second of thinking, Good God, he’s going to fly, and then he lifted off.
Air rushed around me, the wind whipped my hair into my eyes, and I didn’t dare loosen one hand from my death grip at his neck to clear my vision. All I saw were glimpses of lights spreading somewhere beneath us, a half-clouded sky that was way too close, and slivers of flame dancing over onyx feathers. The thump of his wing beats drowned out the whoosh of air.
He banked, and my stomach rolled over. I screamed.
“Quit that,” he growled.
Excuse the fuck out of me for shrieking in your ear when you’re flying in loops worse than the most terrorizing rollercoaster I’ve ever been on. That’s what I wanted to snap back at him. Of course, all I got out was another panicked scream.
The demon made a sound between disgust and frustration, and when he banked again and the next helpless shriek wanted to claw its way out of my throat—it got stuck. The sound wouldn’t come out.
My guts roiled, nausea crawled up into my mouth, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get a sound out.
That bastard had done something to my vocal cords.
My hands were in the perfect position to close around his throat and squeeze, and for a second there, I considered it. But, alas, my sense of self-preservation won out. Trying to strangle the guy who held me a thousand feet in the air would have topped any Stupidest Thing I Ever Did list.
I settled for cursing him silently.
With the next swoop, the wind and flight movement pushed my head against his shoulder, and my face landed in the curve of his neck. The skin-to-skin contact jolted me, a sizzling connection I felt all the way down to my toes. His wing beats became irregular for a second, and his arms flexed around me.
So close, I had no choice but to inhale his scent—leather, bonfire, and something invigorating, some sort of spice. My lips parted against his skin, and—involuntarily, as if in trance—I slid out my tongue and tasted him.
His flight pattern faltered. We dropped, and my stomach rose to meet my throat. I wrenched my mouth away from his skin. Closing my eyes, I let my mortification heat all the parts of my body that had grown cold and numb from the chill in the air.
I had just licked him.
Licked. Him.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Other parts of my body,” he murmured in my ear, his voice humming with barely concealed mockery, “are even more delicious, if you’re hungry.”
Ugh. That smug ass. I so wanted to shoot him a snarky reply, but—oh yeah, my vocal cords were still disabled thanks to His Douchery. Also, I wasn’t sure anything would have gotten past the embarrassment currently making my heart pound so loud it drowned out the wind.
He banked once more, and this time the lights in my peripheral vision moved closer. My stomach confirmed we were in a landing maneuver. His wings beat the air in more forceful strides, slowing our descent. I held on all the tighter, lest I drop the last few hundred feet.
He landed in a fluid, graceful motion that seemed impossible given his size and the impetus he still had from his flight. Loosening his arms from around me, he let me slide down his front. He probably intended for my feet to hit the floor, which totally would have happened, had I not kept my death grip around his neck. As it was, I sort of dangled there, having come full circle to be the grotesque piece of human jewelry I’d quipped about earlier.
I didn’t do it on purpose. I just couldn’t pry my fingers apart. Somewhere between the cold from the flight and my terror of falling, my muscles had locked in this position.
“You can let go.” His voice rumbled against my cheek, which was pressed against his chest.
I cleared my throat. Oh, look, my vocal cords were back! “Yeah. Um. I can’t.”
“Getting attached so quickly?”
Arrogant jerk.
With a sigh of suffering patience, he reached behind his neck and dislodged my fingers. I stumbled to the ground in a graceless thump.
My fingers touched grass and dirt. I glanced around me. We were in some sort of park, lawn stretching out behind me, a cluster of trees in front. Lights shone in the distance, not strong enough to illuminate the darkness of this corner of the park.
“Where are we?” I scrambled to a stand, dusting myself off.
The