Death Angel

She felt him approach, felt him halt when he was close behind her. She hadn’t heard him, wasn’t aware of a single sound other than the rustle of the breeze and the faint noise of the city far below; nevertheless she knew he was there. Every nerve in her skin was shrieking an alarm, telling her that Death was about to reach out and touch her.

His hand settled on the bare curve of her shoulder.

Panic exploded in her skull, mental fireworks that obliterated both thought and action. She didn’t react; she couldn’t. She stood there, violently trembling, because she was incapable of doing more, or even less.

Slowly, as if he savored the texture of her skin, he stroked down the length of her arm. His hand was hard and warm, his fingertips and palm rough with callus, but his touch was controlled, even…gentle? She had expected brutality, been prepared for it, had so focused on simply surviving that she couldn’t process the reality of the caress. Her senses reeled just as if he’d punched her.

His sliding hand reached her fingers, which were still tightly knotted around the railing, and lightly stroked over them before reversing direction and moving up her arm as slowly as it had descended. When he reached her shoulder he didn’t stop, but continued on to her neck, where he moved the mass of her curls aside and slid his fingertips over her throat, the curve of her jaw, following the slender threads of muscle and tendon and sending chills chasing over her entire body. After a moment he moved his attention to the wide shoulder strap of her silk tank top, playing with it, sliding his fingers under it, tracing the line of fabric downward. If he hadn’t realized before that she wasn’t wearing a bra, he had to know it now.

"Breathe," he said, the first word he’d ever spoken to her. His low, slightly rough voice made the word a command.

She did, gasping in air and only then realizing, by the acute relief in her lungs, that she’d been holding her breath for so long that she’d been in danger of passing out.

Slowly, still so slowly, he moved his hand down her side, the heat of his touch searing through the thin silk. He reached the bottom of the garment and his fingers dipped under it, exploring the elastic waistband of her flimsy, billowy pants, slipping beneath and around. Now he also knew that she wasn’t wearing panties, either. Drea swallowed the lump in her throat and squeezed her eyes shut.

Closing her eyes was an instinctive move to shut him out, to distance herself from the here and now, but instead her action seemed to make all her other senses even more acute. Leisurely he moved his hand up her stomach and, with nothing else to distract her, her focus latched on to the touch with almost painful intensity. Her muscles contracted, her entire body tightening as he moved up, up, while she waited, once again holding her breath.

His hand closed fully over her left breast, and the air rushed from her lungs. He held her breast, stroked it, cupped it in his palm as if weighing it. He swept his thumb over her tender nipple, the rough pad rasping, until her nipple engorged and stood out firm and plump; then he moved on to her other breast and repeated the process.

Once again her senses reeled. The sheer pleasure of the caress scattered her thoughts, leaving her gasping and grasping for an anchor, something to hold her grounded. Whatever she had expected of him, it hadn’t been…this.

He bent his head and the heat of his mouth, the softness of his lips, closed over the sensitive cord in the side of her neck as he moved forward and pressed his body against her back, from shoulder to knee. Oh, God, he was so hot. She had felt cold, but his heat burned her. She had been braced for brutality, but he slid beneath her defenses with a touch that brought only pleasure.

"I won’t hurt you," he murmured, his lips moving over her skin as he slipped his other hand under her top. He played with her breasts, stroking them, plucking at her nipples, while his mouth on her neck made the bottom drop out of her stomach again as if she were on a roller coaster, rising and falling on a dizzying tide of sensation.

She had no idea how long they stood there, just that the disconcerting pleasure went on and on. She was lost, at sea without a compass. This was so far outside her experiences and expectations that she had no idea what to do. Pleasure? Her relationship with Rafael was all about pleasing him; her pleasure didn’t factor into it at all. She had accepted that, concentrated on doing everything she could to make him happy. When had a man last even tried to please her physically? The memory was hazy, lost in the years, so long ago that she had ceased expecting any personal enjoyment. To feel it now, at the hands-literally-of a stone-cold killer, was staggering.

He pulled her nipples, gently pinching, and the sensation was just sharp enough to send a bolt of sheer sexual excitement straight to her groin. She felt herself reaching up and back, her body arching instinctively into his hands as her fingers slid around the back of his neck, feeling the hardness, the thickness of muscle. She clung, hearing the soft sounds of invitation she was making, feeling the hard ridge in his pants as she rolled her bottom across it. Her stomach muscles contracted again, this time in blind anticipation, and she tried to turn toward him.

He stayed her, holding her facing the rail, the city spread out before and around them. She felt him tugging on the elastic waistband of her pants, felt the sudden coolness of air on her bare ass as he dragged the silk downward, felt the tension of the elastic around her thighs.

Panic surged again, once more mixed with disbelief and horror. Here? On the balcony, in the open, where anyone might see them? The street was too far below for anyone down there to see, but what about people in the neighboring buildings? Telescopes abounded in this city, thousands upon thousands of people spying on their neighbors, on the buildings across the street, and surely the FBI or the DEA or someone was watching Rafael, which meant they were also watching her-and this man had her half-naked on the balcony.