Only the Fallen (UnHallowed Series Prequel)

by Tmonique Stephens

  Gideon shook Bane and Riél off and plowed through them when they blocked his way to Dina. None too gently, he took her by the arms and hauled her away. Seconds later, they were through the passage that connected the kitchen of the bar to the training center and in his bedroom, again. He stepped close, wanted her to feel the rage seeping off him. Wanted her afraid so she’d get the message and leave.

  “What did he do to you?” His voice rasped as he tried to calm his anger.

  Dina leaned back and looked him in the eye. He knew how he appeared. A crimson-eyed demon. All he needed were horns and a tail, yet he couldn’t pull out of the spin cycle churning in his brain. When she didn’t answer, he thought about grabbing her, but didn’t trust himself to touch her.

  Retreating was his best option in this quagmire he found himself in. Dina didn’t need to see this side of him. He closed his eyes and stepped back.

  A hand touched his face. It trembled as cool fingers slid around to the back of his neck and drew him down. Her other hand landed on the center of his chest.

  “Tell me.” His voice was strained and harsher than he intended.

  “I will heal.” She tilted her head and brought his hand to her cheek. “See, I already have.”

  Gideon opened his eyes. He cupped her face, brushed his thumb over the area, and reveled in the incredible softness in the palm of his hands…She was right, the bruise was gone.

  The crimson bled from his vision. “I’m sorry. Sam—”

  “Challenged me for my treatment of Scarla. The same as you and Chay did; he is no more responsible for your actions as you are for his, or mine.”

  Except he was. If he had made her leave the instant he saw her, she wouldn’t have attacked Scarla, and subsequently met Sam. He had to get her out of here, back to Heaven, where she belonged.

  Dina’s hand settled on his wrist, and he waited for her to shove him away. Instead, her cheek nuzzled his palm and suddenly he couldn’t let her go.

  His arm snaked around her waist. He gave her a moment to protest and then they were chest to chest, abdomen to abdomen. Hip to hip. “Tell me to stop. Tell me to send you away.” His voice was thick with unsaid words he longed to say and hear from her lips.

  She threaded her fingers into his hair and tightened her grip. “No, Gideon. I—I have to know.” Then her lips were on his.

  13

  Dina moaned at the first touch of Gideon’s lips slanting across hers. She opened for him and their tongues twined in a velvety dual that left her fisting his shirt. He plundered her mouth with ruthless strokes delving deep. If she had needed air to breathe, she would’ve suffocated because the kiss went on forever.

  The desire she’d held in check for millennia whipped through her. He pulled her closer, sucking on her tongue. Her body throbbed with a need she’d never experienced. His hands landed on her hips, stilling their movements. Only then did she realize she had been rubbing herself against him, wanton for the hardness she felt below his waist.

  She knocked his hands away and yanked his coat from his shoulders. Weighted with weapons it dropped to the floor and he kicked it out of the way. She gripped his shirt and the material fell apart in her hand. He followed her example and snatched the leather from her skin. In the next instant, her breasts were in his calloused palms. Gideon swallowed her gasp with rough, greedy kisses that left her reeling. He broke off and trailed his tongue down her neck to nibble at her collar bone. His thumbs gently flicking her nipples.

  She’d never been kissed, never been touched like this. To experience both within seconds of each other had her head falling back at the exquisite sensations and her knees buckling. Gideon came back to her mouth with another kiss that stole what little control she had. She was lost and at the same time found. Swept off her feet, he lifted her in his arms and stretched her out on the bed.

  He stood over her, his red-rimmed eyes ablaze. His face tight with lust, the crotch of his pants straining. “This is a bad idea,” he said low with little conviction.

  “Yes. It is a bad idea…that has waited long enough.” Wanting him more than anything else in her existence, Dina reached for him.

  The flames in his eyes flicked brighter, then the resistance on his face and the tension in his body ceased. They both groaned as he settled on top of her. His bare chest flattening her breasts while her legs parted and he slipped into the cradle of her hips.

