Outside, the cool mist greets us. Paragon and her ghostly fog dance around us as we make a mad rush for the Mustang.
“Skyla.” Logan pushes me against it and takes a hungry bite out of my neck, dotting a line of oven-hot kisses up to my temple. “I can’t stop, but I will. I’m ready to build something with you. We can go slow.”
“I’m not asking you to stop.” I pull back a notch to look into his citrine eyes. “We are building something together, Logan, but I’m not the schoolgirl I was. I’m not the legalist I was. I’m going to have you, Logan.” I run my fingers down his tie and give it a tug when I hit the bottom. “I want to have you tonight if you’ll let me.”
A devilish grin rides on the tip of his lips. “Honey, I will be the last person to stop you.”
Someone shouts something from the gym and the sound of laughter reverberates through the woods around us.
Logan opens the passenger’s side door for me. “Let’s get out of here.”
We jump in and Logan speeds us off of the school grounds, away from the past as we barrel toward our future.
“Whitehorse?” he asks as we near Devil’s Peak and I turn the steering wheel toward the overlook.
“I think we’ve gone far enough.”
Logan drives us toward the edge and kills the engine. Without giving it another thought, I pull him into the back seat with me. His warmth, his girth over my body feels like heaven, and every last inch of me drinks it down. His mouth covers mine in haste and I wrap my hands over the back of his neck, trying to pull him closer, push him through me. I cannot get close enough, these wet, heated kisses feeding my every desire to have him. We’re making up for lost time, and yet it feels impossible to do so. Logan and I are bursting with passion, blowing the lid off of anything we ever had with one another and going for broke. We’re giving destiny and fate and every wicked force out there the finger and saying this is what we want, this is what we choose.
Logan rides his hands over my body and every part of me comes to life, to the knife-edge sharpest form of clarity that I have ever felt. Logan sings his praises as he carefully lifts my dress. I do my best to rake his shirt open, to fumble with his pants, and soon enough it’s flesh over flesh, Logan’s hard as steel body pressed to mine, a holy sensation that I haven’t felt since that last night of our short-lived honeymoon. It’s a strange thing that my heart’s attention first went to Logan—that our marriage came first. It’s almost as if Gage was an interrupter, an aside, dare I say, a diversion.
Logan stops abruptly and pulls back, his eyes glossed over and drugged. “No,” he says it with certainty, assuring me he heard every word.
I shake my head. “Errant thoughts. Forgive me.”
He lands a sweet kiss to my lips. “You did nothing wrong. I just don’t want your mind to take you on a dark path. Everything that happened needed to play out. This, right here, is our moment. But those moments were necessary, too.” His finger caresses my cheek. “I have a feeling we don’t see the big picture, and one day when we do we will see that this wasn’t all there was. That it wasn’t all so terrible. That we needed to walk through the fire. But we’re here.” A sorrowful smile takes over. “And we are not going back. Doors have closed, but new doors have opened. We have found our way to one another. Our time has truly come, and I do believe good things are in store for us in the future.”
I bite down over my lip to stave off tears. I didn’t want to drag Gage into the car with us, but here he is. I nod through blurry vision.
“Then that’s what it is. Those things were necessary. We have the boys.”
His eyes close a moment. “Thank God we have the boys. We have good memories, too. We’ll cling to those.”
“As we move on.” I pull him back down to me by the back of the neck. “Thank you for that. But for now I will put those things, both good and bad, out of my head. I only want you filling my mind, my heart—my body.” The hint of a wicked grin plays on my lips. “I like this new opened door, and I’m glad we get to walk through it together.”
“Here’s to us.” His mouth crashes over mine once again, and soon the air grows damp and heated, our bodies scalding hot over one another.
Logan rides his mouth up and down every ounce of my flesh, contorting himself to land his mouth over even the most delicate of places. My entire being bucks and writhes and I can’t help but moan myself into a beautiful oblivion. Logan is on me, all over me, and with one final thrust he is in me.
A sharp jolt of electrocution ignites every cell in my body and those vibratronics usually reserved for heavenly hosts rides through me like a livewire meeting with a greedy puddle of water.
The entire Mustang hums and rocks to the rhythm of our lovemaking and the windows sizzle as they sweat tears of joy.
This is rarefied air we are breathing—a love story that got cut off, only to be reconnected again, coming full circle with something you knew you could never stop. We were heading toward one another all along. The fact decades and landmasses sat between us meant nothing.
Yes, it was fate, it was destiny, it was my mother and her strong, long-standing will that moved heaven and earth, life and death, and time continuums to make sure we happened, but in the end it was our own hearts that took us to the finish line.
Gage had hurt me. He hurt us. But from this strange perspective, it feels as if even those hellish moments we endured were destined to happen.
In the end, when the ashes were blown away, something beautiful was left and that is Logan and our love for one another. It almost begs the question, what must we do, what must we as a united entity accomplish? I realize Angel, our precious daughter, lies in the equation, but I think there’s something more, something bigger we bring to the table than simply genetics. Together, Logan and I are unstoppable.
We are, he concurs.We are downright dangerous to the enemy. We are a life force to be reckoned with and they will try to do just that. But we will prevail, we will rise higher, and we will be victorious. You and I are the missing piece to the puzzle. Together we fit and together we make sense. One doesn’t work without the other. I truly believe we need each other to accomplish all that was set out for us to do. There is no you, no me, that can get it done. It is with our union, our unity that we enter the finish line with the strength of a lion.
A bubbling laugh tickles my chest.Yes, Logan. I wholeheartedly agree. We are not just stronger together, we are a new creation, one whose power is unsurpassed in greatness and glory. Only we can fix the crooked path. Alone, I have destroyed a kingdom, but together, we will bind up its wounds and restore our people, the Sectors, ourselves to live a brighter, safer, far more abundant tomorrow.
Logan pulls me in hard with his supernatural strength and he seizes a moment. Then, just as quickly, he tries to pull out and I hold him there, hostage as his body releases inside of mine, his muscles trembling as he shakes out to completion. My hand slaps against the cool window and I press against it hard as Logan and I hit our zenith.
Logan’s mouth lands back over mine and offers me a sweltering kiss. His breathing and mine are so erratic it hurts my ears to listen to it. The air is downright muggy and it feels as if a tropical heat wave has taken over the Mustang.
