Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Love isn’t found in Heaven or Hell—it’s built in the small hours between heartbeats.
Hudson’s wings snapped back into his body.
He gripped my hips, and in a smooth motion, vaulted us both upward to the tree house.
He grasped my hand and led me inside, my heart thumping in anticipation.
It felt an eternity since we’d been alone, since we’d not been fighting.
Time played tricks on our minds, moving fast when we needed a moment to catch our breath and slow when our thoughts were full of pain and torment. It was a cruel master.
He released my hand and backed up to the sofa before plopping down and spreading his arms out on the back. His brow lifted. “Clothes, mate. Lose them.”
I folded my arms and tilted my chin in the air. “I don’t take instructions well.”
“You do if you want to come apart tonight.”
“Something I can achieve alone.” I had done it for long enough before him, although it wasn’t as much fun.
He licked his lips, and his eyes hooded. “Prove it.”
I blinked. “Prove what?”
“Touch yourself. Show me how much you don’t need me.”
The sinful dare drenched the air in anticipation. I could play this game. Men often thought they had the power, but they were delightfully misinformed.
My fingers skimmed the edge of my T-shirt before snaking beneath the cotton to trace the swell of my breasts. I toyed with the sensitive flesh. My cheeks flushed, and my breathing quickened, but I didn’t undress.
Hudson tilted his head. “Cora,” he growled in warning. My lips tilted up. Undone so soon, Principal?
I tugged the shirt over my head, revealing my black lace bra. I kicked off my boots before unbuckling my belt and unbuttoning my jeans. My fingers skimmed beneath the fabric, teasing us both.
“Show me,” he ordered as his hands curled into fists. He was moments away from snapping, but I didn’t want his surrender. Yet.
I slid the belt loose and peeled the jeans off my legs, leaving me in my matching underwear. Everywhere his gaze touched heated my skin and made my core clench in anticipation.
I sank to my knees and gave him a sultry smile before skimming my hand between my legs. My breath stuttered, and I whimpered.
“Fuck, you are beautiful.”
I could push, but I was savoring this luxury of privacy and time. I wanted sensual, sexy, and all-consuming, to feel like I didn’t know where he ended and I began.
I crawled toward him. His brows lifted, and his mouth quirked. My gaze dropped to where his straining cock pressed against the fabric of his jeans. I reached him and trailed my hands up his legs before finding his belt. His hands caught mine. “What are you doing, little witch?”
“Proving it.”
My magic curled between us, invisible hands releasing his erection. He hissed as my phantom fingers gripped him. “More secrets, Cora?”
“No, I just haven’t begun to show you everything I want to do to you and with you yet.” Holding eye contact, I lowered my mouth and snaked my tongue along his flesh. He jerked beneath me and dropped my hands in favor of gathering my hair in his fist, making sure he got an uninterrupted view.
“How is this showing me how you get yourself off?”
“I do it thinking about you, so give me a minute and I’ll show you just how much this affects me,” I muttered before fastening my lips around him. I kept my movements slow but deliberately altered my pace every time he shifted his hips.
His hand tightened in my hair as I teased him to distraction.
I maintained eye contact while I spread my legs and dipped one of my hands inside my panties.
Hudson’s jaw clenched as he held himself in check.
I groaned with my mouth full of him when I discovered what I expected—I was drenched for him.
I popped my mouth free, winked, and lifted my damp fingers toward my mouth. He snatched my hand in an iron grip and wrapped his lips around my fingers, sucking hard, his tongue flicking against the pads. It was a promise, a tease of what that tongue could do to me, and it sent my heart aflutter.
With a smirk, I moved my other hand south, intent on driving me over the edge and proving to him that although I could do this alone, it was infinitely better with him.
He nipped my fingers in warning before releasing them and tearing his belt free from his jeans, wrapping the leather around my wrists in a heartbeat.
I quirked a brow. “I can’t prove anything with my hands tied, Principal.”
“No, but I can.” He grabbed my hips and lifted me. I wound my legs around his waist as he carried me to the bedroom, his mouth on mine the entire time. He dropped me onto the soft sheets before staring down at me in awe. “I could keep you locked away here. No war, no family, no push and pull.”
It was a whispered wish we both knew wasn’t possible, but wishes rarely were.
“Let’s take tonight,” I said, “and then see what we can do about our future tomorrow.”
A claw extended from his finger, and he dragged it up my outer thigh, cutting through the lace. “I liked this set,” I muttered.
