I let my lips brush lightly over his skin. Greedily, my tongue searches for a taste. He smells amazing. My hands slide down to his chest, and they show their appreciation for his hard work in diet and exercise.
The temperature of his body increases. Slowly, and then all at once. My shadows curl out of me, poised to protect me against my mortal enemy. I see black streaks stretch over Jaxon wherever they touch him. I can already tell there are black handprints on my hips.
Jaxon reaches up and fists his hand into my hair. In one movement, he rolls us over, pinning me on my back to the bed. Through the dark, he stares down at me. “I love you, Serena. And it has to be enough.”
There is so much meaning to those words. He’d said them so desperately as he was manifesting, and our future was uncertain. And now, where there is so much out of our control, when the lines are so blurry, it has to be enough.
“It is enough,” I confirm, nodding my head. I pull his face back down to mine.
The room begins to glow as light splinters over his body. My shadows grow larger. They swirl around us, pressing against Jaxon, trying to keep me safe from the very thing I want most. His touch is so hot it almost feels like ice.
It’s so messed up. This pleasure comes with so much pain.
But this is us. Kissing in the dark, while he splinters into light, and my shadows swirl around us in a nightmarish dance of perfection.
Chapter Fifteen
Something warm and soft presses against the back of my neck.
My conscious stirs as the warmth shifts to the side of my neck. Then it shifts over to the peak of my shoulder.
My eyes blink open, and I look over to find Jaxon kissing his way down my neck and then down my arm.
When he sees I’m awake, he rests his chin on my shoulder, staring at me.
I’m lying on my side with my back to him. He’s tucked right up against me, one hand resting on my burned hip.
It’s perfect. It’s everything I’ve been dreaming about for the past month.
“Morning,” he breathes quietly.
I roll onto my back, cupping my hand behind his neck and dragging his lips down to mine. “Morning,” I say softly.
He looks down at me, the gaze in his eyes soft.
“What are you thinking right now?” I ask, dying to know.
A small smile pulls in the corner of his mouth. “I’m thinking I could do this for the rest of my life,” he says. “Waking up next to you every morning… This is everything, Serena.”
I smile as I look into his eyes. There’s something warm and soft growing in my chest. It makes it kind of hard to breathe, yet it’s the best feeling in the world at the same time. “Then let’s do it every night.”
He smiles in agreement. But we both know that it’s unlikely to come true.
“Come on,” he says. “We need to get ready to meet Aaron.”
Great. Work.
We both roll out of the bed, and I make my way to his bathroom. I wonder then what it might be like to have a home of our own. One we pick together. One we decorate together. One where everything is ours instead of his, or the darklings’, or the Grays’.
I pull my long, thick hair up into a messy bun at the top of my head. I grab my pants that are still lying on the floor next to the shower and shimmy my way back into them. I peel Jaxon’s shirt off and pull my bra on just two seconds before Jaxon wanders into the bathroom.
He’s only wearing a pair of—of course—black jeans. No shirt. And he’s barefoot.
I smile as he steps up to the counter and grabs his toothbrush.
“What?” he asks with his own smile as he puts some toothpaste on it.
I smile again and shake my head. “It’s just…nothing about my life has been normal since the mid-eighteen-hundreds. I mean, I’m nearly two hundred years old. But this…” I look to him and then look in the mirror. Jaxon looks, too. There we are, neither of us wearing a top, but both of us looking so comfortable. We look like we’ve been doing this for years. “This feels normal. It shouldn’t. I mean, nothing about what’s happened since we met has been normal. But…” I turn and cross to him. I hook my hands behind his neck, and his arms circle my waist. “This feels normal. Being with you, Jaxon, it kind of feels like…destiny.”
He nods in agreement, the expression in his eyes soft. “I never thought I’d be with anyone ever again, Serena. I didn’t think I could risk it, not with the life I’ve lived and my history and family. But then a terrifying shadow spider came along, and I wasn’t scared anymore. Me and you were made for each other.”
I nod because I absolutely agree. “I love you,” I say as a smile pulls on my lips. “And it feels amazing to finally say that.”
He smirks, and I know it’s because I threw finally into that sentence. We’ve only known each other for a month, so finally is a little bit of a stretch.
But it’s the way it feels.
He nods. “And I love you, my little spider.”
I actually roll my eyes as I step away from him and grab my shirt. “They call you a butterfly, just so you know.”
“Who?” he asks as he furrows his brows. He grabs his toothbrush and wets it.
“Everyone at the compound,” I say as I pull my shirt over my head. “I’m the spider, and you’re the butterfly.”
Jaxon arches an eyebrow at that in amusement as he brushes his teeth.
He’s worked for a crime lord his entire life. He’s killed a man. He’s done shady things his entire life. And they call him a butterfly.
I smirk, because it’s ridiculous, yet fitting.
He spits in the sink and rinses his mouth out. “Good thing they’re both arthropods then,” he says as he steps forward and presses a kiss to my forehead before he goes back to his closet to finish getting dressed.
I smile. Because Ascelin once said almost the exact same thing. You went and fell in love with an ultralight? That’s like a spider falling in love with a butterfly. They’re both arthropods, but the entire universe knows they don’t belong together.
How wrong he was. Apparently, spiders and butterflies were made to be together.
"Let's go," Jaxon says as he steps towards the door. I grab my phone and my gun and conceal the both of them. Together, we walk out the door.
"Where are we meeting Aaron?" I ask.
"I told him that we would pick him up and then head to breakfast." We walk down the hall and head to the elevator. "He’s staying at his girlfriend's place. On the edge of town."
That's an advantage. This will be much easier to do if we’re not in the middle of the city.
We head down to the parking garage and I realize this might be a problem if we are supposed to pick up a third party. Motorcycles are not made to carry three people. But when we get down to the third level, Jaxon pulls keys out of his pocket and goes straight for a shiny black SUV. "Family car," Jaxon explains as he clicks the button, and the vehicle unlocks.
I simply nod and climb inside.
I keep my attention on Jaxon as we head away from the Strip. This will only be the second time he has exorcised a dusk since he manifested. It's easy, because every instinct in him has trained him to do it. But it's also kind of…terrifying. It's as unnatural as manifesting into a flaming angel or a shadow demon. It's freaky enough when it's just any Joe in the world, but this is his brother. Someone he's known his entire life.