Reaver(57)

She needed to feed, she needed to build her strength, and as much as she hated to admit it, she needed Reaver. Like it or not, he was her lifeline, and she had to grab hold and not let go. Otherwise, if they got caught, his sacrifice would have been for naught.

“Seriously?” he asked, in a gravelly voice that told her how tired he was. “Do I have to force you?”

She snorted. “As if you could.”

With a flick of his fingernail, he opened a vein in his throat the way he had last time. The heady, intoxicating scent of blood hit her like a blow, short-circuiting every thought that didn’t revolve around feeding.

She locked on to the crimson stream dripping down his neck, following the tendons that stood out starkly under his bronzed, perfect skin.

“Take it.” His eyes were heavy lidded now, his body relaxed, and her mouth watered.

He didn’t have to tell her again. In a heartbeat she was on him. Straddling his thighs, she opened her mouth over the cut. She wasn’t going to use her fangs, not this time. With her fangs, blood flowed too fast. She took too much. If she could drink slowly and limit her intake, she should be able to control her renegade Satanic DNA.

The first drops of blood hit her tongue, and she gasped as the sensation of grabbing a live wire ripped through her. She could feel the bones in her back begin to knit and form more framework for her wings and the ecstasy of angelic sex made her writhe. Images flashed in her head. Erotic images of Reaver slipping his hand under her shirt and sliding his palm up her thigh. Of him kissing her breasts, tonguing her nipples. Of him licking his way down her naked body to her sex.

“Verrine,” he whispered. “I want you. Damn… I remember you.”

Yes. Reaver’s voice filtered through her ears and heat flamed across her skin as the fantasies played out and his blood flowed over her tongue. But… no, this wasn’t right. The images in her head weren’t part of a fantasy. They were memories, and while Yenrieth had said he wanted her, just that once, he hadn’t said anything about remembering her.

And Reaver definitely wasn’t the angel who had made her come three times before he took her virginity.

Yenrieth.

That son of a bitch. Leave it to him to interrupt her time with Reaver.

Fool. It was Reaver who interrupted the memories of Yenrieth.

She jerked upright, so startled by that thought that she couldn’t focus on feeding. Reaver was breathing hard and staring at her as if he’d seen a ghost, but if anything, she’d seen a phantom. A phantom lover.

The memories of her night with Yenrieth had been with her for thousands of years, and other than the fact that she couldn’t remember what he looked like, they had never altered or dimmed. But somehow, today, they’d not just changed; they’d gotten better.

Or maybe Reaver’s blood running through her veins was messing with her head.

“Why did you stop feeding?” His voice carried a strange hitch to it, but as he threaded his fingers through her hair, his touch was astonishingly tender. “What’s the matter?”

Oh, I’m picturing your head between my legs, your mouth at my sex while you fuck me with your tongue. Why?

She probably shouldn’t lead with that. Still a little dazed from the trip down memory lane, she murmured, “I don’t look like a demon, do I?”

He used his free hand to tilt her chin up and down and from side to side, making a big production of deciding if she had gone all beastie. She tried to read him, to get a hint of what was running through that handsome head, but his eyes gave nothing away.

Finally, his gaze met hers, and oh, she’d been wrong about his eyes giving nothing away. They were filled with heat, longing, and the vaguest sense of… familiarity? Déjà vu? They hadn’t had sex before, but they’d both seen each other naked. That could explain it.

Except that, back in the cavern, she’d felt that same familiarity. A rightness that didn’t make sense.

Frankly, the mystery was starting to piss her off.

“You don’t look like a demon,” Reaver said, his voice gravelly, and she wondered how he’d sound after a long, hard night of sex. “You need to get some rest. Let my blood heal you.”

She shifted on his lap, nearly moaning at the feel of his hard shaft pushing against the fly of his jeans. She loved that she could affect him that way. Perhaps it was time that she demanded what he owed her.

Sex.

Erotic tension bloomed between them, thick and heavy, almost as if he’d read her thoughts. Maybe she didn’t need to invoke their deal. Maybe he’d sleep with her willingly.

And maybe she was a big idiot. Just because he’d rescued her didn’t mean he’d lower his lofty standards to screw a fallen angel. So yes, she could demand that he fulfill his end of their bargain… except that all of a sudden, forcing him to pleasure her seemed like a real shitty thing to do.