Archangel's Prophecy (Guild Hunter #11)(53)

Barely able to wait, she stripped off her jacket and dropped it to the snow, then placed her various knife sheaths, assorted other weapons, and the crossbow onto the protective leather. The rest of her clothes disappeared in a flash. “I must love you a great deal, Archangel,” she pointed out as an icy wind brushed her bare skin. “It’s freaking freezing.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Raphael said before leaping with her into the sky.

Limbs interlocked and minds entwined, flesh against flesh, warrior to warrior, they danced that most intimate, erotic dance.

He kissed her mouth, her neck, her breasts.

Nipples hard against the beauty of his chest, she petted him everywhere she could reach, her lips determined to cover every golden inch of his body.

His hands were rough with need, with fear.

Her fingernails were claws as she fought to cling onto their future.

Thighs quivering and body liquid, she pressed wet kisses along his jawline high above the Hudson River. “Inside me, Raphael. I need you inside me.”

His hand squeezing the curve of her flank where she had her leg wrapped around his waist, the Legion mark on his right temple glittering diamond-bright . . . and his stone-hard cock thrusting into her with an earthy passion that had nothing of distance or otherness in it.

Her body clamped around his as a cry left her throat. Mine, you are mine.

Eternity, Elena, that is what you promised me. His mental voice was ragged, his body possessive and primal in her, around her. I will never release you from that promise.

They clung, two lovers in freefall.

The waters of the river closed over their heads, a dark blanket.

Wrapped around him in every way, Elena whispered, Knhebek, Archangel, and the words of love held her every fear, her every hope, her very soul . . . even as her forearm began to burn and the vein at her left temple felt as if it would burst.

Raphael sensed his consort’s excruciating pain even as their bodies rocked with pleasure. It was instinct to drench her in his healing energy. Paltry though it was after his earlier usage, more a false promise than a truth, Elena trembled around him on a shudder of relief before she surrendered to the incandescent energy between them.

Her eyes glowed at the end, the rim of silver dazzling . . . only for it to flicker and fade out like a candle extinguished by a sudden wind.

Back bowing as his own pleasure broke on a cresting wave, Raphael couldn’t hold onto the image, and when he looked at his hunter again, she was smiling softly, her body languid and her eyes boasting the rim of silver that spoke of her growing immortality. He ran his hand over her back, kissed her temple, used his free arm to hold her close to his warmth.

Hair wild silk against his skin, she made a near purring sound, so strong and alive and vibrant in his arms.

And being hunted by forces Raphael wanted to annihilate out of existence. “Home?”

“Mmm.” A nod, followed by the grumble of her stomach.

No annoyed huff this time, his consort too lazy-limbed in the aftermath of their loving. Bringing them out of the river, he carried her to the clifftop on which stood their home.

“Hey, wait!” Jolting out of her heavy-lidded laziness when he strode past the pile of their clothing, she said, “My crossbow! My knives!”

Taut as he was with a worry that went down to the immortal cells of his body, Raphael felt his lips kick up. “Ah, now I see your priorities.”

“No funning, Raphael.” A heavy scowl as she twisted to look over his shoulder at the pile retreating into the distance. “Archangel.”

Placing her on her feet inside the doorway of the study entrance, he said, “Stay out of the snow. I’ll retrieve your precious jewels.”

She was dancing on her feet and rubbing at her arms and legs by the time he returned. “Glamour, quick,” she ordered. “I don’t want to flash Montgomery.” A shudder of horror.

Raphael was an archangel, feared no man, far less his own butler. But there was an innocence in sneaking out of the study like misbehaving youths, the laughing glance Elena threw him over her shoulder stirring a part of him that awakened only for her.

The house was warmly lit at this pitch-dark time before dawn, but of Montgomery, there was no sign.

“He has a wife now,” Raphael murmured with a stroke of his hand up Elena’s bare flank. “I’m sure he’s engaged in far more pleasurable matters than in rising pre-dawn to wait for us.”

“Hush.” Elena threw him a quelling look. “I can’t think about Montgomery that way. As far as I’m concerned he sleeps in his suit.”

“Sivya may have some disagreement with a husband who is never naked.”

Elena put her fingers in her ears. “La-la-la, I can’t hear you.”

Holding onto the simple joy of this instant when they’d set aside the problem of the dangerous changes in Elena, Raphael teased her with heavy strokes of his palm across her wings as they went up the stairs. His warrior threatened to kick him. He pressed a kiss to the dimple at the base of her spine.

She pounced on him the instant they were behind the closed doors to their suite.

Weapons and clothes dropping to the floor, they tumbled onto the bed in a warm tangle of limbs, their wings wrapped around each other.

“I love you too much,” she said without warning, her smile wiped away. “What if one day something happens to you like what almost happened to Harrison yesterday?”