Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“You’re a witch,” he says, looking no less bewildered than he did when I started my explanation about the paranormal world that’s lain hidden from him for all of his life.
To be fair to him, I’ve never had to explain my magical abilities or the existence of a whole separate witching society to a civilian before and I probably haven’t done the best job. “I thought you ran a cupcake business?”
“That’s my cover story. It’s what I tell everyone.” Including my family, who do not know about the illegal potion-making business for obvious reasons.
“And the dude with the …” He rubs at his forehead.
“Horns?”
“Yes,” he says.
“A demon.”
“A demon,” he repeats flatly.
“I know it sounds incredible and you probably think I’m off my rocker or something, but–”
“I saw that demon appear out of thin air,” he says.
“Oh yes. Some of us can do that.”
“Can you do that?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Never got my licence.”
“Right.” He swallows. “And the explosion?”
“I was brewing a potion.”
“Of course, you were,” he says, rubbing at his forehead with more aggression like he might be able to knock some sense back into his own brain.
“That’s what I do. I’m a freelance potion-brewer. I sell my creations on the web. You can mail-order them.”
“Jeez!” he exclaims. “And the other woman? The one with the clipboard?”
“She’s my sister, Prim.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.” Which is a weird thing for him to say, because why would he know that?
“I actually have two. Prim’s a Magical Enforcement Officer – she works crazy hours. I don’t see much of her. And Tiggie is … well, Tiggie is just Tiggie.”
“An enforcement officer?” he asks – because of course Mr Long-list-of-complaints would zero in on that.
I consider lying, but as I’m so appalling at it, I resort to the truth.
“You’re not technically allowed to brew potions for commercial use from your home – not unless you have a–”
“Licence?” he volunteers.
“Correct. The authorities monitor for unusual explosions. She came to investigate.”
“Are you in trouble?” he says, leaning forward and not seeming happy about that prospect.
“No, luckily Damien–”
“The demon friend?”
I nod. “–cleared all the evidence away.”
I hope he accepts that explanation for why my sister didn’t hang around. I do not want to explain the real reason my sister scuttled away in such a hurry. After the bedroom misunderstanding and the lack of clothing, I want to avoid the topic of sex and orgasms if at all possible.
“What were you brewing?” he asks next.
Merlin’s toenails!
“A love potion,” I whisper, wishing McGruff, who’s curled up by my feet, would take this opportunity to start some inappropriate leg-humping and distract the man from this line of questioning.
“A what?” he says, brow descending over those blue eyes. He leans forward.
“Alovepotion,” I murmur.
This time, he hears me. Or at least I assume he does, because he blinks ten times in quick succession and I realise he has the type of long, thick lashes that people spend lots of money faking. Honestly, this man completely maxed out in the good-looks department.
“What exactly does a love potion do?” he asks with suspicion.
“Well,” I say, reaching down to tickle McGruff’s ears and avoiding Mr Hottie’s intense gaze, “it makes the person who ingests the potion fall in love with the first person they set eyes on.”
“Your friend, the …” he grimaces, “demon, said the potion had worked.”
“Erm, it may have, yes.”
“Are you telling me,” he pauses, “you’ve fallen in love with me?”
“What?” I squeak, gaze leaping back to meet his. “No! You’re in love with me.”
He opens his mouth. Shuts it. Then snorts.
“I didn’t ingest the potion,” he says smugly.
“You did inhale it, which is enough.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” I confess – because I’ve seen the string of women coming and going from Mr Hottie’s flat – tall, willowy super-model types, “but would you usually strip down naked and wait for me in the bedroom because you thought …”
I trail off. Yep, Damien is right. The potion has worked.
Mr Hottie has only ever shown an interest in scolding me, never in jumping into bed with me.
I am not his type. And as hot as he may be, he isn’t mine.
I have a soft spot for bad boys – tattoos, leather jackets, and motorbikes.
Not men in neatly pressed clothes with a respectable job and enough money to invest in a pension.
