Celestra Forever After

by Addison Moore

  “Did someone say budget?” Brielle and Drake walk in with their hair frozen in the air from a good night’s romp. I’m pretty sure no one would bat an eye if I spent the night. “That’s all my mother talks about after Mr. Edinger dumped her.”

  “He did not dump her.” Lizbeth rolls her eyes. I can feel it coming, so I wrap my arms around Skyla like a seatbelt.

  “Why are you always defending him?” Skyla goes off like a landmine every single time Lizbeth brings up Demetri. “If that’s what Brielle says happened, then that’s the way it went down.”

  Probably with a little more drama, I say giving her hand a squeeze, and it’s only then I notice she’s wearing my grandmother’s ring, right here in the open. I’d warn her, but a part of me doesn’t really mind if our secret gets out. I want the entire damn world to know Skyla is my wife.

  “He said, she said.” Lizbeth shakes her head. “Anyway, at this house, we should all try to watch what we spend.” She goes on jostling that baby until its bare feet vibrate through the air.

  “Speaking of spending”—Tad crosses his arms while looking at me and Bree—“I think it’s high time we start collecting rent around here.” Tad is a nut job but mostly harmless. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the balls to ask me to pay him a red cent. “Brielle and Greg need to ante up or be prepared to start bringing sack lunches. Better, yet, both.”

  “It’s Gage!” Skyla thunders.

  “It matters not”—he wags a finger in my direction—“because each time he leaves, the refrigerator is ten pounds lighter.”

  “I swear—I’m not eating out of the fridge.” Is he for real?

  “Darn right you’re not.” He points hard at the ceiling. “See that?” A security camera sits perched in the corner aimed right at the kitchen. “I’ve got that baby on 24/7, and I’m watching ground zero like a hawk—Greg.” He leans in, staring at me like he wants to start a fist fight—and sadly I’m betting I’d deck him if he asked for it. “Now come on, Lizbeth”—he snatches his wallet off the counter—“I’m taking you out to breakfast.” A greasy smile spreads over his face. “The bank has free coffee and donuts until ten-thirty.” He growls back at me while stuffing himself into his jacket. “Not eating out the fridge…” he mumbles. “You know what?” He takes a step into me with his hair flipped through the air like a bad hairpiece. “If you were smart, you’d marry Skyla ASAP and whisk her the heck off this island before that quarterback brother of yours rolls back into town and marries her himself. Everyone knows that girls prefer a quarterback.”

  “Tad!” Skyla shouts.

  A boiling rage percolates in me. Never in my life have I wanted to deck someone so bad. I force myself to look past the idiot, out the window, and focus in on the fog pressing against the glass. He knows just enough of the history that Logan and I share with Skyla to push my buttons. I wonder if it’s true? What if Logan takes one look at her tomorrow—next week—and tries to take her away? What if he succeeds? A rage brews in me, and, for a fleeting moment, fresh hatred for Logan bubbles to the surface. But it flees as quick as it came, and my rage is replaced right back on that bonehead of a stepfather that Skyla and I will have to find a way to endure for the rest of our lives. I can’t bring myself to look at him so I train my eyes on that damn window.

  “You hear that Greg?” he screams in my face. “You’re a liability to my family’s welfare. All you do is take, take, take!”

  My pulse quickens. My body heats up like an inferno. If I look at him I’ll lose it. I’m a second away from stuffing my fist in his gut as I continue to burn my rage into that single sheet of glass.

  The window buckles under the pressure and splinters like a bolt of lightning frozen in time.

  Something in my chest loosens, and I break out in a cold sweat, panting as if I just sprinted to the moon and back.

  “Would you look at that?” Lizbeth stalks over to the fractured glass, and Tad follows, bitching about their bad luck.

  Skyla touches my cheek, her face rife with worry. She looks over at the window then back at me.

  She suspects something.

  She should.

  After all, it was me who did it.

  Later in the evening, after dinner, Skyla and I offer to do the dishes.

  Mia comes over and taps Skyla on the shoulder. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure.” She turns off the water and offers me a kiss with a promise before stepping to the side.

