Page 24 of Angel's Vengeance

One of those consequences being that the angel could finally access their full fire power, albeit briefly, until the full bond snapped into place.

The wheels were turning over faster in her mind when they stopped in front of a line she’d never considered crossing before.

She had powers, too, didn’t she?Or at least, something like it?What if ...?

“What if I touch you?As your soul bond.Would that help fuel your fire?”

Shifting wouldn’t work.They both knew that.There was a reason Cyro’s experimentations involved rhodium and not some stronger metal.Already, Rhode’s wings were struggling, his right one beginning to dip and bend below the left.Another minute or so and she didn’t have the confidence he’d be able to bear the weight any longer.

The branch could be destroyed with angel fire, quickly and succinctly.And if they really were soul bonds, there was only one way to call it forth at that early stage of the connection.

They were as up, close, and personal as two people could get, sure, but it wasn’t like they were skin to skin or anything.If Neela had to, she could wiggle her hand up from where it was pinned and touch the side of his face or something.It was workable, doable.Useful.

But the way his eyes slashed back toward hers told her everything she needed to know about her little proposition.

He’d let the tree crush him first before he let her touch him, and would happily do so.

That truth filled the already infinitesimal space between them, choking out her shorter breaths, even as his breathing changed to keep pace with hers.She couldn’t be sure whether it was the inevitability of her suggestion or the brutal revealed honesty from earlier, but somehow a weight far greater than that of the tree branch seemed to settle around them.

The silence wasn’t helping.With so many of her senses cut off, the lesser-used ones flared to life with the boom of a starting pistol.Rhode’s wide chest not only flattened her into the snow but pushed against her breasts until each of their syncopated breaths lifted them higher above her coat’s open zipper.There was no reprieve from the contact, no place for her nipples to search out a less abrasive respite.

There was only his strength lying flush against her from his sharp collarbones to his warm thighs firmly bracketing hers.They were so close that if she dared to look up again, her lashes would brush against his jawline.Would the skin there pebble the way hers did whenever his breath kissed her nose or her cheek?

Would he hate her more for wanting to find out?

Then his hips shifted, and that singular hardness from earlier pressed into her more ardently, pulsing against her thigh with an insistent warning.Crap.

No, don’t think of it.Do not think of it.He can’t control his body any more than you can at the moment.

Neela was flustered and at a loss for what to do, what to manage.Instinctually, she leaped for what she could latch onto, which so happened to be the spun silk of his shirt where it tucked into his chiseled waistband.His open overcoat’s brushed wool welcomed her touch as it cradled her hands closer to his sides—sides that heaved with a different kind of exertion than what had originally thrown them together.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, though she wasn’t entirely sure what she was apologizing for.Touching him when he so clearly didn’t want her to?Breathing in his air when the sweat on his brow begged for what little fresh oxygen was available?For lying to him about recognizing who he was and not having told him sooner?

It was the dealer’s choice on that front.

“For what it’s worth, I never touched you when you were in Cyro’s grotto.Others did, but I wasn’t one of them.I refused.”

The option of escape had been taken from them both.The walls around them were only as strong as whatever faltering power remained in the impressive male blanketing her from the world.But somehow, that penetrating stare returned and swung back with a force that she wasn’t entirely sure was the lesser of two evils.

And then both of their breaths quickened, setting a rhythm that ebbed and flowed with the unspoken understanding between them.

“Do it,” he snarled, lifting his head so his mouth inched a tad closer to hers.“Fuck, do it quickly.”

“What?Do what quickly?Touch your face?”

A harsh swallow rode the length of his throat, which was close enough for her to feel in her body.Her fingers tightened against his hips, and to her great surprise, he didn’t canter away.

He movedcloser.

“It needs to be a kiss,” he said, closing his eyes again.The pain in his words was an audible blow to her heart.“For fuck’s sake, it needs to be a kiss, all right?A simple touch on the face won’t do it at this point.My power, whatever remains of it, is too depleted.The soul bond connection isn’t strong enough yet.”Then he looked at her again, and anger, hot and brutal and as violent as she’d ever seen, lashed out at her from those fiery eyes.“Just do it, and let’s be done with this.”

There was no ounce of compromise in his stare.No acquiescence to their circumstances or acknowledgment of Plan F trumping Plan A.There was only the heated fury she sadly recognized every time one of her kind had been called in to administer more of histreatmentswhen he was a captive and she was a naïve onlooker.

It was a fury he needed in order to break through the pain of having another charmer touch him.Pain he always knew would come but which he had never known if or when it would relent.

Whether it was her touch or another of her kind, it was all the same to him.It was all repulsive.

A sharp tear pricked at her eye, but she refused to let it fall.She wasn’t entirely sure what had been wounded most keenly.Her dignity?Her spirit?Or more embarrassingly, the fluttering urges of attraction that had parts of her trembling just as much as the body above hers?

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