A Matter of Time (The Angel Sight Series) Read Free

me. Not when the old memory bubbling up took me to a time when I was curled up in bed with Kade.
    His hand ghosted over my midsection. My blood boiled beneath his touch. His fingers brushed aside my gray cotton shirt—Hell’s uniform for prisoners in the ninth circle—exposing the skin of my stomach. He squeezed.
    I bolted up in the bed. “Ow, what’s with the pinching?” I rubbed the reddened skin to the left of my navel.
    He anchored his weight on his arm, sitting halfway up. Soft blue light bounced off the floor beneath the door to our Almost Cell. It illuminated the then three years’ worth of markings covering all four walls. Our archaic calendar. Kade’s silhouette looked the same as it always did, large and dark, with flat black wings, since nothing shimmered down here. “I told you this wouldn’t be easy, but it’s something you have to learn.”
    This night, so very long ago, had marked the fiftieth day Lucien had taken Kade from our cage and returned him. I understood why he wanted me to learn how to take a mental vacation. He was worried whatever they were doing to him—he never spoke about it—they could soon do to me. He wanted me prepared.
    “Sorry. You’re right.” I lowered myself back to the scratchy sheets on our small twin-sized bed and slapped his hand away when he pinched again.
    “Focus.” His body was so close now; his heat molded his imprint on the lumpy mattress beside me. “You can do this. Whatever comes, you can take it.”
    When he pinched again, I was in a hot air balloon in Albuquerque overlooking dozens of other balloons at the International Balloon Fiesta. I barely felt the pain as the balloon dipped and soared into the cloudless blue sky. My fear of heights didn’t matter in my imagination.
    I was so focused on the sights breezing past my wicker basket that the next round of pinching and pulling didn’t bother me. Kade flung the covers over us, the sheet draping over my head. His breath blew hot on my ear. I incorporated a balmy wind into my journey. His lips pressed against the column of my neck. I held tighter to the basket, but the hot air balloon sank in the sky.
    Against my wishes I felt every touch of his lips to my skin as they trailed down to my collarbone. I fisted the sheet in my right hand, opposite of the side where he laid. Another kiss and another, each bringing me farther and farther away from the sky to a new happy place. Something in him changed. Switched. His arms tightened around me and he nuzzled my neck. I didn’t think twice about breaking and returned fully to our cage, thinking back to the last time we were so close. So long ago. It must have been at least two years before.
    Kade tugged the sheet further over us and moved up so we were nose to nose. His lips found mine with so much heat, so much need, I couldn’t help but lift my arms and wrap them around his neck, returning his need with my own. He deepened the kiss for one brief moment before he pulled back and said, “You broke. Try again.”
    Instinctively I dropped my arms back to my sides, fighting myself not to overthink the exchange.
    He was just finding the best way into my head. Lucien will do exactly the same. I have to be prepared.
    Kade repositioned himself beside me again, close, but so much further away than he had been moments ago. His hot fingers trailed over my stomach again. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, but Kade’s hand touched so much more than my skin. Especially since he hadn’t let us get that close since our first kiss—one he probably thought I didn’t remember. He had soothed me with a kiss after Lucien had peeled the flesh from my legs to allow my human entrance into Hell.
    Boldness guided my tongue as I parted my lips to beg him never to stop.
    Before I could speak, he whispered, “I know.”
    I stayed his hand by laying my own over it. “You don’t know. You have no idea.”
    He molded his other hand around my waist, squeezing with barely contained