Angel (Made Men Book 5)

by Sarah Brianne

  He unbuttoned his jeans, setting himself free in an instant. His need was too much for him to handle anymore.

  Holding himself above her, he placed the tip of his shaft at her opening and gave a small thrust to notch inside her without warning.

  The cold reality of what she was doing rushed over her as Angel entered her, moving slowly through her channel, invading where no one had gone before. The stark truth was, with each thrust, the more deeply and madly in love with him she became. She wanted Angel. She liked the way he felt against her; the tingling, electric currents that went through her at every thrust that only kept growing in intensity.

  At first, he moved slowly and gently. Then, as he drove deeper inside her, he started moving faster and harder, rocking his hips against her while placing featherlight kisses along her jawline. It was a sensation she had never experienced. The intimacy was like nothing she had never imagined. And that it was with a Luciano made it even more irresistible.

  She buried her face in his shoulder to muffle the sounds she was making as he moved inside her. Each stroke sent ripples throughout her as she wrapped both legs around his waist and began moving back against him.

  Her nails must have been digging into his skin too painfully because he jerked them away and held them pinned to the top of the mattress above her head.

  Angel was controlling not only his but her movements now as he increased the passionate intensity between them. She could only go where he led her. And where he led her was a magical place right between Heaven and Hell. With Adalyn taking him to Heaven with each deep thrust into her pure, untainted body, and Angel taking her straight to Hell as he came inside her, claiming her and tainting her as forever his.

  The son of the devil and the Italian beauty.

  She had finally found her own version of love that she had desperately craved. My own match made in Heaven and Hell.

  Thirty-Seven

  The Nightmares He Had Endured

  Waking up in the middle of the night, Adalyn felt the bed beside her, finding it empty. “Angel?” Her voice echoed in the vacant space.

  When no reply came, she sat up, trying to open her eyes and see through the darkness. She didn’t find him anywhere upstairs.

  As memories of him leaving her haunted her, she got out of bed and went down the steps. She walked through the apartment, finding it empty.

  Please, God, not again. Her heart stopped, knowing it had all been too good to be true.

  Adalyn paced the empty floors of the house, hoping and praying it wasn’t what she thought, trying to stop herself from jumping to conclusions. That was when she heard heavy breathing coming from a closet. She stopped in her tracks.

  She walked to the door and turned the knob, holding her breath for what she would see behind it. What she found tore her heart in two.

  A sleeping Angel on the cold, hard floor. Tears flooded her chocolate depths.

  “Angel,” she softly whispered, not wanting to scare him awake as she bent down and placed a hand on his arm.

  He jumped awake the moment she touched him, and she quickly pulled her hand back.

  The second he realized it was her, the fight in his gray eyes calmed.

  Adalyn immediately regretted waking him up instead of just going back upstairs and pretending she hadn’t caught him sleeping in a closet. It didn’t seem like something he would want to talk about, let alone for her to know.

  “I’m sorry.” She went to leave him, but he reached out and stopped her.

  Not saying a word, Angel pulled her into the confined space, making her sit down then laying his head in her lap.

  Her heart somehow broke a little more as she stared down at him while trailing her fingers through his hair. She didn’t expect him to give her an explanation; nor did she need one. The dark circles under his eyes and the nightmares she could see in his gray depths told her all she needed to know for now.

  The longer she sat there, running her fingers through his hair, the more she realized he might never tell her why, and that was okay with her. For a man as proud as Angel to let her see this meant he must really care about her. Knowing that few people on this earth, if any, knew this secret, she was content.

  Very few times in a person’s life there were moments sincerely precious, and this was one of hers.

  Out of all the Lucianos, Lucca picked him.

  Whatever Angel had gone through, she could now feel exactly how much of a survivor he really was, and she felt honored to be in his presence.

  Continuing to smooth her fingers over him as he fell back asleep, she thought about the day that might be years and years down the road, when he would tell her about the nightmares he had endured.

  “I can wait. I’m not going anywhere, Angel.”

  Thirty-Eight

  A Monster Had Created Him

  He thought the returning memories would get better after being with Adalyn, but they hadn’t. She helped soothe them, but they always somehow managed to come back, taking him in the middle of the night.

  Staring at the demon behind the desk, it was time Angel moved on. And I’ve come to do exactly that.

  “I know he’s alive.”

  Lucca’s blue-green eyes glowed. “Who?”

  “You know precisely who,” he said, wanting him to cut the shit. “If I know the boogieman, which I think I do, then I know you’ve kept him breathing.”

  “What is it you want, Angel?” Lucca asked, not denying anything.

  An evil smile appeared on his lips. “I want you to take me to see him.”

  The blindfold was taken off his face after he had been led into an old, damp building at an unknown location. He looked around, seeing a huge, metal sliding door in front of him. He walked up to it and placed his hand on the cold metal. He could feel what he wanted behind the door.

  Before he could open it, Lucca warned, “If you so much as think about fucking killing him, everything I did to him … I’ll do to you.”

