I couldn’t even fucking talk as I peeked over his shoulder, taking in the world, the land, the trees; the lights getting smaller and smaller.
Oh my god. Oh my god.
My ears popped.
I should have been scared. I knew I should’ve. The only thing keeping me from falling to my death was Alex. We weren’t harnessed together. I didn’t have a line connecting me to something stationary. A parachute? Fuck a parachute.
I was just there, in the air, with The Defender.
And I thought, My heart is going to burst.
I was in awe.
I couldn’t fucking believe it.
His huff was soft in my hair. “I know you’re having fun when you aren’t running your mouth.”
My great comeback was a simple “uh-huh” that made him huff some more.
“I don’t want to go too much higher. Want to stay here or go around?” he asked.
“Around, please,” I told him all meekly, still just… shocked.
I wanted to stick my hand out and see if I could actually touch a cloud. Could you imagine?
“I don’t know if I like you quiet, but I know you’re having fun, I can feel it.”
All I could do was nod, and I felt his breath again before we started moving. This wasn’t the position he normally flew in. Usually he was belly down, going as fast as possible—for aerodynamics, I’d seen some people guess—but I knew why he was doing it this way. So I could see without him having to take his arms away from around me. It felt like we were free floating.
I ate it up.
Every single second as he flew slowly, still in an upright position, I clung to him, and I looked down at the twinkling lights of homes from over his shoulder.
I was fucking flying.
“I like it up here. It’s quiet,” Alex said out of nowhere. “There are some places where the clouds hang low, and I used to go out there when I was tired. It reminded me of why we do this. It’s to protect humanity, but it’s mostly for this planet. We’re here to take care of her too. Some day we won’t exist, and we won’t be able to help, but we have to try while we can.”
I pressed my mouth to the spot on his neck closest to me, and I felt the arm around the middle of my back give me a gentle squeeze.
“For someone who said he’s never taken care of anything before, it sure does sound like you’ve had a whole lot to take care of,” I told him.
His breath was slow, slow, slow. “Nothing that was ever just mine though. Nothing that ever really mattered to me.”
I pulled back just enough to peer into those eyes. Mine had adjusted slightly enough to catch the faint outline of them, of his features, despite how dark it was so high up.
Alex gave me a long, long look but didn’t say a word, weighing down the moment that much more. Forcing it to be heavier and heavier by the second. I had to swallow hard.
“Did I ever tell you I’ve always wanted to go skydiving?” I whispered.
That instantly changed the moment, bringing back the shit talker I knew and loved. His tone almost sounded innocent. “Yeah?”
I knew exactly what kind of fire I was starting, I really did, but I still didn’t expect it.
I nodded.
And in the next heartbeat, it was like someone cut the invisible cables holding us up in the atmosphere, and we were plummeting. Like all those rides at theme parks. Like we really were skydiving from the way he managed to fall with his back to the ground with me still clinging to him like crazy.
I screamed as we fell.
I screamed and I screamed and…
The fucking butthole holding me, with his cape whipping up around us, started laughing. What was more than likely two seconds later, but felt like ten minutes, we suddenly stopped halfway to the ground.
Alex kept cracking up as his arms tightened some more and we changed to vertical again.
Maybe I was going to kill him, but it wasn’t going to be today, I thought as I swallowed up the glee in his rich laugh.
It wasn’t going to be today, I confirmed to myself as he moved me around in those arms so he was carrying me, and then he tossed me into the air and caught me again, and I laughed too with pure fucking delight. The truth was, it was absolute joy. So much of it I thought I was going to burst.
Alex did it one more time before we went straight up into the sky and plummeted all over again, screaming and laughing.
It was a thousand times better than skydiving could ever be.
Not for a single second did I feel a pinch of fear.
I trusted him.
I trusted him completely, I realized.
And it was then that I knew without a single fucking doubt, as I screamed my lungs out, that I was in love.
Not just a little bit either.
My-life-will-never-be-the-same love.
And it had nothing to do with the vision or being Atraxian or the Trinity or my safety.
It just had to do with Alex.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
I had my arms looped around Alex’s neck when he dropped to a stop in front of his house.
My throat ached from screaming, and I was cold even though he’d pulled his cape over his shoulder and let me use it as the most ridiculous, incredible blanket of all time. I decided one day I was going to ask him what it was made of because the material was so strange. My jaw was sore from clenching it too, and my arms were exhausted from clutching him for dear life, even though I trusted him not to drop me.
But I’d never felt more alive. More energetic. I couldn’t remember ever being happier.
And that was the thing that snuck under my skin the most.
How happy I felt. I was almost delirious. I’d never done drugs, but I figured this was what being high had to be like. Like you were in a cloud made of cotton candy riding on a sugar high.
But there was that other feeling too. The one that felt too big for my body. For him. For this man who huffed and puffed and had more than likely blown some houses down at some point in his life—for a good reason. A man who was a total pain in the ass.
And I was thinking about that as he lowered us back to Earth, and I wished I could have recorded it. I wished I could have seen if it looked like how it did in the movies when Electro-Man descended.
But I doubted it. I was sure I looked like a fucking wreck.
I reached up the second my feet touched the ground, and I palmed his smooth cheek as I wobbled. My cheeks were achy from how hard I’d smiled for so long. “You made my dream come true.” I smiled even wider. “I’ll never be able to thank you, but I’ll buy you some cookies, deal?”
That perfect face was tipped down, and I didn’t think I was imagining the fact he turned his cheek deeper into my palm. “You’re welcome,” he grumbled softly.
“Are your ears okay? I think I might have torn something in my throat from screaming.”
“They’re fine.” Alex’s gaze moved over my face. “You’re going to sound like the Cookie Monster again.”
I snorted, sucking in every inch of those features right then. His cheekbones. His brow bone. The shape of his unreal eyes.
His mouth.
Something bright glittered in his irises, and if I hadn’t heard him laugh, I would have still known he’d had a good time too. “I had a lot of fun,” he said gruffly.
“Me too, but you’re lucky I didn’t faint.”
His nostrils flared just a little. “You’re lucky I didn’t faint.”