She caresses his cheek. “Skyla isn’t the brightest bulb. I can see why you left her.”
“He didn’t leave me because he wanted to.” I shake my head, trying to force the pieces to fit. “Believe me, Chloe, he’s not with you because of your cerebral appeal. Nor did your face or body finally manage to woo him.” I glance to Logan, hoping he’ll fill in the gaps for me.
Logan tips his head toward Gage. “You did it because you felt you needed to.” He swallows hard. “You felt trapped.”
“There’s no other way.” My voice increases in excitement an octave as I look back to Gage “You convinced yourself you had to do this.”
Gage blinks hard. “And that’s exactly what I said. Maybe Chloe’s right.” He gives a sly wink her way before giving each of the boys a quick kiss goodnight.
Right about me not being the brightest bulb? I’m suddenly moved to strangle them both.
His finger caresses Chloe’s cheek a moment. “Let’s get to bed.”
Chloe glows under the white-hot spotlight of Gage Oliver’s affection, and everything in me rages with the desire to take Logan and the boys and burn the house down with Gage and Chloe in it. But Gage is indestructible, and for the most part so is Chloe. They’re like cockroaches. You couldn’t kill them with a blowtorch.
Gage takes off and there is an ache in my chest, an emptiness in my heart whenever he leaves the room. No matter how big of a monster he’s become, a part of me demands to love him through it. I know Logan feels the same.
“Well”—Chloe arches her back, rubs her protruding belly—“you heard my husband. I’m wanted on a mattress in five to perform my wifely duties.” She gives a wiggle of her fingers as she leaves then quickly backtracks. “And Skyla? Have fun with Logan. You were half-right. We’re both with the people we were truly destined to be with all along. But Gage is truly happy with me and our new life.”
She leaves before I can correct her. Before I can remind her that she used to love Celestra. That she is being used. That Gage has never looked more miserable. That Gage is faking everything in that bed with her. But not a word can get past the boulder forming in my throat—the exact size of this horrible house. I hate that we bought it. I should have known buying anything in such close proximity to Emma would have been a curse. And it has been.
Logan gets up and shuts the door, dims the lights—a feature Gage and I once thought was brilliant—and the boys begin to whine on cue.
Logan and I each crawl into their bed and Logan whispers a quiet bedtime story about a dragonfly family—the continuation of a story he tells them each time they’re ready to fall asleep, be it a nap or bedtime.
If anything, Logan is consistent in just about every single way, especially in the way he loves us—even Gage. Barron succumbs first, snoring softly. Not long after, Nathan curls into a ball at the opposite end of the bed and we gingerly climb off the mattress and cover them.
Logan flicks off the lights and pulls me onto the next bed with him. He pours deep, dark, delicious kisses straight down my throat and I drink him down as if he were the exact elixir I needed to survive this nightmare. He is definitely a major component. But I can’t make the mistake of having someone outside of myself be the cure, the end all. I only have one savior, one God, and He reigns on high. Everyone else is so very fallible.
Our kisses soften a notch. As much as I want Logan, I’m exhausted emotionally from this mind-bender of a day. He doesn’t seem to be pressing me for more, but if he did, I’d give in to him. I couldn’t deny Logan Oliver anything after all we’ve gone through. But he does not press and I fall deeply, blissfully into an unknowable oblivion where nothing at all seems to exist.
Dreams come to me, fast and furious, anxious dreams about fire. I watch as it comes my way, as the flames race toward me and I’m frozen, completely unable to move out of the way of its fury. I contemplate how it will feel, explosively painful. I’ll go into shock quickly and pass out if my body is at all merciful. Then God Himself reaches down, touches His hand over my shoulder and reassures me that will never come to pass—never happen to me nor my children. I start to rouse from my dream, comfortably assured by his blessed words.
But before I can fully reach the surface of my consciousness, I’m sucked under again, this time to a darker place, a far more frightening sight than a living flame. It’s Gage himself hovering over me. He’s naked, we’re naked, and he’s teasing me with a devious smile. I know all of Gage Oliver’s smiles, not to mention all of his kisses, and this look he’s sporting right now let’s me know he’s up to no good.
“Do you know that I love you?” he asks as if he were determined to prove it.
I can hear myself giggling, but it’s as if I’m a visitor in my own body.
Gage leans in and I can feel the warmth of his breath pouring over my face, the weight of his body imprisoning me beneath him just the way I used to like it.
“Don’t you know that everything I do is for you—for us?” he asks with his brows cast low as if he were angry.
What about Chloe?I want to ask, but my lips don’t seem to work and he doesn’t seem to hear me despite the effort.
“Don’t forget who we were, who we’re going to be again someday,” Gage growls. “Our story is long from over. We are eternal beings. I have to protect us. Even if it means dragging us to the depths of hell to do it.” He bows down and kisses me deeply, a soft, achingly soft kiss that demands I heed his every word, that begs for me to understand things beyond the realm of reason. He lifts my hands over my head and I begin to protest.
Please don’t. There is no us, Gage. Don’t do this to me when I’ve asked you not to. You can’t just barrel into my life and have me whenever you wish. Not like this. Not ever.
The room darkens, a flurry of cobalt blue butterflies bat their wings all around us, gathering in number until it feels as if I’m smothering in them.
I wake with a start, my face firmly embedded in the pillow before I sit up and take a sharp breath. Logan doesn’t flinch. He’s dead to the world, as are the boys. Without putting much thought into it, I tiptoe out of the room and close the door behind me. There’s a nightlight in the hall, same one I put in. But I’d know my way around this place in the dark. I may not have lived here more than a day, but I’ve spent enough time laboring over this place during its renovation that I’d know my way around in my sleep. And here I am in a nightmare I cannot wake up from. Initially, I thought I’d go to the bathroom, maybe grab a quick glass of water, but my feet take me right to that once sacred space, the very space Gage so lovingly installed in this home just for me, the butterfly room. The hideaway stairs are already pulled down, so I head on up to the room in the attic. The door is sealed shut. There’s a seam of blue light glowing from beneath and my heart ratchets up a notch. I land my hand against it as if it were a precious portal to a far more innocent past, and in a way it is.
The murmur of voices grows from within and it prompts me to place my ear next to the door.
A shadow crops up next to me and I jump just as I realize it’s Logan. My finger lands to my lips and he nods as if to say he’ll comply, but he’s not hiding his annoyance—with Gage, I’m assuming. We lean in and the murmuring grows clearer.
Gage is saying something. He belts out a short-lived laugh and it’s back to murmuring—only at this juncture it becomes painfully clear there’s some heavy-duty moaning involved, too.
