Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Sitting up, her eyes locked onto his lazy half-lidded ones, she took off her own leathers. Hers had long sleeves and a thermal coating on the inside. Because even though she was far stronger than when she’d first become an angel, she still hated the cold up in the higher elevations.
Being able to bear and survive those temperatures and actually enjoying them were two different things.
The sun was warm on her sensitive breasts. “I think these are getting bigger,” she mused, cupping them.
Raphael’s hands on her back, his voice languid as he said, “Come closer so I can judge better.”
Laughing huskily, she leaned over him, her breasts pressed only lightly to his chest because of their increasing tenderness, and her braid falling over her shoulder to lie on his skin. “This is what got me into this position in the first place. Barefoot and pregnant on an uninhabited island.”
A slow, sinful smile as he used his strength to shift her up far enough that he could kiss her breasts. After dropping a single—almost chaste—kiss on the flushed plumpness of her skin, he said, “That means we can’t get into any more trouble no matter what else we do.” The next kiss was wetter but at just the right intensity that it was pleasure, not pain.
Her body was changing as their baby grew inside her, and they were both learning and handling it as they went. Today, her thighs clenched around his hips as he nudged her to the edge of madness with licks of his tongue and knowing strokes of his fingers.
Nakedness wasn’t an eventuality but an absolute.
She shivered as she sat astride him not long afterward, his hands digging into her butt as he settled her on his cock. She shivered, swollen with need, every thick inch rocking sensation through her.
“We should be like an old married couple by now,” she said even as she moved on him with lazy pleasure, her hands braced on the hard planes of his chest. “How many times have we done this?”
His voice was rough, breathless when he said, “Not enough.”
Her archangel rose up to drop a kiss between her breasts, the midnight strands of his hair brushing her skin in featherlight strokes as they moved together in a knowledge born of all those centuries of loving. “Never enough, Elena-mine.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, nuzzling at him. “Are we going to scandalize our future teenager?”
A chuckle, his head lifting so that she could see those beautiful eyes that were her eternity and her heart. “It is the job of parents to scandalize their children.”
Their kiss was created of affection and a love primal and infinite, their bodies moving in the slow glide of skin on skin, the climax that came no short, sharp crescendo but a slow, sumptuous wave.
Her tears were salt on her lips. “I love you,” she whispered, overcome.
“Forever and beyond, hbeebti.” He wrapped her in his wings, his arms the most solid thing in her entire universe.
* * *
* * *
“We should take a dip,” she murmured into Raphael’s chest at some point in the aftermath. “Clean up and dry off in the sun before we keep going.” Much as she wanted to stay on this beach with Raphael, she wanted to share their news with the other members of their family more.
Raphael stroked his hand up her back, his tenderness threatening to make her cry again. She’d never been a crier, not like this. But…she didn’t mind. Not with the archangel who had seen her at her most vulnerable and still seen her.
“The water’s cold.” Rising, he tugged her up, led her to the edge of the waves, then told her to wait.
She laughed with the giddy delight of a teenager as he used archangelic power to create a huge bubble of water that he then heated up. “Gives a whole new meaning to the term bubble bath.” She dove into the balmy waters of the bubble while he held it aloft, then she drew him in with her.
The bubble collapsed at his entry, but the water remained warm around them for a time as they played in the ocean like two young seal pups, hair and bodies sleek under a shining sun.
* * *
* * *
Deep, deep in the ocean, seven hundred and seventy-seven beings who were one smiled in their dreamscape, awash in joy carried on the ocean currents.
Aeclari, they whispered. Aeclari, we are here.
28
I’m different, Ash. Deep inside. I’ll never be like other men.
—Naasir to Ashwini (One Night during a New York Block Party)
The lights of the Refuge glowed warm against the night as the two of them flew in, the fine white marble of the buildings closest to the edge luminous from within. Snow sat heavy on the mountains that rose up in the distance, but the Refuge itself was clear of white. Hardy mountain flowers emerged from the rock and stone, undaunted by the cold night air.