Destiny Strikes (16 page)

She didn’t know what to expect, but she sure in hell wasn’t expecting him to answer her question in such a calm voice.

“As I told you, I was raised in the system. I did try to search for answers but the stories you hear about children raised in orphanages and group homes . . .” Placing his hands on her shoulders, he gently guided her back so he could stand upright. His body slid along hers, giving off a definite sign that he was aroused. “Well, I was that child. I can’t answer who I am or why I could do what I did tonight. All I’ve learned is every time I’m around you, the headaches I’ve suffered from childhood disappear and my eyes return to the color you see.” Her heart melted when a goofy grin boyishly flooded his face. “I can finally walk around like a normal person.”

“Tell me more about your eyes.” She started to move away.

Static pulled at his towel and his hands shot down to make sure it stayed in place.

“My pupils enlarge to where they dominate the violet, which freaks people out,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I spent most of my life in solitude, for fear of people freaking out over my eyes. The headaches can sometimes put me out for days. In a nutshell, no one could fix me. Until you.”

Fallon knew she was in trouble when Travis’s lids lowered and his voice deepened.

“Since we’ve engaged in full disclosure, maybe you can tell me what you meant by the remark of my being the only man you can make love to and not kill.”

Aching and heartsick over the story Travis told, Fallon wondered how he survived. A life without knowing his heritage and the cause behind his aliments had probably ostracized him. What an incredible man he was to overcome it all. Closer to this stranger than anyone, it was the perfect time to disabuse the notion she would be remaining a virgin any longer.

CHAPTER 29

Fallon was at a loss in voicing her desire for him, so she decided to show him. She took his hand and led him inside, switching off lights as she went. She guided him upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. What she had in mind didn’t add up to a lot of talk anyway. Sometime during his story, her nervousness over what was to come had disappeared. She read the question in Travis’s eyes when she’d dropped his hand and walked to the nightstand, turning a Tiffany lamp on beside the bed.

“Fallon, we don’t have to do this. We barely know each other.”

She placed both hands on his face and luxuriated in the scratchy texture of his shadowed beard against her palms. “This was going to happen anyway, and I don’t want to wait any longer.”

She kissed him. He took possession of the kiss, the sensuous slide of his tongue between her teeth and against hers. Reminiscent of soft-serve ice cream without the coldness and all the sweetness.

Fallon relished the roughness of his palm against her nape as he slid his hand into her hair. Halting at the back of her head, his other hand wrapped around her waist as he deepened the kiss.

Every time their lips parted and returned for more, she sank further into his embrace, weak in the knees. She wanted to be done with clothes to feel his skin all over hers. Would it feel as nice as his tongue against hers or would it be more?

This was her first time immersing herself so fully into a kiss that she didn’t want it to end. When roving hands slid down her waist, around her back, to her buttocks, she stood on tiptoes to give him better access.

“Are you sure this is what you want, Fallon?”

The way his eyes touched every inch of her face as she gazed up at him made her feel secure that he was the one.

“This is an important step you're about to take and maybe there is someone out there who might be better suited for you.”

She shook her head. She’d waited for centuries for this, and Travis wanted to talk?

“You are the only one holding this up. Right now, all I want to feel is your body all over mine. I want this, and I want you.”

She cupped his face and slid one leg between his to get closer as she crossed her arms behind his neck so he couldn’t break her hold, or the next kiss.

Yet he accomplished the feat with ease. Drowning in his kiss, the curve of her back increased as he applied more pressure. Then she realized he’d maneuvered the embrace for a specific reason. She felt the slide of one muscular arm under her thighs, lifting her off her feet.

After he eased her down, the edge of the bed touched the back of her knees, his kiss ruthlessly driving against it, and she used the advantage to push against his delicious hardness. Her hands stole over the muscled contours of exposed skin. He cupped the side of her throat to angle it for a bite near her jugular, and it drove her wild. “Travis,” she moaned, “that feels so good.”

He supplied more kisses to different parts of her body, stopping long enough to tell her, “We have just begun to discover what makes you feel good. It’s more fulfilling the deeper we get. Right now, I want you to hold and pinch your pretty nipple while I play with this one. Let’s see how that feels to you. If you like that, we’ll switch sides.”

She applied pressure, clamping her nipple between her thumb and forefinger, and whimpered with abandon at the sensation. Travis mimicked her actions with the added benefits of a tongue. She pressed the one she held in his direction, and he licked that one, too. The glow in his eyes ignited her skin.

