Guild Hunter 03 - Archangel's Consort

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.”
    A shudder in the big body that held her pinned to the wall, the frigid bite of his power turning into a molten caress that was a thousand featherlight kisses over her skin, and then the blunt tip of his erection nudging against the entrance to her body. Sucking in a breath before he reclaimed her lips, she held on tight as he pushed into her with a slow, measured intensity, not stopping until he was buried to the hilt within her.
    Her body arched at the near-violent shock of pleasure. He took advantage of her position to play with her breasts, to bite and lick and suck until she rolled her hips in urgent movements, nails biting into his shoulders. “Stop teasing, Archangel.”
    Another pause, and suddenly he was pure male demand, his body slick and hard and very, very physical under her hands. Opening her eyes, she looked into his ... and saw endless, relentless blue right before he ground against her with the sexual experience of a being who had lived centuries upon centuries, and he sent her hurtling to the stars.
    Crying out, she gripped him with her body, claiming him, taking him with her.
     
     
    She came to lying on the bed on her front, with Raphael leaning on his side beside her, his gaze focused inward. “Hey.” She reached over to touch his thigh. “Don’t go away again.” It came out huskier than she’d intended, tangled with the fears of the child who’d been abandoned long before she’d been thrown out of the hollow elegance of the Big House.
    His thigh flexed under her touch. “Did I cause you any bodily injury?”
    She remembered what he’d said once. About breaking her. Knew that she had the power to savage him—but that wasn’t who she was. Who they were. “No. You just scared me a little.”
    Apologies, Elena. He ran his hand over the arch of her wing. I was not . . . myself.
    It was an admission she’d never expected, because though they’d been together this long, they were still learning each other. And the Archangel of New York had long ago learned to keep secrets—his own, his race’s, his Seven’s.
    And now, his consort’s.
    “I know.” Shifting up onto her elbow, she closed her hand over the muscle of his shoulder, needing the raw physicality of the connection. “Something is wrong, Raphael. That vampire might’ve appeared sane, but he didn’t act in any way rational when he attacked the school, and you should’ve seen that. But you didn’t.”
    “I remember little of my actions during that time.” A question without being a question as he nudged her down onto her back, one big hand warm on her abdomen.
    Knowing the loss of control had to be a vicious beast tearing him apart, she recapped the events. “Do you remember executing Ignatius?”
    “Yes.” He dipped his head a fraction, and she took the invitation to stroke her fingers through his hair. “When you speak of the events, I do recall them—but there is a red haze over it all.”
    Thick and silky, the vivid black strands of his hair kissed a cool caress over her skin. “If I had to put a name to what I saw in your expression, I’d call it rage.”
    “Yes.” Moving his hand over her stomach, he settled it low on her hip. “But I have lived long enough that I can handle rage. This was ...