Winter Wishes

by Vivian Arend, Vivi Andrews

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I know you think you can’t trust anyone, that everyone is trying to use you—”

  “You were trying to use me!”

  “But I didn’t. I never have. You can crucify me for my shitty intentions, but what have I actually done that was so terrible?”

  “Besides the lying?” And repeatedly saving her life, and making her feel more alive and special than she ever had.

  “I left a few things out,” he snapped. “Are you honestly telling me you don’t have secrets? You never tell me anything about your family, your upbringing—”

  “I wanted you to meet my mother.”

  “As a test. To see if I would react the way you wanted me to react. To see if I would prove myself to you. Not because you trust me. Not because you care about me.”

  “How can I trust you?” she shouted. “How can I care about you when you’ve been lying to me since the day we met?” But the truth was she did care. And she trusted him. How idiotic was that?

  “Everything wasn’t a lie, Sasha. We weren’t a lie.”

  “Yes, we were. You were. How could I fall in love with someone if I don’t even know who he is?”

  “You know me. I’m still the same guy. I was just trying not to be quite so…demonic around you. I can still be that guy—”

  “No, don’t.” Sasha huffed out a bitter laugh. “The truth is I like you better as yourself than when you were trying so hard to be good. There was always something missing in the sterilized version of you. But how could I ever trust a demon?”

  “You want me to prove myself? Fine. I’ll go back to Hell. God forbid you think I want to use you to stay here. But you are going to listen to me before I leave. You are going to hear every damn word.”

  He caught her by the shoulders, cupped the back of her neck roughly and stared down into her face with an intensity that was both terrifying and thrilling. Superman on fire. Sasha’s breathing quickened.

  “Being a demon was everything I knew. When I met you, I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. At the time, all I saw was how useful you could be to me, but in my world love is a vulnerability we mask with practicality. If you hadn’t been useful, I wouldn’t have been able to let myself love you—falling in love with you, independent of how you could be of use to me, was a foreign concept. I didn’t lie when I said love is different to angels and demons. Humans laud it and cherish it, but in our world it’s a weakness to be exploited.

  “You taught me to be human, taught me how to love the human way and live in the moment. When we met, I wanted to use you as my ticket out of the Underworld, but that isn’t why I’m here now. I’m yours, Sasha. I can’t imagine spending an eternity without you.”

  Her heart pounded, feeling like it might burst out of her chest at any moment. “That’s some speech.”

  “I’m not giving up,” he growled, the words a dark promise. “I’m going back to Hell, but I’ll spend the next hundred years fighting my way back to you, if that’s what it takes.”

  He kissed her, a hard, fast invasion of her mouth that exploded like angel fire on her tongue. She could taste his hunger, desperation and the press of urgency as he memorized her mouth. A last kiss.

  He released her and turned away, leaving her swaying on her feet as he strode quickly toward the black hole smudge that was the Hell portal.

  He was right. She’d told herself that she couldn’t offer him redemption because she was scared she wasn’t good enough to save him—and there was some truth in that—but she wasn’t afraid of him being hurt so much as putting herself out there and having her heart crushed.

  She was a coward. She kept herself safe behind a barricade of mistrust. She rationalized it with a lifetime of proof—everyone tried to use her, everyone wanted something from her—but that didn’t change the fact she would never be able to love anyone if she couldn’t get past her own issues.

  An aching certainty lodged in her chest—the certainty that she would never be able to love anyone the way she loved Jay. Who was walking away from her. Steps away from disappearing from her life forever.

  No.

  * * *

  “That’s it?”

  Sasha’s shout was aggressive. A challenge that stopped him in his tracks. A slow smile began to curve his mouth.

  “You give a whole big speech and just march off into the sunset?”

  He heard her footsteps rustling the grass behind him as she closed the distance he’d put between them. Her next words came from just behind his shoulder, but he didn’t turn. Not yet.

