Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(46)

“I didn’t get to help you, though!” I cried.

“You tried! Don’t you get it? No one…not a soul, not an angel, not even an archangel, has ever done that for me before. Ever.” His breathing was labored as he looked at me, a pained look creasing his face. “Stand up,” he commanded, whipping around so fast he blurred.

“Why?” I scanned the tree line, the water, the sky. Nothing. No Lessons lurked.

I stood and his hands clamped onto my waist, pulling me to him so fast, I didn’t register his lips on mine, his tongue on mine until I was tasting him, moving in unison, the beginning of a deadly and dangerous dance.

Pulling away, I pushed against his chest. “No.”

He pulled me to him again. “You are worth everything to me, Carmen. Rules be damned.”

His hands roamed my back, breasts, ass, pulling me closer to him, so close I could feel every hard plane of him. Every angle. Every heartbeat. I pulled him closer still, trying to commit the feel to memory. One glorious moment.

He stripped me of my shirt and then his hands deftly unbuttoned my jeans and slid them down my legs, where they fell in a whisper to the pebbles below. His shirt and pants joined mine and then my bra and panties. He inhaled sharply when he saw me.

“You’ve seen me before,” I said, gasping as his lips tugged my earlobe, his hot breath on my neck as he bit down.

“Never enough,” he breathed. His hands found my folds and found out how much I wanted him, hot and slick. When he flicked my clit, I came hard, pulsing around the fingers he’d sunk inside me.

“We’re going too far,” I breathed against his chest.

“Not nearly far enough.” He removed his boxer briefs and revealed himself to me. I stroked him. Long, hard, steel. “Carmen,” he hissed.

Michael gently eased me to the ground. I expected him to be like the others, to have me face away from him, to take me from behind so he didn’t have to look at me, but Michael wasn’t like the men I’d been with before. He knelt between my legs, wrapping each around his back, and then he paused. He was having second thoughts.

I started to scramble toward my clothes.

“Stop,” he said sternly.

I obeyed.

“I am not having second thoughts. I’m simply enjoying the view.” He grinned, stroking the cheeks of my ass.

Letting out a pent-up breath, I pulled him to me with the strength of my calves, my heels bringing him closer. He rubbed against me, his length against my core, and I could swear that Purgatory burst into a rainbow of color, if only for a moment.

“Michael, I’m not worth the consequences you’ll face.”

“Yes, you are.” It was a pledge, a vow. When he slid inside me, he was gentle, almost painfully so. His body echoed the promise he made, while mine accepted his vow and made one in return. Our slow rhythm turned feral, wanting, needing, never enough, not enough. He slammed into me and I rose my hips to meet each thrust, gritting my teeth to keep from crying out.

Growling, he looked into my eyes, his turning magenta. “Don’t forget this moment. No matter what.”

“No matter what,” I echoed. I couldn’t forget him or this if I tried.

“I want this to last forever,” he breathed.

“I want to explode with you.”

Garnering his strength and my body to him, we came together. Dark feathers rained down on top of us, tickling our sensitive skin. A sense of foreboding filled my marrow.

What did I do? What did I ask him to do?

As Keeper checked on his murder and I slid my clothes back on one piece at a time, I heard rustling behind me from the direction of the forest. I expected Lessons, a hoard of demons. Something. But what I got was my father staring at me and motioning with one finger for me to follow him into the woods. I was conflicted, but I knew he might hurt Michael if I didn’t obey him, and I couldn’t let that happen.

“Use the Angel stone,” the familiar, velvety voice ordered.

I grabbed hold of it and brought it out of my pocket. “How did you know I had it?”

“I have my sources.”

Have you ever seen eyes that were vacuums; soulless orbs that showed no emotion? Serial killers, mass murderers, and terrorists all had those looks about them. So did my father. Those were the eyes of my father.

“I want you to come with me.”

“To the city? What do you want? For me to become a sex slave like you made my mother?”

His face contorted in anger. “Your mother is a slave no more, but I’m sure you know that already.”

“I sure as hell do. She’s in a place where you’ll never be able to hurt her again,” I said triumphantly.

“Is that what the angels told you? Aww, naive isn’t your color, Carmen. Suicides can’t enter the gates of Heaven. It is forbidden.”

Rage filled my veins, hot and fast. “My guess, Father, is that you know nothing about Heaven, and you never will.”

“No, but you may have just cost Michael everything. He’ll probably taste the fires of Hell because of you, and for that, I am forever in your debt.”

My stomach churned and I vomited toward his polished shoes. Had I damned him?

Father stepped back from the frothy mess and continued, “You need to come with me to see what you stand to inherit from the labors of my hard work. You’ll never understand this place unless you enter the city and stand in front of your people. The Keeper wants to keep you away. Why do you think that is?”