Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Cleo
Swimming at midnight under the stars with an undeniably gorgeous man wasn’t on my list for this trip, but here we are. Gazing out of the window, I notice the rain has paused. I watch him speed walk toward the lake and jump in carelessly.
After staying underwater for a long moment, he whips his head out and scans the lake house until he finds me. Noticing I haven’t moved an inch, he quirks his head and furrows his brows in confusion before inclining his head toward the water.
What are you afraid of, Cleo?
His rich voice enters my mind.
I’m not afraid, I answer a bit too swiftly.
I don’t think I believe you. Prove it.
I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. I stare at him directly in the eyes from inside the lake house and lift my chin high with a scowl before shrugging nonchalantly and bending over.
I peel my tights off first. My skirt follows closely after, pooling around my ankles. I maintain his stare, noting his eyes are a bit more hooded than they were a moment ago.
Relishing in the way he’s watching me, I smirk and raise my sweater over my head as delicately as possible. I toss it on the couch, then cross my arms.
His lips part as his eyes drift down my body, taking in every inch. His gaze lingers on some parts of me longer than others. Exposing my body like this would generally make me uncomfortable, but I’m starting to understand that he makes everything easier. I think, maybe, he’s become my happy place.
Fuck. Me.
Forward much? I cover my lips while suppressing a smile.
When it comes to you, I have to be.
I close my eyes and chuckle, but when I open them, he is nowhere to be found.
Kai?
Did he leave? Did the Archangels find us? Oh heavens, what are we—
Suddenly, damp arms grab me from behind, lifting me off my feet. Kai scoops me into his arms and beams at me, droplets of water falling from his drenched hair and dripping onto my skin. His gaze trails the path of the falling drops, lingering on my collarbone for a moment before lifting to my eyes.
“Did you just teleport in here?”
“I had to get to you as fast as possible.”
“Does this mean I don’t have to go swimming in that freezing lake with you after all?” I gasp sarcastically.
He gasps back, grinning from ear to ear. “No.”
Before I can utter a word in response, he takes off, running out the front door while carrying me in his arms. As we edge closer to the lake, he doesn’t slow down, which is a big nope for me.
I’m not one of those people who enjoys jumping into the water right away—I prefer to dip my toes in and slowly embrace it. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he is a jumper.
“Kai. Put me down.” I grit my teeth. “Do not give in to your intrusive thoughts. Don’t.”
Instead of responding, he just wheezes a faint laugh, pulling me even tighter into his chiseled abs.
“I’m not kidding,” I say in the firmest tone I can muster, attempting to wiggle my way out of his toned arms. Damnit, why does he have to be so fit?
Look, I know angels aren’t supposed to feel cold, but that water looks frigid, and quite frankly, I wasn’t planning on getting my hair wet again after drying off from the rain. Sue me.
In a matter of seconds, I’m suddenly in the air, falling to my demise, flailing my arms like a madwoman. Of course, he threw me in. I’d expect nothing less of this wild man.
This moment briefly brings me back to another time—one not nearly as pleasant as this one. Crashing under the surface of the black water, I immediately swim upward, desperate to inhale fresh air.
Raising my head above the surface and inhaling a breath of air, I immediately push the memories away. We only scratched the surface when it comes to my mortal life tonight. The less he knows about my life before the afterlife, the better.
Thankfully, the water isn’t actually cold.
I’ll admit, never getting cold or hot is a significant perk of being dead.
Throughout my mortal life, I always ran cold, so I appreciate the eternal regulated body temperature.
I glance around and notice fireflies dimming in and out of existence—I’ve always loved the way they glow.
There’s something so magical about those little creatures.
They seem to be growing rarer and rarer with each passing decade, too.
An obnoxious splash of water has me turning my head toward the source.
“Having fun?” He tilts his head, smirking.
“No,” I answer coolly while treading the water and getting lost in the stars, careful not to let my uncaring mask slip.
He gravitates closer to me until our bodies nearly touch.
“I find it ironic—you, watching the stars so intently.” I peel my eyes away from the stars and gaze into his. “The stars should be watching you.”
He drags his gaze down to my lips, then raises his fingers to graze them. His touch is defined but soft—so much smoother than I expected.
Then, his fingers stroke my cheek, trailing down to grasp my chin. I break our stare, looking down.
“Look at me.” He lifts my chin gently, pushing his hand back to cradle my jaw.
“I can be… eccentric. I know. So, it may be hard to read me sometimes. But the last thing I want is for you to doubt me. I’ll come clean.
Will I regret this later? Maybe. However, the truth would’ve come out eventually.
I’d rather it comes out while stars and fireflies surround us than while we’re on the run.
“When we’re together, you consume my thoughts.
When we’re apart, you consume them twice as much.
I’ve been dealing with a lot over the last several weeks, but every time I run away and drift out farther into the sea, you find me and bring me back to the shore.
The funny thing is, I’m not even sure where your head is at with all this, and as downright scary as that is, I don’t know if it matters to me anymore. ”
Our noses nearly touch.
“I’ll take whatever you give me, Cleo.”
I stop breathing. He may think he means this, but he can’t.
If he does, I’ll end up hurting him, too. It’s inevitable.
“Kai, there’s so much you don’t know. If you knew everything, I’m certain you wouldn’t feel this way.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know me at all,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around my waist underwater and resting me on his lap so that I’m straddling him as he keeps us afloat.
