Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels) - By Stacy Gail Page 0,50

about anyone else seeing them. I never wanted the inevitable questions, or worse—pity. I never thought I deserved pity for surviving.” She kept her tone light while she moved to the foot of the bed, as though they were sharing idle chatter over a cozy pot of tea. His eyes followed her, unblinking, as if unable to look away. She slid her fingers under the hem of the long-sleeved shirt she’d opted to sleep in, lifting it to show the merest glimpse of pale flesh. “You’re not the squeamish type, are you? I could always keep this on...”

“No.” It was a gruff sound of torment. “Off. Now.”

“If you’re sure.” Heady excitement shallowed out her breath, and she drew out the anticipation for them both by shimmying the material ever so casually up the length of her torso, pausing just at the tips of her unfettered breasts. With one quick move she pulled her head free, the shirt still on her arms and covering her front.

He growled. She thought it might have been a curse.

“I’m a lot leaner...tighter...than I was when you found me in the woods. Maybe you’ll see the difference.” She wiggled her shoulders until the material slithered down her arms. She could have caught it at her elbows, but he looked like he wanted to take a bite out of something, so she let the shirt fall at her feet. Naked from the waist up, she raised her arms to slide her fingers through hair that had been mussed by her quick disrobing, and she arched her back at the sensual delight there was in having his covetous attention slide over the rounded swell of her breasts. “Is there any difference in my body that you can see, Nate?”

“Beautiful.” His voice was raw, strained. A shallow breath made his chest heave. “You make me hurt, you’re so damn beautiful.”

“You haven’t seen all of me yet.” She turned in a graceful pirouette and bowed her head, exposing her back all the way from her nape to where the waistline of the jazz pants she’d slept in rode on her hips. “There. Can you see my wings?”

He seemed to need a second to answer. “Yes.”

“They go down further.” She didn’t want either of them to dwell on the agony and terror involved in the creation of her wings; the marks were nothing more to her now than badges of honor, battle scars that came with surviving. The last thing she wanted him to think of was ugliness. “Are you ready to see all of me?”

His breath shuddered. “Ella...ah, damn it. Please.”

A strong man begging for mercy was just about the best thing she’d ever run into. It only made her hungry for more.

Slipping her thumbs under the elastic waistband, she inched them to the rounded point of her hips. She rolled her pelvis, a sinuous move of pure provocation when the material passed the crack of her ass. “The feathers end right about there. Hope you’re okay with that.”

“Yes. God, yes. I love the way you move. I want you to move like that on me.”

“I plan to.” Excitement bit into her hot and needlelike, an almost-pain that tingled along her nerve endings. She swept her panties down her legs along with the pants, then turned to give him a long look at her profile as she rolled her spine upward until she was standing at her full height, her gaze seeking his. His brow was furrowed, as though enduring an ache that drilled all the way to his soul, his teeth bared as he pulled in shallow breaths that she could hear. The thrust of his arousal was still veiled, and it looked like he was slowly dying from its sweet pain. Taking pity on him, she bent and pulled at the ankle cuffs of the sweats. “Your turn.”

“Hurry.”

She was almost as breathless as he, and his exhortation only made it worse. She rested a knee between his feet and skimmed her hands up the long column of his legs, and the slower she went the more deliciously excruciating the anticipation became. He sucked in a whistling breath between his teeth as she reached the terrain of his thighs, and his eyes squeezed shut when she palmed the graceful rise of his hip bones.

“Almost there.” She moved upward to flatten her breasts against his torso while she gave in to temptation and flicked her tongue over the dark disc of his nipple before taking it into her mouth. She