Chapter 15
Marcus had fallen asleep in the chair again.
Hazel had been watching him for an hour, curled under the blankets while he dozed by the window.
His head tilted at an angle that would hurt when he woke.
His hand still curled around an abandoned coffee mug, gone cold hours ago.
Dark circles shadowed his eyes; he’d stayed up all night watching for threats that never came.
She’d woken sometime around four, and she’d lain awake thinking about the conspiracy they’d uncovered, the way he’d looked at her when they’d finally stopped working, and fourteen days of careful distance. Almost-kisses and interrupted moments.
Maybe she was just tired of pretending.
Hazel was done being sensible.
She padded across the cold floor, the wooden boards creaking under her bare feet. Marcus didn’t stir. Up close, she could see the tension in his shoulders even in sleep, the way his hand had curled around the mug like a weapon.
“Marcus.” She touched his shoulder, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt. “Come to bed.”
His eyes opened immediately. He scanned the room, the windows, the door before he registered her standing beside him.
“Everything’s fine,” he said, voice rough with sleep. “No threats detected.”
“I know. That’s not why I’m asking.”
He went still. His eyes searched her face.
“Hazel…”
“Come to bed.”
He stood slowly, letting her lead him across the room. This time, when they lay down, neither pretended to keep a distance. Hazel turned toward him, and he turned toward her, and suddenly the inches between them felt like both too much and not enough.
Their magic hummed in the space between them, warm light flickering at the edges of her vision where his power brushed against hers.
“We should…” Marcus started.
“No.”
“No?”
“No more should.” She touched his face, tracing the line of his jaw, the stubble that had grown in overnight. “No more pretending this isn’t happening.”
“Hazel, if we…”
“I know.” She moved closer, close enough to feel his breath on her lips. “I know exactly what this means.”
“Seven days.”
“I don’t care.”
“Neither do I.” His hand tangled in her hair, gentle and desperate at once. “God help me, neither do I.”
The first kiss was soft, questioning. A final chance to pull back. Hazel sighed into it.
The second kiss was hungry. Marcus rolled them, pressing her into the mattress as their magic flared bright between them, purple and gold light dancing across the ceiling like aurora.
“I want you,” she gasped against his mouth. “Marcus, I want…”
“Thank god.” His voice was ragged. “Every night, every damn minute—I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight…”
She kissed him again. Words could wait. Now she wanted touch, taste, the solid reality of him after weeks of wanting.
They moved together with surprising tenderness.
Clothes disappeared with careful hands: her shirt over her head, his following, the rustle of fabric hitting the floor.
Marcus traced her shoulder with his lips, mapping the freckles there, and she discovered the scar along his ribs, a thin silver line that told a story she’d ask about later.
“How long?” he asked, his mouth against her collarbone.
“Since day one. You walked into my shop in that ridiculous three-piece suit, looking like you’d never touched dirt in your life, and I wanted to mess you up completely.”
“Mission accomplished.” He caught her hand, pressed it to his chest where his heart beat fast and unsteady. “Completely wrecked. Since the moment you threatened to hex me for touching your herbs.”
“I should have.”
“You did. Just not the way you meant.”
She laughed, but it turned into a gasp as his hands found new places to explore. Her magic rose to meet his, honeyed warmth shot through with violet, flowing across their skin like water.
“Beautiful,” Marcus murmured, pulling back to look at her.
“You said that before.”
“Bears repeating forever.” He kissed her again, slow and thorough. “Beautiful, brilliant, impossible witch.”
Marcus’s hands were everywhere, sliding up her sides, cupping her breasts, tracing the curve of her waist like he was memorizing her by touch alone.
Hazel arched into him, her own hands exploring the hard planes of his chest, the ridges of muscle she’d been trying not to stare at for thirteen days straight.
“Thirteen days,” she gasped as his mouth found her neck, teeth scraping gently. “Thirteen days of watching you walk around shirtless, doing pushups, being stupidly attractive, ”
“You could have said something sooner.” His thumbs traced circles beneath her breasts. “Could have ended both our suffering.”
“Professional boundaries,” Hazel managed, then lost her train of thought entirely as his mouth closed over her nipple through her bra.
“Fuck professional boundaries.” He unhooked the clasp with practiced ease, tossed the bra aside. “I’ve been going insane. Do you know what it’s like, sleeping five feet away from you? Hearing you breathe? Knowing you’re right there and I can’t touch you?”