Fallon didn’t think Travis’s towel would hold much longer. His cock peeked out of the loose towel, throbbing as it pressed against her.

She was so responsive to his demands and instructions that every sound he elicited from her made his grip tighten on her body. When she heard an audible pop, which signaled the end of the suction his warm mouth created, she voiced her objection.

“Travis, don’t you dare stop.”

Travis removed his head for a moment to admire the wet peak. His tongue came out to flicker against her clit in rapid succession. Every so often, he'd stop to watch the flow of electricity from tongue to hardened peak, before repeating the process with the other.

Fallon’s spine curved, driving her breast further into his open mouth as her fingers grasped his head. Travis accepted her offering with deep pulls. With her legs no longer able to support her weight, she fell onto the edge of the bed.

She followed his lead in guiding her body further back on the bed, which left her legs dangling off the edge as he moved down her body with little bites and sucks along the way.

When Travis’s journey down her body stalled at the center of her core, he stopped.

His tongue flicked out as he stared at her pussy with pure lust.

“You’re so wet for me. I think it's time for a lesson in screaming. I won't stop until you do. Put your feet on the edge of the bed and spread your legs for me, baby.”

Only after Fallon complied did Travis take the first swipe with his tongue, going in deep. “I never knew anything could taste as sweet as you.”

With the first wiggle of her hips, his arms came up under her legs. Sliding her bottom closer to the edge, he paused, inhaled, and then took another swipe at her. Suddenly, like two boa constrictors, Travis’s arms wrapped around her upper thighs and held her fast while he feasted.

“Dear God, Please. Don’t. Stop. Right there. Oh Fuck. Don’t move.”

Fallon could not believe how shy she’d felt seeing Travis’s face disappear between her thighs. Watching as he controlled small jolts of electricity as they danced on her button had her screaming in release.

“How do you keep doing that?”

The electrical streaks that ran the length of her body reached out to connect with his body and he bent them to his will. She noticed how he bled off the excess, so not one streak strayed from its intended target.

Judging by every hard breath Travis labored to take, maybe she’d been too eager in her responses because she almost called everything off. Travis stopped and took a couple of steps away from the edge of the bed and removed the towel. Asking him when the forked tongue would make an appearance seemed inappropriate. The length and width of the engorged flesh moved virtually of its own free will toward her and along his belly button.

Okay, yeah. She’d wanted the man but with any true danger, there had to be a little respect and the monster staring back at her commanded it. She could only guess the look in her eyes, because Travis toned it down but not by much as he came over her.

“Fallon, I can’t wait and I don’t think I can ease you into this easily. Are you ready for me, baby?” Travis asked. His, control maintained only by the shortest leash, hardened his voice.

The ability to move currents over her body and into his body still shocked him, and witnessing her fright over his engorged cock had weakened his legs. She lay beneath him, her body spread out before him with a veil of cloaked innocence surrounding her. He wasn’t inside her, and the head of his dick wept in anticipation. Her body trembled for different reasons as her eyes regarded the tip. A single drop escaped, and its descent into her juices had acted as a catalyst, setting his body on fire. Her scream as an orgasm erupted and the aching wonderment that adorned her features afterward were magnificent to behold. When her glazed eyes returned to him, there was no question to her readiness. Her pussy glistened and sparked as if alive. Every tiny zing to his body felt like a caress, and he needed to be inside her now.

“I seem to be doing this a lot lately, but, honey, I’m not going to survive the night if you’re any more ready,” he growled, unable to disguise the strain not to move.

Fallon groaned. She dropped her head to the bed, only to rise up with a bewitching smile as she said words he felt blessed to have heard. “I don’t know what the hell just happened now. But, by all means, please do it again.”

Travis threw off the mantle of civility as he wedged himself between her thighs. He noted the minuscule amount of hesitation on her part to open her legs completely. The tip of his penis pushed incessantly at the core of her moist center. He had to clench his jaw not to spill himself against her as her tight center sucked the head inside her heat. No, he wanted to be inside her when he did. And when he could open his eyes, he searched her face. He would have to be a complete idiot not to notice the pain-filled twist of her features.

“I want all of you, Fallon. This won’t be gentle and there will be pain, but if you let me, I can make it good for you. Do you want to continue?”

