Chapter Ten #3
“Nights like tonight?” I ask, wondering what emotions sent her looking for an escape and what caused them. It can’t just be business stress. Xander said her errand today was personal. Was she at therapy? Did she drive all the way back to Queens to see an established therapist there?
But if that’s all it was, why would Xander be cagey about it? He encouraged me to start therapy after my family kicked me out. He knows I’m pro-therapy now, despite the way I was raised.
I didn’t tell Lou about your family stuff.
I won’t get into her stuff with you.
Elle sets her card face up in the discard pile. “I didn’t think follow-up questions were part of the game.”
Rather than respond, I roll the die and move forward a measly two spaces. I draw a pink card—romance—and groan.
Who was your first kiss? Don’t be stingy with details!
I place the card on top of Elle’s so she can read it. “Okay, first kiss. It was junior year of high school with a girl named Daphne. We ended up dating for over a year, but she broke up with me right before prom.”
Elle’s eyes go wide. “Oof, that’s harsh timing. What happened?”
“I thought follow-up questions weren’t part of this?
” I tease, but I find that I want to open up.
I want her to know me. And if I drop my walls, she might, too.
“Daphne wanted to go to prom together, do the whole meet the parents, take a ton of photos, get a limo with friends thing. But I…I wasn’t ready for my parents to find out about her.
She didn’t want to be kept a secret, so she dumped me. ”
“I’m sorry.” Elle picks up the die and weighs it in her palm. “Were your parents conservative?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking. They’ve never cared that I’m bisexual. The fact that Daphne wasn’t a witch, though…That would have been unacceptable.”
“Is that still a consideration?” she asks, and I swear there’s a hint of disappointment in her voice. “Do you only date witches?”
A humorless laugh escapes my lips. “I doubt my parents give a shit who I date now that they’ve disowned me.”
“They—”
“Kicked me out of the family? Yup.” I lean back, but the surge of grief I expect doesn’t come, dulled by the high that’s starting to infiltrate my system.
“I haven’t seen any of them in five years.
Not even Flora.” The mention of my sister does stir something in me, a mix of feelings too tangled and hurt and bitter to look at closely.
“I’m sorry, Pippa.” Elle drops the die and reaches for my hand. “When you mentioned your family yesterday, I didn’t realize how fraught your relationship was. I’m sorry I keep sticking my foot in my mouth.”
I can barely concentrate on her words when her hand is in mine and she’s staring at me with such naked concern. It makes my heart want to believe in impossible things. “Your turn,” I say, the words little more than a breath.
Elle rolls and moves forward three spaces. She turns her card onto the pile.
Describe the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done.
I don’t know whether I love college-age Xander or hate him right now. I also don’t know whether I should give Elle a pass on this question or keep my mouth shut on the off chance she’s willing to answer. On the chance that she might want me to know.
When I manage to drag my gaze from the card to Elle’s face, I find her deliciously flushed as she considers her answer.
“If you go back to the beginning, I won’t be much ahead of you,” I offer to give her an out.
But Elle shakes her head. “I’m far too competitive to start over.”
I hold my breath as Elle comes to a decision, and it feels like I’m getting a peek into the mischievous teen that Xander talked about.
She tucks her hair behind her ears, still worrying at her lower lip.
“It’s not that salacious,” she says at last. “My ex-girlfriend liked it when I wore a strap-on.”
Hearing the world girlfriend leave her lips does terribly wonderful things to the growing tingles inside me.
Xander asking for queer-friendly roommates is one thing.
Having Elle confirm that she’s dated women before is another entirely.
God, and imagining her with a harness strapped around those hips, a cocky smirk on her face…
I shove the image away and try to ignore the aching want that’s sparked between my thighs. But then the phrasing of her words registers, and it nudges gently at my intuition. “She liked it…but did you?”
Elle shrugs, dragging a chip through the salsa. “It was fine, I guess. I could never get the friction right to…well, you know.”
“That’s why you need a witch in your life. You have to body bond your acc-sex-ories.”
“Body bond?” Elle asks, completely missing my pun.
