“No worries.” The woman led them into the office, which was jammed with stacks of shelving holding books, clothing, toilet paper, snacks and supplies. “We don’t have any extra tents, but we do have blankets. Here.” She piled several wool blankets onto their outstretched arms.
“Thank you so much.” Abby adjusted her grip as the thick blankets slipped. “Will we need this many?”
“It gets cold at night, especially if you’re not used to the altitude.” Her bracelets clinked against each other as she added several more blankets and a flashlight. “If you’d like to join us for evening chants, we’ll be meeting by the campfire in an hour.”
“That sounds fun,” Gwynne cut in, “but I think we need to turn in for the night.”
The yoga chick didn’t insist. They hiked into the desert, away from the tents, until the voices of the campers faded away and were replaced by the night sounds of the desert.
The moon was bright enough that Abby turned off their borrowed flashlight to conserve batteries. The city sky was nothing like this. The beach sky was nothing like this. It was almost like being out in space. She hugged her share of blankets against her hip to free one arm and slipped her hand into the crook of Gwynne’s elbow, something she’d longed to do that night on the beach after Penelope’s wedding. She wrapped her fingers around her arm and soaked in the warmth that seeped through her jacket. She watched the stars instead of her footing, and maybe Gwynne did too, because they stumbled over rocks and bumped into each other sort of on purpose for a long time until they found a spot that felt like a good place to stop.
“Are there scorpions out here?” Abby asked, trying to decipher the shadows as she unfurled the blankets and spread them on the ground, one on top of the other.
“I’m sure our angel friends will make sure no scorpion interferes with their plans,” Gwynne said.
“That might be more reassuring if we knew what their plan really was.”
“True.”
Abby rolled one of the blankets into a long pillow they could both share. It was cold, so they removed only their shoes and sandwiched themselves between the blankets fully dressed. Gwynne tucked Abby under her arm and Abby stared up at the stars imagining atoms, with their random joy, birthing galaxies. The aliveness of creation was very close out here.
“I love sleeping outside,” Abby said after a while.
“We flew two thousand miles to sleep on the sand? We could have done this on the beach back home.”
“It’s illegal to sleep on the beach.” Abby tried not to laugh at how prissy she sounded.
Gwynne scoffed. “Tell me that’s not what’s stopping you.”
“It is what’s stopping me.”
“Sure it is.”
“It is.” All right, so she was totally lying. “If you must know, I don’t like getting sand in my clothes, okay?”
“We should do it when we get back.”
“If we get back,” Abby amended. If they got back, she would love to spend a night with Gwynne discovering whether the police patrolled the beach or not. If they got back, she’d let Gwynne rub sand in her clothes and make a whole list of fun, non-life-threatening things they could do together. “You touch that bridge, you could die.”
“So could you. Who knows what my energy field will do. I could blow up the whole thing.”
“Elle didn’t seem to think so.”
“Elle doesn’t know. She’s flying by the seat of her pants waiting for someone to bust her for not having a pilot’s license.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Abby said, even though it seemed futile to remind her. “You still have time to bail.”
Gwynne squeezed her close. “I’m not abandoning you.”
“It’s okay if you change your mind.”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
She believed her, but she couldn’t let it go. “If you want to later…”
“I won’t.”
Abby couldn’t take it anymore. “Why are you doing this? There’s no guarantee you’ll be safe.”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread?”
“I’m serious.”
Gwynne clucked her tongue in mock disapproval. “You’re not supposed to be so serious—you being an angel and all. You know angels can fly only because they take themselves lightly.”
“Would you stop with the ridiculous angel quotations?”
“I’m kind of starting to like them.”
“You are not.” Was this what happened to Gwynne when she was nervous?
Gwynne’s eyes twinkled. She kissed the top of her head. “We won’t die. This is going to work.”
Still locked in Gwynne’s arms, Abby gave a push and rolled on top of her, because right now their relationship was the only thing that made sense. “You’d better be right.”
