CHAPTER THREE
Kayla
The second Shadow’s lips touch mine, I lose all ability to think.
It’s a soft kiss, but his body jolts as if electrified, and he lets out a deep groan. I don’t know exactly what kind of game he’s playing, but he’s not lying about this. The werepanther really does desire me.
The thought makes my knees go weak, and I sway toward him, only catching myself at the last minute.
“My wife,” he growls, the sound bypassing my entire cerebral cortex and landing straight in some long-buried instinct that wants sex and nothing but sex. My girl parts tingle like I’ve been hit with a Lust Spell.
I jolt backward, telling my heart to stop racing, but the heated look in Shadow’s eyes doesn’t help one little bit.
What the flipping hell are you doing, Kayla? I ask myself. This is Shadow, the guy who smirks like it’s an Olympic sport and he’s going for the gold, the guy who’s never serious about anything, treating every encounter like a game. He even told me this is all a game to him.
Nope. I shake my head, trying to wake up. It’s not as if any of this is real. A house can’t marry us. That little charade we went through isn’t anything legally binding. It’s why I did it—it’s the loophole I found. Make the house happy without actually committing to anything.
“Open the front door, Victoria,” I gasp, forcing out the words.
“I will, but first…”
She uses the three smallest pictures on the wall to form the ellipses, pulling them from the oldest section back when people didn’t smile for photos, and the couples’ frowning faces send a shiver of unease rippling up my spine.
“First what?”
“First, you need to read the fine print.”
“Umm.” My eyes flick back and forth. “What fine print? How can you even do fine print? You’re making letters out of flipping photographs!”
Those photos form an arrow, pointing to the lower-right section of the wall. There are several lines of burgundy, where the velvety flocking of the wallpaper has been reshaped from its floral pattern to make rows of text too small to read.
Shadow leans over and squints at it. “Even with my excellent eyesight, I can barely make it out.”
“Here. Let me.” I squat, snap a pic, and send it to my work computer. Then I lead him into my office. It used to be my grandfather’s study, and his old rolltop desk still stands pushed up against one wall, now more for decoration than use.
A state-of-the-art gaming desk fills the center of the room, complete with two oversized monitors set edge to edge to make one huge screen.
I plop into my comfy ergonomic gaming chair and flick the mouse, bringing the entire system to life.
The bare bones of my new game idea taunts me from the screen.
All this searching for a roommate has put me behind on work.
I open the pic I just took in a program that will enlarge and clean up the text. In less than a minute, it pings.
“Oh, no,” I moan. “No, no, no.”
“What is it?” Shadow asks.
“I thought we weren’t really married. I mean, nobody filed any paperwork, and we didn’t have an officiant, so what we just did couldn’t be legally binding.” My eyes fly ahead, my finger racing across the screen. “But…” My voice trails off as I finish reading.
Strong hands grip my shoulders and spin me to face him. “But what?”
“I was both right and wrong.” I swallow, my mouth suddenly desert dry. “That might not have been an official wedding, but it was a magically binding marriage contract. We’re in a trial marriage for a month, with several stipulations.” I turn back to the screen and read:
1.) Kayla and Shadow will live together in Victoria for one month.
2.) Kayla and Shadow will go on a minimum of one romantic date per week.
3.) Kayla and Shadow will hold a minimum of one wedding ceremony per week inside Victoria or on the grounds. Participants may choose whether the ceremonies are legally binding or not.
4.) The trial marriage will become magically binding if Kayla and Shadow consummate their relationship at any time during the month.
5.) The trial marriage may be dissolved at the end of the month only if there is no consummation.
Anxiety sends icy fingers running down my back as my heart races. I press a hand to my chest and try to slow my breathing. This isn’t a repeat of my childhood. There’s a way out. No consummation, no marriage. Easy peasy. I haven’t had sex in over a year. How hard can one more month be?
Shadow leans over my shoulder, reading the “fine print” for himself. Even though we don’t touch, the heat of him warms my cheek, and my entire body shivers with awareness as I remember the way he growled the moment his lips brushed mine.
Who the hell am I kidding?
A month is going to be flipping forever.
We pore over the fine print several more times before going back into the entryway to talk to Victoria.
“I won,” she writes, smugness dripping from the air. “I’m going to get so many weddings!”
