She saw his eyes flare at that.
“I died, and I was given a choice. I could pass as others do, or I could try to…help. I chose option two and wound up with wings.”
“You expect me to believe this?” Now anger snapped in his words as he stormed away from her and paced toward the small fire place.
She didn’t go after him. If she touched him…what would happen? Simone knew what she wanted to happen. I want him, once more. A memory to hold tightly in the darkness. But first, she had to make the guy see reason. “You’re a vampire. If vamps can exist, if demons like William roam the earth, then angels can be here, too. I mean, come on, you just saw my wings.” What more proof did he need?
His laughter was bitter. “I mourned you. I blamed myself for your death.” He whirled back to face her, and fear whispered through Simone when she saw the angry expression on his face. “When I lost you, I lost everything that mattered.”
That had been the beginning for him. The beginning of the end. Her fingers twisted together. “If I could’ve come to you sooner, I would have.” But the powers-that-be upstairs hadn’t known quite how to deal with her new condition. They’d thought they could help her. Heal her. Change her.
And all she’d wanted was to get back to Ben.
“Back in New York, I watched you for two years before I ever spoke to you,” Simone admitted. She wanted to confess all to him, but she didn’t know how much Ben could handle, not yet. “You’d buried your parents, and you were so consumed by your work.” A millionaire with his star on the rise. He’d been vicious in businesses. Willing to do anything.
Willing to destroy.
“You were going down the wrong path. I just wanted…” She took a slow step toward him. “I wanted to help you. I tried to be your conscience, whispering when you were doing things that could come back to haunt you.” Or to seriously bite him in the ass.
His bitter laugh came again. “You haunt me.”
And he haunted her. “But I got too close,” Simone told him softly. “It wasn’t about guarding you. I wanted to…to be with you.”
His head jerked up at those words. His gaze narrowed on her.
“I wasn’t human, but you made me wish that I was.” She would have traded her wings for him. Would have given her life, gladly, for him.
She’d loved him before he’d even spoken a single word to her. And when they had talked, when he’d kissed her, she’d been lost.
“You were jerking me around,” he charged, voice rough. “From the beginning, you were trying to manipulate me.”
His words hurt. Simone shook her head and took another fast step toward him. “Never, I promise. Ben, I’d never do anything to hurt you—”
He sprang at her then. His fingers closed around her shoulders in a bruising grip. “What do you think the last ten years did to me?”
She didn’t have an answer. No, she did, but Simone couldn’t say the words to him. Those years turned you into a monster. Everyone else saw the monster when they looked at him. But she still saw the man he’d been.
The man who’d come into the shelter that day, looking so lost and out of place in his fancy coat. For so long, she’d been whispering to him that he needed to help others. Help. Help. She’d entreated for so long, trying to get him to hear her, and that day…he had.
He’d given his thousand dollar coat to the woman in the corner. Then Ben had rolled up his sleeves. Simone had taken human form that day because she’d been so happy to see him. So happy for the change that he’d made.
Ben had seen her. He’d come toward her. He’d helped her make lunch for the people in that shelter.
And he’d taken every piece of her heart then.
“I was lost without you.” His hold tightened even more. “I won’t be lost again.”
“Ben—”
He kissed her. Fury was in the kiss, so was desire. With the touch of his lips against hers, Simone knew the white-hot passion that had surged between them before was still as strong as ever.
Maybe she should have pulled away. Tried to get him to listen to her story. But…
I only have an hour. One precious hour with him.
Ben didn’t realize the battle that was raging this night. She did. And if she could just show him the value he had. Show him that he was loved…
Her hands pressed to his chest. His heart raced beneath her palm. A fast, wild rhythm. She parted her lips even more for him. Kissed him with the desire that had remained within her for ten long years.
“I need you,” he said, voice rumbling, as he began to kiss his way down her neck. She didn’t tense when his fangs raked over her skin. There was nothing that his bite could do to her now.
She slid her hand under his shirt. His skin was warm, almost hot. In the movies, they said that vampires were cold. The movies were wrong.
So wrong.
He was like a furnace, and she loved that heat. It surrounded her. Banished the chill that had clung to her ever since she’d awakened in a morgue and realized that he was gone.
Her fingers slipped down, down, moving to the snap of his jeans.
“Simone?”
She undid the snap. Slid down the zipper. His cock sprang toward her. Fully erect. Thick. So hard. Simone lowered to her knees before him. He watched her with a gaze she couldn’t read. Once, she’d been able to read him easily, but not anymore.
She could only hope her emotions were as hidden. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let him see the fear that curled within her. Passion would win this time. Desire would triumph.
Her fingers curled around his cock. She stroked him once, from root to tip. Again.
Then she put her mouth on him.
“Baby…” His fingers sank in her hair, but he didn’t push her away. He urged her closer.
And she wanted to be close. She wanted to memorize his taste. Wanted to stroke and touch all of him. She kissed his heavy length. Loved the way his cock stiffened even more beneath her mouth. She loved—
In a flash, Simone was on her back. The old bed sagged beneath her, and her vampire stared down at her with his glowing, golden eyes.