  Gideon groaned and lowered his head. His kiss was blatant and raw. He tasted of liquor and something she couldn’t name. He angled her head and deepened the kiss, his hand found her nipples. The sensation of his rough palm on her soft flesh had Dina arching off the bed for more.

  Her hands moved down his broad back, over the bony ridges where his wings were once attached. “Do you miss them?” She broke the kiss to ask.

  “No. Because there are other ways to fly.” His mouth closed around her nipple. A gasp ripped from her. Heat seared her from the inside out and something clenched low in her abdomen. He suckled one nipple and worried the other between his thumb and forefinger. Both throbbed in time with the desire pulsing through her system. He gave the same attention to the other nipple until she writhed from his tender ministrations, panting hard.

  Gideon slid lower, kissing his way to the top of her low-slung pants. One tug and he had them off her hips, down her legs, and tossed behind him. No one had ever seen her bare body before. She clamped her legs together and froze with fear and anticipation.

  “Why are you not wearing panties?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Should I be? I’ve never worn them before, not with the armor, remember?”

  He hadn’t taken his gaze from her core. “You not wearing panties is something I would never have forgotten,” he rasped.

  Her hands drifted to cover her hairless sex. “I did buy a pair with Scarla, but the leather felt better without them. I could put them on if you would like.” She shook with the need to please him.

  “No!” he exclaimed quickly and took her hand, kissing her knuckles then moving it to the side. “You are more beautiful than I ever imagined.”

  Her aura flared in pleasure at his husky words. His hand slid down her thigh to her knee. A gentle nudge and they parted. Neither angel nor UnHallowed needed to breathe, so why was his chest heaving?

  “I want to taste you,” he groaned.

  Taste? Hadn’t he done that already?

  His lips brushed the inside of her knee and moved upward, stopping when he reached the apex of her thighs. At the first long, slow lick, her mind blanked. A deeper, wetter probe scorched her flesh in waves of pure heat. She fisted his hair and Gideon settled in. He placed her legs on his shoulders and plied her slowly, dipping into each hollow until all she could do was moan. Pleasure flared. Her hips arched and her hands threaded through his hair for a better grip to keep him in place.

  She wanted more. Rocking her hips, she needed more as each stroke pushed her toward an unknown precipice. An internal pressure increased, ratcheting the pleasure to an unbearable length. A long, slow lick, then his mouth settled on the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex and sucked. A scream tore from her. Ecstasy burst from her core and streaked through her with lightning speed. Her aura pulsed from her in brilliant waves synced with the euphoria coating her senses. Gideon was correct, there were other ways to fly. Dina soared even though she hadn’t left the room.

  Gideon didn’t stop. He ate at her flesh with tiny nibbles, rapid flecks of his tongue, and a finger sliding in and out of her channel.

  “Look at me.” He growled, and the vibrations set her aflame.

  Dina gazed down the length of her body. She glimpsed his pink tongue flickering across the top of her cleft. Pleasure so explicit, it bordered on pain combined with the hunger in his half-mast eyes had her flying again. She clutched him to her, rode out the indescribable while he continued to feast on her flesh.

  Gideon slid up her spent body and framed her face with his hands. “You are the sweetest thing I have an
d will ever taste. Now, you’re inside me. Part of me. Thank you.”

  Nothing had ever felt so wonderful…yet, something was missing. There was a hollowness she couldn’t explain. An emptiness that demanded to be filled.

  “Is—is that it? There is more. I know this is more, Gideon. And I want it.”

  14

  Her gold-rimmed peridot colored orbs latched onto Gideon. The need in their depths echoed in his chest. He eased off Dina until he sat beside her on the bed. He took a final, lingering glance at her beautiful body, displayed for his pleasure alone…and turned away. “We can’t.”

  She shifted behind him and her hand landed on his shoulder, and stroked down the center of his back. His eyes closed as frustrated desire hissed beneath his skin. “Why? I know what happens between a man and a woman, Gideon.”

