Chapter 2
His fingers start to turn her liquid, wanton and wanting both, slipping the buttons of her shirt free to expose the clean cream skin, unmarred and unmarked, so open to him: he'll taste it, but not yet. Not. Yet. She mews, and pushes against his hands, wanting more. He gives her something, a palm carefully pressing, a thumb scraping the swelling curve, flicking too briefly over the hard point below the flimsy silk and lace covering. Her hands clutch on his neck, and then slither downward, opening his shirt in turn.
"Smooth move," he purrs, and brings her skin to skin. "How about some more?"
"Shut up and kiss me," she orders, a spark of what must be her real personality arriving. "I wanna forget."
"As you command."
He kisses her hard, searching, swiftly moving from that delicious mouth and the tiny cut on her lip to her jaw, her neck, the blood in the large vein there pounding. He kisses over it, and she wriggles in his grip, one wicked hand dropping to his belt and she's still missing the key matter here but does it matter to him with the hunger beating on his brain and the vein under his mouth and her hand – ohhhh – sliding into his pants and that's it, all control has officially gone and he can't help himself, one hand frantically opening her pants and pushing them down for free access, the other clamped round her head so she can't move and he desperately goes back to her hot, wet mouth, nipping but she likes that, he can feel it through her body and the way she shudders against him and he has to stay clear of her neck. The blood on her lip tastes so good and he's addicted already but he can't, he mustn't, he shouldn't.
His hand runs between her legs and ohhhhh she's soaked and emitting sexy little gasps and moans and his fingers stroke and pet and search out the edge of fabric to slip beneath and ohhhhhh she feels better than he could have believed: slick and swollen with desire and it's time to move this elsewhere and make her forget everything but him, everything she wants to forget forgotten.
He picks her up effortlessly, the shadows ebbing and flowing as she opens her eyes.
"Why stand, when we don't need to?" he smirks. "Especially as pretty soon you might not be able to." He kisses her again, silencing her indignant commentary, and carries her to her bed, dropping her on her back and falling in beside her, examining her as the shadowy wings rear up from his back and shadow his face, only to fall away as he concentrates for an instant. Not yet. Not. Yet. But soon. Very, very soon.
"So very pretty, but you're wearing too many clothes," he growls. Her shirt hits the floor, leaving her only in underwear, stretching under his hot gaze and reaching up to stroke over the firm muscle of his chest.
"Stop complaining when you've still got your pants on," she points out.
"You want them off?"
"Yep."
He leaves the bed, and flexes, holding her gaze and holding total control. Not now. But she tasted so good and she will taste so good and he can hear her heart beating and scent the sweet smell of arousal and the small cut is still open on her lip and he wants it, her, all of her...
One drop is all it takes, when you find the right one, so he had read. One drop, one single, solitary drop. Don't let it go: you'll never find it again. He'd never thought he'd find it, now, tried so hard and married twice but never knew what he didn't have. And here it is in front of him, here she is: lush and pale-cream beautiful: crimson lips and dark hair with darker eyes, aroused and open and ready and the blood flowing hot in her veins.
He strips, giving her the show she wanted, displaying to her his strength and size, not concealing his own proud desire.
"Come back?" she asks. "Come back here."
He doesn't walk, now, he prowls. She watches him all the way: hot eyes dark and dilated, flecks of greenish gold reflecting in the light from the main room, clear to his sight.
"You want me," he smiles wolfishly, "don't you?" She merely nods, and reaches for him. "You want to do bad things with me, don't you?" His voice has dropped into a sex-soaked drawl, promising everything erotic. She nods again. "Good," he rasps. "Because I want to do bad things with you too."
He leans over her, sliding a hand across her stomach, rising to palm her small, pert breast and finding that it does, indeed, fit his grasp perfectly, sized to his span. She likes that, curving up to him for more, playing with his nipples to light him up.
His mouth wanders across the ivory cover to her clavicles, and she breathes harder as he drops downward and puts his mobile lips to the satin skin, light kisses and then he settles to the task and licks and suckles – but never nips or bites. If he does that… he might go too far, too soon. Her fingers tug in his hair, and she purrs, already more relaxed and easy, the pain in her voice and posture receding. Forgetting.
"More," she breathes.
Oh yes. More is what she'll get. He slithers down towards that enticing taste and scent, dropping little kisses as he goes, spreading her around him, teasing her by shifting left and right, hearing the tiny gasps change to soft moans. He wriggles a little, breathes across her and she writhes and locks her ankles over his back. His hands meet her thighs, hers have never left his head, and talented fingers stroke the inner face of her legs till she can't stop the pleading mixed with orders to do more, do something, stop teasing.
"I like teasing," he murmurs. "I said I'd make you forget," and he stops teasing and starts touching more firmly, stroking through wet heat and following with a wicked lick, ending with an evil curl around the knot of over-sensitised nerves and she cries out.
He can't resist: slides up her body and enters her mouth and slick heat at once: she cries out again but he swallows it, deep within her and he's lost, nips at her lip again because he must not nip elsewhere but the sweet blood on his tongue is too much and she's arching and curving and crying out beneath him and he thrusts and it's explosive release for them both and –
"What the hell is that?"
Oh, shit. Talk about shooting too soon. He's never suffered from premature eruptions before.
His wings droop and fall around them: he's lost the chance to let the shadows fall away and dissolve.
"What sort of a trick is that to pull?"
He guesses she's forgotten about her earlier misery, because that sounds like a woman who is ready to shoot to kill.
