The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,89

Like a pilgrimage, she thought. A hand-in-hand journey to commemorate the miracle that they were together at all.

The thought gave Kit pause, and she drew back to look at Grif. “I wish I could see it all the way you do.”

“See what?” His gaze slipped over her face without finding purchase. He was looming over her in bed, but having trouble keeping his eyes focused.

“You know. God, heaven—”

“No one sees God.” Shifting, he pulled, and Kit rolled onto his chest so that they were eye-to-eye. Using his wide, warm palms, he stroked her hair from her face. “And you’d be in trouble if you could see it like me.”

“You mean dead, right?”

“I mean murdered,” he said, and sighed into her hair. “Besides, I’m glad you can’t. I don’t want you broken.”

“Oh, Grif.” Kit slid a hand through his hair, thumb playing lightly atop his cheek. “You’re not broken. You simply care, which is healthy. If anything, you care too much.”

Grif huffed.

“You do. That’s why you hung on to memories of Evie and of your life together through five whole decades. It’s why you’re still searching for her killer. And it’s why you saved my life, a total stranger from another time and place, when you could have just let me die.”

“Coulda, but here you are,” he said, running his hand along her arm, eyes suddenly dark with different memories.

“Yes, and so are you, and that’s no mistake.” No matter what had gone on with him and another woman in the past, no matter what memories were stirred by finding Mary Margaret and questioning Ray DiMartino about the past, she truly believed Grif and she were meant to be together, here. Now.

Lifting one naked shoulder, she put on a wide-eyed expression. “Fact is, I’m so blown away by the miracle of us, together, that I don’t even mind how tortured and stubborn and conflicted you are.”

“Stop,” he said drily. “You’re exciting me.”

She slipped a hand behind his neck. “Because you’re also powerful and complicated and honest and good. That’s not broken. That’s human. That’s . . . hot.”

His gaze clouded again. “It is?”

A corner of Kit’s mouth lifted as heat moved in her belly. Sliding atop him, she brought their faces closer. “Super-hot. My man has wings. And a nice, big . . .” She dropped a kiss to his lips, and whispered, “Halo.”

Grif flipped her suddenly, his physical power flaring with his own need, and stoking Kit’s. The heat in her belly rose into her chest, and her nipples tightened as Grif’s irises grew wide. “You got it all wrong, cupcake. You make me sound like a saint, and I ain’t no saint.”

Slowly, Kit slid her tongue along her teeth. “Prove it.”

His gaze fixed on her wide bottom lip. “I did. Lost my place in the Everlast for you. Got booted back down to this forsaken mudflat, still on the celestial time clock but with the limitations of the flesh.”

Kit dismissed those epic sacrifices with a nonchalant shrug. “So prove it again.”

So he drove himself into her in one smooth, warm thrust. Kit cried out with surprise even as she opened to him—she always opened to him and even so it was still never enough. Somewhere above her, Grif chuckled and muttered a belated reminder not to take anyone’s name in vain, but then her legs were fastened around his waist, and he was the one who forgot to watch his language.

Kit could almost see the moment it happened, the dropping away of fifty years’ worth of regret and worry. His shoulders dropped, his palms grew firmer. His mouth pressed harder and his eyes narrowed—on her, like he didn’t want to miss a thing—but remained open. Kit smiled against his lips and lifted her knees, opening more. They rolled and breathed into each other’s mouths and sweated and strained because they were here and alone, and they were alive.

Glorious, Kit thought, watching as he rose above her again, palms braced on each side of her head.

Yet glory meant something different to someone who was both angelic and human. He had the flesh and mind of a mortal man, but he was still a celestial creature and when he was exultant, when he gave thanks and paid reverence and took pleasure in something, it showed.

Kit remained fused to him, but momentarily put her own pleasure aside, knowing it would happen, waiting for it, watching. She slid her hands to his back, wanting to know the very moment he let go. She