Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
For two people who have been banned from physical intimacy, you’d think the easiest way to follow that instruction would be to stay as far away from one another as possible – or at least in our own respective flats.
It’s not just the prospect of making the potion harder to reverse, it’s the witching authorities too. If they learn I’ve been brewing love potions illegally, if they learn I’ve bewitched my hot neighbour, if they learn I’ve been sleeping with him too … I shudder at the thought.
And so, after Damien’s somewhat dramatic departure, I send Horatio back to his own flat and, after making myself a cheese sandwich, collapse on my sofa, seeking cuddles and snuggles from my pet dog and not the six-foot-five man-god I’ve spent the morning with.
However, less than twenty minutes later, my door is buzzing once again.
This time it really could be the delivery man. I still haven’t received my parcel.
It’s not. Once again, it’s Horatio.
This time, his arms are full of newspapers.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“Sorry, the separation thing isn’t working.”
“It’s for the best,” I remind him. “You really don’t want to end up loving me for the rest of your life.” And I really don’t want to end up bankrupt or in witching jail.
“The effects of the potion are making it too hard to be away from you.”
“What exactly are these effects?” I ask, but once again he’s already inside my flat, spreading the papers across my coffee table and making himself comfortable in my armchair.
“It’s okay,” he says, “I’m not going to try anything. I just thought we could hang out.”
He picks up the financial section of one of the papers, arranges it on his lap and starts to read.
McGruff looks up at me from the sofa like he’s waiting for me to eject this interloper, but I simply shrug, find the entertainment section of the paper and settle back down with my dog.
“I don’t usually read the papers,” I confess, scanning the page for a suitable article.
“Then how do you know what’s going on in the world?” he asks me.
“I’d rather not know. It’s all too depressing.”
“The cartoons are at the back of that section,” he says without looking up from his article. I stick my tongue out at him and he smiles.
A minute later, I’m chuckling to myself. Then I’m reading out a quote from some ridiculous article about a man who’s been playing jazz music to his hens to get them to lay bigger eggs, before I snort at some ridiculous statement by the leader of the main opposition party.
“Are you always so noisy when you read the paper?” Mr Hottie asks when I interrupt him for the fourth time.
“I can’t help it. I like my reading to be an inclusive experience.”
Mr Hottie chuckles, looking up from his paper and meeting my gaze.
“You really are ridiculously cute, do you know that?” Beautiful and cute? Did he hit his head yesterday as well as inhaling my potion? His blue eyes darken. “And I really want to kiss you.”
I swallow, my blood seeming to heat under the weight of his gaze.
“You heard the demon, you risk being permanently in love with a dysfunctional witch.”
“I heard him.”
“Physical intimacy will make the reversal of the potion more difficult.”
“But not impossible,” he points out.
I swallow a second time. “No, not impossible.”
He folds up his paper neatly and lays it back on the coffee table.
“Then that’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he pauses, “if you are?”
Am I?
The fine if I’m caught would leave me having to sell this flat for sure. My home.
But that’s only if I’m caught.
The butterflies are deranged in my stomach, my heart is pounding in my ears, and my palms are sweaty.
Do I want to kiss the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life? Well, yes. If only for science.
Am I prepared for the mess it is likely to cause? Erm …
“Molly,” he says, beckoning me with his finger, “come here so I can kiss you.”
“I don’t think it’s a very good idea,” I point out.
“I think it’s a very good idea.”
Damn it, where is that demon friend when I need him? I can feel my resolve weakening with every second Mr Hottie stares at me with those underwear-melting eyes of his.
I’ve never been very good at following rules or thinking through the consequences of my actions.
His gaze rakes up and down my form and desire shivers right along my spine. Something I also thought only ever happened in romance novels.
“Molly, I can see you want me to kiss you. It’s written all over your face.”
And damn my stupid inability to lie.
“Maybe if we just stuck to kissing,” I concede, “it would be okay.” Kissing is pretty harmless, right? The kind of stuff kids get up to. I doubt it would impact the love potion’s potency that much.
“Just kissing,” he says, holding up his right hand, “I swear.”
“Hmmm,” I say, not sure I can trust him. My experience of men is that they’re always in a hurry to progress things to the ultimate bounty, bypassing foreplay whenever they can. Not that we’re going to engage in foreplay. Just kissing. What harm can that do?
Holding my gaze, Horatio rolls up onto his feet and strides around the coffee table until he’s standing right in front of me. He’s impossibly tall and big and imposing and it makes my knees weak.
He holds out his hand and I place mine in his. I expect him to yank me to my feet and devour me straight away. It turns out Horatio Shaw, as well as being handsome, rich, and quite good company, is also a bit of a tease, because he pulls me up gently and slowly onto my feet.
And then we’re back to where we were on the staircase, staring at each other, only this time our hands are linked and his fingers are tracing the knuckles of mine, stroking my palm.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you all day.”
If that’s the case, what is he waiting for? He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. Next thing he’s tucking the loose strands of hair behind my ear, and stroking his fingers along my jaw, a simple touch that has all those butterflies swooping low in my belly.
“For someone who’s wanted to kiss me all day, you’re taking your time about it,” I say, a little brattishly.
“You’re very impatient,” he tells me.
Except, usually I’m surprisingly patient. It’s just I’m feeling slightly desperate for this now.
“So you do want me to kiss you?” he asks.
“Yes.” I sigh, as he releases my hand and grips my waist instead.
“Or would you like–”
My patience snaps. I reach up on my tiptoes in an attempt to reach his mouth. Unfortunately the man is too damn tall. He smirks down at me.
“We could go back to reading the paper–”
He bends down and presses his mouth against mine, tugging me against his body, and running his other hand through my hair to grip the back of my neck. And then we’re kissing.
And, unicorns’ willies, it must be the love potion, because the kissing is good, very good.
I may complain about the skipping foreplay stuff, but if I’m honest, kissing hasn’t really done it for me since I was a teen.
Now, I suspect that may be because I haven’t been kissed right. Because Mr Hottie kisses me with a passion and a tenderness and an undeniable want.
His lips are soft but firm and they feel just as good to kiss as they do to admire.
He groans into my mouth, dragging me closer still and I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck, not sure if I’m standing anymore or if he’s holding me aloft.
We kiss like this for several minutes and then he’s nudging his tongue between my lips and invading my mouth, stroking his tongue against mine.
I half expect my demon friend, or even my big sister, to appear and demand we stop immediately, because this may only be kissing but it is definitely intimate and definitely hot, my body tingling into life and a familiar pulse beginning between my legs.
I’m not sure a kiss has ever had that impact on me before and definitely not so quickly. Forget about my magic, this man has something supernatural about his lips and what he can do with them. I recall the urge I had earlier to sink my teeth into his plump bottom lip and I nip at it now.
He pulls away from me, smirk on his self-satisfied face – an expression that somehow makes him even hotter. His hair’s all ruffled from my fingers and his lips are already a little swollen.
“Want to make out for the rest of the afternoon?” he asks me.
“Sure, why not?” I say, because, hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.
He growls and then he’s devouring my mouth again and I try really hard not to think about how good that mouth would feel between my legs.