  “Isn’t that just like a man. I bet you think those love stories where somebody dies at the end and the other schmuck spends their entire life wallowing in grief are romantic, don’t you?” A finger poked his shoulder. Hard. “Unending angst isn’t romance, dumbass. It’s a fucking cop-out.”

  Jay turned. Her expression was fierce and utterly beautiful—for the first time there was no reserve, no cool, protective shell wrapped around what she was feeling. His heart stuttered and he smiled, but it didn’t change anything. He shot a pointed glance at the lightening eastern horizon. “I’m not trying to badger you into redeeming me, Sasha. I’ll probably end up a smudge on God’s thumb if I try. I have to go back.”

  After six months living as human, he’d finally figured out love wasn’t about what you got, but what you gave, and he didn’t have anything to give her.

  “I guess I’m following you into Hell then.”

  “You’re three-quarters human and you don’t have a Champion’s contract and an angelic sword protecting you anymore. You’d never survive it.” He cupped her jaw, needing to feel the brush of her skin just one more time.

  “I don’t care. I’m coming with you.”

  “I knew there were some angelic tendencies in there somewhere. Martyrdom is a real favorite of theirs.”

  “Jay.”

  “Just wait for me. I’ll be back.”

  “You don’t have to go,” she insisted. “There’s so much good in you, you have to be able to survive it. It could work, the redemption thing. Couldn’t it?” She fisted her hands on his belt-loops. “Because the thing is, I’m never gonna find another guy who’ll argue with Lucifer and fight his way through an army of lesser demons for me. Let alone someone who sees good in me even I don’t know is there.” She swallowed nervously but her eyes never left his. “I love you, Jay.”

  This must be how angels feel when they fly. His heart took off, but his feet were still firmly grounded. “I love you too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Sasha. Baby. Where else am I going to find a woman who will march into Hell itself for me?”

  She smiled and he thought he could see a blush in the gathering dawn. She was so beautiful, so fiercely independent and confident, it was easy to miss the quiet insecurity she kept hidden.

  He lowered his head, kissing her softly, a lingering promise. A kiss to tell her he would be back for her, no matter what it took. She answered him urgently, slipping her arms around his shoulders and holding on tight. “Please, Jay,” she whispered against his lips. “Stay.”

  It could work. For the first time, Jay let himself consider the reality of it. Sasha brought out the best in him, noble qualities he didn’t even know he had. The promise of redemption had always been a formless fantasy, but with Sasha in his arms, it took on a new sense of possibility. He could stay, with her, and live a human life. A life rich with love and laughter and the amplified urgency of the mortal world. A life with Sasha.

  “If an angel can love me,” he said, hearing the faint stirrings of hope, “there might be something worth redeeming in me after all.”

  Sasha grunted, unimpressed with that logic. “I don’t feel very angelic.”

  Jay cupped her face. “Trust me on this. I know an angel when I see one.” He grinned. “Crankiness and misanthropic tendencies included.”

  “Do you really think it would work?”

  “You’re the best in me, Sasha. W
hy would He want to separate us?” Jay bent and brushed a tender kiss across her lips, then another. “Let me stay with you for the dawn. Let me love you, even if it is the last time.” If he was smote to the lowest circle of Hell, he would climb out again. He had reason to now.

  He kissed her again, lingering in the feel of her mouth. He barely heard her next words, spoken so softly against his lips.

  “Don’t go.”

  * * *

  Sasha must have been infected by some passionate insanity. She knew she should be sending him away, guarding against the chance that he would be banished to a depth of Hell so far she would never see him again. But her arms refused to let him go and she couldn’t stop kissing him. Each touch seemed more acute, sharp in the knowledge that it could be the last.

  Ho-hum Clark Kent and his by rote foreplay were a distant memory. Jay consumed her. His mouth owning hers in a merciless possession. His hands stripped her of her weapons, tossing them on the ground at their feet and the more he took off, the warmer she got.

