Page 102 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

Relief that every time one of them messed up, stones broke from the chapel erected of her expectations.

I told Luca about Amanda.

I told him about the first time I’d seen her. How she’d welcomed me with a hug, despite having never met me before. How her long dark hair had tickled my nose. How she smelled like cinnamon-sugar. How she fed me cookies, and made me hold her son—like she trusted me. Like she’d taken one look at me and known I was good.

No one had ever done that before.

I told him things I had never told anyone before, and instead of judging me—instead of growing bored or annoyed, he latched on to every word with enthusiasm, his eyes bright, his smile patient.

And when I was done talking, he let me be done.

He squeezed my hand, his palm sweaty, his exhaustion obvious as he huffed out a tired little breath and his stomach growled again.

We kept walking. The daylight was growing weak when Luca spotted a berry bush with a triumphant skip to his step. He bit his tongue in concentration as he picked a dozen or so pieces of fruit, sweat glistening at his temple, his eyes shaded by his ridiculous half-purple baseball cap. “Look!” He held out his handful to me, the red berries gleaming. “Thimbleberries.” He popped one into his mouth with a happy moan.

“Aren’t those poisonous?” I asked, just to mess with him.

His eyes bulged as he spat the berry out with an indignant squawk. “Shit!” He glared at me in suspicion. “Wait.” His eyes were practically slits as he cocked his head to the side, assessing. “How do you know? You’re from Maine. These are West Coast berries.”

I blinked. A wolfish grin spread across my cheeks and Luca gasped in mock outrage. “I don’t.”

“Hi-lar-i-ous.” He deadpanned as he shoved more berries into his mouth with a head shake. “Thimbleberries are not poisonous, dickhead.” Luca glared at me through his ridiculously curly lashes, grabbed another handful, and shook his head in exasperation as we continued on our way.

Five minutes later, when his stomach gurgled again, I caught him muttering under his breath, “I would kill for some betrayal lasagna right about now.”

I’d had enough of his growling stomach by the time we accidentally stumbled upon the road again. He needed food.

Luckily, there were no cars in sight. But that didn’t stop my nerves from acting up as we ducked inside the tree line again and Luca huffed from the shadows.

His stomach growled, for the millionth time, and I turned to him, only to catch the very real embarrassment on his face.

“Sorry,” he said, voice wobbling. “Sex makes me hungry.”

That wasn’t the only thing making him hungry—the guy could eat enough to feed an entire congregation on a normal day. But…that wasn’t his fault. He looked genuinely miserable, and that in turn, made me want to fix whatever was making him upset.

“We’ll follow the road until we reach a gas station,” I decided, blindly ignoring the fact there probably wasn’t one. I wanted to give him something, even if all it was, was hope.

“What about the hunter dude following us?”

I glanced up and down the road, noting the lack of cars.

Maybe he’d given up?

Or we had outrun him. Though, that didn’t seem likely, seeing as he probably had a vehicle, and we’d been traveling on foot. I checked the road again. Nothing. For now we were safe but I’d have to stay aware, and should a dire situation arise…

Shit.

I needed to tell Luca about the spell. I couldn’t keep forcing him to tell me what to do—I needed to move freely. And for the first time, I trusted someone else to give me that freedom. He didn’t want to trap me. I knew that now. Maybe it was disadvantageous of him to celebrate my agency as much as I did, but—he was a kind-hearted fool.

“I’ll deal with it if we see him.”

Wind whistled and a chill was settling in the air. It wasn’t even night yet and Luca needed food. Fire. Something warmer to wear. I was suddenly grateful I’d thought to pack him a second hoodie. Grlggrlgl. Luca’s whole face burst red as he stared down at his beat-up sneakers, tears in his jeans, blood slowly dripping from the dozens of micro cuts that had whipped his lovely shins. He slapped a hand over his belly in punishment.

I would fix this.

I would.

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