Should I throw caution to the wind and take her here and now like every instinct in my body begged me to do? Did I dare accept an eternity of consequences, for a short lifetime of bliss with the woman I loved? My chest tightened, my cock pulsed, and my head shook of its own accord.
“I can’t,” I finally rasped.
She went rigid in my arms, pulling away. Her expression broke my heart.
“Why?”
Why?What could I possibly tell her? Not the truth; that was off the table. How could I spare her feelings and avoid breaking my oath? I couldn’t lay with her. I couldn’t confess to her my true nature.
Jesus. I was damned, no matter what I chose.
And right now, losing my wings and braving an eternity in Hell seemed the better alternative than breaking her heart.
“Mel, we can’t. It’s…wrong,” I forced out, my resolve crumbling with each breath.
“Is it because you’re still in love with your ex?”
My ex? Holy shit, she was talking about Azraella, my archangel.
“No. I have no feelings for her. I never did.”
At least that wasn’t a lie. I couldn’t stand any more lies between us, they weighed heavy on our bond.
“Then why? I know you feel this…connection between us. Why else would you be around me all the time? Why are we so close yet you won’t even kiss me?”
Every fiber of my being ached in anguish.
Maybe I deserved to burn for her. Maybe I deserved an eternity of punishment for what I was putting her through. I knew the kind of pain that came along with not being able to touch your mate, to think they didn’t love you back…
Of course, she didn’t understand the true depths of the bond we shared but felt that jarring emptiness that came from the distance between us. She felt that gnawing hunger, the ache, that desperate desire to rut and revel in the other’s body.
She lifted her head, her eyes glittering in defiance. “Tell me you don’t have feelings for me. Look me in the eye and tell me, and I’ll drop it.”
God damn me to Hell because there was no way he wouldn’t after this.
I opened my mouth to lie again. But no words came. They refused. My inner beast wouldn’t let me say them. I couldn’t wedge another lie between us.
“I think we both know I have feelings for you, Melanie.”
The tang of salt tinged the air as hot tears rolled down her cheeks, mingling with the rain. “Then why won’t you kiss me?”
Before I could muster the willpower to push her away, she looped her arms around my neck and drew her body flush against mine, closer than we’d ever been.
“Gabriel.” Her voice was small, pleading. Her eyes beseeching, her full lips pouting, begging to be kissed. My gaze focused on those lips, coated with my name like a prayer.
She pressed up on her toes, her mouth grazing over the flesh of my throat, a tear-stained kiss ghosting my Adam’s apple. The heat of her body was hot against my skin, igniting me. Her pelvis swayed gently, hips grinding into mine. A slick, hot groan slipped past my lips as her body rubbed against my erection.
Her mouth twitched, tugging into the faintest of victorious smiles like she knew she was winning. She knew I’d break soon.
And my lecherous, sinful heart wanted me to break too.
But she didn’t know what she was playing at. This wasn’t a simple wall we were breaking down between best friends. We were breaking every rule the heavens themselves had etched into stone long before the ten commandments had been given to Moses.
She didn’t know the stakes.
Yet her tight, hot little body was so divine I realized I cared less and less about eternal damnation as the seconds crawled by.
“Mel…”
“Kiss me, Gabriel.”
This time, it wasn’t a request. It was spoken like an order, a command.
Something deep inside me yearned to obey, something that stretched beyond the rules of Paradise and their eons-old dribble about sin and temptation. It didn’t matter if I was an immortal shifter. That didn’t change the fact that I housed a beast inside me who lusted for my ward in ways that terrified me. And in this moment, my true nature didn’t give two shits how celestial or “holy” we were supposed to be. Our mate was calling to us, the scent of her need a fine perfume all of her making, and I couldn’t stand a second longer not knowing its taste on my tongue.
At that moment, I’d pay any price to bury myself inside her cunt and finally claim her as mine.
My wings, my immortality, and my very fucking soul.
