by Nina Croft
“Call me Cade.”
“Cade—”
He reached out a hand and stroked her cheek, locking the words in her throat. Her skin tingled under his touch, sending quivers running down her spine. She looked up into his face to find him gazing at her with such wonder in his dark blue eyes, as though he couldn’t quite believe she was here. She was finding it hard to believe herself.
In real life, she’d never wanted a man to look at her like that. She’d have run a mile if one had, but this wasn’t real life. She stifled her initial urge to run and stood immobile beneath his touch, while he traced the lines of her face, trailed the pad of one thumb over her sensitive lower lip. A tight knot clenched in her belly, and the flickering heat burst into flames.
Phoebe said nothing as he drew the scarf back from her face and dropped it to the ground behind her. Her shoulder-length hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he loosened the band and ran his fingers through the strands, then cupped his hands around her skull, tipping her head so she looked up into his eyes.
“Eleni,” he murmured.
She frowned at the strange name, but before she could even think to ask, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. All rational thoughts fled from her mind. His lips were soft at first, almost reverent as he learned the shape of hers, then they hardened. His hands held her steady while he slanted his mouth over hers and parted her lips.
As his tongue pushed inside her, the knot in her belly unraveled. A warm wet heat washed through her, saturating the core of her body, and she swayed toward him.
He wasn’t touching her anywhere except for his hands in her hair, his lips on hers, filling her mouth with the slow, languid thrust of his tongue. She made a low moan of need deep in her throat, and he went still against her. Drawing back, he stared down into her eyes, his expression almost fearful.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
She looked at him then. He still wore the pants he’d been wearing in the compound, but his jacket and shirt were gone. Her eyes flickered past the tips of his wings and then quickly back to his naked chest. He was muscular, but sleek and lean, his ridged belly almost concave where it disappeared into his waistband. Beneath that, she could see the bulge of his erection pressing against the material of his pants, and her breath caught in her throat.
She tried to remember who he was—Caden Wolfe, CEO of the company she was investigating. The man she was convinced was bribing his way to government contracts. But he was also the man she’d been fantasizing about for weeks now, ever since she’d seen his photograph.
And did it matter what he was in real life? Here and now, he was just some manifestation of her fantasies. She’d dreamed him up because he was the most gorgeous guy she had ever encountered and she was a sad, frustrated woman who hadn’t had sex in five years.
And if she was really hovering on the brink of death, didn’t she deserve a little fun first? Even if it wasn’t real.
Or rather—especially if it wasn’t real.
He was watching her, his expression tense, as he waited for her answer. Did she want him? “Oh yeah.” She realized she’d spoken out loud, as relief blossomed on his face.
Phoebe didn’t object as his hands gripped the hem of her tunic and dragged it over her head. His gaze ran over the swell of her breasts in the white cotton bra and her nipples tightened to press against the softness of the material. Hunger and need warred on his face as he reached behind her and unclasped the bra, peeled the material away. His eyes feasted on her until her breasts ached to be touched, and her sex throbbed with need.
Finally, when she thought she would scream, his large hand cupped the fullness of one breast. His thumb rubbed the nipple and it stiffened, sending jolts of pleasure shooting through her, fires dancing along her nerve endings. Lowering his head, he licked the swollen nub, drew it into his hot mouth, and suckled her while his hands slid down over the sharp indentation of her waist. They slipped beneath the waistband of her loose pants to stroke the curve of her bottom. He pushed them down together with her panties, and she stepped out of them, kicking off her sandals to stand before him naked.
He went down on his knees, his wings spreading to frame him. For a minute, his forehead rested against her stomach, as though in prayer. She laced her fingers into his hair, dark with glints of ruby.
He raised his head. “I have waited so long.”
“You have?”
“But now we are together again.”
“Again?” She was sure they’d never been together before. But her mind couldn’t hold on to the thoughts because he leaned toward her and was scattering moist kisses across her naked breasts, down over her belly. Red hot desire exploded inside her. She would have fallen, but his hands gripped her hips and held her steady as he rose to his feet, still holding her. Then he lowered her to the silky black sand.
Phoebe couldn’t drag her eyes from him as him as he stood over her, legs braced. Couldn’t move as his hands went to his waist. He flicked open the button on his pants, unzipped them, then tugged them off and tossed them to the ground. A brief glimpse of him showed he was fully aroused, and way beyond impressive, before he sank down beside her. Dragging her into his arms, he pulled her close against the length of him.
Dream or reality—she wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. Nothing mattered except finishing this. She needed him, needed him deep inside her as though they were one body, and some small part of her mind filled with terror that she would wake before they completed the act.
A sense of urgency woke inside her and she reached out, curled a hand around his shoulder, and pulled him to her.
***
The blood throbbed in his veins, pulsating in his shaft so his cock felt as though it was about to explode. His gums ached to feed—he’d never expected that. Would she let him, or would she recoil in horror at what he had become? Last time they were together, he had been an angel. There was nothing angelic left in him now.
