Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Torin
Liora … bloody … Webster.
My new tenant.
The universe must hate me. Not only did my favorite chainsaw break today, but I had to come home to… whatever this was.
A mess I’d created.
It had seemed simple enough. I’d let part of the house to a roommate, make a bit of extra cash for my mum, who refused to take any money from me, so I had to come up with a harebrained scheme of sharing her house with a renter to get her to accept help.
She’d moved into an assisted living village, one where she could still be independent, but also have care if needed.
Her Parkinson’s was progressing, but she was hanging on to her independence for as long as she could.
I’d offered to get her in-home help, but she’d decided she preferred the social atmosphere of a community, and so far her updates had proven she’d chosen well.
I was also lying about what I was charging for rent to my new tenant.
I was giving my mother quadruple what I was charging, simply explaining that was the cost of rent these days, and she was happy to have the cash.
It was easier that way, for both of us, but I hadn’t expected Liora Webster to be my new tenant.
Why hadn’t I asked more questions? My mate had told me about a lass moving back to town, she’d been here before, and I hadn’t much questioned it. I was rarely home as it was, so it didn’t much matter to me who moved in.
I could kick myself now for not having asked for more details.
This woman was a walking disaster. She’d singlehandedly exploded my relationship with Avery, which, at the time, I had thought was going well.
Dating in a small town was hard enough, so I’d been actively trying to make things work with Avery, until she’d come home one day slinging accusations about me being in love with her good friend, Liora.
I mean, hell, I wasn’t blind. Of course, Liora was stunning.
But I was never one to look outside my relationship for excitement.
Being accused of cheating had stung me to my core, not to mention having to live with the false accusation long after Avery had broken up with me and moved out of Loren Brae.
That’s the thing about rumors, they stick to you like a cobweb, and years later I was caught, still trying to untangle myself from them.
And now sexy Liora was here? Living with me?
Bloody hell, this was not going to look good.
“You can’t stay here,” I said, rubbing my hand across my chin, as I studied the gorgeous chaotic mess of a woman standing in the middle of the room, gaping at me, an acorn on the floor between us.
I didn’t even want to know what she was doing with the acorn.
If I asked, it would be some long-winded confusing explanation that would end up annoying me even further.
As I recalled, it had always been like that with Liora.
She’d always been involved in some mess or another, and many a night Avery and I had stayed up late with her, talking her through whatever mess she’d landed herself in that week.
Which was certainly not the energy I needed in my life.
No, what I needed, right now, was for her to leave.
Liora sucked in a breath, and despite my frustration with the situation, I couldn’t help but notice how the deep inhale made her generous breasts rise. Tearing my eyes away from her lush body, I looked around the room.
Several boxes lay open, books and photographs scattered about, and a lacy bra in vibrant pink hung from the doorknob to the bedroom. Images of my hands cupping Liora’s breasts flooded my mind, that soft pink mouth of hers hot on mine, and I swallowed, pushing the thoughts away.
It had been far too long since I’d been with a woman.
That was all.
This desire certainly had nothing to do with Liora and must have everything to do with the fact that I’d been in a dry spell of all dry spells.
After Avery and I had broken it off, I’d dated lightly, until I’d fallen into another relationship with a sweet woman who was a teacher two towns over.
Liz had been nice enough, but nice didn’t carry a relationship, and it had fizzled out in a natural and comfortable way for the both of us.
We’d parted amicably about a year ago, and I hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
And suddenly my desire for a woman’s touch had to come roaring back when Liora of all people stood in the middle of my house, nervously chewing on her full lower lip.
I wanted to be the one to bite into her lip.
Shocked at my thoughts, I scowled down at the acorn.
“What… is that?” I pointed at the acorn, since Liora didn’t seem inclined to address my statement about her needing to leave.
“That is an acorn,” Liora said, carefully. She slanted a look up at me. Her eyes were the light blue of summer sky just after the sunset fades. Soft and searching, framed by spiky dark lashes.
“I’m aware that it’s an acorn. Why is it in the middle of the floor?” I asked.
I’d felt something, when I’d walked through the door.