Okay, I’m trying to wean myself off the bad-boy addiction, but it’s not exactly cured yet.
Mr Hottie pulls a face and, is that my imagination, or does the man who never misses bin-day and probably never farted at an inappropriate moment in his life, blush, those finely chiselled cheeks receiving a dusting of pink?
“You may be right,” he says, “so what can we do to fix this?”
I fidget on my seat. “Ahhh.”
“Ahhh?” he repeats, not looking happy with me at all. If this is a man in love he needs to work on his facial expressions. “That doesn’t sound good. Are you telling me this potion isn’t reversible?”
“Oh no, it is reversible,” I say, happy to deliver some good news. “It’s just that no one has ever asked me to reverse a love potion before.”
“Probably because the recipient of the potion was never aware their feelings had been tampered with.” He scowls at me. “Do you realise how wrong that is on so many levels?”
I want to point out that the love potion only works if there’s a little bit of something there already – a spark, an attraction, a certain je ne sais quoi. However, as that clearly wasn’t the case in our situation, I don’t really have a leg to stand on.
“Sorry,” is all I can mutter pathetically.
“Do you know how to make this antidote?”
“Yessss.”
He narrows his eyes. “Once again, I’m not loving that response.”
“I can do it. It’s just going to take some time – both to hunt down the ingredients and to brew the potion.”
“How long?”
I do the maths in my head. “About ten days.”
“Ten days! Can’t you speed things up?”
“Absolutely not. Potion brewing can’t be hurried. The risks are too great.”
“What kind of risks?”
“I don’t think you want to know,” I mutter, thinking of that ear wax removing potion I messed up which resulted in the client growing a crop of mushrooms from the sides of their head.
Mr Hottie flops back on the arm chair and drags his hand down his face.
“And so I’m stuck with these …” he glances over at me, “feelings for you in the meantime.”
I swallow down hard because the man’s eyes are stunningly beautiful and pretty hypnotising – especially when he says feelings. I pinch myself hard on the thigh. Because these ‘feelings’ are not real and I need to keep my head screwed on straight.
Still, I can’t help murmuring, “What kind of feelings?”
His blue eyes linger on my face and then trail slowly over my body, taking an especially long time to meander down my bare legs.
“The kind of feelings that would like to have you lying on top of me again. Preferably naked and in bed,” he practically growls. I thought men only did that in romance novels!
A shiver of something indescribable and certainly inappropriate races down my spine. I giggle nervously and tug at my T-shirt, trying to cover more of my butt.
“Again, I’m really sorry about this. It must be a real head-fuck. But I’ll get it sorted I promise. And when I have the antidote potion brewed, I’ll be in touch.”
I stand on my feet, wishing these hot pants weren’t quite as short and quite as tight as they are.
“Are you kicking me out?” he asks. “After everything that’s just happened?”
Given the never-ending rotation of fuck-buddies coming and going from Mr Hottie’s front door, I can surmise he has no problem seducing women.
I’ve rarely seen the same woman twice – even if they all look the same.
I doubt he’s used to being turned down and part of me is tempted by the offer to spend the rest of my Saturday in bed with him.
Okay, he’s more straight-laced than the handful of men I’ve slept with in the past. He’s probably quite vanilla in bed.
But I think I could live with that given how damn attractive he is.
However, making dirty with the man I have accidentally seduced with a love potion – who happens to be my neighbour – can only end in one way. Disaster.
“I think it’s for the best,” I tell him.
“I disagree,” he says with a hint of a knicker-melting smirk.
“In that case, we will have to agree to disagree.”
Thankfully, Mr Hottie, for all his grumpiness, isn’t that much of an arsehole.
There’s no pressure. No whining. No guilt-tripping.
(All tricks those ex-boyfriends used on me.) He simply lumbers to his feet and strolls towards the door.
When he reaches it, he peers over his shoulder at me, hand on the door knob.
“If you change your mind, Molly. You know where to find me.”