Sera wasn’t quite a foodie, but she did love to eat. Food, like sex, was one of those things humans understood in ways angels couldn’t. And Americans had the market cornered on extravagance. Cheese in a can. Pancake on a stick. And pizza with fried chicken crust.
God bless the US fuckin’ A.
Shoving pie in her face was a nice way to keep her mind occupied, and she figured it was the same for Colin. He hadn’t said much since they parked their respective asses on the bed, opened the first of two monstrously large pizzas and began munching like there was no tomorrow.
She wasn’t an idiot—she knew what had happened earlier had him confused and anxious. Hell, he practically vibrated nervous energy. She couldn’t blame him. Ever since they’d rented this motel room, the strain between them had been tight, and what had happened at the gym changed things.
Sex changed things in ways nothing else could. Not even God.
Still, Sera felt talked out. She’d spent more time talking today than she had this past century. Shit, she could throw in the untold millennia that had come before for good measure. She was exhausted from talking and exhausted from the mental battles her brain seemed so keen to pick. All she wanted was to eat until she was full to bursting, then perhaps jump Colin’s bones again. Undress him and worship his body properly. Give him the second half of that blowjob. Revel in the freedom to touch him. To lick and suck and kiss whatever part of him she cared to.
“Sera?”
But he wouldn’t be her Colin if he didn’t want to talk things to death. Or undeath. She was pretty sure she was a conversational zombie at this point.
Sera stuffed the last bit of fried chicken in her mouth and looked up.
“What was that?” he asked. “I have to know. What happened back there?”
She chewed, taking her damn sweet time. After swallowing, she reached for the mammoth soda she’d ordered and took a hearty swig.
When she’d exhausted stalling techniques, she decided there was no better way of getting to the other side of this than addressing it head on. “It was some pretty awesome sex. At least from my side of things. I hope it was awesome for you.”
Colin blinked at her.
“I mean,” she continued, “it sure seemed like you were having a good time.”
“I did. Damn, I mean…that was amazing.” He frowned and shook his head. “But…why did it happen?”
“Because I’m tired of pretending that I’m not in love with you.”
Colin’s eyes softened. “Sera…I…”
“You’re worried about Heaven, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “What happened…does that mean…?”
Sera licked her lips and smiled, reaching for his hand across the bed. “It’s my decision. Don’t worry about it.”
“But if you left Heaven for me, because of what I said…” He tugged his hand free of hers and shook his head. And just by observing him, Sera could tell the conversation was not doing much to assuage his fears. If anything, his shoulders seemed even more drawn, his body pulled in tight.
Without looking at her, he continued, “I was upset and stupid, and I had no right to ask you that. I just…I went outta my head there.”
“We already covered this. It’s okay.”
“I don’t—”
“I didn’t make the decision for you,” Sera said. “I made it for me.”
He looked at her, his face a mask of anguish. “But you did make a decision.”
“The second I stepped outside the gym, I was done.” She held his gaze a moment longer, then broke off with a laugh. “Please don’t do this.”
“What?”
“Go all emo master of the brood on me.”
“You gave up Heaven.”
“Yeah, and you know what?” She squared her shoulders. “I feel pretty damn good. So can we skip the psychobabble and go back to pizza and sex? Because I’m tired of this back and forth with you.”
“I’m trying to wrap my head around it is all. One second you’re angsty over leaving Heaven, and the next—”
Sera held up a hand. “I wasn’t angsty about leaving Heaven. I was afraid.”
“And the difference would be?”
“When you’re afraid of something, the way to get over that fear is to face it.”
“And you’re not afraid now?”
“Of course I am.”
“But—”
“Colin, I’m never going to not be afraid. Not now, not yesterday, and not tomorrow. But the way I saw it, I had two choices—I could be afraid and miserable, or I could be afraid with you.” She stared at him, unblinking. “And if you don’t want to be afraid with me, I can be afraid on my own. It’ll suck, but it’ll still be what I chose. I realized…I mean, it kinda smacked me in the face that the reason Heaven wasn’t Heaven for me is because this world is. If I’d rather be here than there, then I haven’t lost anything, except I won’t be locked somewhere without the only person I’ve ever loved because of the goddamned rules. So I decided to be brave and do what I probably should’ve done…well, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is I did it for me. You can either beat yourself up over it for the rest of time, or you can eat your pizza and then eat me for dessert. Choice is yours.”
