She gaped. “Seriously? You like this?”
“I miss...warmth.” Gripping his collar, he yanked, ripping his shirt and popping buttons with such force that one pinged her in the forehead. “And the breeze...ah, damn, I miss the breeze.”
He flung his ruined shirt to the ground, and good Lord, he was ripped. Muscles flexed under smooth, bronzed skin and made the multitude of incredibly lifelike tattoos plastered on his chest dance. She let her gaze rove hungrily over him, committing his body to memory, because she had a feeling no male would ever match Azagoth’s savage beauty again.
He came off as detached and calm, but his ruthlessness as one of Heaven’s most decorated and successful Interrogators was well documented. Humans, demons, and fellow angels alike died at his hand, but not before they endured a lot of pain.
Azagoth’s skill with his hands extended to females as well, but instead of agony, they felt pleasure. His bedroom exploits were legendary, and now all Lilliana could do was wonder how many females had let their fingers play along the lines of the serpent tattoo that curled around his left pec. How many had dragged their tongues down the hilt of the sword on his breastbone, all the way beyond where the blade disappeared under his waistband. And how could Lilliana possibly touch him in ways no one else had?
Not that there would be any touching.
He kicked off his shoes and socks, tossing them aside without any care at all. Which made her wonder where he got his clothes. She hadn’t noticed a bustling shopping mall in any of Sheoul-gra’s outer buildings.
“What year is it?” he asked as he walked in circles, his gaze now transfixed on his toes sifting through the sand.
“I don’t know exactly.” She watched him bend over to scoop up some sand, and her mouth went as dry as the desert air at the way his slacks hugged his fine ass. Swallowing against the dryness, she continued. “I haven’t been doing this long enough to aim for specific dates, or even specific years. I can usually get myself within a decade of my goal, though.”
“A decade?” He straightened. “How long have you been doing this?”
She smiled wryly. “Why don’t you tell me, since you know so much about me.” When he said nothing, just looked up at the sky like he’d never seen it before, she went ahead and humored him. “Almost four hundred years.”
Pivoting around, he looked her up and down the way a prospective buyer would examine a horse. “Sounds like a long time to still be off by ten years. Are you a slow learner?”
She stared, speechless for a second. “Am I a slow learner?” she practically sputtered. “I’m far ahead of most time travelers by this age, you arrogant ass.”
“Huh. If your accuracy is that bad now, I’d hate to have seen you when you first started. You want to see the Battle of Gettysburg but find yourself running from dinosaurs. That would suck.”
“It happens,” she snapped. Because something similar had happened to her. But instead of the Battle of Gettysburg and dinosaurs, it had been the Battle of Almansa and saber-toothed cats. The worst part of it was that animals often could see angels inside the shrowd.
And it turned out that saber-toothed cats were freaking mean.
He laughed and slogged through the sand, his elation putting a severe damper on her exasperation. “Come on.” He made a follow me gesture. “Let’s walk.”
“Are you kidding me?” She threw her hands up in the air. “There’s nowhere to walk to. The nearest human settlement is a hundred miles away.”
“So? Would you rather just stand here?”
She glanced longingly over her shoulder at Azagoth’s library, visible through the rectangle portal that would allow them to go back at any time.
“Fine,” she muttered as she jogged to catch up.
She supposed she could understand why Azagoth would want to stay in this giant cat litter box, given that he’d been shrouded in darkness for thousands of years. And really, it said something about him that he wasn’t angry that the first place she’d brought him was the middle of nowhere. If anything, he was excited.
Even now, he was walking with his face to the sun, his arms outstretched, as if he was giving the desert a big hug. His hair, which had been perfectly combed before, was mussed by the breeze, and a hint of a smile gave him an irresistibly boyish appeal.
He looked over at her when she caught up, and his smile turned downright dangerous. Oh, not dangerous in the deadly sense. Dangerous in the, I want to be flat on my back on a mattress with you, sense.
Abruptly, he came to a halt.
Startled, she did the same. “What’s wrong—”
Azagoth spun her, silencing her with his mouth on hers. Stunned, she stood there like a dolt, her heart pounding so hard she felt her heartbeat in her lips where they were mashed against his. One big hand came around to tangle in her hair as Azagoth deepened the kiss, swiping his tongue along the seam of her mouth, tasting and testing until she felt her body sway against him.
Yes, definitely dangerous...
“Thank you,” he murmured against her lips.
And then he was walking again, leaving her standing in the sand, knees weak and her insides quaking with the kind of arousal she hadn’t felt in...well, ever. And he was sauntering away as if that kiss, brief as it was, hadn’t affected him at all.
Muttering obscenities to herself...on the loud side, so he’d hear, she tagged along as he tread lightly across the endless expanse of desert, stopping every once in a while to just look up at the sky or gaze out over the sand.
It seemed like they’d only been wandering for a few minutes when the telltale pressure started in her chest. Their hour was coming up.
“It’s time,” she said.
Azagoth cranked his head around to peg her with his intense gaze. “For what?”
A gust of wind blasted sand in her face, and she had to spit out the grit before she could speak. “To go.”
The light that had been sparkling in his eyes snuffed out. “So soon?”
“Soon? I don’t know about you, but I could use a glass of something very wet and icy.”
“I could go for something wet,” he drawled, and oh, damn, the places her mind took that.
Pretending she hadn’t heard a word, she reached for him. “I think the chronoglass will automatically suck both of us back into it, but to be safe, give me your hand.”
For just a second, he hesitated, as if he wouldn’t mind being stuck here, but in the end, he reluctantly took her hand. Instantly, the same warm awareness as earlier shot through her body, and just like before, Azagoth showed no hint that he felt anything at all.
Closing her eyes, she let her senses drift as the time travel pull made every cell in her body vibrate. The buzz grew more intense, until it felt as if she was being torn apart...and a moment later, they were back where they started, standing in front of the mirror, staring at their own reflections.
Azagoth looked at the shimmering surface, and she wondered if he saw the same sadness in his eyes that she did.
“Azagoth?” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”
All around her, the air crackled with a coming storm. “I have to go.” His voice was little more than an inhuman drawl, steeped in rage and pain and a few other emotions she couldn’t identify.
And then he was bolting out of the library, leaving her confused and alone.
The strange thing—besides his behavior—was that she was used to being alone. She was okay with it, had learned at an early age to rely only on herself and to be okay with her own company.
But for the first time in her life, she didn’t like her own company.
And there was no way in hell that she wanted to analyze the reasons for that.