Page 165 of Mayhem and Minnie

Her eyes flash at me.

“If you’re so sure I’m a witch, aren’t you afraid I’ll put a hex on you?” She smirks.

“I think you’ve already done that.”

She raises her eyebrow at me. “I have?”

“I know you put a spell on me,” I tell her confidently. “Now I just have to prove it.”

“And what spell would that be?”

“You know fully well what you’ve done. You’ve bewitched me just as you’ve done to all the men who ever laid eyes on you.”

“I seem to remember you weren’t very bewitched when you laid eyes on me,” she mutters drily. “Didn’t you want to kill me?”

“That in itself suggests you bewitched me. How else would I otherwise deviate from my normal M.O.?”

“You’re mad.” She laughs.

“That’s the issue, Minnie. I’m mad for you. And it’s unnatural.”

She blinks, taken aback. “You’re mad…for me?”

“I’m disgustingly, disturbingly mad for you, to the point that I’ve started questioning my own fucking sanity,” I grit out.

Biting her lip, she regards me with a curious expression on her face.

“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Get me so fucking obsessed with you I cannot function anymore.”

“Marlowe—”

“I was right from the beginning. You wanted my ring on your finger, and you cast a spell to get it.”

“M—”

“Now that you got me panting after you like a dog in heat, you’re withholding everything from me until I marry you. How Boleynian of you, Minnie. Classic strategy,” I add wryly. “What do you want? My money? My family name? My?—”

“You. I want you.”

That stops my tirade. I swallow, suddenly overcome by a wave of emotions I cannot recognize. Heat climbs up my neck and I avert my gaze.

“Well, congratulations. Your spell worked. You’ll have your ring and your marriage,” I say uncomfortably.

She snorts.

“Thank you, Marlowe. That sounds like the most romantic proposal a girl can get.”

I turn sharply to her.

“You wanted a ring, you’ll have a ring,” I tell her. “We’re going shopping at the end of the week.”

That surprises her. She stares at me for a few long seconds before she clears her throat.

“You still want to bond with me even though I might have put a spell on you?” she asks uncertainly.

I glare at her. That’s as much of an admission as I’m going to get, isn’t it?

“I want to fuck you, Minnie. If a marriage certificate is what you need to put out, I’ll give it to you.”