by J. R. Ward
* * *
Six floors up, in his room, Matthias was unleashed. Unhinged. Unraveled.
As he kissed Mels, he went to the buttons on her silk blouse and freed them one by one, the fine fabric parting to reveal even softer skin…and a pair of cotton-covered breasts that knocked him the hell out. God, it was all too much already, the noises of their lips together, their panting breath, their clothes shifting around—the sight of her. And then there was the way she moved against him, her body undulating in waves that brought those breasts up to his chest and then her hips into his.
He wanted his mouth all over her, and that was going to happen now—starting with her throat. Nipping his way down the smooth column to her collarbone, he brought his hand to just beneath her breast, brushing his thumb against the cup of her bra.
He meant to tease a little—didn’t last.
“Oh, God, yes…” she said as he felt her up.
At the sound of her groaning voice, he had to pause and collect himself, his head ducking into her hair as he struggled for control: The need to consume her was so great, he was a little shaken by it, because he didn’t know himself enough to trust that he wouldn’t hurt her.
There was no going back, though.
That bra was gone a heartbeat later: Springing the front clasp, he stared down at her pink nipples and her pale curves.
He growled at that point. At least, he assumed that noise came from him.
Either that or a puma had somehow slipped into the room.
Matthias dipped his head and sucked one tip into his mouth, his tongue swirling around, flicking, licking. He didn’t leave the other side alone, couldn’t—his fingers pinched, then tweaked her tight little nipple, telling it to hang on; he’d be there in a second—
A sudden sting at the nape of his neck told him she had dug in, and abruptly, her thighs went wide as if her sex were dictating her movements, not her mind—and that vital core that defined her as a woman wanted what he could give her.
Or rather…wanted what he might have given her, if he could have.
Shit.
Even with her bumping and grinding against his pelvis, and in spite of the heat that was raging in his blood, his body couldn’t respond as a male’s should. There was no hard arousal to sink into her, no erection she could grab onto, no thick cock she might wrap her lips around in payback for what was going to be done to her in another minute or two.
As a crushing sadness came over him, threatening to derail the session, a single moan from her was enough to get him back online: None of that mattered. All he wanted was to make her feel good, so when push came to shove—or rather, when she was going to want something to be pushable or shovable—he was just going to have to get creative.
Lifting his head, he stared into her flushed face and her wild eyes. That hair of hers was loose around the pillow, all wavy and spread out, and her cheeks were the color of Christmas.
Man, she was incredible.
Keeping their eyes locked, he rose up off her so that he was kneeling between her split legs. And in that pause, before things got really serious, he imagined himself as he had been, strong, powerful, his body as dominant as his will was.
As it stood now, he was glad he had the undershirt on. And he felt…really lucky.
She had everything to offer; he had nothing. And yet she wanted him anyway.
It was at that moment that he fell in love with her.
The shift in his heart and soul made no sense, and yet the emotional logic was so persuasive, the center of his chest resonated with a warmth that had never been there before: He knew without the specifics that he had spent a lifetime engaged in complicated cruelty, and yet here he was, naked before her though he was clothed, accepted for who he was on the inside, not for what he didn’t look like and couldn’t do.
The revelation changed him internally, putting him into a gear that was slower than the mad rush that he’d all but tackled her with.
Now he moved deliberately, his hands going to the button and zipper of her slacks, and undoing things at an unhurried pace. Opening the fly wide, he curled down and pressed a kiss to her lower abdomen, halfway between her belly button and the top of her sensible, mind-blowingly erotic bikini panties.
Who needed that fussy lace and satin crap? Simple cotton did it for him, as long as she was the one wearing it.
Man, he wanted to suck on her through the damn things.
“I’m gonna get you naked,” he said in a voice warped with sex.
With another one of those holy-shit moans of hers, Mels cranked her head to the side and watched him pull off what covered her lower body, one hand drifting to her mouth and touching it.
Matthias reached up and edged her fingers between her lips. “Suck on them for me—oh, fuck, yeah…”
She did exactly what she was told, her cheeks drawing in as she complied, then her tongue parting through her fore- and middle fingers before the knuckles disappeared from sight again.
“Like this?” she said after pulling them free.
He had to close his eyes. It was either that or pass the fuck out…because all he could imagine was his cock in that wet, warm hold, her down at his hips, her head going forward and back as that suction was all around him.
“You’re beautiful,” he growled as he tossed her pants over his shoulder.
Time to get to work.
His lips lingered along the top edge of the panties, tracing the way to one hip while his fingers trailed his mouth, touching lightly, caressing. When he got to the side, he took the cotton off her body, slipping it down her long legs.
He made love to her with his mouth.
It was the best sexual experience of his life. Everything was about her: how she felt, what she liked, how far he could push her before he had to let her climax…and it was amazing. He also had no intention of stopping anytime soon. Cupping her with his palms, he lifted up her hips and tilted them as he stretched out, ready to stay forever.
And it wasn’t like he couldn’t get inside her.
