“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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The apocalypse can wait. Grandpa wants a beach day.
The world was a rather busy place with a wave of spirit-related activity. Last I saw on the news, the church had gotten involved and was positioning itself as a powerhouse of sanctuary. Nothing like the barefaced threat of one’s mortality toimprove your engagement with that which you believed bought you afterlife brownie points.
God, however, wasn’t hanging around pulpits and cemeteries; he was perched on an armchair in my sitting room sipping on peppermint tea and nibbling on a raisin and oatmeal cookie courtesy of Maggie’s recent batch.
“I have to say, these are the best cookies I’ve ever tasted,” God declared.
Maggie’s cheeks heated, and she scooped up several empty plates that had been divested of Aunt Liz’s sandwiches. “It’s a new recipe. I added a little orange peel.”
“Amazing. I’d love to take a few home.”
Maggie giggled before scuttling off to the kitchen, hopefully to find one of our best tins and not a warped Tupperware box to send God off with home-baked goodness.
I side-eyed Hudson when his leg brushed against mine. His gaze still held the heat from last night and the promise of a thousand more to come. I was eager to be done with my apocalypse era and ready for my small-town wifey one. Imagine getting up and the top of your to-do list was no longer “kill grandmother” or “fulfill date blood oath with a god.” Instead, it could be “check what mate wants for dinner” and “did I wash my favorite sweater for our date?”
Strike that. I never cooked or washed even before the world was ending.
“How are you doing, really?” God asked me.
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. When the Almighty was checking in on you, you knew things were fucked. “I don’t want to bore you with the details.”
He chuckled. “All I get are the details, Cora. I’ve learned to filter out the need to know from the noise.”
“I bet, but I’m not here to add to your noise.”
He sighed as he placed his empty cup back on the saucer. “Stop disparaging yourself, Granddaughter. I might have the noise, but you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
He knew. About the seals, about the choice, about the entire thing. Of course he did—he was God.
