I watched him, really watched, as he busied himself clearing the counter and wiping down the glassy surface with a bar towel. His movements were careful, deliberate, the way a man might shift his weight in a room full of glassware he’d already been accused of breaking. Even in this house, even alone with me, Samiel was tethered—pulling in his wings, using the slow rhythm of busywork to keep his claws off my skin. Maybe some part of him still believed he was a walking hazard, an accident waiting to happen. I recognized the feeling. I’d spent most of mylife trying not to be too much, only to wonder if I’d accidentally made myself into nothing at all.
It hit me then what I wanted out of this—what I needed, beyond the sex and the dare. I didn’t say any of this—didn’t want to spook him, or worse, make him think I was after some kind of project or redemption arc. Instead, I kicked off the barstool, licked the brine from my lips, and closed the distance between us. His back was still turned, wings tucked so tightly that the edges trembled, and I reached out—careful, this time—and ran my hand along the velvet membrane where it joined his shoulder blade. He shivered, startled, but didn’t pull away.
CHAPTER
SIX
Samiel
Her hand, cool from the marble, traced along the join of sinew and skin at the top of my wing. No one had ever touched me there—at least, not without intention to wound; not without gloves, or the insulation of intimidation, or the clinical curiosity of the town’s infernal physician. Annie’s touch was exploratory, as if she’d found the seam of a new world and wanted to pry it open with her fingers. The shock of it almost buckled my knees.
My first thought was:don’t flinch. The second was:what if I do?
She didn’t rush. Her nails grazed the leading edge, right where the flesh thinned and you could see the black thread of veins spidering beneath the surface. No one, not even another demon, had ever lingered there. It was where our armor ended and our risk began. The spot was so sensitive that the entire wing trembled under her touch, shivering in a way that was almost embarrassing. I tried to hold as still as possible.
The sensation was so acute, I almost missed what she said next, the sound of her voice muffled by my own pulse.
“Do you let anyone else touch you like this?” Her tone was playful but edged, a knife wrapped in velvet. “Because I’m not in the market to be another notch on some industrial-strength zipper, Samiel.”
I blinked, struggling to parse the words through the static in my skull. The question didn’t offend; it cut. She was watching me in the glass, eyes locked on the shudder of my wings, daring me to lie. I didn’t.
“No,” I said. “No one.” I let the word vibrate in the open air, let it shiver out of my chest and into her hand. “No one ever.” I meant for it to sound like a boast, but it came out hushed and small.
She held my gaze in the glass, searching for cracks. “Good,” she said. “Because I don’t want to be the training wheels for your next bride. Or your rebound from existential exile.”
There was an edge of something unfamiliar in her voice—not jealousy, but a kind of stubborn pride, the territory of a woman determined not to be just another experiment for a creature built to survive centuries of them. She kept her hand on my back, but her spine stiffened, and in the glass I saw her chin lift just a hair.
I rolled the words in my mouth, tasting their weight. “I’ve never had a bride. And there won’t be a next,” I said. “You’re it, Annie.”
She gave a noise halfway between a laugh and a scoff, but it came out bright, like the sour snap of a green grape. “You say that like it means something. Like there aren’t a thousand other girls with bad dye jobs and irreparable emotional damage queued up just waiting for their demon experience.”
A flush crept across my face, hot enough to burn. “Maybe, but they’re not you.” I said it with finality.
She stared, her eyes full of disbelief and something else—fury, maybe, or the kind of hope that erodes itself before it ever gets a foothold. The touch on my wing stilled, but didn’t leave. In the glass, her pale arms looked almost spectral against the red-black lattice of muscle and membrane, and I wondered if she saw what I did—a creature so vulnerable in its want that it could only be a kind of suicide to admit it.
“Prove it, then. Don’t just fuck me like I’m the first. Make me feel like I’m the only.” Her fingers closed tight at the base of my wing, nails biting in, and the simultaneous spike of arousal and panic made me want to howl.
She tugged me to face her, a brisk, efficient motion that belied her size. Even after what we’d just done, even with my pulse still rabbiting in my throat, I went like a lamb. A horn caught in her hair; she untangled it with a practiced snap, then wrapped both arms around my neck, her wrists crossed and locked behind me. She pressed her mouth to mine, patient and merciless, the taste of her still bright on my tongue, and when I kissed back, I tried to flood her with every lonely year, every ounce of longing I’d ever learned to hide. She seemed to sense it. She broke for air, all fierce little gulps, and looked me dead in the eye.
“Sam,” she said, “can we do it in a bed this time?” Her voice was light, bordering on a tease, but I caught the flicker underneath.Let’s make it count, let’s do this right.
I wanted to say something cool, a line she’d remember, but all that came out was, “Yeah. Yes. Of course.”
My hands, which could have ripped the counter in two, cupped her face with a care that bordered on reverence. I gathered her up, wings arching for balance, and carried her through the house. She weighed nothing. No—she weighed exactly what she ought to, a perfect counterbalance to the heaviness I’d carried inside me for decades.
The bedroom was at the far end of the hall, and I was unprepared for how much it looked like a magazine ad from the 1950s—tasteful, not tacky, a king-sized bed with a button-tufted headboard, walnut dressers, and a pair of globe lamps that cast honey-colored halos onto the walls. The comforter was a watermelon-pink paisley, faded from a thousand washes, and the carpet—yes, real, actual carpet—was so plush that Annie’s toes disappeared in it as soon as I set her down. On the far side of the room, a sliding glass door opened onto a balcony, the lake glimmering in the darkness beyond.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. Annie wandered to the bed, trailing her fingers along the coverlet, her eyes wide and a little dazzled. She looked so small next to the enormous bed. I hovered on the threshold, taking in the sight of her, still in a towel, in the room we would be sharing for the next three days—that is if it all worked out. I was hungry for her, but wanted to let her lead. I’d spent the last forty years smothering my want.
She perched at the edge of the bed, towel crimped tight around her, and gave me a look that was equal parts challenge and invitation. I couldn't tell if she wanted me to pounce or keep my distance, but the uncertainty only added to the tension, stretching it taut as a guitar string.
"You know," she said, tilting her chin and feigning a casualness I recognized as armor, "I always do things in reverse order. Sex first, then intimacy. I like to know what I'm getting into before I get to the part where we talk about our parents and our favorite childhood pets." She let the towel slip a little at her collarbone, as if to make her point. "Keeps the expectations low, and the surprises good."
I laughed. Her logic was flawless. "So what comes after sex and intimacy?" I asked, following her in, looming deliberately just inside the doorway. The honey glow caught every line of her, the war paint on her eyelids almost shimmering. She looked atme not like prey, not like a test, but with a hunger that mirrored my own.
She grinned, a flash of teeth and cosmic ulterior motives. "Usually? Snacks. Then overthinking. But I think we already covered both of those, so..." She stretched out, arms above her head, the towel giving up its last pretense at modesty and falling away from her body. The motion was so deliberate, so unhurried, that it made me want to worship her every inch. Even demons had their gods. Mine was suddenly laid out on a melting paisley comforter, staring the devil in the face and daring him to do his worst.
"Come here, Samiel," she said, her voice dropping to a register that made the rest of the world go mute. "You’re thinking too much.”
