“Whoa.” Gage attempts to step between us in an effort to break up the real party and I push himaway.
“Chloe, deal with this.” My voice quivers with anger as each of my muscles bundles into its ownknot.
“Your wish is my command.” Chloe pulls Gage back a few steps, and Laken and Coop surround the two of them as if a war were about to break out. Ellis and Giselle fill in their circle, and Gage looks resigned to watching me fromafar.
“Look”—Logan pinches his eyes shut a moment—“I don’t want to pick a fight withyou.”
“You don’t have to pick one. We’re in it. And I’m not relenting. Gone is the pussy of a girl who would bow to your greatness. I’m not looking for an earthly god to worship anymore. Certainly, I’m not swimming to the Oliver end of the pool to do so.You”—I stab my finger in his chest—“are a walking, talking megalomaniac who is only out for himself. You let Gage deconstruct without consulting me, and you expected fully to keep yet another secret from me without regard to the fact I’ve threatened you within an inch of your dead life from doing so!” I rage the words so loud and proud into his face my throat rubsraw.
Logan towers over me, backing me into the refreshment table, hovering over me with those amber eyes filled with a mixture of rage and hurt. “Collect yourself, Skyla,” he grits the words from his teeth, and I’m almostamused.
“Did you just tell me to collect myself?” A laugh gets caught in my throat. To think I once believed Logan was fully on my side, and all this time I was just something fully on the side forhim.
“Yes,” he whispers it pained. “Deep down, you know both Gage and I love you. We love youdeeply, more than we could have imagined love for any woman, any human being. You taught us to love,Skyla.”
“And did I teach you to lie? Did I teach you deception? What other things are you going to heap on me because of that four-letter word?” A small crowd amasses around us, and I really don’t care. I hope they settle in and enjoy the show because this feels good. It feels like much-needed medicine going down, healing me right to my wearybones.
“Let us speak to you!” His voice vibrates over the music. Logan’s frustration with me is so thick you can sink your teeth into it. It tastes like desperation. And in a sick way, I find it satisfyinglydelicious.
“I don’t give a shit what you have tosay.”
A small gasp circles thecrowd.
Logan’s eyes round out with fury. “Well, maybe you should give a shit. Maybe that’s the problem here. Maybe therealproblem is the fact you’re not willing to listen!” He swipes the refreshment table clean of all its contents, sending a piñata’s worth of red Solo cups flying through the air, and a group of girls howl as if the party were really getting started. It is. “Maybe he’s not the problem, Skyla,” Logan seethes over at me as his chest pumps with rage. “Maybe it’syou.”
I straighten for a moment, staring out at the stubbornly blank faces in the crowd, trying to digest the idea of me being the problem. Logan and I have grown so close over the years it’s almost like arguing with a brother. You just look past all the bullshit and know that forgiveness is inevitable. Or at least it used to be. The fair-haired Oliver has really managed to piss me off thistime.
I look up and meet with those root beer-colored eyes, and in one pornographic microsecond, I can feel him in me, his naked body raking over mine, back in that bed we shared inRome.
“Remember when I cut you?” My words come out almost inaudible as the music switches to some skull thumping techno beat you can feel deep in your chest. Once long ago, I sliced Logan Oliver’s face open wide with a broken bottle. It was done in a fit of rage much like this one, and for a long time afterward I regretted it—but if there were a silver lining, it would be the fact I managed to gift the side of his face with the world’s most endearing dimple. Every time he smiles I’m reminded of that day, thatmoment.
“Yes, Skyla, I do remember.” His voice is cool and even, meeting me right where I am. Logan and I had worn each other out likechildren.
“The night of the christening, both Gage and you cut me.” My hand covers my chest. “I feel it here, every moment of everyday.”
Before Logan can put together a rebuttal, some useless apology, Ethan gets in my face, and I’m startled to seehim.
“Dude, you need to talk to Emily. She’s about to blow. She’s been looking for you for like anhour.”
“Not now,” Logan thunders, shoving Ethan out of our midst as effortlessly as tossing a paper plane across theroom.
Chloe pops up and latches onto me with an awkward side hug. “Skyla? There seems to be aproblem.”
A light winks from my hand, and I look down to find that ring she gifted me going off again like some Halloween fun toy. Only it’s not a Halloween fun toy. It’s about as far away from that as you canget.
“What’s this?” Logan pulls my hand close, and I’m quick to retractit.
Chloe leans in. “Come now, the fun is about to begin.” She threads us through the dense crowd with the enthusiasm only danger can bring. “Emily is about to volcano shit a prophecy out of her ass, and she demands the two of us are present together. Isn’t thatexciting?”
An arm pulls me away from Chloe, and I turn to find Gage as he flexes his fingers around myhand.
“You’re not going anywhere with her.” His tone is gruff and his body language coarse as he stops us cold in the great room. Something about his obnoxious level of insistence makes that secret spot between my thighs quiver for him. Damn him and his sudden need to pull rank. And damn me and my sudden need to bedominated.
“Ooh,” Chloe moans, stroking her torso over his. It’s clear Alpha Gage has her just as worked up as he does me. “Demanding,commanding. I bet you’d like to dole out a spanking right about now, wouldn’t you, Oliver? Something hard and fast that leaves a bright red impression right over Messenger’s shinywhite—”
“As for you”—Emily comes from out of nowhere and grips my shoulders as if she were holding onto the handrail of a rollercoaster—“there shall be a time of great sorrow. A grief so piercing, a deception sowide—”
“That’s old news, Em. Tell me something I don’t already know or else you’re just wasting both our time.” I fling her off my body without so much of a flick of the arm, and she flies into the wall with athud.