He tried to control the tremors cascading through his body. He
would
stop if she said no. He could tell she was beginning to understand how hard it was to remain motionless above her and the need to feel the silken suction of her inner walls made his arms tremble poised above her. He watched intently as the haze of pain bled from her eyes and an ache started in his chest as she began to speak.

“I’m not going to lie to you and say that this doesn’t frighten me a little. I’ve waited a lifetime for this moment and the one thing I will not do is wait any longer, especially not when I have someone like you. So the only answer would be, yes.”

Travis felt blessed and mouthed “Thank you” before he took her lips in another scorching kiss and applied more pressure to her opening.

“I'm sorry,” he said as he looked deeply into her eyes and thrust his cock to the hilt in one glide.

The excruciating pain of his deep penetration swept over her features. The way she gritted her teeth with her lovely neck exposed wasn't from pleasure. Her inner walls flexed then slowly adjusted to his invasion. Afterward, and many deep breaths later, Fallon's body accepted his length and girth. Then with every successive glide, her features changed to that of pleasure.

“Fallon, you have no idea how good this feels, baby,” Travis encouraged as he asked for more, pressing deeper. “I want it all. I need everything you got. Damn it, let me in.”

He rose up and spread her further open, watching his dick shuttle into her. Then he placed his knees under her bottom and set up a punishing speed. His hands traveled down from her breasts to place his thumb over her clit and the orgasm that exploded had her screaming in release, pumping more electricity into him.

As it so happened, the sphere he’d erected earlier was in full effect as his body took on the same luminescent color. No, that was not it. More light than color suffused his body as he threw his head back and emptied himself into her body.

The power of his release propelled Fallon into another orgasm. Travis lowered himself on top her, clasping her to him, then rolled, draping her across his chest, stunned by the experience.

CHAPTER 30

With her head on Travis’s shoulder, Fallon’s astonishment with the thin veins of electric streaks leaving her fingertips and dancing over his shoulder grew as she stoked his muscled flesh with her power. She was amazed at how he endured what should have shorted out his and burned him to ashes. She almost giggled when she thought about frying his car the first time they met.

Her newfound joy was tainted only by the confession he’d made before coming to her bed. It just didn’t add up that he went through most of his life never suspecting who and what he was. No matter which order of Angel anyone was from, the Seraphim were feared and loathed. Not for what they were, but what they were capable of becoming if the Seraphim had acted as the Nephilim and intermingled with the human race.

Fascinated, she watched the arc she was fooling around with lengthened. Up until now, she’d believed she and her brothers were the only Angels from the Old World remaining on Earth. All the other Angels had been exiled. Her family, separated from their own kind to track the movement of strays, wasn’t the kind of family one imagines. To have to do it alone, now that was inspirational. She didn’t know what she would do without her brothers, no matter how much they aggravated her.

“How did you do it, Travis?” she asked, resting her chin on the back of her hand. “I know how it feels to be surrounded by people who are nothing like you. Constantly plagued by the question of why you had to be the one who was different. I’ve always had my brothers to get me through the bad times and the frustrations. How have you survived it by yourself all these years?”

Travis shrugged. “I made do.”

She smoothed her other hand across his chest and lingered over a familiar sight. “I saw this marking in a couple of my dreams. I don’t know what any of this means but its significance and my brother’s question yesterday about Orion have to be related somehow.”

More to herself than him, she asked, “Why else would any of what has occurred lately be happening? There’s a link, but what?”

“It’s not a tattoo, you know. It’s a birthmark.”

Fallon ran her fingers over the birthmark, charmed by the oddity. She looked up to find Travis watching her intently. Totally ignoring the desire she saw under sex-drowsy lids, she lifted her brow high to state what she wanted.

“I get the sense you want to talk more about me, and I’ll wait for Round Two of your initiation into hedonism.”

“If you’re really sure.” Taking her wandering hand, he wrapped her fingers around the fully erect evidence of his willingness to delay the answers she sought. “The birthmark played a major role in my life. It’s also how I got my last name.”

Until now, his last name had only generated a small amount of curiosity, however a sinking feeling started in the pit of her stomach as he continued. “When the sisters at the orphanage found me, there was no note and no basket that they often play up on TV. From what I’ve come to gather from the sister who originally found me, I was on their doorstep naked. It was a mild summer, or Lord only knows what would have happened to me. It’s been thirty-two years to the day that the sisters found me the birthmark’s symbol became my last name. Orion.”

