Wings, Flings, and Demon Kings || COMPLETE

Chapter 4: Kissing the Enemy, and other Forbidden Activities

7:03 A.M.

Apartment

He was definitely shocked.

I take pride in that, at least. He hadn't been expecting me to go through with the kiss.

Nirael 1, Azerath 0.

Not that... competition is the point here. In fact, according to Archangel Ramiel, competition is a force of great evil that leads to envy, suffering, and sometimes big wars. To be fair, Archangel Ramiel thinks a lot of things are forces of evil that don't seem all that nefarious. Like smiling. He once got upset when I grinned during a lesson, because, and I quote, I 'wasn't treating the material with the gravity it deserved.'

It was a lesson on the animals created by Our Holy Father. The topic of the day was...

...wait for it...

Penguins.

How, I ask, could I have refrained from smiling when faced with such utter cuteness? How does one manage to frown in the presence of such adorable, magnificent, derpy creatures?

I'm getting off topic here.

Back to another activity Archangel Ramiel would heartily disapprove of: kissing the enemy.

7:06 A.M.

Azerath's lips were soft.

I knew that already, having fondled his face a few minutes earlier. But it was one thing to feel his softness against my fingers, and quite another to feel his lips pressed against my own.

He froze beneath me at first. I drew back, worried I might have hurt him, but then he slid a hand through my hair, pulling me closer, and before I knew it we were flush against each other, my chest against his, my fingers buried in his hair.

It was softer than I'd expected—silky, with a jaunty spring to it, quite unlike my dense waves.

His smell washed over me—cedarwood and pine, with the faintest hint of brimstone. The smell of smoke reminded me of who he was, and I remember tensing, just a little, and him opening his eyes, but everything else about the kiss was so lovely that I pressed back into him, and his eyes fluttered shut again.

I'd thought he might take control immediately, the same way he'd done when he'd kissed my hand, but he seemed almost... hesitant. I don't know if it was because I'd taken him by surprise with the kiss, or because he had never imagined himself actually kissing an angel, or for some other reason entirely, but he held me like something fragile, like an intricate sculpture, like glass, as though unsure whether to pull me closer or push me away.

All that changed, however, when I ran my tongue across his lip.

Archangel Ramiel often laments my tendency to jump all over the place, instead of starting with the fundamentals. It's just that the more advanced topics-I refer, of course, to kissing with tongues-always seem much more exciting than the boring basics, and that was certainly the case here. As my tongue flicked across Azerath's lower lip, he made a throaty sound, almost a gasp. For a moment I worried that I'd done something wrong, and then he pulled me in closer, somehow managing to flip us so that he was above me, and my back was resting on the floor.

His mouth on mine was suddenly certain, and there was a hunger to his movements I hadn't felt before, a kind of tense need. He pressed closer, delving deeper with his tongue, his hand reaching up to trace my ear lobe, and now it was my turn to gasp. Every nerve in my body felt alive, electrified, euphoric, like I was buoyed up on a cloud of ambrosia and starlight. His hand slid beneath my shirt to splay across my belly, and I don't know what would have happened if the elevator hadn't chosen that moment to turn on again.