Perfect Love (A Celestra Novella) (9 page)

“I learned how to do it right here.” She taps over my skull. “I was listening in on how you were feeling, and when you were enjoying it I went with it.
You
taught me Logan.” A dimple buries itself in her cheek.

I land a kiss on her forehead. “I love it. You’re a genius, you know that?” I pick up an M&M and feed it to her. “Get your strength up. I have a feeling we’re about to engage in the world’s most intense lovemaking session in the history of time. What could be better than two Celestra?”

“Two near perfect Celestra.” She takes a bite out of my ear.

“We are perfect Skyla—with or without our bloodlines.”

Our lips find one another, and I cringe for a moment because I know where her mouth has been, but the chocolate has washed away all of the transgressions, and Skyla is delicious as ever. Our tongues engage in a lengthy, sweeping battle that drives home the point we’ve got nowhere to go and all day to get there. I try to hold up the wall again, but my thoughts are seeping through, and, unfortunately for the both of us, they’re littered with my fears of what’s to come—namely a life without Skyla.

I’ll always be yours.
She inhales sharply while pushing in hard against my lips. Her kisses diminish with intensity, and we lounge in one another’s mouths as if this were the best form of relaxation.

I’ll always be yours, Skyla. But just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean you need to emotionally check out. I want you to live. Live out loud. Live for me, too. Go off like a bomb in this world because you’re living so damn loud. You’re going to set the world on fire. I already know that
.

Can you imagine a future with me?
She pulls back and settles her eyes over mine.

I stroke her cheek with the back of my finger. “That’s the only future I can imagine.”

“Me, too.” A network of crimson lines explode in her eyes. “This is going to be all right, Logan. You have to believe me.”

It’s pretty hard to believe this is going to be all right. “Okay.” I take in a breath. “If you believe it, then so do I.”

“Pinky swear?” She holds out her little finger, and I latch mine over hers.

“Pinky swear.” I reel her in by the hand. Paradise has waited for me since my infancy, and I’m not in the least bit of a hurry to get there. “How about we shake on it in a far more intimate way.” I pull her over until her naked body covers mine and savor the warmth she’s giving off with her flesh. I’m all about believing—of doing more of this, more of anything with Skyla in the present and the distant future. There was no reason not to believe.
Hope
is the child we made in this bed last night.

“Of course. It’ll be far more official that way.” Her tongue runs over the rim of her lips, and I try to catch it with my teeth. “Looks like someone’s in a biting mood.” Her hips nest into mine. “You’re a big flirt, you know that?”

“Technically, I believe you’re the one flirting.” I grind my hips right back at her, and my hard-on rockets to life.

A deep guttural laugh bursts from her as my dick grazes over her bottom.

Skyla swipes a condom from the bowl and runs the foil packet across her lips. Her eyes never leaving mine. She runs the package between her teeth before tearing it.

“I want you to open your mind, Logan. I want to drink down your thoughts. I want to have every single part of you in my heart and body right now.”

She rolls the condom over me then straddles me while sitting on my stomach. Her hair tumbles over her chest like a golden waterfall.

Skyla guides me in careful and easy, her eyes locked over mine, and for the life of me, I can’t find the strength to blink. I don’t want to miss a minute of what’s about to transpire.

She lets me penetrate her slowly, sinking over me with her neck thrust back, a strangled cry ripping from her throat.

Fuck
.

Skyla rides me undaunted by the harsh band of sunlight streaming through the windows as I watch with slotted lids—the two of us drunk off our love. Her body rises and falls, her curves bouncing in all the right places, and I try to strangle the shit out of that part of me that wants to cry because deep down I understand all of this is going to come crashing to an end soon. It doesn’t diminish the hope that it won’t. It doesn’t bother to contest it. It merely exists as a fact.

Believe
.

Then like a lion I roar back from the pit—spring out of the mud and the mire and pull up into the sunshine, high into the clouds right along with Skyla. A surge of adrenaline fills me as I pull Skyla toward me and find her lips. I roll her onto her back and make love to her, sweetly like the princess she is.

Skyla and I are going to happen. Happily ever after waits for us, and I believe it with every fiber of my being. My soul glows from the knowledge.

I fell in love with you the moment I saw you
. I pick up her hands and extend them up past her shoulders while my body moves slowly inside hers.

I remember the first day we met—in the bowling alley. The world faded, and there was only you and me.
She lends a kiss to my cheek.
You plus me—I like how simple the math is
.

