Page 36 of Seraph's Tears
Surprised, I let her, marveling at how small she felt in my arms. How I didn’t want to let her go. There was nothing but skin touching skin, feathers touching hair, and breath against the beat of my heart.
I closed my eyes and thanked all the stars in the heavens I’d found her in time.
Her shaking slowly ceased. Though her skin was pebbled and chilled still, I could tell she was feeling closer to normal.
“Sorry to bother you,” she whispered against my bare chest.
“It was not a bother,” I rumbled. “I want you safe. I was…concerned.” I chose the word carefully.
Another moment went by, a moment her breath warmed me and soothed the ache inside my chest. “I didn’t realize a storm was approaching or I wouldn’t have done it.”
As heat returned to her body, so fear receded from mine. I became aware that a naked woman lay in my arms. Her legs tangled with mine, and even if her feet were blocks of ice, her skin was soft and strong and svelte all at once.
My cock awakened, thickening halfway. I should try to force the arousal away, but instead I buried my nose in her hair and breathed her scent. The fear that had struck me at the sight of her, small and frightened and alone in the wilderness at night, had hit me as hard as any fear I’d experienced in battle.
She wriggled against me, and the cock responded. I gritted my teeth.
“Be still,” I ordered.
Eve stilled, but then I heard sniffling and immediately regretted my words.
“I’m sorry,” I said desperately. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No,” she croaked. “The entire past year catching up to me, I think.”
Scalding pain trickled down my chest, and I knew she was crying. Instead of pushing her away, I gathered her close. “I’m right here,” I promised. “I’m happy to listen. I’ll solve your problem.” I’ll solve all of your problems if you let me.
“It’s just…I’ve been pushed into many things this year, and I thought, maybe I could at least take an hour to myself to enjoy the landscape. Because I don’t think I’ll be here much longer. And then—” Her voice broke off.
What does she mean she won’t be here much longer? I tamped down the panic that surged through me at those words.
“I’ll take you back later.” Pain slid down my chest, pooling between my nipple and the floor carpet. “In daylight, even.”
She laughed and reached up to wipe her face.
I breathed a sigh of relief as some of the pain vanished. My body was still tense. And yet somehow my cock was still half mast. “What can I do to make you feel better?” I asked desperately. My hands roamed her back, pressing and kneading at the tense muscles.
Eve sighed and stretched, pressing her breasts against my chest. Despite the pain from her tears, I couldn’t help but push back a little, eager to feel the hard points of her nipples against my skin.
She sighed again, and this time the sound went straight to my cock. It was a breathy, nearly moaning noise. “Gabriel,” she whispered. “I need…”
“Tell me,” I urged, half hopeful, half guilty. I shouldn’t be thinking about sex at a time like this, with her ankle swollen and bruises likely forming all along her body from her tumble.
“I need,” she tried again, then whimpered. It wasn’t in pain. It was in passion, in pure, raw need. Her hands slipped between us. Her fingernails scraped the raw, burned skin on my chest and I gritted my teeth against the pain. I’d never found pain enjoyable during lovemaking, but I’d put up with anything if I could feel her naked body flush against mine, hear her shout my name when I drove inside her.
“Show me,” I said, my hips rocking against hers.
Her hands slid up, twining around my neck, and she stretched and somehow her lips found mine.
I moaned with relief that she felt this, too. “How I want you,” I admitted into her mouth, right before delving my tongue inside to play with hers.
The fear had retreated, but the energy remained, turning into lust. The need to make her safety my duty, to keep her here and present with me, to shelter her with heat and remind myself we were both alive.
Her tongue tangled with mine, and I took no quarter. I claimed that mouth with all the passion I’d been holding back. Everything flooded to the forefront now: those snapping, bright eyes, those playful, smirking lips, the way my chest throbbed anytime she was near, the way her scent clung to the air in my bedchamber after she cleaned, the sway of her hips as she walked away from me.
No more walking away from me. I smoothed back the drying hair from her face and rained kisses upon her cheeks, her nose, her brows, her eyelids.
Eve mewled beneath me, her hands tightening at my nape and tugging at my hair. She hitched one leg over my hip, opening herself to me, and my cock fell to the apex of her thighs, resting against the tight curls at her mons.
