Archangel’s Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(87)
Author: Nalini Singh

The scream that came out her mouth as his own closed over her clit was a thin echo, her lungs devoid of air. He sucked hard, eating her up like she was candy, and the storm surge crested, collided. Her mind splintered, rode the crest . . . and he kept on kissing her, long slow licks, small sucks, and quick flicks that had her riding the wave for so long that she was boneless when it passed, her muscles quivering.

Pressing a kiss to her inner thigh, Janvier rose and got rid of his jeans at last.

Beautiful, she thought but couldn’t say, her mind too fuzzy from the exquisite, erotic thing he’d done to her.

“You are the beautiful one, sugar.”

She frowned, but then he was coming over and she had other things to think about. His naked body on hers, it felt even better than she’d imagined, all heat and strength and a wholly masculine weight, his skin silk under her possessive hands.

Rubbing against her, Janvier reached down to stroke her again. She shivered, sensitive but not in a bad way. “Yes,” she murmured, before he could ask the question.

He kissed her again, and this time she kept her eyes open. So did he. The intimacy was blinding. When he slid his finger inside her, she shuddered but didn’t break the eye contact. Neither did he . . . and nudged in another finger. Spreading his fingers slightly inside her, he curved them to stroke her deep and slow.

Feeling the storm surge begin to build again, she stroked his cheek. “Together this time.”

Turning his head, he kissed her palm.

Her heart squeezed.

She ran her fingers through his hair and down over his nape as he removed his hand from between her legs and shifted position. When he slid his palm down her inner left thigh, she let him push her thigh out wider, and then he was nudging at her with his cock. She moaned at the feel of him pushing into her, the blunt head of his cock wide enough that she definitely felt it, her muscles stretching in an effort to accommodate him.

A small sound escaped her throat. He went motionless.

Tightening her legs around his hips, she rocked up. “I want you inside me.” Kisses on his lips, his cheeks, his throat, her hands cupping his face. “I need you.”

“Ashwini.” The fingers of one hand digging into her hip, he took a shaky breath and pushed.

It burned but the hurt was a good one.

He slid in another inch, both of them sucked in a breath . . . and he began to retreat. But he pushed back before she could complain, going in an inch deeper. Again, and again. By the time he got to the fifth stroke, she’d forgotten the edge of discomfort and was thinking only of the pleasure. Muscles clenching around him, she heard him swear and then there was no more thinking.

Just heat and sex and Janvier’s body stroking in and out of her, their mouths ravenous on one another and their eyes open. She gave him her soul, took his, and it was as it had always been meant to be.

•   •   •

Elena landed on the Tower roof late that night, after assisting a fellow hunter with a vamp who’d turned into a squirrelly runner. The small, slippery woman had been fast, weaving in and out through the city with the agility of the acrobat she’d apparently once been. Elena had found herself admiring her—even more so after her response to being caught. “I should’ve never listened to Bill,” the petite runner had muttered in disgust. “Loophole, my ass! And now that very nice ass is toast!”

Wondering how many others Demarco’s accountant target had infected with his “loophole” lunacy, Elena reached out to Raphael. Archangel?

No response.

Frowning because she’d assumed he was at the Tower, she walked inside and to his office to find it empty. Her next stop was Dmitri’s office. The vampire was dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt today, his hair messy, as if he’d been running his hand through it. There was no doubt that Dmitri was a gorgeous, sexy man. There was also no doubt that he liked blood and pain a little too much.

His relationship with Honor was nothing Elena would’ve ever predicted—because the fact that Dmitri loved his wife was never in question. He saw no one else when Honor was in the room, his dark eyes only for her. Anyone who dared hurt the other hunter would soon find themselves very dead, likely after significant torture.

“Ellie,” he said, curling a tendril of scent around her senses.

Fur and champagne and the promise of agonizing sin.

Tensing her muscles against the impact because she knew damn well he did it only to test her, she gritted her teeth until the first wave passed. “Is that a report on the victims Ashwini’s team found?”

A nod, features grim. “The one named Brooke has the most broken bones and internal injuries, but her chances of survival are nonetheless better than the ones Cornelius fed on.”

“It’s certain, then, that it’s Cornelius?” Elena had kept up with the ongoing situation despite her other duties. The request for assistance from her hunter pal had come in only forty-five minutes before; she’d spent the rest of the day flying across wider New York. Raphael had asked her to take a Legion squadron and visit the well-behaving vampire leaders.

An indication that their control of their people has been noticed, and a reminder that the Tower never stops watching.

Having seen bloodlust in action a number of times as a hunter, the carnage sickening, Elena had no problem with doing what she could to ensure their city didn’t descend into a bloodbath. As it was, the men and women she’d met today had all been on edge. News of Anais’s and Severin’s detainment at the Tower, entwined with the blood-chilling fear of the others who’d come face-to-face with a coldly furious Raphael the previous day, had spread through the community like wildfire.

Elena had reassured the vampire leaders that Raphael had noticed their attention to their duties and that they were in no danger of being called to a meeting with a pissed-off archangel. Her simple presence, the fact that she knew their names, had been enough to drive home Raphael’s second point while simultaneously making the leaders feel appreciated.

Her wing muscles ached from the hours of flight, her body exhausted, but it had been worth it to reinforce the calm of the city. Even the Quarter had been free of any hint of bloodlust when she’d dropped by prior to answering Hilda’s call for an angelic assist. Her Guild colleagues had begun to utilize her in specific incidents where an aerial view would be helpful and it gave Elena a way to keep her hand in, even as she spent more time on Tower business.

Her hunter soul, however, wished she’d been able to help Ash and Janvier also, the ugliness of what they’d discovered enraging her. No one had the right to do that to another living being, to take sick pleasure in the terror of another.