Nalini Singh - Archangel's Consort

“No, Guild Hunter. The Sire has not returned home as of yet.”

“If he does, can you call—”

Keeping tabs on me?

Shivers running up her spine, Elena closed her cell phone and turned to the bedroom doorway ... to see an archangel with eyes of liquid metal and wings outlined by the lethal stroke of power. His hair, black as the heart of midnight, was wind-tousled, his body magnificent, but it was his eyes that held her.

In those eyes, she saw age, cruelty, and pain.

So much pain.

“Raphael.” She closed the distance between them, ignoring the cold that raised every hair on her body. “I was worried about you.”

I am an archangel.

Unsaid were the words that he found the worry of a woman who’d been mortal not long ago—who was still not a true immortal—laughable.

She refused to let him intimidate her. They’d made promises to each other, she and her archangel. She wasn’t about to stumble at the first hurdle—even if her pulse thudded hard and uneven in her throat, the animal part of her brain recognizing that this predator had no mercy in him.

Reaching him, she tilted back her head, met the intensity of his gaze. The metallic shade was so inhuman it hurt, her eyes tearing up in instinctive defense. Blinking, she looked away.

You give in so easily.

The weight of the cold confidence she heard in him was daunting, but she’d always known he’d never be an easy man to love. “If you think I’ve given in, Archangel, you don’t know me at all.” Flicking away the tears, she stepped close enough that her breasts brushed his chest.

Electricity arced between them, a white-hot whip.

And the archangel came to life. Thrusting a hand into her hair, he tugged back her head to take her mouth in a kiss that was both a claiming and a warning. He was in no temper to play.

Neither was she.

Twisting her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with the same raw passion, stroking her tongue against his in deliberate provocation—because no matter how hot he burned, Raphael’s hunger she could handle. It was when he went cold, cloaking himself in the arrogance of power beyond mortal ken, that she thought she might lose him. Even as the thought passed through her mind, she sensed a change in his kiss, a subtle but unmistakable control. Not happening, Archangel, she thought and bit down hard on his lower lip, knowing it would set him off in this mood.

His hand tightened in her hair, wrenching back her head. Do you think you are safe? He pushed his free hand up under her tank top at the same time, long, strong fingers closing over her breast in blatant possession.

“Safe?” Gasping in a breath, she ran her own fingers along the part of his right wing she could reach. “Maybe not.” But I’ve always wanted to dance with you anyway.

He squeezed and molded her sensitive flesh. Then dance.

Her top was suddenly gone, torn off her body to leave her upper half bare. Spreading her unfettered wings, she tugged at his shirt. It disintegrated off him the next instant, and she found herself skin to skin with an archangel burning with a cold white flame.

Real fear spiked for the first time.

She’d never tangled with him when he was like this, never been so close to the deadly strength of him that she could feel the icy burn of it against her flesh. The sensation was both exhilarating and terrifying. Ignoring the fear, she moved closer ... and rubbed the softness of her belly against the hard ridge of his erection.

Raphael shifted their positions without warning, slamming her back against the wall, her wings spread out on either side of her. She sucked in a breath and then he was taking it from her in the most primal of kisses as he tore off her remaining clothes, leaving her naked and vulnerable. When he put his hands under her thighs and lifted, it was instinct to wrap her legs around his waist.

The cold, cold burn of his power kissed her in her most sensitive place.

Shuddering, she broke the kiss. He refused to let her go,pulling her mouth back to his with the hand he had fisted in her hair. It should’ve scared her, but all it did was make her more determined to win this battle, to bring Raphael back from the abyss she could see in the wintry black of his eyes. She’d seen many colors in those eyes, but never that vast, forsaken darkness.

Archangel , she whispered into his mind, trying to keep her sanity as he plucked at the taut peak of her nipple with fingers that knew her every weakness. Raphael.

No response, the icy caress of his power so strong that she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She shoved her hands into his hair as her world became dark, squeezing her thighs around him at the same time. Something was very, very wrong, but she wasn’t about to be scared away, even if fear was a tickle at the back of her throat, a jangling accent to the hunger that turned her body damp and ready.

Because lethal as he was, he was still hers, and her body knew him, knew the pleasure he could give. Today, however, that pleasure might well be spiced with a little sensual cruelty. It was tempting to surrender, to allow him to play her body with consummate skill, but instinct told her that that would be the quickest way to lose this battle. To lose him —to the demons that had turned the agonizing blue of his eyes to a harsh, unforgiving midnight.

My lovers have always been warrior women.

He’d said that to her at the start.

Ripping away her lips from his with force, she turned her head to the side, gasping for air. He took a firmer grip on her hair, threatening to wrench her back. She blocked his arm with her own.

A blaze of arctic white around them, so potent and blinding it felt as if her eyes were open, not closed. “Raphael,” she said, fighting to breathe past the press of it, so pure, so cutting, “either turn off the power, or give me my weapons.”

A pause.

Why would I give you your weapons? A silken whisper in her mind.

“Because,” she said, feeling as if her lungs were being squeezed to emptiness, “you don’t get off on women who can’t fight back. You like warriors, remember?”

Laughter in her head, tinged with a kind of ruthlessness that made her fear turn knife-edged. There is, I find, something exquisitely pleasurable in having a warrior helpless and spread before me.

It was dread that licked through her veins now. There wasn’t any hint of the lover she knew in him at this moment, nothing she could reach or touch or reason with. “It’s hardly a challenge, though, is it?” she murmured, fighting the hunter within her, the part that told her to claw at those amazing eyes, rip at his wings, anything to get away. “I walked into your arms.”

Lips along her neck, the fist in her hair tugging her head farther to the side. She felt teeth ... and lower, the rigid push of his erection. That, she understood. It was real and earthy and wild. Making a snap decision, she whispered, “Take me, Raphael. Take your warrior.” The words were deliberate, a reminder of the bonds between them.

He froze against her. Giving in after all?

Pulling up his head with the hands she’d clenched in his hair, she kissed him her way. All wet heat and wild passion . . . and a love that was becoming ever more intertwined in her heart. This power stuff is sexy, but I want you inside me, thick and hard and now.

Raphael squeezed her thigh. Elena.

Her heart skipped a beat. Because that voice, that tone, she knew it. Raphael. I need you. He was the only man she’d ever said that to in her adult life, the only man who’d won that trust from her. “I need you.”