Divine Temptation (30 page)

She woke to something tickling the ridge of her bare hip and knew it must be his fingertips, scarcely sinking into her flesh as they ran along it. Smiling, she turned from her side onto her back, reaching to remove her mask, but before she could get to it, his hands clasped her wrists and lifted her arms over her head, holding them to the mattress. His calves brushed against the outside of her thighs, straddling her.

Shifting to hold both her wrists with one hand, he touched a finger to the base of her throat and tickled along her breast bone, tracing a straight line down to the top of her shirt, where he dipped his finger to hook around the fabric and ripped it all the way through to the hem. His warm hand lightly passed over each breast, pushing the fabric away and allowing cool air to lick at her torso. Maggie’s every cell was brought to tingling attention when she heard him sigh while no doubt gazing at her nakedness.

This time she wouldn’t push. She’d lay back and let him take it as slowly as he needed to—not that she had much choice with him still pinning her wrists to the bed. He moved to one side of her, and with his free hand stroked the insides of her thighs, gradually spreading them apart. He didn’t speak. Nor did he kiss her. After a few minutes of silently caressing, eliciting light sighs from Maggie, he rolled on top of her, making her gasp at the sensation of his full chest sinking into hers. Squeezing her thighs into his, she rubbed them along his hips and found that he was completely unclothed. His scent was all spice now, with no trace of his milder aromas.

She felt his lips at her ear, tickling as he whispered, “May I enter you?”

“Always the gentleman,” she purred.

He tensed his grip on her wrists and teased her by ducking the fingertips of his other hand just inside the top of her panties, sending his watery vibrations into her but stopping centimeters shy of where she wanted him.

“Say it,” he demanded, his voice a sultry octave lower than she’d ever heard it before.

“Yes!”

The sound of fibers rending ripped through the room. Maggie was free, and in the next instant she was screaming as he plunged inside her. She’d always suspected making love to Evan would be amazing, but she never could have predicted such instant gratification. The melding of their flesh was nothing compared to what happened between their sensitive genitalia. These didn’t merely sink into each other with the usual cascades—they exploded upon impact. The sensual equivalent of fireworks.

His grunts and growls indicated that he was likewise enjoying himself, but unlike Maggie, he didn’t appear to have climaxed. He never slowed for a moment, and even before fully coming down from her first orgasm, Maggie already felt herself climbing toward another. Her moans reached their highest pitch, and he flattened his hand across the small of her back, lifting it and driving her over a peak higher than she ever could have imagined.

She shouted out words, but even as she said them, she knew they made no sense. She honestly felt like she was going insane from the pleasure, yet she didn’t want it to stop. She didn’t ever want it to stop.

He lowered her to the bed and changed his rhythm to something slower, deeper. It allowed her awareness to reach beyond her interior. She was sweating, they both were, and his abdomen slid across hers with a slapping sound of wetness every time he pushed down against her. He continued to hold her wrists above her head, but like everything else, her flesh there was moist, slipping around in his now precarious hold. She wanted to run her hands along his muscles as they flexed over her, and she wanted to pull his face to hers.

Her hands slipped through his grip, but before they could find purchase anywhere, he grabbed each in one of his own, and rolled to his side, pulling her until he was on his back with Maggie on top of him. He lowered his arms so his elbows were propped on the bed, and Maggie gripped his hands, using them for support and making the most of the new angle. He moved with her, but let her guide the experience.

She was overwhelmed with the desire to look at him, to see those beautiful eyes watching her pleasure. But he clasped her hands to his when she tried to pull away. She was close to climaxing again, so she didn’t fight him, instead continuing her rhythmic undulations until he too was groaning.

He dug his fingers into her hand and shifted, flipping them both over so he was once again on top, pounding desperately into her. She peaked first, with him only seconds behind. Lifting his torso, he shuddered, and a scorching blast seared deep into Maggie. She pressed her head back into the pillow and inhaled slowly, attempting to manage the pain through her breathing. As the scalding agony calmed to a smolder, a strange part of her wanted to hold onto the pain—because it belonged to Evan.

As her burning insides began to return to normal, she tried to reconcile the idea of her kind, gentle angel with the beast that had just so thoroughly fucked her. She’d enjoyed every moment of it, but she felt an empty space inside her, like something important was gone. She missed the tenderness, the closeness, the love she’d expected. She again wanted to rip off the mask that separated them and look into his brilliant eyes. She wanted to hold him. But he trapped her wrists at her shoulders while he stroked his tongue over her salty torso, back and forth along one side of her rib cage.

She smiled at his gentle touch. Here was some of the tenderness she was yearning for. His tongue was warm, almost hot, heating her skin and leaving behind a simmering trail in the sweat that drenched her.

He slowly traced his deliberate tongue onto her breast and around her nipple, causing Maggie to inhale sharply as a new spark of desire raced through her. Teasingly, he drew his tongue back down and then up, between her breasts, continuing all the way to the hollow at the base of her throat, where she involuntarily whimpered at having his mouth so close to hers. She wanted to kiss him. But he moved away to flick at her other nipple and then trace along the opposite side of her rib cage.

He was obviously absorbed in his ritual, so Maggie decided to simply relax and enjoy it while she patiently waited for him to come back to her. His tongue curved free-form around her abdomen and naval while her internal burning lessened to a dispersed warmth. Oddly, she found herself craving more heat, more pain.

He finished painting her with his expert tongue and crawled onto her, his face hovering just above hers. His warm breath floated into her open mouth, and she breathed him in, tilting her head and readying her mouth to receive his. Keeping his lips just out of reach, he tortured her. As she sucked in his exhalations, her thoughts grew cloudy, and she realized too late that he was intentionally fading her consciousness. She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to look upon his enchanting face and hold him. She struggled against his influence, but her will was no match for his, and ultimately she slipped away.

