“Gage!” I see a shadow in the distance at the end of the walkway that divides the resort proper from the boy’s dorms.
He turns around and his teeth illuminate in the dark as he gives a quick grin.
The snow comes down in a flurry. I pluck off my heels, running barefoot in his direction. The wind runs wild through my hair, weighing it down with fresh powder. The soles of my feet burn as though I were walking across hot coals causing my toes to go numb. Gage strides towards me, picks me up, and brings my lips up to his. He indulges in a sea of kisses that override the fact he just tried to kill our math teacher.
“You are too damn hot, you know that?” His dimples ignite as he trots us over to the darkened cafeteria.
“Kitchen’s closed,” I breathe into his neck as he lands me on my feet.
“It’s Ellis’ night,” he ticks his head towards the lodge. I don’t dare tell him I’m the reason he can’t get back to his room. It just sounds wrong in every way, even if it is just Ellis.
“Chloe will set me on fire if she finds us in my room.” A yellow cleaning sign leaning against the wall catches my attention. “Come on.” I lead him by the hand over to the women’s restroom and place the sign right outside the door. “A little trick I learned from Pierce.”
I flick on the lights, revealing a sofa and two end tables, a lamp in the corner just prior to the facility itself.
Gage slaps his hand down against a bookshelf, slides it over the door to keep all those with full bladders safely on the other side.
“A little trick I learned from my girlfriend.” Gage morphs into a predator with eyes like twin blue caldrons. He gives a wayward grin before flicking off the lights.
“No, wait!” I flip them back on. “I want you to see my body. The rest of this mess.” I pan over the artwork across my shoulders.
His brows arch, approvingly.
I unzip the back of my skirt, and drop it to the ground—unlace the corset and let that drop down as well. I still have my bathing suit on from yesterday, and I feel beyond disgusting.
“What the hell is this?” His head pushes back with surprise as he examines me from head to toe.
Not exactly the words you want to hear your boyfriend say the first time you present yourself to him, but under the circumstances... Plus technically he’s already seen me naked after he undressed me out of my cheer uniform, months ago. There may or may not be pictures, but I digress.
I pull him over to the couch and lay down. Gage kneels beside me and begins mapping out the intricacies of Emily’s artwork with his eyes.
“You mind?” He whips out his cell.
“No, please.” I don’t tell him that Marshall took more than one picture—that I was wearing less than a corset in most of them.
Gage eyes me like a cannibal—runs the pads of his fingers over my flesh as he leans in to read the markings, tries to make sense out of them.
“I think you’re the vine.” I lean over and trace it on one side all the way up to my ear. “This is Chloe,” I track the thorns around my neck.
“Makes sense,” he shakes his head, examining the briar patch that’s entangled our love.
“This is Logan,” I press my thumb against several of the circular lions decorating my torso.
“He’s everywhere.” He exhales soft over my stomach and sends a chill of exhilaration running up my back. He taps along the yellow dots as though they were Morse code. “I don’t trust him, Skyla.”
“Welcome to the club. What took you so long?”
“He has a supervising spirit.”
“What?” I pull up on my elbows. “Who? What? When?”
Gage barely breaks his gaze from his examination as he agonizes over the minute details Emily penned in fine ink over my abdomen.
“I don’t know the answers. He mentioned he was traveling into the future and I put two and two together.”
“Shit. What do you think he’s doing there?”
“My gut says it involves you.”
“What about the faction war?”
“He doesn’t care about the war, Skyla.” His muscles twitch at his jaw. “Whatever it is he’s doing, it directly relates to you.”
“Can he make an impression on me? Wait that doesn’t make sense.”
“No, but he can exist in multiples, and that alone is questionable.”
“Yes.” I try to take it in. “One of him is one too many. Maybe you speared the wrong person.”
“I didn’t spear, Dudley,” his cheek pulls to the side, and a dark dot appears.
“Logan?” I get why Gage would want to take Marshall down, but— “So why doesn’t it bother him that I’m with you?” Gage is lucky Logan didn’t spear him as well.
“Who said it didn’t bother him? Who said he doesn’t plan on killing me?”
“What?” I sit up, disturbed by the thought. “If that’s at all true, I’ll kill Logan myself.” An image of me standing with blood on my hands whips through my mind, and I take in a sharp breath. Was that a vision? It felt like so much more than a thought. “I think I’m learning,” I say it weak, uneager to share what I just saw.
Gage takes off his jacket—pulls at his shirt from the bottom, and it perforates as he rips it apart.
“What are you learning, Skyla?” A slow grin spreads across his face. He climbs up on the couch, and places a knee on either side of my waist before gingerly sitting on my stomach.
“I think you’re rubbing off on me.”
“I am?” His grin slides up one side as he takes my hand. He places my finger in his mouth and gives a gentle bite before slowly letting it out. His warm tongue runs over the tip before brushing it down his bare chest. “That sounds blatantly sexual—rubbing off on you—Skyla.” My name escapes from his lips like a siren song.
