“Sector?” My mother clears her throat.
“Very well.” Marshall extends his hands, and the world warbles in and out like a dream. My heart stops. Swear to God if Wesley is at the other end of this delusion, I’ll have his balls on a spit by midnight.
“Kiss the bride.” Marshall’s voice evaporates into nothing, and so do we.
***
A warm sensation takes over from the neck down as Logan and I appear in an oversized bathtub. Crimson rose petals float along on the surface, expelling their honeyed scent into the thick, damp air. Candles trim the periphery as we take in the setting. An unfamiliar bathroom the size of my bedroom back home fills in the landscape. There’s a giant window just over our shoulders revealing a cobalt sky, a bevy of winking stars, each one more prominent than the last.
I’m lying in Logan’s lap with my head on his chest, my fingers entwined in his dewy hair.
“Where are we?” I whisper, clasping onto him a little tighter, it’s only then I realize we’re both still fully dressed.
Logan leans up, and his dimple inverts as he looks out the window.
“We’re in Rome, Skyla.” He points across the way at the looming relic where we tragically decided to take the Counts into our own hands—the Colosseum. It stamps across the landscape like a brown stone moon that fell to the planet long ago and no one really cared about.
“Rome,” it escapes from me in a whisper. This is exactly where I told Logan I wanted to spend our honeymoon one day. “Thank you.” I scratch my fingers over his chest. “I believe you owe me a kiss.”
His cheek digs in as a sweet grin brims slowly over his face.
“I believe you owe me a kiss.” Logan pulls me up and lands his lips over mine. Our tongues crash in a lingual exchange that marks a union, a covenant born under God, under the supervision of angels—a Sector, my mother and father.
Logan lifts us out of the tub and stands me next to him, riding his eyes over my body as if seeing me for the very first time. He smooths his hands over my hips, slow, determined before gently lifting the dress Marshall gifted me, right off my body. His eyes wash over me in nothing but my bra and underwear. I can feel his gaze, pulling across my flesh, heavy and aching. He wraps a thick towel over my shoulder and pulls it side to side without taking his eyes off mine. My body starts to quiver. The idea of what comes next makes me weak all over.
“I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon, Skyla.” He seals it with a heated kiss that sends a wave of wanting right down to my bones.
Logan scoops me in his arms and carries me through the threshold, into a cavernous bedroom lit up with a sea of candles. A four-poster bed is strewn with petals in a rainbow of citrus hues, perfuming the air with the scent of paradise.
“Beautiful.” My chest heaves as I try to absorb the look on his face, the candles with their ribbons of melting wax, the thick white comforter peeking out from the flora and fauna blissfully layering the top of the bed like sprinkles. I want to remember it all.
“You are beautiful.” Logan never loses our gaze. He lays me down and climbs next me, peppering my face with his sugared kisses.
A basket filled with familiar foil squares sits on the bedside.
“A bowlful of condoms,” I muse.
“Dudley’s an extremist.”
“I think he’s a realist,” I tease.
A laugh rumbles from his chest as he gives a gentle bite to my cheek.
My lips part, and my mouth waits for him. Logan presses in with easy pecks before his tongue bumps over my teeth—it rounds over my palate in one hot swipe. Logan gives way to deep soul kisses, the kind of kisses that make my insides quake all on their own. We kiss for what feels like hours, for weeks on end, knowing this was something we were meant to do—that the prize at the end of all that suffering was the love we share for each other—the love we were about to share right now. The room ignites in a private inferno as our lust whips around us, wild and beautiful.
I press my hands over his chest and gently tug off his T-shirt. My hands glide smooth over Logan’s searing chest. He gives the impression of a lewd smile and dips his lips to my body. Logan rakes his tongue from the middle of my chest, clear up to my neck until his mouth connects with mine in a heated rush. Logan bites down on my lip ever so softly before grazing his teeth over my mouth, his breathing increasingly erratic.
