Angels' Dance (14 page)

Galen’s smile had held a bleakness she’d never before seen in her warrior. “Because she knows I have ever striven to please her. As a child, I thought if I was good enough, strong enough, I could earn her love.”

Her smoldering anger at Tanae, having built over the seasons with every small truth Galen betrayed about his barren childhood, had ignited. “You have no need to please anyone, Galen. You are magnificent, and if she can’t see that, then she is a fool.”

A dawning light in the sea green, until it was translucent. “Magnificent?”

Caught by the vulnerability he showed no one else, she’d whispered her answer in a kiss. “Utterly.”

Now, having made her way to her favorite vantage point on the roof, she thought of how much that small conversation had told her about her barbarian. He might be brash and blunt on the surface, but there was a terrible wound on Galen’s heart, one that led him to take such exquisite care with her—as if he did not ever want to do anything that might drive her away now that she was his.

A single tear trickled down her cheek.

14

G
alen finished the drills early as the winter darkness closed around them, the air clear of snow today, though a thickness of it covered the ground. Scowling at the whispers that passed from warrior to warrior about their weapons-master’s desire to get home, he nonetheless waved the grinning lot of them off without reprimand. Maybe he was getting soft, but he was happy in a way he’d never before been happy. It made him tolerant.

Winging his way to the balcony of the apartment he now shared with Jessamy, he found the rooms empty. Disappointed, he decided to head out to bathe. He’d just grabbed a change of clothes when Jessamy walked into the room. His heart stopped as it always did. Flowing into his arms, she kissed him with the wild joy of a woman who loved his touch. Such constant affection could make a man lose his head, come to believe that he was the magnificent creature he saw in her eyes.

“Are you going to bathe?” She nuzzled at him, her hands caressing his chest with delicate proprietariness over the top of the shirt he’d taken to wearing when the snows came. Jessamy worried otherwise.

“I’ll be back soon.” The river water was icy even for an angel, didn’t tempt him to linger.

Slow and wicked, Jessamy’s lips curved in a smile only Galen ever saw. “I’ll scrub your back.”

He should’ve told her to remain in the Tower, where she’d be warm and comfortable, but he needed her too much. Giving her the clothes to hold, he scooped her up and flew them not to the nearby river, but to a small pond at the foot of the mountains in the distance, where the water ran clear and sweet yet. It was a considerably longer flight, but it mattered little since he had Jessamy with him.

“Is anyone likely to disturb us?” she asked when they landed, spreading her wings out to stretch them, a tall, beautiful woman in an ankle-length gown the color and lightness of seafoam, the buttons that closed the wing slits at her shoulders made of square-cut crystals in a more vibrant shade of blue.

“No. We’re alone.” Unable to resist, he stroked the sensitive arches of her wings to her quiet shiver of pleasure. “This area is far out from the angelic patrols, and uninhabited. The mountains are as wild as they were at the start of time.”

Her smile held a sultry anticipation that made his cock jump. “Don’t you have to bathe?”

Laughing at the way she sat down on a nearby rock, like a great queen about to enjoy a private performance, her wings brushing the snow, he began to strip. He’d never been self-conscious about nudity, but seeing Jessamy’s delight in his body had made him an exhibitionist . . . but only with her. Bare to the skin—and blatant in his desire—he sucked in a breath and dived under the chill surface of the deep pond fed by mountain rains.

The icy cold was a shock, but nothing his body couldn’t handle. Rising to the surface, he blinked the water from his eyes to see Jessamy’s gown and undergarments pool at her feet, leaving her a long-limbed goddess, her flesh in perfect proportion to her fine frame. Her curves were slender, but very much apparent, her breasts taut mouthfuls he loved to taste and tease. His historian was very sensitive there.

Sitting down on the verge of the pond after dropping his discarded shirt on the snow, her legs hanging over the side and into the water, she shivered. “Come here.”

“As my lady wishes.” Her laugh, soft and intimate, wrapped around him as he floated to settle between her knees, spreading her thighs wider to her blush. He watched the progress of the wave of hot color as it pinkened her breasts, her nipples tight pouting points he had to taste.

“Oh.”
Her hand fisted in his hair.

