Gods & Monsters(55)

“You did?” He frowns down at me and I know an argument is coming. I can feel it but I’m not in the mood to fight.

“Uh-huh. It’s just a waitressing thing a few blocks over. Totally safe. So no need to freak out. I figured that I’d work during the day, make some money, help you out so we can find a new place sooner, and write during the night. So, see? Things are working out, already.”

He smiles. “They are.”

I go on my tip-toes and kiss his rapidly beating pulse. “We’re going to be so happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Because we deserve it. And because our love’s greater than anything else in the world.”

His arms go around my waist and he hauls me up. I bury my hands in his hair, laughing.

“Is it?” he asks with twinkling eyes.

I nod and place a tiny kiss on his nose. “Our love is the stuff of legend.”

His face turns somber again, but this time it’s saturated with intensity. So much intensity and passion and ownership. My core flutters.

“Now stop being an idiot and love me,” I order.

Abel splays a big palm on the back of my head and plants a hard kiss on my mouth. “I’m going to make you happy, Pixie. So fucking happy you’ll forget how to be sad anymore. You’ll forget everything else but me and my love. I’ll make it my goddamn mission.”

It looks like he wants to say something more, but he settles for kissing me, hard and fast and deep, and carrying me to our room. He lays me down on the mattress, gets the wash cloth from the hallway where he dropped it before, and comes back. He kneels before me and cleans my pussy, gently, reverently. The warm, coarse cloth is such a soothing balm. I squirm and moan under his careful ministrations.

Once I’m all clean, he takes off my dress and bends down and showers my face, and my shoulders with kisses. Small, tiny, fluttering kisses like butterflies.

“I’m sorry, Pixie. I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry, baby. Don’t hate me,” he murmurs.

“I don’t...” I moan.

With every kiss he tells me that he loves me, making me melt under him. With every kiss he tells me that he’s an asshole for being so brutal with my pussy before.

“Gonna be nice now,” he says and travels down.

Then he eats me out, every lick of his hot tongue an apology. Every gentle tug of his lips says I’m his everything. Before long, I orgasm and as he wraps me in his strong arms, I press a fist on his chest, where his heart lies. It’s slamming, beating like a train-wreck.

Even though, I’m lax, I can’t help but feel like his heart is trying to tell me something. Something that his lips can’t say.

“Abel?”

“What?”

“A-Are you sure that’s it? Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

He tenses for a beat before relaxing. “I can never lie to you, Pixie.”

I swallow; my throat is parched. “I trust you.”

Something flashes on his face for a microsecond before it’s gone and he kisses me like only he can.

Rough and painful and loving.





Over the next few days, Abel shows me all of New York City. Anything and everything you can think of, you can find it here. The tall, spiking buildings that touch the clouds; chaotic Times Square with enough lights to brighten up the whole world; shiny, expensive Fifth Avenue; funky, eclectic Union Square that’s made of dreamers.

New York is so big and yet so small. You stand on one end of the street and you can see the string of yellow cabs and traffic lights, all the way down to the other end. The weight of the people has cracked the sidewalks and sagged the dirty leaf-ridden streets in places. And there are so many people.

I learn all the signs, the roads, the avenues. Turns out, no one really gets lost in New York. There’s a neat little system called the grid. Logically numbered avenues and streets. So basically, navigating New York City has to be the easiest thing ever, even for someone as geographically challenged as me. Who knew?

We ride the ferry and see The Statue of Liberty from up close. Abel holds my hand the entire time because he thinks I’m going to fall off the railing even though I’m being careful.

“Well, wouldn’t you jump after me and save me?” I grin up at him, wind in my face and Abel in my eyes.

“No.” He shakes his head, his fingers flexing against mine.

“What? You have to save me. A fiancé is supposed to take care of his would-be bride.” I lift my chin to appear miffed.

“No, a fiancé is supposed to not let his would-be bride fall in the first place.”

I kiss him, then. Because how can I not?

The more I see this city, the more I realize that Abel couldn’t have been born anywhere else. He couldn’t have come from any other place. He was destined to be born here, in a place that’s larger than any dream or imagination. He’s so much more than a golden-haired boy who grew into a man. He’s a god.

A god with a camera.

When I tell him I bought him a new camera with the money I stole from my parents, he gets mad, furious, livid. He doesn’t want anything to do with my parents.

“My dad broke your camera, it’s only fair that he pays for it.”

“I don’t fucking want it, Pixie. I can pay for my own goddamn camera.”