Evernight (The Night Watchmen Series Book 2) (44 page)

My skin is alive.

I moan in his ear. Too long have I been without him. Too often have I feared I’d never be with him again. He slides his hand down my waist and past the top of my pants, until he’s cupping my bottom and pulling me on top of him, urging me to be with him.

My hair fans around his face as I lean in and take his lips with mine. The kiss is soft at first, tender almost, until his teeth lovingly tug on my bottom lip and his hands grab my hips and squeeze, pulling me harder against him.

“I want you so bad right now,” he says, his voice dangerously low and sexy. I feel it all the way to my toes as every nerve ending in my body responds, almost propelling me forward. “Just… just the thought of touching you… of tasting you… drives me past the point of insanity.”

He pulls my lips down to his and kiss me so deeply, so thoroughly, that everything else disappears and all I can think… all I can feel… is his lips, his tongue, and the way his hands touch me like they’ve memorized every curve, every plane, yet can’t wait to retrace their steps.

He rolls me over and rests himself between my legs, still kissing, touching, and taking me further into the heavens.

I am the moon, he is the stars, and together, we dance in an infinity of weightlessness where only he and I exist.

His hands find the hem of my sports bra. He starts to tug when the screen on my nightstand goes off, brightening the darkness of our tiny room. I move from under him, pulling the covers up to my chest.

“It’s Gavin,” I groan, rubbing my eyes as they try to adjust to the light.

Jaxen reaches over me and pushes the screen.

“Yo,” Gavin says. His scruffy face fills the screen, and the expression he’s wearing stops my heart in its tracks. It dumps icy water over the flame left by Jaxen.

“You do realize it’s past midnight?” Jaxen says, his voice even as he blinks and blinks to adjust to the light.

Midnight?

“Look, I realize you’ve been locked up in that room with her since we got back yesterday, but life does exist outside of that room,” Gavin says with a light laugh. He’s sitting upright in his bed, fully dressed.

My cheeks burn as I’m dipped in scalding-hot embarrassment. “I’ve been asleep that long?”

Jaxen looks over at me. “Your body needed time to heal after yesterday’s success with the seal. After we returned, one of the Witches healed you, and then put you under with a spell to make sure you had enough time.”

“Is everyone okay?” My voice hitches with every word.

He swallows. Brushes a strand of hair from my face. “You did good, Faye. That’s all you need to worry about,” he says softly.

Gavin clears his throat. “Listen, I know it’s late, but I just got a weird message from Mack,” Gavin continues, shifting in his seat. I don’t like how pale he looks. How the creases form across his forehead and his lips are held tight.

Jaxen stiffens. “Mack’s at the Academy. How could you have—?”

“Not anymore. He’s here.” He scratches the top of his head. Runs his hand down the length of his face. “He just called me a minute ago. Said we needed to meet up immediately on the rooftop. He sounded… I don’t know.” He looks away, scratches at the stubble on his face, and then looks back at us. “I just don’t know… upset. Scared even.”

“Okay,” Jaxen says, his voice hardened now. I feel his heart slamming against his chest. “Meet you there in ten.”

The screen goes blank. Jaxen kisses the top of my head, and then crawls out of bed. The lights flick on. He slides his shorts off, and I have to look away to hide my blush. I’ll never get sick of looking at him. Never tired of the way his presence always steals my breath.

I move the covers off me, sliding my pants on.

“I hate you have to cover yourself back up,” he says. I turn to face him, reaching for a shirt. He’s already dressed and ready, his eyes drinking me in. “I want you back in that bed, locked underneath me, giving me everything you have.”

My heart flips once, my stomach clenching with want. “Jaxen,” I say, my voice alone carrying a suitcase with everything I feel and want, handing it over to him.

He plunges a hand through his hair and looks down at the floor, biting his lip. “All you have to do is look at me and my control slips out of my fingers. All you have to do is say my name and the walls I’ve worked so hard to construct crumble away. I’m yours, totally and completely. Forever and always.”

I move into his arms and press my head against his chest, listening to the rapid sound of his beating heart. “And all you have to do is exist,” I admit.

Hugging me tighter, he pulls me in closer. He rests his chin on top of my head, and I love how my body molds with his. How his arms feel so secure. How his heart is so open and venerable and finally letting me completely in.

“You know, I never believed in saying I love you,” he says, his voice shaking a little.

“Never?” I say against his chest. Against his heart.

“No. My mother said it from time to time, but other than that… it wasn’t an expression I found necessary. It’s just words. There are so many other ways to say it without having to take the easy way out and speak it. And that’s how I want to love.”

“Like how?” I ask, pulling back so I can look up into his beautiful eyes. My heart keeps skipping, keeps threatening to break free so that it can finally be with his.

He moves forward, slowly, filling the air between us. His eyes tangle with mine, holding me with his brilliant, tender gaze, and then he kisses me.

The kiss is so consuming, so filled with the very words he doesn’t believe in, and I think I’ve finally discovered the secret to the world. To him. He’s letting me in—completely and utterly—and all I can do is feel every inch of every bit that he’s offering me and pray that I remember how to breathe when we come up for air.

He slows the kiss, and I don’t understand why.

“Open your eyes,” he says, his lips so dangerously close. His chest quivering against mine.

I open my eyes.

“I want you to
see
my love. I want you to taste it. To feel it all the way to your soul, so you’ll never
ever
doubt it. Never question what I feel for you. Never lean on three words that can’t even touch what I feel for you.”