The possible implications of what he had done nagged at the back of his mind. He was sure he’d broken the rules of the Covenant by bringing her to the Abyss, but what else could he have done? It had been nearly two thousand years since he’d last held Eleni, and now that he’d found her, he wasn’t sure he could let her go. Certainly, he couldn’t have stood aside and watched her be blown to pieces by an incoming rocket.
He’d acted without thinking; snatched her up, opened a portal, and here they were.
He tried to push the doubts away, but he couldn’t dismiss the idea that this might be all he would ever have.
She looked as he remembered; the curves of her hips, the full breasts, the tiny waist. He reached out and stroked his finger down from her collarbone, between the valley of her breasts, over the gentle swell of her belly, then flattened his palm against the curls at the junction of her thighs. Her hips lifted, pushing against his hand, and she moaned.
For a moment, nothing seemed real. For so long he’d dreamed of this, of finding her, of loving her. Panic flared, beating insistent wings against his ribcage.
Was it real?
The Abyss could do strange things to the mind—even his. He burrowed his face against her throat, and the familiar scent of her cleared his head of the doubts. Right now, it was enough just to hold her. It felt like coming home.
He was back in heaven where he belonged.
Now, he would show her what they were to each other through his body, and she would remember that once she’d loved him more than life itself.
“Please, Cade.”
Her muttered words filled him with a sense of urgency.
Without thinking, his lips drew back, and his fangs sank into the soft skin.
For an instant, she went still beneath him, but he couldn’t stop now with the warm sweetness of her blood flooding his mouth, driving him wild. He came up over her, held himself poised above her, braced on his elbows.
His shaft nudged at the opening to her body, pleasure racing along his nerve endings, but as
he drew back to fill her, an icy breeze whispered over his skin.
Shit.
***
Phoebe’s surroundings vanished. All she was aware of was the man poised above her, the hardness of his erection pressing into her belly, his mouth at her throat. The sand was soft beneath her, the wind a gentle caress against her bare skin. She felt as though she was caught in a moment in time, waiting for this man to possess her. She knew she had experienced this before. Cade lying with her like this, but under a bright yellow sun, murmuring words of love in her ear, “Eleni…”
Now, she hovered on the edge of something, something vitally important. Memories whispered through her brain as insubstantial as mist, and she groped to catch them.
“Shit!” Cade raised his head and swore loudly, chasing away the spell that bound her. His body snapped rigid as he stared at something over her shoulder. For a moment, she tried to hold him to her, her hands gripping the silky skin of his shoulders.
Swearing again, he pulled free and rose to his feet in one fluid move. He grabbed his pants and disappeared from her sight.
A sensation of loss washed over her so strong she thought she might drown beneath it. She swallowed and sat up, forced herself to turn around and peer over the edge of the rock to see what had dragged him from her.
A woman stood silhouetted against dim light, so still she might have been a part of the mountain itself. She was the most beautiful thing Phoebe had ever seen, tall and slender, with red-gold hair that fell in glossy curls to her waist. She wore dark pants, long boots, and a crimson shirt, and the pale skin of her face was marked with swirling runes.
Cade crossed the space between them and sank down on to his knee before her. “My queen.”
His queen? Phoebe searched around her for her clothes, feeling at a distinct disadvantage naked in the presence of royalty.
Her body was still clamoring for release, and she had to force herself to concentrate. She had no clue where this dream was going. The whole “nearly making love with Caden Wolfe” thing she could understand. He was stunning, and it had been a long time for her. But why bring another woman into the fantasy? She finally found her tunic on the ground close by and wriggled into it under cover of the rock. The long cotton robe enveloped her from neck to knees and would have to do for now. Scrambling to her feet, she tucked her hair behind her ears and stepped forward. The woman glanced her way dismissively before turning back to Cade.
“You’ve broken the rules, Caden.” She nodded at his wings. “You’ve shown her what you are.”
“I had no choice,” he ground out. “She was going to die. Within the bounds of the Covenant—I have a right to protect her.”
“Maybe.” She gave an elegant shrug of one slender shoulder. “The rules are still broken—you are not to show your true self.” She pouted a carmine smile and gave a little moue of regret. “A pity. You did it to save her, and now she must die anyway.”
Die? Were they talking about her? Phoebe inched closer, her gaze flickering between the two people. The woman appeared relaxed, even amused, while Cade’s figure radiated tension, and a low growl rumbled in his chest.
“Die?” Phoebe said. “But this is just a dream, right?”
The woman regarded Phoebe, her eyes as black as midnight. “I am Lilith,” she said. “I rule here.” She considered Phoebe, head cocked to one side. “What if it were reality?”
“But it’s not, is it?” Phoebe turned away and searched for the rest of her clothes. She found her underwear draped over a boulder and her long, baggy pants behind it.
She pulled them on.
Cade had risen to his feet. He was pacing the black sand. “I have five days.”
“Five days?” Phoebe realized she was sounding like a parrot but couldn’t help herself. “Five days to do what?”
Nobody answered, and she plonked herself down on the boulder and waited to see how this dream would work itself out. She wished she had her recorder, she wanted to remember what was said, but how likely was that in a dream? Cade still wore nothing but his pants, and she admired his half-naked body and tried to ignore the wings, which were twitching in obvious agitation.