* * *
Abby felt great on top of her. Her movement opened a gap in the blankets, though, letting in a whisper of cold air. Gwynne sat up, pulling Abby with her, and rearranged the blankets that had slipped. She shivered at the cold air at her back.
“Holy crap, it’s freezing out here.” Gwynne buried her face in Abby’s shoulder and breathed in the familiar scent of her hair. It was a scent she dreamed about lately, a scent that made her whole body come alive. And on that note…
She dredged up the blandest tone she could get away with and met Abby nose-to-nose. “They say if someone has hypothermia you’re supposed to get under their blanket with them. Naked.”
Abby grinned like it was a worthy attempt, but it wasn’t going to fly. “You don’t have hypothermia.”
What…She didn’t want to get warm?
“Shouldn’t you check?”
Abby stuck her cold hands under her shirt and grabbed her waist. Gwynne flinched.
“Better?” Abby asked innocently, the deepening laugh lines at the corners of her eyes the only thing giving her away.
Gwynne snorted and hugged her tight. It was her own fault, after all. She should have known Abby’s hands would be cold.
Abby rubbed her hands vigorously against Gwynne’s lower back, and her hands—although perhaps not Gwynne’s back—did get a little warmer. Then she moved higher and found the back of Gwynne’s bra. She traced the whole length of it and paused in the center. “Uh-oh. A bra that closes in front.” She took a fun detour on her way to the front and found the clasp. “I’m not sure I know how these work.”
“Want me to do it?”
“Absolutely not. How am I going to learn if I don’t practice?”
“You don’t need to learn,” Gwynne said. “I can do it.”
Abby traced the edge of the cotton cups. “I want to learn so I’ll know what to do next time.”
“You can practice another time,” Gwynne suggested.
Abby fingered the clasp, feeling how the two pieces fit together. “Quiet. I’m concentrating. Pretend I’m being suave and I’m expertly undoing your bra. One-handed.”
She crawled onto Gwynne’s lap and pulled at the neckline of her sweater to look down it. Unfortunately she seemed to only want a visual to help her with the clasp. Or maybe that wasn’t her only reason, since she doubted she could see much detail in the dark. The moon was bright, but it wasn’t that bright. Her hands went up her shirt again, focused on her task.
“I’ve actually never taken off another woman’s bra before,” Abby said, fumbling with the mechanism.
“Never? How is that possible?”
“I guess it never came up.”
“If I found myself in that situation, I’d make it come up.”
“I’m sure you would.” Abby wiggled against her, changing position to get a better angle. “I can do this, though. I just have to figure out how this clasp works.”
Which at this rate was going to take until morning. Gwynne groaned, fighting the urge to help. The next time she was going bra-less. “In the interest of speeding this up, I’d like you to know there are no bonus points for doing this one-handed.
”
“That’s what you think.”
Abby demonstrated what she could do to Gwynne’s breast if she had a free hand. Gwynne shivered, and this time it wasn’t because she was cold.
“I’m sorry I’m not better at this,” Abby said softly, her bravado finally slipping. “You probably didn’t think I was a lesbian when you first met me, with the way I dress, and now I can’t undo this clasp…”
“No, I did,” Gwynne reassured her, straining toward her touch.
Abby abandoned the clasp and pressed her thumbs to the tips of Gwynne’s nipples. Gwynne gasped as electricity lit a spot deep inside her. Abby pushed her sweater up and kissed her through her bra, licking at the peaks until there were two damp spots on the cotton. Gwynne arched her back. She reached for Abby’s sweater, intending to yank it over her head, but Abby stopped her.
“Are you still focusing on my suaveness?”
“All this talking is making it hard for me to focus on how suave you are,” Gwynne said, feeling a little light-headed.
“Then focus on how talented I am.”
“Talented?” She shouldn’t tease if Abby was worried about not living up to some mythical lesbian standard, but it was hard not to when she was so incredibly talented, even with her charming bra ineptitude. There was just something about even her awkward touches that made her want to lie back and see what she would do next that was guaranteed to turn her on.
