Ethereal Knights Read online

  I muster the courage to walk up behind Skyla, but my feet refuse to move another inch, so Brielle scoots into me.

  I smile at Skyla like the idiot I am. “Look who decided to join the party?”

  Really? That’s what flies out of my mouth? Just fuck.

  She looks right at me, and my cheeks burn with heat. I high-five the guy next to her for no good reason other than to avoid spontaneously combusting under her supervision. Skyla gives a sweet smile and bites her lip as if she were unsure what to make of me. I’m about to open my mouth in hopes of something intelligible spouting out just as Logan walks up behind her, and I seize up like a broken engine.

  Perfect. With my luck, I’ll say something and she’ll ignore me once he flashes those pearly whites. It’s one thing to have Logan razz me about not having her, but another to watch her outright reject me in his presence, so I hold back on the conversation for now.

  “Hey.” Logan steps up into our circle, and Skyla lights up like a Christmas tree.

  “Everyone”—Brielle clears her throat while cozying up to the guy next to her—“this gorgeous boy is Skyla’s stepbrother, Drake.”

  We exchange hellos.

  Skyla averts her gaze. Her cheeks flush as if she weren’t too enthused to be introducing her stepbrother to anyone, tonight or ever.

  Logan hones all his energy in on her. “You shoot pool?” He wastes no time trying to get her alone.

  Logan is famous, or rather infamous, regarding the flesh exchanges he likes to conduct after dark. The only thing Logan likes about pool is the fact Ellis Harrison’s pool house has been known to double as a fantasy suite. Although, I’m not sure if he’s ever ventured into the pool house before. I guess this means he’s ready to kick things into high gear with Skyla.

  Ellis steps into them with a flicker of hope. “I’ll break some balls with you guys.”

  “No, thanks.” Logan doesn’t take his eyes off Skyla, probably trying to sway her with the hypnotic abilities he wishes he had.

  Logan nods toward the rear of the house, and Skyla follows him out of the room without so much as a See you later.

  She takes my heart away right along with her.

  And here I thought she’d be mine, forever.

  3

  Logan

  One and the Same

  The fog hugs the Harrison house like a wet blanket that God slopped over us, thick and cloying.

  I lead Skyla down the side yard, along a trail that takes us past the noise and confusion of the party. You can actually hear the crickets belting out their tune into the quiet solitude of night. I’ve never brought a girl to the pool house before. Ellis’s pool house is infamous for salacious activities of the pornographic variety. I’ve had both Miller and Bishop try to lure me out this way, but refused the offers. I made the mistake of sleeping with Chloe, twice. It hurt like hell when I found out she was stringing both me and my dick along for nothing. I wanted to love her. Something in me wanted to give.

  I brush the thought out of my head.

  I’m not taking Skyla out here to score, although if she wanted to round the bases, I wouldn’t argue.

  I talked to Barron tonight, and he seems to think I should test her, make sure what happened on the football field earlier wasn’t just some fluke. The truth is, I was dazed just being near her, never mind the fact I had the balls to wrap an arm around her shoulder. Maybe I did hallucinate the entire exchange. It wouldn’t be the first time a girl had me tongue-tied out of my mind.

  I let out a little laugh.

  Okay, so it would be the first time.

  Skyla rubs her arms to keep warm. Her hair glitters like it’s collected the stars as the dew nestles in her tresses. Skyla is her own universe—nothing but breathtaking beauty.

  I open the door to the pool house and wait for her to step inside before flicking on the lights. It’s toasty in here. Harrison likes to keep it heated for his “love honeys,” as he affectionately refers to his feline herd.

  Skyla runs her finger over the crimson velvet of the pool table. She bites down on her lips like a sexy little vamp as she watches me extract the balls from the pockets.

  Damn, she’s hot.

  A spike of perspiration ignites under my arms. To hell with the balls. The only thing I want to land on this table is Skyla.

  She swallows hard, clearing her throat ever so slightly. A look of remorse sweeps across her face as she darts a quick glance toward the exit.