  Of course, she knew. Knowledge of the act wasn’t forbidden from angels, just carnal knowledge. But even if it weren’t taboo, if love and sex were permitted between angels, and angels and humans. . . “I am not a man, Dina. I am UnHallowed. And you are no whore to fuck a fallen angel. You are a captain in the Celestial Army and you will remember your duty.” He strove for harsh, but the sentence ended as a hollow entry.

  Before he could move, she had him flat on his back. Her bare core right on top of his cock straining beneath his zipper.

  “We are not stopping this.” Her arms circled his neck, her limbs gliding against his skin was as seductive as her taste. She twined her fingers into his hair, tugging him closer. He tensed. His control was right on the edge. He shouldn’t have tasted her. The illicit act was all sorts of wrong, yet he couldn’t generate an ounce of regret.

  Her fingers scraped along his scalp. Tingles raced down his spine. He groaned deep and long. Push her away! Instead, his hands curled at his sides. “This is wrong.”

  “I don’t care.” She dipped her head to his chest and pressed kisses into his flesh.

  “You’re going back to Heaven and I’m here in hell.” His own personal Hades he’d existed inside of for a thousand lifetimes, waiting for a single moment. And here it was and he couldn’t have it. Have her.

  “I do not care.” Her breath eased his skin.

  “I care.” He brought her chin up and couldn’t help caressing the tender skin.

  She cupped his face, halting his words, and whispered against his lips. “I found you and I’m not letting you go.”

  Though happiness flooded him, he shook his head. He wouldn’t be the cause of her downfall. “Dina—”

  She shushed him with a single finger, and then took what she wanted. His resistance ended when her mouth covered his. He opened and welcomed the sweet invasion of her tongue. He shivered as much from her touch as the wealth of emotions surging through him.

  Gideon gripped her to him, had the length of her pressed to his body. Her tight, lithe body made him heady, needy. He fisted her hair, trying to gain the upper hand in this spiraling situation. A breathy sigh escaped her and his cock jerked behind his zipper. She twisted her hips in a slow grind that had his head falling back and his eyes rolling in their sockets.

  “Where did you learn that?” He growled and released her hair. His hand falling to the bed in defeat.

  A throaty laugh eased through a sly grin. “Some things come naturally.”

  If that came naturally, he couldn’t help but wonder what else would come naturally to her. And should he be afraid?

  She pushed up, spread her legs, and sat squarely on his erection. His chest heaved from the effort to control himself as her pelvis rocked and her hands stroked everywhere, driving him fucking insane.

  “You’re so beautiful. I’ve always wanted to tell you, Gideon. Never knew how to say it. Was afraid, but not anymore.”

  He was beautiful? Did she not know the picture she presented with her puckered nipples and jiggling breasts? Her aura pulsed in and her skin glowed, flushed with passion. She leaned forward and trailed her lips up to the center of his chest, veered to his collarbone, and then licked her way up his neck to sink her teeth into his earlobe.

  He bucked beneath her and she clamped her thighs around him to keep her in place. She laughed, laughed at the torture she was inflicting. Expelling a harsh breath, he angled his head, giving her better access.

  Then her hand snaked inside his pants and touched him. She fisted him, and had his hips surging off the bed.

  His fingers punched through the sheets and grabbed onto the mattress. His cock in the palm of her cool hand had his gut twisting. Her initial yelp settled into an appreciative ‘Oh’ and tapered off with a sultry sigh. And didn’t that do a man’s or UnHallowed’s ego good.

  “I want to see it.”

  One sentence and his mental slate wiped clean. He jerked upright. Dina shoved him back and had him free and saluting in the next non-breathing second. She stripped him and climbed back on top. He flipped her onto her back.

  If he thought this would give him the upper hand…wrong move.

  Dina wrapped her limbs around his neck and hips. When he didn’t budge, she brought her wet core to his shaft. She rubbed her silkiness against him. With a flex of his hips, he pressed at her entrance, and felt her slick core open for him. Another flex and he slid deep inside her wet heat. All her warmth surrounding him.

  A cry tore from her and they both shuddered from the exquisite sensation. His mind fogged with the need to pound into her until the world ended, but he couldn’t move. Not if he didn’t want to spend immediately.

