Page 60 of A House of Gold
His hand slides from my cheek to my jaw, tilting my face up slightly. His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth, and I feel my breath catch despite myself.
“Stop,” I say, but it comes out weak. Uncertain.
“Why?” He leans closer, his breath warm against my skin. “You’re curious too. I can see it. You want to know what it would be like. If I kissed you again. If I touched you. If I?—”
I shove him back. Hard. Put real force behind it even though shoving an angel is like trying to move a mountain. He lets me, steps back, hands raised in mock surrender, that infuriating almost-smile on his face.
“Don’t,” I say, and this time my voice is steady. Hard. “Don’t confuse your hunger with mine. Don’t project your wants onto me and pretend I’m complicit. I’m here because I have to be. Because you’re holding my sister’s safety hostage. Not because I want you.”
“Liar.” The word is soft, but it cuts.
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He drops his hands, but his eyes stay fixed on mine. “Not about your reasons for being here; those are brutally, honestly clear. But about wanting me?” He shakes his head. “I’ve lived three thousand years. I know desire when I see it. And you, Raven Vesper, are very good at lying to yourself about this.”
Heat floods my face. “Fuck you.”
“Perhaps eventually.” He says it so casually I almost don’t process the words. “But not today. Today, I’m simply showing you my collection and explaining why I do what I do. Consider the rest... educational.”
I want to hit him, to storm out, anything except stand here feeling exposed and angry and confused about why my pulse is racing and my skin feels too warm where he touched me.
Instead, I cross my arms and force myself to sound calmer than I feel. “You were explaining why you need this. The collection. The deals. All of it.”
“Ah, yes.” He turns away, moves back to the center of the room. The moment breaks, and I can breathe again. “Angels were made to serve. To worship. To exist in the presence of divine grace. When we fell, when Lucifer fell, and we fractured, that connection was severed. We became beings of pure want with no way to satisfy it.”
He picks up a golden chalice, turns it in his hands. “This is from the Last Supper. Or so the cardinal who sold it to me claimed. Real or not, it cost him his soul and his faith. He wanted power in the church. I gave it to him. He gave me this.” He sets it down. “Do you know what I felt when I acquired it?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He looks at me, and for the first time, I see something like pain in his expression. “Absolutely nothing. I remember the transaction. The negotiation. The moment it became mine. But the satisfaction? The joy of possession?” He shakes his head. “Gone in an instant. Less than an instant. By the time I placed it on this shelf, I was already hungry for the next thing.”
“That’s horrible.”
“That’s greed.” He moves through the collection, touching things at random. A painting. A sculpture. A jeweled dagger. “I take and take and take, and I never feel full. Never feel satisfied. I feel nothing except the hunger for more.” He stops, looks at me. “Until you.”
The air between us feels charged again. Electric.
“Don’t,” I warn.
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth?” He moves closer, and I force myself not to back away. “You asked when I last wanted something. Really wanted it. Not the reflexive hunger of mynature, but actual, genuine desire.” He’s in front of me again, close enough to touch. “The answer is: you. You’re the first thing in centuries I’ve wanted that makes me feel something other than empty.”
His hand comes up again, and this time I catch his wrist. Stop him before he touches my face.
“No,” I say firmly. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make me part of your collection by claiming I’m different from it.”
“You are different from it.” He doesn’t pull his wrist from my grip. Just stands there, looking at me with those too-bright eyes. “Everything else in this room is dead. Acquired. Mine. But you?” He turns his wrist in my grip, and suddenly he’s the one holding me. His fingers interlock with mine, and the touch is warm and solid and dangerous. “You’re alive. You fight. You choose. You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted that wants me back.”
“I don’t want you.” But my voice wavers.
“Your heart is racing.” His free hand comes up to my chest, palm flat over my heart. Not grabbing, not groping, just there. Feeling the proof of my lie. “Your breathing is shallow. Your body knows what you’re refusing to admit.”
I should push him away. Should remind him about boundaries, about consent, about the fact that he owns me for a year and anything between us would be coercion by definition.
But his hand is warm over my heart, and his eyes are gold, and some traitorous part of me wants to see what happens if I stop fighting.
“This is the curse talking; you want me because you can’t have me. That’s all this is.”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t deny it. “But doesn’t that make it more interesting? I’ve never wanted something I couldn’t have. Never felt a desire that couldn’t be satisfied with gold or power or time.You’re unfamiliar territory for me, Raven. And I find myself very curious about what it would take to make you want me back.”
