There’s a moment when I’m sure he’ll stop us.
Instead, he stops two women trying to get in. We walk past the women, leaving them to convince the guards that their angel had merely forgotten them outside and that he’s expecting to meet them inside. The guard firmly shakes his head.
Apparently, you need an angel as your ticket into the aerie. I let out a breath as we glide right through the doors.
CHAPTER 28
Inside, the two-story vaulted ceiling and Art Deco touches give the impression that the foyer was meant to welcome people of good breeding. A curved, gilded staircase dominates the area, creating a picture-perfect setting for couples with long dresses and tuxes, tasteful accents and pedigrees. Ironically, chubby cherubs look down at us from the frescoed ceiling.
To the side stands a long, marbled counter that should have had several attendants asking us how long we intend to stay. Now it’s just an empty reminder that this building used to be a posh hotel only a couple of months ago. Well, not entirely empty. There is a single attendant looking very small and human among all that marble and angelic grace.
The lobby is spotted with small groups chatting and laughing, all dressed in evening clothes. Most of the women are human with only an occasional female angel circulating the foyer. The men are a mix of human and angel. The human men are servants carrying drinks, picking up empty glasses, and checking in coats for the few lucky women who have them.
Raffe hesitates only briefly to survey the scene. We drift along the wall down a wide corridor with marbled floors and velvet wallpaper. The lighting in the foyer and hallway is more atmospheric than practical. This leaves much of the walls in soft shadows, a fact that I’m sure didn’t escape Raffe’s notice. I can’t say that we’re sneaking through the building, exactly, but we’re certainly not calling attention to ourselves.
A steady stream of people flow in and out of a pair of oversized leather doors accented in brass. We’re headed in that direction when three angels push through it. They’re all wide and solid, every graceful move, every casual bulge of muscle declaring them to be athletes. No, athletes isn’t quite right. Warriors is the word that rattles around in my brain.
Two of them stand head and shoulders taller than the crowd. The third is more compact, more lithe, more like a cheetah to their bears. They all carry swords dangling along their thighs as they walk. I realize that other than Raffe and the guards, these are the first angels I’ve seen with swords.
Raffe ducks his head toward me, flashing a smile as though I had just said something funny. He bends his head close enough to mine that I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead, he simply touches his forehead to mine.
To the men walking by, Raffe would look like a man being affectionate. But they can’t see his eyes. Despite the smile, Raffe’s expression is one of pain, the kind you can’t stop with aspirin. As the angels walk by us, Raffe subtly turns his body so that his back is to them at all times. They laugh at something the cheetah says, and Raffe closes his eyes, steeping in some bittersweet feeling I can’t begin to understand.
His face is so close to mine our breaths mingle. Yet he’s far away from me in a place where he’s buffeted by emotions deep and unkind. Whatever he’s feeling, it’s very human. I have this strong compulsion to try to pull him out of this mood, to try to distract him.
I place my hand on his cheek. It’s warm and pleasant. Maybe too pleasant. When his eyes don’t open, I tentatively touch my lips to his.
At first, I get no response and I consider backing off.
Then, his kiss turns hungry.
It is not the gentle kiss of a couple on a first date, nor is it the kiss of a man driven by simple lust. He kisses me with the desperation of a dying man who believes the magic of eternal life is in this kiss. The ferocity of his grip around my waist and shoulders, the grinding pressure of his lips has me off balance so that my thoughts whirl out of control.
The pressure eases, and the kiss turns sensual.
A tingling warmth shoots from the silken touch of his lips and tongue straight to my core. My body melts into his and I’m hyper aware of the hard muscles of his chest against my breasts, the warm grip of his hands around my waist and shoulders, the wet sliding of his mouth on mine.
Then it’s over.
He pulls back from me, taking a gulp of air as if surfacing from choppy waters. His eyes are deep pools of swirling emotion.
He shuts his eyes off from mine. And eases his breath in a controlled exhale.
When he opens his eyes again, they are more black than blue and completely unreadable. Whatever is happening behind those shuttered eyes is now impenetrable.
What I saw there a moment ago is now buried so far I have to wonder if I imagined it in the first place. The only thing that hints that he feels anything at all is that his breathing is still faster than normal.
“You should know,” he says. His whisper is low enough that even angels probably couldn’t hear it beyond the background noise of conversations in the corridor. “I don’t even like you.”
I stiffen in his arms. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it.
Unlike him, I’m pretty sure my emotions come through loud and clear on my face. I can feel one of those emotions heating my cheeks in humiliation.
He steps away from me casually, turns and pushes through the double doors.
I stand in the corridor watching the doors swing back and forth until it settles.
A couple pushes through from the other side. The angel has his arm around the woman. She wears a full-length silver sequined dress that hugs her body and winks at her every move. He sports a purple suit with a neon pink shirt that drapes its wide collar over his shoulders. They both stare at me as they walk by.
When a man in purple and screaming pink stares at you, you know it’s time to change your appearance. Although my crimson dress is tight and short, it’s not out of place here. It must be my stunned and humiliated expression that they’re looking at.
I school my face back to what I hope is neutral and force my shoulders to relax, or to at least look relaxed.
I’d kissed guys before. Sometimes it got awkward afterward, but never like this. I’ve always found kissing nice and pleasant, like smelling roses or laughter on a summer day. What I just experienced with Raffe was another animal. This was a knee-melting, gut-twisting, vein-tingling, nuclear meltdown compared to other kisses I’ve had.
I take a deep, deep breath. Hold it. Let it out slowly.
He doesn’t even like me.
I let the thought roll around in my head. Anything I feel as the thought rolls around gets shoved into the vault with the ten-foot thick door slamming as soon as it goes in, just in case something in there has any intention of crawling out.
Even if he did want me, so what? The end result would be the same. A dead end. Our partnership is on the verge of ending. As soon as I find Paige, I need to get out of here as fast as I can. And he needs to get his wings sewn back on, then deal with whatever enemies are causing him trouble. Then it’s back to him destroying my world with his buddies, and me scrambling for survival with my family. And that’s just the way it is. No room for high school fantasies.
I take another deep breath and let it out slowly, making sure all residual feelings are under control. All that matters is finding Paige. To do that, I need to work with Raffe just a little longer.
I walk to the double doors and push my way in to find him.
CHAPTER 29
As soon as I step inside, the world fills with the roar of jazz, laughter, and chatter along with a blast of heat, the scent of pungent cigar smoke, perfume, and scrumptious food all rolled into an incomprehensible wave of sensation.