Chapter 18 Winnie
The spell is finished, but I haven’t moved.
Fleur’s hand is still in mine, her thumb brushing lazy circles against my skin like she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.
The candles flicker, low but steady.
The circle’s edges are soft now—blurred, relaxed. But it hasn’t unraveled. Not entirely. There’s still something here. Holding us. Cradling us.
I should get up. Say something. Blow out the flames before they gutter on their own.
But I don’t.
Neither does she.
It’s not silence between us.
It’s pulse.
It’s breath.
It’s every unspoken word wrapped in the warmth still settling across my skin.
I look at her. Really look.
Her hair curls a little from the heat, eyes darker in the candlelight, lips parted like she’s still catching her breath. She doesn’t look ethereal or untouchable or otherworldly.
She looks real.
Alive.
And so fucking beautiful I forget how to breathe.
She squeezes my hand, not as a question—just a tether.
“I don’t want this to end,” I say.
Her voice is a whisper. “Then don’t let it.”
A pause.
Then: “Come here.”
My body moves before I can decide if it’s a good idea. I shift closer, knees brushing the salt line, then crossing it. I crawl toward her like I’m following a thread I can’t see but know.
She meets me halfway.
Her hands find my waist, slow and reverent, like she’s waiting for me to stop her. I don’t.
I never want her to.
We kiss.
We’re not falling into something.
We’re stepping into it…together.
Her mouth is warm and slow on mine, not searching, not urgent. Just present, just here. And when her hands skim up my sides, there’s reverence in them. Not worship, not distance, but something quieter—a promise to stay.
She draws back first, just enough to breathe against my lips. “Are you sure?” she whispers.
I nod, but that’s not enough.
So I speak.
“I want this. With you. On purpose.”
Her breath stutters, and for a moment I think she might cry. But then she kisses me again, deeper this time. A little hungrier. Like she needed the words to unspool something in her, too.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders and pull her with me as I lean back into the spiral’s center. The floor is warm beneath me from the candlelight and the lingering magic. It doesn’t feel hard or cold or uncomfortable.
It feels like something we’ve made sacred.
Like the circle wants to hold this.
She moves over me, bracing her weight on one elbow, and lowers her forehead to mine. “Then let’s make it ours,” she says.
The words root into me.
I nod again, and this time I speak too.
“Not taken. Not forced. Not broken.”
She kisses the corner of my mouth. “Not hidden. Not silenced.”
My chest tightens. “Not pulled apart.”
A beat.
Her voice is a thread of breath when she answers.
“Not this time.”
We undress slowly.
Like a ritual.
Like every layer matters.
She’s still wearing my shirt.
I hadn’t even realized until now—hadn’t thought about the fact that she came to me in a corset and lace, but fell asleep in something of mine. Soft cotton, threadbare at the hem. I’ve worn it a hundred times. It’s never looked like this.
She notices me staring and smiles, small and crooked. “Didn’t want to sleep in boning,” she murmurs, voice low and warm.
“No,” I breathe, “keep it.”
“Especially now.”
I reach for the hem slowly, let my fingers curl around it—not to pull it off. Just to touch. To feel the fabric stretched over her ribs. The fabric I’ve worn to bed, to bake, to cry into.
“I want to feel you in it,” I say.
Her eyes soften—then darken. “Then touch me.”
So I do.
My hands slip beneath the hem of the shirt, slow and steady. The fabric lifts as I move, catching slightly on the curve of her hips, until my palms are flush against her skin. Her stomach tightens beneath my touch.
She’s warm everywhere.
The kind of warmth that lingers from candlelight and magic and want.
Her thighs spread wider as I trace the dip of her waist. I don’t rush. I want her to feel all of it. The way I touch. The way I see her. The way I mean this.
She leans into me like she can feel the intention behind my hands. Her forehead rests against mine, her breath soft and uneven.
I let my hands roam lower—along the soft slope of her hips, the crease where her thigh meets her pelvis. Her breath catches as I tease the edge of it, fingers grazing just barely.
She tilts her head, eyes half-lidded. “Please.”
It’s not desperate.
It’s sacred.
I dip my head and press a kiss to the curve of her thigh, then another, just above her knee. Her legs shift apart slowly, giving me space, giving me herself, and I can feel the tremble in her muscles as she waits for me to move.
I push the hem of the shirt up higher—not all the way, just enough to bare her completely—and sit back for a moment, stunned. My precious Fleur, undone in the middle of a salt-drawn spiral, moonlight catching the arch of her throat, shirt wrinkled under her ribs and lips parted like a prayer.