A current of electricity rips through us. It ignites the bed, the sheets until the two of us are engulfed within its inferno. I sink my fingers to the lips of his jeans and give a little laugh as he buries a molten kiss over my neck. His hands blister over my hips, gliding around to my back, lethargic as honey, and it leaves me aching like a tragedy. I lean up and unhook my bra and pull it off slow, with a dangerous smile.
“Skyla,” he whispers, dropping his gaze. He closes his eyes a moment and lets out a groan.
I reach down and unbuckle his jeans and Logan pulls them off, his boxers right along with them.
Logan gets on his knees, and I take him in with the blessing of the moon washing him white as marble. He traces a finger down my chest to my belly in the shape of an S. He hitches his thumbs over my panties at the hip and stalls for a moment, his eyes settling over mine brief enough for me to realize he wants that final measure of assurance. I reach down and help slide them off, slow and seductive with our eyes never losing contact.
“Come here.” I pull him over me, and my insides explode. It’s just Logan and me, our flesh melting over one another without any barriers. I coil my fingers through the back of his hair and hold his mouth over mine as our chests rise and fall in a heated rush—nothing but the sound of wild panting, the supplication of kisses, the soft groans emitting from my throat. Logan’s skin electrifies every part of me. My body drinks him in, but already I want so much more. I’m greedy for him, all of him. The world stills around us as our bodies sway in a rhythm all their own—Logan and I dancing to the beat of our special brand of love.
His chest bristles over mine alive and new. I can feel him growing against my thigh, and I let out a soft moan because there’s nothing I want more than to have Logan inside me.
He reaches over and plucks a condom off the nightstand. For a moment I wonder if I should watch, but I’m too mesmerized to look away. He rolls the long slick over himself, and my breathing ticks up a notch, my legs wrap around him instinctually as he lowers himself to me once again.
“I love you so damn much.” He pants into my ear like breathing a fire.
I groan into him, grazing over his ear with my teeth. Everything in me wants him, wants all of him, and then that will never be enough.
Logan reaches down and covers the most intimate part of me with his hand, groaning as his lips find mine. His fingers glide over me in a sweeping motion, and I jump, my entire body cries out with pleasure as he explores me thoroughly.
The heat, the fire from his lips—his sizzling skin over mine, makes the room quake with a viral intensity. Logan guides himself to me and carefully pushes in. I press my hands over his lower back and tighten our embrace, letting him know that it’s OK, that I want this.
Logan moves in deep, grinding his hips over mine, and a choking sound gets caught in my throat. A white-hot spear of lightning travels up from inside my belly. This intense burning, this throbbing sweet pain—this is Logan filling me with his love—his perfect love.
“Skyla,” he hums my name right into my mouth. His chest trembles over mine, and he hikes up on his elbows. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” I pant, only half-telling the truth. Logan pulls part way out before steadying his rhythm, gliding in softer, far more restrained.
“God, I love you,” he whispers, dusting my face with kisses. His heart detonates in his chest, over and over. His breathing grows erratic with every primal thrust. Logan is losing it, exerting himself as if he just ran for Olympic gold. “Oh shit.” His breathing escalates to an unrivaled ferocity as he lets out a deep guttural groan that stra
ngles its way out of his throat.
My body quickens with his movements. An explosive quiver begs to loosen from me, and every part of my body cries out for a release.
“Logan.” I hook my fingernails into his shoulders and claw my way down in a solid path of pleasure.
“Fuck.” Logan lets out a breath as if he were exerting his last, and his body enters into a series of tremors over mine.
Then in a moment of unimaginable glory my entire body seizes in one spasm after the next, unstoppable, a never-ending bliss born in the most intimate part of me, derived from Logan himself. My legs secure over his back, locking him in as he collapses over me with a slick of perspiration that seals our bodies together.
We lie motionless, exhausted in our newfound ecstasy.
“Are you OK?” Logan rises above me with a grin, his dimple inverted into a shadowed spear.
“Better than OK. You made me sneeze.”
