Page 116 of The Fallen One

Despite his question, I found myself copying his movement, desperate to feel all of him but inside me. “I know you’re trying to scare me, but it’s not working.” My palms skated around to his back beneath his shirt, as I visualized the feathers and arched wings there.

Angel wings on his back, and he called me his angel. It was rather poetic.

He dropped his eyes closed, his lips hovering over mine. “I need your answer,” he said gruffly, going still. “If Craig’s connected to what happened to you this week,” he began in an eerily even tone, “I will kill him. Not a merciful death either. A slow and excruciatingly painful one.”

“Wait, you want to murder him because of me? Not Rebecca?” I’d meant to keep that as an internal thought, damnit.

Eyes flashing open, his other hand cut straight to my waist, his fingers digging into my side over my sweater. “Of course.” The lilt in his tone made me wonder if I’d insulted him.

Before I could make sense of that, he set his mouth to mine, kissing me with such fervent intensity I wasn’t sure if my trembling was from this moment or more turbulence.

Letting go of my hair, he shifted his mouth to my ear and grated out, “I want to fuck you so bad, you have no damn idea. I’m almost willing to risk my team hearing you just to have you.” He resumed kissing me again as if he hadn’t just dangled the idea of plunging his cock inside me as a way to relieve his tension, and probably my own, too.

My hands moved up his sides and to his arms, holding on to him as if I might fall through the floor and join the sky if I let go. Guess I’d find out if this man could also fly, knowing he’d jump after me.

“Your teammates need to concentrate out there, remember?” I reminded him.

“They’ll figure it out.” A brief smile touched my lips before his tongue rejoined my mouth, stealing my ability to keep my legs steady.

The man didn’t miss a beat. Even with my back to the wall for support, he didn’t take any risks. He kept a firm hold of my side, clearly feeling my knees buckle.

“You want to punish me for making you lose control again, don’t you?” I wasn’t sure if I meant that as a sexy tease to do exactly that, or in concern for the soft flesh of my ass cheeks.

He nipped at my bottom lip and his “yes” floated between us before he spun me around. My breasts hit the wall, and he flung my arms up, cheek turned and palms to the wall. For a moment, I was lost to thoughts of his handprint on my ass.

Sweeping my hair away from my ear, he held me tight and positioned his hard cock up against me. “You want to know how I’d do it, don’t you?” That dark promise had my body exploding in goose bumps.

“Yes, please.” Should I have followed that please with “sir”? God, this was foreign territory to me.

Accepting my permission to have his way with me, he shoved my yoga pants and panties down to my thighs. I arched forward in anticipation of a stinging sensation to my ass cheeks.

I’d officially forgotten the reasons we’d come to the bedroom in the first place. My every thought, instinct, intent was on pleasing this man. Letting him please me.

“Tell me, angel. I have to get your answer first.” He smoothed his palm over my ass cheek, caressing in small circles as if he’d already spanked me and was helping ease the lasting sting there.

When his hand curved around to find my sex instead, his fingers sliding through my arousal, I bit back the cry of ecstasy. “An answer to what?”

“Will. You. Forgive. Me?” Each word punctured through me, tearing a hole in my lungs that were working overtime to breathe normally.

For murder, I finally remembered. That’s what you want to know. “Carter.” His name was a broken cry from my lips. A painful sound. “What if I ask you not to kill because of me instead? Can you do that for me?”

His fingers went still over my clit. “I don’t know.”

I fought back the tears as I admitted, “Then I don’t know either.” How could I help this man see his soul was worth saving if he was so hell-bent on sacrificing it for me? “I do know I want you.” My voice broke, and at the feel of his chest heaving from deep breaths, I added the promise, “No matter what.”

He placed his hand on the wall near my face, right in my line of sight. His golden-tan skin in view as he resumed touching me with the other. I squeezed my eyes closed again, losing myself to his touch, to the fact he hadn’t backed away.

His thumb caught the sensitive spot at my center, drowning out the noise in my head with every flick of his thumb. He sent me higher and higher. Flying took on a completely new meaning—forgetting all over again why we were thirty-plus thousand miles up in the sky—and I broke.

An orgasm ripped through me, and as I came down, he set his mouth to my ear and rasped, “Have you ever had a safe word before?”

“Definitely not.” My stomach was still fluttering from the release he’d given me, and now my ass cheeks tightened in anticipation of that spanking he’d yet to give me. “But your name is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of safe,” I confessed.

“My name should be the last thing you consider safe with your ass exposed and my palm fucking twitchy.” Not even a split second later, a gruff breath fell from his lips, hitting the shell of my ear. “I’m . . . so sorry.” There were so many layers to his tone and that apology, it’d take me all morning to peel them back.

He pulled his hand away from my sex and guided me around to face him.

“What’s wrong?” I took hold of his shirt, anxious for him to explain the apology so I didn’t have to cut through the context and find the meaning myself.

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