  She whimpered, a plea for him to continue.

  He withdrew, her walls clenching—wringing a curse from him and a moan from her—and plunged back inside. A moan slipped from both their lips.

  “Please, Gideon.” She grasped his hip.

  He silenced her with his tongue down her throat, and his body sinking over and over again into her heat. Withdraw slowly. End deep. Dina was so tight, he glimpsed paradise with each squeeze of her sheath. Her fingernails raked his back. He arched and gave her more access as he pumped into her welcoming body.

  “More,” she moaned, and met each of his thrusts, her body slick, her walls milking him. A garbled cry left her and she seized, as if suspended on a precipice. Spasms squeezed his shaft. Half crazed with lust, Gideon pounded into her. His control fading as he throbbed in sync with her shuddering core.

  He rode her bucking body until he couldn’t withstand the inevitable. Pleasure burned. Incredible. Intoxicating. He was wild, uncontrollable, driven to possess her because she already possessed him. All of him belonged to Dina.

  He gripped her hips and angled them, changing their position. He went deeper, harder, strummed her clit, until she sobbed from pleasure. His seed exploded in a climax that left him clutching her to him. Completely done, he collapsed next to her, instantly missing her heat. Dina rolled onto her side, facing him. Her kiss coaxed the life back into him.

  “Now I understand the humans’ obsession with the act,” she whispered and then twined her tongue with his. She sucked him deep into her mouth. Unquenchable need for her seethed within him. He broke the kiss, not for air, but because his brain had ceased to work.

  “Dina…” She licked the shell of his ear and the power of speech fled.

  She sunk her teeth into his earlobe and rocked her wet core against his hardening cock. He moaned, low and long.

  “I want to do it again. Can we, Gideon?”

  15

  One hundred years from now, I will either be the strongest man/UnHallowed/being with a penis in all of history—or the biggest fool.

  Somehow, Gideon untangled their limbs and retracted himself from her embrace and the bed. The loss of her touch equaled the pain he experienced falling from Heaven.

  He stood over her, his mind taking a snapshot of her stretched out in his bed. Skin flushed a rosy pink, nipples a deeper pink from his lips, a sheen on her thighs from what they’d just shared.

  Fuck!

  He snatched his pants off the floor and dragged them on. “T
hat was a one timer, baby.”

  Her brow quirked in confusion.

  “Come on. Get your ass up and get going.” He clapped and snapped his fingers in front of her face.

  She sat up slowly, not covering herself, confusion clouding her eyes.

  Bile crawled up his throat. He fought it back down and said, “Rule one of a hook up: Never out stay your welcome. We screwed each other’s brains out. Now it’s time for you to hit the road.”

  Gold swallowed her pupils and her head tilted to the side. “I-I do not understand.”

  Don’t make me do this. Gideon gritted his teeth, realizing there was no way out of this hell. “I fucked you. You came. I came. Now leave. Go back to Heaven.”

  He pivoted and stomped his way into the bathroom. The words pained Gideon all the way to the soul he did not have—and as harsh as they were—they were necessary. She had to get as far away from him as possible. Back to where she belonged. Not for his sake. He was as doomed as any Darkling, but for hers. She still had a chance and he wouldn’t steal that from her. He’d taken enough…more than she’d ever know.

  He splashed cold water on his face. It wasn’t enough so he filled the sink and submerged his head. The brain freeze didn’t help. A watery image of Dina floated in the basin. The bewilderment on her face.

  Shit! I really said that to her. Shit!

  He shrugged on a shirt from the nearby closet.

  I had too. It was necessary.

  And that’s why he felt like he’d swallowed a shit sandwich. With any luck, she’d be gone and he’d be left to complete his journey. Alone. The lie burned the center of his chest.

  He stepped out of the bathroom…and silently cursed.

  When would he realize he had no luck? There she stood, fully dressed and just as desirable with clothing. Luckily, her back was to him, wings tucked, so she didn’t see him scrub a hand down his face to remove the yearning.

  “Still here. What the hell will it take for a guy to get some alone time?”