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Jasper Cobb hissed as Reuben Fletcher thrust inside him, his ass stretching slickly to accommodate his lover’s thick cock. Reuben’s fingers were locked tight on Jasper’s head, grasping his hair in a punishing grip that had his neck and spine arching at a delicious angle where they knelt on the bed. Not that he minded the ruthless way the angel was claiming him.

Despite his puritanical image and his lofty status as the director of the San Francisco branch of the Order of Rosen, the organization of angels allied with the Catholic Church, Reuben was in no way a straitlaced creature when it came to the bedroom. Theirs was a relationship based on mutual trust and respect, and one hundred percent wicked sexual gratification.

Jasper wouldn’t have it any other way and he knew Reuben wouldn’t either, regardless of the prudish outward appearance the angel chose to project upon the world of man.

When Reuben called, Jasper came. And when Jasper needed a savage fuck, Reuben delivered. Though they’d both agreed they could date other people when they’d first become sex friends, Jasper’s gaze had never strayed to another since that time, just as he knew Reuben had remained true to him. Which was saying something considering angels and demons had no qualms having several bed partners at any one time. Their races had never been one for serial monogamy, not even before the Fall.

Jasper’s muddled thoughts scattered to the four winds as Reuben possessed him the way he loved to be taken. Hard and rough and fast, the exquisite ache that accompanied Reuben’s ardent penetration only serving to heighten the mind-numbing pleasure pooling in his belly. His hand found his aching cock where it bobbed against his stomach, his body jerking with every hard pump of the hips pistoning against his ass.

Reuben tightened his hold on his hair, a warning not to touch himself. Jasper bit his lip and slowly lowered his hand to the bed, knowing his orgasm would be all the more powerful if he obeyed Reuben.

If I’d known this fucker was such a control freak, I would have had second thoughts when he’d approached me.

“Focus, Jasper.” Reuben’s hand bit into the demon’s waist where he held him steady. His thrusting hips slowed to a stop, the savage pounding Jasper had been thoroughly enjoying abating with a suddenness that had a whimper of protest falling from his lips.

Make that third thoughts!

The demon gnashed his teeth in frustration, his hands fisting in the satin sheets beneath them. His passage spasmed around Reuben’s shaft, his climax so close he could taste it.

“Move!” Jasper bit out.

Reuben yanked his head back until his neck tendons corded and ached.

“What’s the magic word?” the angel whispered in Jasper’s ear before sinking his teeth in his lobe.

Jasper cursed, cum shooting out of his dick at the pleasurable sting. His hole clenched around Reuben where the angel filled him to the brim. The way Reuben shuddered told the demon he was close to losing his composure too.

“Say it, Jasper,” the angel ordered in a hard voice.

“I swear to the Nine Hells, I’m gonna kill you when we’re done this time!” Jasper snarled.

Reuben ignored his threat. “I want the word, demon.” His breath coasted his nape a second before he bit him with enough strength to bruise his flesh.

Jasper gasped and jerked at the sharp prick of the angel’s teeth. He inhaled raggedly, body close to exploding from ramped up sexual tension. There was only one way he would obtain the release he craved.

“Please,” he whispered.

He closed his eyes, hating how his voice sounded.

Like he couldn’t do without the angel. Like he needed him so badly he was willing to beg for his pleasure.

Reuben stilled at Jasper’s softly spoken plea. “That’s a good demon.”

For a second, Jasper thought he felt the angel’s lips ghost lovingly across his back as he relaxed his commanding hold on his hair. Then there was no more time to think. All he could do was feel as Reuben clutched his hips, hitched his ass higher, and resumed their fierce mating dance. His every thrust ground the broad head of his dick against Jasper’s prostate and sent pulses of red-hot ecstasy rocking through his soul core.

The pulses expanded. Merged. Became a sea of violent sensations.

The demon came on a guttural cry, his vision exploding with bright sparks as he ejaculated with untamed force, his belly clenching so tight he gasped at his twinging muscles. Reuben rutted against him, mouth open on husky groans and grunts, the bed rocking under his powerful thrusts. He reached around Jasper’s body and clasped his pulsing cock.

