*Chiara

Chiara regretted her suggestion already.

"Is a kiss a sin?" Logan stalked forward, matching her backward steps.

"Doing anything with a demon anything that doesn't involve a blade is a sin," she muttered. She edged further away, cursing herself for revealing the secret.

"Then we've been sinning for weeks, months," he said. He stepped closer. Slowly. Deliberately.

"Being held captive in the same room doesn't count."

"But we haven't been simply captives in the same room." He moved closer. She tried to move back, but was getting too close to the slime-covered wall. Instead, she side-stepped. He followed, tsking. "We've been whispering, talking, and teasing each other in cover of darkness all this time. Such sins with a demon."

"Obviously, not enough to darken my wings. A kiss then. Nothing more," she breathed.

"A kiss then." He stopped moving, and dipped sideways to place his axe on the ashy ground. "Show me how angels sin."

She swallowed hard. Where her mouth had been dry before, now water rushed in as she involuntarily imagined the feel of him, the soft press of lips, the scratch of his unshaven chin, the velvet of his tongue.

No.

Yes.

"A kiss," she breathed. "Nothing more."

"I'm waiting." The corner of his mouth ticked up.

His mouth. She couldn't stop staring, and she couldn't make herself move forward. Nervous, she didn't know what to do with her sword. She held it behind her back, unwilling to let go of the weapon. Her hands shook. Her whole body shook. She was an idiot to invite a demon to toy with her.

It was utter madness to ache for his touch.

To want that mouth on hers.

Even shadowed and half hidden, the lines of his taught body were glorious, heartbreaking in their beauty, and a promise of death. Faint light from above glinted on the scraps of armor he'd found, as well as on the sheen of his light brown skin. Unruly hair nearly covered his eyes, but she divined a spark in them, watching her. Those eyes that had always been watching her through the months, always from across the room, always at a safe distance, while both of them were chained to their separate spaces. Nothing separated them now but a few inches of air.

No chains held him away.

His mouth. So close.

His lips curved. She started to lick her lips, but stopped herself. There had to be another solution. Sin was never the answer, angels knew this truth. There had to some other trick, a heavy cloak, or more ashes and dirt than her wings could easily shed—

It wasn't simply air between them anymore. Chiara's back arched, lifting her chest as an almost perceptible electric charge hummed around her. Her wings brightened, glowing fiercely, jarring in their blue-white. The light fell on Logan's face, setting his eyes ablaze.

"A kiss then," he whispered. His voice rumbled from the depths—as if she stood on the edge of dark abyss, ready to fall into it.

A deal with a demon, then.

There was no time to figure out a different way. She closed her eyes and stepped forward, sensing her way to his mouth. Her hands fell on his chest, heaving from the fight and slick with sweat. And a solid wall of muscle and bone.

It almost struck her as strange to touch him after all this time. As if she wasn't sure he was real when chained to the other side of the room. Before, when she caught his hand to try and fly them both upwards, she hadn't had time to think.

But now he was here, body so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin.

His skin—surprisingly smooth. Her fingers were trembling, and she tried to tell herself it was the aftermath of battle, nothing more.

Kissing him was nothing. It meant nothing. Just a little sin—kissing the enemy to trick the other demons who would kill her on sight otherwise.

It meant nothing.

One hand reached to caress his face, but she forced it down and away from him.

Just a kiss. It meant nothing.

Her lips found his instinctively, but she resisted lingering on them.

She kissed him lightly, already pulling away the moment her lips touched his, barely sensing that wet opening in the middle. A jolt ran through her spine, and shivers of longing wrack her, but this game was the most dangerous one she'd played yet. Trusting a demon, kissing a demon? To escape? She would lose herself utterly in this pit. Strength was her only recourse.

She stood straight again. It was done.

Logan sighed.

"There wasn't even a hint of sin in that kiss, Chiara. Your wings are still white and sparkling as powdered snow."

Then his arm was around her waist before she could react. She remembered, too late, how deadly he was as a warrior and how outmatched she was. He could snap her half—

The rough back of his fingers grazed her cheek, upwards to lift a stray lock of hair from her temple.

"Let me show you," he whispered. He dropped his hand, and pulling her off balance to his chest, he cupped the top of her buttocks at the dip of her back.

His kiss—when he took her lips—was rough. Deliciously rough. She closed her eyes, and for a brief moment, tried not to respond to the insistent pressure of his lips, the only softness on him. The scrape of his chin, the hardness of his chest and the scraps of armor against her skin made her nerves hum and buzz. His hand, with warrior's strength, moved to her hip, drawing him to her and throwing her off-balance at the same time. More armor on his hip and upper legs dug into her the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, but the heat of his skin on hers where there was no clothing or armor was a spark to dry kindling in her center.

His lips moved and then his tongue, nudging, teasing, pushing her own lips to open and respond to him. She gasped for air.

Before she understood what happened, his tongue was circling her teeth and the roof of her mouth, tangling with hers. A sudden rush of heat and moisture sprang from her core—shocking her whole body. She kissed him back. Part of her heard her sword clang onto the stone ground at their feet.

Her hands were in his hair. Her nails scratched his shoulders. She clung to him, needing him to hold her up, hold her down, to anchor that wild desire to both fly from here and drop to the ground and give him all she had to give. Her wings pushed outwards as if she couldn't hold onto herself.

This was wrong—so wrong. He was the Wing-Cutter.

But he was also the voice in the darkness that kept her alive. That stirred desires she didn't know existed. His body pressed the length of hers and she wanted both legs around his waist, to grind into him.

The flair of light from her wings was visible behind closed eyelids. She shook as tremors traveled from bones and into feathers.

A sin. She was sinning. Not because she was kissing a demon, but because she wanted this demon to do more to her.

His kiss would not let up, he would not let up. She was drowning in the power of that kiss. The feel of him invading her, taking her, and sinning with her sent flames through her chest. Stars exploded behind her eyes. She broke free from his lips, fisting his hair to keep him away.

"Logan," she whispered, begging him. What was she begging for? She wasn't even sure at that point—stop or never stop. Either one could be what she wanted. The heat in her belly and core stirred, the burn of desire threatening to destroy her utterly.

"My sweet, sweet angel," he breathed, voice ragged, tattered. As if something in him had torn loose.

And she was on the verge of falling apart. She hid her gasping breaths as best as possible, spine rigid and body still.

Logan loosened his hold, letting her stand. His pupils were nearly black, a thin rim of gold showing. His breathing was too fast. Too fast, because Chiara still wanted to match the rhythms of his breath, and found her head spinning.

His lips were slightly parted, a gleam of moisture on them in the middle, lingering there. She reached to touch it, but stooped instead to pick up her sword. It had been lying useless on the ground for the whole kiss.

She stepped back, a rush of cold air chilling her where the heat of his body left an imprint on her skin. She swallowed.

From one glance over her shoulder, the change was obvious—her wings were now a shimmering silver-grey, with rainbow reflections.

"I wonder if the sins must grow progressively deeper to maintain the change in your wings. How dreadfully sorry I will be to lead you down that dangerous path of pleasure," he whispered.

She hissed a warning. Without thinking, she brought her sword up to cut that strange electric humming she sensed between them.

Ignoring the heat in her cheeks, and the shameful heat between her legs, she pointed the end of her sword upwards. "It was enough. Now your part of the bargain, demon. Get us out of here."

*** I'm not sure she's going to be able to stop at just one kiss after this... Thank you for reading and hit the star if you enjoyed! ***