Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(33)

Michael appeared at the doorway.

“I collected the manna this morning. Are you hungry?”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly sunset. We’re about to have a visitor soon.” I slept all day?

“Who?” I sat up and swung my legs to the side of the bed before I realized they were bare. “Uh, did you undress me?”

“You’ve slept without jeans on since coming here. I thought you’d be more comfortable. You fell asleep on the couch, so yes. You slept much of the day, but that’s good. You needed it,” he said, refusing to look me in the eyes. I decided to mess with him.

“You saw my ass again, didn’t you?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I wasn’t looking.”

“Wasn’t looking or wasn’t interested?”

He grabbed hold of the top of the door frame and blew out a harsh breath. “I can’t be interested, Carmen. I shouldn’t have let you believe otherwise. For that, I’m truly sorry.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words, Michael,” I purred. “You said you can’t be, not that you aren’t.”

“Angels are forbidden from being intimate with humans, and I can’t afford to be distracted.”

“Am I human?”

He swallowed thickly. “I believe so, yes. But whatever you are, the answer is the same. Angels are forbidden from being intimate with souls, humans, other angels, with anything at all. Our sole purpose, the reason we were created, was to serve.”

I wished he could serve me. I was frustrated as hell, and it wasn’t because of the Lessons and their feeble attacks. It was because I was tantalizingly close to an Adonis all day long and had to endure looking at his beautiful face and physique. It was torturous, really. Maybe I was being taught a lesson of my own. Would someone squish tar onto my eyes if I kept ogling him? Maybe it would be a just sentence. I couldn’t manage to tear them away from him.

I was so going to Hell.

He chuckled. “You aren’t. And for the record, it’s not easy for me either.” He left with a wink and a grin, leaving me sitting on the bed, a frustrated, hot, flustered mess of a woman.

Closing my eyes, I pictured him returning to the room, shirtless, with his jeans hugging his hips, deliciously revealing the V I knew lurked beneath his clothes. I’d stand up from the bed and walk to him, waiting for his eyes to finish undressing me, and then I’d rub my hands over his chest, shoulders, back…pulling him close to me and our bodies would touch. They would ignite us both, a fire that had been smoldering beneath the surface, now fed with oxygen, sparking back to life, flames licking at both of us. I’d drop to my knees and unbutton his pants, unzip them inch by inch, and free him from the confining clothes he wore. I’d take him in my hand, stroking him, and then take him into the warmth of my mouth, drawing him in deep. He would groan and his thighs, hard as stone beneath my fingers, would tremble as I raked my nails over his skin, the skin that was like velvet.

His head would crane back as I brought him closer and closer to the brink…

“Carmen,” a growl of warning came from downstairs. The pictures on the walls quivered in response and so did I.

I’d stand and pull the t-shirt over my head, letting it billow to the floor at our feet as he stepped from his pants. Guiding him to the bed, I’d watch as he fell back on the mattress and then I would climb up, straddle him, and rake my breasts all the way up his torso, reveling in the rumble that came from his chest. His eyes would turn every color under the heavens. Gold, silver, amethyst, emerald, sapphire, ruby… His tattoos would churn and I would sink down onto him, slowly, torturously…

“Carmen!” My eyes snapped open.

“Yes?” I asked throatily.

“Stop it. Our visitor is almost here. And he can also see and hear your…thoughts.”

Damn it. I was so close, too. I eased my hands from my panties and sat up.

“Get dressed,” Michael barked. He was cranky. If he’d let me help him with that, he’d be less of a grouch.



“Carmen?” a familiar voice called from downstairs. “I brought you a present.”

Michael’s deep growl reverberated through the floor boards underfoot as I rushed down the steps to see a writhing figure, clad in what used to be a three-thousand-dollar suit. It had been shredded to ribbons. When Gabriel picked the figure up by the back collar and turned him to face me, I almost peed a little. Gabriel had brought me a present, all right. Dimitri’s icy eyes locked onto mine with laser precision before he began spewing Russian words I couldn’t decipher, but understood anyway.

Michael took one look at me and his face contorted with anger. He grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me back up the stairs. I wrenched my arm away.

“What the hell is your problem?” I demanded.

“Pants, Carmen. Put some clothes on before coming back downstairs.”

I looked down at my tan, bare legs and rolled my eyes at him. “I have nice legs, I’ll have you know.”

He stalked toward me, backing me up the stairs faster than I thought my feet could carry me. At the landing, my back hit the wall as he stalked forward. So close.

“I do know.” His fingers slipped up the outside of my thigh and I gasped from the feel of him. Electric. “I know your body. Every curve, every bone, every hair on your head, and every shade in your eyes. I know you have nice legs, Carmen,” he panted. “I just don’t want them to know.” He stabbed a finger toward my bedroom door.