I hadn’t meant to intrude, but the door to her wing was wide open, and I wasn’t used to having a roommate yet. So I’d just walked in without knocking, and I’d felt something weird. Like a rush of energy across my skin. Maybe it had been my senses trying to warn me that Liora was here.
Or maybe she was up to something.
Something … unusual.
Loren Brae was steeped in magick. It was impossible to live here and not be aware of that.
But I’d worked as a forester most of my life, and when I immersed in the forest, it was hard to ignore the things I would hear and see.
There was more to this world than I could ever possibly understand, so I always made sure to stay on the good side of whatever magickal folk roamed our woods.
“Um, decorating?” Liora suggested, and I made a rude noise.
“You can’t stay here,” I reiterated, in case she hadn’t heard me the first time.
“You don’t want me to stay?” Liora looked up at me, her expression crestfallen, her soulful blue eyes watering.
“Of course I want you to stay, but you can’t.” I jerked and slapped a hand over my mouth. Had I just said that out loud? What was happening to me?
Amusement danced across Liora’s pretty face and was quickly dashed when I glowered at her.
“I’m confused. Do you want me to stay or to leave?” Liora tilted her chin up at me.
“I want you to stay.” Again, shock filled me. Where were these words coming from? What she needed was to leave. I wasn’t remotely in the mood for being the source of town gossip once again. And yet here I was, my mouth saying what logic was telling me would be a bad decision.
“Great, then I’ll stay.” Liora beamed at me, like sunshine spearing through the trees, and I gaped at her.
“What is happening?” I demanded. “Why am I saying exactly what I shouldn’t be saying? What I should be saying is that I don’t want you to stay because I don’t want to become a part of the village gossip mill once again. Yet all I can seem to say is that I want you to stay.”
“That’s nice, isn’t it then?” Liora toed the floor in fuzzy purple socks, looking everywhere but at me.
“Liora,” I growled, and her eyes snapped back to my face.
“Oh, um.” Liora shrugged one shoulder, sheepish, and her eyes darted away again.
“Bloody hell, woman. You’ve done something. Haven’t you?” I pointed at the acorn. “This isn’t here by chance, is it?”
“No, not entirely.”
“Not entirely or not at all?” I demanded, my pulse picking up. I knew it. Liora had always been one for witchy things, leaning hard into her astrology and tarot, and God knows what else.
“Um, not at all?” Liora asked.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, though every ounce of me wanted to throttle her.
“Tell me, exactly, what you were doing.”
“Is that part of the lease agreement? That I have to explain everything I do in my space?” Liora crossed her arms over her chest, a stubborn look crossing her face, and she pushed that full lower lip out in a small pout.
“Of course not,” I said. “If I’d known it was you signing the lease, I’d have written a spanking clause into it.”
Liora’s mouth dropped open.
I froze.
This was not good. Whatever was happening to me was so not good. At all. I couldn’t possibly have just suggested that I wanted to spank Liora for violating any terms of the lease. Yet the image of bending her over the couch and dropping her jeans made me just a touch dizzy.
I needed to focus.
“Is that … is that something you like to do to women?” Liora asked, her voice breathier than normal. Her eyes had widened.
“Yes.” I slapped a hand across my mouth and shook my head. Removing my hand, I took a deep breath. “No. Yes. It depends.”
“Depends on what?” Liora’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t know.” I threw up my hands. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.
What was happening to me? “The woman. What we’re doing.
If she likes it. If she asks for it. Probably a million other factors that I can’t think about right now because all I can think about is the fact that I’m pretty sure you’ve done something to me. Have you?”
“Ummmm…” Liora drew the word out, her teeth working into that full bottom lip again, and I groaned.
She had.
She’d done something to me.
“Just tell me,” I said, hands clenched at my sides.
“I was just trying out a wee spell from my gran’s book. It was meant to be—”
“A spell?” I groaned, closing my eyes. “I bloody well knew it. I knew it. The energy was just different when I walked in here.”
“You did?” Liora sounded more delighted than worried, and I opened my eyes to glare at her. “I mean, och, that’s interesting.”
