How to Seduce an Angel in 10 Days (8 page)

“He had no right to do that to you, Tally. It was an abuse of power.”

“And he wants you to do the same. He wants you to be angry. He probably thinks he can corrupt us because we have history. He’ll play us against each other if he can.”

“Aren’t I the one supposed to be giving this speech?”

Tally laughed. “I guess it was my turn today. That would be pretty cool if we could save each other, don’t you think? I mean, I kind of owe you.”

“You mean like in those books Middy likes to read?” He smirked. “I’m not romance novel material, baby.” But wouldn’t it just be something if he was?

“Why not? We live in a world with magick. Lots of people think that’s a fairy tale. So why can’t I save you, too? It’s not like I asked for shining armor or anything. Dred’s already got that buttoned up.”

Something sharp and hot flared at the comment. He didn’t like it. “I can’t believe Middy got him to wear shining armor for their wedding.”

“Well, he was willing to die and damn himself for her, so I’d think wearing armor would be a little thing in comparison. I think he already wore the thing to a Samhain mixer at Academy, anyway. As much as he denies it, he likes it.”

“As well he should. He’s lucky my sister even looked twice at him.”

“I know. He wasn’t even put off by the Trifecta.”

“That never stopped you,” Falcon replied.

“You never struck the fear of Merlin into warlocks on my behalf.”

“Oh, I beg to differ,” he began and the garden gnome handed them each a towel.

“Really? Who?”

“Grigori Hampsteath.”

“He stood me up for—You ass. I cried on your shoulder about that for half the night.” She handed the towel back.

“I knew you’d be angry, but he was running his mouth about getting you to put out, so I encouraged him to steer clear of you if he wanted to keep his teeth and his balls.”

“Falcon, people have always been talking about me. Ever since my father was convicted and sentenced to the Hall. Then my mother went crazy and killed herself. I was always fodder for the gossip mill. Since birth, apparently. You know I don’t care what people say.”

“I know. But you deserved better than that.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked her head against his chest. “And here you said you didn’t wear shining armor.”

He found himself wishing for just a moment that he could be that warlock—the one that the shining armor would fit.

CHAPTER NINE

Cupid, Drop Your Bow

T
he first part of her parole with Falcon was almost over, thank Merlin.

Tally was torn between wanting to see Falcon all the time and never wanting see him again. He hadn’t brought up the Crimson Tide Incident, or the Werewolf Incident. In fact, he acted like none of it had happened. She supposed that was just as well. It was a Shall Not, after all.

He’d stuck to her like a burr, as he’d promised. They spent a lot of time on the beach, walking and talking, shelling. She had a whole basket of shells that she had no idea what to do with, but had wanted nonetheless. He cooked out, she dragged him on the dolphin-watching cruise, and they did all of the tourist things the island had to offer. She’d been so nervous about being alone with him, but he treated her like she was one of the guys, or worse, his little sister’s friend.

Tally couldn’t make up her mind; she thought that was what she wanted, to go back to the way things had been. For him to forget everything that had happened between them because it seemed the universe was decidedly against it. That wasn’t what she wanted at all, but it was what she needed. Her body cried out in protest that what she needed was to get laid—hard and fast by the sex in leather that was Falcon Cherrywood in his full Cupid regalia.

Whenever she’d pictured Cupid in her younger years, it had always been as a petulant child with a Botticellian mouth and a little bow and arrow. A stereotype? Sure, but it was what she’d been taught. Not this giant of a man with shoulders like Atlas, guns strapped to his thighs, and a mouth that could despoil a cleric with a smile.

Tally was embarrassed to admit she was looking forward to his turn in
Weekly Warlock
. He’d be 3-D pervy goodness all for her ogling. Tally wondered briefly how mortal women got along without live-action centerfolds. That wasn’t something she ever wanted to know firsthand.

She’d reenact the scene from the living room, among other things. She’d dress him up like a Victorian lord, a SWAT commander, maybe even a gunslinger outlaw from the American West. He could show her how to sit a horse and she could practice on him. She licked her lips at the thought and had to cross her legs for fear of getting stuck to the chair like an industrial suction cup. Something like that ran right down her vein of luck. She’d end up having to explain to the object of her nefarious desires that she’d been fantasizing about him and had gotten so wet . . .

No. She’d just have to put him from her mind.

She popped another cookie in her mouth, and then spit it out into a napkin. Her jeans were starting to get tight on her ass and with no magick to move a button one way or another, she had to watch what she ate.

No magick definitely sucked.

Tally looked down and realized she might as well have eaten that last cookie, because it had actually been the last. There wasn’t anything left but the empty package staring up at her with reproach in its little crumb eyes.

Falcon was going to be back any minute and she was wallowing in cookie crumbs in her not so skinny jeans, and hadn’t brushed her hair. Damn the no magick twice on Sunday.