  I don’t doubt it.

  Gripping the handle, he slid the heavy door open, and with every inch it moved, light poured into the dark room until it reached the back wall, highlighting the frail body that was curled up in the corner.

  Angel stepped into the room, moving toward it, when the bright fluorescent lights were turned on, lighting the space with intensity before the door was slammed shut behind him.

  The frail man covered his eyes, protecting them from the bright lights, while he quickly rose up the dingy wall behind him. It looked like he was cowering away from the intruder, but then his eyes finally adjusted, and he blinked several times before he realized who it was, and a maniac laugh escaped his throat.

  “Matthias, is that you?”

  Looking down at him, Angel noticed every mark that marred his father’s naked, filthy body. Every single one of them hadn’t existed on his pristine pale skin prior to his current situation. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought twenty years had passed since he had last seen him. That was how much he appeared to have aged.

  His eyes travelled from his scarred head down his mangled body, and then to the chain that shackled his ankle to a pipe in the corner.

  Angel took another step toward the man who had made twenty-three years of his life a living hell. “Hello, Father.”

  Lucifer sat back when he saw Angel move more into the light, his hopeful expression gone. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “I’ve always known how to disappoint you, haven’t I?”

  “Without fail,” Lucifer hissed.

  Walking over, Angel sat down on the filthy ground beside his father, placing his own back against the wall. He got the full view his father would enjoy for the rest of his days.

  “Why did you come here? To gloat?”

  “Before coming here, I thought you actually might have begged me to release you.” Turning his head, he stared into evil, black eyes. “But I realize now that was stupid.”

  “I’m a Luciano. We don’t beg,” Lucifer pr
actically spat.

  No, we don’t, Angel agreed.

  Sitting in the cold silence, he finally asked the question he couldn’t before. “What is it that makes you hate me so much?”

  “All my sons brought something to the table, except you.” Lucifer’s brows came together, trying to find the word. “You’re neutral.”

  Confused, he asked, “Neutral?”

  “My sons either wanted to be me … or feared me.” Lucifer was proud to say that his lips twisted up with a smile, but then they quickly turned down. “You didn’t have either in you. Therefore, you were worthless to me.”

  He knew his father had lied about how a Luciano shouldn’t fear a single thing when all he wanted was to instill fear in not only his men but his own children. The fear Lucifer had craved most was fear of him.

  “Matthias, though …” Crazed laughter bounced off the walls. “I remember when I broke him. He snapped so easily. Even like this, I bet I could scare him into releasing me.”

  Having heard enough shit spew from Satan’s mouth, Angel got up, the temptation to kill him too strong.

  “He needs me! My children need me! The family name will not continue without me because the family’s nothing without me!” The chain around his ankle rattled as he tried to stop Angel from leaving, grabbing the bottom of Angel’s leg to get the metal object he knew he kept there.

  Angel stopped him, placing his shoe on his father’s hand.

  “You’re wrong, Lucifer.” Using all his weight, he pressed harder, hearing bones begin to snap. “We’re stronger without you, and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you fucking live long enough to see it.” Releasing his hand, he began to walk away as Lucifer’s fanatic laughter sounded again, echoing repeatedly.

  “I did you a disservice, keeping you in that closet for all that time. It made you lazy and complacent. That closet was the only space you deserved, and it’s all you’ll ever deserve.”

  Angel reached out, flipping the switch to kill the lights. Darkness enveloped him, his father, and the very room they were in. The only noise to be heard was the softest, quietest rattle of the chains around Lucifer’s chest as it rose and fell.

  Closing his eyes, Angel could almost taste the cherry flavoring of the candy he had come to love.

  As he listened carefully, the rattling softly grew louder as Lucifer’s breathing picked up speed, rising and falling at a different pace.

  “A Luciano fears nothing,” Angel whispered. “Not a train, not a bullet, not a man, not even …”

  The rattling grew.

  “… the darkness.”

  Opening his eyes, he slid open the door, letting light pour into the room for only a few more seconds. Then Angel walked away from what he hoped would be the last time he would ever see that face, a face that scarily resembled his, reminding him every time he looked in the mirror that a monster had created him. A face and body he and his twin brother marred with tattoos, desperate to cover up that very fact. Each tattoo they had inked into their pale skin had made it easier and easier for them to look in the mirror, until they could finally face their reflections without destroying a mirror. It could drive even the strongest man insane when every time you looked at yourself, you didn’t see you but someone else, someone who had abused and tortured you your entire existence.

  And out of the two of them … one had.

  Angel placed his hand on the door, getting one last good look, with one final thing to say.

  “It’s ironic to think you trained me for the exact place you are in now. I would outlast you in there, you know. I lasted twenty-three years in my hell and didn’t break once. That’s why you hate me so fucking much. You just can’t admit it.” Smiling, Angel started to slide the door closed, letting the darkness have him. “Just know, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than the closet you kept me in. Tell me, Lucifer; how long are you going last?”