He smirked and destroyed my bra next. “I like you better without it.”
“Underwear is expensive.”
“Then I know what to get you for a Christmas gift.” He pulled off the rest of his clothes and tossed them on the floor. “But I can save you money with a simple solution.”
He had a warrior’s body, honed through hard work and a determination to protect those he loved, which included me. “What’s the solution?”
“Stop wearing them.”
I snorted. “Can’t save the world pantieless.”
“I believe Eve was in the same state of undress.”
My mouth popped open as he jested about life-altering facts of my origins and notes for the future. “Maybe that’s why she chose wrong,” I grumble. “We could have all been living in Eden if she’d been allowed panties before she bit the apple.”
He balled up the lace in his fist, crawled on top of me, and hooked his thumb in my mouth. “We can make our own Eden, but your mouth needs to be occupied.” He shoved the lace inside and winked at me when I huffed.
“Our mate is a little spicy tonight,” Indigo mused. “I think I like it. I’ll let him play with us—for now.”
Hudson laughed against my stomach, sending the butterflies inside into a frenzy. “I enjoy your unfiltered self,” he said as his shoulders pushed my legs wider. “But I see I’m going to have to ensure even she can’t talk.”
“Do your worst, mate,” Indigo taunted.
No, don’t incite him—
My mind blanked at the first swipe of his tongue.
Pleasure arched my spine, and a soft curse was lost behind the lace.
With one arm banded across my stomach, he kept me anchored in place while his tongue and fingers tormented me until it felt like my heart was beating between my legs.
Every time I got close, he pulled away. I both loved and hated him.
I knew the final climb would be worth it, but it didn’t make me strain any less to chase the pleasure.
“You taste of chaos and sweet destruction, Cora,” he said before raking his teeth over my clit. “Utterly and completely addictive.”
He dragged the fabric from my mouth and covered my curses with drugging kisses. His hand tightened on my hip to prevent me rolling against him in the age-old rhythm our bodies were wired for.
“Please,” I whispered when he dragged his cock through my center.
He released the belt, freeing my wrists. I threaded my hands in his hair and ran my nails against his scalp, making him growl. His gaze turned to molten gold as his beast rose to the surface to stare at me.
“I love you,” he murmured as he pushed inside me, connecting us in the most unique way two people entwined can be.
The intensity of the moment solidified everything we already knew—that we were meant to be together.
He dragged himself out slowly and then back in, never speeding up as his eyes picked apart my soul.
The promise of pleasure hovered on the horizon, but I wasn’t ready for this moment to end.
I flipped us to straddle him, controlling my movements to keep pace with him.
This wasn’t a race to see who could finish first, but a marathon of connection and love, an immeasurable stretch of time where all I could feel was him.
He tucked my hair behind my ear and looked at me like I was his entire world.
Who actually got this? It was what we were all searching for from the moment we breathed life into this world.
First, the unconditional love of our parents, then the connection with friends, and finally, the person you wanted to wake up with for the rest of your life and restart that cycle all over again with little ones of your own.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Our future.” I twisted my hips and leaned back to caress his balls. He sucked in a breath and twitched inside me.
“What do you see?”
“Love, family, children.”
He grabbed my hips and lifted me so he could slide in and out. My eyes flutter closed. I wasn’t going to last. “Children? You want to carry our babies, Cora?”
The roughness of his words had me smiling. “Yes. Once the world stops falling apart.”
“Fuck, I need you to come, Cora.”
“Not yet.”
Such an attentive mate, ensuring I got off first. He pressed a hand against my stomach, and the new pressure made my eyes fly open and my core clench.
He grinned a wicked smile. “Now.” He altered his angle, and my climax barreled into me like a freight train.
It started at my spine and erupted down my nerves, making my toes tingle and fingers clench.
I screamed his name to the forest surrounding our little slice of paradise.
He groaned and then with one last thrust, emptied himself inside of me.
I collapsed on his chest, sweaty, spent, and limp.
Heaven above, I choose this. Not war, not life-altering changes, not the apocalypse.
This. Here and now, with the one man who held my heart in his hands.
The messy, complicated decisions we’d made, the secrets we’d woven, the lies we’d told, faded into the background.
They became insignificant in the face of love chosen.
Not forced, not planned. Two souls who found solace in the light of each other and didn’t shrink away from the nightmares in their eyes.
I chose him because he is without a doubt extraordinary, and in return, he ensured that I felt the same.