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if she was now in pain. “You went through all that and . . . and still manage to be so gentle. To do so much for others. Why?”

  He hung his head in shame. “I wasn’t doing it for them. I was trying selfishly to earn redemption for my past sins.”

  “Sins?”

  He was silent a moment, studying her fragile hand against his chest. “Yes.” Though now, as this new found love poured through him, he couldn’t fathom why he would think the emotion a sin.

  She didn’t say anything, just continued to hold him. Accept him.

  And he loved her all the more for it.

  “Now what?” he finally whispered.

  She shifted, her cheek now flush against his shoulder. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “I just know that Beau wants to kill you.”

  Chapter 35


  Naomi tried to make light of the situation because, really, her world had just been rocked to its very foundation.

  An angel?

  She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t experienced . . . what would you call that? A psychic experience? It was much more intense than that. It was like their souls had connected somehow and it had left her absolutely breathless.

  Elijah said nothing, just continued to brush his fingertips across her knuckles in a maddeningly slow rhythm that was driving her crazy.

  She rubbed her cheek across the warm skin of his back, reveling in the strength of his shoulders, in awe of his pain, and breathed in his scent. Soap, and musk, and man. All Elijah.

  How quickly she’d gotten used to calling him that. It suited him.

  I love you more than life itself.

  Could it be true? How could she possible fathom making a life with an ex-angel? What did that even mean? Did he get kicked out of Heaven? There was so much for her to know.

  She finally released him and stepped back.

  He pivoted and faced her, his face full of questions.

  “Tell me everything.”

  His face relaxed a fraction, apparently glad she wasn’t shoving him out on his ass. “What do you want to know?”

  She sat in the recliner and motioned for him to sit. He moved to the sofa and sat stiffly. She studied him. What did she want to know? “Everything. Start with why you’re not an angel anymore.” How did she not choke on that question? But those visions were still fresh in her mind, as if she’d lived them herself. She couldn’t deny it.

  “I loved a woman. Sarah.”

  That hit her like a sucker punch and she flinched. “Oh.”

  “But not like you’re thinking. Not like I love you.”

  She wasn’t sure how to take his words so she let them slide off her heart. For now.

  “It’s against Angelic Commandments to get romantically or sexually involved with a human,” he continued. “And I believed at that time that I’d defied Father. So in my own shame, I punished myself and cut my wings off, casting myself down before judgment could be passed on me.”

  She blinked. “You really cut your own wings off?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I did see that right?”

  He nodded.

  “And was it as excruciating as I, uh, felt just then?” God, it had been nearly unbearable. She couldn’t believe that had been a memory!

  “I don’t know what you felt, but yes, it was the most horrible pain I’ve ever experienced. Next to being without you.”

  Her heart thumped at his words and she sucked in a breath. Really. What man said those kind of things?

  Her sweet Elijah. That’s who.

  “What else would you like to know?” he asked.

  “Um . . . what kind of angel were you?”

  “In Heaven I was an emissary for Father. Running messages between the realms, that sort of thing. On Earth I was on Love Detail. But obviously, that didn’t last long,” he added with a rueful smile.

  “Love Detail?” she echoed.

  “Yes. I believe you humans, er, I mean it’s what mythology calls Cupid?”

  She stared blankly. “Are you serious?”

  “Very. Love is serious business.” And his eyes said he meant it.

  “And Sarah . . .?”

  His brows furrowed with confusion, then cleared. “Oh, no. Sarah was not my assignment.” A wry smile tilted his lips. “Though that made no difference to how I castigated myself.” He gripped Naomi’s hand, stroked her knuckles, silently begging her to understand. “I was a chef, that part you know. I was placed in the restaurant where my two humans also worked. Emily and Dan. Sarah was Emily’s sister, and the day she came into the restaurant I was sure she’d brought the sun in with her.” He glanced into her eyes. “Do you want me to go on?”

  “Yes,” she croaked, though she wasn’t sure she meant it.

  “It’s a fairly short story, really.” He squeezed her hand. “I saw her, she talked to me, I was enchanted. Eventually I fancied myself in love because I’d never met another human woman like her. Well, I should’ve accounted for the fact that she was nearing death and the veil was parting. I could simply see the light of her spirit and I was suffering from a lack of earthly experience.”

  “So, you didn’t love her?”

  “Oh, I loved her. But it was more like a supercharged brotherly love, I guess is the best way to describe it.”

  She swallowed trying to understand the intricacies of angel love from the tiny taste she’d gotten from touching his flesh. It was just too much.

