inner thigh. “It’s good to know that when I want your tongue on me, all I need to do is take you flying. I’ll make sure to wear less next time.”
The image of my mouth on his cock filled my mind—all the more damnably erotic because I hadn’t gone there yet. With all the various times we’d tangled in the sheets—and on a ladder—I had somehow yet to pleasure him orally.
And now I couldn’t think of anything else.
How it was possible to feel acute arousal without a body, I had no idea, but somehow my soul managed to hum with desire.
“Keep that up,” he muttered, his grip tightening on me, “and we won’t make it to your friend.”
“You started it,” I shot back. “Besides, would we even be able to...with me like this?”
His gaze of searing lightning met mine. “Never tried it.” The smile sneaking onto his mouth was positively naughty. “Wanna be my first?”
I choked back a sound somewhere between a laugh and an eager groan. Hell, the idea of being the first sexual anything for him was deliciously tempting. Considering his age, there likely weren’t many firsts left.
“We don’t have the time,” I said, regret pinching me at the words. Seeing as this was my first visit to Earth, I needed to make the most of it. “Rain check?” I added with a flutter of my lashes.
“Tease,” he murmured and focused on the city below us, but the corners of his mouth kicked up.
He angled his wings to swoop down toward the apartment building I recognized from pics Taylor had sent me.
“That’s her balcony,” I said, pointing out the balustraded platform with a table and a set of chairs as well as a sad-looking palm which Taylor swore was determined to die on her despite her loving care. She’d sent me photos complaining about the traitorous plant. “You can land there and...wait, how do we get inside?”
“I thought we’d crash through the windows like some giant, confused bird and cover the floor in a shower of glass.”
“You’re kidding.”
He raised a brow. “Watch me.”
“No.” I glanced at the rapidly nearing building. “No!”
He wasn’t slowing down. The balcony and its glass door rushed closer at breakneck speed.
“Azazel!”
He snapped his wings half-closed, like a falcon in a killing swoop. We sped up even more. Only a few feet now until we hit the glass square on.
I shrieked.
The door swung open at the last second. Azazel flared and flapped his wings in a skilled slowing maneuver and hopped into the living room through the wide open balcony door. The sound of susurration filled the room as he shook his wings and then retracted them.
Trembling, I slid down his front and rounded on him. “You jerk!”
Laughing quietly, he adjusted the sleeves of his tunic. “You wouldn’t have been hurt even if I did crash through the window. In your soul form, you can walk through walls.” He winked at me.
Ugh.
His face turned serious. “Remember I said you could choose to show yourself?”
I nodded.
“Don’t.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but he cut me off.
“If you care about the mental health of your friends and family, you need to stay invisible. Like I said earlier, you’d have no way to explain your sudden reappearance, or the fact that you’ll need to vanish again in just a little while. As much as you long to talk with them and reconnect, seeing them from the safety of your own invisibility is the only viable option. It’ll have to do.” His gaze bore into me. “And if you try to tell them the truth, they’ll go mad.”
“Not Taylor.” I shook my head. “She already knows. Remember the séance?”
His features darkened. “I’m not the one who ever forgot it,” was his dangerously silken reply.
Right. I grimaced. “She was there with me. She’d have made her own pact—deal—whatever—” I waved a hand “—but she got scared when the lights flickered after I went first, and she bailed.”
His face was a mask of unforgiving hardness.
Touchy subject still, that whole séance contract thing.
“Anyway,” I said, rushing on past that particular self-destruct button. “The night you came to pick me up, I called her and told her about you.”
He narrowed his eyes. Dark power writhed around him like phantom shadows.
“What I mean to say,” I continued with just a touch of panic, “is that I won’t break her mind if I reveal myself to her. She already knows. She’s the only one who knows.” My voice brittle, I added, “The only one