CHAPTER 19
Ashur gasped and uttered her name after she’d said it. It came out like a prayer one whispers swiftly in dire circumstances.
Eden wasn’t sure he’d completely comprehended that she’d just told him her name, because he’d been mid-climax when he’d said it. Well, now it was out there.
Three orgasms and a migration to the bedroom later, and now they lay on the rumpled sheets, heads toward the foot rail and toes pointing into the pillows. Eden glided her hands up his arms, pinning them above his head. He allowed her the easy capture. He’d already had his way with her. Now it was her turn.
Lavender tainted their skin and seeped into her senses, lulling her between orgasms. She laved her tongue down his abs, exploring each ridge as if a sand surfer skimming the dunes. His odd belly button fascinated her. It was a perfect circle, filled with a single coil. She wondered about it. If he had been forged—whatever that meant—he may not have come from maternal beginnings.
That thought bothered her, so Eden quickly averted her attention to the dark hairs trailing down his loins. His cock grew mighty and hard, pulsing against her breasts as she moved lower. She pressed her breasts over it and he groaned. His fingers slid through her hair, as he gently made her understand he was willing to receive what she intended to give.
She licked him and took him into her mouth. Such control she brandished by the stroke of her tongue. She could reduce this man, a powerful demon, to wanting growls and, quickly enough, body-shaking tremors.
At this moment she owned him. He belonged to no other woman but her. And that provoked her wicked grin as she mounted him. He came powerfully, bucking up deeper inside her and clutching the bedsheets as tightly as his jaw.
“You’re mine, demon,” she purred. Working herself upon his shaft, she found her sweet spot inside and massaged it with the hot tip of him. “All mine.”
And when she came, it bound the two of them in a peculiar blending of species and ideals, desires and needs. Ashur gave her something she had never had. Raw, uninhibited sex. A reason to enjoy life again. The truth of her insane dreams. And a desperate desire to keep this gorgeous hunk of lover who had rode into her life as the rescuing hero.
“Promise you’ll protect me?” she whispered.
“Always,” he said on a sigh.
* * *
Zaqiel left the dancer against the wall, sighing as she came and gripping for hold on the nearby iron railing so she wouldn’t collapse. He turned and stalked away through the strobe-lit darkness, zipping his fly. Though he’d only been walking the earth a few days, he’d quickly learned sex with any human woman was very doable.
And very dissatisfying.
A Fallen could only achieve pleasure by mating with a muse. That was how it worked.
“Stupid rules.” He shouldered past a dancer in black leather and headed toward the club’s back door. The atmosphere appealed, dripping with sweat, alcohol and the vein-throbbing beat. “But I got her off, lucky girl,” he muttered. “Talk about being kissed by an angel. Ha!”
His own muse had been on her deathbed when he’d located her in a village east of Berlin. One look at him, in all his angelic glory—okay, half—and she’d seized and gone into cardiac arrest. He hadn’t attempted her dying body. Wasn’t as though a dead woman could carry his child to term.
“Bitch.”
But that meant he was entitled to go after whatever muse stepped in his way. If he chose a muse who had a Fallen tracking her, he’d have to battle that one to win her. He wasn’t sure the fight was worth the outcome.
On the other hand, he was itching for his own pleasure.
Lucky thing he’d stumbled onto number six. She wasn’t matched to a Fallen one. That meant either her match had been slain before the flood, or it hadn’t been conjured yet.
Why he had been conjured to walk the earth was a puzzle to Zaqiel, but he didn’t ponder it. He was free. He intended to get him some muse.
Maybe he could seduce the poor bit of breasts and legs and convince her he would make a lovely boyfriend. He could get his rocks off while she carried his child. Of course, she wouldn’t survive the birth. But by then he’d be on to another muse. Another nephilim unleashed to inflict havoc.
Such a lovely circle.
Only problem was the Sinistari in his wake. Rather, he wasn’t tracking Zaqiel, the damned demon had beat him to the muse and waited with poisoned blade poised.
“He’s probably bedding her,” he muttered. “Tainting the muse. Idiot Sinistari. They live for debauchery.”
Not that he couldn’t get behind a healthy helping of debauchery.
“All’s fair, then. You taint my bitch. I’ll snatch her from you and see she gives birth to your most hideous nightmare.”
* * *
“Inside you is the best place on this earth,” Ashur whispered at Eden’s ear.
Yes, Eden. She’d given him her name as she’d climaxed earlier. He hadn’t immediately known what to do with that information. It wasn’t as though he could unhear it. Forget it? No, the name fluttered lushly within his brain, spinning reminders of earlier times and yet invoking sensory dreams of gorgeous gardens where they could romp naked.
They snuggled on the bed, she before him, her back sealed to his chest with perspiration. He was still inside her, pumping slowly, not wanting to leave. Ever.
“Ever Eden,” he said. “Mine.”
“You mean it?” she said from her drowsy slip into sleep. “I could be. I want to be.”
“You are.” For now, he thought. And that was all he could give her.
Yet what if he could claim her? Keep her as a lover while he stalked his prey? It would be doable. Love wasn’t necessary to share one’s body. And he couldn’t imagine seeking any other woman now that he’d lain with Eden.
She gave him things she couldn’t be aware of. A soft place to rest his head when he was not stalking the Fallen. Escape from duty. She easily accepted him and the bizarre events surrounding them. She touched his joy with a smile and laughter that echoed inside his chest so gaily it ached.
Eden was his sweet ache.
He would claim her as his own. Damn the angel who thought to attempt his woman.