Page 12 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

“You can put your mouth on my?—”

“Okay, Rin-Tin-Tin, I get the idea.”

“Rin-Tin-Tin? Really?”

“What?” I asked innocently. “Besides, that was yesterday. Today, with no magic?—”

“You sure you don’t have magic?”

“Nope. It leaves me once the moon wanes. It has to be full.”

“Then what’s that?” He pointed to the magic reaching out to him from my fingers—it wasn’t as bright and strong as yesterday, but the fact that it even existed at all was huge.

“How is this happening?” I whispered.

“Because we’re connected. I didn’t know it was you—but I’ve been waiting for you.” Oh, lordy, he had on his bedroom eyes. The nerves in my belly fluttered like I’d never been kissed before, let alone been intimate with a man.

Jeffery and I had an active sex life, and he hadn’t been my first. Yet it took everything in me to not giggle like a schoolgirl. I looked around frantically to avoid making eye contact with Connor. He was too much. Too intense. Took up too much of the air in the room.

“Simone,” he growled my name—a good growl, the best growl. I ignored him. “Look at me,” he demanded.

Strategically keeping my eyes averted, I shook my head.

“Look at me, Simone.”

I shook my head again. That was when I noticed a picture of a pretty woman sitting on his bedside table. She had all the dark features of Connor but looked to be in her early twenties.

“Who’s that?” I asked before thinking better of it. The mood in the room turned icy.

“My sister,” he said. “That’s Madigan.”

“You’re tense now. Did something happen to her?” The moment was ruined anyway. What could it hurt to find out more about him, about his life?

“She disappeared. Two years ago. She came to me one day, told me she’d stumbled on something huge.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“Don’t know. She didn’t want to elaborate. She called me the next day. She was scared. Begged me to meet her. I told her not to move, that I’d be there as soon as possible. She was gone when I got to her location. I never saw her again.”

I gasped.

He nodded once then pressed his forehead to mine. “Thing is, she’s a hound just like me. Not much in the world scares us.”

On its own accord, my hand moved up his body, gliding over his silken skin in order to rest two fingers on his face below his eye. With my thumb, I gently stroked his afternoon stubble.

Connor closed his eyes, breathing in a sharp breath through his nose, sinking into my touch.

“She was petrified,” he whispered after a few long seconds.

“Have you been searching for her?”

He shook his headyes.

“I’ll help you find her.”

That got his attention. His whole body stiffened above me. His nostrils flared. His eyes stared down at me, angry and intense. “No,” he bit out.

Confused, I waited for him to continue. If you gave people enough silence, they felt compelled to fill it.

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