“It was brutal.” Marshall glares at him. “Fists were exchanged. You’re quite lucky a mortal blow wasn’t dealt.”
“Yes, well”—Logan raises his brows—“I’m dead now, so it’s a moot point.” He reverts his loving gaze back over to me. “Anyway, we realized we were fighting for the same team. We both want you safe.”
Marshall gives a brief nod. “Once he committed to the Countenance on your behalf, I knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep you secure. Although we haven’t always seen eye to eye.” Marshall sharpens his voice. “You’ve no idea how close I came to castrating him after that little stunt he pulled with the Justice Alliance.”
“Here, Marshall.” I slip the pendant off my necklace. “I want you to be safe, right here on Paragon. I’m gifting it to you. It’s yours now.” I open his hand and press the Eye of Refuge deep in his palm, and a wave of perfect love flows from him to me.
A rustling wind erupts, a vat of dark purple clouds rotate up above, and a bolt of lightning touches down just shy of Marshall, morphing into a beautiful woman with golden flowing hair—my mother.
“What’s this I hear about a wedding?” She steps over in all her brilliance, weaving the fragrance of lemon grass and hyacinth through the air, honey and spice and everything nice. For once, I’m actually glad to see my mother.
“For you.” Marshall holds up the protective hedge to her but doesn’t give it.
“Very well.” She takes it from him and examines it—a slight smile plays on the edge of her lips as she looks to me. “I see you’re marrying Logan.” Her smile expands as if she wants this for me as much as I do.
“May I have your daughter’s hand in marriage?” Logan pulls me in by the waist and warms me within his arms.
“Of course.” My mother pitches her brows. “That’s the very reason I brought you to Paragon. She’s the reason your life was spared and returned to you in another time.” She beams as she takes the two of us in. “For you, Skyla. Consider it a wedding gift.” She kisses the pendant, and it appears back on the chain dangling from my neck, right next to Logan’s mirrored heart. She glances up at Marshall. “Get on with the proceedings. I’m anxious to see these two bound in union.”
“In a moment.” Marshall grunts. He’s a little less enthusiastic about the arrangement compared to my mother. “My turn to bequeath the bride a gift. Come love.” He takes me by the hand and leads me behind an overgrown juniper bush. My eyes grow heavy with heartbreak, and I can hardly stand to look at him.
“Are you angry?” I whisper. It breaks my heart to think I could ever hurt Marshall.
“Angry?” The moon washes over him, the beams bowing to his glory. “Skyla”—he touches his finger to my cheek and caresses me with his sizzling sensations—“Delphinius was kind enough to lay out the terms of a thousand tomorrows. To answer your question”—he looks past my shoulder in the direction of Logan and my mother—“no, I’m far from angry. I think what you’re doing is noble, it’s sweet.” He shakes out his hands, and a silky white dress appears. “For you.” He holds out a long, elegant sheath for me to examine. It’s cut low in the front with topknots over the shoulders and takes my breath away just to look at.
“I love it!” I take it from him carefully. “What does it do?” All of the dresses Marshall has lent me have had an assortment of strange abilities.
“It magnifies your beauty.” He rubs his thumb over my cheek. “A kiss.” He leans in and presses his lips ever so softly to mine. “Congratulations, Skyla.” He glances down, and the luminescent gown replaces my cheer uniform. “You make a beautiful bride.”
Marshall hooks his arm in mine and walks me slowly back toward my mother and Logan—and, my father!
“Dad!” I jump over him with a tight embrace.
“Do you want this, Skyla?” He asks it calm, a pleasant smile embedded in his cheeks.
“With everything in me,” I whisper.
“Then I gift you my blessing.” He presses a kiss over my forehead and walks me toward the boy I love.
Logan Oliver shines like a beacon with his chest spread wide as a wall. His eyes enlarge as he takes me in, and my dress shimmers to life like a bed of muted stars.
My father leads me to him, and Logan takes up my hands.
“Skyla, Logan?” Marshall stands before us and looks to my mother before proceeding. She offers the hint of a nod, and Marshall takes in a breath before continuing. “Would the two of you be willing to share this life and all of its riches, all of its grievances until the good Lord sees fit to sever the cord and call one of you home to paradise?”
“Yes.” Logan locks his gaze over mine. “It would be an honor.”
