Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) (36 page)

“Did Logan say anything about his time with your mom?” He washes over me with those steel beams. His features transform with a heavy burden. Gage is as concerned as I am over the content of said conversation. He has a look on his face that suggests Logan might have been promoted in a spiritual manner—soon to be followed in the physical sense.

“He asked if he could talk to me in private after Em’s party,” I confess.

Gage huffs a laugh. He isn’t at all amused that Logan wants alone time with me. He sees the threat, and he feels it’s real, I can tell.

Another bout of hysterical weeping emits from the family room. I use Gage as a human shield and walk over to the edge of the hall. Obviously, Isis made them eat a serious shit sandwich because Mom and Tad are very fucking upset.

Gage pauses just shy of rounding out the wall and inspects the carnage.

Voices escalate, yelling ensues, then a fit of frenzied sobbing—far more intense than before.

“What the hell’s going on?” Gage whispers after examining the situation.

I peer out and spot Mom and Tad bawling like babies while Isis the serpentine solicitor looks on with a content grin on her face. She’s encased in a hot pink tank top with no freaking bra, as exemplified by the twin hat pegs poking from her shirt that look as if they could cut through diamonds. 

“What the hell
is
going on?” I take Gage by the hand and drag him over to the tear fest with me. “Everything OK?” Obviously, everything is not OK. The breasty one here brought up a bunch of past offenses, and now Mom and Tad are just buying time before the dissolution of their marriage kicks in.

“Sky
la
,” Mom drags my name out in two equal parts, “please don’t interrupt. We’re in the middle of something.” She bows into a heavily used tissue and lets out a few good honks.

“Method acting.” Tad wipes his eyes with the back of his arm in one fell swoop.

Method acting? Obviously the “method” is madness.

“That’s right.” Isis smiles up at me with a vacant look in her eyes. “It’s a new therapeutic treatment that brings couples to the brink of distress and allows them to drain every emotion.”

More like brink of disaster.

“I do feel drained.” Tad nods into her genius. “You really know your stuff.” His eyes venture south, and he reaches over and strokes her hand while hypnotized by the lower forty-eight. I’m sure that’s not all he’d like to stroke.

“I agree.” Mom continues to pinch her nose. “I’m finding this very beneficial. Skyla, you should consider a session with Dr. Edinger. She might be able to pull some things out of you that Dr. Booth couldn’t.”

I suck in a breath. Dr. Booth and I have a mutually satisfying professional relationship. I pretend to see him, and he collects a check. Besides, I thought we moved past my need for psychiatric attention.

“I would love to see Skyla and Gage.” Isis beams. Her glittering teal eyes light up the room with anticipation. “I’ve long since believed young lovers could very much benefit from counseling if not more than some old married couple.”

I’m not sure what’s more reprehensible, the fact she referenced Gage and me as lovers in front of my mother and Tad, or the fact she collectively dismissed them as hopeless geriatrics. 

Mom fumbles for words. I’m pretty sure Lizbeth Landon wasn’t suggesting couples counseling for her seventeen-year-old daughter. She meant the glowworm and me going at it mano-a-mano. But now look what she’s done. She’s gone and dragged my perfectly good boyfriend into the picture.

“They think they’re engaged,” Tad balks. “Maybe you can knock some sense into them.”

“A-huh.” She gives a dreamy nod into Gage. “I would certainly love to knock something into—”

“I think I hear the baby,” I say, grabbing Gage and leaving the room before Isis has the chance to knock any more of her perverse psychosis around.

I drag Gage all the way upstairs and shut the door, then turn off the lights.

It’s time to reinstate my sanity, one kiss at a time.

***

Alone in the dark with Gage Oliver is quite possibly the most perfect place on the planet, in this or any other dimensional plane.

I pull him in and cover his lips. I can feel his love pulse over me, his chest palpitate in rhythm with mine. If I could relive a moment over and over, if I could choose my own treble, it would be this moment with his searing affection poured out like oil.

I love you, Skyla,
he says, walking me back toward the bed.

There are still so many questions I have, like how he could even tolerate being in the same room with Chloe after what she did to us but I push the thought out of my head for now.

