Chapter 28
Sylvan
The Eighth Full Moon
There’s a nip in the air this morning, and it has me feeling frisky as I put two hefty pumpkins out on the back porch table. I can see Morgan through the nook’s crescent moon windows, already lighting a few candles for her Samhain ritual.
Twice in one month. It feels like a treat that we have a Blue Moon on Samhain this year. It won’t be long until I have her riding my cock and screaming my name.
A breeze rustles the fall leaves, swooping through the trees and across the garden. I smile as it whips around me.
I love this time of the year. It always makes me feel refreshed. The trees are changing around us and it’s getting colder out, which means more reasons to snuggle with Morgan. Cuddling her to keep her warm is part of my bodyguard duties, right?
I roll my sleeves up as I put out the carving knives. Admittedly, I bought the cheap kit for children at the store because I’m worried about Morgan slipping. The thought of her accidentally cutting herself because she insisted I experience carving a pumpkin “for fun” terrifies me.
Morgan glances up from the kitchen and smiles.
She’s beautiful. Even when she’s furious with me, she reminds me of a goddess.
After a couple minutes, she joins me outside with two mugs of coffee. I really can’t make myself coffee anymore, honestly. She makes mine perfect every single time. She’s spoiled me.
“So exactly how are we going to do this?” I ask.
She sits down in the chair next to me. “You just pick out a design and you carve it into the pumpkin,” she says. “It's fun. Although first we need to take all of the pumpkin guts out.”
I make a face, and she just laughs. “Oh come on. It’s a pumpkin.”
“Just let me know if you want me to cut it for you,” I say. “And I will.”
Morgan narrows her eyes at me, then rolls them as she picks up the carving knife. I suck in a breath and hold it as she cuts a circle around the stem, the jagged motions making me nervous.
“Why did you pick out the cheap shit?” she mutters. “I should go get one from the knife block.”
“You will not,” I say, picking mine up.
She scoffs. “Yours is sharper!”
“I’m not clumsy like you are.”
She jabs her knife in my direction. “This may be dull, but I’ll still carve you up, wolf.”
I chuckle at my default nickname and finish cutting the circle around the top. When I pull it off, my smile disappears.
The stench is horrendous. I gag and lean back. “This is what you call fun?”
“Have you never seen a real life pumpkin before?”
“No,” I growl. “And now I see why. It smells like a dead fish.”
“It’s definitely not that bad. I’ll scoop out the guts for you, princess.”
I gawk as she reaches in with her bare hand. There’s a squelching noise as she starts pulling out strings of seeded goop, piling it all into a bowl she’d asked me to put out.
“This is horrible,” I whisper.
“It’s fun,” she insists. “F-U-N. Fun. Do you know that word?”
“Fucking you right now would be fun. This is not fun.”
Her cheeks flush, and she flashes me a dirty look as she keeps cleaning out the pumpkin. I stop breathing through my nose and plunge my hand inside the damn thing.
Well, now I know why she keeps calling it guts.
“My knot could be inside you right now,” I say. “Instead, my hand is inside this.”
“After,” she says. “I think this is what they call a date.”
“Never heard of it,” I mumble, hiding my smirk as she shoots me another look.
It takes a few minutes of scooping with my bare hands before I learn there was a tool to help us. I glower as I clean out the rest, wash my hands fifty times, and rejoin Morgan.
“We can make stuff with this,” she says, holding up the bowl. “Pumpkin seeds and bread.”
She has a point about that, at least. I wouldn’t mind some fresh pumpkin bread. It’s one of my favorite treats in the fall.
“The first time I had pumpkin bread, I was twenty-three,” I say as I take the bowl. “I love it. I just didn’t know it was made from something that smells like shit.”
Her laughter carries after me as I put the bowl inside on the counter and then join her again. As I step out onto the porch, I freeze in place.
Morgan is standing in a patch of sunlight and she’s still laughing.
But the way the sunlight halos her is unnatural.
She’s like a prism, her skin glowing just like it did the day in the meadow.
It reflects off her, bouncing around the porch and out into the garden.
Any of the flowers that haven’t died yet seem to reach for her, the trees ruffled by a gentle breeze.
It’s magic. There’s no way it’s not magic. But I’ve never seen anything like this from a witch. She’s not even aware that she’s doing it—she just is.
Morgan looks up at me, her brows raising. “What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothing,” I say as the light turns back to normal. “Just admiring you.”
She snorts. “You just want to take me upstairs.”
“I do. I’m starting to get a whiff of your heat.”
“Goddess, don’t say it like that. It makes it sound awful.”
“It’s the best scent in the entire world,” I say, but I go back to my pumpkin. “What is your design going to be?”
“I don’t know yet. We should see whose is better.”
“A competition? I’m not good at art.”
“I’m not either.”
“So should we compete for whose is better or whose is worse?”
“Better, obviously.”
“As you wish,” I tease.
I have no idea what the hell I’m going to carve into this. Morgan is already whittling away at hers, and I keep glancing over, expecting to see the sunlight bend around her again. Nothing happens though.
“The quicker we carve, the quicker we have fun, the quicker you get me in bed,” she says.
Well, when it’s put that way.
Over the next hour, I attempt to turn my pumpkin into a pumpkin with a face. But instead of looking like a face, it looks like I don’t know my shapes. Cutting a triangle? Difficult. A circle? Impossible.
“Okay,” she prods. “I finished thirty minutes ago.”
“I’m almost done,” I grunt.
Morgan watches me as I cut out the last piece, and well. It’s done. I’m not proud of it, but this was fun. Challenging and frustrating too, but fun.
I toss the carver down and raise a brow at her. “Show me your masterpiece.”
“On three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
We both turn our pumpkins around. A peel of laughter bursts from her lips as she doubles over as she takes mine in. I laugh as I look at hers, and really, it’s the most awful thing I’ve ever seen in the world—but it’s also the best thing.
“What is that?” she cackles.
“It’s clearly a goblin,” I say defensively, pointing to my pumpkin lump. “Clearly. And what the hell is yours?”
“I tried making the house, but it got abstract.”
“Abstract?” I wheeze.
The two of us laugh together again, until my stomach hurts. Morgan wipes her eyes as tears squeeze out of the corners, her mascara smudging.
For whatever reason, that makes my brain short-circuit. A soft growl leaves me, and she offers me a smirk.
I need her on me. Now.
I push my chair away from the table and lean back, patting my thigh. “Come here, Morgan.”
She wets her lips and stands, planting her hands on my chest as she straddles me. My cock is already hard, fighting against my zipper as she leans down, her mouth brushing mine. I groan and knot my fingers in her hair, drinking in every little detail.
She’s going to love what I have planned for her.