Colin went back to his silent staring contest, with a few owlish blinks thrown in. Then he looked away, as though the far wall had all the answers. Seconds ticked into minutes—or at least it felt like it—before he swallowed and said, “What happened to change your mind?”
“What?”
“When we were in the break room at the gym, you were adamant what it meant to leave Heaven. The connection and everything. The angels who have Fallen before and committed suicide—all that stuff. But not even five minutes later, and you’re…” He met her gaze again. “What changed for you?”
Sera bit her lip and set her pizza down, her mind firing off a protest at having to sludge back through the carnage of what had come before. But she knew this was important to him, and perhaps the final hurdle in their personal push-and-pull. Colin would never be happy if he thought he were a consolation prize; if he thought she’d chosen him out of guilt, he’d never forgive himself, and they could never move forward.
So she had to do this. Go back one more time. And even though only an hour had passed since she’d made the largest decision of her eternity, she felt centuries removed from it. Yes, there was still the uncertainty of what came tomorrow—there were still obstacles to contend with, and there was still a demon heritage for Colin to claim, but with her feelings clarified and the line in the sand now permanent, she felt at such peace.
“What I told you is true,” Sera began. “About the angels who Fell and then offed themselves. Or…well, I guess I should say, to my knowledge it’s true. I knew these angels before they Fell, but once they were well and truly gone, I just had the grapevine. These other angels who were like me ended up deciding that nonexistence was better than the alternative. That idea scared me, because how could not existing ever be better?” She paused and swallowed, her gaze dropping. “And tonight I realized the only thing that scared me more was the thought of not seeing you again. I knew I’d spend the rest of however long I live regretting that, because life before this kinda sucked, and if that was the existence I was so set on protecting, it was worth a gamble.” After another beat, she looked up again. “I know I scared you. I was chicken shit, holding onto something that…thinking that connection to Heaven was all I had. It wasn’t. And the other angels who Fell…I’m not them. I’d rather have the connection I love than one I’ve been made to think I can’t live without. Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’, that’s my motto.”
“It is?”
“Well, ever since I saw Shawshank.”
Colin cracked a grin at that. “Trust you to let movie quotes win your arguments.”
“Does that mean you’re dropping it?”
“I just didn’t want to be the reason you gave up the best thing.”
“Well, I really did oversell it.”
“After you undersold it, too.”
Sera shrugged and sat up on her knees. “Just goes to show my mouth is super talented.”
“I’ll say.” His grin broadened, and the worry that had poisoned his eyes receded. Then, almost shyly, he looked down again. “And…what happened in the alley?”
“I told you.”
“I know. At least, I think I do. I’m not convinced I didn’t trip and hit my head on something.”
Sera smirked, sliding a leg off the bed and lowering her foot to the floor. “I’m feeling a little dirty.”
Colin flicked a glance to the half-eaten pizza. “And greasy, I’d imagine.”
“Wanna split a shower?”
He froze. “T-together?”
“Mm-hmm.” To get the point across, she drew her tank top over her head, baring her breasts. It was strange, almost, how not strange it was. How normal it seemed to be standing in a room with Colin and naked from the waist-up—as though this part of their relationship had always been in the making and they were just now getting to it.
That didn’t stop her from shivering at the way he devoured her with his eyes. The few lovers she’d taken since coming “of age” on Earth had all been boob men, and that had bothered her for reasons she couldn’t explain. Not that she had anything against her breasts—she was an angel, and her boobs were perfect, thank you very much—but the men in her past seemed to value her by the sum of her parts. The face and—more important—the brain attached to her breasts had been interchangeable. Men who wanted into her pants weren’t coy about it. At least, they weren’t as coy as they thought they were. The lack of serious objection when she declined a follow-up date was evidence enough.
With Colin, though, everything was different. The look in his eyes when he took her in was reverent. Sera had never been shy—age and experience had ripped away what modesty she could claim a long time ago. But he was the only man who had ever seemed to really…
Well, it was enough to make even the most hardened sexual cynic blush.
