Chapter Fifteen
Now that we were no longer trainees for the Legion, we had been given small cottages on the outskirts of the larger buildings that took up the center of High Command. They were to serve as our new homes, places where we could come back and rest before our next mission. All Legion members didn’t reside at High Command. Some chose to live out in the world, returning only for specific missions, like my parents. But I had nothing currently tying me to Earth, so a home at High Command was a welcome refuge. I had only enough time to peek into my new quarters for a moment before it was time to feast, my body longing for the large bed in the center of the room just as much as it did for food.
Long tables were set up at the center of the cluster of cottages, each of them heavily laden with platters of thinly sliced meats, bowls of fruits and vegetables, and large baskets of fluffy bread. A small fountain erupted from one end of the table, offering sparkling water. I hadn’t realized until that moment just how hungry I was, and I piled my plate high with anything I could get my hands on.
“I feel like I haven’t eaten in a month,” Trinity said as she stood next to me and loaded her plate with everything the table had to offer. “That Sleeplessness spell really takes it out of you.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but I still don’t feel like I’ll be able to sleep tonight. There’s too much excitement, too many things to think about.”
“Like Jonah?” she asked quietly, casting a mischievous glance in his direction. He sat at one of the tables with Oriel and Alijah on either side of him. Any Angels who desired to eat with us were welcome, and quite a few had joined us, but they had given Jonah and Oriel their space. “I see that little has changed between the two of you. I thought perhaps, while we were out on that mission, that you would have made your move.”
I punched her lightly in the arm and almost dropped my plate. “You just won’t quit, will you?”
“Nope.” Her lopsided smile was wide. “Not when I see someone who is brave enough to take on a massive coven of vamps, but too chicken shit to get what she wants out of a man.” She bit a chunk out of a roll and grinned.
“What about you?” I countered. “I haven’t seen you with anyone.”
She shook her head. “That’s because I’m not head-over-heels in love with any of the Angels here, unlike someone else I know.” Trinity took her plate and headed off toward the others. I followed behind her.
The discussion during dinner was forcefully kept as lighthearted as possible. None of us were willing to talk about the things we still saw in our minds. Jonah glanced at me across the table. I averted my eyes. Trinity grinned. Oriel and Alijah pretended not to notice.
Night had fallen by the time I had eaten my fill, and I was ready to get settled in. I had few possessions beyond my weapons, but I had caught a glimpse of the luxurious linens that graced the bed at my cottage. “I’m turning in. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“I’ll walk you back to your place,” Jonah volunteered, jumping up from his seat before I had a chance to protest.
“You know, I like to think I can make my way back alone, even if it’s dark. Surely, High Command is safer than any place we’ve ever been on Earth.” I smiled up at him coyly.
He put his arm around my waist, his left-hand resting on my hip. “Oh, I’m sure that you’re capable of getting home. Even if there were demons or vampires around here, I know you could take care of them. The question is, who is going to protect you from me?” His grin was brilliantly white in the moonlight.
“Maybe I don’t want protection.” The words slipped out of my mouth without thought, but they were true. The things my body wanted from him fell in line with what my heart wanted, and there was no longer any good reason not to explore them.
“No? You’re going to fend me off yourself?” He nodded as he pondered this. “Good luck. I can be pretty determined when I see something I want.” His gray eyes glittered, the hunger in them clear. He stopped walking and turned to face me.
“That’s all right,” I returned. “I’m starting to think that I’m rather determined myself.” A ball of excitement that felt like electrical energy had coalesced in my chest and was pulling me closer and closer to him. I could no longer see the lovely park where our cottages were located, or the way the moonlight illuminated the trees that dotted it. There was only Jonah. There was only ever Jonah.
Both of his arms wound around my waist, making me feel small and delicate. He was a big man, one who cut an image just as striking as his father’s. “I didn’t think you were that kind of girl,” he challenged.
I ran my hands up his bare arms, relishing the hard muscles under my fingertips. “What kind of girl is that, exactly?” I asked. “One who wants to spend the night in the arms of a handsome man?”
He held me tightly against him now, pressing the lengths of our bodies together. “A man she’s desperately in love with?” He whispered as his lips claimed mine, the kiss a mix of possession and dominance, love and trust. I wrapped my arms around his neck, drinking him in, returning his kiss with passion and fire of my own, not even bothering to deny it. We melted together as our tongues twined, unable to get close enough, or to taste enough of each other.
The exhaustion I thought I felt after our mission quickly faded and was replaced by a renewed wave of energy. I wanted him, I needed him, and I was going to have him. I brought my hands up into the soft curls of his hair, intensely aware of the texture of his lips, the hardness of his body, the scent of sunshine and sweat that clung to his skin.
