Chapter Twenty-One
Mel
What a night.
This morning I was balancing my company’s spending accounts, and tonight I’d almost been kidnapped.Twice.
But the trauma of it all was numb, pushed to the furthest corners of my mind as my ravenous gaze wolfed up the sight of a completely naked Gabriel before me.
Naked. Completely bare, with his erection standing at attention for my inspection.
I’d had dreamed about this. About the moment he’d offer me every inch of that delicious muscular body, wrapped up in taught, tanned skin. He certainly felt like a divine being, and now that he was standing completely nude under the fluorescents of his master bathroom, I knew that a male of such perfection could only have been created by God himself.
We’d been together twice this evening, both times in the complete dark. Gabriel’s bathroom, on the other hand, was better lit than most national monuments.
Before, I had always wondered how he managed to stay so ripped with a stay-at-home job. He had the powerful thighs and biceps of a wrestler and the tight abdominal muscles that would rival all of the USA Olympic swim team.
He turned on the showerhead and slid me a smoldering gaze over his chiseled shoulder, one that penetrated the curtain of rising steam, running me through.
“Come here,” he ordered through a husky growl. It was the sort of command that made my skin prickle with excitement.
I obeyed. Gabe’s hands were on me in an instant, running down the length of my body, tracing my curves, each graze of his finger an act of worship.
“You’re so beautiful; I can’t believe you’re mine. Finally, allmine.”
I pulled back to look him in the eye. “Gabe, if they find out what we’re doing, you’ll lose your wings. Do you really not care?”
His expression hardened as he pulled me into the glass enclosure of the shower. The hot water felt absolutely transcendent on my sore body. The mud and blood caked on my skin washed away, dirty water spiraling down the drain at my feet. But I still felt filthy. Maybe because I didn’t like knowing what he might be giving up, just for the sake of being with me. It didn’t sit right in my stomach.
“Of course I care.” He picked up the shampoo bottle and began washing my hair, messaging my scalp, and working out the knots in my hair with attention and care. I closed my eyes, letting my muscles unclench beneath the comfort of his hands.
“My wings are important to me. They’re a part of my beast. Without them, I can’t let him out. The fallen are essentially trapped in their human form forever. And when we lose our ability to shift, we lose our immortality. We live a normal human lifespan, and when we die, we go to the Pit.”
“That’shorrible.”
Learning that Heaven and Hell were real places was a terrifying fact all on its own. But hearing how regimented Paradise was and how unforgiving the punishment was for falling in love of all things, well, that was just a hard pill to swallow.
“You hate Lucifer. What if he doesn’t let you out of Hell?”
“If my wings are taken from me, that’s something I’m not going to have to worry about for at least fifty years. That’s fifty years I get to spend with you. Fifty years with my fated one seems to me a pretty good trade-off for eternity with that asshole.” Gabe chuckled. “Now rinse.”
I stepped back under the showerhead, relishing the hot torrents of suds and water streaming down my body.
“Fated one? You mean like a fated mate?”
“That’s right.”
“The Tacoma Pack beta said you’d marked me. Is that like claiming a mate?” I opened my eyes to see Gabriel nodding.
“Yes. Any shifter, celestial, wolf, or otherwise will know that you’re mine simply by proximity.”
“How?”
The corners of his mouth quirked. “Your scent.” He stepped forward and gently cupped the cleft between my thighs, his fingers running over my folds. “You carry my scent here.”
My mouth went slack, watering from the depravity of it. The idea of walking down the street, and any shifter I passed would know what Gabe had done to me…? Fuck, why was that so hot?
His gaze grew heated, dropping to my navel. He grasped my hips and pushed me against the shower wall, pinning me beneath his weight. I felt every hard muscle clenched tight against me.