  He was fire. His lips scored a path down her throat and his teeth dragged over the soft upper curve of her breast above her tank top. Sasha tested his muscles with her fingertips, firm and deliciously strong. She went breathless—but who needed oxygen anyway? Jay wrapped an arm around her ribs, lifting her just enough to set her off balance and wedging a thigh between hers so she was forced to cling to him, straddling him for stability. His hard thigh rubbed against the seam of her jeans and Sasha’s head fell back with a low moan, as liquid warmth rushed through her core.

  Sasha clung tight. She couldn’t lose him. He thought she was the angel, but he was all the best parts of her. He had to be good enough. If he wasn’t, she would go into Hell again to find him—no matter how deep and dark a place he was sent to. She was finally risking her heart. She’d given him every molecule of it and she wasn’t going to lose him without a fight.

  He stroked down her back and her nerve endings thrummed like a strummed guitar. Every physical sensation echoed an emotional conversation. Adoration in the way his lips caressed her breast, possessiveness in the almost too tight grip of his hands on her hips, a promise of protection in the strength of his touch, and beneath it all the fear that at any moment it could be taken away.

  Jay dropped to his knees and Sasha knelt as well before pulling him down with her to the ground. The coarse grass was rough against her shoulders, but she didn’t care about the minor irritation. She needed his weight pressing her into the earth, the feel of him real and firm over her.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she whispered, the words turned into breathless gasps. “Sinning while we’re trying to have you redeemed?”

  “I’m never a better man than when I’m with you. I think God will understand.”

  Jay returned to her mouth for a quick kiss that turned into an epic. His hair was silk between her fingers even as his were busy with the fastenings on her jeans. He worked the zipper open and she lifted her hips to help him drag her jeans down. There was a momentary awkward tangle and then they both broke away, quickly stripping out of their clothing.

  The pile of their clothes didn’t make much of a cushion on the hard ground, but Sasha wouldn’t have traded it for a feather bed. She wanted to bask in the immediacy, the urgency of this moment, but when he slid high inside her, in a slow, toe-curling stroke, all that urgency receded. There was no rush, just the lavish exploration of each minute feeling, each lingering touch.

  They strained against one another, pushing toward a place beyond good and evil, a place where angels and demons and humans didn’t exist, where the only thing that mattered was the twining of two souls.

  Almost there. She gasped his name, a broken prayer.

  They broke through together and Sasha shattered under the force of the shared climax, the sight of Jay’s face above hers the only thing keeping her on the mortal plane at all.

  His weight pressed her into the earth and every physical sensation was magnified a thousand times as the continuing shocks of her orgasm gradually quieted. Sasha wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding on to the bone-deep pleasure as long as she could. Jay pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “Thank you,” but she wasn’t sure whether he was thanking her or God for allowing them this last time together, for allowing them to find one another.

  She would never know. The sun crested the horizon and the first light of day struck him.

  His back arched, every muscle going rigid as his mouth opened in a silent scream.

  Sasha held on as tightly as she could as the light pierced his skin, trying to pour every shred of goodness she’d ever possessed into him. Please, don’t take him. Please. It was like holding a live firework, but she didn’t loosen her hold. If there was any chance her arms could hold him on the mortal plane, she would never let go. She squeezed her eyes shut against the blinding light, concentrating on the feel of him, wanting to memorize the exact texture of his skin.

  Jay gave a low, rasping gasp—the only sound he’d made since the light touched him—and collapsed onto her. Sasha dared to open her eyes and found the light had faded.

  And Jay was still there. In her arms.

  A giddy high surged through her, but her first question was tentative. “It worked?”

  He groaned, dragging himself up on to one elbow like his body suddenly weighed nine hundred pounds. “Not something I’d like to go through every day, but yeah, I think it worked.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Definitely different.” He shifted, groaning again. “Pretty crappy, to be honest.” He looked down at her, his eyes slowly widening as realization set in. “I think that’ll pass.” A slow smile spread across his face. “Hi.”