I stop breathing. My lungs can’t hold my ever-expanding heart. My legs can’t support the molten love he’s poured into me, melting away everything I thought I knew about life—about love.

He kisses my top lip, my bottom lip, then my cheek, my forehead, and the very tip of my nose. His eyes are still on me, like they never want to leave. Like in my gaze, he’s found a safe haven.

“This is how I will always tell you I love you,” he says, cupping my face in his hands. “This, right here. Every kiss. Every touch. No matter how this curse pans out, or whatever happens with the Coven. That’s how you’ll know.”

I know in that moment that I’ll never be another’s. I’ll never know a love the way I know Jaxen’s, and I’m so thankful for it, no matter how much time is left. I’ll never want anything else because Jaxen is the only thing in this world that I could ever want. And it doesn’t scare me to admit that to myself anymore. It doesn’t scare me to know that I’ve so thoroughly given myself to this man who desperately deserves to be loved. It doesn’t scare me that by loving him, I am giving not only myself, but also my life as well, because I’m the lucky one who gets to love him.

And that makes my soul smile.

“IT”S BEEN LONGER THAN TEN minutes,” Gavin says when we step out of the elevator on the top floor. “Are you guys really that hard up on sex?”

“Gavin!” Jaxen barks. He pulls me against him, as if he wants to shield me from the embarrassment I can’t seem to escape.

Gavin smirks. He’s consumed too much pleasure in my squirm. It’s written in his smile.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s just jealous,” Cassie says from behind me. She struts past us and plants a kiss on Gavin’s cheek.

“Jealous?” he snorts, sliding his arm around her shoulder. He pulls her into him, brushes the wild, curly hair from her face, and says, “How can I be jealous when I’ve got this?” He kisses her hard. She squeals at first, but then relaxes into him.

“Okay… eww,” Jezi says from beside me, frozen in disgust.

“You’ve stolen the very words from my mind,” Weldon says as he walks up next to her. A light blush creeps across her cheeks. His eyes are pinned on her, studying her, waiting for any sign of a cue that could steer him in the direction of where he stands with her.

She licks her lips. Fidgets with the hem of her shirt.

He ruffles the hair on the back of his head. Shuffles his feet.

Together, they seem so… so cute. So simple. So desperately in need of someone who can give them exactly what they deserve. And I think they can find that in one another. I just hope they’ll let their guard down enough for it to happen.

Jaxen releases a pent-up groan. Gavin releases Cassie. She turns and says, “Can we go now? I’d like to get some sleep before we meet with Seamus in the morning.”

“I bet you do,” Gavin says, throwing in a forced wink.

I roll my eyes.

“After you,” Gavin says as he turns and pushes the door open to the stairwell leading to the roof.

Cassie’s smile beams up at him as she walks past him. Jezi and Weldon go next. Jaxen and I follow, and before I know it, the late night chill has wrapped her arms around me and squeezed so hard—too hard—until she’s nestled in my bones. We find Mack standing with his back to us, overlooking the entire city.

“It’s so peaceful. So… unassumingly pleasant, isn’t it?” he says, staring out at the faint lights veiling the city in what seems like shimmering glitter.

“What is?” Jaxen asks as we take our place behind him, forming the very same line we formed the day we said goodbye to him and left for this very city.

He turns to us, and my heart reaches out for him. His face is so alarmingly pale. His blue eyes that once held the strength of steel are now hollow, empty, drowning in the lies and betrayals that only love has to offer. The dark circles under his eyes are so purple that I fear they’ll never go away. He runs a shaky hand through his disheveled hair, but the movement has no purpose, as if he’s moving on mechanics and not human emotion.

We didn’t leave on perfect terms. I didn’t appreciate the full scope of what he tried to do for me. How he tried to protect me. And now he’s been stripped of everything. He’s been lied to, abandoned, left to rot in an Academy that once stood for everything, and now stands as a web for the Darkyns to pick flies from.

“Ethryeal City,” he says, sounding so tired, so drained. “The meaning behind it. The cause it stands for. This city was built on lies. She’s like a siren, luring us in with her beautiful song. Her appearance. And like the monster she is, she snaps your neck when you’re least expecting it and tosses your body back into the sea to rot as a forgotten memory of what once was.”

A lump forms in my throat. I don’t know if he’s talking about the city anymore.

“Mack?” Jaxen says questioningly, stepping closer to him. His steps are soundless, careful, and his hands are flexed, ready should Mack need him.

Mack takes a step closer to the edge. Throws a glance back over his shoulder to the city below, and it’s then that fear punches me in the jaw. Clenches its grimy hands against my throat. Squeezes the very breath from my lungs.

“Mack, no,” I say, reacting before thinking.

His head whips back around, and his eyes settle on me. Pain and conflict play a game of hot potato in his gaze, tossing back and forth his ability to think rationally. “She’s empty. She has no end, no bottom. Don’t you see? Can’t you see how far her claws are sunk into this Coven? You can’t win. You won’t. She’s five steps ahead. She’s one threat from winning. She’s one greedy demon and one exiled Witch away from bringing down the face of this Coven and building up a new, gutless world. A world none of us has the stomach to survive.”

Jaxen lays a hand on Mack’s shoulder. He shakes him one time. “And just like every pawn in this game, we still have the ability to take out the queen… and the king,” he says, breathing his confidence, strength, and surety back into Mack’s broken soul.

Mack turns his head to Jaxen. His gaze lingers, searching for that small bit of happiness that rested in the past where he was their mentor, they were the pupil, and he knew his place. That moment is gone. It left him when Clara walked out the door. And he’s still searching for it.