A thin seam of light floods over him from a crack in the blinds, and I can make out a faint smile on his lips as the inky dots on either side of his cheeks twitch in my honor. It’s magic like this with Gage—watching him take me in, swallow me whole into his heart, his mind. He memorizes my features, my body as it’s pieced together in shadows.

Gage lies me down. He raises my hands over my shoulders, blesses me with a river of kisses that span the distance of my lips and chest as far as my T-shirt will allow. He pulls up next to me and indulges in a sea of soft pecks before his determination increases. Those charged kisses harness an entire force field of raging passion. They’re the ones that let me know there’s a deep well of craving in him that can only be satisfied in a carnal manner. Gage longs to christen our love with a holy exchange of rapture that, according to my mother, will conjoin us on an unbreakable spiritual level—let no man put asunder what Gage and I fuse together with our flesh. The thought of the two of us merging our souls is amazing, a miracle I could ponder all night while feasting on the fire that races from his mouth.

A vision appears—Gage and I stand on a windy beach—it’s dark. The sand moves in smooth ripples, it looks alive beneath our feet, black as a panther. I’m yelling, crying. Gage points hard in my direction with a searing expression. This is no showcase of our affection, no prognosticating of some rosy love affair.

Gage sits up and takes a breath.

A choking sound emits from the tiny casket followed by a hacking cry—a welcome distraction to that alarming vision. I switch on the light and jump over to Beau, screaming himself into what looks like a seizure.

“Hey, you.” I reach in and pluck him free from that horrible crib they keep him in. Who puts a baby in a casket on purpose? Plus, it’s making me feel a little like the crypt keeper. “It’s OK,” I whisper as he wails into my shoulder. “You’re a noisy little Count, aren’t you?” Cute one, too.

Gage gives a crooked smile from the bed. He rides his gaze over me as I try to calm the screaming infant by bobbing him around and petting him like a puppy.

Gage pats the bed beside him until I bop the junior Count all the way over. We sit side-by-side, staring down at the red-faced infant with his tiny balled up fists and erratic kicking legs. So this is what it would be like if Gage and I accidentally had a baby—noisy.

“He’s an angry little guy.” Gage picks up his hand and jostles it gently.

“His diaper feels dry.” Lucky for him because I would sooner hack off my Chloe arm and eat it before I would change a dirty diaper. Yet another reason I would make a lousy teenage mother.

I pick him up and cradle him the same way I used to hold my dolls—which I’m pretty sure is entirely wrong positioning for an actual human, but instinct is kicking in and the only point of reference I happen to have comes from Mattel.

The wailing doesn’t stop. Instead, he arches back before digging his face into my shirt. His head turns side to side at a million miles an hour as if he’s trying to settle his hungry mouth over my boob, and he starts chewing on my shirt without the proper invitation.

“I’m guessing he gets this from his dad,” I say, handing him over to Gage before things get X-rated.

“Whoa.” Gage freezes, holding him out like a hot potato. “I don’t know how to do this.” An elevated state of panic brews in him.

“You’re fine.” I hop across the room and pluck the bottle Mom armed me with from off the desk. “Try this.” I lay the tip over baby Beau’s lips, and he shakes his head before latching on furtively.

“That’s better.” Gage sighs with relief. He steadies the bottle in the baby’s mouth and relaxes his shoulder against mine.

My heart melts at the sight. Gage is going to be the hottest daddy on the block one day.

He glances at me and his dimples ignite.

“So…” I push into him. “What do you think happened in that vision?”

Gage lays his head over mine. The world grows still around us, and for a brief moment, I trick myself into believing that we’re sitting in some distant future ten years out with our own child, on our own bed, free from the faction war and tunnels and Tad.

“Would you want this with me, Skyla?” He whispers it out like the lyrics to a very sad song.

“A family?” I pull back to look at him. “One day—very far away—but yes. I can’t wait until we make it through this all.” God, I hope we make it.

He sighs and gives a hesitant nod. “I wouldn’t worry about the vision. Let’s get through one day at a time—one
moment
at a time. Just know that I love you deeply. I would never in a million years hurt you.”

I dig my fingers into the back of his hair and dust the side of his face with a kiss.

