Page 46 of A Touch of Crimson
She was exquisite. Her hair was still damp, giving the thick curls the hue of pure honey. When she’d come for his tablet, he’d been riveted by her predatory stride—the sensual sway of her hips, the soft rustling of silk as she drew closer. A golden lioness on the hunt. More than a match for him. More than willing to take him on…until she discovered the risks he faced.
Lindsay Gibson was holding back for his benefit because she was worried about him.
Anticipation tightened his spine, the weighted expectation for a touch he wasn’t sure was coming but hungered for anyway. When her fingers brushed tentatively over feathers on his right upper wing, his eyes closed as the barely-there caress moved through him.
“These are beautiful,” she whispered in a voice filled with awe.“Oh! I thought they were one pair. But there’s…three? Oh my god. You have six wings.”
He could only nod, his throat too tight to speak.
Her touch grew bolder. She stroked along the upper curve, and the wing stretched slightly in bliss. She gasped and stumbled back. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t stop.”
There was a pause. “They’re sensitive? But you deflected bullets with them!”
“Nothing manmade can wound a seraph’s wings.”
She stepped forward again, splaying her fingers and running them lightly over his feathers. “Watching you in action was amazing.”
He knew from the low pitch of her voice that the memory was an arousing one, a lingering effect, perhaps, from her time as Shadoe. Or maybe that’s just who she was. Lindsay was a warrior in her own right.
Eager to soak up the heat of her focused attention and admiration, he unfurled his wings slowly, a silent encouragement for her to continue touching him.
“Every angel I’ve seen has had a unique set of wings,” she murmured, torturing him with her gentle petting. “Jason’s are dark. Damien’s are gray. There are some similarities among the others, but no one has wings like yours. The touch of red at the tips… Gorgeous. Does it signify anything? Or are wing patterns randomly individual, like fingerprints?”
“The stain appeared when I severed the wings from Syre. I was the first to spill the blood of an angel.”
“The first ever?”
“Yes.”
Lindsay touched the nape of his neck, then slid her fingertips between his wings down the length of his spine. His back arched with a serrated groan, his body trembling.
“Is this—?” She cleared her throat. “Is this erotic to you?”
Reaching behind him, Adrian caught her right hand. He pulled it beneath his wings and around to his front. She was forced to step closer, her breath near enough to sink through the down to his skin beneath. He wrapped her fingers around the rigid length of his cock.
She made a soft sound, one he recognized as a cry of vulnerability. Ruthless, he pressed his advantage, stripping the pants from his body with a terse thought and pressing her palm against his bare flesh.
There was a moment of breathless stillness. He waited for her to jerk away or take over.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet. “You did that with the shotgun, too, didn’t you? You took it from the vampire and sent it to me. You did it with the straw in the airport. You can move things, just by wanting to.”
“Yes.”
Her hand closed around him.
His arms fell to his sides, his fists clenching. The clean scent of her body and the rich undertone of her arousal permeated his senses. Lindsay was intoxicating—certain to be addicting.
“You’re burning hot,” she whispered.
“You make me that way.” His blood had gone cold the moment he’d learned of Phineas’s death. It had turned to ice when Lindsay had collapsed to the ground with blood splattered all over her. It wasn’t until now, under the heat of her touch, that he finally felt…human again.
She fisted him at the root, then stroked to the tip. “And big. God, you’re so thick and long. I want this. I want you. So badly. From the moment I first saw you.”
“Take me.” His voice was a rasp.
“I can’t.”