"It might be Hallowe'en, but that's just crass."
"Ow!"
She's waved her hand through them, and it hurts.
"How'd you do that?"
Even angry and disbelieving, when she sits up stark naked, eyes ablaze and a glare that could melt mountains (and probably does), she's scorching hot. Unfortunately, she's also utterly infuriated, and… oh, shit, she'd said she was a cop. An investigator. Oh, hell.
"Ow! That hurts! Stop it."
"Where'd you hide the smoke canisters? I didn't see them or feel them earlier."
She stops waving her hand through them, much to Castle's relief. Not to his relief, she tries to push him off her on to his front. He declines to be pushed. He really does not want her examining anything. Worse, he can't simply tuck them away now, because that'll really raise questions.
It's not fair. He's found his soulmate and through his own inability to control himself she's regarding him as if he's a complete jackass.
She wriggles out from under him faster than an oiled eel and sits across his thighs. In any other circumstance, that would be hugely arousing and he'd take full advantage… "Ow! Will you stop that? It hurts."
"Stop pretending it hurts. They have to be fake. What sort of jerk fakes wings in bed?"
She runs a sharp nail along the joint where one shadowy wing meets his back. It tickles, and he wriggles and squirms and squeaks.
"There's no edge. No canister," she says, confused, and then stops cold. "Who the hell are you," she breathes, and her eyes widen: she suddenly moves and he grabs for her, stopping her dash for her gun and pinning her back down to the bed.
"I'm the guy who's making you forget, just like you wanted. It's Hallowe'en, just roll with it," he says, and plunges into her mouth again. Astonishingly, she responds and reacts and opens to him and when he lifts off for a moment, she speaks.
"You are," she says. "So stop messing around with dumb Hallowe'en jokes and make me forget."
That's not an invitation he intends to refuse. "You wanna forget? You'll forget your own name, by the time I'm done with you tonight." And maybe she'll forget his indiscretion, too. The shadowy wings slip away, as her eyes close and her mouth opens.
He falls on her parted lips again and skims a hand down, playing with her breasts, and then further down to tantalise and tease and make her writhe and whimper and beg him for more; his thick, long fingers wreaking havoc on her body and bringing her hot and liquid and focused only on him, holding her there until there's nothing in her eyes but lust and deep, desperate desire to be sent flying and shattering.
He listens to the pitch of her cries until he's certain she can't think any longer, fills her with his fingers and flicks across her to take her screaming to explosion and then lax satisfaction.
Which is fine for her, but he's hard and hot and unsatisfied, and he wants her all over again.
"Come here," he purrs, and pulls her against him. "You haven't forgotten yet," and works her up again until she parts and moans and grips his back and welcomes him in again; tight and hot and so very wet around him: no thought, only sensation. He kisses her until he's had his fill of her; then moves from mouth to jaw to ear to neck and the spot over the pulsing vein and then, all shouldn't and mustn't and won't and can't forgotten, bites down and pierces the translucent skin to reach the hot sweet liquid below.
His wings flare out again: wide and black in the clean, spare bedroom; smokily feathered with sharp talons at the fore and rear edges. He leaves her neck, licks once across to leave no trace: no hickeys here, no punctures, no flaw in the perfect ivory, touches her intimately and surges over to his own orgasm on the tide of hers.
He pulls the shadows back and away, before she can see them again: nips his own lip sharply to draw blood and mingles that with the trace of hers still on his tongue, and kisses her deeply, searchingly.
"Forget," he whispers. "Forget everything for tonight." His heart cracks. "Forget tonight," he murmurs, and her eyes stay shut, sound asleep, all the time he dresses.
She'll be his always, his one and done, but not tonight. Never tonight. But… another time. Later. Later enough that she'll never remember him like this: never remember the wide black wings and sharp shadows trailing him.
He'll just have to get used to being hungry.
But still, he turns back to the bed, bends to leave a soft kiss on her brow, and the wings wrap around her in dark embrace. Her arms come round him, and he meets her mouth, kneeling by the bedframe.
"'S a good prank," she murmurs. "Taking me under your wing. Stay."
And though he knows it's all sorts of wrong, stay he does: undresses again and slides in beside her, holds her close with arms and encompassing shadows, listening to the beat of her heart and the pulse of blood in her veins, and knows he's as trapped as she.
He wakes to find her still close, curled and soft against him, breathing slowly. In the dawning daylight, his shadows fade and dissipate; never visible in daytime. He dresses slowly, heavily. He's stayed too long, and now he's about to do something that he can't believe will work.
He scrawls a note, and concentrates hard.
If you believe in magic, hold this, say my name, and we'll meet again. Rick.
He lays the black feather across it, weighs it down with a handy paperweight, and leaves silently.
For months, there's nothing. He knows she's still in Manhattan: he doesn't have to try to seek her out: always aware of where she is, of the pulse of her heart. But she'd only wanted one night's forgetfulness, and he guesses that's it. He's found his always, but she doesn't feel the same.
A year later, long after he'd stopped expecting it, he feels the tug, and follows it back to the Old Haunt, where she's waiting in the same booth: a black feather on the table in front of her.
"Can we start again?" she says. "I haven't… it was real, whatever it was… whatever you are, I just want you."
When he sits, she takes his hand and slides up close.
"Take me under your wing."
Fin.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers.
To those in New York, support.
Apologies for those who wanted it yesterday. Things got in the way.