Everywhere her eyes caressed was covered with beautiful, burnt-sugar skin. His muscles flickered beneath her stare. His chest glistened where he had been trickling water over the long-gone wound. Her eyes followed a droplet as it ran between his pecs and picked up speed as it bounded down the center division of his abs. The droplet was halted by his belly button, but Grace’s eyes didn’t stop. She heard herself make a noise of complete and utter
want
as she allowed herself to look at the evidence that this angel was very much a
male
.
No sooner had she looked and realized that she was looking at the most beautiful thing she had ever seen than the pain from the Impulse crashed through her. It was so intense, it made her sag against the doorframe and bite her lip hard enough to draw blood. With a moan, she tore around the corner and fled to her room.
Pain, worse than any she’d felt thus far, shot through her body, throwing her onto her bed. Her body arched. Her head thrashed on the pillow. Her toes curled.
Oh, she
needed
.
Images of the angel flew behind her closed eyes. The way he moved. The way he looked at her.
On its own, her hand began to move. Her fingers dug under the waistband of her scrubs. Quickly slipped between her panties and her skin. Her fingers were so warm; they seemed to burn where they touched.
A moan wrenched from Grace’s lips, and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from happening again.
She started breathing quickly. Her mind replaced her own hand with the big, blunt fingers of the angel. It was no longer she who touched herself. It was
him
.
Grace felt a rush of warmth between her thighs. Her knees fell open in response. Her fingers tunneled further, sifting through the curls at the apex of her thighs. As soon as her fingertips encountered the moisture thoughts of the angel had wrung from her body, Grace groaned.
Oh,
God
, she was aroused.
She had never been aroused in her life. It was the most uncomfortable feeling she had encountered. Worse than pain. Worse than fear.
More demanding than them both combined.
“
Angel
,” she whispered as her finger moved further, sliding through her slick folds to the indentation where she ached the most.
Her heart was beating nearly out of her chest as she tentatively pushed her index finger into her body.
She was so warm. So wet. The discovery brought on another rush of heat, and her body began to throb uncontrollably just a scant inch above where her fingers rested.
Her back arched again, and her fingers shot up. Drenched with her own desire, they passed over the throbbing bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. As soon as her index finger passed over the spot, Grace cried out.
She brought her left hand up to her mouth, covering it desperately as another cry tore from her body. Her finger began to move.
• • •
Jayden stared dumbly at the doorframe that mere moments ago had held his Temptation, and wondered what in the world had just happened. He bent to sweep his robe up and over his head, and walked out into the hallway and to the closed door of her room. He paused then. What was he supposed to do now? Knock? Again? That did not go so well last time.
He was contemplating this problem when her pleasure reached him, nearly bowling him over.
She was experiencing the greatest physical pleasure she had ever known. She was panting with it. Her body was dripping with it.
She moaned, and Jayden heard himself echo it heartily, shifting himself so he was pressed completely against the door from chest to knee. Her thoughts were what reached him next.
She was thinking … of
him
. She was thinking of his body and touching her own. Picturing his chest. She longed to dig her fingernails in it. To rest her head upon it.
The ache in his belly Jayden had been studiously ignoring since first seeing his Temptation became more pronounced. It was more intense, and gaining in intensity every second. It
hurt
. He moaned softly. And then, pressure traveled down from his navel. His shaft moved against his leg, filling. Rising. It pressed against the cold metal door through the fabric of his robe. He drew back in shock.
He was …
aroused
.
He had never once, in all his millennia of existence, been aroused. Oh, he had seen such a condition in human men, and the behavior — mostly bad — it incited. But now, he understood why. The ache in his belly increased.
With a groan, he realized he would do almost anything to relieve it.
His Temptation’s thoughts switched from his chest to his eyes. She loved them. Loved the color. Pictured them in her mind.
His stomach trembled. His knees weakened. He groaned so hard, his throat hurt. His arousal throbbed, and, oh, how he ached to touch it. To wrap his hand around it and picture her beautiful gray eyes as she pictured his.
She cried out as waves of ecstasy poured throughout her body.
Jayden fisted his hands at his side and pressed his forehead against the door, fighting for air and for control.
Her physical pain was gone, but Jayden knew the moment it was replaced with emotional pain. Her fear and frustration was an acrid taste on his tongue. Her thoughts faltered and fell from pleasure to past. To a man she once thought she could desire. The first man who ever expressed a desire for her. The man who had …
God in heaven
.
The man who had
raped
her. Rage — so powerful, so violent — flooded him.
And then her sobs penetrated the haze once more, and Jayden erupted.
With a roar, he pivoted on his feet. He was seeing red. He launched himself at the wall directly across from her door and pounded into it with both fists, his knuckles breaking through the sheetrock clear to the other side. He threw his head back and
yelled
with all of his might to the ceiling.
Behind him, her door clicked and squeaked as she slowly opened it.
He felt his sword, strapped to his back, send off waves of heat. He turned toward her. She stood so small and so helpless in the doorway. Her eyes were red-rimmed and flooded with tears, but the sorrow was no longer in them. Instead, she was looking at him with a blend of curiosity and fear.
“Who is he?” Jayden asked darkly.
She gasped and stepped back. “W-what do you — ”
“The human,” he cut her off. “The human who touched what is mine. Who. Is. He.”
Fire filled her eyes and she stepped out into the hallway. “Yours?” she snarled at him. “Who the
hell
do you think you are? I belong to
no one!
” Quick as lightning, her tiny fist flared out and punched him in the chest.
Jayden blinked, his rage at this unforeseen enemy evaporating in the absurdity of what she had just done.
“Ow, son of a
bitch
!” she yelled, shaking her hand in the air.