Tally crammed the cookie package into the full trash can and cringed. She’d never had a full trash can before. What did one do with it when it was full? The cleaning gnome took care of that. She prayed no magick didn’t also mean no cleaning gnome. She wasn’t sure if she could stand it. Previously, the house had just stayed clean; she wondered who did it if not the cleaning gnome?

She didn’t have time to wonder further. When Falcon came through the door, she could tell something had definitely changed. Perhaps it was because he was in partial Cupid regalia. He had guns strapped to his hips and thighs and he was wearing the red leather pants.

“Hard day at the office?” she asked in a saucy tone.

“You have no idea. The Cherubim are harder to corral than sock gnomes and have sharper teeth. My brothers both got blind dates with Valkyries and the gals won’t stop calling
my
WitchBerry asking when Hawk and Raven are going to call them. They’re Valkyries, for Merlin’s sake.”

“Women are pretty universal, Falcon. Even hardass warrior chicks with big swords. I’ve heard stories about them though. If they get tired of waiting for your brothers to call, they might decide a raid is in order.”

Falcon grinned. “As in a pillaging sort of raid, like in the days of yore?”

“Yeah. Picture Raven and Hawk trussed up like game birds and tossed over a Valkyrie’s shoulder.”

He pulled his WitchBerry out of thin air and started texting.

“What are you doing?”

“Telling the girls they won’t be getting a call any time soon.”

“Are you sure you’re an angel?” Tally asked.

“Not entirely, no,” Falcon admitted with another devastating grin. “I’m trying to get a transfer. Too bad Death’s not open.”

“See, I always knew Cupid was a dick.”

“That hurts, Tally.” He pretended to clutch his heart.

She snorted. “I’m sure. You’re the Angel of Love and you’d rather be traipsing about the underworld? I bet no one ever falls in love ever again.”

“Would that be a bad thing?”

“It would be horrible. That’s one of the things about living that makes it worthwhile; makes being human worthwhile. Love shows the best of what we have to offer the universe.”

“So, why do you blame it for following Vargill blithely down the primrose path?” Falcon asked as he stepped inside.

Tally slumped and sighed. She didn’t blame Vargill for the great and terrible evil. “I don’t. I know everything I did was my own fault. It was easier when I could blame someone else, though.” After their initial rocky start, Falcon had turned out to be pretty good at the parole gig. “I guess there’s a reason you’re Heaven’s parole officer. You’ve got this Big Brothering down to an art.”

She was suddenly crushed against him. “I’m not your brother.”

“No, but you are my parole officer,” Tally reminded him gently. Her palms were on his chest, keeping the illusion of space between them.

Goddess, this was what she’d dreamed about—his hands on her body again, the electric current of skin to skin. It would be so easy to tilt her face up to his, to beg him to take her on her back on the floor, bent over the couch....

“I don’t want you to go with Ethelred tomorrow.” Falcon still held her, his dark eyes serious.

“Don’t do this to me, Falcon,” she said as she looked down, her eyes on his chest rather than meeting his gaze. If she met his gaze, her lashes would flutter closed, her lips would part and she’d be writhing beneath him, just as she yearned to do, but this wasn’t right for them. Not now.

“I can see it in your aura, Drusilla. I know you want me,” he said as if it were only a matter of desire.

She dared to look up at him, moving her hands to his shoulders. “We can’t.”

“Oh, but we can. Merlin repealed the Shall Not.”

“It’s not just that, Falcon.” Goddess, he was going to kiss her and she wanted him to; she wanted it with every fiber of her being. She wanted it too much.

“What is it then? What’s changed?”

“Everything! I don’t want to be the person I was before,” Tally exclaimed and tried to twist away from him, but he held her firm.

“Then don’t be.”

Falcon tilted her chin up carefully with his thumb and forefinger. His descent was measured; a practiced stroke of seduction, but Tally couldn’t fight him. She craved his lips, his hands on her body, the fire she’d never felt with anyone but him. Tally leaned into his strength, and surrendered to her desire.

Falcon’s lips touched hers and the world fell away like a discarded gown to pool at her feet. Nothing was real but this, nothing mattered but this. Falcon was her only sensation; time began and ended in a single kiss.

She knew there was no stopping this runaway train between them, no matter what path either of them took. It had always been destined to come back to this moment. If she’d stayed that night Tristan Belledare had asked her out to Academy graduation, she would have fallen into Falcon’s arms then. Deep inside her heart, Tally knew it to be true. She’d been fighting the inevitable for years; she’d seen it in his eyes that night so long ago and it had scared her. Tally had run right into Tristan’s arms because she’d never believed that she could have something she wanted so much. Not without some terrible price.