  “You never have time for me anymore,” Mia whines, and I feel like shit because I’m the reason Skyla has been away from the house so much.

  “I’m so sorry.” Skyla rocks on her feet. “College is really keeping me busy.”

  Mia gives me the stink eye. “When he takes off, do you think we can finally get a chance to talk?”

  Crap. I feel about three inches tall, so I keep wiping the dishes, pretending not to hear a word they’re saying. I glance down at the dripping wet stack. Still can’t believe I broke that window this afternoon. How the hell could I have done that? It’s not a Levatio skill. It couldn’t have been me.

  I place a dirty cup in the sink, while Mia chews Skyla a new one for being “so damn inattentive,” and glare at the rounded glass. It still has Drake’s ketchup covered fingerprints over it and an inch of milk at the bottom. Freaking disgusting. I’d rather break it than wash it.

  I try to concentrate all of my anger toward Logan once again, but, really, I don’t have enough to crack a glass or my temper. I can’t hate Logan. My thoughts shift to Chloe, to all the bullshit she’s caused—to the fact she hacked off Logan’s head in the first place and splintered Skyla’s heart in the process. I think of how she killed Skyla’s father, and my body starts to shake with anger, but the glass remains whole as the milk inside it. Wes pops in my brain. He’s forced Skyla to appear down in the Tenebrous Woods far too many times, and each time she came back Dudley had to inject her with cyanide to kick-start her Celestra blood into regenerating itself. Still nothing. The glass remains solid, stealth, prideful and disgusting just like Demetri. Edinger—now there’s an asshole I can get heated about. It was him who actually did kill Skyla’s father and started the ball of heartbreak rolling in her life. I focus in on his face, that constant arrogant smirk he wears like a mask—like he has the upper hand and the rest of us just don’t know it yet—and something ignites in me far more powerful than I ever thought possible.

  The glass pops. It shatters into three pieces, leaving a nest of shards at the bottom.

  My chest loosens as if a stack of bricks just fell off. Strangely enough, when the glass fractured, I felt a surge of power go out from me in one magnificent jolt.

  I marvel staring into the sink. Holy fuck.

  “Everything okay?” Skyla touches her hand to her throat, her eyes gluing themselves on mine.

  “I guess I’m a klutz.”

  Mia pushes Skyla in the shoulder. “And don’t worry about helping me out with my math, someone else beat you to it.”

  “Marshall?” Skyla shouts his name like an admonishment more than a question.

  “Who?” Mia backs up disgusted. “It’s Chloe. Chloe listens to me. She’s actually interested in my life!” She screams that last part in Skyla’s face before running upstairs. Melissa sticks her tongue out at Skyla before following suit.

  “There’s that.” Skyla comes over and glances at the broken glass.

  “Am I fired?” I’m not ready to fess up just yet that I’ve added telekinetic destruction of property to my list of newfound talents.

  “You wish.” She squints into me a moment before brightening. “Besides, it’s not a big deal. One less dish means we get upstairs faster.”

  We knock out those dishes in record time and head upstairs to study—each other.

  Skyla speeds me through the hall that leads to her bedroom, bubbling with laughter, light on her feet as if she were about to float away. The door to Drake’s room is open, and we can hear Bree and him bickering about som
ething.

  Skyla leans in. “He’s probably trying to sell her some replica penises.”

  “We heard that!” Brielle shouts.

  “Are you asking to borrow Bree’s dildo again, Skyla?” Drake barks. “Maybe you should stop putting the freeze on your boyfriend’s balls. Put away the toys and pay attention to the boys in front of you.” He hacks out a laugh as if he were proud of himself for his inadvertent rap.

  Skyla’s mouth drops, but she continues to her room. We land inside and she locks the door, slides the dresser over for good measure. I teleport us up to the butterfly room and bury a kiss over her hot mouth. The dark room glows with a wash of electric blue as the butterflies flap their cobalt wings, happy to see us.

  “I think Drake is right.” Skyla twists her lips.

  “Right?” That douchebag hasn’t been right about anything since he learned to talk.

