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I’d needed to give her an opportunity to bring it up, to open the door for her to confess to her wanting me, and that moment of her fantasies about “making it up to me” had been the perfect chance to do so.
Not that it had prepared me to actually hear her talk about it.
Skin heating at the memory of her detailing her erotic ideas, I stopped buttoning my pants over my yet again painfully hard cock.
Here we go again.
With a sigh, I took myself in my hand and quickly sought relief.
As I’d done countless times over the past few hours.
What had sustained me for years and years in her absence suddenly wasn’t enough anymore, not after I’d touched her again, after I’d tasted her lips, felt her push into my caress, seen her shatter with pleasure, open and trusting, drawn to me the same way I was to her.
The peace from the releases I attained never lasted long, as if my body would only be satisfied once I shared this pleasure directly with her.
Once done jerking off, I cleaned myself—yet again—and finished dressing before the next wave of sensual memories might commandeer my mind once more. Leaving the cavernous room with the hot springs behind, I followed the tunnel to the smaller cave where I’d set up my lair, the crystals along the walls illuminating the naturally rounded corridor.
I didn’t need sleep, but Naamah had nonetheless procured a large cushion that acted as a bed so I’d have a place to rest or relax while passing the time. I couldn’t very well travel back to Earth or Hell in between my meetings with Zoe. Every time I went outside this cave and moved through Heaven, the risk of being found out increased. The glamour from having brought my angelic side forth while suppressing my demonic heritage held up well and would withstand simple scrutiny—as was evident in the fact that Zoe wasn’t showing signs of suspicion that I might be more than an angel—but I’d rather err on the side of caution and not put it to the test unnecessarily.
All it would take to expose me would be one stubborn angel who might demand to know exactly who I was and what I was doing here. My cover as the angel Aziel would only go so far. If someone were to dig deeper and request to speak to my superior angels from my territory in order to find out what I was doing over here, I’d be in trouble.
Rubbing a hand over my face, I settled onto the cushion. It would be long hours still until my next meeting with Zoe, and I was glad for someplace to stretch out my legs.
Even if all I did was stare at the ceiling and imagine all the ways I could coax Zoe’s memory to fully return.
“Hello?” Naamah’s voice floated through the tunnel and into my lair. “Are you decent? All private activities finished?”
I heaved a sigh and sat up. “Come in,” I called out.
She appeared at the opening of the tunnel a moment later, raising her brows at me. “So how’d it go? Better than yesterday?”
I rested my arms on my bent knees. “Yeah.”
She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, leaning against the wall with one shoulder. “Just ‘yeah’? Did you make progress?”
With all the power vested in me, I tried to keep the grin from moving onto my face. My power failed me.
“Oooooh.” Naamah pushed off the wall and came closer. “Does that mean what I think it means? Did you do more than fighting?” She wiggled her brows.
I shrugged, my grin turning smug. “We made progress.”
“Of the horizontal sort?” She held back what could have been an amused noise. “Although, to be fair, it could be vertical as well, no? It really depends on the situation.”
I hung my head, realizing that she and I were far too much alike. I’d said almost exactly that to Zoe at one point, after all.
“Just a kiss,” I said. “And a little more. I’m pacing myself.” I sent her a look and added in a low voice, “She hasn’t been with anyone up here.”
Understanding shone in her eyes. “I’m glad for you. I’d had that impression, but I wasn’t sure.”
Naamah had only stepped into Zoe’s life a few years ago, so there had been a time at the beginning, after Zoe’s ascension, when Naamah hadn’t been her friend yet. And while Naamah had assured me that she hadn’t noticed Zoe being with anyone in recent years, there’d always been the possibility that she’d had a lover earlier. Zoe might have told Naamah many things, but whether she would have always disclosed the more private things like trysts had been a matter of doubt.
I’d known that it might have happened, that Zoe could have found someone she liked and taken them to her bed. And while the very idea of it burned me like acid, I wouldn’t have held it against her. I wouldn’t have judged her for it, not when she’d had no reason to refrain. She didn’t remember—neither me, nor us, nor the promises we’d made to each other.
I knew that she would have felt bad once she regained her memories and realized she’d unknowingly been with someone other than me, but I would rather have cut out my heart than make her feel guilty for something that wasn’t her fault.
Knowing about it would still have hurt me, which was why I’d been prepared to never ask her.
The relief I’d felt when she’d told me, of her own volition, that she hadn’t had a lover had been indescribable. The rush of it had made me lightheaded, had healed parts of my heart that had been cracked in anticipation of hearing her say what I never wanted to know.
