“Thanks for cleaning up,” she said stiffly. “I’ll give your message to the talyan when I see them.”
“Bella—”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“You always say it like a warning or an accusation.”
He ran one hand over his face, muffling his apology, such as it was. “That’s the warden in me.”
“Ex-warden,” she retorted, then winced. What was the point of poking him with the reminder?
He leaned in. “Ex.” His breath was a warm whisper against her cheek.
She startled a little, not realizing he’d come so close. “You can go now.” As she angled her face to track him, her tone lifted too, so the words came out as if she was uncertain, more a question, like she wanted him to stay. Oh, please stay.
“Bella.” This time, his voice held neither threat nor blame, but still some rough undercurrent, as if he were struggling across a tricky path. “You shocked me. A couple of times, actually.”
“I would’ve thought you’d seen everything.”
“Too much maybe, but not everything.” He cracked his knuckles as if his empty hands made him edgy. “I hadn’t made it that far up in the sphericanum.”
And now he never would, not without his sword. The unspoken words hung between them.
“There is light in you still,” she said. The divine presence didn’t just evaporate. He would have the angel inside him until he died, even if the terrestrial organization of the sphericanum had no more use for him. She was suddenly, fiercely glad they had lost him, which meant she could find him. That lost light was the part she wanted, needed, as the city spun toward its darkest night. Please stay, and lend me your light until the dawn.
She took a hesitant step closer, so the fuzzy cuffs of her boots brushed his trousers. The exposed skin of her thighs—just a few inches, but how much more she wanted, needed—heated at his nearness.
“Cyril,” she murmured and lifted her hand.
He caught her wrist, and for a breathless moment, she thought he would push her away again, but then he brought her fingertips to his face.
She traced the hard edges of his jaw and cheekbone, felt the flex of muscle as he swallowed. She touched his lower lip. Almost as hard. An unyielding man. Or was that the angel in him? What other parts of him would be as hard? The want and need welled up, more violently now, weakening her bare knees, and she swayed toward him.
He anchored one hand at the small of her back and reeled her into his chest.
This time, she had no opportunity to power up her arsenal. His mouth slanted across hers with ferocious intent, stealing her breath. She leaned into him, giving it up, willing to give more, so much more. Not everything, of course. Some parts he couldn’t be allowed to see, no one must see.
But the good parts… She loosened the wrap of her dress and let the V gape to her navel.
Fane dragged his mouth free. His hands went to the edges of the V, eased it wider. “Ah, just looking at you makes me hot.” His voice was an even rougher growl than before, as if his path had not appreciably smoothed but he was determined to find his way.
Frigid air whispered across her bared skin, and she shivered.
“But you’re cold,” he murmured.
“I don’t even feel it,” she said honestly.
“Let me make sure of that.” He kissed his way down her throat to her collarbone, then lower, over the swell of her breast filling the demi-cup of her bra. “It’s all you in here.” He brushed his lips over her swelling flesh. “I wondered how it could be. You are so…”
She waited a moment for him to finish, then suggested, “Bosomy?”
“So beautiful,” he whispered against her skin, still moving down, loosening the wrap with every inch he uncovered. He knelt at her feet. “I can’t believe you…”
No, he couldn’t, but she didn’t want him to go there. “Angels have to believe,” she reminded him. “Job requirement.”
“They fired me,” he pointed out.
“Use that fire for good.”
He circled his tongue around her navel and she gasped. She braced her hands on his shoulders as the dress fell open, exposing her to his gaze, his hands, his tongue.
He kissed a line across the top of her panties, his hot breath seeming to infuse the silky fabric, an advance army stealing between her legs. When he tangled his fingers in the fabric over her hips, twisting it tighter, she whimpered at the echoing pull across her sex. His soft laugh sent another flare of heat over her skin, as he slicked his hands down the backs of her thighs, drawing the panties down too, urging her legs apart. But when she complied, he grasped her hips and with one strong boost, rose to his feet, lifting her to the bar counter. He leaned his hips between her spread thighs and kissed her again, his tongue a hot and heavy portent of more to come.
She tore her mouth away and flexed her fingers on his shoulders, digging for the bulk of muscle beneath the heavy wool of his coat. “Take this off. I want to feel you.”
Without moving from between her thighs, he wrenched off the coat while her fingers made quick work of the buttons she found centered down his chest. She groaned when she found the T-shirt underneath.
He chuckled, at least until she grasped the collar and ripped the T-shirt wide open. “Hey now!”
“I’ve shocked you again,” she guessed. “The trick with tearing a T-shirt, as with most things in life, is not to hesitate. You gotta go all in.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to the notch of his throat. “All the way in.”
Under her kiss, his pulse leaped. She walked her hands down his chest, exploring the faint sprinkling of hair across his pecs that trailed away to nothing until she hooked her fingers into the waist of his trousers and her fingertips brushed his crisp pubic curls.
His hips jerked. “I want…”
“Me too,” she promised.
With a strangled curse, he jerked her closer to the edge of the counter, so her body was flush against his, bare skin to bare skin, their hearts thudding against each other, finding one beat. She speared her fingers through the thick, soft wave of his hair and angled her mouth under his for one last, deep kiss, the kind they called soul kissing.
She certainly hoped not.
She broke free and skimmed her hands down his arms, shedding his shirt and remnants of his T-shirt. The button and zipper of his trousers were harder since he was standing so close, but she pushed down the material to bunch at his hips. His cock thrust toward her, hotter than anything in the bar, so hot she almost imagined a glow. Just let the cold dark try to get her now. She had an angel between her thighs.
“Bella,” he said again.
“No warnings,” she said.
“But I didn’t bring—”
She kicked her booted foot across the space between the bar and the back counter, and her heel caught the cash register. It sprang open, bell pealing. “There.”
Fane coughed. “You keep your condoms in the cash register?”
“The money shot.”
He strained backward to reach without leaving her, and the foil crinkled in his hand. He paused. “These are old.”
“Is that the angelic way of saying thank you for not being a slut?” She flexed her legs, urging him closer.
“Exactly one year old.”
She didn’t like the look of calculation on his face. Time had never been her friend. “My Christmas fuck.”
“You have such a mouth.” He kissed her again, hard, his strong arms braced on either side of her so she felt like he was consuming her from every direction.
She whimpered as the fever of him worked deeper. She coiled her legs behind his hips and drew him in.