  “Yeah.” Skyla’s skin glows a soft teal from the trembling butterflies around us. The lights are off, save for the candescent illumination. It’s perfect like this. “I’ve been neglecting your balls for far too long.” She unbuckles my jeans and pulls them down past my hips. “By the way, you’re hung like a horse.” A smile cinches up one side of her lips. “Not just any horse, the biggest horse there is—a Clydesdale.”

  Actually, I think it’s a Shire, and I only know that because at one point my mother was heavily into horses and kept threatening to get the biggest one she could find. Technically, they’re both Draft horses, but I’m not one of those guys that has to have all the answers, so I keep my mouth shut.

  “A Clydesdale, huh?” I run my fingers through her soft waves. Skyla’s hair feels like exotic silk. “Sounds good to me.”

  “You know what else should sound good to you?” She licks the rim of her lips like an afterthought. Skyla has no damn idea how beautiful she is. It’s one of the things I like best about her. “The fact I’m about to do this.” She cinches her thumbs in my boxers and drops to her knees taking my clothes right along with her.

  “Shit,” I whisper as my erection springs up to greet her.

  “God, Gage, you’re like from another planet.” She runs her fingers gently over the crest of it.

  “Skyla—”

  “Shh…” She touches her finger to her lips. “No speaking or moving.” She takes the length of me in her hands and gives a slow, pulling stroke. I knock my head back, and close my eyes. A soft, wet sensation touches over the tip, and I look down to find her covering me with her mouth.

  Oh shit. I let out a groan. This is it. This is secretly what my dick was hoping would happen next, hell, it was hoping it’d happen ages ago, but I’m glad it didn’t. Waiting until this moment, right here in the butterfly room, seems like the perfect plan, the right time.

  Skyla glides down, taking in as much of me as she can. She’d have to be a sword swallower to dive down to the base, but, then in a surge, her warm mouth pushes lower and, holy crap, if she didn’t just hit the fucking base.

  A gagging noise comes from her throat, and she pulls away like backing out of a fire.

  “You okay?” I try to bury the nerves in my voice.

  She looks up, her eyes red and watery. It’s pretty clear we escaped having her bring up her dinner on my balls by seconds.

  “I’m fine. I just wanted to see if I could do it, that’s all.” She bats her lashes before giving it another go. Skyla rides her mouth over me like she’s playing an instrument. She tightens her lips over my body, strong and forceful, giving my dick a firm squeeze every now and again. I knot my fingers in her hair, massage through it panting, groaning so loud I half expect her moron of a stepfather to stalk on up here to see who the hell is getting slaughtered.

  Hell, yes. Skyla is slaughtering me all right. More like devouring, knocking my dick and me into the next century by way of the supersonic flight pattern she’s imparting on the two of us. I crack my lids and watch as her head rises and falls over me. Skyla is keeping perfect time with her steady rhythm. It’s as if the butterfly room is stretching and expanding as the moment replays itself over and over. Skyla moves up and down as if she had nothing in the world she’d rather be doing.

  “Skyla.” She’s got me right there. Paragon flashes through my mind. A vision of Skyla and I making love in every nook and cranny on this glorified rock sails through me. Rockaway, the back of the Gas Lab, my parent’s hot tub, my bedroom, the bowling alley, West, the woods, Harrison’s house, Dudley’s barn—the images come at me fast as I hit my zenith. I give her hair a gentle tug, trying to encourage her to pull away. “I’m going to come,” I whisper, but Skyla keeps at it like she doesn’t care. I burst into her mouth, digging my nails into her hair, pulling it as I quake into her, and she swallows me down. Her tongue vibrates over me soft as velvet, and I can feel her sucking every last drop right out of my body. “Shit!” I hiss as I tremble to completion. I pull out and drop to my knees to worship her. “You okay?”

  The whites of her eyes shine bright red. Her hand flies to her mouth. Her chest bucks. I teleport us to the bathroom and hold her hair as she loses her dinner, lunch, and breakfast—and a little something I might have added to the mix. I can’t help feeling like I broke her. Skyla vomits into the toilet again and again until finally she sits back and takes a deep breath.