Jasper moaned out a protest, head drooping forward. A demon’s release was longer than any otherworldly’s when they were overwhelmed by pleasure, their ejaculation sometimes lasting well over a minute. He was at his most sensitive right now and couldn’t endure being touched.

This asshole!

Sweat dripped from his face as he looked down the length of his body to where Reuben’s fingers moved skillfully on his aching flesh, the sight of his lover’s large hand stroking him to a fresh erection almost too much to bear.

Reuben knew just how to touch Jasper to make him hard in seconds.

The angel brought Jasper to another soul searing orgasm before he finally climaxed, his cum flooding Jasper’s back passage in sharp spurts until it spilled over and trickled down his thighs in hot, sticky strings. The musky scent had Jasper’s head spinning as they both twitched and jerked with aftershocks of pleasure.

They collapsed on the bed a moment later, limbs tangled and chests heaving with their ragged breathing, the angel’s heavy weight a comforting pressure on Jasper’s back as he stretched their arms above their heads.

Reuben pressed a soft kiss on Jasper’s left shoulder. “I thought you said you were gonna kill me after we were done.”

“I’m still thinking about it,” Jasper panted when he could speak again, too sated to move.

Reuben chuckled, the vibrations shaking his chest where it warmed Jasper’s back and causing his cock to shift enticingly inside his ass.

“You realize you say that every time we fuck, right?”

“Shut up,” the demon grumbled.

He bit back a protest when Reuben pulled out of him and climbed off the bed, secretly wishing the intimate moment would last longer. Reuben returned with a couple of cool, damp towels. He rolled Jasper on his back and proceeded to clean him intimately.

Jasper stiffened a little before surrendering to the angel’s attentive ministrations. Though they’d been together for two years, it still surprised him when Reuben treated him so warmly after the act of sex.

The angel was the first lover he’d had who’d ever acted this way.

The demon’s face tightened, irritation shooting through him. He hated the feelings Reuben evoked in him at times like this. Hated the angel’s kindness. His tenderness. It made Jasper feel weak and vulnerable, emotions he refused to assign to himself.

They were both fierce warriors who had shed lakes of blood in the millennia of their existences, Reuben in the Heavens and Jasper in the Hells.

Love. Affection. Devotion.

Those words shouldn’t exist in their vocabulary.

Jasper folded his arms behind his head and watched his lover from hooded eyes, vexed still at the unwanted fondness he felt for the angel.

“What?” Reuben’s touch raised sparks on Jasper’s skin as he wiped his body clean of sweat. He arched an eyebrow. “You like seeing me take care of you?”

A cruel smile twisted Jasper’s mouth. “I like seeing you at my feet, where you belong.” He pressed his foot against Reuben’s chest.

Reuben’s eyes darkened with a nameless emotion. He danced a hand down Jasper’s thigh and around the back of his calf, causing the demon to tense and twitch.

Jasper’s breath caught when Reuben took a hold of his ankle and lifted his foot so he could kiss his toes. A hot feeling tightened the demon’s chest. One he wished to deny. Words of protest crowded the back of his throat.

The look Reuben gave him strangled them.

“Don’t.” Jasper tugged his foot from Reuben’s grasp, his brow furrowing in a heavy frown.

Reuben held fast. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t say it!” Jasper growled.

Reuben sighed. “It’s been two years, Jas. You know how I feel about you. When are you finally going to admit that you love me too?”

Jasper’s heart stuttered at the angel’s confession and question. It wasn’t the first time he’d said those words and it wouldn’t be the last. Still, he couldn’t bear it when Reuben got like this. All solemn and inflexible, like a Stark Steel blade that would never yield. It wasn’t what he’d signed up for when Reuben first approached him and asked him to come to his place. He remained mute, knowing Reuben would take his silence for what it was.

A rejection of his feelings.

The expression that flitted across the angel’s face as he rose to go in the bathroom had Jasper’s stomach clenching on a wave of self-loathing. Reuben looked resigned, like he hadn’t actually expected an answer.

It made Jasper want to rage at him.

He knew he was being an asshole. He’d proven that enough even before he became the director of the San Francisco branch of Cabalista, his legendary temper and tendency to shoot first and ask questions later earning him an unsavory reputation over the last few hundred years.

