Page 23 of My Blind Date is a Warlock

“Jacob, you’re freaking me out here. What’s wrong? Did I come down with a rare magical disease or something?” I laughed nervously, scratching the side of my arm.

“Catherine and Piper, they, uh… Look, I know you don’t want to hear this or dare to believe it, but you are not as powerless as you think, Soph. We don’t know how this happened, but all three of us sensed something within you, and it wasn’t a curse or any form of external magic cast on you. It’s you, Sophia.” He poked gently at my chest right above where my heart was. “Your sister sensed it, and so did Catherine. It’s not as it should be—not exactly corrupted or dark, but it doesn’t feel healthy. Catherine suggested that maybe your magic has been slumbering all this time without a healthy outlet for release, that maybe it morphed into something malignant.”

“You mean like a cancer?” My voice was barely audible. A yawning sense of terror opened its jaws wide, waiting to swallow me whole. With a few words, Jacob had yanked the carpet right under my feet, and now everything was topsy turvy and I was struggling to tell up from down. And yet the wings hope, the fragile and easily excitable wings of hope, fluttered in my chest and threatened to soar into the skies. The feeling that stirred with me back at The Book Coven was roaring with joy.

“No, not a cancer. Our working theory is that the pressure of years’ worth of unused magic just grew and grew until your body couldn’t take it anymore and finally exploded. The fevers, the muscle spasms… It’s your body’s way of defending itself and leaching the excess magic out.”

“Then shouldn’t I be doing magical stuff like blowing stuff up or accidentally turning annoying customers into rats? Not making myself as sick as a dog. None of this makes sense!” I pushed away from the chair and stormed outside, glancing out at my glasshouse, a beacon of light and beauty nestled against the forest. I sensed rather than heard Jacob walk up behind me and leaned into his body when he hugged me from behind. He’d put his pants back on—thank the goddess!—but he was still shirtless, and the heat of his body seeped into the back of my thin cotton pajama top while the night breeze came from the direction of the woods.

“I know you’re scared and confused, my love, but this is not a bad thing. Your magic is likely manifesting itself this way because you never had the proper training to will and shape it into doing what you want it to do. It’s just raw energy at this point. But once you learn how to control it, I have a feeling you’ll be an unstoppable force. I’ll teach you.” He kissed me on the crown.

“You won’t be here forever, though.” I sighed. It was high time we hashed this out. “I care about you a great deal, Jacob. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I do. And the fact that you have a whole life out there makes a girl gun shy about taking the next step in this relationship,” I confessed in a ragged whisper. It was a lot easier to talk to him this way, when I wasn’t getting lost in those ocean eyes and getting tongue-tied or sidetracked by other feelings.

“Then ask me to stay. You know I will.”

“How can I? And why would you give up everything for a woman you just met? There are others in Boston who surely have a prior claim to your loyalty. Your family. Your students. Pritchard.” I spat the name out and broke out of his hold and turned to face him. Jacob leaned into my touch when I cupped his cheek. “How do I ask you to give up the life you built to stay with me here?”

“Because I love you,” he answered matter-of-factly, as if it was to be expected. As if it was obvious, as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And maybe it had been staring me right in the face, the depths of his feelings for me, and I just didn’t want to see it.

“Jacob—” He shushed me, placing his finger over my mouth and smirking at the annoyed look I gave him.

“I never told you why I came into the store today, did I? I leased a place out in Westview. Well, not Westview exactly. The properties there are too expensive for my taste,” he explained, referring to the exclusive and affluent neighborhood where the wealthiest in Mystic Cove lived. It was the same neighborhood we’d been in earlier, at the mayor’s house. “But I managed to get a place nearby…with an option to buy if I want to stay here…permanently.”

My mind went blank, and Jacob must have read my lack of a reaction as bad because his excited smile fell off and he stepped away. “Unless you don’t want me to stay.”

“No, no, no. Of course not! I mean, I want you to stay, but what about Redwood? Are you sure about this?”

“Is the sky blue?” he quipped, and I couldn’t help myself.

“Technically, it’s black. The only reason it appears blue is because when sunlight enters the earth’s atmosphere—”

Jacob swallowed the rest of my answer, claiming my lips with a hungry thoroughness that made me forget my own name. I got up on my tiptoes in an effort to deepen it without breaking it off. His hands went down to my thighs and I jumped up at the same time, wrapping my legs around his waist. I didn’t feel him move, but the next thing I knew, I was perched on top of the porch railing, digging my fingers into his shoulders and letting him take control of the kiss.

“I love you, Sophia. I don’t expect you to say it back right now, but know that I will make you say it one of these days. Hell, I’ll have you screaming it at the top of your lungs for the whole world to hear. You are mine and I am yours for as long as you shall have me.” Those words felt binding, like vows to a ritual. The air around us shimmered and stirred, the leaves and branches rustled, and I think I heard an owl hooting in the distance. I felt the weight of it all seep through my skin and settle into my bones. It felt permanent and maybe it was the very thing I needed to cast away my trepidation.

“Take me to bed, Buchanan.”

He looked at me with a hungry desire, but then he looked away and took a step back.

“Wha-what’s wrong?” I asked, thinking I must have offended him somehow.

“Nothing. Nothing, Sophia, I promise.” He grabbed my hands and kissed them in reassurance. “It’s just…my ex…”

“Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed. “You have an STD, don’t you?”

“No!” he replied vehemently. “No… Not exactly, anyway.”

“Then what? What does that mean?”

“She didn’t give me an STD, but she hexed me.”

“Hexed you?”

“Yes,” he said. “She was a very powerful witch, and when we broke up, she cursed me to be unable to…get fully aroused ever again.”

I couldn’t help but snicker. “Sorry. Why did she do that?” Then I got deadly serious, crossing my arms. “Did you cheat on her?”

“No!” he said, offended. “But she thought I was. I was gone a lot, searching for the Book of Shadows. She didn’t think I was just looking for the book, jetting all over the world without her.”

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