“Only if you stick to the rules,” Lilith said, “and don’t reveal who and what you are. And the rules are already broken.”
“Er…actually, I don’t know what he is,” Phoebe muttered. “What is he?”
Again, they ignored her, and she ground her teeth in annoyance.
“However, I’m inclined to feel generous. It all depends on the woman.”
The woman? Did she mean her? Well, it was her dream after all.
Lilith strolled toward her, and Phoebe fought the need to jump to her feet and put a barrier between them. Despite Lilith’s beauty, there was something vaguely repellent about the woman.
She came to a halt a foot away. Reaching out, she placed one slender finger under Phoebe’s chin, turning it slightly to the side. Her brows drew together.
“Really, Caden, couldn’t you have shown a little restraint?”
Phoebe resisted the urge to reach up and touch her neck. She had a flashback to Cade’s mouth at her throat, the sharp pain.
Had he bitten her? Was he some sort of vampire? It seemed unlikely she’d bring a blood-sucking monster into her fantasy, but what other explanation was there? She’d been so drugged by pleasure, she probably wouldn’t have noticed if he’d devoured her whole. Cade didn’t answer, and she glanced across to where he stood, scowling, his lips pressed firmly together.
Lilith dropped her hand and stepped back. “We have a small problem. According to the Covenant, Caden has five days to make you love him, but he’s not allowed to reveal his true self in that time. Now he’s shown himself to you, which means his soul is forfeit, as is your life.” She pursed her lips. “But I’m feeling generous, so I’m willing to give you a chance.”
The words made no sense. “A chance?”
“Let me be more direct. Do you love Caden Wolfe?”
“Just who are you?”
“Answer the question,” Lilith snapped.
Phoebe frowned. Queen or not, Lilith, was starting to seriously piss her off. She glanced at Cade. He was watching her, a hungry, hopeful look in his dark eyes. She turned away from the intensity of his gaze. He couldn’t really expect to tell him she loved him after a few hours.
Phoebe had never told anyone she loved them. Not even her closest family. She had always found the words impossible. She desperately wanted to retreat into her normal flippancy, but she peeked again at Cade, saw that same look in his eyes, almost pleading, and the urge to be flippant drained away.
“I don’t believe in love,” she said with an apologetic shrug in Cade’s direction. Her words weren’t entirely true. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t believe in love, as she wouldn’t allow herself to love. Not even in a dream.
Especially not in a dream—Phoebe’s whole life had been haunted by nightmares of a love taken from her, and she wouldn’t risk that pain in reality.
“How…fascinating.” Lilith seemed lost in thought, as she considered Phoebe. After a minutes silence, she turned to Cade. “She’s a dead woman walking. But you know, it might be amusing to watch you squirm. You have your five days. They will begin from the moment of your next meeting, but it must be as though this encounter never happened—she must forget.”
At her words, Phoebe’s panic flared. “I don’t want to forget.”
Even if it wasn’t real, and even if she wasn’t ready to admit to some complete stranger that she loved him, she wanted to remember this more than anything in her entire life. Cade was staring at Lilith, and Phoebe could see the tautness in every muscle, right to his wing tips that quivered and strained. Then the tension seemed to bleed from him, and he nodded once.
He came back to her, cupped her face in his large hand. His eyes filled with regret and something else.
“You’ll forget this,” he murmured. “But you will remember me. When the time is r
ight, you must remember.”
“No, I—” But the light was already growing dim, his face fading, that same sense of loss washed over her and sucked her under.
Her face was damp.
It was the first thing she noticed when she regained consciousness. Her face was damp, and she was lying on the hard ground, the sand sticking to her cheek. She shifted slightly then stopped as a piercing pain splintered her skull. A moan escaped from her.
There was something she needed to remember, but it slipped away even as she tried to hold it tight.
“Eleni...” The word whispered through her mind, then drifted off on the breeze, leaving her bereft and empty.
“Don’t move, Miss.”
Her eyes blinked open at the sound of someone speaking close to her head. A man crouched beside her.
He was big and wore camouflage gear with the Stormlord Security insignia on his chest. She recognized him as the bodyguard she’d seen flanking Caden Wolfe. He ran his hands impersonally over her body, then sat back on his heels and examined her, a strange, intense expression on his face.
“I think you’re okay apart from a bang on the head,” he said. “Do you want to sit up?”
She pushed herself up, wincing at the pain, but found she could function. “What happened?”
She peered about her. The place was in ruins. Small fires blazed at various points around the compound. She flinched. She’d hated fire for as long as she could remember.
Her eyes shifted away to the bodies that lay unmoving among the rubble, searching for someone. When she didn’t see him anywhere, she turned to the man crouched next to her.
“Caden Wolfe? Is he okay?” She didn’t know why she asked, but she needed to know.
“Yeah, he’s okay. He’s helping out.” He nodded across the compound, and Phoebe saw Caden Wolfe’s distinctive dark red hair. His back was to her; he’d stripped off his jacket and was tending to someone on the ground. He went still as though he could sense her stare, but didn’t turn.
He was safe, and the tight knot of tension inside her relaxed. She sagged against the wall, and then glanced back to the man beside her. “What now?”
