me.” Beth stared down at the blue veins on her wrist, ghosting over them with her fingertips. “We’re all plagued with something …” She shook her head, pulling herself from whatever poison she felt swelling the cages of her veins. “Are … are they simply that way too? The Fallen? Plagued in their own individual ways?”
A weight in Noa’s chest lifted as she listened to Beth’s unique way of explaining the fucked-up ways their personal traumas had manifested in each of them.
“You can trust them.” Noa turned, and she heard Beth walking away back into the kitchen. Noa opened the door and sealed herself inside the tunnel. She had only taken four steps around the first corner when she saw movement ahead, someone rushing toward her.
Her body stilled, instinctively bracing to fight, but as she observed the shadowy figure darting toward her, she recognized the broad shoulders, the tall frame and the messy hair.
Her body relaxed, and suddenly Diel was in front of her, eyes wild in the low light. He pressed her up against the wall, and she allowed it.
She welcomed it.
Diel’s body crushed against her. Just as it had been in the folly last night, she was smothered by him, completely consumed. He still wore no shirt, still wore the same jeans as last night and this morning. It was clear that he hadn’t showered yet after the gym, after their joining. He had been waiting for her to return. That thought made electricity sizzle in her chest.
Diel pressed his nose into her neck, then he moved his head until his face hovered before hers. “You were taking too fucking long.”
Noa smiled and dragged her hands through his hair, her nails scraping along his scalp. He growled. “Poor pretty monster,” she mocked. But she kept a smile on her face.
Diel’s eyes twitched, then on a long groan, he crushed his lips against hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and Noa became lost to his taste, to the control he exerted. Her back scraped against the wall and she yanked on his hair.
His hands dropped to her ass. He squeezed, and she felt his hard cock pressing between her legs. She moaned into his mouth as his hand lowered from her ass cheek to her thigh. Gripping the back of her leg, he hoisted it up around his hip. She couldn’t take any more. The heat between them was rising to scalding temperatures.
Ripping her mouth from his, Noa grabbed his cheeks to stop him from taking her lips again. Diel’s pupils were blown, his skin flushed and damp. “Take me to your bed,” Noa said. Diel didn’t even pause, not a single second of deliberation as he scooped her other leg around his hips and headed toward the manor as if Noa was as light as air.
Noa slid her arms around his ruined neck and laid kiss after kiss along his scarred skin. She could feel his hardness against her pussy. She ground her hips against him, and pins and needles spread over her skin, lighting her up like a torch. Diel groaned, a snarling, savage sound. She ground harder against him. She glanced behind her and saw the door to the manor just in reach.
But they never made it that far.
As Noa pushed against Diel’s cock, he turned and lowered her to the ground, ripping the leathers off her legs. Noa yanked open the fly of his jeans. There was no waiting, no foreplay, no sucking or licking; Diel lined himself up at her entrance and slammed inside her.
Noa’s nails sliced at his back, making him bleed. But she knew Diel lived for it. His inner monster would be yearning for more, for the heady mixture of pleasure and pain.
She could feel him everywhere. It was as if he wasn’t just a body. As if it was not only his cock that was inside her, thrusting and fucking and blowing her previously guarded world apart. In that moment, Diel became the sixth element to Noa. His energy was more than air, fire, earth, water and the spirit. He was the very center of the pentagram; he was its throbbing heart.
Diel crashed his lips to Noa’s, and she savored his tongue against hers, the feel of his stubble against her cheeks. They were a cocktail of grunts and groans and slapping flesh. Warmth wrapped around her as her orgasm began to build. Diel pulled back and looked directly into her eyes. She was trapped in his gaze—he was