I swear my hands shake as I touch her.
She’s already soaked.
One slow pass of my fingers through her folds makes her gasp, her hips stuttering up into my hand like her body was waiting for that exact moment to come alive.
Her breath catches again when I circle her clit—once, light, and then firmer, and she moans, soft but raw, like it surprises her.
Her thighs twitch under my touch, her hand fisting in the shirt still clinging to her arms.
“Winnie—”
“I’ve got you,” I whisper. “I’ve got you.”
And I do.
I ease two fingers inside her, slow and steady, until she gasps again—then stills, opening around the stretch, her body clenching down like she’s never wanted anything more. Her free hand curls into the floorboard beside her. She looks like she’s trying to hold on.
She doesn’t need to.
I keep going, steady and deep, letting her feel every inch of it. Her body rocks into mine, slow at first, then faster, like she’s trying to meet me where I am—like she’s trusting me to carry her the rest of the way.
Her breath breaks in my ear when I lean over her, bracing my weight on one elbow, mouth at her neck. She smells like salt and candle smoke and something warm beneath the skin—heat barely contained.
“More?” I murmur.
Her voice is a shudder. “Yes.”
I curl my fingers on the next thrust, slow and deliberate, and her whole body flinches.
“Oh—gods—”
I press my palm against her pubic bone, holding her there while I take her with my fingers, feeling every slick pull and clench of her body around me.
Her breath stutters. She clutches at my arm, like it’s the only thing tethering her to the floor, to the moment.
I lean in closer, lips brushing her temple. “You’re unraveling so beautifully.”
She whimpers—a sound so quiet I sense it more than hear it—and I know she’s close. Her hips start to move without rhythm, instinctive and messy. Her mouth opens like she’s going to speak, but no words come. Just my name, gasped and shattered.
“Winnie—”
“I’ve got you,” I whisper again, because I need her to know it. Because it’s not a promise; it’s a vow. I press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I’m right here.”
She sobs something into my skin—soft, half-formed—and I press my fingers deeper, curling them just right, keeping my palm pressed firm as her body begins to seize with it.
And then she breaks.
It starts at her core—tightening around me—and spreads through her all at once. Her thighs clamp around my hand. Her back arches off the floor. She cries out, the sound raw and full and so utterly her that I feel it in my chest.
Her orgasm rolls through her like a tide, pulling her apart in waves. I don’t stop. I stay with her. Keep the rhythm steady. Give her something to fall into.
“Breathe,” I murmur. “That’s it.”
She clings to me, arms around my shoulders, legs trembling, mouth still open on a soundless moan. When she finally starts to settle, she’s boneless beneath me, breath hitched and uneven, like her body’s still remembering how to be whole.
I ease my fingers out gently. She flinches, but not from pain.
From aftershock.
I press a kiss to the hollow beneath her ear, tasting sweat and salt and magic still thrumming in her skin.
Her breath ghosts against my neck as I pull her close again, like her body doesn’t want to lose contact—like it’s still echoing with the shape of mine. She doesn’t speak, but I feel it in the way her hands knot in the back of my shirt, in the quiet stutter of her exhales.
“Still with me?” I whisper.
She nods against my shoulder. “Barely.”
We stay like that for a breath, then another—heat between us still humming, air thick with candle smoke and storm light.
Her fingers trail up the back of my neck, curling into my hair as she leans in. Her lips brush my cheek, my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear. She doesn’t speak, just breathes me in.
I feel the shift before I see it—her body rising, steadying over mine with something deeper than hunger. Like the magic hasn’t left her. Like it’s guiding her now.
Her mouth is warm as it glides along my skin, unhurried.
She kisses the curve of my neck, then lower, across the slope of my shoulder.
Each press is tender, parted lips dragging just enough to raise goosebumps in their wake.
My whole body feels suspended—caught somewhere between the warmth of her mouth and the weight of her intent.
When her hands find the hem of the shirt I forgot I was still wearing, she pauses. Not to ask. Just to look.
Then she eases it up and over my head, slow, like she’s unwrapping something precious.
Her fingers skim my sides, and I shiver at the contact.
The air is cooler against my bare skin, but her hands follow fast enough to chase the chill away—palms broad and grounding as they roam the newly exposed skin.
Fleur leans in and kisses the center of my chest, just above the heart. Then again, lower, letting her mouth linger in the hollow between my breasts. Her nose brushes against my sternum as she breathes me in, and something in me clenches—low and aching.