Page 51 of Never Landing

He slid back and then forward again, experimentally, but it took him no time at all to find a rhythm, fucking into me in short, shallow thrusts that made us both pant and moan aloud.

“That’s how the magic works,” he told me, thrusting in hard and taking hold of my hips. “Aurora taught me how to be whatever I need to be. Do whatever needs doing.”

I shook my head and sat up, pressing my back into his chest. “Fuck the magic.” I turned to press my lips to his, and he responded eagerly, tangling our tongues together for a long, breathless moment. “It’s great, the magic. I’m glad you have it. I’m glad it means you’re still alive and we found each other. But the real magic isn’t fairy magic, Peter. It’s you. I love you. Not it.”

And that, well...that seemed to do it for him. He thrust hard into me, again and again, breathing heavily, but holding my hips in place so that I didn’t scoot forward on the bed as he fucked me. And somehow, that angle was just right, his cock shoving into just the right spot to make me see fucking stars. Without conscious thought, I reached down and grabbed my cock, stroking it furiously, knowing that at his pace, he was going to?—

His hands spasmed on my hips, gripping almost too tight, as he almost shouted in my ear, leaning forward and biting down on the sensitive skin of my neck. It was too much, and Ishot off, lightning zinging through me at the mass of too many sensations, too much, everything at once.

A moment later the room was silent again, and Peter was sliding his arms around me, breathing hard into my neck. “I’m sorry, that was too fast, right? The website said it would be too fast the first time. I can?—”

“It was perfect. Just like you.” Patting his hands where they clasped over my stomach, I gently leaned to one side till we both collapsed onto our sides on the bed, and slid forward until he slipped free of me. Then I turned over and faced him.

Peter.

My life.

My future.

“It wasn’t too fast,” I promised. “And it only gets better from here.”

32

Peter

It did.

It got better every time, and I wanted to tryeverything.

Sex was fun. Maybe the most fun thing I’d ever done, at least when it was with Everett. Looking at pictures online wasn’t the same, and even the people who put up videos...well, they weren’t Everett.

It wasn’t the two of us together, chasing laughs and gasps and moans and joy.

I got that same feeling I’d gotten when we were kids, sitting on the floor of his grandma’s living room, sneaking kisses under the noses of adults. Except it was even better, because there was no sneaking.

There was just heart-racing excitement and his gorgeous skin under my hands and the surprising warmth of his body and Everett. He was all I’d ever wanted.

And it wasn’t justsexthat got better—though that was great and for a few days after our first time, Everett had had to convince me to doanythingelse (though I’d gotten to convince him to make pizza with nothing but an apron on, and let me just tell you that little string tied at the small of his back, right above his gorgeous ass,did thingsfor me). Everything got better.

The people in Cider Landing really did need a handyman, and I liked figuring out how stuff worked. Eventually, magic twisted up with curiosity and I wasn’t sure where one began and the other ended, but it got easier.

And Everett? He spent a lot of time taking care of the administrative side of things. On Christmas Day, Everett came to me with—oh, it was the coolest thing ever. We’d decided on calling the business Honey Home Services, after the cakes my mother made, and, well, for the kids still out in the woods and the ones who’d come out like me.

And on Christmas Day, he showed me the logo he’d come up with, complete with a tiny honeycomb and the cutest little bee I’d ever seen. He hadn’t just drawn me a logo though, he’d set up a website of our own, registered the company—he’d set upeverything, and I’d never been prouder in my life.

This wasn’t something anyone had given Everett or me; it was something we made together, and I loved every piece of it. Ilovedthat when I stuck my business card up on the same community board we’d gotten those first jobs, that it was Everett’s art right beside my name—or, well, the name Peter Bailey, which felt more mine than Peter Hawking did. It was completely ours, our future right there, and I wanted to jump into the air and fly around town, shouting for everyone to hear that we’d done it!

That was...Dr. Hawking said, maybe a bit much for the regular people of Cider Landing. Nevertheless, even she seemed happy for us at the Hawking family reunion we attended that spring.

It was that summer Everett got his first commission from the town. He’d taken up painting again, and he was so freaking good that everyone knew it, and he’d done his first mural on the side of Marsha and Ezra’s market.

Now, he was working on one on the wall outside oftown hall, and I was there helping him.

Or, well, I was watching him work his own special magic on the plain bricks of the building.

I was staring up at him, squinting against the sunlight, when a girl appeared beside me.

“It looks nice,” Aurora said, her hands clasped behind her back, swaying back and forth on the patch of grass beneath the mural. “He’s good.”

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