“It does sound wrong now that I think about it.” I sink down into the couch, suddenly wanting to escape. Gage is serious. His lust for me has disoriented him and now, the only compass back to his sanity is most likely in my…
Gage lays over me, brushes me with his lips, and hitches his thumbs into my bathing suit bottoms.
I thought so.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not happening,” I blurt. My heart is walloping against my chest so hard it feels like a fist knocking up against his chest. “I haven’t showered. I’m disgusting.”
“I don’t care,” his eyes close partially as he collapses another throbbing kiss over me. Something deeper than sexual hunger lingers there, a genuine ache to have me, and somehow I know this shared pain makes us stronger.
“I care,” I whisper. Plus, the ladies room is not the place to build that special memory with Gage, or with anyone for that matter—unless you’re Drake and Brielle. They seem to be just fine with restrooms.
“OK,” his disappointment expels in a heavy sigh. “We’ll practice.”
“I would love to practice.” I pull him down by the neck and let my tongue roam in his mouth, reintroduce myself to his teeth as I thump along each one.
Gage spreads his heated hands over my body in long easy glides. I unhook my bathing suit top and pull it off to the side. Gage cups his hands over me without hesitation, closes his eyes in ecstasy before looking down at me. We sync our kisses. We light up the night in a sea of flames.
I need to eliminate Chloe from our lives for good. Love like this is too rich to hide in a bathroom like a coward. Tomorrow, I’ll fill my time pumping the Kraggers for just the right rope I’ll need to hang Chloe from. I’ll wind the noose of her own misdeeds and watch her choke. She can shed her hope of ever having Gage through a river of tears for all I care.
Gage and I need to harness the power of our love to accomplish all of the good things the future prompts us towards, but not tonight—tonight we spin it into gold.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Deep End of the Night
About an hour after all the horns and screaming subside, Gage and I head back to the guy’s wing of the Pine Pole Lodge and I wa
lk him to his room.
“Knock, knock,” I say walking in through the open door.
Ellis has a towel wrapped around his waist as he rummages through his suitcase.
“Happy effing New Year,” he plucks a pair of socks out victoriously as though it were a rare event to find them.
“I guess this is goodnight,” I stand on my tiptoes and press a kiss into Gage.
“I’ll be ready in a sec.” Ellis flips a pair of jeans over his shoulder.
I hold a finger to my lips while leaning over Gage. I don’t want Ellis advertising the fact we’re going on a light drive.
“I have to go check in with Ms. Richards.” I tick my head towards the door. Ellis nods as though he were actually absorbing what I am trying to tell him.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you back to your room?” Gage rubs his thumbs against my cheeks in warm soothing strokes.
“I’ll do it.” Ellis offers, one-upping me on strategy.
“Alright. Tomorrow—you and me, the bunny slope.” Gage gives a husky laugh as he tickles my ribs. “Get some clothes on. And don’t give that top back. I wanna see you in it again and again.” He warms my earlobe with his mouth. “I sort of like you better without it.”
Something sensual erupts in my being, I never want to let him go.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“I love you.” I bounce a kiss off him and pull away to find Logan’s unrepentant look of disapproval.
I glare back at him.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been so eager to sacrifice me to the Counts, and sell his soul to the devils. And picking up a supervising spirit on the side so he can intercept some future event that destiny has already wrapped her arms around wasn’t such a great idea either. Maybe if he didn’t do those things, maybe then, I could have loved him—but not now, not ever. A great sadness blooms in me. He’s taken everything we had and tarnished it for all the supposed right reasons. I pray I don’t do that with Gage. I don’t want to kill our relationship with all my good intentions.
***
Ellis wraps his arm around my shoulder as we exit into the brilliant white night illuminated fantastically by the mirrored reflection of the moon.
We duck behind the shadow of the building and I take his hands in mine, shiver until I feel that familiar wobble when we reappear home on Paragon—one year removed.
The fog wafts in and out in waves as though someone were literally unfurling cotton batting from a bolt. It feels darn right tropical compared to the frigid climate back at the Pine Pole—code for North Pole.
“Remind me to look for elves when we get back,” I say, absentmindedly.
“OK,” he pats my back and starts to take off.
“Hey,” I pull him back by the elbow. “How many times have you come here with Chloe?” The only time I’m not here in duplicate is when we come in through Ellis’ treble. And thank God for that, or there’d be at least fifty of me running around by now.
“I don’t know six, seven? She’s come on her own, too.”
“Six, or seven? You’re worse than an addict.” And, Chloe flying solo doesn’t surprise me one bit.
“I’m not always here for the wrong reasons. I’m making my way down the roster of available love honeys.”
“Love honeys?” Only Ellis could make sexism sound so, well, sexist.
“Yeah, there’s another one running around I haven’t tapped yet.”
“One hour,” I say it curt as he takes off into the wild looking for his feast. “What does Chloe usually do?” I try not to shout.
“She mentioned something about home once.” His voice fades as he filters into the crowd.
Home? As in her room, my room—home?
It’s too damn far to walk. I can’t kill her again. I’m in no mood to trash Carly Foster’s car, been there done that.
Gage and Logan walk past me as they head into the house.
