by J. K. Coi
“Gabriel, again I must apologize.” She kept her voice even and calm when she was anything but. Uncertainty, regret, guilt. She couldn’t keep lying to herself that she felt nothing.
It was so very difficult to understand this man. Even having observed him from afar for so long, she could never predict how he’d react. Sometimes he was reflective and thoughtful and other times he pulsed with so much anger and pain. He also had a wicked grin that she found irresistible and dark brown eyes that were always searching, looking too deeply inside her.
“I don’t want your damn apology.” Those eyes blazed hot now. Closing the distance between them, he crowded her up against the back door of the car. After a long moment his mouth descended to hers.
The kiss was hard, filled with his anger and frustration—demanding her acknowledgement of it, that she take some of it from him.
Throwing him off didn’t even occur to her. Not this time. But she closed her eyes, trying very hard to suppress the shiver of pleasure that rushed up her spine.
When he lifted his head, Amelia found herself tempted to touch her fingers to his mouth, arch her neck and pull him back until his lips fell to the hollow of her throat. Instead, she kept very still, kept her eyes tightly closed until she could be sure he wouldn’t see her weakness—the proof that she did indeed continue to experience a full range of the messy human emotions.
“You drive me crazy, you know that?” he grumbled against her skin despite the blare of another horn from the cars passing them on the road. “Half the time I don’t know what the hell to do with you—whether to turn my back and say good riddance, or drag you close and kiss you until we both see stars. Hell, it’s even worse now that I know what you’re hiding from the rest of the world.” His laughter was mocking. “What kind of dirty bastard lusts after an angel, for God’s sake?”
The tip of his tongue traced the curve of her ear. Amelia’s eyes flew open and she couldn’t quite hold in her startled gasp. She pressed a hand to his chest, thinking that now she would toss him aside.
His heart beat strong and fast beneath her palm. His breathing had quickened, too, blowing against her nape in short, heated blasts. “You’ve got me wound tighter than I’ve ever been, Amelia. You piss me off quicker than anyone else can. And you push every one of my buttons. I look at you and I want to make you feel the same way—edgy, uncertain and desperate.”
She drew in a sharp breath. Yes, she felt all those things and more. They’d fused together, a bouncing spring inside her that pinged up and down on her heart. But she swore she’d never admit it.
“Ah, but of course, I couldn’t do that, could I? There’s no way I could make you feel something for me. Isn’t that right?”
He was taunting her.
She opened her mouth to speak but he silenced her with another kiss, deeper this time but also softer, his tongue sliding past her lips to seek the warmth of her mouth.
Her fingers curled into the cotton of his shirt and she held on tightly. She understood he was attracted to her and, God help her, she wanted him too. As a human woman would want a man. Hot, sweaty, naked. She wanted to feel him inside her, sharing the intensity of his staggering vitality with her. Every time he touched her, she felt the surge of electricity passing through her body, settling between her thighs. Now was definitely no exception, despite standing in full view of anyone who chanced to drive by.
Tearing her mouth from his, she took a great gulp of air. “Gabriel.”
“Don’t tell me it isn’t possible.” His voice was a demand that would accept no argument. “Don’t you dare say you feel nothing when I do this.” His lips moved against hers, a bold challenge as he slid his hand to the small of her back and pulled their hips together forcefully. His other hand fisted into her hair at the base of her skull while he plundered her mouth with his tongue, nipped at her lips with his teeth.
Drawing back a hairsbreadth, he said, “You’re warm, angel face. Warm and alive, just like me. I can feel it in your skin, see it in the flush on your cheeks. I bet if I slipped my hand between your thighs now I would find that you’re warm there too. Warm and slick and wet.”
Yes.
“No.” She forced the word through gritted teeth. It took more of her will than it should have to turn her head and push firmly on Gabriel’s chest, and when he didn’t move away immediately but whispered her name softly, she almost gave in.
There were no other vehicles in sight now. They were completely alone, the road deserted but for their car parked on the shoulder and the two of them leaning up against it. No one to see if she gave in.
Clamping her lips together, she moved around him, away from him. She crossed her arms, dismissing the fast, heavy beats of her heart.
“We should continue on our way.”
He watched her with hooded eyes for a long moment. “Yeah.”
But he didn’t move, not for the space of another of her deeply held breaths.
Finally, he rubbed his fingers tightly through the dark strands of his hair. “Go on. Get in the damn car.” His face hardened into a mask. “I’m fucking exhausted.”
They continued on in silence.
As the sun went down and the shadows grew longer, the hush within the car also deepened until Gabriel finally turned the radio back on. Amelia tuned out the music, focusing on an examination of herself.
Her walls were coming down quickly. So quickly. And this time the regression had nothing to do with angel law and everything to do with Gabriel himself.
Maybe he was her poison.
Being this close to him was affecting her, she had no doubt about it. She didn’t feel weak anymore, didn’t feel her strength leaching from her body. And yet she did feel and it was putting dangerous chinks in her armor.
The restraint and equilibrium Amelia had been counting on to keep her going until she could be sure of Gabriel’s safety had barely lasted the day—if she’d really regained any of it at all, which she was beginning to doubt.
