Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

like the other angels. You pretend to be at peace, but inside you, a storm is raging. I’ve seen it.”
    She had hit a nerve. She saw it in the twitch of his jaw, the stone-hard stare of his gray eyes. Heard it in the low rumble of his voice, as he said, “Luciana, you’re treading on dangerous ground.”
    “Why not let it out, that rage inside you?” she whispered. “You don’t know how much pleasure darkness can bring. Or how beautiful a storm can be.”
    Her hand reached out, down. Stroked his thigh, once, twice.
    For an instant, he considered it. She saw that hesitation in his eyes, the momentary pause. The yearning. The need.
    Gently, oh, so gently, he put his hand on top of hers.
    And pushed it away.
    “This isn’t the way,” he said. “ I’m the one who came to save you. You’ve got to realize that. It’s the only way things can work between us.”
    “Oh, you’re so mistaken,” she said, leading him to her bed. “Let me show you exactly how mistaken you are.”
    He said nothing. She watched him swallow, the delicious movement of his throat, the dryness of his mouth audible.
    And that was the moment she knew she had won.
    In the corner stood an elaborate mirror, nearly the height of the room, framed in gold.
    He caught her gaze in it, staring back at him, so very green and glittering in the semidarkness. He saw himself reflected, leaning over her, as she half turned and looked over her shoulder. He turned her, so that the front of her spectacular body was reflected, and himself behind her.
    “Look,” she told him, nodding toward their reflection. “Watch us. You’ll see that we’re the same, creatures of pleasure, both of us. You’re no different than I am.”
    He ran his hands over her body, fever-hot and lush. Held her in front of the mirror, staring into her eyes as he felt her gyrating slowly against him.
    “Don’t make this into something ugly,” he told her. “I want you to realize how beautiful you are.”
    “I’m beautiful in body. But not in soul,” she said.
    “You’re beautiful in both. Every soul is beautiful,” he whispered. “Some just don’t realize it.”
    She opened her mouth to protest, and he cut her off with a kiss.
    “Don’t argue. Just let me make love to you.”
    In the mirror, he watched every reaction as it crossed her face, watched their two bodies as he knelt behind her on the bed. His view of her from behind was of the toned, perfect muscles of her back. Gently, reverently, like a man worshipping at a temple of her body, he ran one of his big hands up to cup her breast. Held its heaviness in his palm, spilling out of his hand.
    God, she felt good.
    Rubbing himself against her, he felt himself harden; he had thought he could not get any harder.
    In his arms, she turned, his partner in an intricate dance, still watching themselves doubled in the mirror. They writhed, slid around each other and then somehow she was on top of him, straddling him, lowering herself over him.
    He entered her, feeling her stretch as he eased her open.
    He waited, easing his way in by fractions of inches, holding himself back, mentally steeling himself to go slowly. To enter her fully would take such a simple movement, an upward thrust of his hips he fought against. Otherwise, in an instant, he would come inside her.
    As he buried himself to the hilt, he felt her relax. Felt her sink down onto him, melting around him.
    In that moment, he knew the absolute and utter rightness of sexual connection, of the pure and unadulterated pleasure of it, a celebration of the divine. Demoness or not, she was still essentially a part of the divine, irrespective of who or what she thought she was.
    He exploded inside her, emptying himself into the vessel of her body.
    At that moment, it did not seem to Brandon that she was herself at all, but some female incarnation of an urge much more primordial that had emerged at the beginning of time. She existed beyond the binary oppositions of angel and demon, good and evil. She was a conflagration of innocence and temptation that spun around him and melded in his mind.
    She was Eve in the garden.
    She was the forbidden fruit, ripe and temptingly lush on the bough of the great tree.
    And she was the green-eyed serpent, all at once.
    He felt her tremble on top of him, quiver around him. The sensation brought him reeling back to consciousness, tumbling back to earth and to the certain knowledge that whatever else she might be, she was a