“Do you trust me?”
L lifts a wary brow as he inspects the blindfold dangling from my finger.
“Is this a trick question?”
A hand on my lace-clad hip, I roll my eyes and retort, “Oh, come on. After that little stunt you pulled before dinner, I’m owed a little fun. I won’t hurt you. Promise.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then this,” I say, slowly sweeping a hand from the tops of my breasts down to the middle of my bare thigh, “will all go to waste. What’s it going to be, big guy?”
I watch him as he ponders my proposition while his hooded gaze roams my scantily clad frame. The way he looks at me—like a starving man at a buffet—shit, I may skip the blindfold altogether and let him take me however he wants.
L leans back on the bed, his elbows supporting his weight. A sinister smile slithers onto his lips. “Do your worst, firecracker.”
My stomach churning with nerves, I step forward and prop a knee onto the edge of the bed, right between his legs. I crawl over his body, careful not to give into the overwhelming urge to mount him.
“Lean forward,” I instruct, my voice already raspy with arousal.
He does as he told, causing his chest to brush against my peaked nipples in an act of tempting defiance. I tamp down on the shiver that seizes my spine, and instead, push him flat onto his back and work on the buttons of his shirt, careful to draw out the task for both our torture. I bite my lip just to keep from leaning forward and tasting each bit of his exposed chest. I want to slide my tongue over the ridges of his abs and trace the V that tapers into his pants. His skin sizzles under my fingertips, growing hotter the lower my touch travels. When I get to the buckle of his belt, I feel like I may combust.
“Something wrong?” he taunts.
I look up to spy his sly grin. “I know what you’re trying to do. And it won’t work.”
“I’ve no idea what you mean. But if you don’t think you can handle this, I’ll be happy to take it from here.”
I give his fly a quick yank in warning, popping open the top button of his pants. “Scared?”
“Of you?” He swallows, and I watch in sensual fascination as his pronounced Adam’s apple moves over his exposed throat. “Terrified.”
His surrendered words, coupled with his heady tone, intensify my hunger for him, and I rip his pants down his legs and fling them across the room. My plans to take my time with his fitted black boxer briefs are dashed with one glimpse of the mouthwatering erection straining against the tight fabric. I ease them down his thighs, freeing his thick, deliciously long cock from its cloth imprisonment. He groans as the cool air hits his scorching flesh, yet doesn’t move. I touch my fingertips to the swollen head with the barest of brushes.
Slow, I tell myself. Slow down. But it’s so hard to resist his body when it’s practically begging for my touch and my tongue. I bring my lips to his tip and give it a soft suck, gently running my fingers up and down his ridged shaft. Legion thanks me with another throaty groan, so I suck a little harder, sweeping my tongue over his thick head. I smear the tiny dribbles of his sweet saltiness over my lips before lapping up every drop.
“You taste,” I gasp between greedy licks, “delicious.”
“Then you should have some more,” he rasps, flexing his hips to meet more of my tongue.
I give him my entire mouth, swallowing every thick inch I can stand. He stills, relishing the feel of each hungry draw, and growls out his pleasure as I suck him with feverish zeal before releasing him with a resounding pop.
“Don’t. Stop,” he orders. His hands grip the sheets in frustration.
“Be still.”
I resume my assault on his body by kissing my way up his thighs and over the hard ridges of his abs. I pause to lick and tease his nipples, taking extra care to trace the Se7en mark that covers his left pec with my tongue. He shivers as my tongue strokes the delicate feathers tattooed to his skin and curves around to meet his collarbone. Once I’ve kissed a trail to his jaw, I guide one of his hands to cup my heavy breast through the sheer lace of my bodice. Reflexively, he runs his palm over my pebbled nipple before pinching it lightly between his fingers.
“Do you want to taste it?” I whisper in his ear, my breath coming out in labored pants.
I don’t even get the entire question out before he growls a decisive, “Hell yes.”
I ease down the top of my bodysuit and lean over to gently touch my nipple to his waiting lips. He pounces hungrily the second he feels me, sucking my breast into his mouth and humming his pleasure. I only give him a few seconds before I force myself back and push him away.
“That’s enough for now,” I say, mustering all my self-control as I slip the straps back onto my shoulders. “Be good and I might give you some more.”
A noise rumbles the back of his throat and he settles back onto the bed. I reward his compliance with a kiss to his lips, sliding my tongue against his in a slow, rhythmic dance. I take in his breath, feeding his life with mine for what seems like hours. He cups my ass, slipping his fingers under the strip of lace that barely covers my pliant flesh.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I question against his lips.
“What you want me to do.” He pulls me closer, shifting my body so I’m straddling him.
“I didn’t say you could touch me.”
L grounds his hips against mine, my lace-covered sex flush against his rigid cock. He pulses wildly between my thighs. “Then tell me not to.” He kneads my ass, causing me to rock against him from root to tip. “Tell me to stop, Eden.”