“What kind of spell was it, Liora?” I gave her a look that I sincerely hoped would make her be straight with me.
“Um.” Liora gulped. “A truth spell.”
“A truth spell?” A prickle of warning went down my back. Surely she didn’t mean…
“Aye. As in … you always tell the truth.” Liora’s voice dropped to a whisper, and she grimaced.
“I don’t lie, anyway. So that shouldn’t be a problem. Right?” I raised my voice slightly. Worry pinged through me. I didn’t like the idea of not being in control of my words.
“Well, there’s not lying, and then there’s inside thoughts that should best be kept … inside.” Liora’s teeth dug into that plush bottom lip of hers again and heat flashed through me.
“Like how I’d love to see your mouth wrapped around—”
“Aye, like that,” Liora said, hurriedly interrupting me, her skin flushing a delicious shade of pink. “Also, really? And why? I thought you hated me.”
I started to say that I did hate her, but the words physically wouldn’t come out of me. Instead my mouth opened, and a small guttural sound came out, but no words.
Bloody hell. I couldn’t say that I hated her because I didn’t.
Even if I thought that I did. Even though I blamed her for the breakup of my relationship. I didn’t, at my core, really hate Liora. She’d been an easy person to blame, particularly when rumors had followed me for years after, but I didn’t hate her. It took a lot for me to actually hate someone.
“I don’t hate you,” I admitted. “But I hate what your actions left me with. A broken relationship and everyone in town thinking I’d cheated on Avery. It was right shite.”
“I’m…” Liora’s face fell. “I guess I didn’t think about how that affected you.”
“Well, it wasn’t great, was it? And then you left.
So did Avery. And I was here. Left to deal with the aftermath.
” I raised a hand, cutting off whatever she was going to say next.
It didn’t matter. She might have magick, but she couldn’t change the past. At least not that I knew of.
What I needed to know was how to fix the spell I’d walked into.
Damn it all to hell and back. How had I gotten myself into this situation? Not only was I sharing my home with Liora, but she was actively practicing magick. Surely I should be able to boot her out for breaking some type of clause in the lease.
“Torin, I—”
“Just fix this. I don’t even know how I feel about you doing magick in my house, but so far it doesn’t seem to be going well. Which tracks for you, if the past is any indication of how things will go.”
Liora winced, and I immediately felt bad for my words. But not bad enough to take them back.
“Listen, let me just see what I can find in the book to reverse this. Surely there’s a remedy and we’ll get you sorted in no time.”
“I would certainly hope you have a remedy.” My mouth dropped open as Liora’s gaze shifted away from mine. “Tell me you can fix this.”
“Um, I’m not quite sure. I just sort of picked it at random.
I’ve only just discovered this book, you ken?
It was in a box with my gran’s stuff, and I saw my name written in it.
Look!” Liora grabbed a leather book from the table and paged to the front.
Turning, she showed me her name scrawled next to a list of others.
“See? It’s meant for me. I just … I haven’t quite had time to read it yet. I only just found it.”
“So instead of reading it through you just decided to flip to a page and try out a spell with zero preparation or research?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she swallowed, her face growing pinker by the minute.
“I’m sorry! I …” Liora bit her lip again and I almost groaned.
“Stop biting your lip. It’s distracting.” I blanched as I realized I’d spoken my inside thoughts out loud again.
“Distracting, how?” Liora’s eyes widened and she licked her lips.
“That’s even worse.” I pointed at her mouth in frustration.
“Wait, but, why?” Liora genuinely looked confused, and I groaned out loud as I realized she didn’t understand that I was finding her both wildly distracting and desperately attractive.
“Just fix this. Now.” I needed to get away, to think, to clear my head so I could figure out what the hell this meant for me.
Not just the fact that I was blurting out inappropriate comments at my tenant, but the fact that Liora was living in my house. I couldn’t have picked a more distractingly chaotic person if I had tried.
Not to mention, what was Loren Brae going to think of this? It certainly wouldn’t paint the past rumors about me in a good light.
Growling with frustration, I stormed out, slamming the door behind me, and stomped across the kitchen to my bedroom.
I was going to kill Ross for putting me in this situation.