Chapter 43. Grayson
Grayson
“It’s getting late,” Eloise says, staring at the papers spread all over the coffee table. “We should try one of these spells.”
We’ve spent the entire evening working on the poem and coming up with magical combinations to call the Key. But I’ve been skirting around the casting part because I know we’ll have to touch. And touching Eloise while doing magic is unavoidably intimate.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, and she gestures to the tray of empty plates.
She stands, stretching her arms above her head, revealing a thin strip of skin between her shirt and pants. We’re already off to a bad start.
“Maybe…,” I say.
“No more delays, Grayson. Let’s just try a simple spell. This one,” she says, pointing to a scrap of paper.
She rubs her hands together and starts humming, a joyful song that lights up her eyes and makes her smile. She pulls from the wooden table to form a tiny vase that floats down to land in the palm of her hand.
That’s my cue. I immediately bloom a single stem covered with brilliant fuzzy orange petals—lion’s tail.
I lower it into her vase and she offers me her hand.
Her lioness eyes meet mine just as my fingertips graze her palm.
I can still feel the remnants of her magic flowing through her soft skin, like an echo of the song she was just singing.
Light and buzzy and entirely distracting.
My eyes flit to the corners of her bowed lips.
I was right; that kiss was a mistake, mainly because of my annoying inability to forget it.
I step closer. Or maybe she does. But for the first time in my entire life my stomach does a damn flip on me.
“Grayson, look!” she exclaims, her voice upticking in excitement, and I do, just in time to see the air shimmer next to us.
It doesn’t shimmer for long and the Key never appears, but it’s definitely something.
“Do you know what this means?” she asks.
That I’m done for? That she’s going to want to tell my uncle, which I can’t have.
“The Key comes even with simple magic, as long as we’re touching, and we’re both casting,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Let’s go again. Let’s try another spell.”
She makes a wooden glass and I fill it with water. She makes a dagger handle and I make the blade. On and on until her magic starts to wane. The Key never fully appears, but we get sparks and shimmers, and her enthusiasm over it is infectious.
“I honestly can’t believe it,” she says, putting down her water glass on the table. “That we’re actually figuring this thing out. We’re doing the impossible, Gray.”
I pause. “Did you just call me Gray?”
She laughs. “As in your name?”
My lips quirk up. “Last time I checked, you’ve never called me anything other than Grayson. And you add Stone to it when I’ve annoyed you.”
“Which is always,” she says, but she’s in such a good mood it sounds like a compliment.
“Would you rather—”
“No,” I say too quickly. “I like hearing you call me Gray.” My voice comes out a little rough, and pink starts to creep along her cheeks.
“Then I guess I’ll call you Gray,” she says.
I clear my throat. “There’s a guest room two doors down that you can stay in,” I say, calling it quits on all this magic touching. “And a bathroom in the hallway.”
“What about your seduction story?” she asks.
“I’ll figure something out. I’m not going to make you uncomfortable just to keep my uncle from getting angry.”
Her eyebrows pinch together and she considers me. For once I’m not sure what she’s thinking, and I really wish I knew. But her scent is giving nothing away.
“I don’t mind sleeping in here if it’ll help,” she says with a little shrug.
And now it’s me who’s struggling because I have no idea what’s going on.
“You were honest with me about your uncle,” she explains. “And I’m not uncomfortable. With this much on the line, I think we should do everything we can to keep up appearances.”
I clear my throat, glancing at the couch and trying to get my bearings. “Yeah, uh, in that case you can take the bed.”
“Besides,” she says with a laugh. “This room is so big my whole family could fit. My little sister and I share a double in a room that’s barely big enough to fit a dresser. When I was little and Grandad and Dad were still alive, my sister and I shared a cot in the living room.”
“If my family slept in the same room, I don’t think we’d all survive the night,” I manage. I mean it as a joke but she doesn’t laugh.
I move to my closet and grab a pair of gray sweats and a black T-shirt. “There are pajamas in the hall closet if you want them,” I offer.
“I do want pj’s, but the idea of picking them out and altering them with magic sounds like a lot of work right now,” she says. “Would it be okay if I borrowed something of yours? Do you have a T-shirt and maybe a pair of shorts?”
I turn back toward my closet. “There’s this,” I say, tossing her a white T-shirt. “There’s no way my shorts will fit you. But I have a pair of new boxers—never worn—if you want those?”
“Sure, that works,” she replies, and I slip into the attached bathroom to change and give her privacy.