At first she’d been able to hold it back behind a thin veil of urgency as they focused on putting some distance between them and their last known location. But as that urgency faded, her control had as well. Already, her emotions were almost unmanageable again, swamping her, drowning her slowly but surely with their feverish intensity—and chief among them was fear. Fear because she knew what Cassiel had done to Gabriel. Although she hadn’t exactly spelled it out for him, Gabriel must also suspect the truth. It was in the hard set of his jaw, the shadows in his eyes, the lines of sulfur shooting through his aura.
Exactly what she had been fighting so hard to prevent all these years had happened, and she’d done nothing to stop it.
She would give a lot to find out how Cassiel had known his song would awaken Lucifer…but ultimately it didn’t matter. Their course had been pushed into motion.
Lucifer’s soul was revived within Gabriel’s human form.
Of course, the dark angel’s essence had always been there, had always been part of Gabriel’s makeup, but it had remained dormant until Cassiel’s angel song awakened Lucifer, unlocking the door that had kept the two souls separate since Gabriel’s birth.
Not anymore. Gabriel and Lucifer were merging quickly, so quickly it scared her. She’d felt the shift, the change in him, already—although she didn’t think he knew yet exactly what it meant.
Her choices were becoming more and more limited. The road she faced was clear.
Her duty had ceased to be one of protection…
Now it was only a matter of time before she’d be forced to destroy the man she would have given her life to save.
Chapter Eleven
Gabriel refused to stay the night in another dive. He wasn’t loaded and famous for nothing, after all.
There was an Embassy Suites in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska not too far off I-80, and he headed right for it. It wasn’t hard to find and they even had valet service.
“Keep the car,” he told the kid who approached the driver�
��s side door.
Confused, the young valet frowned. “I’m sorry sir, you want me to park it?”
Gabriel reached into the back seat and pulled out his guitar case, earning him a more interested look from the kid. “It’s a rental,” he qualified. “Make sure it gets where it needs to be. I don’t want to see the damn thing again.”
“Oh, of course sir.”
Amelia followed Gabriel inside, looking watchful—like a good little bodyguard should. At the reception desk, he didn’t bother with subterfuge. He pulled out a credit card and asked for the hotel’s best suite.
“Welcome to Embassy Suites, sir. We have a Presidential Suite available for you tonight.” The pretty dark-haired desk clerk smiled at him, but her voice remained completely professional.
He nodded and her long painted fingernails clicked away at the keyboard in front of her. “And what name would you like me to put on your room register?” She had his credit card in hand and knew exactly what his name was, but she’d obviously done this before and understood the importance of respecting the privacy of her hotel’s more well-recognized clients.
“Smith,” he answered with a smile.
“Wonderful.” She handed him a sleeve containing the door key and wished him a good evening. “If you require anything else, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to let me know. My name is Janine, and I’ll be available for you…all night.”
Another time and place, Gabriel might have taken her up on the offer. If nothing else, it would have made for an entertaining evening. The woman was gorgeous, after all, with a full mouth that would do amazing things to his body, and a pair of large breasts he could bury his face in with pleasure.
Too bad he wasn’t the slightest bit interested.
He couldn’t say the same about his angel. Very different from the voluptuous, perky clerk behind the desk, Amelia seemed colder, paler and withdrawn. And yet she interested him more than was healthy for either of them.
Gabriel politely thanked Janine and turned to Amelia, who’d put her back to them. He assumed she was checking out the people milling about in the lobby for threats, but perhaps she’d seen the other woman’s interest and presumed to give them some privacy?
He debated telling her that she needn’t have bothered. Hell, just touching Amelia’s shoulder to get her attention was enough to make him hard. If she were to look at him with the same erotic promise in those endless blue eyes, Gabriel wouldn’t have been able to get them to a room fast enough.
Instead, she glanced up at him without smiling.
He sighed. “Let’s go upstairs and get some rest. We can order room service later, if that’s okay with you.”
She nodded and they walked together to the elevator. Gabriel’s temper rose as man after man slung long, bold looks in Amelia’s direction, staring at her breasts, her ass, craning their necks around him to get a better look. The young guy standing sentry at the elevator door couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
The doors slid open and Gabriel pushed the dude aside and followed Amelia inside with a hand laid proprietarily at the base of her spine. He turned, facing out of the elevator, and pressed the button. He shook his head and glared at the brave idiot who dared raise his hand as if to get inside the compartment with them. “This one’s full, buddy. Get your own.”
The door slid closed and Amelia lifted a brow in silent question.
Gabriel shrugged. “Loser should feel ashamed, looking at an angel that way.”
“What way?”
He didn’t answer because it was the exact same way he looked at her, and everyone was thinking the same thing he had been thinking—about getting her naked, getting her into bed.
So if the other guys should be ashamed just for looking at her, what about you, smartass?
