Page 66 of Angel's Vengeance

“Hold a moment,” he said, offering a delicate kiss to the tops of her breasts while he stilled her questing fingers.“I want something first.”

Her sly eyebrow lifted.“Yes?”

But the realization soon lit her face when his fingers traced a map of salvation up the inside of her thigh.He held her against him as she squirmed and writhed, but he refused to let her free, no matter how many times she pouted that damn lower lip and tried to shimmy around his arms.

When he found the barrier of fabric guarding his treasure, he slipped one finger beneath it and moaned when it came away slick and weeping.

Then he froze when her hands caged his face and those arresting gold eyes bore into him.“Together,” she breathed.

It was the word that course-corrected his journey onto a path he always needed to follow.With her slim eyebrows raised and that hopeful smile lighting her features, searching for the same in his, he somehow knew this was different.

They found each other’s mouths, not with the ravenous pace of earlier but with the gentle rhythm they’d fall into when they were alone in bed and time was inconsequential.Hours were measured in happiness and hushed breaths instead of their proximity to the approaching sun.

So he slowed his pace.Slowed and savored it, letting her free his arousal while he slid her underwear to the side.Neela sank down on him, and he hissed against her mouth.The prior urgency of harried lovers ebbed away and was replaced by the gentle support of one who’d never let her go.The sensation was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.They kissed as they rocked, moving their tongues in time to the erotic pulls of their bodies, and he, again, saw the genius of their confines.There was no room for questions, no room for elaborate foreplay.There was only room for them and what each could call out of the other while cradling them close.

It was enough to make his chest hurt and his soul cry with the beauty of it all.

Neela quickened her pace, and Rhode encouraged her higher with one hand on her backside while the other cradled her head lest she bump it on the low ceiling.Their kisses grew sloppier, their clothes more wrinkled.Neela’s sweater had fallen low enough to reveal more of the mounded breasts he would close his eyes and dream about long after she’d left him for the day.

“Fuck, Neela,” he groaned, touching his forehead to hers.“Soon, little demon.I fear it’ll be too soon.”Rhode’s balls tightened farther, and he began to lift up into her, chasing the tempo of her rising gasps and quivering thighs.

When Neela didn’t say anything, he pulled back to look at her and nearly came undone.Pleasure painted her features into the shining portrait of the woman who’d have his heart forever.Heart, body, soul, whatever she wanted, it was hers.Hewas hers, while the rest of the world could fall away beyond the SUV’s foggy windows and the sleepy snowstorm swirling around them.

The realization punched through the base of his spine, and they both cried out as he released into her tightening core.Ripple after ripple sent tremors along the landscapes of both their skins.There was no beginning or end for either of them anymore.What was had finally been put to bed, and what they were would carry him on for as many years as the mages gave him.

When Neela collapsed against him, sated and adding her exhausted breaths to the heated cabin air, he held her more tightly against his chest.

Soul to soul.

Heart to heart.

So close that neither of their pasts could ever pry them apart again.

And come tomorrow, when they finally lured Cyro out of whatever hole he’d been hiding in, Rhode would make damn sure of it.

Chapter32

Neela couldn’t figure out whether the stress headache currently digging its talons into her temples was due to cramming her hair into the knit hat she’d been encouraged to wear or due to the reason she had to wear the thing in the first place.The hood to her white puffer coat was calling her name, its faux-fur trim hanging off her shoulders in a mournful beggar’s pose as she itched to throw it over her head.

But the hood, however preferable for her comfort, wouldn’t have made her the identifiable target she needed to be.She could hardly find fault in the argument, especially as she was crowded among the far too many joyful kids and their huddled-together parents beneath the pseudo-snowstorm-turned-preemptive-snow-day.All over a few inches of snow that, according to Chrome, any decent set of snow tires could have handled.

And she’d thought New Englanders weren’t so scared away by the white stuff that school districts had to call a snow day the night before.

Tourist towns were a different breed, apparently.

The sudden school closures had turned into the perfect opportunity, however, to try and draw Cyro out of hiding.The municipal park complex in Aurora was a massive space that housed everything from hiking trails to a dozen sports fields to playgrounds and, most delightedly for the kiddos, the most kick-ass hill that sported the additional benefit of being well-lit at night due to its proximity to the high school soccer team’s practice field.It doubly served as the perfect spot for parents to go and sit on nearby bleachers while their kids went sledding and the adults got to have precious private moments with their travel mugs full of hot toddies—or coffee, if anyone inquired as to what was actually in the tumblers.

Bonus points for the town’s rec workers, who figured out how to blast music through the speakers to mark the occasion of Aurora’s first snow day of the season (which, again, hadn’t actually happened yet).

The employees had no idea they were also scoring the soundtrack to the demon ruler’s potential arrival on stage, otherwise known as Neela’s personal panic attack.

No matter how many conversations she’d had with the sentinels or how many times Rhode had held her hands and assured her that no harm would come to any of the mortals on the field, she had a hard time absorbing the potential outcome.She was nothing if not aseeing is believingtype of person.Otherwise, who the hell would decide to grow a damn greenhouse underground if they hadn’t seen it already on YouTube?

Sane people wouldn’t.Only desperate people.

So, she’d needed some convincing on that front even though the logic, however much of a high-priced gamble it seemed, made sense.The more public the area, the less possibility that things could erupt into a battle that would head south real fast.Cyro wanted the general population of mortals to know about demons as much as he wanted to give up his quest to destroy the Empyrean.

It was a safety-in-numbers game, which meant Neela’s most identifiable feature, her hair, had to be visible enough for the charmers to find her but also be hidden enough to blend in.

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