My thighs rest against his as our bodies mold into each other’s.
“I’m certain that my feelings won’t change over that.
I’m also a pretty stubborn person. I told you.
You’re stuck with me… Unless this is one-sided. ”
One word comes to mind. Complicated.
Things have become so beautifully complicated.
But right now, as I’m staring into his molten gold eyes and holding my breath, all I want is Kai Greene.
For as long as I can have him.
For as long as he will have me.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been very good at pretending,” I whisper, parting my lips and wrapping my arms tighter around his neck. He leans in, his lips grazing my ear as he exhales a breath, making my body shudder.
“I know.” He smiles against my ear and uses his teeth to tug on it gently, immediately sending a rush of shivers down my spine. That felt good. Too good.
How deprived am I?
“You won’t be deprived for much longer.” He trails his lips down to my neck, placing kisses all the way to my collarbone.
Oh my heavens. Did I say that out loud?
He chuckles into my neck. “No. I’ve just gotten really good at reading your thoughts if I do say so myself.”
I exhale a sigh of relief and run my fingers through his hair as his kisses on my neck grow more passionate—hungrier. I lean my head back in pleasure and release the quietest whimper.
“Fuck. I’ve never heard something so sexy.”
My core grows warmer as I feel his length push against my center. I moan again without holding back, this time leading him to drive his hardness into me firmly.
“Now you’re just teasing me.” He smiles in between kisses.
I pause, suddenly feeling apprehension creeping in. “What if they’re watching us up there?”
“Let them watch.”
Then he tightly pulls me into him and teleports us back to the lake house, but this time, we’re in the loft. He sets me down on the edge of the king-size four-poster bed, where I sit upright, and then he locks his eyes on me.
He kneels to the ground, his arousal impossible to miss at this point. Using his hands to frame the curves of my body, he starts at my shoulders, rubbing them intently. Then, as his hands roam lower and approach my breasts, he looks into my eyes—seeking permission.
I simply nod, reveling in how hooded his eyes have grown.
He reaches around my back to unclasp my bra and tosses it on the floor.
Then, his hands meet my breasts and grasp them tightly.
He gazes at them like they’re perfect when they are far from it.
I have a full chest, but one boob is definitely a teeny bit perkier than the other. So again, they’re objectively not—
“Perfect. They are fucking perfect,” he whispers in awe before taking one into his mouth, swirling his tongue around my perked nipple, leading me to toss my head back in bliss.
I grab hold of his hair and tug it hard.
He breaks away for only a second and looks up at me from the ground. “You’re perfect.”
He massages my breasts leisurely, then lowers me off the bed.
My legs wrap around his waist mid-air, just inches above the ground, as he sucks on my breasts.
I clutch the burgundy velvet bedding behind me with one hand and cup my other hand around his neck, pulling him against me.
I lean my head back and close my eyes in bliss. I want—no, I need—more.
“You make me feel so alive,” I breathe, rotating my hips to align my opening with his cock. I slide up and down against his hardness and bask in how good it feels—how right it feels. He smiles against my neck and kisses it tenderly in response.
“This won’t do,” he rasps, pausing our movements and lifting us onto the bed, planting his arms on either side of me, caging me again like earlier on the sofa.
“You’re more particular than I expected, Kai,” I purr, not caring to hide my smile this time.
“Angel, I’ve imagined our first time more times than you can imagine. You’ve got to know by now that I’m not a perfectionist—not even close. But when it comes to you, to this, I won’t settle for less than utter perfection. My angel deserves nothing less.”
The amount of thought he’s putting into this makes my heart burst. He backs away and stands up, peeling his briefs off. I gape at his length and gulp, parting my lips in disbelief.
How the hell am I supposed to fit that in this…
In true Kai fashion, he smirks and shoots me a wink, eyes far more heated than usual.
He crawls back on the bed, passing me to rest his back against the headboard.
Nodding his chin for me to join him, I hesitantly move closer until I’m sitting atop of him, my legs curving on either side of his muscular thighs.
He grasps my waist, digging his fingers into my soft sides, and shifts my body for me.
I bend, sucking and nipping and licking his neck and take satisfaction in how hard he’s growing beneath me.
One of his hands trails down the small of my back until it reaches my thong’s sheer fabric. Letting out a groan, he tears it off and tosses it across the room without hesitation.
“Finally.” He squeezes my behind, pressing his fingers into it.
That dainty piece of fabric was the very last boundary between us.
Slowly, I lower myself onto him and release a moan of my own as we fuse our bodies together. I rotate my hips faster as he thrusts harder.
“That’s it, angel,” he breathes. “Use me. I’m yours.”
My core nearly explodes.
This is everything.
He is everything.
It’s like I’ve been waiting for this moment since the day I died.
Actually, no, not this moment.
I’ve been waiting for him.
Like a spool of the very thread I once shared with him as his Watcher, I unwind, and then my mind finally quiets. Peace like I’ve never known washes away my sorrows, and I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding as I finish, bound tightly in his arms.
I know better—the calmness is only momentary.
But this moment is everything I never allowed myself to imagine having.
“Still pretending?” I whisper breathlessly, scanning his hooded eyes. His lips brush against mine gently as he exhales.
“I never was.”