  Sasha felt an answering smile curve her lips, helpless to stop it even if she had wanted to. “Hi back.”

  “So—” he shifted again, settling himself in the cradle of her legs, “—looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  Her cheeks were starting to ache, but Sasha couldn’t stop smiling. “It would appear that way.” She looped her arms lazily around his shoulders, linking her fingers behind his neck. The world blurred, but she wasn’t crying. Tough girls didn’t cry. Not even from uncontainable joy.

  “You still want me now that I’ve lost all my sexy demonic powers?”

  Sasha grinned wickedly, rolling her body sinuously beneath his. “I’m sure I’ll find some use for this boring almost-human body of yours.”

  “Boring?” he growled, his shoulders looming over her. “I’ll show you boring.”

  He tipped onto his back, rolling with her and Sasha gave a laugh that broke into a ragged sigh. “Show me Heaven, Jay.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mistletoe Merry-Go-Round

  Sasha ducked out onto the patio, hoping she’d cleared the door before her mother saw the direction of her escape. After a sleepless night shooting her way through Hell, Sasha didn’t have the stamina for yet another conversation about how delighted her mother was that Jay wasn’t deformed after all and wouldn’t he make lovely grandbabies.

  A strong arm slipped around her waist and she felt her tension melt away. Jay pulled her back against his chest, facing them both toward the landscaped perfection of her mother’s Japanese garden. Sasha leaned back into him, enjoying the warmth of his body supporting hers.

  “I think your great-aunt Margie has been hitting the eggnog. She just called Debbie Reynolds a talentless hack and is now doing a time step on top of a coffee table that probably costs more than your apartment.”

  Sasha snorted out a laugh. “She’s still pissed about being passed over for the lead in Singin’ in the Rain. You’ll get to see an eighty-nine-year-old woman performing ‘Dream of You’ as a striptease by the end of the night if my mom can’t wrestle her ‘special Christmas punch’ away from her.”

  “Is that what’s in her flask? I might wrestle it away from her myself. I could use a shot or two.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend i
t. Unless you like drinking hot pink lighter fluid. It’s her special recipe, which translates as mildly toxic. Just don’t pour it on the plants on the patio. My cousin Elaine tried that last year when it was her turn to cut Aunt Margie off. It decimated the hydrangeas and the landscaper quit in protest.”

  “Did you know your dad is taking bets on who will be the first to fall into the pool?”

  “Mmm, good money’s always on Aunt Margie, but don’t discount the cousins. Eileen caught Evelyn with her boyfriend under the mistletoe two Christmases ago. There was much hair-pulling and screeching and we had to declare two winners for the Pool Pool that year because no one could tell which one of them hit the water first.”

  “Why did I want to be mortal again?”

  Sasha twisted in his arms. “Because you’re crazy about me.” She went on tiptoe and popped a kiss on to his mouth. “And part of being crazy about me is putting up with my family’s holiday rituals. Welcome to the human race.”

  She tucked her hands into the back pockets of his snug blue jeans and admired the way the soft red sweater hugged his shoulders.

  “Just stay away from the mistletoe if you don’t want to be molested by my female relatives. You look really hot in red.”

  From the look that crossed his face, her warning came too late. Jay started to reply and Sasha held up her hand to stop him.

  “I feel I should warn you that all bitching about my family for the next fifty years is going to be met with a reminder that your mother is literally from Hell.”

  He grinned. “Fifty years?”

  Sasha shrugged. “Give or take. I saved your ass from eternal damnation. I figure you owe me a lifetime of devotion.”

  “That sounds fair. Just remember I did some saving of my own.”

  “For which you will be richly rewarded.” Sasha wagged her eyebrows and grinned lecherously. “Just as soon as we get home tonight.”

  He bent his head, nuzzling her neck just below her ear. “Can I get a preview?”

  “Maybe a thirty-second teaser.” She leaned into the kiss, quickly forgetting her own thirty-second time limit.