“Fast?” Abby suggested, tugging again at her bra while her free hand continued to stroke her breast with a gentle insistence that made her tingle and tighten to the point of pain.
“This is fast?” A desperate sound escaped from the back of Gwynne’s throat, half moan, half laugh. God, how did she end up under a blanket with someone who was so fun to be with? Who was weird, and optimistic, and genuinely nice? And crazy. Crazy in a good way. A very, very good…
Abby finally gave up on her attempt to undo the clasp one-handed and tried with both hands. “Aha! Got it.” She stripped off Gwynne’s sweater and the bra and captured one of Gwynne’s breasts with her mouth.
Gwynne caught her breath in a sudden, involuntary inhale.
Abby had no problem getting the rest of Gwynne’s clothes off, and Gwynne stayed remarkably warm as Abby crawled all over her, shoving a cushion of clothes between her and the blankets. She passed warm and was well into hot by the time Abby wedged herself between her knees and pushed her legs apart.
As Abby sank down and lowered her head, the ends of her long hair swept against her inner thighs. Gwynne tightened with anticipation. She knew what was coming, but still, the shock of Abby’s warm, wet mouth made her jump.
Abby stayed with her and stroked her with a rhythm that made her absolutely crazed, made her writhe and moan and spread her legs farther apart and thrust her hips toward her, needing to get closer, so focused on the moment that she no longer knew where they were. She was burning up and all she saw was Abby, her eyes lowered and her hair hanging in her face and her aura swirling around her, aquamarine with sparks of rose, tangerine, and bright golden angel’s light, the colors shifting as Abby hummed and moaned with pleasure. Gwynne’s eyes closed and her neck arched. Her breath came harshly, frantically, out of control. When the scent of Abby’s arousal reached her, she lost her mind.
Abby didn’t wait for her to recover. She pushed her over the edge again, pushing her deeper this time, bringing her to where she was shrieking and gasping, pushing her beyond where she thought she could go. She was spent, but Abby went after her again and again, the colors of her aura spinning and swirling into a blur of searing white-hot infinity, waking surge after surge of power that left her quivering uncontrollably. She couldn’t bear it anymore, and yet she craved her touch and clung to her with her inner muscles, begging for it, because dying at her hands was all she wanted to do.
* * *
Gwynne stirred, and Abby curled closer, unwilling to be separated from her by even an inch. It was warm in her arms, and perfect, and she didn’t want to break the profound peacefulness of their sated energy.
“Are you in your clothes? Again?” Gwynne complained, apparently not onboard with spending the rest of the night doing the drowsy bonding thing if they could be naked instead. “I’m going to start thinking you don’t want to take your clothes off for me.”
Like she hadn’t done just that an hour ago. Well, most of her clothes. Gwynne had gotten pleasantly distracted before she finished stripping everything off her, and by then Abby had come so hard they’d forgotten all thoughts of clothing.
Now the temperature had dropped and she didn’t mind having on a sweater. “It’s cold.”
“Not that cold.” Gwynne reached under Abby’s sweater and unhooked her bra on the first try.
“Show-off.”
Gwynne pushed Abby’s straps over her shoulders in an attempt to take off her bra without removing her sweater. “Help me out here.”
Abby completed the maneuver and handed her her turquoise lace bra as a reward for being thoughtful enough to leave her the warmth of her sweater. Gwynne took the bra and dangled it off one finger.
“Turquoise. I like this one,” Gwynne said, swinging it back and forth. “It reminds me of the first time I got you naked.”
“You remember which bra I wore?”
“You don’t?” Gwynne stopped swinging the bra and opened her mouth.
“I do, but…I think you have a thing about bras.”
“I think I have a thing about you.”
Abby blushed. “I believe I heard mention of a red pushup bra in your past…”
“Ancient history.”