Falcon was here right now, asking her not to leave again. Only this time, she didn’t have a choice. She had to go to Ethelred, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t hold on to Falcon tonight, if she dared to grasp at this thing between them.

Even if it burned hot and fast, only to flicker dark after this moment, it didn’t matter. Tally gave herself over to the burn and when she opened her mouth to his kiss, the flame became a wildfire.

“Drusilla,” he whispered raggedly against her mouth.

He was still asking, still giving her the choice. “Yes, Falcon. Yes.”

His hands slid up her rib cage beneath her shirt, over the lace cups of her bra, and he eased her shirt over her head. Falcon pushed the straps of her bra down her shoulders and Tally found her back against the wall and his knee between her thighs.

He bent his head and undid the front hook with his teeth and filled his palms with her breasts. Falcon took a nipple into his mouth, his tongue flicking the hard peak before his thumb replaced his tongue and he touched his mouth to her throat, the corner of her jaw, and just beneath her ear.

“Tell me how you want it, Tally.” His breath was warm on the shell of her ear. “Do you want it hard?” Falcon tugged roughly on her hair, but his mouth was gentle on hers before he spoke again. “Or have you dreamed of a tender lover?” He skimmed his forefinger lightly down her cheek.

She was so aware of herself, of her breasts rising and falling with her breathlessness, the throb between her thighs, the way each time he touched her the contact was an epicenter for concentric circles of pleasure that rippled ever outward.

“What have
you
dreamed of, Falcon?” She pushed her fingers through his hair and arched her body against him.

“Touching you. Seeing your face when you come for me.”

“And is it rough? Do you pull my hair and fuck me hard, or are you gentle?” She worked the button free on his leather pants and sank to her knees.

She freed his cock and wrapped her hand around the hard length of his shaft. Her eyes never left his. She watched him as her hand moved in a steady rhythm. Watched even when she used her mouth, her tongue laving over the tip.

Tally liked the feel of him in her mouth and the knowledge that she pleasured him; the way his eyes went impossibly dark as he watched her with a growing intensity. His cock surged and she increased the pressure and speed of her mouth and hand.

A low groan escaped him and he stepped back from her. “You have to stop.”

“Don’t you like it?” Tally asked as she got to her feet.

“It’s been too long,” Falcon said and swept her into his arms. He held her aloft as if she weighed nothing and carried her to the bedroom, where he eased her down on the bed.

“How long?” she dared to ask, afraid of the answer.

“Two years.”

He’d not been with anyone since his last relationship. Tally didn’t know what to make of that revelation. She didn’t want to think about what it meant, or if it meant anything at all.

Falcon settled between her thighs and unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off her hips in a fluid motion. He pressed his mouth to her stomach just above her mound and moved lower.

“Aren’t you afraid?” she whispered.

“Of what?” he said softly against her skin. Falcon slipped one finger inside her and she cried out, clenching around the invasion. He dipped his head again, and tasted her, his tongue on her clit.

“That I—oh,” she breathed.

There was no more room for coherent thought—only the awareness of his mouth on her, his tongue as it flicked that swollen nub, his fingers in her slick channel. It wasn’t enough; she wanted his cock inside her.

His mouth drove her need further, demanding she open for him, that she submit to his pleasures instead of her own. He wanted to taste her, wanted her to come for his lips and hands. He told her this with every swirl of his tongue, every thrust of his fingers. It was the sweet sound of pleasure that flowed beneath his every breath and Tally swore she could feel it.

The pinnacle came hard and fast. She’d not even dared touch herself in all this time. She’d been afraid of what she’d find. Even after the night of the reception. One moment, she was teetering on that ledge between bliss and need and in an instant, she’d fallen over the edge. Darkness enveloped her. She had no sense of sight or sound and endless waves of scorching pleasure tore through her.

Just as she thought she’d reached the crest, Falcon rose above her and pushed his cock inside her sheath. Tally cried out and hooked her legs around his waist as he drove into her. That crest had only been a plateau, a place where she waited for the next rush of sensation to claim her. Her passage clenched around him and pulled him deeper and Falcon froze.

“What’s wrong?” Tally’s high crashed. What if the great and terrible evil had come back? What if she’d hurt him?

He didn’t speak, but kissed her again, thrusting inside her, and his whole body went rigid. Tally realized there wasn’t anything wrong; he’d spilled inside her.

“Shit.” His lashes brushed his cheeks and he pressed his forehead to hers.

Shit? Oh, Goddess, not again!

“Like I said, it’s been a long time.”

“I was scared I’d hurt you,” she confessed.

“My pride, maybe.” He dropped a brief kiss to her lips. “Being inside you was too much after wanting it for so long.”

It was only a few moments before Falcon’s breathing was deep and even. He was asleep! Not that she was a cuddle in the afterglow kind of girl, but it would have been nice to have had the option.