Gabriel had done a lot more than look at Amelia’s ass or imagine what her smooth skin would feel like pressed up against him. He’d taken her lips beneath his. He’d ravished her mouth like an animal and let his hands roam over her body every chance he’d gotten. And the truth was, as much as he felt like a dirty dog for it, he still planned to do a hell of a lot more with her than that. He couldn’t help it. She was in his blood now and there was no turning back until he’d had her—until he’d gotten her out of his system once and for all.
You really think it’ll be that easy to get her out of your system? Hell, nothing about Amelia White was easy.
Maybe it was just his imagination, but the elevator trip to the top floor felt like the longest few minutes of his damn life. The cab got smaller and smaller with each of the sharp dings marking every level upward. It had been the same way in the car during the excruciatingly long drive, until the constant fight to focus on the road had left him shaky and exhausted.
It wasn’t right. If Amelia the angel was as passionless and cold as she insisted was the case, she shouldn’t have been able to tempt him so completely. He wouldn’t have been ravenous for a fucking robot. Would he?
Standing in front of him, she watched the floor numbers pass in little blinks of red light on a screen above the elevator door. Her subtle, sexy scent enveloped him, taunted him. He locked onto the soft flare of her hips and the smooth curve of her ass. His fingers itched to reach out and grip those hips, to swing her around and push her up against the wall of the elevator. He would haul her thighs around his waist and—
The elevator ground to an abrupt stop, and the doors opened on a slow glide. Amelia followed him down the hall and into their room.
He dropped the card on a small table by the door and looked around. “This is a hell of a lot better than the mom-and-pop motor inn, that’s for damn sure.”
The large suite was split up into a separate living area and bedroom. Amelia walked right to the window and peeked behind the long heavy drapes to the lights of the city below. “Why did you require so large and expensive a room when we’re only going to be here for a few hours?”
“Because it’s the best.” After living in shitholes for years, working at hauling kegs and doing dishes, when he finally started making some money with his music Gabriel decided that as long as he had a choice, he was never going to settle for anything but the absolute best.
He stalked through the bedroom doors to the king-sized bed. “What do you want to do first? Sleep, shower or eat?”
“Shower?” She couldn’t hide the yearning in her voice.
Gabriel felt the same way as he imagined joining her in a steam-filled glass enclosure. With difficulty, he pushed those thoughts aside.
“All right, go.” He made for the bed instead. “Wake me when you’re done, and we’ll get something to eat.” Hopefully, he’d be able to sleep, although he doubted it, not when Amelia was going to be naked, wet and lathered in soft-smelling soap just a few feet away.
Falling face-first into the mattress, he let out his growl of frustration only after he heard the soft click of the bathroom door closing. Somehow, none of their time alone in San Francisco had been as hard to endure as these past two days.
What had happened since then, besides the obvious?
Nothing. He’d been attracted to Amelia from the start. He’d wanted her since before he even knew her name.
But he’d also been intimidated by her aloof reserve, by the walls she put up to keep him out, and now those walls were crumbling to pieces as this thing between them spiraled further and further out of control.
Gabriel didn’t know who or what to hang onto anymore, except for Amelia.
Amelia stayed in the sinfully luxurious bathroom for a long time. Of all her experiences thus far, one of the very best things about the human world definitely had to be this shower contraption. She loved the feel of the steaming water rushing over her face and shoulders, warming her from the outside in—and now she even dared to admit it.
Reluctantly stepping out to stand in front of the fogged-up mirror, she quickly dried off. Instead of re-donning her ripe-smelling clothes, she pulled on one of the two soft white robes ha
nging from hooks on the back of the bathroom door and returned to the suite.
The living room area was quiet and dark. Drawn to the large window, she pulled back the drapes. The city’s lights blinked in so many different colors, reminding her of the lives that were ultimately at stake, the people who were unknowingly dependent on the success or failure of her duty.
It was a long time before she turned away and went into the bedroom.
Still fully dressed, Gabriel lay fast asleep sprawled across the ridiculously large bed. Where before, the massive bed had been smooth and neat as a pin with all the edges tucked tightly beneath the mattress, it now looked like a windstorm had twisted through before he tumbled into the middle of it. He’d managed to kick the sheets and blankets to the foot of the bed, and two of the six pillows had tumbled to the floor.
The man slept like he did everything else—with fierce, vigorous movement and over-the-top energy. He flipped onto his side and groaned, then threw an arm over his head.
Before she knew she was going to do it, Amelia touched a finger to his firm mouth, tracing the outline of his lips. She purposely refused to think about the way those lips had crushed to hers, or how it had made her feel.
Of course, it still concerned her that she felt anything at all, but the reality of why was even more worrisome. She knew she was going to have to deal with it. But not right now. Now she just wanted to give this strong, scarred man some respite from the battle raging inside him.
She trailed her fingers over the creases of tension lining the corners of Gabriel’s mouth and then down his chin to the curve of his neck and shoulder. She murmured a low, soothing tune into his ear, and after a moment his expression smoothed out, his shoulders relaxing into the pillow. Soft noises came from between his slightly parted lips.
She hated to wake him as he’d asked her to do. It had been a long, difficult day for them both, and while Amelia didn’t require sleep, especially now that she had her strength back, Gabriel hadn’t had any chance for real rest in over twenty-four hours.
