Elena placed the invitation back in the envelope and set it down. “I’d like to meet Hannah.”
“Elijah is the one archangel,” he said, sliding the papers on his desk aside and putting his hands on her waist to lift her onto the solid surface, “who I might one day trust.” Making a space for himself between her thighs, he placed his hands on either side of her h*ps on the desk. “But I will not take you into the heart of his territory. Not yet.”
His hunter’s expression shifted, became contemplative. “No,” she murmured. “Not yet. I’d make you too vulnerable. But I assume Hannah is powerful enough by now that Elijah doesn’t mind bringing her into your territory?”
Raphael closed one hand over the sleek muscle of her thigh. “I have never asked.” As the only archangelic consort before Elena, Hannah had always been considered off-limits, protected. It was a courtesy that hadn’t been extended to Elena, not just because she’d once been mortal—but because she was hunter-born . . . warrior-born.
Elena wrapped her arms around his neck. “Send the invitation. I want to talk to her—there’s so much I could learn from her.”
Settling his free hand on her rib cage, just below the curve of her breast, he spoke against her parted lips. “I cannot ask, Elena. The invitation was sent by Elijah’s consort, and must be responded to by mine. It is protocol.”
Elena scowled, brows pulling together. “How can it be protocol when there are only two consorts around?”
“Do you call me a liar?” He’d never enjoyed teasing anyone before he met his hunter.
Stroking her fingers through the hair at his nape, she used her teeth on his jaw. “I don’t know how to do all that fancy stuff.”
“You are my consort.” A kiss placed on her cheekbone. “You may do things any way you wish.”
Gray eyes rimmed with a very, very thin circle of purest silver met his as her fingers pressed on the back of his head. “Yeah? In that case, I think I’d like to distract you.”
He allowed her to bring them closer, angling his head so he could take that stubborn mouth, those soft lips. She tasted of wildness barely contained, a brilliant, blinding mortal fire. Ready for the blaze, he was startled to feel her hands move to cup his face, her hold tender in a way that leveled his defenses as she whispered, “Let me love you tonight.”
Enchained, he made no protest when she slid off the desk, switched off the lights, and turned to tug him to the warm glow of the fireplace. As he watched, she undid the straps that held her black top snug to her body and dropped it to the rug—to reveal lush br**sts he’d marked with his kiss more than once. Tonight, it was the fire that marked her, flickering over her skin and burnishing her in red gold, creating sultry shadows he wanted to explore with his mouth, his body.
She sighed in pleasure when he slid his hand over the curve of her waist, but her fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. He shrugged it to the floor the instant it was open, wanting her hands on him. She gave him exactly that. Palms flat on his chest, she stroked over his pectorals, his rib cage, his abdomen. “I could do this,” she mumured, exploring the ridges and dips of his body with a slow intensity that made his c**k throb, “for hours.”
Palming the erotic weight of her br**sts, he bent to press a kiss to her shoulder. “I’m afraid your consort does not have such patience.” He used his thumbs to tease her ni**les as she twined her fingers through his hair, as she tugged him up, as she seduced his mouth with her own.
When she drew back to kiss her way down his neck to his chest and lower, he permitted it. The night was yet young and he’d discovered he had a weakness for being loved by Elena. What wicked things are you planning to do tonight, Guild Hunter?
Kneeling in front of him, her wings spread behind her in an extraordinary display—gleaming midnight shading to indigo, to a deep, haunting blue before whispering into dawn and a shimmering white gold kissed by the firelight—she tilted up her head to give him a provocative smile. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” Reaching up, she undid the fastenings on his pants, brushing the rigid push of his c**k with her fingertips as she did so. He had no compunction in helping her strip off the remainder of his clothing, in standing na**d and aroused before her.
So proud, Elena thought, so beautiful. Fisting him with her hand, she stroked once, tight and smooth. His hand clenched in her hair, and when she looked up, she saw he’d thrown back his head, the cords of his neck standing out so strong and taut that she wanted to rise up, bite down on them. Then there were his wings, magnificent in their power.
He was pure addiction. And he was hers. To take. To pleasure.
Placing the palm of her free hand flat on the thick muscle of his thigh, she leaned in to lick at the head of his cock.
Elena. A warning not to tease.
Another night, she might have done just that, but tonight, she wanted to love him hot and sweet. Sliding her grip to the base of his arousal, she closed her mouth over the head. His shout was gritted out, those muscular thighs unyielding as rock as his hand pulled at her hair. And the taste of him ... Moaning around the rigid length covered by velvet-soft skin, she took an inch more. Sucked wet and deep.
A harder tug on her hair. Now, Elena.
She hadn’t had her fill, nowhere near close, but there were other ways to satiate her hunger. Releasing him after laving her tongue over the thick vein that ran along his arousal, she rose up and nudged him backward until his knees hit the back of one of the chairs not far from the fire. “Sit.”