Page 140 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

I want her completely undone. I want every careful, controlled piece of Flora to fall away until there’s nothing left for me to wonder about, until I can see exactly what wanting me does to her.

Her gaze catches mine, dazed and heavy with pleasure, and for a second she only stares at me. Then her hands finally release their death grip on the bench and move toward her breasts. She slides the thin fabric of her bra aside, and the sight of her, flushed and completely unguarded, makes my mouth go dry.

“Fuck, baby,” I groan, and then I bury my face against her again.

I lick and suck until I feel the shift in Flora. Her breathing hiccups, the leg still planted on the floor starts to shake, and her fingers roll her nipple as her eyes fall closed. She’s right there, and I can feel it in every increasingly unsteady part of her.

“I’m coming,” she says through gritted teeth, and then she tips right over the edge, her whole body going taut as her head thumps loudly against the wall behind her.

The sound makes me look up immediately.

Flora doesn’t seem to notice.

Her eyes stay closed, her head resting against the wall where it landed, lips parted as she tries to catch her breath. There’s a moment there where she doesn’t move at all, except for the uneven rise and fall of her chest.

“Flora?”

“Mmm.”

Smiling, I sit back and give her a second, absurdly pleased with myself as I watch her slowly come back to me.

CHAPTER 38

FLORA

Hours later, we lie tangled together in Merry’s bed without talking.

I’m on my back, Merry curled into my side with one leg thrown over mine, her head resting somewhere between my shoulder and my chest. My fingers move lazily along her spine, tracing the same path up and down without any real purpose, and every few passes I feel her fingertips skim across my stomach in return.

Downstairs, there’s a loud thump, and I assume it’s the cat playing loudly with the many toys in her collection.

Neither of us seems particularly interested in moving. Or talking.

It takes me several minutes to realize how unusual that is.

But Merry’s silence doesn’t feel like mine.

Mine has always been easy. A place I know how to occupy without wondering what should go inside it. Merry seems to approach silence as if somebody has handed her an empty room and asked her to decorate it immediately. She fills it with observations and questions and stories that begin somewhere in the middle. Sometimes she fills it simply by telling me what she’s thinking as she’s thinking it.

Tonight, she lets it stay empty.

I listen to her breathing instead.

Her hair is spread across the pillow beneath us, and every once in a while she shifts, not enough to move away, only enough to get comfortable. Her fingers find the ends of my hair and play with them absently.

I close my eyes.

“I have an intrusive thought,” she says, and I smile against her head. “I need to ask you something.”

I move her hair out of her face, and she tips her head back, finding my eyes. She diverts her gaze and looks at the ceiling with a deeply concerned expression.

“Do I want to know?”

She turns her face toward mine.“Why were you single when I met you?”

I wasn’t expecting that. My head settles back against the pillow while I think. Merry doesn’t rush to fill the silence, and that surprises me even more than the question.

“There was someone before,” I say eventually. “Alison.”