Pleased, he used his thumb and forefinger to pluck the nipple of her neglected breast while drawing deep on the other with his mouth. She was so small, so perfect, that he could take her fully into his mouth—to suck and mark and lick. Releasing her with slow reluctance, he enjoyed the sight of her breast glistening from his loving, so rosy and beautiful. When she tugged on his hair, he smiled, licked out at her other breast.

By the time he stopped, the sweet musk of her was in his every breath. “Jess.” It came out raw.

“Yes.” She parted her thighs wider as he kissed his way across her navel and to the tart sweetness hidden by fine chestnut curls. He’d feasted on her before, loved the little sounds she made when she quickened on his tongue, but tonight, he found his control frayed to a ragged edge by the wild sensuality of her invitation. His strokes were rougher, his grip on her hips tighter.

Instead of shying, she lifted toward him.

He was a man. A man who craved her. It had the effect of snapping the leash. Licking, sucking, and even nipping with his teeth, he pushed her to a hard, fast peak. She shuddered, the taste of her pleasure erotic on his tongue. Aware how sensitive she was after a climax, he backed off to suckle a hot, wet kiss on the inside of her thigh. “The water’s not that cold,” he cajoled, wanting her in with him so he could push his cock—rock-hard in spite of the chill—into the molten tightness of her core.

Her eyes glinted. “Liar.” Hands massaging his shoulders, she leaned forward with wings spread to claim his mouth, her sexuality unashamed and intoxicating. “I want something else.”

Intrigued, he pushed up with his arms on either side of her, nuzzling and kissing the graceful line of her neck. “Anything.”

Fingers weaving into his hair as he slid back down, she lifted her eyes to the night sky, lit only by the delicate sliver of a sickle moon and the ice-cold fire of innumerable stars. “I want to dance, Galen.”

His hands clenched on her thighs.
“Jess.”

Jessamy kissed him again, soft and lush and seductive. “I never thought, never dared dream I’d have that, but you promised me, Galen.” Teeth on his lower lip, the soothing warmth of her tongue, heated suckling. “You said you’d fly me wherever I wanted to go.”

Those tiny kisses driving him a step closer to insanity, he moved his hands up to close over her breasts, forcing himself not to be too rough with her. If he hurt Jessamy, he’d cut off his own hands, cauterize the wounds with heated metal so they wouldn’t heal for a season. Then he’d do it over again.

“Harder.” A husky whisper against his mouth. “Please.”

He gritted his teeth to keep from spilling in the water right then and there. Jessamy continued to kiss and pet him as he fought the need, and then his hands were moving, squeezing and tugging harder than he’d ever before done, her creamy skin reddened by the coarse demand of his touch.

Shivering in a way he knew had nothing to do with the cold, she ran her hand over the arch of his wing, long fingers rubbing the sensitive edge where it grew out of his back. It felt as if she was fisting his cock. He wrenched away, pushed himself to the middle of the pond and dived. She was sitting where he’d left her when he surfaced, her chest heaving, her hair tumbling around her shoulders to hide her breasts—but for the plump points of her nipples.

A wood nymph come to life. To torment him.

“The cold isn’t helping,” he muttered, shoving forward to grip her hips and suck the taut pink tip of one breast into his mouth without warning. Her cry was the sweetest music. Shoving aside her hair, he molded her other breast with his hand, using the pressure she’d just taught him she liked, his cock thick and ready between his legs.

Then she whispered, “Dance with me, Galen.”

Letting her nipple pop from his mouth, he met her gaze. “I won’t be able to control myself.” The dance was the most primal of matings.

“Did I ask for control?” With that arch reminder, she rose to her feet and held out a hand. “Now come.”

He could deny her nothing. Rising from the water, he didn’t scoop her up in his arms as he usually did. Instead, he held her to him with one arm around her waist beneath her wings, the other around her upper back. His cock throbbed between them. Rubbing gently against it, Jessamy wrapped her arms around his neck.

Glaring at her—to a sinful smile—he said, “Tighten your wings.”

She brought in her right wing, her left already smaller and flatter to her back, the light dimming from her eyes without warning. “Will my weight be dangero—”

“You weigh less than a feather.” So fragile, she was so very, very fragile. His hunger, by contrast, was such a vast thing—he was terrified it might crush her. And he couldn’t bear to imagine Jessamy turning from him, scared and disappointed. Especially when he could almost believe the emotion he saw in her eyes was that rare gift no one had ever before given him.