“Same here,” I whisper.

But something must happen. You don’t just end up on a beach in the middle of the night screaming your lungs off at the people you love best. An ax has to fall right over your heart for something of that magnitude to take place.

And if it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s waiting for the ax to fall.

I bet I know who’s responsible for landing the guillotine right over my heart. I bet she’s scheming on how to do it right this very minute.        

Chapter 52

Testosterone Rising

Paragon trembles. The trees sway under the hostility of the storm brewing overhead.

Gage and I drive through a dark, restless night on our way over to Emily Morgan’s haunted habitat. The dirty clapboard hovel sits crooked on top of a sharp-peaked hill. It sits tucked in a far less posh neighborhood than even the humble Landon home resides.

“So Dudley’s coming?” Gage furrows his brows as he kills the engine. As much as I hate making Gage miserable, there’s something distinctly hot about a worked-up boyfriend.

“I swear, it’s just to look at Emily’s finger paintings. I have no intention of ever being alone with him. I’ll die if you leave me with him for one second.” That steamy fantasy I had earlier of Marshall flexing on top of me swirls through my mind, and I sink a little in my seat.

“Well,” he says as his eyes saucer out, “now that your life is on the line.” He relaxes his arms around my back, and blinks a quiet smile. His demeanor quickly changes. Gage grows still, altogether serious as death. “I can’t stand the way he looks at you, Skyla. I don’t need to read minds to know he has you ten different ways—nightly.” He gives a long concerted blink at the idea of Marshall fornicating with me in his mind like some pay-per-view movie. “I take zero responsibility for how I might react if he looks at you crooked. God forbid he bumps into you.” He glances out into the blank of night. “On second thought, he can bring it. I’m a bomb just waiting to go off, and trust me, he lit the fuse the minute he set foot on this island.”

“Don’t blow up.” I dot his lips with a kiss. “Marshall Dudley is so not worth it.”

Gage dips in, brushes his lips across mine soft as a butterfly before nourishing me with a lingual expression that lifts us to levels of ecstasy we have never visited before.

Let’s ditch the party.
Gage pulls me close as if he’s about to save me from the strong arms of the sea.

“I love you,” I whisper before thrusting my tongue in his mouth with a forceful kiss that falls in line with his desire to rearrange our plans for the evening. I run my hands inside his shirt and trace out his chiseled body as if it were a poem written in Braille that I’m determined to memorize. My fingers track down to his waist and I accidentally touch the hard bulge in his jeans and a groan wrings from my throat.        

A spastic knock erupts on the passenger’s side window.

Gage and I pull back to see the Sector of his discontent in all his youthful glory.

“Shit,” Gage says, getting out of the truck. “Let’s make this quick.”

I take in the cool night air as Marshall seethes over at Gage. He looks like he can set off a thousand bombs with just one glance from his heavenly-ordained features. Marshall is sick of Gage, and Gage is sick of Marshall. I have a feeling they’d love to come to blows—thrash each other to pieces.

Something tells me I won’t be leaving with Gage, if Marshall has anything to say about it. Then there’s Logan and our “date” centered around my mother and her meddling ways.

Something tells me it’s going to be a very, very long night.

***

“What’s with the fountain of youth?” I ask Marshall as the three of us make our way up the twisted path to Em’s slightly dilapidated dwelling.

“This is the new face, love. I’ve grown bored of the tired expression that greets me each time I look in the mirror. Speaking of which—young Oliver, are you open to adventure later in the evening?”

“I’m busy.” Gage doesn’t even bother glancing in Marshall’s direction when he asks. “Skyla and I have plans.”

We do? I thought Logan and I had plans. I thought Gage OK’d that late-night meeting with my ex, but apparently Gage isn’t taking shit from anyone tonight when it comes to our relationship.

Marshall strangles out a laugh. “Too busy to investigate what might lie on the other side of the most prized engineering endeavor the Fems have to offer?” If he’s trying to sweeten the pot, he’s doing a lousy job.

I’ll throw him in myself. Shall we take bets on whether or not he emerges in this century?
Marshall lays an arm over my shoulder and gives a sly smile.