Chapter 15 Rosie #3
Just physically, I attempt to console myself. Anything else is just the lingering effects of the bond kiss, making me feel like I might scream if I don’t see him soon. Which I haven’t done because I have been avoiding him like the plague, not that he’s made any effort of his own to see me.
And, if I admit the truth to myself, it makes me a little bummed out. But I knock that pesky revelation out as soon as it enters my mind.
“So, he’s hot,” I say. “I think everyone can admit that.” That feels like a safe response.
“He’s very much your type,” Poppy says.
“Oh, for sure,” Vi says.
“He is—” I start, trying to deny it with a roll of my eyes and failing. Despite my incomplete thought, my sisters glare at me before Violet speaks, ticking items off with her fingers.
“Tall, dark, handsome. Glasses. Hot and built, but in a Clark Kent way. Nerdy as all get out. Probably would let you read all night long while he played video games or whatever. Moves like he’s good in bed, but also probably self-conscious enough not to let it give him an ego.
” I fight the tightening of my gut, push down the desire to snap at her for talking about him like that.
God, this fucking kiss bond. The jealousy from it is absolutely driving me out of my mind.
The bond wore off, the tiny voice in my head says, but that, too, I toss aside.
“You’re out of your minds,” I say, reaching for what I know to be a good vibes chocolate chip cookie, made to give you the cozy, happy feelings of a cookie fresh out of the oven. I could use some good, cozy vibes.
“Have you guys kissed since?” Poppy questions. I shrug then explain.
“We made out halfway through the week when he helped fix my heater that kicked out again.” Vi lifts an eyebrow. “It was to sate the bond, you idiot.” Oh thank god that the magic didn’t deem that as a lie.
“Sure it was,” Violet says with a smug grin. I roll my eyes but ignore her. “You know, you should hook up with him during your mission.” I shake my head to argue, but Poppy pipes up, clearly on the same page as Vi.
“Who knows, maybe he’ll be your happily ever after. Maybe you always just needed some grand adventure to find your prince. Isn’t that what happens in your books?” Poppy asks, sitting back with a cookie of her own. I nod.
And she’s right.
I do need an adventure to find love. But not because of the reasons they think. I’m lost in that thought when Vi tosses my world upside down once again.
“Have you felt him jack off yet?”
My body stills. “What?”
She looks from Poppy to me, then tips her head to the side. “Have you felt him jack off?” she repeats, humor in the words this time.
“Why… why would I feel him jack off? I just told you we kissed a bunch to wane off the kiss bond, but that’s it.
” Silence fills the room and my heart skips a beat again.
“Vi?” Unlike me, Violet once had a kiss bond before, the brother of a witch friend of our cousins, who had no magic, just to see what would happen.
She said it was fun and wore off in about a week, but that’s all I know about the experience.
“Well, when you have the kiss bond, any intense emotions you have, you both feel.” My heart feels like it’s slowing down.
“So, like, if you’re really stressed, he feels it.
” I remember how he came in already concerned when I was struggling with the heater, almost like he knew it was happening.
“Same thing if you’re turned on. If he were to jack off, you would have felt a rush of lust or need.
” I stare at her, slightly panicking as I remember my own self-care moment.
“This would have been great intel to give me, say, three days ago.”
She gives me a deadpan look. “Oh, I’m so sorry for not realizing you were going to kiss-bond your neighbor because you took him to a supernatural club and you’re communing with his dead grandpa.” Okay, fair point.
“Does this mean you’ve felt it?” Poppy asks, confused as she watches our back-and-forth.
Vi is only eleven months younger than me (our poor mother), so we’ve always been the ones most likely to bicker.
Poppy came along when I was four and Vi was three, making Vi and me feel more like twins and Poppy our little sister.
Because of this, she’s always watched us argue as if we were twins who shared the same womb space and has become an expert at knowing when to step in and stop things before they escalate.
My mind roams over the other night, and I groan into my hands.
I hadn’t felt him, but I had gotten all riled up, and then took care of it and…
“I think that look means there’s a good chance he felt her,” Vi says with a smug smile. I groan again and fight the sudden all-consuming urge to cry.
“Kill me now,” I mumble as my sisters laugh again at my misery. Poppy rubs my back.
“Well, at least he doesn’t actually know what happened,” she says.
“And the bond is over now, so you’re safe.
No more pesky attraction.” I nod and wallow for two more minutes before we move on to gossip about different townspeople, but all the while, I can’t help thinking about her insistence on no more pesky attraction and my inability to admit that with the truth-telling spell in my system.
I am so screwed.