“It’s a type of sex magic. You magically link the strap-on to your…
” I fumble for an appropriate word. I’m not so high that I’ve forgotten that Elle and I aren’t technically friends.
That we don’t have a personal relationship, even if she is willing to talk about her sex life in the context of the game.
“Your personal anatomy,” I say at last. “That way, you feel what the toy feels.”
“How does it work?” Elle studies me, her pupils wide. “Kinsley isn’t a witch. Sex magic wasn’t on our radar.”
“I could show you,” I say, and Elle’s eyebrows arch toward the sky before I realize the implications. Fuck. “Not in a sexy way! I could bond your hand to a game piece. For educational purposes.”
For several seconds, I sit in my chair, willing the ground to open up beneath me and swallow me whole.
God, I’m such an idiot. I shouldn’t have said anything.
I should have realized someone new to magic wouldn’t know anything about body bonding.
I should have waved off the question and rolled the damn die.
Moved us on from this question into something less personal.
But then Elle reaches into the game box and pulls out the pink token. She hands it to me. “Will this work?”
The relief that courses through my body would have brought me to my knees if I were standing. I accept the piece with a nod. “Cannabis dampens magical ability,” I warn. “The effect will be subtle.”
She cocks her head to the side. “It turns your smoothie straw into a coffee stirrer?”
“It’s not that bad.” I reach for the magic around me, funneling it as best I can in my altered state. After I’ve traced a series of sigils along the surface of the token, I set it on the table. “Do I have your consent to temporarily bond you to this game piece?”
Elle nods and holds out a hand.
This is a bad idea. Irresponsible and ridiculous and destined to come back to bite me in the ass.
I have to live with this woman for twenty-three days.
Twenty-two, since today is nearly gone. Twenty-two days is a long fucking time if I make things awkward between us.
If she wakes up tomorrow embarrassed by the games we played while high, I might lose the little moments of connection we’ve had. She might go cold and distant again.
But also, if this is her flirting, if she means it…
A lot of fun things could happen in twenty-two days.
I slip my palm beneath Elle’s and hold her gaze. “I’d prefer verbal consent before I do this.”
The smirk that pulls at her lips might kill me. “Pippa Ainsley, you formally have my permission to sex magic me to that token for educational purposes.”
“It’s called body bonding,” I remind her as I turn her hand over in mine. I trace the same series of sigils along her palm, where the sensitive skin can make up for my weakened magic. When I’m done, I release her and hover my palm over the pink game piece on the table. “Ready?”
She flexes her hand. “Ready.”
I pick up the game piece and hold it between my hands. Elle’s eyelids flutter closed as she concentrates. “It’s warm,” she says at last. “There’s a pressure, too. Subtle, but there.”
Opening my hands, I trail the pad of my index finger across the edge of the token.
Elle gives a full-body shudder and opens her eyes. “And you can…you can do that spell on anything?”
“Any item,” I confirm, my voice strangled by emotion. “And any body part.”
“There you are!” Xander’s voice fills the space between us, startling me into dropping the game piece. “I found your stash of special chocolates on the kitchen counter. Why didn’t you invite me?” He slides into the chair next to mine and picks up the pink token.
“Don’t touch that!” Elle and I say in unison, earning a confused look from Xander.
“Why not?”
“Pippa sex magicked it.”
Xander drops the game piece. It lands in the bowl of salsa, causing Elle to shudder and swear as she tries to wipe the sensation of cold, wet veggies off her palm. I hastily undo the sigils with a flick of my fingers before fishing the game piece out of the salsa.
“Please tell me I didn’t touch Louie’s clit,” Xander whines. “Y’all need to do that behind closed doors.”
“It was an educational demonstration,” I say, but my face burns with the heat of a thousand suns anyway. “It was bonded to her hand. Absolutely nothing inappropriate was going on.”
“Either way, I’m never using the pink one again.” Xander reaches into the box and pulls out the yellow token. “How many turns did I miss?”
“Actually, I think I’m going to call it a night.” Elle pushes away from the table, avoiding my gaze entirely. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”
“Later, Louie!” Xander calls after her, but I don’t say a word.
All I can do is watch her walk away and hope I haven’t ruined everything.