“Rumor,” he whispered as he broke our kiss, but kept his forehead pressed to mine. His hands were splayed on my back, keeping me tight against his chest. “I want you, I want this, but I want you to be certain. My cottage is right there behind you, and there is nothing I want more than to have you in my bed. But I have to know, without any doubt, that this is what you want.”
Never had a man so bluntly asked me that. Things had simply escalated until we were tumbling between the sheets, without any discussion of what we wanted, or felt, or what would come next. Jonah was different, but I already knew that.
I put my hands on his chest and pushed back gently until he released me. The look of surprise in his eyes twisted at my heart, but I turned and walked straight to the door of his cabin. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that he hadn’t moved an inch. He watched me with intense curiosity and hope. “Don’t make a woman wait.”
We tumbled into the tiny cabin, not even bothering to turn on any lights. The moonlight filtering softly through the window offered plenty of illumination for us to find the bed. Jonah pushed me down onto it. He grabbed my hands and brought them up near my head, entwining his fingers with mine as he held them down and covered me with his body.
“I want you so damn badly,” he whispered. His chiseled face was intensely outlined in the white light, making him look fierce and purposeful. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you, but I would have waited forever, if that was what it took.”
Something inside me surged toward him, that same connection to him that I had felt many times before. Now it was thicker and stronger, a bond that spanned between us and pulled us together. “I don’t want to wait another moment,” I murmured against his lips. “I want you. Now.”
He sat back and brought me up with him so that I was sitting up on the bed. Slowly, Jonah put his fingers under the hem of my tank top and ran his hands up my body, bringing the shirt with them until he could pull it off. My bra came next, the snap of the clasp releasing my breasts into his hands.
With a gentle push, he had me flat on the bed again. His hands dipped into the waistband of my pants and tugged them down. I reached down to wiggle out of my panties, but he grabbed my wrists and pinned them to the bed.
“No,” he growled. “Let me.”
Lowering his head, he grasped the front of my panties in his teeth and dragged them slowly down my legs. “You are even more gorgeous than I had imagined,” he breathed as he stood up and raked his gaze over my body. “I could just stand here all night and look at you.”
“Don’t torture me like that,” I begged. “I need you.”
With a growl, he dove back down onto the bed and pressed his lips hungrily to mine. My hands tugged at his shirt, yanking it off over his head. I fumbled for his belt buckle and quickly released it from the confines of his jeans. I tried to pull him down onto me, but he resisted easily.
Instead, he trailed kisses down my neck to my breasts, pressing his face between the creamy mounds and moaning softly as he suckled at each nipple in turn. His hands were hot on my flesh, but the moisture from his tongue cooled my skin instantly. I arched my back, eager for more, and he sucked harder. My core tightened, and I wrapped my legs around him. His strong arms grasped me around my waist and dragged me easily to the edge of the bed, where he dropped to his knees and pressed his lips into the soft flesh of my thighs.
“No,” I murmured, pulling at his arms to try to get him back on top of me. “You don’t need to do that.” I wanted him so badly, and yet I was embarrassed at knowing he was about to do something that would be for my pleasure only.
My words brought him back to his feet and down on top of me, pinning me to the bed once again. The look in his eyes was dangerous, one brow cocked and his jaw fierce. “Don’t tell me not to do something that will make you feel good. That’s the only thing I want to do.” He resumed his position at the foot of the bed and slowly dragged his tongue across my core, flicking the tip of it at just the right spot to make me squeal. His wide hands reached beneath me and grasped my ass to kept me pressed tightly to his mouth, but I was no longer in any position to try to get away.
I flung my hands behind me and allowed myself to get lost in the pleasure of his skillful tongue. His kisses were intense, exploring and probing, pushing me to the limits. My stomach and hips undulated under his touch, and it only urged him on even more.
“You’ve got to stop,” I implored. “It’s too much.” Every bit of power that I had inside me seemed to be coalescing in my core, winding me up tighter and tighter, a coil of anticipation that was going to make me explode when it let go. “I need you inside me.”
“Not yet,” he teased, plunging his tongue in to the hilt. “I want to give you what you deserve.”
I quivered inside, unable to handle the intensity of what he was doing to me. I squirmed on the mattress, but Jonah’s hands latched around my thighs to keep me from scooting backward on the bed. I erupted, the outer shell I had worked so hard to build, shattered and fell in to a million pieces around me. The explosion rippled through me and came out as a strangled cry. I grabbed a pillow and put it over my face to keep anyone from hearing me, but Jonah snatched it away and tossed it on the floor.
“Scream,” he breathed. “Let me know how much you want me.”