Especially after what had occurred in the alley. It had been rushed and hot and oh-so-good. In Sera’s world, pleasure like that didn’t exist. While she’d enjoyed sex enough in the past, what she’d experienced with Colin had been something else entirely.
Granted, she’d never been emotionally attached to any of her previous partners. Perhaps that was it. She loved Colin. When he touched her, her mind didn’t have to work itself filling the void with a piss-poor substitute for what she really wanted. He was it.
Sera had heard the cliché about making love being different before. And, since she’d never had anything to judge by, she’d had to take that at face value. Or as the wishful sentiment of lofty romantics. But now…
“You’ve already showered twice tonight.”
Sera frowned and shook her head, chasing off her errant, mushy thoughts. “What?”
Colin had pulled his gaze from her breasts—though he seemed to be having a time keeping himself from ogling. “I…you showered earlier…and then again…kinda…”
Wherever that sentence had originally been headed, she didn’t know. It went to the graveyard of unfinished speeches as her breasts had seemingly zapped Colin of coherent thought. A grin played at Sera’s lips. She made her way around the bed so she was right before him. By the time she stood between his spread legs, Colin had made such a study of her boobs she figured he’d earned his doctorate.
“Colin?”
He swallowed hard but didn’t look up. Instead, he slowly lifted his right hand. “I’ve imagined what you’d look like naked too many times to count,” he murmured, pressing his palm against the swell of her breast. His left hand, seemingly eager to get its share, skimmed up her side, tickling a bit at her ribs, but didn’t stop until her flesh was cradled evenly.
The way he touched her was sensual yet chaste at the same time, the intensity of his scrutiny nearly made her self-conscious. Were it not for the thing she saw in his eyes, she might have been tempted to pull away.
Colin had looked at her like that before, but it was always fleeting and never at full capacity. Only now that the walls between them had been demolished did Sera realize what she was seeing. A long, shuddering sigh worked its way up and out her throat, and she felt herself relax just as Colin’s thumbs came out to play. He stroked her nipples with soft flicks. Once, twice, and then he was looking at her, watching her react to him. The glow of adoration in his gaze nearly drowned her.
Yeah, that was it. Adoration. If there was another word for what she saw in Colin’s eyes, it hadn’t been invented yet, in this or any other language. The way he looked at her made her come to life. A flicker of heat coiled in her belly and radiated outward, infusing her with a righteous sense of calm and belonging, peace and acceptance. In that look, she saw what she assumed Heaven was to others, and she understood why leaving caused such heartache.
Colin brushed a kiss against her left breast, then again on her nipple. Then he met her gaze and rose to his feet. “Shower?”
“Huh?”
A grin tugged on his lips. “You mentioned you were gonna shower.” A pause. “Again.”
“Oh.” Sera shook her head. “Right, umm. Well, yes. I think we should.”
The grin widened. “Are you nervous?”
“What? No. Don’t be silly.”
“You are.” Colin captured her cheeks and brought her to him in a swift kiss. “And you’re cute when you’re nervous.”
“I’m cute all the time,” she retorted, pulling away and toeing off her shoes. She stripped her pants down her legs with likely more force than was needed, but she felt compelled to show him just how not nervous she was.
“And cocky.”
Sera snickered. “Dude, you just hard-stared at my boobs for like an hour and a half. I can afford to be a little cocky.”
“Well, can you blame me?” Colin tilted his head, his gaze dropping again to her breasts. “They’re pretty awesome.”
“Live up to your fantasies?”
He arched a brow and raised his head. “Is that what has you nervous?”
“I’m not nervous.” Sera balled her hands into fists, uncurled them, and balled them again. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she felt. There was a jittery sensation in her belly that might well be nerves, but she didn’t care enough to examine it too closely in the event it turned out he was right.
What happened from here was new, unexplored territory. It was enough to inflict anxiety upon the most stoic of individuals.
Colin grinned and shook his head. “Well,” he said, “to clear the air…what I said was true. I’ve pictured you naked enough times to fill out a Playboy calendar for the next five hundred years.”
“Just five hundred?”