  I’d better say something fast, before she bolts back to the party and Gage latches onto her for life.

  “So”—I take a breath, unsure of what’s about to fly from my mouth—“how long have you known?”

  Shit. Wrong question. Barron specifically said to test her first.

  I can’t help it, though. Skyla has me all twisted up whenever she’s around. She could get me to rattle off the combination to the floor safe at the bowling alley if she wanted.

  I hand her a pool stick with a reluctant smile.

  “Known what?” She blinks up as if she has no idea what I’m talking about, but something about the way her lips twitch tells me otherwise.

  I tilt my head and study her inordinate beauty—those high cheekbones, her cute pinched nose, hair like a lion’s mane. God, all I want to do is pull her in and cover her mouth with a kiss that goes on for days.

  “That I like to play pool?” She looks up at me from under her lashes before leaning in and shooting the ball across the table. “Stripes.”

  Skyla remains frozen, perfectly bent over, most likely amazed she got the ball to obey her command. I snap up a stick and step in behind her. My heart is ready to explode from my chest, among other bodily explosions that are begging to happen right about now. I lay over her gently and mold my chest to her back, feeling the contours and gaps fill in with a heated satisfaction. I’m not too interested in anything my grey matter might want to inject in the situation. I’m firing on one hundred-percent primal instincts right now, and I’m fucking loving these primal instincts.

  Her body rises to meet me. Her bottom tucks into my hips, and I bury an audible groan in my chest.

  “Solids.” I blow the word over her ear in a heated exchange while trying to get a grip on my breathing.

  Skyla spins around. Her eyes glitter with a smile all their own as she touches her nose to mine for a brief second.

  Hot damn. I do believe she’s flirting in the best way possible.

  I run my fingers through her hair before stroking the back of her neck.

  Kiss me, I roar it out like a lion and wait to see if she heard.

  Skyla moans into me, landing her lips over mine in a barely-there pass that far exceeds anything erotic I’ve ever experienced. She traces out my lips with hers before taking a hold of the back of my neck and plunging her tongue into my mouth in one fantastic fit of rapture.

  Everything in me loosens. I’ve kissed girls before, but never with this much urgency. Our lust is explosive, enough to fuel a rocket to Mars. We exchange soft moans of passion, kisses that map out the landscape of one another’s mouths. This was a salivary exchange for the ages—a love story in the making.

  I try to zero in on her thoughts, but she’s holding up the wall, and so am I.

  Skyla relaxes over the pool table, and I ravish her face, her ears, her fucking sweet neck with a hot bed of kisses. I loop my fingers in her shorts, and she doesn’t object. The growing bulge in my jeans very much wants her shorts off—her sweater, too—but something tells me I’m not in the running for the gold tonight.

  Skyla groans, and I can’t take it anymore. I bury a series of kisses over her heated skin before landing on her lips again.

  Right here, right now, I growl into her.

  “What?” She smacks me in the chest and sends me flying.

  Shit. “Sorry.” I throw my hands up like a criminal, hoping she won’t bolt.

  Skyla hitches a loose hair behind her ear like a habit. Her lipstick is slightly smeared, and sh
e’s smoldering at me without even trying.

  “I better go,” she whispers before taking off like a bullet.

  I’m still panting, trying to catch my breath like some distance runner, so I don’t stop her.

  I adjust my jeans, trying to get the stallion back in the stall for the evening. I’d like to make my way into the crowd without causing a scene. For sure I want to alleviate any tension between Skyla and me before it’s too late.

  It’s obvious she heard my proposition, although I could have tested her in a number of ways. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to let my primal instincts take over one hundred percent when she’s around. Something tells me I won’t have a say in the matter—and that “something” just so happens to be a foot-long hard-on trying to rip from my Levis.

  I glance over at the bathroom.

  I think I’ll alleviate a little tension myself before tracking down Skyla.

  ***

  After a long, cold shower in the pool house, I make my way back to the party and scan the crowd for the girl I hope to God I didn’t piss off for good.

