Still, the yearning to come first with someone was an insistent ache that never went away.
Leaving her before he did or said something he’d regret, he headed to the bathroom. They could both use some time alone with their thoughts. It seemed essential to rinse her scent from his body before they faced their next challenge. It would make the betrayal easier to handle if he couldn’t still smell her sweet release on his skin.
And could he really call it a betrayal? Lucifer had put her in a situation where she had no choice at all. “You’ll have to decide what you’re going to do,” he tossed over his shoulder before entering the bathroom.
He’d just stepped under the spray when she joined him. The short hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his fingers itched to hold a blade. It went against everything inside him to turn his back on a potential enemy.
Morrigan might be his lover, but she could still be his killer. Damn Lucifer and damn Gabriel.
She wrapped her hand around his arm and yanked. He allowed her to pull him around to face her. Water cascaded down on them both.
Her green eyes flashed. Her scowl was fierce. Tall and proud and very naked, she faced him. She was magnificent. “What the hell did you mean by that?” she demanded.
With a nonchalance he wasn’t feeling, he reached around her, grabbed a bar of soap, and rubbed it over his chest. “Just what I said. You’ll have to choose between your sister and me, or maybe between my life and yours. That’s no choice at all.”
“You expect me to just kill you.” Why was she so shocked? The options were clear.
“It’s what I’d do.” There was no point in lying. Better they both knew where they stood.
She dropped her hand from his arm as though his flesh burned her and took a step away. This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? To put some space between them? To create distance?
It would make it easier for her to try to kill him and for him to kill her.
Only for the first time in his existence, he didn’t think he could end a potential target. Because Morrigan had come to mean something to him.
Fuck, he was so screwed up. Life used to be so simple, everything black and white.
“No.”
What was she talking about? He tossed the soap aside and stood under the spray. “No, what?”
Hands on her hips, breasts high and proud, she was indeed a warrior to be reckoned with. “No, you don’t get to push me away. This isn’t a simple choice. There has to be a way out of this or around it.”
Something warm expanded in his chest. He ignored it. No matter what she hoped, there were no other options.
“There is no way.” He reached out to turn off the water, but she caught his arm again.
“I don’t believe that. I can’t.”
Refusing to accept the inevitable didn’t change it. He backed her up against the tiled wall until she had to crane her neck to look up him. “It doesn’t matter what you believe. It is what it is.”
“Coward.”
He roughly gripped her hips and lifted her right off her feet. “Listen to me and listen well.” He managed to keep his voice low and level when he wanted to yell so badly the muscles in his neck ached from holding back. “You will kill me, or I’ll kill you.”
It was the kind of statement that had made demons piss themselves and angels try to flee.
Morrigan kissed him.
The passion that had only been banked roared to life like an inferno, burning everything in its path. Where earlier had been soft and easy and slow, this time was hard and fast.
Their lips met in a fury. Her fingernails scored his shoulders. The bite of pain spurred him on. He shoved his hips between her legs, making a space for himself.
If she’d fought him, he would have stopped, but she wrapped her thighs around his