“If I round down.” He dropped another kiss on her lips, his hands—seemingly of their own volition—going to his jeans. He stripped them down his legs without breaking eye contact. “That said…having seen you now”—his gaze dipped again briefly—“whatever I imagined… Well, you’re perfect, Sera.”
That was a bit much. “Col—”
“No. You’re perfect. Perfect for me.”
He kissed her again, then pulled away and shucked his undershirt. And just like that, they were both naked. It was a strangely momentous occasion, familiar yet not. Considering their earlier lovemaking…well, they were doing this a bit out of order. Which was just fine with Sera. That was them all over.
She blinked, torn between ushering him to the bathroom and taking a moment to look her fill. In the end, looking her fill won out. Over the years, Sera had seen Colin in various stages of undress. In his track get-up, in swim trunks, and on one memorable occasion when he’d managed to find himself treed by the neighbor’s dog while only in tighty-whities. Aside from the handful of times when she’d been especially weak, she hadn’t allowed herself to look. Granted, the opportunity hadn’t been there much, and when it had been, it hadn’t been right. And while her love for Colin had been a steady thing, growing as they grew up and together, her sexual interest in him hadn’t really hit until around college…when finding excuses to ogle him would take some true ingenuity, and she’d known she couldn’t do anything to encourage him.
As such, Sera had never really stopped to look at him.
Colin wasn’t built like a linebacker, and his clothes were often baggy and worn, giving little away. So the lines across his chest came somewhat as a surprise—though only somewhat, because she knew he kept in shape. The muscles in his arms were toned and defined, wiry if not huge. He looked sculpted to the point of being unreal, his abdomen lean, his legs firm and likewise lined with enough definition to make a lesser woman self-conscious. His cock was thick and erect, jutting proudly from the thatch of brown curls at his groin. He was large—not outrageously so, not like a porn star or anything, but…okay, impressive. He’d seemed big to her earlier, when she’d had her mouth around him, but she’d been high on adrenaline and dizzy with the first hint of freedom in her lungs.
Now…
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Sera dragged her gaze up. “I can’t help it,” she murmured, stepping forward. “Look at you.”
“Look at you.”
“Nah, I know what I look like.” She wrapped her hand around his cock and began a slow, rhythmic pump. “You’re much more fun.”
“Sera…”
“I never got to finish,” she said, flicking a glance to the motion her hand was making. “Want me to—”
Colin seized her cheeks and hauled her to him, and her words fell away the moment his lips met hers. Everything fell away because her skin was pressed to his. Damn, he felt good. Warm and smooth, hard and firm. His mouth tore at hers, and the next thing she knew, he was walking her backward. Sera released his cock with some reluctance, but her arms wanted to go around his neck, and she wasn’t about to deny them. She pulled herself close to him, her breasts meeting the hard lines of his chest, and the skin-on-skin contact sending hard tremors through her body.
Yes. This what she wanted—to be as close to him as possible. To feel the smooth warmth of his flesh against her flesh. To be wrapped around him, entangled and devoured.
Colin responded to her silent plea in kind. He took long drags of her mouth like she was a drug, licking, nibbling, and pulling as his hands wandered and explored. He wasn’t shy—no reservations. Her face and throat, her breasts, the flat of her belly, and farther. His fingertips flirted with her sex but didn’t go far, instead wandering around her hips until he had a palmful of her ass in each hand. He tightened his hold and lifted her until she got the hint and wrapped her legs around his waist. Then they were really moving, and Sera didn’t open her eyes until her shoulder blades made contact with cold, unforgiving tile.
He didn’t pull away. The shower came on as though it sensed their presence. She hadn’t turned it on, and Colin’s hands seemed much too occupied with her to have played with the nozzle, but perhaps he was just that good. And in the next second, it didn’t matter who had triggered the water, because Colin had pressed his hand between them, his fingers parting her labia and gently stroking the hot, drenched flesh he’d uncovered.
At last, he wrenched his mouth from hers, a heady growl tumbling through his lips. “Goddamn, you feel good.”
“I…I think that’s my line,” Sera replied, arching her hips into his touch.
He shook his head and dropped a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “You told me earlier how much you’d wanted to suck my cock.”
Her cheeks flamed at his blunt language, which only embarrassed her more. For Chrissake, she wasn’t a freaking teenager. “Well,” she said, trying to cover, “in my defense, you have a pretty awesome cock.”