“You did? Bless you.” He dots a kiss over my lips.
“My body did,” I purr not wanting to go too in depth over Brielle’s analogy. I tuck my finger under his chin—my legs still holding his body hostage in mine. I let out a few heated breaths before calming myself. “We should have been doing that this entire time.” A laugh gets buried in my throat.
He shakes his head before laying his face next to mine. “This was right. The right time.” He reaches down and picks up the mirrored heart and kisses it as the protective hedge floats off to the side. He lends it to my lips as I do the same. “I want you to remember tonight. When you look at this heart, think of me—of us.”
I take the heart from him and clasp it in my palm.
“I won’t have to.” I press my lips to his and linger. “I’ll have you around to remind me.”
“Skyla,” it expels from him despondent.
I tuck my finger to his chin and move my hips beneath his. Logan rouses back to life again inside of me.
“This is just the beginning of our happily ever after, Logan. And I won’t hear of anything else.”
“Happily ever after.” A smile bleeds from him. “Right here, right now.”
And with those words, we exit the end of a very long journey, straight into another.
Logan and I explore our love, every single inch of our explosive desire, all night long.
39
Winter Song
Days bleed by. The sun rises and falls, straining its citrus hues through the windows before the stars host the night sky, and the Colosseum lights up like a relic from some other planet.
“You sure you don’t want to see the city?” Logan traces the outline of my bare hip. He rides his fingers lower until he hits the inside of my thigh and stays there. The sheets snake around the two of us, wrapping us ever so discreetly. The mini fridge is just about empty. We’ve lived off room service and kisses. Logan and I have feasted off our love for three days straight. I’ve become inebriated off the deep well of his love, our tongues traveling every inch of one another, the touch of his skin gliding over mine, the incredible way my body responds to his, it’s all too wonderful to comprehend. All of the heat, the primal lust, every sound that wrenched from his throat I’ve treasured. These were the golden moments—the sweetest desserts that life had to offer.
“So why did she do it?” Logan sinks his arm around my back and pulls me. “Why did Chloe arrange for Stella Landon to die? Why take out Ethan?”
“Chloe had Demetri lay out what he knew about the future long before I came to Paragon. And, apparently, everything he knew was bogus.”
“Which was?”
“That Stella Landon’s firstborn child was destined to be the most powerful Nephilim on the planet. That he was going to wage a faction war and win.”
“Doesn’t make sense.”
The sunset just outside our window, sprays the room in tangerines and gold. Logan glows with an unearthly tan that makes him look as if he belongs in a magazine, a billboard for the entire world to see.
“Chloe got the wrong information,” I say. “It was my father’s firstborn child who would be the most powerful Nephilim—it was me who waged the faction war and won. My mother knew the danger I was in. Maybe she was trying to keep one step in front of Demetri? She created a future so taxing, so wrapped up in the past that Demetri couldn’t keep the facts straight. Chloe was nothing but a ruse. My mother created two paths, one real and one fake. She made Chloe look so believable, Demetri was led astray. And, I think maybe Stella was a ruse, too.” I take a breath. “That’s all I know. I wasn’t really probing my mother too hard on the subject. I had just enough info to get that protective hedge back, and that’s really all I wanted.”
“What’s the deal with Emerson?” He plants a kiss right in my belly button, and my body quivers from his touch. I hold his head there for a second and soak in the magic of Logan’s touch.
“Emerson has a full confession to Ethan’s murder in a safe bolted in her closet back at the Kragger’s estate,” I say, pulling him next to me. “Emerson never trusted Chloe. She didn’t think she’d kill her though.”
Logan leans back and stares at the ceiling. His chest expands flat and hard as the ridges of his abdomen redefine themselves in the shadows.
“There are still so many unanswered questions.” He rolls over and blows a breath through his lips. “I guess you can ask your mom another time if you’re interested.”
“I am, but I was most interested in what she said about you.” I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep the tears at bay.
