I stilled, not sure what I’d done wrong. I was about to ask, but the look in his eyes stole the words from my lips along with all the air from my lungs. There was so much heat in his gaze I was surprised I didn’t burst into flames.
Every inch of my body warmed under his stare. I’d never felt desired before. In the world I’d grown up in, I was still seen as a child. None of the other angels would ever look at me with carnal want in their gaze. But even if they did, I couldn’t imagine it making me feel like this. I’d never met anyone like Joriel. He was real, not trying to hide his harder edges.
One second I was sitting in his lap, and the next I was on my back on the cave floor. Joriel covered my body with his, hovering above me.
My heart pounded so hard I could feel it everywhere. I felt like I’d combust if Joriel didn’t touch me. I wanted him to kiss me again, to feel his skin against mine.
I reached up and grasped the chain attached to his collar and tugged. His mouth collided with mine, and he let out a feral growl that should have been terrifying. But I couldn’t bring myself to be afraid of him. He could claim that he was a monster all he wanted. I knew he was so much more than that. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me even if he didn’t believe it himself.
His body pressed into mine, his weight heavy and reassuring. I was in the middle of Hell, and yet I couldn’t remember ever feeling so protected. Joriel might have sold his soul, but he was still an angel. And I trusted him with my life.
Then he went still. He pried my fingers from the chain and climbed off me.
For a second our heavy breathing was the only sound in the cell.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally.
I swallowed hard. “I’m not.” I reached for him, but he moved away.
“You should go.”
I brought a hand to my swollen lips, and his expression contorted as if he was in pain.
“You’re not making this any easier, snow angel.”
“Maybe I don’t want to make it easy.”
His eyes narrowed.
“And I’m not leaving again, so you can save your breath.” I sat down, my tattered skirt parting around my legs. It was amazing how unsuitable my outfit was for wandering around caves. I’d spent my life in light, flowy dresses and thin sandals and never once thought about how delicate they were. Now my skirt was little more than strips of fabric, and the soles of my sandals had been shredded by the rough rock. I’d already ditched the shoes somewhere in the tunnels and wasn’t sure how much longer I’d have the dress for.
“What do angels wear outside God’s court?” I asked Joriel. All angels and humans dressed the same in the palace, in sandals and either in open-backed, floor-length white dresses or white drawstring pants.
“Depends on where you are and what kind of clothes you like.”
“What did you wear when you were in the seventh order?”
“Whatever was normal for the people in the area of Earth I was sent to.”
“But what about when you weren’t on Earth?”
“It still depended on what was popular at the time. Clothing styles have evolved a lot over the years.”
“Yours seem considerably more durable than mine,” I said. His pants were battered, but they weren’t shredded the way my skirt was, and he’d been through a lot more during his stay in Hell than I had.
“What are you really getting at, Laila?” he asked tiredly.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I just wanted to fill the silence, to keep talking so I couldn’t think about that kiss and what it had meant. Or not meant.
I’d never been kissed before. I had nothing to compare Joriel to. I wanted to believe the passion I’d felt behind his kiss meant something, that I mattered to him. But maybe all kisses were like that. Maybe I wasn’t special at all, and that was how Joriel kissed everyone. He didn’t exactly have too many options right now.
And now I was obsessing. This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to think about it.
“This isn’t what I expected when I used to think about Hell,” I said in a desperate attempt at conversation. “There are a lot of theories among the humans, and they were all so wrong.”
“To be fair, it doesn’t sound like you’ve actually seen much of Hell. The prison realm barely counts. This is where trophies are stored when the grand princes don’t care about them anymore.”
“Trophies?”
