The Winter Spirit ARE (15 page)

And in the deep of the night, Gabriel and I moved as one. We’d spread a bunch of blankets out on deck and Gabriel laid me out and made love to me like I was the most precious thing in the world. We didn’t say much, didn’t make much noise, just clung together in the semi-darkness. Despite the vast expanse of space around us, this felt like one of the most intimate moments we’d shared.

I gasped as he moved ever so slightly, rubbing me just right inside. I murmured something nonsensical but couldn’t tear my eyes away from the Milky Way blooming wildly above me.

He pumped his hips once, twice, three times, and my entire body thrummed, locking and loading and quivering with near release, but like he’d been doing for the past half an hour or so, he slowed down again. I couldn’t even beg anymore. Sweat stuck our temples together, and the rest of our bodies too. He felt slippery under my palms and yet nothing in the world would be able to make me let go. I had my mouth open and breathed in stutter-y gasps against his ear, but then, he was no better off than I was.

He sped up again, and—oh
God
—my body primed itself in hope. This time he didn’t stop and my breathing fell silent. I went tense all over, my arms and legs like a vise around him, as my vision began to swim. With a great, big gasp, I dragged air into my lungs, and not until the final second did I tear my eyes away from that sky. I came so hard my body bowed backward, but Gabriel was ready for me and cupped the back of my head before I hit the boards.

“Oversensitive?” he whispered when I settled down again.

I nodded, still not able to speak, and he gently eased out of me. He put my hand around his dick, and let me watch him fall apart under the most beautiful sky I’d ever seen.

This man—who’d been self-conscious and maybe even a little afraid to kiss me in public a year ago—did this with me in the open air.

When his come splattered my chest I tugged him down and kissed the breath out of him. For a while, we curled up in our blankets and watched the sky for shooting stars.

“When did you stop waiting?” I asked him eventually. His hair hung loose around his gorgeous face, messed up in a more modern cut these days.

“Sometimes I still wonder…” he whispered, then shook his head. “But not much anymore. What about you?”

I kissed his nose. “I stopped waiting for you to disappear the first time I heard you snore. I figured ghosts don’t snore.”

Gabriel poked my side, then rubbed my belly and gently bit the meat of my shoulder.

It was a lie. Only the other day I’d woken up alone in our bed, panicking, until I heard the shower run. I didn’t know if I’d ever rest one hundred percent easy, but the fear had tapered off over time.

In the end, who was ever completely safe in the knowledge nothing would ever happen to their loved ones? All I could hope for was that we’d paid our dues for a while, and we could live off this happiness for a long time.

“I love you,” Gabriel whispered in my ear.

I didn’t reply. Instead I reached under the pile of blankets for the little box that had been digging in my back. Two rings waited inside, and while I’d been waiting for the right moment, I figured they’d look their best under the starlight.

The End.

After living in Michigan, USA for seven wonderful years, Indra Vaughn returned back to her Belgian roots. There she will continue to consume herbal tea, do yoga wherever the mat fits, and devour books while single parenting a little boy and working as a nurse.
The stories of boys and their unrequited love will no doubt keep finding their way onto the page—and hopefully into readers’ hands—even if it takes a little more time.
And if she gleefully posts pictures of snow-free streets in winter, you’ll have to forgive her. Those Michigan blizzards won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

Contemporary

The House on Hancock Hill

Dust of Snow

Vespertine (with Leta Blake)

Paranormal

Fated (Shadow Mountain book 1)

Fragmented (Shadow Mountain book 2)

Coming soon

Patchwork Paradise