  Slamming the door shut felt therapeutic, freeing, like he had finally closed a book on his life and was ready to start a new one.

  “How was it?” Lucca’s haunting voice sounded from behind him.

  Angel thought for a moment. “Better than I thought it ever could be.”

  “Good.”

  Angel turned around, his gray depths staring into the demon’s eyes. “I’m going to need something else from you.”

  Lucca stared him down with evil eyes, waiting.

  “You don’t get to kill him … till every one of my brothers get to have him.”

  Thirty-Nine

  The Final Goodbye

  Looking down at the city, she continuously tapped her heels against the hard floors.

  “He’s waiting outside,” Lucca told her as he stopped beside her.

  She had always loved this spot right here, where she was fully able to see what could have been hers.

  “Maria …” he tried to get her attention.

  Hearing the muffled screaming, she snapped her eyes to her brother. “Does he know what’s waiting for him?”

  “I thought we could surprise him.”

  She looked out the window again, her eyes roaming the many buildings, entranced as Lucca stood beside her, seeing exactly what belonged to him and not to her. Maria quite enjoyed doing this with her brother, finding it relaxing. She supposed he did, too, by the number of hours they spent doing it while they talked.

  Hearing the muffling, fervent praying, she was drawn out of her thoughts again.

  “So, brother”—looking to Lucca, she got back to the business at hand—“have you figured out who the one-shot killer is?”

  He seemed to be annoyed as the words passed his lips. “He hasn’t revealed himself to me yet.”

  “And what is the boogieman going to do with Amo?” she asked with a smirk plastered on her perfect face, dying to get an answer for this one last question.

  A demonic pair of blue-green eyes almost lit up the room. “I was hoping you had something in mind.”

  The screaming got louder now, making her tap her stilettos again.

  “We can come back to that.”

  Maria went up to the window and pressed a button on the wall that slowly slid the shades over them. “Send him in.”

  “Come in,” Lucca commanded the person on the other side of the door.

  Turning around, she watched the door begin to open as the screams grew in intensity.

  Opening the door, Angel took in the room, seeing Lucca and Maria standing behind a man tied to a chair. The sight didn’t change his expression.

  He walked in and closed the door behind him, then stepped onto the plastic that was spread out on the floor underneath the chair. He stared right at the man who was tied and gagged. “He’s mine?”

  Lucca nodded.

  It was always easy to spot the fear in a man’s eyes, especially before the final goodbye. The man he now looked at tried to find that same fear in Angel’s eyes, but sadly, he came up short.

  Leaning down, Angel pulled out the metal object he kept hidden under his pant leg. Flipping it open with the flick of his wrist, he twirled the butterfly knife in the air. It spun so fast it blurred to the point where you could no longer make out which part exactly was the handle or the blade, until it slashed the crying man’s neck.

  “Goodbye, Joey.”

  Forty

  An Eternity Like This

  When the door was opened, Adalyn ran, jumping into his arms and wrapping herself around him.

  Angel caught her and held her to him. “What are you doing here, sweetness?”

  “I got you a present.” She placed a kiss on his lips before she jumped back down and took his hand, leading him upstairs.

  She was a bit nervous to show him, hoping she hadn’t overstepped. God, please let him love it.

  Angel stopped suddenly once he had reached the top of the stairs.

  “D-do you like it?”

  Walking up to the queen-sized canopy bed, Angel moved the black curtains that draped over the rods. Then he turned hi
s head to look at her before he held out an inked hand. “Come here.”

  She walked over to him, placing her hand in his.

  When he continued to stare down at her for several moments, she felt the need to explain herself, quickly rambling out of nervousness, “I thought it might help you sleep. When you close the curtai—”

  Angel captured her lips with his, giving her a kiss she would never forget.

  Slightly dazed, she smiled up at him. “So, you do like it?”

  “That depends, sweetness.”

  Before she could finish asking “On what?” she found herself quickly turned, the top of her meeting the soft mattress as she was bent over the bed.

  Sliding her thick hair away from her face, he bent over, covering her body with his, to whisper in her ear, “On how you look on it.”

  Her eyes practically rolled to the back of her head, feeling the heat begin to burn inside her from his words. She didn’t think he moved fast enough when he quickly pulled down the top of her jeans and released his hard cock to tease her opening. Adalyn wiggled her ass back, making him shove his shaft deep inside her.

  Forced to scream into the sheets by the position he held her locked in, she got louder and louder with each pounding into her.

  The place where he took her was always so beautiful … but this time when he took her to between Heaven and Hell, it felt different. More special somehow.

  Moaning out her sweet release, she didn’t think spending an eternity like this was so bad.

  I love you, Angel, Adalyn said in her head, too frightened to say it out loud in case he had changed his mind on forever.

  Adalyn reached up in the darkness to run her fingertip over the four dotted diamonds under his eye. “You haven’t told me yet if this tattoo has a meaning.”