“Gage!” I quickly duck behind Ellis’ monster truck.
I see Logan disintegrate into the dark hole of the entry, but Gage stays. He wanders back onto the driveway with his hands stuffed into his pocket looking in every direction, slow yet hopeful. Technically, if I befriend him and ask him for a ride I wouldn’t alter a single thing.
So, I do.
***
“So, where do I know you from?” Gage swears he’s seen me before. He steals sideways glances as we drive through a garrison of evergreens on either side of the road that envelop our world in their ebony tunnel.
I know as fact that by this point in time, he’s already had our wedding vision. But what I don’t know, is if he’s playing coy or if he’s truly baffled by why I look familiar, so I play along.
“I have that face. Everyone thinks I go to school with them,” I say.
Gage didn’t bat an eye when I asked him to take me to Chloe Bishop’s house. A part of me wants to tell him that I’m from the future, tell him all about our love and what kind of magic we just shared in the women’s restroom—but I bite my tongue.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what’s that stuff all over your body? Are those real tattoos?”
“Um, no. It’s just a stupid a prank one of my friends thought was funny. I fell asleep and she pretended I was a coloring book.”
He nods into the road. “Looks good, though.” He tracks me from my waist up to my bare shoulders lethargically slow before reverting back to the headlights pouring over the asphalt. “So you go to East?”
“I’m just visiting.” From a whole other dimension. I pat my hands over my knees. “I know Chloe.” I was going to say we were friends but I don’t want to start my relationship with Gage based on a lie.
We pull up to the future Landon house. The landscape, the warm glow of lights from inside, it could be filled with my family just as easily. I marvel at how it hasn’t changed, or won’t, whichever.
“Just missed her,” he points down the road. “That’s her car. Left taillight’s broken,” he adds to affirm his theory.
“Oh,” I take a breath, looking over at the house. I snap my neck over at him as though I were possessed. “What time is it?”
He taps the computerized dash glowing an eerie green. It reads eleven-thirty four.
I’ll have to come back with Ellis—get Gage to drive me a little earlier and see what she’s really up to.
“I think she might have left something for me up in the butterfly room. Um, she mentioned it,” I hesitate when I say it.
“Butterfly room?” His brows form into the perfect letter V. “You know about the little room with the paper butterflies?”
“Yeah, you wanna come with me?”
“I don’t know if she’d like me in there when she isn’t home.” His dimples go on and off as though they were happy to see me, as if they remember my lips, my tongue.
“Oh, it’s OK. She won’t be back for like a year.” And when she does come back, it won’t be her room anymore.
I leave my heels in his truck and we dash up the driveway silent as thieves. Our hands bump, and I don’t hesitate entwining our fingers. I can feel something far more significant than a spark—a genuine rush of heat as though it were really the first time I touched Gage in any way. I take in his smooth features under the harsh reflection of the porch light as we stow away under the eaves. Gage looks younger, far more innocent compared to the rougher more cunning version who plans to trash Dudley while in his temporal human state.
His head tips to the side, something in him hesitates as though his dream were coming back to him in perfect clarity.
I pull him up with me, level after level until we land in the dusty attic. We crawl along the joists until we reach the tiny door, and slip inside. I flip on the light while he secures over the closure.
It’s surreal.
Being here with Gage in the butterfly room when I have yet to set foot on Paragon blows my mind in every good way. There’s an intensity here, and judging by the wide-eyed look on his face,
he feels it, too. I pull his lips down to mine and offer up the most chaste of kisses while everything in me cries for more.
His dimples slide in and out as he tips his head one more time with a measure of confidence regarding my true identity.
“What’s your name?” His warm breath washes over me, and I don’t ever want to leave. I want to stand here with the boy I love, just breathing Gage.
“None of your business,” it takes all of my strength to whisper those words—to keep myself from panting out the details of our lives with the fervor of a machine gun.
Gage takes up my face in his hands as though I were made of glass, presses into me with a scorching kiss that makes me wonder if my body could expire, dissolve completely from the experience.
I pull us down to our knees and we practice for hours for our first meeting—our first kiss, our first everything. Chloe will never return to this room. We can spend an eternity here if we wanted, swimming in our love, well into the deep end of the night.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lead Me
“I remember that.” Gage squints into me with one dimple glaring in my direction.
The morning light is heavily defused by a thin veil of somber clouds. They blanket the sky with their cruel intentions.
I fill Gage in on the most erotic light drive ever as we snake around the long line of the ski lift.
I don’t dare tell Gage I’m scared spit-less to do this. I watch as the pair in front of us fall back into the chair as it gently swoops them away.
We scissor forward and wait our turn. I’m pretty sure I’d rather fight off an entire herd of human-faced lions than endure a single day on this mountain while pretending to be sporty for Gage. The ski lift comes up behind us and we’re forced to sit as it glides us into the air.
“Where’s the seat belt?” I ask in a frenzy. As if having these fifty pound space boots weren’t bad enough, they strapped six-foot javelins to the bottom of my feet. I’m ridiculously bottom heavy, and I think I’m starting to slip.