  I struggle my way through the mass of humanity, but I don’t see any sign of Skyla.

  Michelle spots me from across the room and salutes me with her red plastic cup. Michelle Miller is wasted and easy—a combo I might have considered as a gift from above up until yesterday. Funny how I’ve known hundreds of girls in my life and not one of them has ever inspired me to take an emergency shower in the middle of a raging party.

  Skyla catches my attention near the kitchen with her hair still rumpled from behind. She leans over the wall as if she’s spying on someone. Please God, don’t let it be Gage.

  I don’t waste any time in heading over.

  “Skyla,” I whisper from behind.

  She doesn’t bother to turn around. Instead, she continues to check out Brielle attempting to hump her brother against the fridge. Skyla probably wants to run over and rescue him—I can’t blame her. Brielle has been known to eat boys like him by the dozen in just one night. There’s a reason they call her “the Head Monster.”

  I try to hide the smile hedging on my lips as I move in front of Skyla.

  “I think we need to talk.” It takes everything in me not to take her in my arms and hold her—mold my hands over her curves. She looks confused, frightened, and a little overly concerned about the kitchen antics of her new neighbor.

  “Look”—she blinks several times as if holding back tears—“I just really want to go home.”

  She leans into the wall with her lips quivering, and my hard-on resurrects itself as if it never left—as if I didn’t just have hot shower sex with Skyla in one of the most viral fantasies of my life.

  “Let me take you,” I offer.

  She washes over me with her gaze and frowns.

  Between Brielle and me, she probably thinks the entire island is overrun with a bunch of sex-starved villagers, which it’s not. It just so happens that Brielle and I are sort of anomalies—and I know for a fact Skyla can satiate any desire in me for women all by herself, from now until kingdom come.

  Skyla and I walk out front where the cool night air sifts over us, infused with the scent of ripe pines. She doesn’t reach for my hand like I was hoping—in fact, she stands with a three-foot clearance as if she’s terrified to confirm what we both already know. I lead her down the driveway, a little relieved Gage hasn’t hunted us down and scalped my balls by now.

  “So, where we going?” she asks, taking my hand with her soft, cool fingers, and I groan with pleasure from her simple touch.

  I pause and look at her under the halo of a powder-soft moon. I live across the street, I say, gazing into her eyes, begging for her to confirm my theory.

  Can you hear me? She looks uneasy when she asks, as if maybe she’s never had a conversation with anyone this way before, and maybe she hasn’t.

  “Yes,” I say relieved, barely able to contain the laughter trembling from my chest.

  “Oh, God.” Her face bleaches out, and for a minute, I’m afraid she’ll pass out.

  He hears me. He knows my thoughts. She takes her hand back like snatching it out of a fire.

  She leers at me with a sarcastic look in her eye, as if she’s speaking to me telepathically.

  I give a half-smile. She’s so damn cute without even trying.

  “I need to touch you,” I tell her.

  “You’re just like me.” She dips her knees a little when she says it, and blooms with a smile like she’s been waiting for me all her life.

  That golden hair, that picture perfect face. I can feel the shakes coming on. I’m mesmerized by the effect her beauty has on me.

  “And you’re just like me”—I push in until we’re a breath away—“but prettier.” My lips crash over hers in a heated exchange that sears our lips together. I’ve kissed plenty of girls but never felt as charged as I do with Skyla. This is bigger than just a simple kiss. This is a collision of something powerful, something magnetic—the surge of atoms bonding with isotopes—nothing short of the nuclear detonation of our affection in the making.

  I lead her across the street and grab my keys before helping her into the truck.

  “You really want to go home?” I ask, landing behind the wheel and firing up the engine.

  “Not really.” She pulls at one of her curls before dipping it into her mouth like an invitation. “You wanna just drive?”

  Just drive. The pervert in me tries to figure out what that might be code for back in L.A.

  “Sure,” I say, pulling out of the driveway. “I know just the place to take you.”