“If I didn’t know better,” Ben said, his deep voice hard with desire and rage, “I’d think you missed me. But then, angel, you wouldn’t have stayed away ten years if you really wanted me that much.”
If they kept me away, if they didn’t give me a choice…Simone swallowed back the words. They would only hurt him more. He didn’t need to know what he’d done to her. “I want you more than anything,” Simone told him, and her words were the truth. She wanted him enough to trade all that she had.
Enough to risk the dark that could come.
His hands flew down and a second later, her shirt went sailing across the room. Her bra followed it. Then his mouth was on her breast. He licked and he sucked and desire surged through her as Simone’s hips arched toward him.
“Hurry,” Simone whispered. “I need you now.” Before time ran out for them.
He pulled down her jeans and took her underwear away with them. His own jeans were tossed to the floor. He positioned himself between her spread legs, and the broad head of his cock pushed into her.
Yes!
But he stilled. “Why?”
Simone shook her head. “Please, Ben, now.”
“All these years…you should have come to me.” His fingers curled around her hips. Lifted her up.
Then he plunged into her.
Simone moaned. Ten years. There had been no one else for her during that time. There never would be anyone else.
“I needed you. I wanted you.” He withdrew. Thrust in even deeper. Had her eyes rolling back in her head as the pleasure lashed her. “You should have come to me.”
His thrusts were rough. Frantic. His hands made sure that she met him, plunge for plunge as he lifted her hips up against him.
“I wanted to,” she whispered, then Simone bit her lip. She couldn’t say more.
“I’ll be the one to bite.?
?? His mouth pressed to hers. “And I will bite.”
His hand lifted from her hip. His warm, wicked fingers covered her sex. Found her clit. Stroked her as he thrust.
Her release was close. Her entire body tensed as his mouth slid to her throat.
“Do you still taste as good?” Ben demanded.
Speech wasn’t really possible for her right then. The wild pants were pretty much all Simone could manage as her fingers fisted around the bed covers. He was driving so deep into her.
“I bet you do still taste as fucking good. Let’s find out…”
His teeth sank into her throat even as he plunged into her again. His bite electrified Simone as pleasure erupted within her. His mouth…his cock…she cried out, lost, as her climax shook her straight to the core.
“That’s right.” Ben licked her neck. Kissed her. “You didn’t come to me, but you can come for me.” He lifted her legs up higher, opening her even wider to him as he thrust and thrust and—
He came on a hot burst of release inside of her. “Simone.”
Her eyes flew open. When had she closed them? And Simone saw her vampire staring down at her with a gaze gone blind with pleasure. She let go of the covers and held him as the pleasure continued to surge through them both.
Sex with Ben had always been phenomenal. Powerful enough to steal her breath. To make her shudder.
But it wasn’t the sex that had bound her to him.
He pressed another kiss to her lips, but this time, the kiss was gentle. “I missed you,” he confessed softly. The rage was gone from him.
It would come back. He still didn’t realize what would happen that night.
But she did, and the pain already had her heart aching.
Chapter Six
“It was my fault,” Ben said as he stared down at her. He’d braced his hands on either side of her so that she didn’t feel the weight of his body. “You were coming after me. You were hit by the SUV, because of me.”
She shook her head, moving slightly against the pillow. “I didn’t look when I ran after you.” She should have looked. Angels could take the form of humans if they wished. She’d taken her old human body because she wanted Ben to be able to see her. To touch her.
But that body was vulnerable. When angels were flesh and blood, they could be hurt. They could be killed.
They could be…changed.
Angels were supposed to stay out of the sight of human beings. She’d been taking a huge risk just by assuming her human form so many times around Ben. “The choice was mine,” she told him.
Most days, angels stayed in their astral forms. No one saw them that way. And angels, when they were in that astral form, they could fly right through cities. Right through buildings.
She’d been so used to the invulnerability of the astral form, that she’d forgotten how very fragile a physical body could be.
Until an SUV had hit her.
One instant, she’d been surrounded by a swirling world of white snow, and in the next moment, she’d only known darkness.
Later, she’d found out the darkness had been due to the body bag that she’d been put inside. The emergency personnel had zipped her up in that bag and tossed her into cold storage.
“Where have you been?” he demanded as his gaze searched hers. “All these years, where were you?”
She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back.
Ben’s jaw locked, but he withdrew from her body. A long, slow glide that had her tensing. And, when he was gone, she missed the hard feel of his flesh within her. How many times had she longed for him? How many times had she called out for him in the middle of the night?
He settled his body next to hers. Simone started to rise from the bed, but his hand flew out, and his arm settled over her stomach. “You’re not leaving me again.”
Yes, she was. Sooner than he realized.
Her gaze darted around the small cabin. “Why don’t you have a Christmas tree?” She’d always loved Christmas trees. Their delicious pine scent. The way their lights twinkled. The homemade ornaments perched all over the limbs of the trees.
Perfect.