Straightening his tongue, he penetrated her core rhythmically, alternating the surges with great laps that tickled the top of her sex. Quicker. Deeper. Harder. He wanted her to fall apart on him over and over again, to keep coming against his lips, to burst free and twinkle back down to earth for the rest of their natural lives.
“Give me what I want,” he said. “Give me what I need….”
Putting his fingers in his mouth, he slicked them up and sank them in, and oh, man, it was good. Especially as she orgasmed, the pulsing clenches something that seemed to flood through him as if he were releasing along with her.
When it was over, he paused to catch his breath, and she lay there in glorious abandon, her breasts heaving, her body loose all over, her skin flushed.
It took her a while to recover. She even tried to speak a couple of times, but couldn’t follow through.
Kinda made a guy feel like a man.
“That was…unbelievable.”
Her words were more purr than voice, and wasn’t that just fucking great.
As Matthias smiled, he felt just a little evil—not in a bad way, but in the masculine way—like when you had the woman you wanted naked, on her back, on your bed, and you had every intention of showing her some more attention.
“Would you like me to keep going?” he said on a dark drawl.
Chapter Thirty
As Jim stood in that underground hallway, he was ready to rip his wingman a new one.
Of course, to do that, he’d have to peel that waitress off the bastard—and as much as he was a hands-on kind of guy, he wasn’t prepared to get that close to the Saran Wrap situation.
Fucker.
Literally.
And, yup, this happy little bump and grind put him in an even worse frame of mind: He’d come down to the Marriott ready to rip Adrian a new one over those photographs of that prostitute—and instead of finding the angel on the job, outside Matthias’s room? The SOB
was nailing this chick in the same hallway where that operative had been killed by Devina the night before.
Like Jim didn’t already have a hair across his ass.
Those photographs, those goddamn photographs…
Adrian had said he’d been to a murder scene with Mels—and now the woman was showing up with pictures of a female victim whose hair had been dyed blond, and whose throat had been slit wide, talking about a pattern of runes that had been in the skin of the abdomen, but was now—gasp!—not there anymore?
That angel had to be the “why” behind the disappearance.
So it was time to have a come to Jesus with Mr. Eraser.
Meeting Adrian’s stare, he dared the guy to keep up with the fucking, and—shocker—the son of a bitch did.
The waitress was having a great time—at least, going from what Jim could see from the rear, her head thrashing, that hair flying, those arms contracting around Ad’s neck. For a moment, Jim thought back to some of his own sexual exploits—but then he settled on memories that weren’t relevant in the slightest:
Him with Devina. Used and abused by her and her minions in her Well of Souls.
He had no idea why he’d dwell on the shit. That hadn’t been about sex; it had been torture, plain and simple, and God knew he’d been trained for that.
Still, the images stayed with him, lingering in the background like a stink.
Made no sense. He’d had bones broken before—on purpose, by an enemy. He’d been cut in the past, too—strung up by his feet and beaten like a punching bag…oh, yeah, and that time in Budapest when he’d been packed into that car, driven out to the country, and left for dead after getting worked over with a claw hammer—
Abruptly, the waitress moaned the way women did when they weren’t faking it: this was not a contrived, pretty little sound engineered to make a guy think he was a sex god. This was the real kind, when the female was coming so hard she wasn’t even aware of the animal grunts she was throwing out.
As she thrashed, Adrian supported her up off the floor with barely any effort—then again, the chick was synched up hard, locked on him tighter than a coat of paint. And, shit, their movements were so universal, him pumping in an ever-increasing rhythm, her getting tossed around as those penetrations were received, absorbed, enjoyed. Watching it all, Jim probably should have been aroused. Should have wanted in.
At the very least, he should have stayed pissed off.
Instead, panic tingled on the fringes of his mind, memories of his arms pinned down and his own legs spread putting a fine sheen of sweat above his upper lip.
He turned away, not because he was so angry he was going to kill Adrian, and not because he was disgusted or too modest for the show.
His stomach churned.
The hands that took out his cigarettes shook ever so slightly, and the sounds as Adrian orgasmed made him shut his eyes for a second.
Naturally, the horny bastard went for a twofer with no recovery time.
And Jim couldn’t actually start smoking until the woman was gone.
Great.
When the pneumatics were finally over, Jim glanced across his shoulder. Adrian had slid the girl down to the ground and was letting her rest her head against his pecs. As he stroked her hair, he seemed utterly detached from her, to the point where he might as well have been in another zip code. Matter of fact, except for the instants when he’d shot his load, he appeared to have been on some kind of erotic autopilot the entire time.
Why the hell did he bother?
The waitress checked her watch, pulled herself together, and kissed Ad on the lips. Just before she left, she took a pen out and grabbed for Ad’s hand. With big strokes, she inked a number into his palm, and then curled his fingers up like she’d given him some sort of gift. Then on a twirl of her hair, she was off, all but skipping down the corridor in the direction that would take her to the restaurant’s kitchen.
Adrian did up the front of his pants with efficiency. “Before you get on your high horse, I put a protection spell all over the room. They’re fine.”
