Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
She smiled, and yes, it was pride that heated her blood. So many years they’d been apart and still he looked at her with that wild storm in his eyes. There was no shield of an archangel powerful and remote, and no sign of the general so inscrutable that his enemies could never guess at his motives or planned moves.
This was the Alexander that Zanaya alone saw.
Needing to touch him, she closed the distance between them. “You’re overdressed, lover.” A husky purr against his chest as she ran her hands down the beaten dark brown of his leathers, but it was a bittersweet joy that ran through her veins. “I could almost imagine these being the same set I gifted you once.”
He closed his hand over her wrist, his hold rough with warmth. “I wore those until they fell apart. I was so angry with you, but still I wore them.” Dropping his head to her own on that rough confession, he crushed her lips with his own.
She didn’t mind.
Their love had never been a gentle thing.
Thrusting her hand into the thick silk of his hair, she gripped hard as she kissed him back with just as much fury, just as much need. Being on tiptoes was her usual state when they kissed, even though he always bent for her, but never had she felt at a disadvantage. Here, they’d always, always, been equals.
When he took hold of her hips and lifted, she moved with him, ended up with her legs locked around his waist. He was so strong and warm against her, the fluid muscle of him obvious even through his leathers. They’d been in this position so many times that it felt as easy as breathing.
Zanaya could remember laughing and running to him on a visit, wrapping her legs around his waist as he held her while they kissed, utterly delighted to see each other. So many times she’d run into his arms, this archangel who was the only man in all of eternity who’d ever had the power to cause her pain.
Today, however, when they drew apart with their chests heaving, there was no pain, only an ache that came from having missed him even in her Sleep. “Hello, lover,” she murmured.
He kissed the tips of her fingers when she ran them over his lips, and she remembered that no, they weren’t always so passionate and almost angry with each other in bed. There’d been tenderness too, long ago, before the fractures grew too great. Before they both bled too much. Before the wounds hardened into scars.
Unable to look back at the unbearable sweetness of what had once been, she ravaged his mouth in another untamed kiss while tearing at his leathers. He got the message, pulled back only long enough to rip the top off over his head and throw it to the tiles. It fell with no sound, the leather beyond soft after so many years against his skin.
Running her hands over that skin, over the warmth and muscle of him, she gloried in the now, in this moment when Zani was with her Alexander. The steam from the bath floated in the air, lingered against his skin and her own, and when she dropped her mouth to his throat, she tasted salt.
A shudder, one of his hands fisting in her hair.
He’d always been sensitive along his throat. She kissed the strong column, her memories of him an imprint on her soul. Always she’d remember how he liked to be touched, how he liked to touch in turn. Even when they hadn’t been able to speak to each other, mute with anger, they’d been able to communicate through touch.
“Zani.” A rough caress against her temple as he pulled her mouth from his throat and claimed it with his own once more.
You’d think that after all eternity, she would’ve had enough of his kiss, he enough of hers.
But no.
It would never be enough.
The wanting had never been the problem between them.
She sank into the kiss, into him. And when he broke it to kiss the tops of her breasts while he used one big hand to caress each in turn, her wings fluttered restlessly. She might’ve felt akin to a trapped bird were they not so well matched. Because they were, she could surrender to the pleasure that was a stretching awake of nerves long asleep.
Shuddering when he took her nipple into his mouth, she said, “It hurts.”
He stopped at once, looked up. “Zani?”
“It has been an eternity since I’ve felt such sensation.” She swallowed, pressed her fingers to his lips. “Yet the need eats me alive.” She stole a kiss, another. “Be with me. The rest can wait.” She hungered for the sense of completion that came with holding his body in her own, in feeling him move in that most intimate of ways.