“And Skyla?” Marshall presses on. “Do you desire Logan to be your husband?”
I press a smile into Logan—his gorgeous face, those eyes of golden fire. I’ve been in love with him from the moment we met. This day was bound to come, in one form or another. I give his hands a gentle squeeze.
“I do.”
Marshall growls. “You may now loosely embrace the bride.”
“Sector?” My mother clears her throat.
“Very well.” Marshall extends his hands, and the world warbles in and out like a dream. My heart stops. Swear to God if Wesley is at the other end of this delusion, I’ll have his balls on a spit by midnight.
“Kiss the bride.” Marshall’s voice evaporates into nothing, and so do we.
***
A warm sensation takes over from the neck down as Logan and I appear in an oversized bathtub. Crimson rose petals float along on the surface, expelling their honeyed scent into the thick, damp air. Candles trim the periphery as we take in the setting. An unfamiliar bathroom the size of my bedroom back home fills in the landscape. There’s a giant window just over our shoulders revealing a cobalt sky, a bevy of winking stars, each one more prominent than the last.
I’m lying in Logan’s lap with my head on his chest, my fingers entwined in his dewy hair.
“Where are we?” I whisper, clasping onto him a little tighter, it’s only then I realize we’re both still fully dressed.
Logan leans up, and his dimple inverts as he looks out the window.
“We’re in Rome, Skyla.” He points across the way at the looming relic where we tragically decided to take the Counts into our own hands—the Colosseum. It stamps across the landscape like a brown stone moon that fell to the planet long ago and no one really cared about.
“Rome,” it escapes from me in a whisper. This is exactly where I told Logan I wanted to spend our honeymoon one day. “Thank you.” I scratch my fingers over his chest. “I believe you owe me a kiss.”
His cheek digs in as a sweet grin brims slowly over his face.
“I believe
you
owe
me
a kiss.” Logan pulls me up and lands his lips over mine. Our tongues crash in a lingual exchange that marks a union, a covenant born under God, under the supervision of angels—a Sector, my mother and father.
Logan lifts us out of the tub and stands me next to him, riding his eyes over my body as if seeing me for the very first time. He smooths his hands over my hips, slow, determined before gently lifting the dress Marshall gifted me, right off my body. His eyes wash over me in nothing but my bra and underwear. I can feel his gaze, pulling across my flesh, heavy and aching. He wraps a thick towel over my shoulder and pulls it side to side without taking his eyes off mine. My body starts to quiver. The idea of what comes next makes me weak all over.
“I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon, Skyla.” He seals it with a heated kiss that sends a wave of wanting right down to my bones.
Logan scoops me in his arms and carries me through the threshold, into a cavernous bedroom lit up with a sea of candles. A four-poster bed is strewn with petals in a rainbow of citrus hues, perfuming the air with the scent of paradise.
“Beautiful.” My chest heaves as I try to absorb the look on his face, the candles with their ribbons of melting wax, the thick white comforter peeking out from the flora and fauna blissfully layering the top of the bed like sprinkles. I want to remember it all.
“
You
are beautiful.” Logan never loses our gaze. He lays me down and climbs next me, peppering my face with his sugared kisses.
A basket filled with familiar foil squares sits on the bedside.
“A bowlful of condoms,” I muse.
“Dudley’s an extremist.”
“I think he’s a realist,” I tease.
A laugh rumbles from his chest as he gives a gentle bite to my cheek.
My lips part, and my mouth waits for him. Logan presses in with easy pecks before his tongue bumps over my teeth—it rounds over my palate in one hot swipe. Logan gives way to deep soul kisses, the kind of kisses that make my insides quake all on their own. We kiss for what feels like hours, for weeks on end, knowing this was something we were meant to do—that the prize at the end of all that suffering was the love we share for each other—the love we were about to share right now. The room ignites in a private inferno as our lust whips around us, wild and beautiful.
I press my hands over his chest and gently tug off his T-shirt. My hands glide smooth over Logan’s searing chest. He gives the impression of a lewd smile and dips his lips to my body. Logan rakes his tongue from the middle of my chest, clear up to my neck until his mouth connects with mine in a heated rush. Logan bites down on my lip ever so softly before grazing his teeth over my mouth, his breathing increasingly erratic.
