Chapter 26
JAMIE
The road up the peak is gravel for the last two miles.
Dust kicks up in our wake. Blaire rolls down the window, and the cool autumn air rushes inside.
She closes her eyes, soaking in the sunshine.
Now she’s got her hand out the window, catching the wind between her fingers.
I steal glances at her, committing her current happiness to memory.
The cabin comes through the aspens. Leaves flutter around the structure, covering the ground and driveway.
A porch wraps around the house, and there’s a wooden swing on chains at one end. Blaire grins, then glances at me before we get out of the car. The leaves crunch under her boots. I move to the trunk and grab the groceries. She slides her suitcase out.
“I was going to get that for you.”
“I’m an independent woman, Jamie.” She grabs my duffel too.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve queen treatment.”
One of her brows pops up. “If you keep saying things like that …”
“Then what?”
She shakes her head as she leads the way up the porch. Seconds later, she’s pulling a set of keys from her pocket and unlocking the door.
“Home sweet home,” she says, but it sounds like she means it.
“This place makes you happy.” I place the bags on the counter and begin unloading them.
“It does. My dream is to live in a witchy little cottage in the woods. Autumn owes me one, actually.” She moves closer to me, helping me unpack everything.
“Why is that?” I put oatmeal in the cabinet and berries in the fridge.
“Well, Autumn asked me to cast a love spell for her. Within thirty days, she met Zane.”
“Wow,” I say, unwrapping the six bottles of wine and pumpkin pie vodka I bought. “Now that’s a scandal.”
She picks up the bottle. “This looks like a bad idea.”
I grin, wrapping my arm around her waist, pulling her closer to me. “Me or the vodka?”
“Both,” she whispers before our mouths slide together.
We kiss until I forget where I am. Before things go off the rails too much, she flattens her palms against my chest.
“We’ll never put the rest of these groceries away if we don’t stop,” she says.
We’re breathless. She pulls away because one of us has to be responsible.
“Work first. Then we play.” Blaire shoots me a wink.
Once the groceries are taken care of, she grabs my hand and leads me to the living room. Blaire doesn’t waste any time building a fire to get the chill out of the room. Because she’s an independent woman, I stand back and let her do her thing. It’s sexy.
“What?” Dark hair falls around her as she stacks the logs perfectly around some kindling.
“You’re fucking mesmerizing.” I shove my hands into my pockets as she strikes a match. It catches immediately.
She chews on the corner of her lip and steps back, watching the flames lick up the stone. She rises and dusts her palms on her jeans, then gives me a slow once-over on her way past.
Once she disappears into the kitchen, cabinets open and close. When Blaire returns, she’s carrying the pumpkin pie vodka in one hand and two shot glasses in her other.
“Shit. We’re getting started early. The sun is still up.”
“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” She sets the glasses on the coffee table and joins me on the couch as she pours them full.
“Right here,” I mutter.
Carefully, without spilling, Blaire hands me the glass. For a second, she watches me over the rim. “What should we celebrate?”
“Being together through the storm,” I tell her.
“To us,” she says.
“Love the sound of that.” I touch my glass to hers and swallow the toast down with the sweet burn.
The vodka tastes like a candle, but it goes down smooth.
“Very dangerous,” she whispers. “As I suspected.”
She pours a second round without asking. We drink this one slower, with her shoulder against mine while the fire crackles.
“When you’re with me, do you have to pretend?” she asks. “I keep thinking about the things you’ve said and things I’ve read.”
I scoot my body in a way that I can meet her brown eyes. “You’ve never gotten Jameson Cross, the character.”
“Can we keep it that way?” She sets her glass on the coffee table and turns toward me, folding a leg beneath her.
“I feel the pressure pressing in on us. There’s a ticking clock and the public.
The end is coming—I know that—but I want to be able to enjoy you.
I don’t want the bullshit to ruin this.”
“You’re the only person who’s gotten the real me other than family. I could never pretend with you, Blaire. Not even when I tried,” I admit, tucking hair behind her ear.
She leans into my touch, and the teasing vanishes from her eyes. I set my shot glass beside hers.
Blaire climbs onto my lap. Her knees sink into the couch as she straddles me. I slide my hands up her thighs to her hips.
We kiss, the vodka sweet on her tongue. My hands slide under her sweater, and she reaches to pull it over her head.
I can’t explain what it does to me, but my grip tightens on her hips.
I kiss the hollow of her throat, and she arches into it. Fingers work down the buttons of my flannel until she pushes it off my shoulders. I turn us and lay her back on the cushions. The old couch is big enough to hold us both without any issues.
When she shivers at the cool air, I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and cover us. The fire is doing its best with these mountain temperatures.
“You’re so warm,” she murmurs against my jaw.
“You’re beautiful.”