From his emotionless express, Travis didn’t appear all that upset about how he’d come to get his name.

“Orion stuck, despite all the adoptions and changing my last name about half a dozen times, there was never a lack of couples attracted to the violet-eyed baby, until they couldn’t handle the constant screaming. They didn’t know about the headaches.” Travis raised his head, and about jumped out of the bed when she located a particularly ticklish spot in between his stomach and pelvic bone. After admonishing her not to do it again, he laughingly continued. “As I grew older, the headaches became more frequent. In spite of everything, I joined the navy. That’s where I realized I had the ability to drain large amounts of power.”

Placing one arm behind his head and adjusting her further onto his chest, said softly, “I’ve had dreams about you, too. What my gut is telling me is that have to be here for some reason.”

Travis tried not to reflect on the loneliness that had persisted throughout his life.

“Why did you get so upset when you found out it was Dennis?” Fallon asked. “All you said tonight was he was a kid with some troubles. That doesn’t explain the anger.”

Travis laid his head back and sighed heavily. “You want to know why I would care so much about a boy who shouldn’t have any emotional tie to me.” He ran his hand along the length of her hair as his thoughts carried him back to when he met Dennis. “I remember the first time I went to his house and saw the five-year-old hugged to his mother’s chest. Over the years, after many calls to his parents’ home, not once did it ever seem as if Dennis wanted to leave. Being awarded a full scholarship to Duke University with honors, you would think he’d leave. Instead, he stayed home and attended Community College. This was his last semester of completing his four-year degree. In all those years, he never let his parents’ fighting affect his outlook on life like most people would. And he didn’t try to use it as an excuse to act out. He had his issues but went to counseling. However, every time I was around, he was courteous and respectful.”

Travis could not help the little squeeze he gave Fallon’s behind as he finished. “He reminded me of me, and how I’d overcome my circumstances. It’s just hard to believe that he’s the one who's perpetrating the gruesome acts of violence. Not the kid I once knew.”

“No, he really isn’t,” Fallon said softly.

Fallon pushed away from his chest and leapt from the bed. “We need to find that kid, and we need to find him now.”

Travis pushed up onto his elbows, puzzled by her actions. “What the hell is going on now? It’s ten o’clock on Saturday a night. Why the fuck is it so important we find him tonight?”

“You’re welcome to join me”—her head tilted towards the bathroom, then she shrugged—“or wait until I’m done. It’s up to you.”

A few minutes later, Travis could hear the shower start and knew that if he didn’t get his ass in gear, she’d be gone before he caught up as to what was happening here.

Fallon sank back against the rough surface. Twinges of uncertainty cropped up once the door shut behind her. What had she done?

“Yeah, what did you think would happen after the fun? Didn’t think that far along, did yah now?” she muttered with a silent snort as she flipped on the shower and adjusted the temperature.

As she waited, the scent of a winter-storm bonded with the mist. She could smell Travis all over her. Hell, if she were around him much longer, she would start looking forward to winter.

Was it normal to want him again?
Ugh
. She never believed she would be debating stuff like this.

Because right now, the inner muscles of her sex ached and throbbed in a way that was highly distracting.

She had things to do. She didn’t have time to lay around in bed wondering about all the stupid things her immersion into sexual aftermath brought about.

Travis had to be crazed. What other explanation could there be for him jumping into the middle of the road with lightning thin and more powerful than a whip striking near him. Then touching her after rain had soaked through her clothes. He was one lucky bastard to escape electrocution. If Travis had been human, he’d be dead.

Jackass. That was what he was.

The dark-violet intensity of his stare also was a cause for concern.

An electric shiver raced through her system at the memory of his eyes. Travis had barely mentioned to her what color his eyes were before the shades came off. Yet, during climax, black had drowned out any white, with the exception of hundreds of starlit specks in the center of his pupil. Like an Archangel. Like a warrior. Like someone—she had a sinking suspicion—she should not be fooling with.

She stepped beneath the stinging spray, turned her back to the powerful streams of water, and eyed the ceiling as minimal amounts of spray caressed her upturned face.

She had not cried in a thousand years, and she wasn’t going to start now because it sure as hell wouldn’t help. It would not change what’d happened between them, or the insecurities after. It would just make her head hurt. And the last thing she needed was another headache. Travis snuggled in her bed in the other room was enough headache for any woman.