Logan gives a slight nod. “I want you to burn my body, Skyla.”
“No.” I don’t bother hesitating. In a way I knew he’d ask. “Never.”
“The Counts can steal it.” Logan interlaces our fingers and tilts into me with his silent plea. “It won’t change things between you and me.” He sinks a kiss over my bare shoulder. “Promise me you’ll do this.”
My heart breaks. Every last part of me wants to cry out from the pain. I swallow hard and give the hint of a circular nod.
“What are you thinking?” He rattles my hand.
I’ve become a master at holding my thoughts at bay, just the painful ones, the curtain of despair I’d like to keep from him forever.
“When will I see you again?”
“I’ll always be your Elysian, Skyla. I’ll always be thinking about you, loving you even while we’re apart.” The muscles in his jaw pop. “The rest is up to your mother.”
My mother. I cut an icy look outside the window.
“Hey”—he says it sweetly, scooting me in until our bodies align as one—“I’m still here. We still have tonight.”
My fingers clutch tight over his, and I catch his beautiful gaze and hold it.
“I will always love you, Logan Oliver.” I catch my breath a moment. “Nothing, and no one, will ever change that.”
“I love you, too.” His dimple dips in approvingly. “Come here, princess.” He brushes his lips over mine. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.” He glances down at our bodies pressed tight against one another.
“Are you kidding? This is the highlight of my life.”
“Then, by all means, don’t let me deny you.” He swipes the sheet off our bodies as that lewd grin takes up residency on his face again.
I give a little laugh, and force his lips to mine by way of his chin. Logan’s heated hand runs down my bare back as he rounds out my bottom and slips between my thighs.
A sweet groan vibrates through me as Logan works his magic over me with the scorching fire of his mouth.
It’s bliss like this with Logan, if only for a little while.
***
In my dreams I’m a little girl in the arms of my father. He looks pensive, austere, not at all like the ever-jovial man I’ve come to know. He tells me to be strong—that the future holds both pleasure and pain in equal doses.
Don’t forget to love deeply, he says it stern. Forfeit all of your judgments of those around you—be quick to for
give. Be wise. Be the child of righteousness you were destined to be. Death is not the stronghold the world would have you believe. Be strong. Love deeply.
The dim light of day penetrates my eyelids as I rouse from my slumber. Instinctually I reach out for Logan. My limbs swim the length of the bed, but they come up empty, nothing but the cool of the sheets, and even those feel slightly unfamiliar.
It takes everything in me to pry open my eyes. My lids grit like sandpaper, my vision is blurred and unstable. It feels as if I’ve been sleeping for weeks, for years.
“Logan?” I stretch like a cat until the room comes into focus, and my heart sinks like a boulder.
Logan’s bedroom forms around me. The round desk in the corner, the pictures of me from ski week still prominently displayed over the wall.
“Paragon,” I whisper. “Logan?”
A viral sense of panic rails through me. I glance down, and I’m dressed in Logan’s team jersey, a pair of his practice sweats with the number 12 ironed onto the side.
“She took him.” It pants out of me. “You took him?” I glance out the window at the dark-sooted sky, and a cry rips from my throat, burning and alive like a fire.
The door bursts open, and Gage rushes to me. He pulls me in and wraps himself around my body as I succumb to violent sobs, my spirit irrevocably broken. Emily’s vision of that volatile heartbreak, my mouth locked in its perennial scream, this was it. Logan was gone, and this deep well of pain would never end.
Three days she said I could have him, and now he had vanished. We knew the math, but we denied its power. It was impotent, rhetorical, and, in a way, I’m glad we didn’t let death or its impending separation deny us of those final moments of euphoria, intoxicating as opium.
Gage rains heated, silent tears over my neck. He presses his body into mine as his chest rides heavy with grief. I can feel his pain, his aching sorrow of losing the one who was like a brother to him.
Gage and I hold each other tight. We had become a harbor for one another, a safe haven, a desperate isle of refuge.