But when I step out, I’m not prepared. She’s rolled my boxers at the waist and my T-shirt is oversized on her, hanging off one shoulder. And her legs …
“What?” she says. “Do I look ridiculous or something?”
“Ridiculous? No. I just…,” I trail off, raking my hair back and trying to get a goddamn grip.
“You just what?” she presses.
“I like you in my clothes,” I admit on an exhale. “A lot.”
The longer we stand there staring at each other, the more the tension between us heightens.
Which is when her fresh spring scent starts billowing toward me full force.
Her lips part ever so slightly and it takes all my willpower not to cross the room and rub my thumb across them. Trace the line of her neck and …
Snap out of it, Grayson.
“I need to crack the window,” I say, struggling.
She raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Your scent,” I say, and her cheeks immediately flush.
But then she asks, “Is it good or bad?”
My brain misfires. “What?”
“My scent. Is it good or is it bad?” she asks, her voice so low it’s almost a whisper.
My entire body is hyperaware of her, of how many steps it would take to reach her. Of what her velvety skin would feel like under my fingertips. “Your scent is good. Okay? Very good,” I say, hating to admit how helpless I feel right now.
“So, you’re struggling to resist my delicious scent?” she says, half curious and half challenging.
And I move. I don’t even make the conscious choice, but suddenly I’m standing only one inch from her body, my breath coming quick and heavy.
“Claws,” I say in a drawn-out way. “I’m trying really, really hard not to screw this up.”
“Screw what up?” she asks, staring up at me.
“This,” I say, her proximity stealing the last of my reason. “All of it.”
“I might be dead in a week, Gray,” she says, the nickname taking me out. Not to mention her scent isn’t fear, it’s desire.
“I will never let that happen,” I say, meaning every word, and her breath catches.
Just that small sound at the back of her slender throat and I’m lost. Then she lifts her hand, lightly pressing it to my chest and whatever restraint I still possess snaps.
I reach out, brushing her long hair over her shoulder, my thumb grazing her neck as she leans into my touch.
I bend toward her, our lips nearly touching and the feel of her breath driving me mad. “I’m not a good guy,” I warn her. “You should probably stay away from me.”
“I think you’re better than you realize,” she says, and I want so badly to believe that. I want to be the man she thinks I am.
Her pupils dilate, and her breath hitches, and I know there’s no going back, no rewinding these last couple minutes and forgetting them. Ever so gently I brush my lips against hers like a question. She smiles.
I groan. “You taste as good as you smell.”
Her hand moves up my chest to the back of my neck and she deepens the kiss, pulling me toward her.
Now there’s no hesitation, no feather-light touches. My kisses turn hungry. I loop my hands under her thighs and lift her up in one easy motion, enjoying the weight of her in my arms.
She wraps her legs around my waist and I walk her toward the bed, placing her onto it. The soft comforter catches her back and she laughs.
I linger, enjoying the sight of her on my bed, and she flashes me a wicked smile.
My hands come down on either side of her shoulders and I study her, wanting to remember every second of this, the way she looks in my T-shirt, the way she fits in my arms.
She reaches up, running her fingers through my hair and my stomach coils. Suddenly, my lips are on hers again, my hands sliding under her back. Her tongue finds mine and she arches into me.
I feel myself slipping. I’m losing myself in this, in her. Her legs are around my waist, my weight is on her chest and I know as my hand grazes her thigh that if I don’t stop now, I won’t be able to—I don’t mean in this moment, but full stop. That if I fall here, I’ll never get back up.
I can’t do that to her. I can’t taste her and kiss her and tangle her body around mine when I know what I know. Truth matters to her. It’s a cornerstone of who she is. And I can’t do this if I’m going to give her less than that.
So, as her hand slips under my shirt, grazing my stomach and sending me spiraling, I pull back.
“We can’t do this,” I say, standing up and pushing my hair back with both hands.
“I thought—” she says, and the scent of her confusion guts me.
“We can’t,” I say more insistently, wanting to explain but also unable to. “It wouldn’t work. Ever. You don’t know me. And you wouldn’t like me if you did.”
She stares at me, trying to make sense of my words. “Don’t you think that’s my decision to make?” she says, sitting up in my bed where I can barely look at her.
“I don’t date,” I say with finality. “I hook up with girls, sure. But that’s about it.” I hate my words, however true they might be, but what I hate more is how they affect her.