I let it all out then. Everything that I had been feeling for him over the last several months came out in a warlike howl. All the frustration of trying not to fall for him. The intensity of being so close to him every day and yet unable to do anything about it. The desire that had built and compounded upon itself until it was so dense I didn’t know if I could carry it around anymore. It all came out in my cry of release.
He smiled, lifted his head, and slowly kissed his way up my body, until he was lying beside me. I reached up, touching his face, his hair, running my fingers through the soft strands.
Without another word, he kissed me then, gently at first, just brushes of his lips against mine, then teasing with his tongue. It was wildly erotic and sweet, bonding us in a swirl of passion.
Suddenly we were together, his cock sliding into me, his hips grinding against mine. I clung to his neck, fingers digging into his shoulders as he pushed inside of me. Every movement he made, every throb and pulse of his cock, every shudder and tremble of his body, echoed through me, then came back to me melded with my own desire. There was nothing I could do, but hold on as he drove into me over and over, tearing his lips away from my mouth to draw in ragged breaths. He rested his head on my shoulder, then his lips found my neck. The graze of his teeth quickly followed the flick of his tongue, as he nipped at my sensitive skin.
I wrapped my arms and legs around him, keeping him as close as possible. His hardness inside me had calmed the undulating waves which he had induced with his tongue, bringing with it a different kind of pleasure. We moved together as one, caressing, watching each other’s faces, connecting in a way that we hadn’t been able to before. I knew then that I would never be able to be completely disconnected from him, no matter how far away we were, or what psychic barriers we put up between us.
“I love you, Rumor. You are the single most important thing in this world.” His voice was just above a whisper. “In my world.”
My heart was an engine roaring inside me, every cylinder firing. This was what I had been avoiding. Not the physical contact, but the emotional response it would elicit. I couldn’t argue with it or deny it, and I couldn’t even stop the tears that gathered in the corners of my eyes as I soaked in the truth of it all. “I love you, too.”
His lips were back on mine, his kiss fierce and desperate. I broke away, rocking my body back as he thrust his hips upward. His erection grazed the inside of my thigh as he pulled nearly completely out. His groan filled my ears. I smiled against his cheek as he thrust harder inside of me.
I convulsed around him, pressing him to his climax. He moaned and shuddered, his body drawing inward and releasing just as mine had done. He collapsed on top of me, our arms and legs tangled in the sheets.
We lay like that for a long time, our limbs intertwined, unmoving. Jonah reached behind him, drawing the blanket over our bodies, wanting to make sure I was comfortable, and warm. I lay still in his arms, my breathing gradually slowing, my hair tucked against his neck. After a while, I was sure he had fallen asleep. I breathed in his masculine scent, and thought about just how much we had been through—and just how much my life had changed since I met this incredible man.
And in that moment, I knew that come what may, whether it be from vampires, demons or my own darkness, there was no battle I wouldn’t win, if he was by my side.
* * *
I woke with an odd feeling that someone was waiting for me, calling out to me in my deep slumber. The urgency in his voice compelled me to rub the sleep out of my eyes and welcome the new day. I was disoriented. How long had I been asleep? What day was it? Questions washed over me.
I groaned as I lifted my head from the pillow, the sheets tangled around my naked body, and crunched my eyelids shut against the sunlight that was now flooding into the room. Decorated almost completely in shades of white and silver, the cottage was designed to allow as much light in as possible. Everything at High Command was bright, and at that moment I resented it.
Without reaching for him, I knew instantly that Jonah was no longer next to me in bed. I had felt his presence all throughout the night, hearing his soft breathing and occasionally feeling the weight of his hand as it rested in the curve of my waist, or ran down my thigh lovingly. But the pillow next to me was now empty.
Blinking, I sat up. Jonah was sitting at the foot of the bed, still completely naked. I admired the contour of his shoulders and the muscled lines of his back.
“Good morning,” I said huskily, unable to stop thinking about the length of his naked body pressed to mine.
“Morning.” He sounded grumpy, irritated even.
“What’s wrong?”
He reached back, set a hand on my thigh, and gave me a strained smile. “I’m sorry. That’s not the way to greet such a beautiful woman in the morning.” He moved closer and pressed his lips to mine. “I’m just reading over the details of the next mission.”
I scooted the rest of the way forward so that I was sitting next to him, the sheets twisted around me like a toga. Then I saw the scroll in his hands. I hadn’t given any further thought to our next mission since we had left the dinner table the night before, and I wasn’t quite ready to return to reality. But I was desperately curious. “Where are we going?”
Jonah shook his head in disbelief, and his gaze met mine. “We’re going to Hell.”