Page 117 of Touched By Darkness

“I don’t like the way you say it.”

“What way?” He steps into the living room, and I follow him, careful not to trip over the bear rug.

“Like I’m crazy. I’m not. And you’re lying to me. To what end, I don’t fucking know.”

Amenadiel pours himself a tumbler of amber liquid and peers at me over the rim as he sips it. I try not to shift beneath the scrutiny of his gaze. “How did you escape Daemon’s watchful eye? I doubt he let you come here.”

Sucking on my teeth, I look away. “I may or may not have escaped through the bedroom window.”

“Naughty girl.”

I snap my gaze back at him with narrowed eyes before pointing an accusing finger his way. “You can lie to me all you want, but I do not buy your act. Next time you decide to fuck me against my will in my sleep, I’ll trap you inside my mind again. How about that?”

“So I can continue molesting you in your sleep?”

My mouth slams shut, and he sets his tumbler down on a nearby console table on his way over to me. “Let me get one thing clear, Angel. You wouldn’t be here, looking so flustered, if I fucked you against your will. The only reason you’re here, accusing me of such…”—he taps his lip as he searches for the words—“deplorable acts, is because some depraved and neglected part of you craved it. The righteousness in you, the persistent little light that clings to your soul with the tenacious spirit of an infectious wart, won’t let go. It feeds you with lies and whispers of guilt and shame. But between you and me, I see it for what it is—the final death throes. So why don’t we”—he scissors his fingers—“cut it from the source?”

“What are you saying?”

“Instead of fighting the darkness… Why don’t you give in to it? Why fight it?”

“Why fight it?” I sound incredulous. “Believe it or not, I don’t want to hurt people.”

He tuts and shakes his head as he walks past me to stir the flames in the fireplace with a metal stick. “There’s that wart again.”

“You’re deflecting.”

Framed by the roaring flames, Amenadiel places the stick back down and turns to look at me. “Deflecting?”

“Yes, you’re trying to distract me, so you don’t have to admit to what you did.”

“Are we back to that now? You need to get over your obsession with me. I’m a powerful angel in my own right, so why would I sneak into a little girl’s dream and seduce her?”

“You tell me, Amenadiel.” Then as an afterthought, I add, “And I’m not obsessed with you.”

He stalks up to me, clasps the back of my neck, and leans down to breathe me in. His nose drags up the curve to my neck and he whispers against the shell of my ear, “If you don’t harbor a little girl’s crush, then how come you’re trembling?”

This condescending asshole. I try to wrench free, but he tightens his hold on me and keeps me immobile in his arms. His wings unfold behind him to cocoon us in a world of perverted desires and corruption.

The last sliver of light disappears, and his heated breath tickles my ear in the darkness as his lips brush up against it.

Shivers race down my spine and settle in a pool of heated liquid at the base of my dipping stomach.

“Whether your dreams are real or not”—his fingertips slide down the curve of my waist, and he grabs me, eliciting a gasp from my lips—“the monster in you—the agitated beast—circles mine. Your darkness whispers sweet nothings to mine while waiting, longing, and praying to be dragged into the dark night and ravaged.” He pulls me against his hard body so suddenly that my breath hitches.

“Let go of me.” My voice comes out in a breathy murmur, and I curse myself for sounding as if I’m affected by him.

I’m not.

Right?

My throat jumps as something hard digs into my stomach. I can’t let my mind go there.

Absolutely not.

“You want me to let you go? Or are you trying to force the starving beast back into the shadows? Nothing good comes from leaving it hungry for too long.”

“As the hand reached for me in my dream, you told me you could help me.”