I’m breathless, senseless. I couldn’t fix my lips to tell him to stop even if I wanted to.
He brings a hand to tease my nipple while the other presses lightly against my seam. Shit. Coupled with the friction against my wet, swollen mound, I could come right now. “Tell me this doesn’t feel good. Lie to me and say you’re not drenching my dick right now. Go ahead.”
His words are like electric eroticism, sending spasms of pleasure to every erogenous zone. I don’t just feel him between my legs. He’s on the backs of my knees, licking me with crimson flames. He’s at the base of my spine, punishing me with prickling heat. He is a whisper across my belly, breathing all my deepest, darkest fantasies.
I feel him in my blood—in my bones. In this moment, with my body molded to his, he is life itself. And every second that he is not inside me, staining my womb with vengeance and lust, I plunge that much deeper to death.
“Rip it off,” I manage to moan. “Rip it the fuck off.”
The beautiful lingerie becomes delicate shreds of lace ribbons in three seconds flat. L rolls me over onto my back, hoists my legs over his shoulders, and pushes into me with so much passion that I cry out in a mix of all-consuming pleasure and jolting pain. His thrusts are deep and desperate, as if he needs to touch every part of me from the inside. Like his very existence depends on marking me in the most intimate way. He grips my hips, pulling me into every devastating stroke. His grunts and groans are a war cry, mingling with my mewls and moans. We create the most erotic, intoxicating melody. Two tragic souls dying so that we may be reborn within each other.
This isn’t sex. It isn’t love-making. It’s fucking. He fucks the hate out of me. Fucks the pain. And in so many ways—so many heart-wrenchingly beautiful ways—Legion fucks the love out of me.
Through the mind-numbing passion clouding my senses, I look up at him, taking in his furrowed brow as he devotes every thought to my body. I study the angles of his jaw, clenched with the effort to slow down, just slow-down-baby-don’t-come-just-yet. I gaze in wonder at his hooded, storm cloud-gray eyes, glazed in ecstasy, as they roam my naked, trembling frame.
I wish I could have this forever. I wish I could relive each moment of this day as if it were new, just so I could always feel this adored, this treasured, this beautiful. We may not have eternity, but right now, as he pulses wildly inside me as the first sign of orgasm rips through us both, I am immortal.
His grasp on my hips becomes desperate, almost harsh, as he pumps into me, emptying every drop of his ravaged soul. I arch completely off the bed as I exorcise my own violent release, so high I feel like I’m soaring through swirling purple galaxies, speckled with glittering stars.
When I finally tumble down from his hellish paradise, I am nestled safely in L’s arms. I don’t even remember him carrying me to the head of the bed and wrapping me in the comforter. He kisses my brow, and I feel him smile against my skin.
“What?” I ask, my voice raw.
“Nothing. Just…happy,” he replies, mirroring the words I said to him earlier. But the way he says it, as if it’s a question…as if the thought of happiness was a mere myth, a fantasy, for someone like him. An angel cast out of Heaven, only to spend eternity as the very thing he despises. Legion, the Collector of Lost Souls, and now, the Keeper of my Ravaged Heart.
“You know, if you keep talking like that, you may start to turn human,” I jibe, before leaving a soft kiss on his chest.
“And would that be so bad?”
I lift my head to study his expression.
“You’re joking, right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Why? Why would anyone—especially you, a fallen angel—want to be human? You’re so powerful, so fearless. Why open yourself to vulnerability, disease…heartache?”
He stares at me, those heavy-lidded, starlit eyes giving nothing away. Reluctantly, I lay my head back against his chest in hopes that we can recapture the easiness from moments before. His mortality is none of my business. I’m not even officially his girlfriend. I’ve been his prisoner, his ward, his lover. Earlier he told me I was his heaven. What does that even mean? And why does that responsibility seem so incredibly terrifying?
“Immortality does not excuse you from heartache.”
His rasped words slither straight to my heart. I hold my breath, waiting for him to continue.
“If anything, it only consumes you until the ache of loss becomes so great that you become a shell of what you were. Empty, desperate, searching for something—anything—to distract you from the constant agony. Even if you know that the alternative will only rip your soul in two, leaving behind the stain of sin and iniquity. But you do it anyway, because anger is easier than feeling pain.”
“You fell for her.” Adriel. I should have known. She’s always here. In this bed, between these sheets, in my head…in his heart. My very own poltergeist.
“No, Eden.” Warm fingers trail down my jaw and cup my cheek, angling my head to look up at him. “I didn’t fall from Heaven for Adriel. I fell because of her. But I would fall…for you. If I had to do it all again, I would fall for you, Eden.”
With my eyes glossed with emotion I don’t even understand, I part my trembling lips and give him a small kernel of timid truth, praying it won’t crack and splinter in his palm.
“I think I’ve already fallen.”