A current of electricity rips through us. It ignites the bed, the sheets until the two of us are engulfed within its inferno. I sink my fingers to the lips of his jeans and give a little laugh as he buries a molten kiss over my neck. His hands blister over my hips, gliding around to my back, lethargic as honey, and it leaves me aching like a tragedy. I lean up and unhook my bra and pull it off slow, with a dangerous smile.
“Skyla,” he whispers, dropping his gaze. He closes his eyes a moment and lets out a groan.
I reach down and unbuckle his jeans and Logan pulls them off, his boxers right along with them.
Logan gets on his knees, and I take him in with the blessing of the moon washing him white as marble. He traces a finger down my chest to my belly in the shape of an S. He hitches his thumbs over my panties at the hip and stalls for a moment, his eyes settling over mine brief enough for me to realize he wants that final measure of assurance. I reach down and help slide them off, slow and seductive with our eyes never losing contact.
“Come here.” I pull him over me, and my insides explode. It’s just Logan and me, our flesh melting over one another without any barriers. I coil my fingers through the back of his hair and hold his mouth over mine as our chests rise and fall in a heated rush—nothing but the sound of wild panting, the supplication of kisses, the soft groans emitting from my throat. Logan’s skin electrifies every part of me. My body drinks him in, but already I want so much more. I’m greedy for him, all of him. The world stills around us as our bodies sway in a rhythm all their own—Logan and I dancing to the beat of our special brand of love.
His chest bristles over mine alive and new. I can feel him growing against my thigh, and I let out a soft moan because there’s nothing I want more than to have Logan inside me.
He reaches over and plucks a condom off the nightstand. For a moment I wonder if I should watch, but I’m too mesmerized to look away. He rolls the long slick over himself, and my breathing ticks up a notch, my legs wrap around him instinctually as he lowers himself to me once again.
“I love you so damn much.” He pants into my ear like breathing a fire.
I groan into him, grazing over his ear with my teeth. Everything in me wants him, wants all of him, and then that will never be enough.
Logan reaches down and covers the most intimate part of me with his hand, groaning as his lips find mine. His fingers glide over me in a sweeping motion, and I jump, my entire body cries out with pleasure as he explores me thoroughly.
The heat, the
fire
from his lips—his sizzling skin over mine, makes the room quake with a viral intensity. Logan guides himself to me and carefully pushes in. I press my hands over his lower back and tighten our embrace, letting him know that it’s OK, that I want this.
Logan moves in deep, grinding his hips over mine, and a choking sound gets caught in my throat. A white-hot spear of lightning travels up from inside my belly. This intense burning, this throbbing sweet pain—this is Logan filling me with his love—his perfect love.
“
Skyla
,” he hums my name right into my mouth. His chest trembles over mine, and he hikes up on his elbows. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” I pant, only half-telling the truth. Logan pulls part way out before steadying his rhythm, gliding in softer, far more restrained.
“God, I love you,” he whispers, dusting my face with kisses. His heart detonates in his chest, over and over. His breathing grows erratic with every primal thrust. Logan is losing it, exerting himself as if he just ran for Olympic gold. “Oh shit.” His breathing escalates to an unrivaled ferocity as he lets out a deep guttural groan that strangles its way out of his throat.
My body quickens with his movements. An explosive quiver begs to loosen from me, and every part of my body cries out for a release.
“
Logan
.” I hook my fingernails into his shoulders and claw my way down in a solid path of pleasure.
“Fuck.” Logan lets out a breath as if he were exerting his last, and his body enters into a series of tremors over mine.
Then in a moment of unimaginable glory my entire body seizes in one spasm after the next, unstoppable, a never-ending bliss born in the most intimate part of me, derived from Logan himself. My legs secure over his back, locking him in as he collapses over me with a slick of perspiration that seals our bodies together.
We lie motionless, exhausted in our newfound ecstasy.
“Are you OK?” Logan rises above me with a grin, his dimple inverted into a shadowed spear.
“Better than OK. You made me sneeze.”
“You did? Bless you.” He dots a kiss over my lips.
“My body did,” I purr not wanting to go too in depth over Brielle’s analogy. I tuck my finger under his chin—my legs still holding his body hostage in mine. I let out a few heated breaths before calming myself. “We should have been doing that this entire time.” A laugh gets buried in my throat.