Colin gave her a purely male grin. “Glad you approve.” He surprised her by slipping a finger inside her and caught her gasp with his mouth. Their lips battled, and their tongues dueled for a few hot seconds; then he added another finger, and her body pulsated in response.
When he pulled back, his eyes nearly glowed. “I’ve wanted that, too.”
“For me to suck your cock? Go figure.”
“No. Well, yes, smart-ass, but no.” He favored her with a smirk, which widened at the moan that peeled off her lips the second his thumb found her clit. “I’ve wanted to get my mouth on you. Here.” He nudged his fingers inside her and pressed his thumb down. “What do you say?”
“You’re asking?”
He shrugged. “I aim to be polite.”
“With your fingers inside me.”
“Politely.”
Sera snickered, but the sound transformed into another groan as he massaged tiny circles around her clit. “Uhhh…yes, okay. Do whatever you want.”
Colin chuckled. “Those are dangerous words,” he warned, dropping to his knees.
She rolled her head back, enjoying the cool splatter of water against her throat. Sera had never been a proponent of anything short of scalding when it came to her showers, even during the more unbearably hot summers. The stint in college when the air conditioning in her apartment had crapped out marked the closest she’d come to changing the water setting, but even then, the thought had appealed more in theory than application.
Now, though, with lukewarm water trickling its way down her body as Colin pried apart her thighs, cooling her while the rest of her burned, the dichotomy was not only appreciated, it was damn well needed.
“Mmm…” Colin murmured, hooking his hand around her left knee. He draped her leg over his shoulder, spreading her wide for his perusal. “You are so pretty.”
“That’s weird.”
She felt rather than saw the look he gave her.
“Weird?” he echoed.
“Yeah. That…” Sera batted a dismissive hand. “Well, it feels weird to me. You saying that. While down there. Looking at…that.”
Another rich laugh rumbled through him. He parted the folds of her sex, his fingers in constant motion. Swirling, stroking, learning her every inch. “I mean it. I’m a lucky bastard.”
“You’re one of those things.”
“That’s a low blow.”
“Colin, either do something with that mouth or—ooohhh.”
Sera slapped the wall behind her, hard tremors shooting up the leg he’d left her standing on sharp response to Colin’s tongue, which he’d busied with drawing lines up and down her slit. She hissed, throwing her head back with more force than was advisable, and then she wasn’t sure if the stars winking in front of her were the wall’s or Colin’s doing. In the next beat, however, she didn’t care because he was pressing hot kisses along her pussy, his fingers probing her entrance again.
“Oh shit,” she whimpered.
Again he chuckled, and she supposed she might have been offended had the vibrations not felt so goddamn good. As it was, Sera surrendered. She released the tenuous grasp she’d had on those stupid insecurities—the same ones she’d always sworn she didn’t have. The part of her accustomed to deflecting with humor took a back seat to the part of her that was all woman.
“You taste amazing,” he told her before his tongue took a long lap of her clit.
Sera’s legs wobbled again. “Col—”
“Perfect. Just like the rest of you.”
His fingers slid inside her again, but this time without the gentle tease, and his mouth closed around her clitoris the second he began to pump. He was neither soft nor rough, the motion confident without being pushy. As though they were old lovers rather than brand new, and he’d long ago learned how she liked to be touched. Whether or not his insight was intuitive or plain luck, Sera didn’t know, but it was, as he said, perfect. Her perfect.
He pressed deeper within her, curling his fingers—which felt impossibly long—and triggering something she hadn’t known existed. That, in tandem with the soft sucks against her clit, and Sera lost what little grasp she had on her control. A combination of his fingers and mouth, and the sight of his face pressed into her pussy, his tongue dancing between her vaginal lips—all of it worked together. White hot pinpricks danced across her skin, lighting her body in a tidal wave of sensation. She pitched forward and gasped, her arms going wild, hands searching for something to grab and finding nothing. Water hit her nipples and sent electric impulses to all the right places. It was a startlingly intense orgasm for as quick as it hit her. She was certain she’d lose her balance because the floor didn’t seem to be in its place, and the boundaries of her present reality went into immediate flux.
