With this kiss, we are ringing a bell. We are demanding that destiny and fate look in our direction and get used to what they see. We will right them. We will never bend to theirwill.
With this kiss, we are claiming ourforever.
Gage
Mywife.
Skyla molds her body to mine, and I bury my face in her hair a moment. There have been many things I have craved, wanted, desired, but none as strong as my yearning for this girl right here. I remember those early hazy days of West Paragon High when she wasn’t mine at all but someone else’s. Then she became mine as a ruse, a means to protect the love she had with Logan. Slowly, her love for me awakened. I’d like to think somewhere, deep inside, that it was always there. Long before Logan ever perished, Skyla and I were together. I think maybe if we weren’t, if she had never looked me in the eye and said she loved me until the terrible time of his death, our love would never have fully flourished the way it has. But then we married, became one in body and spirit, and the rest as they say is history. My entire existence was orchestrated to fall in love with this woman. It was my father’s business, the culmination of his life’s work to unify the two of us in flesh and in blood in hopes to create the perfect being. And we did. Two of them. And here we are a year later, stronger than steel, drawn to one another like a flame to oxygen. Logan had erected himself as an obstruction without meaning to. We loved one another when we shouldn’t have, and now under the banner of our covenant, we love one another thoroughly as we should. We were the sinners, and we were the saints. Skyla and I were born of deceit. The world believed in us long before we ever did. And yet, here we are, knit to one another like the stars in the sky, like the sun and the moon that Logan tries to own. He can never own what we have. This is imperishable. And as much as my father needed me with Skyla, his burden to seal us at the seams evaporated once the boys were born. And then, there is her mother, the celestial grand supreme. I am less than the dirt under my shoe in her eyes—nothing more than a sperm donor that provided life to her grandchildren. I have no pull with my all-powerful mother-in-law. She would no sooner give me a sideways glance than she would come to my aid. I am the obstacle to her desire. And there is nothing she desires more than to have Skyla and Logan together at last. There will be a celestial choir howling on that day. I have no doubt. And I have no doubt she is working very damn hard to make that day a reality very, verysoon.
It’s also a disheartening feeling to know that my father is through with me—in this form, in my coat of flesh, with the blood still pumping through my body. It’s a disheartening feeling to know that my mother-in-law, the neck of destiny, the head of fate, finds me useless in my union to her daughter. It’s a disheartening feeling to know that no matter what that smooth stone predicted—my number will most likely be up sooner than expected. Once we crested July, the seventh month, we knew it could only mean one thing. I was destined to have seven more years with Skyla. Of course, Skyla, ever the optimist, is clinging to the belief it’s decades, but there’s not a shred of hope in me for that. There are simply some things you know, and I have always known that I would die young. It’s never been something I’ve disputed or until recently,lamented.
A shadow flirts at the edge of the pines, and my gut grinds at the sight. He’s been here all night, lurking, leering, watching me from a sacred distance. And just like that, he steps out of the shadows and across the field, through the bodies of those on the dance floor, through the merry ghosts that came all the way from the Transfer. And all the while he watches me. His illuminated gaze never leavesmine.
“Whoa.” Skyla pulls back, her blonde mane rising like that of a lion. “Everythingokay?”
“Are you kidding? This is our night. Our babies are one.Weare one, and soon we will take off to the one and only home I ever want to set footin.”
A gritty laugh brews in her chest. “I like where you’re going with that. Hey, maybe now that the dust has settled in our world, you can finally get around to writing that novel you’ve been tinkeringwith.”
“That’s the plan.” I twirl her in my arms and seal the landing with a kiss. “But first, I plan on tinkering with you, over and over and over again.” I dot a string of kisses along her neck and soak up the vibrations from her laugh. The scent of vanilla pours from her, and I take it in like a balm. Skyla has always been just that, a healingbalm.
“You are a naughty, naughty boy, Mr. Oliver.” Her hands lie flat over my chest as she tips her face to the moon, her laughter growing with each passing breath. How I love to see her laugh—to see her smile. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to invoke that very reaction in her. “I’ve got an idea.” Her tongue does a quick revolution over her lips, and my balls ache, hungry to have her. “How about you and I steal away for a minute—somewhere private, secluded.” Her arms circle around my neck as she draws me in. “Someplace where a girl can lift her skirt—maybe let the girls out for someair?”
“I think you’ve got me beat in the naughty department.” I lean in and crash my mouth over hers, suctioning her tongue into my mouth and catching it with my teeth. I pull back and grin at my beautiful bride. “You’ve got a date.” I rub my growing hard-on over her stomach. “You’ve just started a war I hope you’re ready tofinish.”
Her brow lifts over her glittering mask. I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for this sexed-up vixen version of my wife. I’ve had a hard-on brewing the second she put on that dress. Hell, I always have a hard-on brewing for Skyla. Always did. Some things remain unchanging, and that just so happens to be one ofthem.
“For your information, there happens to be a very real war brewing in my underpants as well. Let’s hopeyouare ready to take it home, Oliver.” She stabs her finger over my heart, and I feel the sting long after she removes it. “Now, kiss me.” She tips her head to the side with all of the innocence she can afford. “Kiss me as if it were your last night on earth because that’s exactly how I’m going to kissyou.”
Skyla waits to close her eyes until the very last second, and I pour out all of my love into those pale eyes of hers. I tell her I love her far more efficiently and deeper than I ever could with words. And finally, with my lips, I do the same. Skyla explodes into my mouth like a nuclear warhead, anxious and hot, and I meet her right there. If this were my last night on earth, I wouldn’t hesitate to take her right here in the midst of the crowd. I wouldn’t waste a moment. I couldn’t. As horrifically crude as it sounds, it would be a thing ofbeauty.
I make love to Skyla’s mouth, turning the earth beneath our feet into holy ground, turning the stars shining down over us into a halo of blessedlight.
“Skyla!” a familiar voice calls from a distance, and I don’t need to look over to know it’s Brielle. “Get a room, youtwo!”
Skyla and I pull away reluctantly to find our bubbly friend with her hair freshly dyed a bright caustic shade of red—and on Bree itworks.
“Skyla, you have to help”—she grabs ahold of my wife’s shoulders as if she’s about to shake her—“Lexy is tanked, and she’s dry-humping Liam in the woods. Michelle is going to killher!”
Skyla makes a face. “I’m going to kill Liam.”Sorry, she mouths over to me. “I’ll find you, and we’ll finish that war we started!” she shouts as Brielle drags her off to the side of thehouse.
“I’m looking forward to it!Skyla”—I cup my hands around my mouth as I try to shout over the music—“I loveyou!”
Her laughter rises to the sky. “Love you, too, Gage Oliver!Forever!”
And just like that, the night swallows herwhole.
My body aches at the sight of the void in her wake, and my dick twitches as my hard-on struggles tosubside.
“Perfect,” I mutter as I head back toward the house. I may as well help Coop find Laken, if he hasn’talready.
I jog up to the house and thread my way through the bodies congesting the entry. I sidestep into the kitchen, and just as I’m ready to pull my phone from my pocket, a pair of arms comes at me and shove me hard against thewall.
“Shit.” I meet up with the angry eyes of Zander Richards, and I launch at him. I twist my hands into his shirt and thrash the shit out of him against the refrigerator, and a neat dent sinks in where his head just gave a dramatic bounce. “What the fuck do you think you’redoing?”
“What the fuck do you thinkyou’redoing?” He kicks my foot out from under me and lands a solid fist in my jaw. His face is screwed up tight like a bulldog, and saliva runs down hisbeard.
“Shit!” I dab my lip for blood, but come up clean, and he shoves me to the wall onceagain.
