Page 14 of Falling
He smiled. “As you wish.”
Catalina tilted her face up to him, exposing the long, pale length of her neck. “Do whatever you plan to do. Just know, this has been the most wonderful night of my life.”
He imagined lifting his hands, wrapping them around the thin, vulnerable column of her throat, and he couldn’t, not in a million years.
So Brigan bent, resting his lips on her pulse, feeling the life thrumming there, coveting it so deeply it made phantom pain slice through his torso.
Catalina lowered her chin, opportunistically capturing his mouth in a kiss, and he couldn’t help himself, he groaned, melting into it, calculating whether the pleasure of one night, one week, one lifetime with her was worth the pain of inevitable loss, and he knew he couldn’t bear it.
She sent her hands up his back, and he bent to taste her, those lips, that soft, teasing tongue, to suck and lick and indulge in this final taste, but as they moved together, the contact deepening into something lush and promising, Brigan became aware of the path of her touch, diverging from the norm. Lovers’ hands always passed hungrily from his backside to his shoulders or the same path in reverse, groping and possessive and entitled, but invariably their fingers would pass, unfeeling, over the site of eruption, the obstacle of powerful muscle and bone and feather extending from his back.
Brigan stilled now as Catalina’s tentative caresses circled the wide base of his left wing where it joined his taut back muscles and traveled up over the broad arc of it, gently, seductively, exploring the enormous wind-roughened curve all the way down to the erotic, sensitive, feather-soft tip.
He gasped, electrified, his entire body gone rigid.
She pulled back to take in his expression, her wonder immediately crashing into remorse. “I’m sorry! I should have asked. I just didn’t know if they were real.”
Thunderstruck, mute, he stared down at her and simply nodded, for all around him the world began to melt into color and vibration and sound; her face, which had been beautiful to him from the moment he saw her, was now something else altogether, still beautiful but now irresistible; dear to him in away that held her tenderly at the very center of each cell in his body. His life, his love, his soul stood before him.
Beneath his sternum, Brigan’s heart took a gigantic, thrashing lurch.
Heat spiraled down his torso, extending into each limb, pulsing hot into each finger. He sucked a deep breath of icy air into his lungs, reveling in the contrast of warmth inside, cold outside.
“If I’d given you another, what was your final question going to be?” he asked her, his voice hoarse with emotion.
Catalina looked up at him, her eyes adoring and concerned. “I was going to ask you whether you could fly.”
He could; he could fly and glide and soar and dive, but right in that moment, with his soul and heart returned to him, with Catalina standing before him and their future spreading out ahead like a vibrant, luxurious tapestry, Brigan could only fall to his knees.