“Hungry?” she asked.
His gaze slid to her mouth, and his thumb stroked her lower lip. “Yes.”
She laughed, her heart easing a little. He truly was on the road to recovery. “I meant for food.”
“And I meant you.” He slipped his palm to her nape and brushed his mouth across hers in a tender glide. “From the moment you first kissed me, my life was never the same.”
She huffed against his lips. “I only meant to kiss your cheek, but you turned at the same time.”
“I know, and I’m damn glad I did.”
She stroked his bristly jaw. As an angel, he never had facial hair. Guess this was another change he’d have to manually take care of. She loved the feel of it. She traced his beloved features from his eyebrows down his straight nose to his sensual lips. “Wow, cussing now, my love?”
He pulled back. “Did I? Then you can thank those warriors I’ve now joined ranks with. They live and breathe cursing.”
She laughed. “I haven’t met most of them yet, only Aethan.” Then she sobered and tangled her fingers in his hair. “I missed you so much in the last week…” Her eyes burned. “You could have died!” She thumped his chest. “And you nearly did. You heard what the goddess said. I could’ve kept you tethered, anchored you?—”
“Yes, under normal circumstances, but my fall was doomed from the onset,habibti. The Supreme Seraphim would never have let me live.” He glided his fingertips over her shoulder.
Her throat tightened. And they both would have died. Emotions choked her. Feeling as if her heart would explode, she slid her hands around his neck and hugged him. “I love you.”
His stroking fingers on her bare skin stilled. “It’s the first time you actually said it.”
“Well, it was always in here.” She tapped her chest.
“Sometimes words are good, too.”
Her heart constricted, remembering who he’d been—an angel who lived eons with no emotion and didn’t know what love was. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”
“Much better.” Amusement lit his eyes. He lowered his brow to hers. “Habibti?—”
“What does it mean?”
A slow smile. It made her want to kiss him until the end of her days.
“It exasperates you not knowing, hmm?” She rolled her eyes, and he laughed, the sound making her own lips respond. “It means ‘my love’ in the Arabic language.”
Her heart skipped a beat, basking in the warmth of the love reflected in his eyes. “You know Arabic?”
“I have been around for eons. Though I haven’t spent much time with humans, the languages fascinate me.”
“Andhabun?” she asked.
“Love,” he murmured, drawing her closer.
She swallowed hard and pressed her mouth to his. He deepened the kiss and tugged her tee?—
“Wait, no tearing.” She grabbed the hem, pulled it off, and shimmied out of her underwear, then paused. “What about your back? Maybe we should wait until you feel stronger.”
He frowned. Nope, her angel didn’t like being seen as weak.
“I have waited millennia,” he growled. “I’m not waiting another second.”
Okay, that worked, too, though he remained frustratingly silent about his back. Carefully, she unbuttoned and tugged at his pants. “No clothes.”
Soft laughter as he fumbled them off, leaving him gloriously naked.
Her gaze slid down his muscled torso to his lean hips and the heavy jut of his erection.