Jim lit up and exhaled hard, the smoke shooting out of his mouth. “What the fuck would Eddie think about this?”
Those already icy eyes narrowed into slits. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.”
Adrian jabbed a finger. “You do not play that card. Ever—”
“What would he think about you down here, fucking some chick on the job.” Jim turned his coffin nail around and looked at the bright, glowing tip. “And you didn’t even seem to enjoy it—so it’s not like you’re off post for a good reason.”
Waves of rage distorted the air between them, the other angel’s anger so palpable it was practically a light source.
“I’m going to tell you this once,” the guy said. “And only once—”
“Eddie wouldn’t have been impressed by this—”
The attack was so fast, so vicious, Jim didn’t have time to ditch his cigarette. As Ad locked on Jim’s throat with both hands, that lit tip went up…and came down right in the collar of his shirt.
But the burn was the least of his problems.
Jacking his hands between them, he split that hold wide-open and snapped a head butt out, catching the other angel right in the soft cartilage of the schnoz. Except, apparently, Adrian didn’t have any feeling there either—he just threw out a curving right-hander that slammed into the side of Jim’s ear like an SUV.
Listing off to the side, he caught himself on a stand of chairs and one-eightied his momentum, pitching himself back at the guy—who happened to have found his fighting stance and was clearly ready to turn this into a UFC free-for-all.
There was a huge part of Jim that also wanted a good, bloody hand-to-hand fight with the guy. But it was hard to pull the soapbox, superior thing about Eddie when he was prepared to go a hundred and fifty rounds with the dumb man-whore down in this corridor.
One gut shot put a stop to the whole thing.
Jim faked out like he was coming in high, and Ad was so pissed off and juiced, the guy fell for it. As he left his navel undefended, Jim went in low and fast—so fast there was no chance to block, and so low that the cock and balls were involved.
Motherfucker was going to sing the high notes like Justin-cocksucking-Timberlake for a while.
Adrian caved in around his groin, his hands formed a protective cup that was about three seconds too late to protect his nads.
Jim shook the now-crushed cig out of his shirt. His skin had been burned on his shoulder, but compared to the ringing in his ears, it was nothing.
Wonder if he had a concussion.
More dementia was not what they needed in this round.
Standing over the bastard, Jim said in a guttural voice, “I know what you did.”
Adrian let one knee go down to the concrete floor. Then the other. “Duh. You frickin’ watched.”
“The prostitute. The runes on her stomach. You burned ’em off her, didn’t you.”
Ad started flapping his lips, but the curses didn’t carry far.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear.” Jim leaned over and put his face right in the guy’s grille. “You ever keep information from me again, and you’re off the team—if Nigel won’t arrange for it, I’ll fucking take care of the job. Do you understand me.”
Not a question.
As Adrian’s eyes lifted, they were like two blowtorches mounted through the back of his skull, but Jim didn’t give a shit. The angel could go volcano if he wanted; they were not going to operate on any other terms.
When Ad finally spoke, the words were hoarse, the other angel’s lungs still more focused on reoxygenation from the shot to the nuts than allowing him to bitch. “Do you think Devina…did that because it was going to help you?”
“Not the point.” Jim shook his head. “You do not get to edit this game—”
“Oh, so I’m an asshat because I was trying to help you—”
“I need
to know what she’s doing.”
Ad fell back on his ass and scrubbed his face. “Come on, Jim, she’s trying to fuck your head because you won’t let her fuck your body. That and a physics equation and you can solve the mysteries of the goddamn universe. You know this. So why are the particulars of the message important.”
“If I can’t trust you, I don’t know where I really stand.”
“And if she gets under your skin, we’ve lost both you and Eddie.”
Their competing logic drained the final vestiges of emotion out of the air, leaving a pervasive exhaustion that was clearly communal.
“Goddamn it,” Jim breathed, as he sat next to the guy.
“That about covers things.”
Jim took out his Marlboros. The pack was mangled, a couple of the cigs cracked in half and therefore unusable. But he found at least one that was still intact enough to light.
As he lit up, he glanced over at where the fucking had gone down. The weakness he’d felt in those moments was just one more reason to hate the enemy.
Adrian glanced across. “Eddie would have done the same thing about those runes.”
“No, he wouldn’t have.”
Those eyes turned hard again. “You didn’t know him longer than a matter of weeks. Trust me—he did what was necessary in all circumstances, and anything that has to do with Sissy Barten is your Achilles’ heel.”
“Obstructing information—”
“Can we just drop this—”
“—is as close to a crime as men like you and I have.”
“—and get back to work.”
As tempers simmered again, like their respective pots had been returned to the godforsaken stove, Jim cursed. See, this was the problem with Eddie being gone. No ref to call the shot or the foul and get the pair of them back on track.
No voice of reason.
And Ad kind of had a point. Jim was a little obsessed about Sissy, and Devina was smart enough to know that. But after years of being in the field, the one thing Jim knew to value as much as his own competence was intel—information was always the best weapon and the strongest shield you had against your enemy. If you knew their thinking and their actions, their locations and their movements, you could formulate your strategy.