  Skyla shifts in her seat as we head onto the road. I glance back over at the sea of bodies floating around Ellis’s house. I was sort of hoping Gage would see us leaving together and put to rest any idea he might have of injecting himself in the situation.

  “I know I’m from L.A. and stuff”—she clears her throat—“so you probably think I’ve been everywhere—done everything.” Her lashes flutter as she blushes in my direction. “But I haven’t, and I don’t plan on it. I’m a…”

  She fumbles a moment, unable to finish her sentence with the word virgin as the endcap. I wince at the thought of inciting her to go there.

  “I’m glad you haven’t been everywhere”—I’m quick to assure her—“or done everything.” I offer a quiet smile that fills in the blanks better than words ever could.

  We head down the main highway for what feels like a good stretch of eternity. It’s nice like this with Skyla. I don’t ever remember feeling so comfortable with anyone before, let alone a person of the female persuasion.

  “Do you know what it is?” I ask, referring to our shared mystical talent that has the ability to land us both on the government’s sci-fi watch list if we’re not careful.

  I pull into Devil’s Peak and park by the overlook. The water sparkles like a jewel, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Skyla with her face smoothed to perfection like a porcelain doll.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she whispers as waves crash over the rocks below.

  “So are you, but you’re evading the question.” I take her hand and let it settle in my palm. Do you know why you’re like this?

  She takes a breath and holds it.

  An image emerges. She’s thinking about an older man with a kind look in his eyes. She feels at peace when she sees of him. I’m guessing it’s her father.

  My own parents float to the forefront of my mind. The picture I have on my dresser comes to me with perfect clarity—the one of me as an infant, nestled safe in my mother’s arms while my father embraces the two of us. It was taken in that short window in my original life without the burns. That’s me in the middle. I nod into her.

  I’m sorry. Her eyes tear up instantly. What happened?

  Car accident—so I was told. My mother died trying to get me out, but I hold that part back just beyond the border of my thoughts. It’s not that hard to lock her out of my mental musings, a little trick I lea
rned from the master himself, Gage.

  “I could do this with my dad.” She shudders at the thought of doing it at all. “My mom, my sister—they can’t.”

  “Gage can’t.” A surge of guilt pulses through me. I don’t know why I’m so quick shoot him down. He’s amazing on his own without the ability to read anybody’s mind. “Look—I just want you to know I don’t make a habit of touching people and reading their thoughts.”

  “I’m impressed.” She twists her lips as if she’s not.

  “Are you?” I pull her hand to my mouth and touch each of her fingers to my lips. “But you don’t really know why you can do this, do you?”

  “No.” Her eyes widen like softballs. “Will you tell me?”

  I lean in and collapse my arms around her like I’ve been dying to do all night. Skyla holds the scent of the air in springtime, like fresh cut flowers releasing their sweet perfume, and I inhale until my lungs are ready to burst from the effort.

  “Yes, I’ll tell you.” I dust my cheek over her face until my mouth brushes gently against hers. “But not tonight.” I land my lips exactly where they want to be—diving over hers for an erotic eternity. Skyla and I make the stars wish they could burn through the atmosphere with such heated precision.

  There’s not a cold shower in the world that could douse the fire brewing between us.

  Gage

  In the morning, I hear the faint sound of whistling outside my bedroom.

  Crap.

  I pull the pillow over my head, trying to drown him out. I know damn well it’s Logan, and his whistling means he’s in an all too chipper mood from God knows what. I roll over trying to ignore the fact my bladder demands to burst.

  I dreamed of her again. It was her this time without a doubt. Skyla and I walking hand in hand along a black sandy beach. Her hair flowing in the wind, a smile locked and loaded on her lips all for me.

  A hard series of knocks explode over my door. “Rise and shine, princess.” Logan’s voice booms inside my head like the crash of an annoying cymbal. “Your mom wants you downstairs for breakfast.” His footsteps dissipate, and the tension in me reduces as he stomps away.