'I’m noticing a pattern,' said Sorrow. 'Your friends are really good at getting you shot.'

'I told you. I don’t have friends…'

She interrupted him, 'Anyone you will willingly take a bullet for has to be at least a friend.'

'What does that make you?' he said.

'Excuse me?'

'You signed on to catch any stray bullets going my way before we’d even met.'

'Easily bored,' said Sorrow, 'that’s what I am. Getting shot at is always preferable to another dull evening at home. Besides, a bullet is just a minor annoyance to me. Getting shot on your behalf is about the same level as getting stung defending your beer from a wasp.'

'You’d defend my drink? I’m touched.'

She felt something stirring against her thigh. 'And now so am I. Do you have to?' she said.

'I can’t control it. Think of it as a compliment. Particularly in this cold.' He twisted away from her, making his erection less intrusive. As he moved his arm brushed her wing.

'You can control your arm.'

'I can’t see your wings. And we are stuck here till morning. We might as well enjoy ourselves.'

'You really think that’s a good idea? After the last time knocked us both out for hours?' she said.

He looked away. She could see him considering the question. 'Yes.'

Sorrow waited, expecting him to say more but he was silent. 'Because?' she said.

'I saw your wings. You saw my dream. There’s something between us that I can’t articulate.' He met her gaze again, his hand on her check, his brow furrowed. 'Do you trust me?'

And there it was. The question she’d been asking herself since she first met him. And she knew the answer wasn’t simple. 'I trust you in battle. I’m just not sure I trust you in bed. I think your judgement might be clouded.'

'You think I’d endanger you because I can’t control my appetites?'

'I think you’d endanger yourself. I think women are like mountains to you. You’re like George Mallory hurling himself up Everest without oxygen. I do not want to wake up tomorrow to find out that you died on the descent.'

'I think it’s a way I can talk to your Goddess.'

'You want to ask her how many Ravens? She might not answer.' She was painfully aware of his fingertips on her skin.

'Refusing to answer is still a kind of reply,' he said. He held her gaze and she couldn’t look away.

'You’re just looking for an excuse to do what you want to do,' she said.

'Are you saying no?' His face was so close to hers. She could feel his breath on her skin.

'I didn’t say that,' she said.

'I have the beginnings of a plan but I don’t know how it finishes. I think you know how it finishes but you can’t see it yet. I need you to do what I tell you until you can’t stand it anymore.'

'Fair warning. If you do something to me that I don’t like I will break you,' she said.

'I’d expect nothing less,' he said. 'Roll over.'

Sorrow rolled, suppressing a brief stab of panic as she did. She liked him. She wanted him. But the purely tactical part of her mind didn’t trust the situation. Surely it was a bad idea to willingly surrender to such a deep unconsciousness.

She felt his weight on her back, his skin on hers, his bulk pressing her into the bed. His lips brushed against the nape of her neck. His fingers walked down her spine. Wherever he touched her, the skin tingled. Her body hungered for him, needed him. She almost hated him for making her feel that way.

He straddled her, his weight on her hips and his hands on her back. The cold air slipped under the covers but his hands were warm against her skin. She had never had a massage like it. She’d heard some people say that a proper back rub was as good as sex but she’d never believed it before. He hadn’t even touched her wings yet.

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She let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

Seven stopped kneading the flesh of her back and felt his way to her wings.

She was braced for the sudden pleasure that touching her wings would cause. She was expecting it this time. Surely it wouldn’t overwhelm her as much as it had the first time.

Well, damn. Apparently it would. Maybe he did know what he was doing. From the moment he touched the wings all she could think about was him. Just how much she wanted him and exactly what she wanted to do to him.

She wanted to throw him off, pin him down and sit on his face. And she could do it. Her body tensed.

'Stay where you are,' he said.

Had he read her intention from her body language? Probably. According to his file he had successfully shagged a lot of women who’d wanted to kill him. He was the human equivalent of a praying mantis gigolo, able to navigate the difficulties of intercourse with someone who can and will kill you if you don’t keep them sufficiently entertained.

