Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(67)

“Yes, he would’ve kept his notes close by.” She searched Titus’s face. “That you didn’t immediately assume dishonor says much about you, Titus.”

Waving aside her words, he said, “We don’t know what ugliness pollutes the air of Charisemnon’s border stronghold.”

“If it’s enough to kill an angel of my age,” she said with equanimity, “then the world is indeed in trouble and it’d be better if we knew now.”

Titus didn’t want to agree with her, but she was right. He gave a curt nod.



* * *



*

But when dawn broke after a night of brutal work against shrieking, vicious reborn, he said, “If you wait until I’ve finished with the stragglers, I’ll accompany you.”

Sweaty and dirty and tired above the field of battle, a small woman with a giant spirit, she compressed her lips. “Will I cause a security problem by going as soon as I clean up? Do you need me in the field in the hours to come?”

He could lie to her and she wouldn’t know any different, but Titus was no liar. “No, I’m sending most of the squadrons and ground teams back home to rest and recharge.”

“What of Charisemnon’s court?” she asked. “I don’t wish to cut into your people’s precious rest time by needing to take a security detail.”

Again, he didn’t lie. “The stronghold is safe, with a permanent guard squadron.” He’d always intended to more fully investigate his enemy’s base. “It is, however, apt to be disgusting. We hauled away the bodies and blasted water over the main floors, but had no time for a deeper clean.”

“I’m not afraid of a little mess.”

No, she wasn’t, he thought, recalling how she’d helped pile the reborn carcasses for the bonfire. “I’ll assign you a fighter from the guard squadron on the off-chance we missed anything.”

Titus’s people had swept the stronghold top to bottom, but there was no point in taking chances . . . especially with Sharine, this angel who was causing a reaction in him for which he very much wasn’t ready. “I wouldn’t have angelkind after my head because I didn’t take care of the Hummingbird while she was in my keeping.”

“I’m not a relic to be hidden away.” Streaks of color on her cheeks that made her glow. “Neither do I belong to anyone but myself. I am not in anyone’s keeping.” Fire in her eyes, oh such brilliant fire.

It scalded him. And it made him hunger to burn himself in it.

He wanted to grip her chin, initiate the beginnings of a kiss. She’d probably stab him with her blade for daring. Because this woman, she wasn’t angelkind’s fragile treasure. She was Sharine, who’d bickered with him as they flew, and who’d offered him seconds of the dishes she’d noticed he liked best. A woman who was even now hovering toe-to-toe with him, her head tilted back to meet his gaze as he looked down.

He didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember her moving, but heat steamed the air between them. It was madness, but still he dipped his head and took her lips in a kiss that devoured. His hand was cupping the silken skin of her cheek before he knew it, and he well felt the shock of her own hand gripping his biceps; her nails bit into his flesh in a warning that she wasn’t happy.

But she didn’t end the kiss even when he hauled her closer and stroked one hand down to cup the lower curves of her body, his other arm locked around her upper back and his rigid cock pushing into her stomach. His head was smoke, filled with intoxication, his breathing jagged. And he craved. More and more and still more.





33


When she tore away her mouth and put air between them, they stared at one another, their chests heaving.

“No,” she said very firmly.

Mind hazed in a way it hadn’t been since he was a youth just discovering women, Titus didn’t react. Then the word finally penetrated and he took an automatic “step” back in the air; unlike some angels who burned with power, he didn’t believe that it was his right to take any woman he wanted.

He’d been raised by five very strong women, all of whom he respected to the core and all of whom would come after him with unsheathed blades if he disrespected any other woman in such a way. His mother would wake from her Sleep out of sheer disgust.

No, Titus didn’t force women. Ever.

However, there was no rule against making sure he had it right. “No for today?” he asked, because if so, she was right in stopping this—it wasn’t the time or place. He’d probably already shocked half his troops into a coma by manhandling her with such familiarity. “Or no forever?” It made his stomach tighten to ask the latter and the raw need of it terrified him, and yet he asked.

She’d dug her way under his skin, a burr he couldn’t dislodge . . . and didn’t want to reject. Surely, if he believed in such things, he’d say she’d done sorcery on him. But he didn’t believe in such things, and so he knew that this was something altogether different: a combustion between two opposing forces who’d somehow proven to be passionately compatible.

Her breathing, he was gratified to see, remained as unsteady as his when she said, “No for today.” Even as his lips began to curve, she brushed dust off her tunic and pants. “I have no desire to tie myself to any man—and you wish to remain free of entanglements also, yes?”