Jayden clicked his tongue and snatched her hand from the air to cradle in his. Her knuckles were already swollen and turning a dark shade of purple. Even knowing that her body would heal itself quickly, the sight hurt him far more than her ineffectual punch. “Temptation, that was unwise,” he murmured, passing a thumb over her knuckles.
She stopped moving. Stopped breathing.
He looked at her face and was startled by her wide gray eyes. She looked as though she hovered between panic and more panic.
He clicked his tongue again. “Does it hurt so badly?”
She shook her head slowly. “It … doesn’t hurt … at
all
.”
She sounded baffled and her eyes fell to where he held her hands. Suddenly, their touch felt anything but impersonal, and Jayden dropped her hand as quickly as he could. What had he been doing, touching her?
She looked away, but not so quickly that Jayden did not see something that looked like disappointment flash across her face. Her thoughts were a riotous jumble that mirrored Jayden’s own. She desperately wanted to be alone.
She arrived at the one thing she could vocalize to end their conversation, though her thoughts were embarrassed that she would say something so stupid. “Um,” she whispered to the ground nevertheless, “thank you for my bag.”
Without another word, she walked into her room and shut the door.
Jayden lay on the bed in the room next to hers for the rest of the night staring at the ceiling. He could not sleep. Angels never slept. In fact, if an Angel
did
sleep, his Fall was near. It was an indication that all was lost. So, Jayden lay in bed
thinking
.
This was why it was imperative for the sons of God to stay away from their Temptations.
Thinking? About his mission?
Never happened. Not until he had witnessed the birth of a child. Not until he had tried to make the life of his Temptation easier. Not until he
touched
her.
Hours passed like seconds, and Jayden heard the humans begin to stir from their sleep. Heard Genesis cry. Heard Genesis’s mother and father leap to attend to her needs.
The limited supplies in the closet flitted through his mind again, and Jayden groaned. He still had not fully thought of a solution.
Jayden frowned and looked above him at the window over the bed. The sun was rising. He sat up slowly, giving himself some more time to think, before leaving the bed and moving to the door. He leaned out into the hall.
The humans were gathering for their morning meal — a procedure they had fallen into rather quickly. They had turned one of the medical wing rooms into a mess hall of sorts. Jayden would find them there.
He treaded silently down the hallway, paused at the door, took a deep breath, and walked in. The five adults in the room immediately stopped cooing at Genesis to stare at him. Jayden realized he had never once joined them for a meal. Preferring to keep his much-needed distance, he spent most of his time guarding the cave-in site.
He ignored their gaping as much as possible and took the only empty chair around the table. That there was an empty chair was not missed by him. The humans left a place for him in this part of their daily routine.
Genesis made some unidentifiable noise between a grunt and a cry from the arms of her mother, not content to share attention with a surly angel, and like magic, all the adults returned their eyes to her, cooing and in general making great fools of themselves to please her.
He braced himself and then spared a quick glance at his Temptation. Like he expected, the sight of her was like a fist to his gut. The morning light streaming through the window bounced off of her copper curls.
But, then he noticed the tight lines of her face. The way she could not really look at anything, adorable infant included, for too many seconds together. Her hands were fisted in her lap, and he was certain she was biting the inside of her cheek.
Jayden frowned. She had peaked yesterday. He knew this intimately. He had been outside of her door to witness it — it was something Jayden would never forget. He knew from the others’ thoughts that this should be enough to keep the Impulse pain away. Why would she still be suffering?
Her misery was palpable. How was it that all the others were able to ignore it? It cut through him.
His attention snapped to the Genesis’s parents. “You and you,” he said, harsher than he intended.
Silence reigned again, and Genesis’s mother and father turned their eyes upon him warily.
“Gather your belongings and prepare the child. You are leaving.” The words took even Jayden by surprise, but he could not back out now. It was not the best solution to the supply problem, but it would work.
As Jayden looked at Genesis, he realized that he was relieved for her. Jayden would still hunt the two defilers down. Still kill them. But the Compulsion was proximity-based. Sending them away would buy the family months — possibly even years, if Jayden could get himself to focus on the three prisoners overseas — of precious time. Time Genesis would have with her parents. Time she needed.
He could not release them all. That would just speed up the process. He was barely able to hold back the inevitable now, and he was certain it was only because they were all here, under his control. He needed at least one of them nearby to delay the Compulsion. He doubted the blond one would leave his mouthy one, so he would keep them both. And his Temptation? Well, even considering sending her away was a moot point. Like all his brothers, once Jayden laid his eyes upon her, he would not be able to leave her side. The very thought of leaving her made him anxious. His only hope now was to resist further entanglement with her.
Genesis’s parents turned to him in shock. “We’re allowed to go?” Genesis’ mother asked, the beginning of a smile crossing her face.
“Yes. Quickly.” Before he changed his mind.
The woman seemed to hear his unspoken addendum, for she launched to her feet with the baby in her arms and left the room without another word. Genesis’s father stayed behind only to say a quick, “Thank you,” before he also left.
In the wake of their exit, the silence was oppressive. Jayden finally forced himself to meet his Temptation’s eyes only to immediately wish he had not. She was staring at his wings blankly, shocking torment on her features.
He was also shocked when none of the remaining three asked
What about me?
or
Why them?
He had been mentally preparing for such questions, but when they did not arrive, Jayden knew not what to do. From the noises coming right next-door, it sounded as though the family would be ready to leave in no time at all. So, Jayden got up from the table and left the room, breathing a sigh once he reached the hallway and was no longer under his Temptation’s scrutiny.
It was an easy task to remove a few boulders from the cave-in. Just enough for the adults to slip out one at a time, and easy enough for Jayden to guard in the meantime.
Just as he finished laying aside the last boulder, he turned to find the two humans ready to leave, Genesis in arms. Abilene smiled at him briefly, and then ducked through the exit with the baby.