Chapter Nineteen
Mel
“I’m yours,” I whispered weakly. I was offering my heart to an angel. Really, it was always his, regardless of what he was. But out there, at that precise moment, it felt more like I was offering my soul to a demon. It was a sin. It was wrong. Forbidden. And it just made me want him all the more.
His hands curved around my shoulders, gentle yet firm, and pressed me down into the mud. I looked up at him, just able to make out his features in the dim glow of his wings.
“Say it again,” he gritted.
“I’m yours.”
One of his hands slipped beneath my neck, cradling it gently, and the other knotted in my sopping locks, anchoring my head back.
“Again.” This time it was an order, deep and guttural, and it sent me into a lustful frenzy.
“I’m yours, all yours, Gabriel. Not Paradise’s, not the wolves’, not anyone’s but yours.”
I gasped as I felt his mouth on my throat, pressing fevered kisses to my neck. His lips were fire on my skin, causing me to melt in his arms. I dug my nails into his shoulder blades, clutching onto him for dear life, his weight pressing me into the mud.
The rain pounded down over us. Most of his frame protected me from the downpour so that I was instead drowning in him. We were sweaty, our breathing ragged, covered in mud and grime.
And we didn’t give a fuck.
We were together, for the first time ever, that invisible wall between us had crumbled to dust.
We were soon a tangle of limbs with fevered heartbeats pounding against the other’s torso. He buried his face in my neck, my chest, his hot breath spilling over my exposed, rain-soaked cleavage.
Finally, our lips met through the dark in an earth-shattering kiss. It was explosive, cementing us together in ways I was finally beginning to fathom. He gripped my ass with one hand so hard I whimpered in his mouth. He growled, suckling on my bottom lip as if intent on eating me whole. And oh God, I would let him.
I never wanted to break that kiss, but my chest began to burn, and my head swirled in blissful delirium. I broke away, gasping. “Your turn,” I panted.
“What?”
“Say you’re mine. And don’t lie. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
Gabriel’s wings wrapped around me, pulling me tight against his body. His eyes closed, thick blond lashes pebbled with raindrops. He pressed his brow to mine and smiled.
“I’ve always been yours. Problem was, I couldn’t admit it to myself until tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been told my entire life that I belonged to Paradise, that you belonged to Paradise. But that was a lie. They don’t own us. We belong only to each other.”
I, too, closed my eyes and allowed myself to drown in the reverence of his words.
His one hand remained anchored in my hair as the other slipped down my body, tracing my curves. Gabriel had two sides. One, kind and gentle, attentive. It was the side that spoiled me with expensive things, even though I complained. It was the part that took care of me when I was sick, went on late-night chocolate and tampon runs when I was on my period, the part that I caught staring at me when those heartbreaking ASPCA commercials came on TV, and I couldn’t help but cry. Then there was this new part of him, the part I was learning wasn’t so new. It was the hungry, feral side. The one who’d crushed the Tacoma Pack beta in a matter of seconds, the one who’d taken me up against the alley wall, unleashing a wicked lust from which I still ached. And I was ready for seconds.
His palm curved down over my hip bone, hovering there for a second to trace it before gripping my bare, mud-caked thigh. His fingers curled beneath the hem of my dress, sending little electric tingles rushing down my spine in anticipation.
When we were like this, he’d all the grace and delicacy of a rabid animal rutting its mate out in the open.
I loved every filthy, depraved second of it.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, making my blood sing as the angel bunched my dress around my hips and hooked his finger into my panties. My jaw went slack as he tore them clean off me with a stiff jerk and tossed them into the mud.
“Gabe, please,” I moaned underneath him.
“Please what?” he whispered through a silky grin, the evident need in his voice stirring my core. The place between my legs pulsed and throbbed with a need that only he could sate. I was ravenous for him.