She captures my mouth. I kiss my way down her throat and lower, learning her by the inch. I’ve already figured out what makes her sigh and moan.
“I want you inside me,” she confesses.
Who am I to deny her?
She’s tight around me and gasps with every stroke.
The sound she makes when our ends meet will live in my head for the rest of my life.
She wraps her legs around me, adjusting to every inch.
With my face in both of her hands, she watches me.
I keep my gaze focused on hers. Firelight moves over her throat and her breasts, and the flush spreads down her chest. I want to memorize her like this.
“Jamie.” Her voice is strained, desperate even.
It reminds me that our time is running out.
Panic quietly.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she says, almost as if she’s answering my thoughts.
I give her more of me, and she loves it. Her nails drag down my back while her heels lock behind my thighs. With each thrust, she pulls me deeper.
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
She tenses beneath me, and I bury myself inside her, following her lead.
“That felt different,” she says.
The crackling of wood and our hard breathing fill the room. That tingling sensation runs from my toes to my fingers.
“Yeah.” It’s the only word I can form after that.
She lies against my chest in the narrow space, blanket pulled to her shoulders, drawing lazy shapes over my heart. Her hair smells like apple and cinnamon. I run my thumb along her bare shoulder, knowing I’m falling.
“I think I could stay right here forever,” she mutters.
“Don’t tempt me.” It comes out low.
She’s silent for a moment, but her fingers don’t stop moving. “You have a life in New York. You told me you missed it, so you went back.”
“And what happens when I miss you?” I ask, holding her on the couch while the light through the windows streams gold.
How many more afternoons do we have? If only there were a version of this that didn’t end on Halloween.
“You can always come back and visit,” she says with a smile.
She means it. Visit is what you do to a place you don’t plan on staying.
“Sure,” I tell her and kiss the top of her head.
Blaire falls asleep for a brief second, then jumps awake. She wiggles out of my grasp and stands, taking the blanket with her. “The sun will set in a few hours.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yes.” She slides her sweater on, not reaching for her bra. “There’s one thing we have to do together.”
I find my jeans. She moves into the kitchen and opens the cabinet above the stove, where all the spices are kept. She pulls out a very large mason jar of salt and rosemary and hands it to me, then slides another one out.
“We need to ward the house. Keep all evil away while we’re here.”
“How?”
She smiles, pulling me with her out the back door. This view of the property is gorgeous. It’s a meadow with tall grasses. I’m sure, in the mornings, animals graze here. I follow her onto the ground.
“We’ll walk around the house, sprinkling salt. We’ll start back-to-back and meet face-to-face. Set the intention. Protection. Peace.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t stop walking once you’ve started, and don’t set the jar down until we’ve closed the circle.” She positions me by the shoulders until my spine is against hers. “On the count of three.”
“One. Two. Three,” we say together, then walk away from one another.
I move around the edge of the cabin, shaking salt and rosemary on top of the leaves, trying to think about protection and peace.
Ten steps in, the silliness of what we’re doing vanishes.
I have no idea whether any of this works, but Blaire believes it, so I actually try.
That’s a new problem I’ve encountered with her. Usually, I don’t care.
Protection and peace.
The salt lands on the leaves in a thin line behind me.
When I’m on the opposite side of the house, I stare out at the tree line and the mountain. This place is an oasis, and I understand why Blaire loves it so much. I’m happy to be here.
I think about how quickly things have changed and how I’ve built my days around hers. When we’re not together, I’m counting down the hours to see her again. This woman is in my head, in my fucking soul. I like her being there.
On the other side of the cabin, Blaire keeps the same pace as me. She mutters something, but her words don’t carry on the breeze.
Her rule was don’t stop walking, so I keep going.
What Sophia said in my reading hits me in full force.
“The two of you are fated.”
I shake out more salt like I’m seasoning the ground.
There’s not much time left. The fling ends on Halloween, but what if I want more of her?
This morning, Blaire knew the difference between Patterson and me. She crossed the floor and kissed me. It’s like she sees me, knows me. I want to get to know her better. I want to know her favorite color, her secrets, her wishes.
As I pass the windows, the firelight dances against the wall. Our shot glasses are still on the coffee table, where we left them. So are her bra and panties. The wooden swing creaks on its chains from the wind.
What I ask from the universe changes, and my steps get shorter. I want Blaire. I want us. The days we have left will never be enough.
Her boots crunch over leaves, moving toward me at the same pace. My heart flutters, and I pick up my speed.
We reach the front step at the same time, and she stares at me with a perfect smile. Her nose is pink from the cold.
“Thanks for letting me play witches with you.”
She chuckles, then dumps the last of her jar into the space between us. I do the same.
“The circle is complete,” she whispers, her shoulders relaxing.
I lean forward and kiss her. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
“You’ve been making a lot of those lately.”
“Yeah, babe, and I plan to keep them too.”