Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(84)
“Yes.” And he could. Feel it. Not a rhythm or a slide of moisture on her thigh. This was desire of a different sort, from her mind and memory and soul and hope.
Eyes slammed shut, but he could still see his own skin, wanted to hold it, feel its texture, test its heat. Wanted to push up into her, fuck her, be her, and simultaneously be invaded by her. He wanted to drown in her, drowning in him. Together. Same. One.
She moved atop him, fitting their bodies together, writhing until the hitch and glide, the heat and hollow, press and piston became one machine, working in perfect synchrony. And none of that shit was endurable for long. Not by either one of them.
Best part of this little science experiment she’d thought up? Was knowing exactly how close she tethered herself to the vast edge of ecstasy, and how easy it was to pull her right over into it.
“I love you,” she said, underlining her words with feeling, transforming them into revealed knowledge, cosmic truth. “I have loved you all my life and will never stop. Swears.”
Past, present. My woman. The best of me.
Her mind, her soul, her body, she was wide open to him, showing and sharing without compromise. No secrets could remain hidden in a surge this wide, this fierce. He knew her. Absolutely and completely. He had never done anything in this life to deserve what overcame him then, the flood of gratitude, of guilt and joy and hope and, yeah, that other thing, too.
Love.
He came, or she did, or they both did. Who even knew the difference at this point? Everything in the universe slammed together, the inverse of creation, coalesced, held for one hot second, and then imploded on a cosmic scream, narrowing and collapsing like a white-point star to this microscopic perfect moment of density.
“Shh,” she said, gathering her composure quicker than he could. “Whoa. I’m getting all these astronomical data points in my head. Hawking radiation and event horizons. Did you know you go deep-science at the point of orgasm, or is this surprising?”
“Had never really thought about it before,” he murmured. Their bodies slipped against each other when she laughed. She felt full and sated, and he wanted to wrap her up and hold her safe until the end of everything.
“I need to ask, while we’re linked like this, so I can feel your feels…” she began. He braced for it, knew what was coming. His body hadn’t caught up with his mind, though, so he didn’t tense, didn’t flinch when she said, “Why were you so sad when you came in here?”
He wasn’t anywhere close to being able to talk about it. Too raw. Too hurt. “Ain’t like you were bounce-house happy or anything. Swear to heaven you were just this side of bawling. So let’s talk about that instead.”
“No. I asked you first.”
“Yeah, but—”
Both their coms blanged like door chimes when the party starts. As Kellen’s was still tucked into the pouch on his dive suit, which was smack under his bare ass, the vibration was a mite fonky feelin’. Angela tapped hers first. Voice only, no vid. Small mercy.
It was Garrett. “Um, hello. I just got a relay communiqué from Heron, but then, I don’t know, it…it cut off. First words were something about a response incoming from the president, and then…shit. Just shit. I think…oh man, I think we lost the Pentarc.”
Chapter 16
“It’s gone,” Garrett was saying. “Shit. I’m not finding it on any satellite trackers or anything. Thermodrones are reading a massive heat signature in the area, but they’re still too far away for visual. It can’t be. I mean, there’s EMP shielding all over that thing. And alternate means of transmission. It doesn’t go dark. It can’t. I just… I don’t know what happened. Shit.”
“Now settle,” Kellen said, burring his voice to smooth out the sharp edges of Garrett’s fear. He felt the same panic inside, just couldn’t show it. Gone. How could something as massive, as permanent as the Pentarc be gone? “Chloe, you there too, honey?”
“Yes.”
Odd for her, a one-word answer. Odd and terrifying.
“Okay, I need you to help Garrett find the Chiba Station. The queen has all kinds of feeds, thousands of them suckers, satellites we don’t even know about. Now listen, she’s gonna be on the lookout for our home, our people. Let’s rally here. We need information, soon’s we can get it, but mostly we need to keep our own shit together.”
He was saying all these things like he believed them, but a part of him already didn’t. That same part knew a life, a mission, a moment this good wasn’t meant to last. He had dared to hope for a little more time, and that had not been wise.
He didn’t want to think of everyone in there, huddled beneath the hyperstructure. He didn’t want to think of them trapped, in the dark, when those spires came down.
But thoughts were sneaky bastards, acid bastards, and once let in, they tended to seek out a wound, pry it wider, and make it burn.
He didn’t remember standing up but realized he was when Angela pressed her body against the back of his, wrapped her arms all the way around him. Her face against his spine, like she was breathing for him, feeling for him. She wasn’t transmitting anything out of her emote rig right now, just white-noise hum. Comfort in soft bursts. A lullaby of soothing thoughts, like one of those Zen fountain doohickies Dead Fester hawked.