“Then what? I don’t like to see you…” He trailed off, cursing, as if he was beating himself up about admitting to having feelings like normal people. “You’re upset. I need to do something, Blaspheme.”

She turned to him, desperate for anything he could do to take her mind off what she’d done. She’d made a nearly fatal mistake, and now she’d lost her job. Even if the suspension was only temporary, probably a matter of days given how fast her False Angel enchantment was failing, it felt like she’d been fired. People were staring at her already, looking at her like she was a murderer.

“My office,” she said. “I need to get away from here —”

Suddenly, they were standing next to her desk. “What else?” His hand snapped out and caught her by the chin. She inhaled sharply at the possessiveness in his gaze, the way it heated her skin like an erotic sunburn. “Please, Blaspheme. Let me help you.”

“Why?” she rasped. “Why do you want to help me? Why are you so fucking obsessed with me?”

“I don’t know.” He smoothed his thumb along her jawline, and she leaned into it, more starved for contact than she’d like to admit. “Something about you draws me. False Angels are always dark, but there’s a light in you that seeps out and warms me.”

She should be terrified that he had noticed yet another frayed thread in her disguise, but it occurred to her that every time he pointed out something that made her different, it was a compliment. He liked that she wasn’t a standard-issue False Angel.

Dipping his head, he brushed his lips over hers. “I haven’t been warm in a very long time, Blaspheme.”

His words were like a balm, a caress that both soothed her and aroused her. She suddenly knew what she wanted, and although she knew it was wrong, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Regrets were for later.

“Fuck me,” she said. “Make me forget about all of this.”

Instantly, his arms came around her. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” At this very moment, crazy as it was, she’d never been more sure of anything.

Twenty-One

If Revenant could lock this moment away in a time capsule, he would. If he could stretch this moment out and make it last forever, he would.

Not since his mother had been alive had a female needed him. Truly needed him, and something inside him shattered.

This was why he’d truly saved the blanchier demon. Not because he wanted Blaspheme to owe him, but because she’d needed him, even if she hadn’t known it at the time. And something about her made him want to do good, even if all he did was save the life of a demon who probably wouldn’t have lifted a finger to save anyone else.

He looked down at the beautiful female standing before him, her eyes liquid with the pain that was so clearly tearing her apart, and he knew he’d do anything she asked. He was an idiot – an idiot who was still ignoring Satan’s damned summons – but right now he didn’t care.

This was a noble female he didn’t deserve, and he knew that for sure after watching her admit to a major error that she could easily have covered up. Instead, she’d faced her boss like a warrior and accepted her punishment.

She was unique, not only among False Angels, but among most demons.

In that moment, she’d become the person he trusted most in the world.

He felt the impact of that knowledge all the way to his soul, damaged as it was, and he had the strangest urge to fold his wings around her in the most intimate of angelic embraces. He’d never done it before, but what made the desire truly odd was that angels only experienced the impulse when their partner was another angel. He hadn’t thought False Angels counted.

“Revenant, hurry.”

His heart pounded at the sight of the desperation tangling with desire in her liquid gaze.

“No rules, right?” His hands made quick work of her scrub top and pants. “No stupid no-touching rules.”

“No,” she moaned as he lowered his mouth to her breast and licked a nipple through the delicate lace of her bra. “No rules.”

“Fuck, yeah.” He pushed her back against her desk and dropped to his knees to kiss the smooth, bare expanse of her belly. “Spread your legs.”

Bracing her palms on the edge of the desk, she obeyed, arching against him as he kissed his way down her abdomen, admiring the honed, rippling muscles that flexed as he worked his way to the elastic of her low-slung beige panties. His cock pushed painfully hard against his leathers, but he ignored the needy son of a bitch as he used a fang to rip her underwear down the front.

“I liked those,” she muttered.

“I like them better in the garbage.” She was bare to him now, and unlike when they were at his place and his hands were fisted at his sides, he now had no idiotic rules to restrain him. He dragged his palms down her hips to her sex and used his thumbs to spread her wide.

She was ready for him, glistening with arousal already. His blood caught fire, burning with the intensity of the sun’s surface. He’d been desperate to taste her before, but now he knew how she tasted, and his mouth watered.

He didn’t waste another second. He buried his face between her legs, pressing the flat of his tongue hard against her core, using his own pulse to thud against her with a steady but gentle beat. The pressure made her squirm and pant as she gripped his head and held him as if afraid he’d suddenly stop.

Not gonna happen.