Page 70 of Brewing Up a Bad Boy

“So...?” Ali asked.

She shifted around until she straddled his lap. They were face-to-face, and she could see him more clearly this way. His hands were on her hips to steady her, but there was nothing overtly sexual about him in this moment.

This was the most vulnerable he’d ever been with her. It made her heart beat faster; her entire being was drawn to him. Similar to the almost-solstice at the Tor, when she’d felt the moon’s energy wrapping around both of them.

Truth had a power that was stronger than either of them.

“You’re brave,” she said.

“I think I just proved I’m not.”

She put her fingers over his lips. “That took a lot of courage. Showing me your worst moment. That is something you wouldn’t have done before.” Resting her forehead against his, she stared into his gold-flecked brown eyes, ringed with those sinfully long eyelashes. Her heartbeat sped up as she turned her head to angle her mouth and kiss him.

But he evaded her kiss. “Are you sure you heard it all?”

She shifted back, looking down at him as he slouched on the couch. “Yes. Do you think you’re the only one who doesn’t know who they are or what they are becoming?”

He flushed. “Ah, when you put it that way...”

She almost laughed and would have if she wasn’t caught in this painful longing for Ali to be the man she needed in her life. Not the one she was expecting. Not the one she wanted him to be. But the one she needed. That secret craving that even she couldn’t define for herself but that her spirit would know when he was in her arms.

Perhaps that was why she was trying so hard to uncover every change in him since they’d split up. Trying to ascertain that this time, when she took that leap into him, she wouldn’t crash to the ground.

Looking for a guarantee in love was honestly the dumbest sort of ask. But there it was.

She wanted to know that if she let her heart go where it was heading that it wasn’t going to be shattered. She didn’t want to start over again and wasn’t sure that she would ever let herself if Ali wasn’t what she wanted him to be.

No,needed.

Still, want was always a part of it.

“What do you feel broken about?” he asked.

“Telling me about your leave of absence wasn’t a trade,” she pointed out.

“I’m very aware of that, moon fairy. I’m looking at you, as I have been all night, trying to figure out how you could feel broken. You seem to have this magic that holds everything together.”

“I wish,” she said.

“But you do, it flows around you, and sometimes, if I’m close to it, I can feel that spell wrapping around me, keeping me safe.”

Hearing Ali talking about being safe broke her heart a little bit, but in a different way. She understood how scary it was to be lost inside yourself.

“When I walked out of our flat...I am surprised my legs carried me. I was shattering a little more with every step. Everything I had ever believed about the woman I was had turned into a lie. I had told myself I wouldn’t be one of those women who blindly gave up her own agency to be with a man...yet I had.”

“I never meant for that to happen.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t something you could control. I lost all sense of who I was and had been. Hiding my witchy practices and playing down my tea blending to make something more commercial instead of taking risks. Being safe turned out to be the most detrimental thing to my own health.”

“God. How are you even here with me? Don’t you hate me?” he asked.

Hate him?Of course, she’d said that a million times or more when he dug his heels in about the divorce or wouldn’t answer her emails, but the distance had helped. “No. I mean I did, but that was more hating myself. I hated that I allowed you that much power over me. Once I realized that—and it took a hella long time—everything started to get better. Where do you think your anger comes from?”

“Dad.”

That made sense. “I noticed you weren’t as much of a kiss-ass as you used to be.”

“Kiss-ass, really?”

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