Her mom and dad had made sure she added new ornaments to their tree each year. When they’d…when they’d had their accident, a Christmas tree had been strapped to the top of their car. They’d just cut that tree at a local farm. They’d been so happy.
That happiness had ended with the scream of metal. Her parents had died instantly, Simone hadn’t passed so easily. Her car door had cut into her side, slicing so deeply. Firemen had painstakingly worked to free her from the vehicle. They’d kept telling Simone that she was going to be all right.
She’d known they were lying.
“You convinced me to put up that tree in New York,” Ben recalled as his hold tightened on her. “You said the tree would make everything better.”
Simone swallowed as she tried to push the painful memories from her mind. “Your apartment was so…cold.” Professionally decorated with everything in exactly the right place. Too perfect. Too sterile. “I thought the tree would give the place—”
“Warmth?” Ben bit out. “Life?”
She gave a slow nod.
“No, baby, you did that. You brought the life. Without you, there wasn’t anything left to celebrate.” He ran his tongue over his fangs. “Especially when I became this.”
“The fangs don’t make you a monster.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You should put up a tree,” she whispered. “It will remind you of the way things were. When your parents were alive. When you were younger. Happier. When you believed that—”
“A fat, old guy in a red suit was going to make my world better?”
Her lips pressed together. Simone shook her head. “No, when you believed that there was more than just darkness to this world.”
His hold slackened, and she slid from his grip. Simone found her clothes and dressed as quickly as she could. He watched her from the bed. Big, muscled, sexy…and dangerous. So very dangerous to her.
He didn’t know what she was risking for him. Simone planned for him to never find out. “I’m your second visitor.”
One dark brow hitched up.
“That means I show you the present.”
“The only present I care about…it involves you coming back into this bed with me.” He sat up, his jaw locking. “Once wasn’t enough. A million fucking times with you won’t be enough.”
Her gaze fell to the floor. “We can’t. Not now.” The minutes were ticking past too quickly. Her shoulders squared. “Time is running out. Get dressed. We have to go.”
He rose slowly. Had he missed the whole “time is running out” part? He dressed, never taking his eyes from her, then Ben stalked toward Simone. She exhaled on a relieved breath. “I move fast,” she told him. Simone figured he needed the warning. Her wings spread behind her. “So just hold on to me. You can even close your eyes, if you want. When you open them, we’ll be at our first stop.”
“Screw that,” he said as his fingers closed around her and he pulled her against him. “I want you to stay right—”
Her wings flapped. She locked her hands on him and shot into the air, nearly ramming into the roof of the cabin. Her hold jerked Ben up with her.
“Shit,” Ben muttered. “Shit.”
Simone almost smiled. Then she flew them right through the nearest window and out into the night.
***
Ben’s feet slammed into the ground and he nearly fell to his knees as his stomach finally left his throat and returned to its normal position. “What was that?”
Simone pushed back her long, blonde hair and grinned at him. “Angel speed.” Her dark eyes seemed to shine.
He never wanted to experience angel speed again.
“It’s how we can get to so many places in moments.” She snapped her fingers together. “Just like that.”
No, he thought it was more like the speed of light. Ben heaved o
ut a breath as he straightened. The last thing he wanted was to look weak in front of Simone.
Simone. Her sweet, vanilla scent filled his nose. He could still taste her on his lips. She was real. Not some desperate dream. And he’d had plenty of desperate dreams about her over the years.
She wouldn’t tell him where she’d been. But he would find out. It was only a matter of time. He’d find out all of her secrets, and then Ben would never let her go again.
Her wings were gone now as she approached the cell—an actual prison cell. She’d flown into an open window in the prison. They shouldn’t have fit through that window, but she’d worked some kind of magic and—bam—they’d gotten inside. Ben didn’t know why Simone had brought him to that dim prison but—
“I’m innocent!” A man yelled. Ben saw the guy’s bloody fists curl around the prison bars. “You’ve got to believe me! I didn’t hurt anyone!”
Ben took a few fast steps forward. He knew that voice.
“Don’t worry,” Simone said softly. “He can’t see us or hear us.”
The he in question—the man behind the prison bars—was Miles Gavin. Ben’s lips peeled away from his fangs as a snarl built in his throat.
“It’s an angel trick,” Simone added. Her fingers slid over Ben’s arm, as if she were trying to soothe him. “Angels usually move on the astral plane, and that’s why humans don’t see us.”
The astral plane? That bit of info actually succeeded in temporarily pulling his gaze away from Miles.
Simone licked her lips. “I was granted…special permission so that my magic would cover you, too. We’re in the astral plane right now—that’s how we managed to fit through the window. Space and time distort here.”
Well, at least that was one mystery solved. Or semi-solved. He still didn’t understand half of the shit that was happening.
“Humans can’t see us,” Simone continued softly. “They can never see angels in this plane.” She gave a faint shrug of her shoulders. “That’s why you didn’t see me all those times in New York. Before we met at that shelter, I’d been watching you for quite a while. You just never realized it.”