Then Colin was against her, swallowing the cries she hadn’t realized were peeling off her lips. He had her hiked in his arms in the next instant, his cock sliding slick at the mouth of her pussy. Sera pried open her eyes long enough to see the question in his, and the second she nodded, he drove his cock home. Her body, still shuddering, clamped around him hard, and she felt his answering moan down to her bones.
“God, Sera,” he whispered. He planted his hands on either side of her, giving himself leverage as he began to move. Sera panted and tossed her arms around his neck, helpless to do anything but cling to him for the ride.
“You’re so hot. I’ve never felt anything like this.”
She tried to grin up at him, but her brain had clocked off for the day. She was left only to sensation. The feel of his flesh dragging along hers as his hips worked and he moved in and out of her. The weight of his body, near and familiar in all the ways that mattered but still so new. Colin’s lips on her shoulder, her neck, brushing soft little kisses accented with throaty little grunts she doubted he could help. The now-chilled water splashing against her fevered skin, fanning the growing fire in her belly and controlling it at the same time.
He was right. This was perfect.
“Oh…” Colin pulled back just enough to kiss her lips, then pressed his brow to hers. “Look at us, Sera.”
She glanced down and whimpered. The sight of his cock, slick with her juices, pumping in and out of her pussy, put her body back in the fast lane to another orgasm.
“You’re strangling me,” he said. “Every time I push inside…”
“Colin…”
His thrusts gained momentum, his gaze remaining locked on their joined bodies. He was seemingly transfixed by the sight, and she could hardly blame him. Call her biased, but they looked hot together.
Sera tightened her grip around his neck, her breaths hard and ragged. It started in her toes this time, a tingle that built upon itself every time his cock entered her. The wet smack of their bodies coming together against backdrop of his throaty grunts gave it fire, blazing white ropes of heat up her legs and through her arms. The sensation was everywhere now, she realized, shooting through her body in quick bursts, building toward an explosion.
The explosion came the second he slipped a hand between their warring bodies and the pads of his fingers brushed her overly sensitive clit. Sera detonated, a cry tearing through her lips, one so heavy she felt lighter when it was out. Her pussy clenched against Colin’s increasingly erratic thrusts, and then he was groaning aloud, spilling into her with wild abandon. The sensation was enough to jolt a third, smaller wave of pleasure. And Sera let go of everything but him.
Clarity returned in increments. First the sound of the water, then the feel of the water. The body underneath her, the hard rise and fall of his chest, and the awareness of his softening penis within her still. When Sera opened her eyes, she found herself sprawled on top of Colin, on the bottom of the tub, their bodies twisted together. The position was awkward, she realized, and not entirely comfortable, but she found she didn’t want to move, because the moment she’d entered was as perfect as what had come before it.
How much time passed, she didn’t know. But eventually the water began to feel frigid rather than soothing, enough so to prompt her into action. With a murmur of complaint, she sat up and twisted the nozzle off.
When she looked at Colin, she found him grinning.
“What?”
“I was just thinking,” he said. “We should really try that in a bed sometime.”
Sera barked a laugh and ran a hand through her wet hair. “I’m pretty sure that can be arranged.”
Colin sat up. “Now?”
“What?”
“Well, we have a bed out there. It—”
“Sex fiend, I really need to shower now. An actual shower.”
“I think you have a shower fetish I didn’t know about.”
She grinned. “Well, if I didn’t before… I don’t suppose you want to help me rub those hard-to-reach places?”
“Like there was any chance I was walking out that door when you’re naked in here.” Colin smiled and cupped her cheeks. “I love you, Sera.”
“I love you, too.”
“And today…just the best day ever.”
She snorted. “Tomorrow—”
“I know, I know. But we’ll get through it.”
“We will.”
And then whatever happened would be for them to decide. The mission lurked in the back of her mind, a shadow she’d managed to move out of her vision, but one she already felt growing with the day’s revelations cementing. Her whole world might have shifted, but some things remained.
Things she could worry about appropriately in the morning.
Now, at least, she wanted this reprieve. Whatever came tomorrow was tomorrow’s problem.
And when it was over, she would stand free with the man she loved at her side.
Put in those terms, the task ahead almost seemed easy.