Laughter against her skin. What if I ask very nicely? With that, he began to move those knowing fingers in a rapid rhythm, bending his head to suck hard at her nipple at the same time ... before biting down with his teeth.
The orgasm rocked her so hard, she didn’t only see stars, she saw whole constellations exploding in a flash of white-gold. It was glorious, leaving her a wreck. When she was able to lift her heavy eyelids at last, she found Raphael rising to strip off the rest of his clothes. The beauty of him struck her anew. That body—powerful and dangerous, his c**k a heavy thickness. Eyes of a blue as vivid as the mountain sky at noon. Wings that could take him above the clouds in an unrivaled burst of speed; the breadth of those wings was exceptional.
As she watched, he reached down, fisted his cock. Pumped once. Twice.
The embers in her body flared to smoldering life. This time, when she raised her arms in silent invitation, he came. No more teasing, no more words. Her archangel pushed her thighs apart and took her with a hard, hot thrust that was an exquisite burn through flesh already swollen from the force of her first orgasm.
“Your mouth,” he said, and then he was taking that mouth as he moved his c**k in and out of her in a demanding rhythm that had a rich, dark heat rolling up over her body. This pleasure, it was primal and thick and visceral. It curled her toes, made her br**sts swell, and the delicate flesh between her legs flush anew with a rush of blood.
She’d never felt so possessed, so indulged. The orgasm built slower, lasted longer, hit harder. But this time, she felt the scalding rush of Raphael’s own pleasure, heard her archangel’s powerful wings snap wide above her as the muscles in his back flexed and bunched.
Her thoughts splintered.
13
There was only pleasure, no assault of nightmare that night, but Elena was still in no mood to speak to Jeffrey the next morning. “When am I ever in the mood?” she muttered as she landed in front of the tony town house guarded by metal gates on the eastern side of Central Park. She’d expected the meeting to be at his office at Deveraux Enterprises but had received a message an hour earlier moving things to this location.
It was a lovely home, as genteel and elegant as the woman who was Jeffrey’s second wife. The small area of greenery around it—an incredible luxury in the middle of Manhattan—was landscaped with a graceful perfection that somehow didn’t cross the line into severity. Elena couldn’t fault Gwendolyn’s taste, for all that some small part of her resented the woman for taking Marguerite’s place at Jeffrey’s side. But then, Marguerite wouldn’t have recognized the man her husband had become, so it was just as well.
Walking up three shallow marble steps with that hollow realization ringing in her skull, she pressed the doorbell to her father’s home, a home she’d never been invited to, never been welcome in, until this moment. The bell echoed inside, as if the house was empty. A minute, then two, passed without footsteps. Fully capable of believing Jeffrey had decided to leave her standing on the doorstep, she’d turned to head back down when the door was pulled open.
She glanced over her shoulder, a cutting retort ready on her lips. It died the instant she met the composed blue eyes of the society beauty twenty years his junior whom her father had married one fall while Elena had been at boarding school. “Gwendolyn,” she said with a politeness Marguerite had drummed into her. She’d run into her father’s second wife once or twice over the years, but neither of them had made the effort to strengthen the relationship beyond a cool formality.
“Elena. Come in.”
Glad that Gwendolyn at least didn’t seem to insist on using her full name, Elena walked in, conscious of the fact the other woman was studiously not staring at her wings. “I expected a maid,” she said, looking down the long foyer lined with small, softly lighted cubbies that held what were no doubt priceless objects d’art.
“This is family business,” Gwendolyn said, tugging at the sleeve of her jewel green silk shirt.
Elena frowned, not at the words, but at the restless movement—Gwendolyn was one of the most “together” people Elena had ever come across. But now that she was paying attention, she saw that the other woman’s eyes were shadowed, smudges of purple marring the rich cream of her skin. “What’s wrong?” she asked, suddenly realizing this might not be about Jeffrey playing power games after all.
Gwendolyn glanced down the corridor, stepped closer. “I know you don’t think of them as your sisters,” she said in a low, intense tone, “but I need you to stand up for my baby.”
Elena went to ask what the hell was going on when a door opened down the hall. Jeffrey’s tall form appeared a moment later. Dressed in charcoal pants bearing a faint navy pinstripe paired with a white shirt, the buttons undone at the collar, he was as casual as she’d seen him in the years of her adulthood.
Before ... She remembered the dreams, remembered the laughing paint-covered man who’d thrown her into the air and caught her on a sunny day flavored with the mingled scents of freshly cut grass, ice cream, and burgers. Long before the blood, before the death. Before the silence . . . and the shadow on the wall.
Steeling her spine against the devastating impact of the memories, she met his gaze, shielded as always by the clear glass of his metal-rimmed spectacles. “Why am I here, Jeffrey?” She knew Gwendolyn would say nothing now. Having seen them in public, she understood very well who held the reins.
It was nothing like the marriage Jeffrey had had with Elena’s mother—a woman who’d teased her husband as often as she’d kissed him. A woman whose body might have survived, but whose spirit had broken under the hands of the serial killer drawn to their small family home because of Elena. That was a guilt that threatened to turn her feet to lead, leave her defenseless in the face of what was almost certainly going to be a knock-down, drag-out confrontation—her meetings with her father never ended any other way.