Still, it was his skills as a warrior and his ability to lead the men and women in his charge even under the most harrowing of circumstances that had allowed him to climb the pecking order of the organizations that had formed to govern the Fallen and the human magic users who had flourished during the Hundred Year War.

Despite his achievements, Jasper was aware he likely owed his position as bureau director to Victor Sloan. The Fiery demon and head of Cabalista was an old friend who had always supported him over the centuries. Jasper wasn’t anywhere as good at playing politics as Victor was. The few times he’d attended formal functions to mingle with those in power had ended with him sporting a hungover from the Nine Hells and having to live with Victor’s teasing for days on end. Still, he knew Victor had likely pulled some strings to get him the job in San Francisco.

Jasper’s heart twinged a little as Victor’s face swam before his eyes, his unrequited affection for the powerful demon a sore that had festered too long in his soul. To his surprise, the pain and bitterness he always experienced when he thought of the man he could never have had all but abated as of late.

He’d wondered if it was because Victor had finally broken up with Cassius Black, the angel who had held the Fiery’s attention ever since the Fall and the only man Victor had had a long-term relationship with.

Shunned by humans and the Fallen alike for the ominous color of his wings, Cassius was someone Jasper had loathed at first sight. He’d known at their very first meeting that he’d won Victor Sloan’s heart without even trying. Jasper could only watch with helpless impotence as Victor fell deeper and deeper in love and in lust with the beguiling angel over the centuries that followed.

It didn’t help that Cassius’s quiet strength and calm demeanor were the completely opposite of Jasper’s smart mouth and brash attitude. They were like oil and water, never meant to mix and best kept apart.

Still, Cassius was now technically his and Reuben’s ally. The dark-winged angel had relocated to San Francisco a couple of months back and had almost immediately become embroiled in a battle with far reaching consequences for humans and Fallen alike. Though Jasper still resented the angel to some extent, Cassius had more than proven himself when they’d fought alongside one another to handle a threat that had almost ripped open the Nether once more.

Jasper and Cassius would never be best friends, but he could at least tolerate the angel’s presence now.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

Reuben’s voice stirred him from his gloomy ponderings. His lover had finished showering and was getting dressed.

“It’s gonna cost you more than a penny for me to tell you what I’m thinking about,” Jasper grumbled. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Aren’t you gonna be late for your meeting?”

“No.” Reuben leaned across the bed and dropped a kiss on Jasper’s mouth. “I’m never late for my meetings. And you didn’t answer my question.”

Jasper narrowed his eyes a little.

He’s not thinking about flying over to his office, is he?

Even though he was the director of the Order of Rosen, Reuben would still need special permission to use his wings in the absence of an emergency.

The angel smiled, as if he’d read Jasper’s mind. “I’m a good driver.”

Jasper grimaced. “I can’t believe you said that with a straight face. You’re a menace behind the wheel.”

Reuben chuckled and pressed another kiss to his lips.

“I was thinking of Cassius,” the demon mumbled.

Reuben’s smile faded. “What about Cassius?” He straightened and crossed his arms across his chest, his brow furrowing.

Jasper stared, not quite sure what he was reading on his lover’s face. His stomach flip-flopped. “Wait. Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”

Reuben’s eyes shrank to slits. “I know he’s not your type, so no.”

Jasper raised an eyebrow, enjoying this game. “Who’s my type?”

“I am.”

Jasper choked at the angel’s quiet arrogance. “Who the heck said you were my type, asshole?!” he spluttered.

“Your body did,” Reuben said with a haughty smile. “Multiple times. In fact, your mouth, your dick, and your hole loudly proclaimed I was your type five times last night, never mind the two orgasms I just gave you.” He headed into their closet and came out with cufflinks and a tie. “Plus, you said yes when I asked you to move in with me.”

Jasper scowled. “We moved into a new place. Don’t make it sound like I crawled into your cage.” He watched Reuben fumble the cufflinks and tsk-tsked. “Give it here.” He climbed off the bed and padded over to the angel buck naked.

Reuben stilled and let him do up his cuffs. “You make a good wife.”

Jasper punched him in the arm. “What the fuck do I see in you?!”

