Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(95)

“You’re wearing lace,” he said when his fingers brushed the soft black fabric that hid her sex from him.

Husky laughter. “I was quite prepared to be bare, but I find I like this modern bit of froth. Each is equally pretty and useless and I have gathered a collection of them.”

Smiling because he adored her in every way, he shifted so he could roll the underclothing down her hips and over her legs. “Since they are so dear to you, I won’t tear them off like a ravenous wolf.” It was no big thing to go down on his knee in front of her so he could complete the disrobing.

They were beyond such petty power plays, he and his Zani. She’d been on her knees in front of him, too, doing things to him with that lush mouth that destroyed all sense of reason and turned him into nothing but a mindless being who craved the pleasure she could give him.

Today, she lifted one foot then the other to help him remove the scrap of lace. Crushing it in his hand, he lifted it to his nose and drew a long breath. She gasped out his name even as the scent of her musk engorged him near to pain. “Always,” he said, leaning in to press a kiss to the juncture of her thighs, “always you have been my addiction.”

Her fingers in his hair, her wings fluttering restlessly.

It was a simple thing to nudge her thighs apart as he dropped the lace. It was even simpler to spread her with his tongue, taste the liquid core of her. She shuddered, gripped harder at his hair. Grasping the back of one curvy thigh with his hand, he held her in place for his exploration, his thirst for her a thing that had been building eon after eon after eon.

“Alexander.”

The tremor in her voice as she said his name erased all extraneous thought, his only aim her pleasure. He had so much knowledge of her body, as she had of his, and he used all that knowledge to drive her to a quivering release, then gathered her up in his arms to carry her to the bed.

She smiled up at him, her hand rising to run through his hair.

The softness of the moment, the tenderness he allowed no other in his life, it stopped his heart.

When he laid her down on the bed draped in sheets of sunset, the colors fading from orange to cream, it was with equal tenderness. He didn’t hide himself from her in any way as he finished undressing—and it was nothing to do with the physical. Of all the people in this universe, it was Zanaya who knew him below the skin and above.

All his flaws.

All his gifts.

All his mistakes.

And still she opened her arms and embraced him when he came over her, his wings spread above them. Eyes soft, she ran her fingertips over the sensitive underside of one upper arch, making him hiss at the pulse that shot directly to his cock.

“I always somehow forget how very beautiful your wings are, lover, and then I see you again.”

Alexander wasn’t a vain man. Strength had always been more important to him than looks, but he found he was vain when it was Zanaya. “I shall do sky tricks for you, like I did as an infant archangel.” Playing with her in a way they hadn’t done for millennia before her Sleep. “You may act the maiden and admire me.”

Her laughter was sunshine over his skin. “I shall expect far better flight tricks now, for you’ve had centuries upon centuries to practice.” Round curves to her cheeks, her smile a light in her eyes.

“For you, Zani, I’ll learn such aerial tricks that they’ll put me in the history books and call me Alexander, Archangel of Aerial Acrobatics.”

She was still laughing when he kissed her, the contact intimate beyond bearing. It reached his heart, made it expand and expand, so big that he didn’t know how it could be contained within his chest.

Then she was stroking his back, wrapping her legs around his waist, and all he knew was her, all he felt was her. “Zani, my Zani.”



* * *



*

Zanaya had been in bed with Alexander plenty of times through their long history. Her favorite wakings had always been by his side . . . but she’d never told him that, she realized. She hadn’t wanted to give him that power, hadn’t wanted him to know just how important he was to her.

Foolishness.

“I hope to wake beside you again and again, lover,” she said, turning to look at him as they lay side by side. “Those dawns are always the most beautiful.”

“Yes,” he said simply and with the potent power of the general he’d always be, no matter how many other titles he wore. “We need to work out exactly how long we can be together before our powers begin to push us apart.”

Frowning, Zanaya said, “We know that already. More than a turn of the moon of constant contact puts us over the edge.”

“Caliane and Nadiel managed it longer,” he told her. “They also switched territories halfway through each ‘safe’ period, so that neither was without its archangel for long. And, unlike them, we’re neighbors, can meet for shorter visits more regularly. We should run trials, find the rhythm best for us.”

Hope bloomed inside her. Everyone knew that two archangels couldn’t live together always. It was a natural law. To hear that they might be able to see each other more often . . . “Will you tell me about Nadiel? I feel lost not knowing such an important element of Caliane’s history.”

“Come,” he said, an echo of old sorrow in his voice. “We’ll talk as we bathe.”