Skyla and I employ our Celestra strength and make love like tigers for the next several hours, enduring far longer than any human ever could, creating an irrevocable bond between us that can never be broken, not by the Decision Council—not by death. What we’re experiencing is sublime, heartbreakingly beautiful—two shattered hearts repairing themselves under the careful guide of our bodies. Skyla and I were making a memory—a miracle—a living testament that ensured a future between the two of us.

Sometimes you just need to look death in the face and say
fuck you
.

Skyla and I are going to live out that happily ever after of ours, right here on earth, alive and in the flesh.

Skyla believes it, and so do I.

A spark surges from her body to mine, and we electrify the bed as the sun goes down. The candles rekindle themselves as if on cue while Skyla and I engage in our private slow dance over those sheets.

I’m already in paradise.

This is the only important event in the world.

Skyla and I are going to have it all—we are unstoppable.

What do we have to do to stay together, Logan?
She asks as my body writhes over hers.

We have to take down death
—
just like we took down the Counts
.

She bubbles a soft laugh into my mouth.
Then that’s what we’ll do.

Day three. The moonlight streams into the room and lights us up like a couple of poltergeists. Skyla is a jewel illuminating the night, and, good thing, because those candles Dudley laid out all over the room have long since turned into a solid puddle of wax. Their wicks spent, like some necrotic prophecy staring me in the face.

I take up her hand in mine and kiss it.

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.

I smile over at her. Skyla has let down all her walls and so have I.

“You sure you don’t want to see the city?” I run my fingers over her glowing hip and try to decide which part of her I want to take a bite out of first. My hand swims between her legs and into that heated slick that stays wet and ready just for me.

She gives a coy smile.

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.

I’m right there with her. There couldn’t have been a better send off. She cuts a quick glance to me, so I change the subject.

“So why did she do it?” I pull her in until her hot skin sears against mine like a branding iron. “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,” she whispers. “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.” She takes in a quick 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?” I bury a kiss into her belly button, and her insides quiver beneath me. I wish I could feel that always—Skyla quivering into me, trembling for my touch. She holds my head down in this position, so I run my tongue in a circle over her belly until she relents.

“Emerson has a full confession to Ethan’s murder in a safe bolted in her closet back at the Kragger’s estate.” She pulls me up next to her. “Emerson never trusted Chloe. She didn’t think she’d kill her, though.”

My head falls back on the pillow, and I just stare up at the ceiling, taking in smooth, even breaths, trying to digest everything she’s just filled me in on. The truth is finally out. My truth, Chloe’s ugly, murderous truths—best of all, Skyla has the protective hedge, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more than that.

But why did I have to die? Why is Dudley in her life at all? Why not extend the hell out of my Treble?

“There are still so many unanswered questions.” I blow it out in a breath. “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.” She bites down on her lip so hard, I’m afraid she’s going to draw blood.

I give the hint of a nod. “I want you to burn my body, Skyla.”

“No,” she hisses it out so fast it’s obvious she won’t do it. “Never.”

“The Counts can steal it.” I secure my fingers over hers once again and bear into her with all of the pleading my eyes can afford.
I can’t trust being away from it even for a moment. I can still come back, Skyla. Nothing is impossible with God
. “It won’t change things between you and me.” I tuck a kiss over her pale shoulder. “Promise me you’ll do this.”

Skyla doesn’t say a word. She tosses up that mental barrier, and I’m in the doghouse again where her thoughts are concerned.

I don’t want to be shut out. Not when the clock is ticking, five minutes to midnight.

She gives a slight nod, but her eyes say she doesn’t mean it.

“What are you thinking?” I give her hand a little shake to let her know she doesn’t have to physically verbalize it to tell me, but Skyla doesn’t give in. She’s holds her thoughts back like a floodgate determined to keep the people in its wake safe from the prospect of drowning in them, and that person is me.

“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.” I swallow hard. “The rest is up to your mother.”

She cuts a look out the window that spells an evisceration to her mother far more than words can.

“Hey”—I scoot in until we’re lying side by side, our stomachs almost touching—“I’m still here. We still have tonight.”

Skyla squeezes my hand like she might fall down if I let go. She holds my gaze, and I have every intention of keeping my eyes glued over hers.

“I will always love you, Logan Oliver.” She takes in an unexpected breath. “Nothing, and no one, will ever change that.”

“I love you, too.” A smile tries to form on my lips but doesn’t quite make it. “Come here, princess.” I brush a kiss over her mouth, careful and slow as if she were made of the most fragile blown glass. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.” I glance down at our naked bodies pressed tight in all the right places, and realize I can never repay her for the gift she’s given me.

“Are you kidding? This is the highlight of my life.”

“Then, by all means, don’t let me deny you.” A lewd grin twitches on my lips as I whip the sheets right off the bed.