“Yes,” Hazel said, pulling him up for a kiss that was more teeth than finesse. “Because I’ve been doing the same thing. Watching you sleep in that chair, wanting to climb into your lap, ”
“You should have.” Marcus kissed down her throat, between her breasts, lower. “I would have welcomed it. Would have pulled you down and, ”
His words cut off as he reached her navel, his fingers hooking in her sleep shorts. He looked up at her, eyes dark with want but still checking. “Can I?”
“If you stop to ask permission for every piece of clothing, we’re going to be here all night,” Hazel said.
Marcus laughed, warm and genuine and absolutely wrecked. “Is that a complaint?”
“It’s a strategic observation.”
He pulled her shorts and underwear down in one motion, tossed them aside. Then just looked at her, laid out on the bed, completely bare, purple sparks already dancing across her skin.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said roughly. “I’ve been thinking about this. About you. Every goddamn night.”
“Then stop thinking and start doing.”
Marcus settled between her thighs, and when his mouth found her,hot and sure and absolutely perfect,Hazel’s back arched off the bed.
“Marcus, ”
He hummed against her, the vibration making her gasp. His hands gripped her thighs, holding her open as he worked her with devastating precision. Tongue and lips and the perfect amount of pressure, like he’d been studying for this, learning what made her fall apart.
When his fingers slid inside her, working her in time with his mouth, the sparks exploded into full magical light, purple aurora borealis painting the cabin walls.
“God, I love your magic,” Marcus murmured against her inner thigh, watching the light show. “Love how it responds to pleasure. To me.”
“Less talking,” Hazel gasped. “More,oh fuck,more of that thing you just did.”
He did it again. Built her higher, reading her responses, adjusting based on every gasp.
When she came the first time, it was with his name torn from her throat and magical light so bright it painted shadows across the ceiling. Marcus worked her through it, gentling as she came down, pressing soft kisses to her thighs.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay?” Hazel laughed, breathless and wrecked. “I just saw stars. Literal magical stars. I’m better than okay.”
“Good.” He kissed his way back up her body, stomach, ribs, the valley between her breasts. “Because I’m not nearly done with you.”
She pulled him into a kiss, tasting herself on his lips. “Your turn.”
“Hazel, ”
“My turn,” she insisted, pushing him onto his back.
She straddled his hips, grinding down against him through his sleep pants. His eyes went dark. Good.
She slid down his body, pulled everything off him at once. When she wrapped her hand around him, gold sparks flared to life around her fingers.
“Fuck,” Marcus groaned. “Your magic,I can feel it,”
“Good.” Hazel stroked him slowly. “I want you to feel everything.”
When she took him in her mouth, his hips bucked involuntarily. She held him down with one hand, the other still working his shaft, and their combined magic swirled together like a galaxy between them, bright and strange and alive.
“Hazel, I’m not going to,if you keep doing that,”
She pulled off just long enough to say, “Good,” then took him deeper.
Marcus’s hands tangled in her hair, not pushing, just holding on like she was the only solid thing in the world. She could feel him getting close, the tension in his thighs, the way his breathing went ragged, the golden light getting brighter and brighter.
“Stop,” he gasped. “Hazel, stop, I want,I need to be inside you when I,”
She released him, crawled back up his body. “Demanding.”
“Desperate.” He flipped them in one smooth motion, settling between her thighs. “I’ve waited thirteen days. I’m not coming anywhere except inside you.”
“Big talk, counselor.”
“Let me prove it.”
He positioned himself, the head of his cock pressing against her entrance. Their magic flared in response, their mingled power crackling between them in bright, forking lines, making the air taste like ozone and power.
“Ready?” he asked, eyes searching hers.
“I’ve been ready since day one,” Hazel said. “Since you walked into my shop in that ridiculous suit.”
“The suit’s not ridiculous.”
“It’s extremely ridiculous. Now gimme.”
Marcus laughed, then pushed inside in one slow, devastating thrust.
The world exploded into light.
Hazel felt him everywhere, not just the physical stretch and fullness, but something deeper. Their magic knotted into something luminous and strange, colours she had no name for spiralling through the dark behind her eyelids.
“Holy shit,” Marcus breathed, frozen above her. “Can you feel, ”
“Yes.” Hazel wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. “I feel it. I feel you. Everything.”