  “You don’t have to do that again—swallowing.” I clarify like an ass. Of course, she knew I meant swallowing. She’s going to think I’m campaigning for another blowjob, which sadly I think I am.

  “I’m so sorry.” She staggers to her feet and brushes her teeth for ten solid minutes. “You still love me?” Skyla wraps her arms around my neck. A shy smile bobs on her lips.

  “Of course I still love you.” I bounce a quick kiss off her forehead. “I can never stop. I love you so damn much.” More than she can ever truly know. I was made to love Skyla, and it’s the single most important task in my world.

  That’s another thing that seems to be growing, aside from my powers—my love for her.

  We head back up to the butterfly room.

  I pull her in by the chin and fall into those pale swimming pools she calls eyes. “I’m going to make sweet love to you all night long.”

  I brush my lips over the canvas of her body starting at her temple before gliding down her neck, down to her beautiful soft tits, the gentle curve of her hips, the inside of her thighs, that slick of wild honey—and I pause to savor it before moving onto her knees, her smooth as satin shin, all ten of her fucking cute toes. I glide right back up and start all over.

  This is heaven on earth.

  Me, right where I belong, getting lost in the girl I love.

  My wife.

  Logan

  They say a coward dies many times before he ever hits the ground for that final dirt nap. I’m starting to feel like a coward, only I happened to do the dying first because I can’t seem to get jack shit right.

  Liam moans approvingly into his dinner. “Good stuff.” He shakes his head into Barron and Emma.

  Tomorrow night we’re all heading out to watch Gage in his next game over on Host. It’s the last one before a string of away games that take place on the mainland. But I’m not going to let a little metric distance come between me and a good football game. If Gage is in it, I’ll be there, rooting him on. Although somewhere in the audience will be Skyla, and it’ll be hard as heck to fight the urge to sit down beside her. Last week I think I watched more of Skyla than I did the game. And, maybe one day soon, I’ll get to sit beside her. All they need is a little more time.

  “So where’s Gage?” Liam stabs at another steak before plopping it on his plate. He’s filling out a little. He’s not quite the bag of bones that was deposited from paradise. Candace made sure to gift him the same body he had the day he left. Rumor has it, Mom wasn’t that great of a cook.

  “It appears he’s been staying at the dorm this past week,” Barron says it curt.

  “At least that’s the story he’s been feeding us,” Emma
glares past my shoulder as if she were looking at Gage himself. “I went over to surprise him yesterday, and he was nowhere to be found. His roommate said he hadn’t a clue where he spent the night.”

  The room grows quiet. Barron saws through his steak as if it were the most important task in the world. There’s a strangled tension in the air I can’t quite put my finger on.

  “What’s going on?” I pipe up. “Are you afraid to tell me something?”

  Emma shoots me a look. “We don’t know anything, Logan. All we know is he’s neither here nor there. He’s called twice to say hello, but I didn’t want to ask. Quite frankly, I don’t want to know.” She lowers her lids and concentrates on extracting the broccoli from the bowl one at a time.

  “He’s a grown man,” Barron chirps. He gives the briefest smile to both Liam and me as if vaguely including us in that equation.

  “Why don’t you just ask Skyla?” Liam leans in as if the obvious were staring us in the face, and it is.

  My insides catch fire, and it has nothing to do with the carnivore in me devouring a raw thirty-two ouncer and everything to do with the fact I’m betting Gage has been tucked away in the butterfly room with Skyla all week—getting lucky. He’s always been lucky for that matter, so I don’t see why this should be any different.

  “Did you ever figure out why Wes and Gage look like they could be long lost twins?” I tip my soda at Barron before taking a sip. There’s no way I want to linger on the topic of Skyla and Gage getting their groove on.

  “Who’s Wes?” Emma’s face smooths out, and I catch that look in my brother’s eye that says good going, moron. I guess he hasn’t run this by his wife yet.

  “A young man came by the morgue the other day.” Barron shoots me a flaccid smile. “He’s interested in a formula Ezrina is working on.”

  “Which is?” I don’t mean to steer the conversation away from Wes, but, then, this has everything to do with him. Plus I’m dying to know, no pun intended.