“Yeah, well, you just got your wedding for the week, and we’ll eat dinner together tonight, so that’ll be one of the dates.” I point at the wall. “So I hope you enjoyed it.”
“That wasn’t much of a wedding.” The pictures slide. “But it locked you into the marriage contract, so I’ll take it.”
“Don’t remind me!” I throw up my hands. “How could you do this to me?” Ugh.
The thought of having no control makes my chest tighten.
It’s pretty much the worst thing she could ever do to me.
If there weren’t a way out, I don’t know if I’d be able to handle all of this.
I keep reminding myself that I just need to survive the next month, and this will all be over.
The photos on the wall move, spelling out the beginning of a sentence.
“You know what? We’re going to find a better way for you to talk than this.” Or at least faster.
“Yay!” The sound of applause echoes from the kitchen.
“Which also means no more of this fine print BS like you just pulled.” I level a finger at the wall. “You have something to say to me, you say it straight.”
“I did what I had to.”
I snort. Why didn’t I get a sentient house without a personality? Or at least without a personal agenda.
Shadow’s rich chuckle pulls my gaze to where he leans up against the wall, looking effortless and relaxed. But his green eyes watch me closely, and his shirt stretches tight over his shoulders, highlighting his strength. He’s a predator, coiled and waiting to pounce.
I hurry into the kitchen and dig out one of those poetry magnet games I haven’t played since childhood. Half the words are missing, and the selection has always been a bit lyrical instead of practical, with an overabundance of words like “delicious” and “throb.”
I shudder. No flipping way do I want Victoria to use the word “throb” in a sentence about me and the werepanther.
After shoving some of the more problematic words back into the drawer, I slap the rest onto the front of the fridge. “Can you use this? If it works, I’ll get you more words.”
Words that sure as shit aren’t “throb.”
Magic hovers all around me, but nothing happens. After half a minute, the front door bangs, and we go into the hall to find the photos spelling out: “No. It’s not connected to me.”
“Okay. So the front of the refrigerator is a no-go, but putting the magnets directly on a wall should work. Hmm.” I tap my lip, spinning slowly in place. Problem. Victoria doesn’t have any metal walls. “Maybe I can order something online.” I search on my phone, dismissing one thing after another.
“I have an idea.” Shadow grins. “Why don’t we try to find a magical solution instead? After all, she’s a magical house.”
“You have got to be kidding me. Of course, we should use magic.” I slap a palm to my forehead, then look at him. “Can you do it?”
“Not me. I don’t have that kind of magic.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that, so I think you need to clarify exactly what kind of magic you do have.” First rule of gaming: learn the parameters of your party’s powers.
“I’m a fae shifter.” He gives an easy shrug. “Most of my magic is tied up in my ability to shift.”
“Into a werepanther.”
He nods, and a burst of magic pulses outward.
From one second to the next, the gorgeous fae is replaced by his werepanther form.
He’s now seven feet tall and covered in long black fur that shades to silver at the ends, just like his hair.
His face is halfway between man and cat, and still handsome.
Unlike the sexy catgirls you see in video games, he’s fiercely muscled like a fighter, his clothes stretched to their limits.
He’s still sexy as hell, though, not gonna lie.
And if my hand drifts forward to stroke across his forearm, fingers tangling in the unbelievably silky long fur? That hand clearly has a flipping mind of its own. So much so that when I try to pull it away, it ignores me and continues to pet the werepanther.
With another flare of magic, he returns to his fae form, my misbehaving hand now touching warm skin. A low growl, more felt than heard, rumbles from him, and his green eyes spear into mine with an intensity that takes my breath away.
I jerk my hand away and take a half step back. “That’s uh…” I lick suddenly dry lips. “That’s really something.”
“That’s not all I can do,” he rumbles. “I can also shift into a panther, my original cat sith form.”
“An actual big cat?” My eyes go wide. “Can you show me?”
“I’m more than happy to.” His smile grows wicked as he plucks at his shirt. “But that shift will destroy my clothes, so when I change back, I’ll be naked.”
“Do it!” Victoria spells out.
“Shouldn’t you be all old-fashioned and prudish?” I ask her.
“Please.” The pictures move, spending only a few seconds on each group of words before shifting to the next. She’s getting faster with practice. “Why does each new generation of humans think they invented sex?”
Shadow throws his head back, a deep, rich laugh rolling from him as his eyes blaze with amusement.