Vowing to hold her safe even from himself, he rose into the night sky, Jessamy’s body aligned to his. He flew high, higher than he’d ever before taken her, until they could’ve touched the stars, the air cold and thin. No playful flying today, just a brutally straight line—he had no patience for making this anything beyond hard and fast, but for Jessamy, he’d try.

“Don’t fight it, Galen,” she said when they halted, so high up that frost formed on their lashes. “Surrender.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She was the most precious thing in his life.

“I’m an angel, too. An immortal. Treat me as one.”

The haunting plea beneath the demand broke him. He’d lay the world at her feet if she so asked. “Promise me you’ll stop me if I’m too rough.”

Huge dark eyes looked into his, raw with desire and a need that rivaled his own. “I promise.”

Taking her at her word, this woman who understood pain on a level most would never comprehend, he tightened his grip to steel and ravaged her mouth as he held them in position with faint movements of his wings. When she slid up just enough that she could cradle him between her thighs, he angled them until they faced earthward, bit down on the curve of her shoulder . . . and shut his wings.

They plummeted.

Jessamy’s scream held wild delight, no terror. Teeth bared in fierce joy, he snapped out his wings again right before they would’ve crashed into the mountains, dipped left and took them on a heart-stopping flight into and through a large cavern, barely avoiding the razor-sharp edges of rock that would have cut and bruised, before shooting out a jagged hole caused by some long-ago event, and spiraling up into the night sky once more.

“That was
wonderful
!” Jessamy’s grin was as feral as his.

Laughing in primal happiness, he stole a kiss before breaking it off to concentrate on beating his wings ever harder as he pushed them high, high up into the sky. When his mate rubbed with feminine impatience against him, he was so deep into the dance that he hooked her leg around his waist and slid into her in a hard, almost brutal thrust. Too late, the mists parted. “Jessamy, did I—”

She squeezed her inner muscles, cutting off his words. “Let’s fall again.”

Perfect, she was perfect.
The most primitive pleasure in every drop of his blood, Galen didn’t do a straight vertical drop this time. Controlling their descent with the brute power of his wing muscles, he dropped for a heartbeat before jerking to a sudden stop, his body rocking deep into her with the jolt.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until Jessamy attacked his mouth, her hunger voracious. Any control he might have retained was lost, the thread snapping with an almost audible sound. Keeping her locked to him with one arm, he fisted his free hand in her hair, and took her down in an almost impossibly fast spiral that seemed destined to end with their bodies broken on the unforgiving mountains.

Pulling up at the last possible instant, he winged his way back to the skies without giving Jessamy time to catch her breath. No warning, no gentleness, he fell again, her body tight and hot and silken around him. Feeling her muscles start to spasm, pleasure rocking her body, he ran his lips down to the pulse in her neck as they rose, sucked hard as they fell.

* * *

J
essamy’s muscles felt like they’d turned to liquid, her thighs in danger of sliding off Galen’s body when he took them high into the starry night again, each beat of his powerful wings pushing the hard length of him inside her in a sensation so deep, she felt branded. Tiny inner muscles continued to clench and unclench with the aftershocks of the most violent pleasure she’d ever experienced.

Right when she thought she could bear no more, she glanced up, saw the naked passion of him, and felt her body quicken to shocking readiness. “Strong, gorgeous man,” she said, giving him words because her Galen needed words. “Just so you know—you’re mine. Always and forever. So don’t even think about changing your mind.”

Shuddering, he dropped his head, pressed his cheek to her own, and murmured words in a language both beautiful and ancient. Tears burned in her eyes, passion torn through with wild tenderness.

I’m yours.

So simple. So powerful. His heart laid at her feet.

He locked his mouth to her own before she could find her voice, and they plummeted in a passionate kind of insanity. Lost in the magnificent power of him, she hardly felt the spray of water on her back when he jerked them up above the pond, rising a bare wing-length before bringing them to a gentle landing on the snowy verge.

His clothing was soft beneath her back, the ground hard. And Galen . . . he was an inferno.

She screamed as he gave her his surrender, hard and hot and without restraint.