to drown me before. I wasn’t done processing it, not by a long shot, and what he’d just told me about his own family was sure to hijack my thoughts again later. All the more reason, however, to grasp onto what little humor I could find, wherever I could find it. Laughter had always been my lifeline in times of pain.
“Okay, but seriously,” I said with a grin. “Cherub? You have to admit that’s funny.”
He scoffed. “The term has been around much longer than the human artistic misinterpretation of it. It’s the third-highest order among angels and demons.”
“What’s the highest?”
“Archangels and archdemons. Below them are seraphim, and below them the cherubim.”
Interesting that demons would keep the same terms for their hierarchy in Hell as angels did in Heaven. Perhaps some unconscious form of trying to retain a sense of legitimacy among them.
And thinking of angels…another thing occurred to me. I pursed my lips and slowly said, “So your mother got pregnant with you before Azrael fell…”
He paused in washing my legs, his tone carefully neutral. “That’s correct.”
“Does that mean,” I said, a grin building on my face, “what I think it means?”
“Zoe.” A low growl.
The grin made a full appearance. “It does!”
I gasped, wanted to turn around to see his expression, but his arm around my middle tightened, holding me in place. His energy pulsed over my skin, dark and zinging, but without the bite of real anger. If anything, it felt petulantly annoyed.
I craned my neck to peek at his face. He gave me some major side-eye, but the glint in his eyes spurred me on.
“You,” I breathed, holding his gaze with a shit-eating grin, “are half angel!”
He narrowed his eyes, but the twitch of his lips gave him away. “Don’t ever say that again.”
“Do you have a halo?”
“Stop insulting me.”
“A flaming sword?”
He raised a brow. “Do I need to reacquaint you with my sword? It’s not flaming, but then again, if it were, I should probably get medical attention for that.”
I giggled and set out to turn around, fully intending to needle him further, when he bit my neck and clasped me tight, keeping me in place. I shrieked at the sudden move, tingles coursing down my body, and when he playfully nipped up and down my neck and shoulder, tickling the sensitive part behind my ear, I completely lost it.
“Stop it, angel!” I cried out with a flare of theatrics, the sincerity of which was sadly undermined by my recurring giggles.
He kept nibbling at my neck, snarling against my skin, and single-mindedly tickling the treacherous spot that made me dissolve into fits of squeaky giggling.
“How very unholy!” I squealed, now laughing outright, and thrashed in his grasp.
His chest shook behind me, his growls underlaid by low chuckles that did fuzzy things to my stomach. Something fluttered in my chest, a strange lightness, filling me with bubbles of warmth. I liked his laugh.
And I liked it even more that I brought it out of him.
“I’m not finished washing you,” he now purred against my ear.
“Oh?”
The energy in the air shifted as Azazel dipped the washcloth between my legs...and there was simply no way that touch would stay non-arousing. I would have had to be comatose in order not to respond.
“Um,” I got out a tad breathless, wiggling under the sudden onslaught of sensation, “actually, you shouldn’t use soap—” I gasped “—there.”
“Is that so?” The innocent-sounding question contrasted with his targeted moves between my thighs.
“Just water,” I wheezed.
“Hm.” He dropped the washcloth in favor of using his fingers directly. “I agree.” He parted my folds, stroked along rapidly sensitizing skin. “This is better.”
Panting, I arched my back, and he held me still with his other arm slung around my waist as he continued to caress me with merciless patience. His large frame caged me as effectively as if I were lying underneath him, his strong thighs on either side of me, the massive wall of power that was his chest at my back.
I let my head fall back onto his shoulder, and he pressed hot kisses against my ear, my neck, my cheek. The water sloshed as I writhed, scissoring my legs helplessly at the desire coiling ever tighter in my core.
“Azazel,” I moaned, and brought up my arm, my fingers curling into his hair.
He made a low sound of approval and pulled me even closer. “I could listen to this all day.” He slid two fingers inside me, pumped in and out with increasing speed. “My name on