Page 24 of Skyblossom
“Maybetrue loveisn’t something you can predict,” she said. “Maybe it’s something you feel.”
I sighed. “And if I decide to make it serious and then thereissomething I feel on that last day of classes?”
“Then you can decide what you’re really interested in,” she said. “But it’s good to give Cadence a fair shake first. You two are really good together.”
“I mean…” I started, but I was cut off by Opal showing up, their eyes gleaming, as they dragged a woman over with them.
“Hey, guys, this is Helena, Helena this is guys. Helena, tell them about your artifact.”
Helena had a shellshocked look on her face like she didn’t want to go chatting about her artifact and she’d just made the grave mistake of casually dropping a reference to her artifact in the same building as Opal. I spared her by asking Opal a cool fact about artifacts, and Rosie took poor Helena to get snacks while Opal went off talking about artifact attunement techniques.
The event got into full swing before long—the last of the Championship Trials had just wrapped up yesterday, next year’s House Champions of the five Houses selected and currently having a victory streak of celebrating across campus while people took the excuse of the spring semester’s biggest event wrapping up to throw lavish parties. The five Champions-to-be made brief appearances, along with other prominent students and faculty, and when the event got rolling, Lumi and I got dragged to sit at the table with Cadence and her galeria, Cadence directly across from me. I’d thought I’d always want to be as close as possible, but actually—sitting like this so the whole world disappeared around us when she made eye contact with me—maybe this was even better.
She looked so pretty with her hair swept back like this, highlighting the shape of her jaw. The soft smoky-eye liner making her eyes pop… I found myself staring into her eyes so deeply I felt weirdly nervous, Rosie’s words echoing in my subconscious.
Lumi would kill me if she knew the kinds of things I was thinking. But wasn’t it a clear sign of things, if I was thinking things likegod, I don’t want to meet my true love?
Someone took the stage at the end of the room and spoke into the microphone, shimmering magic lights twinkling around us as the ambient lighting went down, but I didn’t notice a word they said with Cadence staring into my eyes. And I definitely didn’t notice them anymore when I felt a brush of presence on my knee, almost like she ran her fingers over me, but from that distance…
Oh, shit, that was the telekinetic flicker we’d both learned since Rosie passed us the spell primer. I stiffened, and a playful smile spread over Cadence’s features, stifling a laugh, and I pulled myself together. I wasn’t going to lose this. Not whenshewas the one with a skirt.
I pulled up a spark of magic from my fingertips, feeling the soft feedback of telekinesis more against my consciousness than against my body physically, but in a way, it felt even more intimate, especially as I could sense the soft, silky texture of Cadence’s leg when I reached it. Her pupils dilated just a little, and her expression turned a little distant, her smile hazy as she was suddenly anywhere but at an event table.
I felt the sensation of her legs moving, and she picked up her drink to cover the movement as I sensed her uncrossing her legs. I maneuvered the force to nudge her knees apart, and she tightened her grip on the stem of her glass as I lifted up her dress, laying it over one of her knees and caressing the sensation up her thigh.
People clapped. It took me a second to realize they were clapping for something the person on stage had said, and I dropped the telekinetic force to clap along with everybody, Cadence doing the same even though she was looking breathless.
“I like her,” Kali said from next to me, and it was only then that I realized the person on stage was a woman anyway.
“Yeah, me too,” I said. It wasn’t really a lie. I liked people by default. I was sure she was lovely. More importantly, I settled my hand back on my knee, moving it under the table to reach telekinetically back across to where Cadence had opened her legs a little wider, and I sipped my drink with my other hand while I caressed the touch higher up, teasing, dancing over her thighs. The speaker on stage kept talking, and I was glad for the cover, as I found myself drunk on the sensation, on Cadence’s struggle keeping a straight face, and I slipped the invisible force up higher, snaking further under her dress until I found the warm sensation at the top of her thighs. She nodded softly from across the table, looking at the speaker like she was just agreeing with them, and I guess I was actually doing this. God, she was hot.
I caressed the touch over the front of her underwear, soft and tender, and I could feel the way she twitched through her lower body, but she kept it cool above the table. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but I didn’t want to even imagine stopping. Hooked the force around the base of her underwear and pulled, sliding them down her hips, just enough for me to reach her center, maneuvering carefully as I slipped the invisible touch up to slip through her folds. She let out a heavy, shaky breath that she narrowly managed to conceal as a sigh of contentment, setting her drink down and picking up her knife and fork to busy herself with her plate, and I ran away with it, exploring the sensation of her touch.
God, I was so turned on I was going to ruin these pants. Whatever. I literally could not have cared any less right now.
I felt the sensation of Cadence’s wetness through the magic force, rising up and circling around her warm bud, and I felt her muscles tighten. I pulled back and paused just long enough to draw my wand under the table, helping me channel my magic more strongly, more precisely, and I reached the telekinetic force back out to find her center and make small, quick movements on her—it reacted perfectly, like a silent vibrator, and Cadence gasped, wide eyes as she picked up her glass and turned back to the speaker like she was justsoenthralled with what they said.
I kept the sensation there, finding a steady rhythm that let me keep it going, pressing softly against her, and I could see her tensing up more and more as it built up, until—the timing was perfect, and the speaker finished just as Cadence, well, finished, applause ringing through the room and covering up the small gasp Cadence let out as she reached her climax, closing her eyes like she was just taking in what they’d said.
I was going to thank Rosie later for this. And part of me wondered if any supposedtrue loveI was supposed to find would participate with me in things like this.
Cadence kept a straight face once I’d helped her put everything back, but in the break between speakers when the music came back on and she stood upto get some air,I gave her a minute before I saidoh, I could use some fresh air tooand stood up, following her up to a quiet balcony overlooking one of the opulent plazas of the Astral Quarter, busy despite the time of night, and I’d barely shut the door behind us before Cadence, the only other one on the balcony, slammed into me with a kiss that felt like it would break my jaw.
“Summer—”
“You seemed to enjoy that.”
“Take off your pants.”
“Oh—”
“No, don’t. Just pull them down.” She grabbed her wand, a shimmer of magic as a seal settled over the door, and I gasped in surprise as Cadence dropped to her knees in front of me. The—the angle of the balcony gave us cover from anybody who might have been looking. Mostly. From the waist down, anyway. Shit, I guess it was my turn to keep a straight face. I fumbled my pants open as Cadence pressed kisses against my thighs, and I closed my eyes and leaned back against the sealed door as I reveled in the sensation of her mouth on me.
Chapter 11
THE WINTER-BLUE BLUES
CADENCE