  “So, what happened after you . . . after you . . .?”

  He smiled and butterflies filled her stomach. “After I fell?”

  “Yes.”

  “I became a human.”

  “And God wasn’t mad?”

  He sobered quickly. “No. I thought He was. But, I’ve come to realize recently that not only was He never mad, but that I never broke a commandment and was never going to be punished. The only one punishing me . . . was me.” He dropped his gaze and took a ragged breath before he met her eyes again. “And, now I know that I was always meant to be a human and to find my soulmate here on Earth. To find you.”

  God, how she wanted to melt with his words. But could she?

  “Any other questions?” he asked softly.

  “Why?” The question tumbled from her lips before she could stop it.

  He studied her a moment. He didn’t ask her ‘Why, what?’ He didn’t play games with her heart. He simply stood and offered his other hand. She hesitated a heartbeat before placing her palm in his and standing.

  “Do you really need to put your hands on my scars to know the answer to that, Naomi?”

  In that second, that twinkling of an eye, it settled into place. “No.”

  The tiniest of smiles may have flirted with the corner of his mouth, but she leaned in and kissed it away. He wrapped her in his arms, tilted his head and took the kiss to her very soul.

  Tongues, lips, teeth.

  Moans.

  Gripping, desperate clutches.

  Naomi finally drew away for a breath and gazed into his hooded, bottomless, dark eyes.

  He traced her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “Finally,” he whispered before leaning in and taking her in another soul-stealing kiss.

  Desperate sensation whipped through her body at a furious pace, stealing her breath, as she ran her hands along the flesh of his stomach and chest, across his broad shoulders. Down his arms.

  He groaned and found her neck. Suckled.

  Where had he learned that?

  “Elijah,” she groaned.

  “Yes, my love?” he whispered between kisses, his breath hot on her flesh. “God, you smell so good.”

  She gripped the waistband of his jeans and yanked, bringing his pelvis in alignment with hers. She groaned and leaned into him, his aroused state painfully obvious.

  But, God, he felt so good. Perfect.

  His head snapped up and his hands stilled on her hips.

  Her glazed eyes focused on him. “Why’d you stop?”

  He brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder, his expression uncertain. “I . . . perhaps we—”

  Realization dawned. “Elijah.” He finally met her gaze. “Have you made love before?”

  A blush lit his face. He finally shook his head. “Angels don’t . . . do that.”

  “And after?”

  “No. It was never right.” He gazed deep into her eyes. “Not until you.”

  Sweet, sweet warmth filled her.

  She shifted even closer, would’ve melted right into his very skin if she could, and ran a hand down
his stomach, brushing dangerously close to his zipper. She grinned at his harsh intake of breath. “I think that is the most romantic thing I. . .” Kissed his full lower lip. “Have ever.” His chin. “Heard.” She leaned in and pressed her open mouth to the pulse in his throat. Smiled when it quickened against her lips. “But don’t you dare stop what you were doing, because you were doing it so well.”

  She kept her lips against his neck, her hands moving against his flesh, and felt his hesitation for only a moment. Then he was all over her.

  His fingers skimming along her arms, her shoulders, her back and hips. His lips on hers.

  She gasped when her shirt hit the floor and he was gazing down at her naked chest. No bra for packing today. And now she was glad as she studied his hungry stare.

  “You’re so beautiful, Naomi. The loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” He brushed a hot fingertip along the top of her breasts as if she might break.

  Her head lolled and she enjoyed his attention as sensation hummed in her bloodstream. She’d waited months for him to touch her. But, God, he was killing her, he was so slow. Painstakingly patient, as if he’d waited a lifetime to be with her. Perhaps he had.

  Finally, his scorching mouth brushed her overheated flesh and she about came unglued. “Jezus, Elijah.”

  But he kept his own maddening pace, whipping her into a frenzy with his kisses, his touches, caresses, singeing glances.

  But when he was on his knees in front of her, worshipping her naval with his tongue, toying with the lace of her pantyline, she’d had it. She yanked his head back. “Okay, we’re done here. Up.”

  She nearly laughed at the wounded expression on his face, but she was wound too tight. She grabbed his hand, drug him to the bedroom and shoved him onto his back on the bed.

  Watching his face, she took her time removing the rest of her clothes until she stood before him as an offering.

  He said nothing.

  His eyes said it all.

  She got busy on his shoes and jeans so she could finally see him, too. Magnificent, as she’d expected. So this is what an angel looked like.