Abby hunkered down inside her sweater. She didn’t want to be another conquest. “Am I going to be known as the girl in the turquoise lace bra?”
Gwynne dropped the bra. She took her by the shoulders and kissed her with breathtaking tenderness, kissing away her insecurities. Abby’s heart melted—a painful kind of melting. She molded herself to Gwynne’s body, aching to be closer, frustrated by the physical barrier of their solid human bodies that didn’t dissolve into ether.
“You don’t get a bra nickname,” Gwynne said, moving her lips against the corner of her mouth with little kisses.
“Why not?”
“Because I give bra nicknames only to my exes.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bright and early the next morning, their car was fixed and they were on their way to the mountain. By midmorning they were on foot following hundreds of angels up barely discernible game trails and slipping on pine needles, praying neither one of them twisted an ankle. At least Abby was praying. Hiking was not something she did for fun, and this was a seriously steep slope.
Several hours of hiking later, they hadn’t encountered a single human being. The angels were singing yet another round of some Roman marching song, but Abby didn’t have the breath to join in—especially not in Latin.
She unsnapped her pack and let it slide to the ground, then collapsed beside it. Gwynne sat next to her and dug out Abby’s water bottle and opened it for her.
“Drink,” said Gwynne.
Abby had to wait until she stopped panting before she could attempt to swallow her water without choking. “If I survive this, I’m going to start going to the gym.”
“I’ll join you,” Gwynne said, breathing hard herself.
“You have softball.”
“What…I can’t do both?”
“Maybe I should try softball too.” Abby paused. It was hard to talk without wheezing. “Because I never want to be this out of shape again. I can’t…” She gulped some more air. “…breathe.”
Gwynne gingerly pulled off one of her boots and showed Abby the painful-looking blister on her heel.
Abby winced. “Does it hurt?”
“Yup.” Gwynne found moleskin and stuck it on while angels flitted through the pines, leaping, spinning and somersaulting, laughing with barely contained excitement, waiting for them to get back on their feet. “You know w
hat would be annoying? If it turns out Elle’s taking us the back way and there’s a road we don’t know about on the other side.”
Elle separated herself from her friends and hovered above Abby and Gwynne. “There is no road. This is the trail other people take—the UFO hunters and the peak baggers—although why anyone would want to bag this modest a peak is beyond my comprehension.”
A hawk cried overhead and Elle glanced up sharply, as did several other angels. They watched it circle until at some unknown signal they all returned to what they’d been doing before.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Elle said, “we’re almost there.”
Gwynne put her boot back on and they continued up the mountain.
An hour later they emerged from a stand of aspen into a clearing with a panoramic view of the plains far below. The air smelled like ozone, poisonously sweet. A faint trace of shimmering, iridescent blue-gray and lavender arced high in the sky, touching down on the mountain and wavering in and out of sight.
“Can you see it?” Abby breathed.
Gwynne took her hand. “It’s beautiful.”
She raised her hand to her lips and kissed her palm with only the barest touch. Abby shivered. So gentle, but intense. And that had better not have been a kiss goodbye. Because this was it. They were at the bridge and there was no more time to debate the wisdom of what they were about to do. Abby laced her fingers with Gwynne’s.
A songbird flew past, trilling as it headed straight for the angels’ dazzling, nearly invisible bridge, and dropped dead from the sky.
Another bird careened out of the way.
In the dirt, an angel cradled the small, broken body.
* * *
They positioned themselves on the bridge, one on each node, countless angels holding hands to form one long chain that stretched farther than anyone could see, disappearing into the sky like a stairway of stars toward the heavens.
Way at the other end, where the bridge was anchored in the Angelic Realm, was an angel who formed the first link of the chain. Here on earth, Elle and Sapphire were the last two angels in the chain, leaving one empty node a foot or two off the ground. Sapphire held out her hand, waiting for Abby to join them. Abby gave Gwynne one last squeeze and let go so she could take her place on the last node.
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