Page 62 of Witch You Weren't Here

Her chest rose and fell heavily, tension easing. She didn’t want to start feeling stressed again and talking about her magic generally did stress her out, so she fastened her eyes back on his artwork, letting his influence wash over her, inside and out.

It felt amazing. So much positivity bubbling through her, like a cool stream. The bedrock of fears and worries hadn’t disappeared, but perhaps they were being eroded, the smaller pebbles dislodged and carried away.

And the heat of his body stretched out beside her, the sensation of him holding her, pressing, and guiding her limbs as he worked – that brought a whole other level of good feeling to her that had nothing to do with his magic.

‘Do you think it would work if I couldn’t see it?’ she asked. ‘Like, if you’d drawn on my back?’

‘Hmm … I think so, if you can picture the image in your mind when you feel me drawing it, combined with it being on your skin … but not as strong maybe.’

‘So … if it could work without me seeing it, does that mean it would work without the ink?’

‘I can use any medium; paint, make-up—’

‘What about something you couldn’t see?

He frowned at her for a moment. ‘How could I draw on you with something invisible?’

She took his wrist in her hand, turned it over and planted her lips against it. Then opened her mouth and lapped once against his skin.

His mouth went slack, his eyes heating as his gaze met hers.

‘Would you like me to try doing that? On you?’ His voice came out low, like a curl of smoke beneath a door.

She made a tiny shrug with one shoulder. ‘It would save you ink.’ She rolled her jumper up her midriff, folding it just over her bra. ‘I used to want to get a sunflower tattoo. Around my belly button.’

He placed the cap on his pen with a decisive click and then threw it blindly over his shoulder, so it dropped down to the floor behind him, drawing a laugh from her even as her breathing began to speed up again.

Scooting a little further down the bed, he hitched her leg up to accommodate his bent knee beneath hers and let out a shaky laugh. ‘Is there anything in particular you’d like me to try and infuse it with?’

She closed her eyes, thinking that at any other time she’d probably be dying of mortification at being so obvious, but she was just going to roll with it. In the space of the last hour, she’d gone from thinking she was going to die and send everyone to the bottom of the ocean, to peaceful, to having a simmering electricity beneath her skin.

Maybe this was going against the decision she’d made earlier, not to do anything else with him until they’d talked and she’d weighed up the sense of acting on their attraction, but the temptation was too much. She was tired of fighting it and it hadn’t even been that long since she’d last made a move on him.

‘You can use your imagination,’ she said, resisting the desire to shift her hips.

He made a quiet hum and then his fingers curled around her hip, his thumb stroking the patch of sensitive skin just above her waistband. His lips landed next to her belly button, and she inhaled deeply at the heat of them. She could picture the press of them like a petal, his tongue lightly brushing between to draw a line. He shifted up to repeat the action, at an angle, another petal blossoming in her mind, and she felt the magic simmering – not as clear as before, but with that same way it heated and sank into her skin.

Another shift, another petal from his mouth directly onto her body. She couldn’t tell what he was infusing it with yet. She couldn’t have cared less, in fact. All she knew was that he had his lips and tongue on her skin and it felt amazing. Too good for her to keep still. She took a shaky breath and reached up to hold on tight to the corners of the pillow her head rested on.

A ragged noise escaped Harry’s throat as her body flexed beneath him, his fingers tightening on her hip. He paused, his breath falling heavily on her skin as the moment stretched out. When he finally moved, he didn’t plant another petal-kiss, he laved his tongue up from just above the button of her jeans, straight to her belly button, like a stem bursting from the earth, rising to find the sun. Heat rushed down between her legs, and she arched involuntarily.

‘Oh Goddess, that feels amazing. What …? What, are you …? What influence …?’ she stammered, trying to get out a coherent question and failing miserably.

‘Fucked if I know,’ he panted, and then he was lifting himself higher, his mouth mapping her whole stomach in random, lingering kisses. His teeth nipped at the small bow in the centre of her bra, peeking beneath her jumper, before he rose up further to find her lips. ‘Is this—?’

She let go of the pillow and sank her fingers into his hair, gripping handfuls as she opened to him for a deep and desperate kiss.

It tasted like inevitability, his tongue caressing hers, his lips firm and frenzied as they slid over hers, drinking her in. The kiss earlier had been a scrabble to keep up with the rush of something she’d yearned for so long finally happening. Grabbing it by the scruff of its neck so it didn’t get away from her. This was different. This felt like the sudden clearing of consciousness when a word you’d forgotten, that you knew would describe what you were talking about, came back to you. So obvious and perfect. So intrinsic to who she was, it was like arriving home earlier than expected. Falling into her own bed.

And she knew it wasn’t his magic. Not the kind he controlled anyway. This was just them. This thing that had always been there between them and it was relief and anticipation and hunger all rolled into one.

More. She wanted more. All of him.

She unbuttoned his shirt, pushing it down his shoulders, marvelling at the curve of his bones under her hands, muscles cording as he held himself over her, shifting his weight to help free his arms. She dragged her nails lightly back up, from wrist to elbow, across his biceps, pressing her fingertips into the dip of his collarbone before smoothing down his back again. Goosebumps rose along his flesh at her touch, fine shivers as she pressed her palms to the sharp angles of his shoulder blades, traced the dents of his spine.

She was the one drawing on him and it was working a different kind of magic. But it reminded her of how she used to feel about it – full of wonder and anticipation, crackling with eagerness, knowing bursts of sheer joy were to be found.

His body was lean and hard, freckles dancing across his skin. She wanted to study every one. Her hand slid to his stomach, up higher and she faltered at his chest, lines of ink surprising her. ‘You have a tattoo.’ Right in the centre of his chest, deep blue lines overlapping in a complicated pattern.

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