He rocked me harder against his length and my mind went blank for a second. He could open his jeans and fuck me right here. Damn, I knew I made the right choice wearing a dress today.
“Why is it so important to you for me to acknowledge whatever is going on? We’re not fighting and we can have good sex. What’s more to it?”
He sat on the armchair in the corner of the room—the one he always picked in the nights I found him reading in here with Arc—and straightened up to kiss me again before sighing against my lips, one hand cupping my jaw, the other still palming my ass.
His tone was low and soft, barely over a whisper, like he was confessing something he never admitted before. “It’s important because, even though I’m a Fallen, I’m still a Divine. Because I didn’t fall for lust but for envy. Because, for as long as I knew mates were a thing, I’ve been jealous of the ones who found theirs. Because I’ve always craved this kind of deep bond between two souls, and now that I’ve found it and fucked it up from the very start, I want this to be real. I want to be a part of the binded group and I want to—”
“You can’t,” I cut him off, shaking my head.
Hiswhole body tensed as his face fell. “Why?”
“Because I have no soul for you to bind to. There can’t be any binded group without the core’s soul.”
He searched my eyes for a few seconds, the only sound in the room our heavy breathing. “But I canfeelit. That bond, tugging me to you.” His voice was pleading, borderline desperate, and my heart ached. “It has to mean your soul is somewhere, right?”
I shook my head, straightening on his lap, sitting a bit farther to look at his face properly.
“I don’t feel it. Don’t you think I would have recognized you as my mate from the start if I did? And Arc? Didn’t he tell you that—”
“He did,” he said. “But I thought—you seemed to feel it with Dimitri. You felt it when he came back. Ran to him.” I did. But again, the little pull I felt was nothing compared to thebone-deep ache and tug I feltbeforeI lost my damned soul. “That’s what I’ve been craving forever.”
He grabbed both my hands to place them on his chest, where his heart was thumping against his ribcage. “Dimitri and I had over a millennium together,” I explained. “I could feel him in a room filled with people and with my eyes closed.”
“Is it because you met him when you were still human?”
My throat became dry.
No, it wasn’t.
I could feel Blake the same way, and I’d met him long after I became a demon.
“No. It’s the time. We’re—”
“Then we’ll get there,” Carter said, lifting one of my hands to his face, placing my palm on his short stubble. “I’m not asking you to make a binding promise or to swear your undying love to me,” he continued, pulling me closer until our foreheads connected, the motion strangely tender and intimate. “I’m asking you to give me a chance to prove to you thatwecan be it. To prove to you that, without the voices, I’m actually not that much of an asshole. That I might have a lot to learn about all this, but I’m an eager student. That we might have started on the wrong foot, but my only wish is to fix it and be by your side. To—”
“Stop talking,” I whispered before grazing his lips with mine. He had stopped breathing entirely, heart beating even faster than before. “I’m broken, and I might never be whole again.”
“I don’tcare. And if you want me to, I’ll fly down to Hell and look for your soul with you.”
My heart shattered. It was a big deal for an angel to mention Hell, even a Fallen one. And I knew, I could feel it in my bones, that he meant every word of it.
I didn’t answer, choosing instead to kiss him. Slow and deep. Hands roaming his chest, his face, fingers tangling in his hair.
“How adorable,” a voice crooned from a corner of the room, and I jumped, ready to throw whatever I could grab to the intruder’s face. Carter was in front of me in an instant, wings spread wide behind him, electricity zapping along his arms. I was ready to bet his eyes had the same lightning hue as the time we fought in this very room and he threatened to fry me from the inside out.
Good times.
“Oh no, don’t stop onmyaccount,” he continued, stepping out of the shadows and my stomach dropped. ‘Not-Vlad’ stood there, hands in his pockets, orange-ish eyes gleaming in the faint light of the room, a mischievous grin splitting his face.
“How did you get here?” Carter asked, seconds from throwing lightning bolts to the Vampire.
The question made sense. Vampires couldn’t get inside a house without being invited inside by someone living in it or—
Fuck. He knew.
“Well, ‘Lola’ lives here, doesn’t she?”
“Not really,” I muttered.