It was nearing midnight.

She had to find this Dennis kid before anyone else died. She debated if bringing Travis along would distract her.

Rinsing soapy suds from her body as she turned beneath the spray, she was somehow not surprised to make contact with the immovable obstacle that’d stepped into the shower with her.

“Showering without me. Now that’s just a sin after what we did.” Rich, normal, violet eyes stared down at her as steamy water sluiced over the hard-muscled, darkly buff flesh of his body.

God, he was almost as beautiful as an Archangel.

Impossible.

Travis had a soul. She’d touched it. She knew because she had one.

She turned to face Travis. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. The power beneath what appeared to be battle-honed flesh was obvious.

Cascading water beaded on his neck, while several droplets rained down his body. She lowered her gaze as she tracked them. Water lingered at the base of his heavy hard-on before falling down his powerful legs.

She quickly returned her gaze to the heavily veined erection angled from his body. His cock was magnificent.

Her core dampened as she licked her lips. Travis was a temptation she needed to avoid.

She wanted to taste the mushroom head of his cock. To hold it within her mouth.

Falling victim to a desire that was too great to contain, she lowered to her knees, lost to the pleasure of his deep ministrations to her aching nipples. Instead, she chose a pleasure she couldn’t deny any longer.

Kissing her way down his chest and lowered, she wrapped her hands around his muscular thighs, her lips parting. She felt one hand lock in the hair at the base of her skull, and her lashes flittered with the tingling awareness of his fingers clenched in the strands as he fisted them.

Her tongue tasted the engorged crest first, wrapped around soft yet firm surface, as her lips embraced him, and sealed the large head inside the hungry depths of her mouth.

Travis gave a brutal hiss and tightened his grip in hair.

She griped the base of the shaft, feeling Travis start to pulse.

Inhaling heavily, she opened her mouth wide and took him as deep as she could.

Travis’s fist opened and closed over her head, and arcs of explosive sensation raced over heated scalp.

The taste of salty male and an ominous storms teased her taste buds as pre-cum escaped the narrow slit her tongue laved over. She moaned. The teasing taste of the elixir increased her efforts. She slid a free hand from his hip around and between his ass cheeks to find his tightly drawn testicles. As her fingers worked him, he groan her name.

The sound sent her spiraling into the unknown.

Her clit swelled as her pussy flooded. She filled with heated emotion, and the intimacy of the act almost drove her insane.

Travis wondered how he’d become so blessed. Fallon was torturing his dick with pure fire.

He guessed she didn’t know that with every moan from her hot lips, thunder boomed, despite the enclosed space.

Travis felt every force in his body tightening, burning, like the conflagrations of pleasure surging to life when her first bolt of lightning had hit him. Wave after wave of flames licked at his nerve endings.

The feel of her mouth drawing on the sensitive head of his dick was killing him. The intensity of each swipe of her tongue was tearing through him, awakening something wild, uncontrolled, and unrecognizable.

As her tongue teased the underside of his cock, he felt lightheaded. He could feel the essence of something unknown building. He was surrounded to the hilt by her lush heat.

Adrenaline called forth by searing heat tearing through his system filled him.

There was no such thing as control. There was no holding back.

His fingers gripped her hair tighter, and his gaze locked on the ecstatic expression of her face. He knew that control, reason, or holding back were nothing he wanted when it came to the lush eroticism of this woman.

His woman.

“Fallon, I need you to release me from between those beautiful lips, baby.” Need clawed at his belly to be inside her.

Fallon had wondered what it would be like with Travis, loving him with her lips, with her tongue, feeling him thrusting past her lips until he found his pleasure.

She could feel he was close. His testicles drew tight, and his cock pulsed.

Then he said the one thing she didn’t need to hear. That he wanted her to stop.

His voice ragged, so harsh and animalistic that she knew what she would see when she opened her eyes.

She told herself not to look up.

Her lashes fluttered open anyhow.

Solid black with stardust flecks filled his gaze. He was an archangel.

No.” The protest was instinctual as he pulled back, removing the treat she believed was within seconds of releasing into her mouth.

He snarled at her. A low, untamed sound that had her eyes widening and a gasp tearing from her as she suddenly found herself staring at the shower wall. Behind her, one hard hand gripped her hip to hold her in place as the other planted itself between her shoulder blades, pressing her breasts against the cold tile firmly.

“Don’t move,” he hissed.