“Ouch.” Reuben chuckled. “My dazzling smile and my charming personality?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Plus, you forget I have a dick that can satisfy your every need.” He did his tie up and shrugged into his suit jacket while Jasper grumbled under his breath. “By the way, Brianna messaged me yesterday. She’s meeting up with Galliad and the others at Occulta Saturday night. She said we should come.”

Jasper’s ill thoughts faded. “Everything got sorted with her daughter?” he asked gruffly as he adjusted the knot in Reuben’s tie.

“Yeah. It’s a shame we weren’t around for the fight with that mage, but it looks like Brianna got plenty of help from Cassius and Morgan, as well as the Dryads.”

Morgan King was Cassius’s current lover and a powerful Aerial angel in his own right. As for Brianna Monroe, the director of the San Francisco Hexa bureau had been through a turbulent time lately, after her daughter Eden ran away from home and fell prey to a group of bloodcursed sorcerers led by a powerful mage. Jasper and Reuben had been away on business in Europe and had landed in San Francisco two days after the battle ended.

“We should go to Occulta . There’s someone I want us to check out when we’re there.”

Jasper wasn’t fooled by Reuben’s light tone. He frowned at the angel’s broad back as he walked out of their bedroom.

This again?!

“You realize my daughter is still in high school, right?” Brianna Monroe ground out.

Cedric Esteban bobbed his head respectfully. “Of course. I am more than willing to wait until Eden is eighteen for us to formally wed. We shall call it an engagement for now.”

Eden Monroe choked on air.

Charlie Lloyd smiled in his beer at their exchange.

It had been ten days since Argonaut and Hexa’s showdown with Ouroboros and the Hartman sisters at an abandoned amusement park on the Pacific coast. News of the epic battle and the rumored rising of a new bloodcursed mage had already begun to filter through the grapevine that connected the agencies which governed the otherworldly and magic users in San Francisco.

“Twenty!” Brianna barked.

“Twenty-five,” Malik Garcia snarled. “And after she graduates from college.”

Eden spluttered, eyes rounding. The teenage bloodcursed mage looked like she wanted to dig a hole and crawl right into it. Charlie could sympathize. He had already had to stop himself from rolling his eyes half a dozen times.

“Well, this is a surprise,” someone said coolly.

Charlie stiffened and looked over his shoulder.

Jasper Cobb and Reuben Fletcher stood next to their booth.

Jasper sneered at Morgan. “I heard you and Cassius got your asses handed to you by a mage and her sister.”

“I see fake news spreads like wildfire,” Morgan retorted nastily.

Reuben smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So, it isn’t true?”

Morgan lowered his brows.

Irritation quickened Charlie’s pulse. Though their paths had only crossed sporadically since he’d started working for Argonaut, Jasper and Reuben had always rubbed him the wrong way. There was something about them that set off his survival instincts, like prey in the presence of predators. Besides, he’d heard enough unsavory rumors about the two bureau directors to know he should steer clear of them.

Reuben glanced at him. A mysterious smile flitted across his face before his gaze shifted to Brianna.

Charlie stiffened. What the hell?!

Jasper and Reuben chatted briefly with the others before heading for the bar.

“I still can’t believe those two are a couple,” Julia Chen said.

“Reuben’s a saint,” Morgan muttered. His eyes found Charlie. A resolute expression hardened his face.

Charlie’s stomach plummeted. He knew that look.

“Excuse me.” He rose and beat a hasty retreat in the direction of the restroom before Morgan could speak.

Charlie knew the angel had been about to demand he take the Argonaut promotion exam to level up his status as a magic user. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, his team seemed hell bent on him becoming a Level One enchanter.

They’d become even more zealous in their endeavors ever since he mastered the Altered Mind box they’d seized from Lucille Hartman and her black magic sorcerers. To Charlie’s surprise, even Cassius had joined in their attempts to convince him he was more than capable to rise up the ranks.

And there I thought he was the smartest one of all of us. He sighed as he flushed the toilet. Why do they think they know my own magic better than me?

He came out of the stall, washed and dried his hands, and turned to find Reuben and Jasper blocking the exit. His pulse spiked.

There was no one else in the restroom except the three of them.

Fuck. I didn’t hear them come in.

Charlie swallowed. He clenched his jaw in the next instant.

Wait. Why am I letting these assholes intimidate me?