“Once more,” she coaxed, rol ing her hips. “For me. I want to come again, Elijah, but I can’t without you.”
Arching up, he wrapped himself around her and rol ed, taking her beneath him. His forearms buffered her shoulders and back from the prickly ground, once again displaying the awareness and consideration that she so admired.
She was pinned yet cushioned as he took over, sliding in and out, his powerful muscles flexing and contracting against her. His eyes stayed on hers, his searching gaze more intimate than even the erotic flux and flow of his body’s possession of hers.
“Mine,” he said. “Say it.”
Her neck arched as her senses overloaded. She couldn’t see, could barely hear beyond the rushing of blood in her ears.
“Say it, Vashti,” he purred darkly with his lips to her throat, his breath gusting hotly over her skin. “Say it and I’l come for you.”
“Mine,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around him. “You’re mine.”
Cleansed and strengthened, Adrian slowly lowered into the backyard with a limp and satiated Lindsay in his arms. For the first time in days, he was thinking clearly, and he was grateful for that when he spotted an unknown car in the driveway. “Someone’s here.”
Lindsay lifted her head from his chest. “Can you do that mind-flashy-thingy and put some real clothes on me?”
He thought of the clothes she’d packed for the trip and wil ed a pair of black pants and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt on her. For himself, he went with slacks and an untucked white dress shirt. He was rol ing up the sleeves as he moved to open the back door for his mate.
“You forgot my underwear,” she whispered fiercely as they stepped into the kitchen.
His mouth curved. “No, I didn’t.”
Their guest was waiting in the living room, laughing over something shared with his guards. The two lycans stood at attention when he entered the room, but the lovely Asian woman who’d been entertaining them rose to her feet much more leisurely. Dressed in a pinstripe pencil skirt, silk blouse, and Louboutins, Raguel Gadara’s messenger was dressed for her secular life. In her celestial one, she favored worn jeans, a 9mm, and Doc Martens.
“Evangeline.” Adrian greeted her, clasping her extended hands and sifting through her thoughts via that connection, learning al he needed to know. “Good to see you.”
She smiled. “You say that so smoothly, I could almost believe you.”
He pivoted to bring Lindsay into the conversation. “Lindsay, meet Evangeline Hol is. Eve’s presently overseeing the interior design of the Mondego casino. Eve, Lindsay was briefly the assistant manager of Raguel’s Bel adonna property in Anaheim. Now she’s mine.”
Eve shook Lindsay’s hand. “Count yourself lucky to have dodged the bul et of working for Gadara.”
Lindsay frowned, confused by the other woman’s statement because she didn’t yet know that Gadara’s underlings were conscripted rather than indentured like the lycans. Adrian would catch her up later.
“What brings you by?” he asked Eve, diverting the conversation from explanations he didn’t want to get into now.
She pointed at the tiny biohazard cooler at her feet. “Archangel blood. I watched Gadara draw it and place it inside. He said you’d believe me that he hadn’t tampered with it or made a switch. I figured you’d mind-rape me when you touched me and prove it for yourself.”
“You know me so wel .”
Eve laughed, but her dark gaze was hard. “There’s some comfort in knowing most angels are predictable.”
Lindsay looked at the cooler. “Why didn’t Gadara give us the blood when we asked for it yesterday?”
“Control,” Eve and Adrian responded simultaneously.
“Hel ,” Lindsay muttered. “This isn’t a game.”
“In a way it is,” Eve explained. “A game Gadara doesn’t want Adrian to lose, but he doesn’t want Adrian to win without his help. Ambition is the Achil es’ heel of every archangel. In this case, Gadara knew he had the upper hand because it was his blood to give…or not. He just wanted to make sure Adrian knew it, and that Adrian understands he now owes Gadara something for giving it up—it’s always good to have a favor from a seraph in your pocket.”
Lindsay looked at Adrian. “Wel , shit.”
“Lucky you, neshama,” he teased her. “You have an entire seraph in your…pocket.”
She shoved at his shoulder. “Why not come himself and rub it in?”
Eve’s mouth twisted rueful y. “To put me in my place while insulting Adrian by sending an emissary from the bottom of the totem pole. Two birds, one stone. He’s good at that.”