His fingers pushing between the feathers of her wings made it hard to think. The sensations filled her head. He ran his hands up the backs of her wings, and down the undersides.

'Stop messing around and just fuck me,' she said.

'I know what I’m doing.'

'Not from where I’m lying.'

'I don’t tell you how to hit things,' he said. But he let go of her wings.

His weight moved from her hips and she felt his hands on her waist, lifting her from the bed and onto her knees. 'Grab the rail,' he said.

The metal was cold against her skin. His lips were warm against her neck. He had one hand on her stomach moving toward her groin and the other deep in the feathers again. She felt his erection pressed against her. She longed to reach for it and guide it inside.

'Keep your hands on the rail,' he said.

There he was again, apparently reading her mind. She settled for arching her back and grinding against him and trying to force his erection into the channel between her thighs.

Every touch on her wings made her groin throb. She bit her lower lip to keep from demanding more from him. Her wing quivered at his touch. She gripped the rail so tightly that her knuckles showed white and her fingernails dug into her palm.

She could hear the Morrigan in her head. Demanding that she take charge, demanding that she turn around. Sorrow resisted.

Seven’s hand was between her legs, his fingertips circling her clitoris made her body shake. Her wings reached for him, embraced him, the longer feathers caressed his body. She heard him moan and understood that her touch was as arousing to him as his was to her.

His fingers parted her labia. She felt his erection between her thighs. Getting closer.

'Should I?' His words just a whisper in her ear.

'Yes.'

Nothing.

His breath was loud in her ear. She felt him poised, ready to thrust, but not moving. She pushed back against him, trying to force him inside.

She felt the tip against her and his fingers moved back to her clitoris but he resisted.

'Now!' she said.

'Make me.'

She heard the Goddess laughing in the back of her head.

#

Seven was aware that his heart was beating too fast. There was a part of him that was sure that this was far more dangerous than jumping out of the window had been.

The change came out of nowhere. Sorrow’s wings flexed and pushed him away. He fell back onto the bed.

She let go of the rail and turned around. Her eyes were yellow again and she fixed him with a look that was halfway between lust and hunger.

He sat up, reaching for her even as some more rational part of him screamed that he should run. She lowered herself into his lap, holding his gaze as his erection penetrated her.

She grinned at him and locked her ankles behind him. Come on Big boy, keep going. Your Goddess commands you. She didn’t say it out loud but somehow he heard it, felt it, knew that was what she meant by her grin.

She brought her lips close to his as if to kiss him but pulled back at the last moment. He grabbed the back of her head and held her still as he kissed her. She grabbed both of his nipples and twisted.

He rose to his knees with her legs still wrapped around him. Their lips still touched and his erection was still deep inside her. He pinned her against the rail. It should have been painful but she just laughed.

'What do you want?' he said.

She kissed him. More. Faster. Harder. Deeper. Fight me. She didn’t say it. She couldn’t have said it. She had her tongue in his mouth when he heard it but somehow he had heard it.

He pulled away from her kiss. 'But I’ll lose,' he said.

'Of course you will. That’s the whole point.' At last she spoke aloud but not in Sorrow’s voice alone. There was another, harsher tone there too.

He threw his weight forward and grabbed for the rail. He held her there while he thrust for all he was worth. He could feel Sorrow’s body responding. Deep muscles twitching and bunching as he thrust harder.

With each thrust he pushed her farther and farther over the rail. He could hear her wings beating against the air to drive them both back.

His vision was growing dark, like looking down a tunnel. He wasn’t breathing and he seemed to have forgotten now. Still he kept going.

He could see her wings forming in front of him, weaving themselves out of the darkness at the edge of his vision. His body stiffened as he began to climax.

Her head was thrown back. Her wings beating in time with his heartbeat. He couldn’t have many beats left.

His body was rigid. He couldn’t move but somehow his hips were still thrusting as if they belonged to someone else. He fell backwards onto the bed and she rode him down, her body bucking. He was still climaxing. Her wings moved more slowly now, trembling as his heart trembled. He counted the beats. One. Two. Three. She stopped. For a moment she was utterly still then she slumped on top of him and he knew no more.