Her sleep was deep. She didn’t stir or even dream. Only once did anything tickle the remote corners of her mind. In a dreamy fog, she felt Evan close. He was screaming in torment. Maggie wanted to go to him, to tell him everything was okay, but she couldn’t move. Then he was gone, and she settled back into the dark. The rest of the night passed in nothingness.

Chapter 21

W
HEN
M
AGGIE
W
OKE
, the first thing she did was pull off her sleep mask. Then, she sat up and found herself surrounded by blood red petals. Lifting one, she held it to her nose and inhaled. Roses. Her legs were sprinkled with them, and when she’d sat up, several had cascaded from her shoulders and arms.

So this is what it feels like to be queen,
she thought, and then realized she was smirking. Well, why shouldn’t she? She’d just accomplished the impossible. She was Maggie Brock: Seducer of Angels.

Feathering the edges of the petal across her jaw and down her throat, she luxuriated in the memory of the ecstasies she’d enjoyed with Evan. Her eyes drooped half closed but opened again when she recognized that her bedroom was in the murky purple-grayness of dusk. Could all of that have happened in the span of just a couple of hours?

The phone rang and as she reached over to pick it up, she looked at the clock. It was only five thirty. “Hello,” she said, her voice groggy from not being used.

“My, my, don’t you sound sexy.” It was Carl.

Maggie chuckled, and even her laugh was sultry.

“Good Lord, Magdelyn. Someone needs to get over there pronto and give it to you good.”

“Too late,” she crooned.

“You saucy little minx! Is that why you’re late picking up the kids? And here I was worried something bad had happened to you.”

“What are you talking about?” The haze in her mind began to clear as she glanced again at the clock. “It’s still Saturday, right?”

“Are you joking?” A note of concern had crept into his voice, and Maggie stayed silent. “Have…have you been drinking?”

“No! It’s just…I’m sorry, I took a nap and am a little disoriented—can we start over?”

“Okay, I’m calling because it’s
Sunday
evening, and you’re over an hour late picking up the kids, so I wanted to make sure everything was okay and see if you needed me to drop them by.”

“Shit! I’m sorry. I…I slept too long…” A
day
too long.

Now Carl was chuckling. “Yeah, those nooners’ll take it out of ya. Listen, they’ve got extra clothes here, so why don’t I just keep Liam and Kir for the night and bring them to school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I suppose that works,” she answered uncertainly. But when she raked her fingers through the pile of petals and considered that Evan must have wanted her well rested for a reason, she became more sure. “Let me just talk to them to make sure they’re okay with it and say good night.”

“Yes, Mom. I’ll get ’em.”

The kids were perfectly fine with staying another night at their dad’s, so Maggie got a quick weekend update, told them she loved them, and hung up. The room had darkened a few shades while she was on the phone, making the dismembered blooms around her look almost black. She scooped a mound into both hands and held them high above her head, letting them drop one by one.

Her flesh burned at the various points where each floated down and touched like a kiss. Closing her eyes, she imagined her sinful angel biting into her. She dug into the pile and pulled hands-full up her thighs, relishing the penetrating heat. Thoughts of children and schedules and anything other than carnal pleasure left her.

When she brought the petals up to her abdomen, the warmth became a searing pain, and she dropped them in surprise. Looking down, she saw angry red lines across her stomach, reaching up to her breasts—remnants of Evan’s tongue-play. She probed one of the lines with her fingertip and found it raw. As much as she adored the souvenirs he’d left behind, she didn’t want the discomfort to interfere with their lovemaking when he returned, so she reluctantly left her nest.

Making sure her soothing oatmeal body wash was in the shower, she turned on the water and stepped into the cool stream. While she gently tended to her wounds, it occurred to her that she should feel guilty about what had occurred between her and the angel, yet she didn’t. She was tired of always trying to do the right thing. Who had the authority to say what was “right,” anyway? Everything had certainly felt right the night before, and going forward that’s what she’d trust—her personal desires.

Stepping from the shower, she rubbed aloe across her front before patting herself dry and pulling on a soft robe. She didn’t know how long Evan would keep her waiting, so she decided to make good use of the time and doll herself up while she waited. She’d dried her hair and applied a layer of foundation over her face by the time he appeared, just outside the doorway to her bathroom.

Keeping her eyes forward, she smoothed makeup onto her neck, and when she’d finished, moved her gaze sideways across the mirror to look at his reflection. He’d been watching her, and when their eyes met in the glass, he gnashed his teeth, his upper lip raising on its way to a snarl.

Maggie swiveled on her stool to face him. “What’s wrong?”

He averted his gaze before responding in a hoarse whisper. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“No! No more of that.” Maggie stood, taking one step toward him before he held up a hand and warned her with a shake of his head. The resolution in his features and the terrorized flash in his eyes as he briefly glanced up stopped her.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” she said, even while she felt the first tremors of remorse for what they’d done.

He stared at the floor as he spoke through clenched teeth, the muscle of his jaw straining. “It wasn’t me.”

“What?”

Slowly, he raised his eyes, and the typically warm gray of his irises was now cold stone. “I know you thought it was. That’s what he wanted you to think. Maggie…” His angel eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize I was playing right into his plan. This whole time. I didn’t know. When I came back it was too late. I saw the mark and…there’s nothing I can do. I tried. I promise you, I tried.”

Her breath came in rapid bursts. “Evan, what are you talking about? Who is ‘he’? How could it not have been you?”

“Maggie, please, I don’t have long to explain. The mark of his master—it’s on you.”