Page 63 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
I almost choked on the idea.
“That makes complete sense to me.” Graceley didn’t sound angry; the charms on her hat jingled merrily as she tilted her head to one side to study me. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place? Anything would’ve been better than …” She paused, rubbing at her chin as if recalling my words from the first day we met. “This isn't happening. No fucking way. Or whatever it was that you said.”
My eye twitched, and I took another bite of the sandwich. It was damn good, actually. Just carved turkey breast, a very thin layer of mayo, and bread. Simple. Easy.
The opposite of this.
I continued on with the sandwich, mulling over what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it.
“Look.” I took the last bite, chewed, swallowed, washed it down with the last of the beer. My eyes met Graceley’s again, and my cock immediately sprung to the occasion, tenting my borrowed pants and making me grimace.
I’d only had sex once since, uh, having my junk fixed.
Just once.
And that was enough, wasn’t it?
“I must be virile as fuck, huh?” I suggested, and Grace’s lips parted in surprise. That wasn’t what I meant to say, not at all. Uh. It just sorta came out that way. I cleared my throat. “You’re … you’re sure it’s mine?” I asked, and her mouth shut, those pretty lips pursed into a thin line. I held up both hands in a defensive position. “I don’t mean that the way it came out.”
“Right,” Grace said with a small snort, leaning back in her chair, her black satin witch hat tilting forward in just such a way that my heart skipped a beat and I found myself looking away to regain some small semblance of control over the situation. If I looked at her too hard, that was never going to happen. I thought my dick had been responding to her and only her because she’d spelled me? You’re an idiot. The words came to mind, but it took me a sec to realize they were mine and not Connard’s. Not this time. “Because I have three husbands who I fuck on the regular.”
I turned back to her, breath catching as I caught sight of those emerald eyes peering out at me from beneath the brim of her witch hat. Graceley reached up with long, pale fingers and drew a single black nail along the brim.
“My husbands all take birth control potions.”
Ah. Oh.
Well.
“That …” she continued, reaching out to take my plate. I put my hand over hers to stop her, and she looked up at me.
“That?” I queried, this horrible tingle taking up in my fingertips and traveling through my arm straight to my chest—and my cock. My dick was as rigid as that stupid broomstick that’d tried to kill me during our Halloween flight.
“That, and I can … smell it,” she offered up, wrinkling her nose slightly. Graceley withdrew her hand, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. She looked over at me with a slight smile. “You can tell I’m pregnant, right?”
I was only half-witch, and everyone knew witches had the best damn noses; Grace could out-sniff any one of us. But I nodded. I did know she was pregnant. Whatever else she was smelling, I wasn’t sure.
“Demon,” she whispered, and then she leaned back, and her face shifted from soft and playful to sad. So fucking sad. I wanted to comfort her, even though I wasn’t sure I’d ever comforted anyone in my entire life.
I gathered up the two bottles and the plate. No way was I going to walk in here and add another line item to Grace’s to-do list. She didn’t need or want a fucking man-child in her house.
If I was going to stay here, I … I wasn’t going to get fresh cookies from grandma anymore.
‘Bout time you grew up, numb nuts. Or maybe that isn’t an accurate term considering you impregnated your soulmate on the first go? Idiot works just fine.
Now that, that was Connard.
I sat up straight and took a deep breath.
“What I meant to say was,” I began as Grace drew her melancholic face back to mine. “For the first time in my life, I’m making choices of my own free will that aren’t fear motivated.” I pushed the dishes aside, away from Grace and onto my half of the table. “All the women I slept with”—and here Grace actively cringed—“they were escapes for me. I knew I was going to be marrying Violet and that afterwards, it’d just be me and her. That terrified me.”
“Hex,” Grace began, but I forged on. If I didn’t say this now, in the late November moonlight, when was I going to? Me staying here wasn’t an easy or simple thing. My coven would retaliate; Violet’s cabal would retaliate. Likely, this would end in violence. I swept my fingers through my hair.
