Page 14 of Spellbound
In my dream, he lay beside me in bed, his face bathed in moonlight shining in the windows, and his long dark eyelashes shadowed his creamy cheeks. His face was scrunched up, like he was having a bad dream, and a teardrop was caught in his eyelashes. I caught it on my fingertip and tasted it. It was salty and bitter on my tongue. I bent to kiss each eyelid and lick the tears away. I whispered the words of a spell that would ease him. Then I kissed his lips again … and again. Those kisses only got me started. I moved down to his cute little nose and his cheeks and back to his luscious lips, and there I lingered a while. He moved restlessly under me and wrapped his leg around my hips and threw his arms around my neck. I gathered him close to hold him to my heart, and I realized, in the way of dreams, that he was suddenly naked in bed beside me. I was achingly hard for him.
That’s how I woke up a few seconds later, too, still aching, still feeling frustrated as hell. Groaning, I sat up on the side of the bed. And that’s when I thought I heard the echo of a shoutinside the house. I listened intently for a moment but when no sound was repeated, I sighed and put my head back down on the pillow to try to go back to sleep. A few seconds later, I heard a soft knocking at my door.
“Ben? Ben, wake up.” It was Asher, of course, who couldn’t have come at a worse time. I could barely hear the soft, muffled voice coming from the hallway outside, but I still recognized the tone. He was frightened about something, so I went over quickly and swung the door open wide. He was shivering a little as he glanced at me and then uneasily cast his eyes down the dark, narrow hallway behind him.
“Asher? What’s wrong? Hell, what time is it, anyway?”
“I don’t know. It’s late. But I-I need your help. There’s something outside my window, trying to get in.”
“What? What the hell?”
“Come see for yourself,” he said, pulling at my arm. He turned and took off back to his room, tugging me along, and I didn’t pull away, but just went along with him. I knew it was better than keeping my eyes on that little ass in nothing but his underwear twisting down the hall in front of me, especially after the dream I’d just had. He stopped at the door and pointed to his bedroom window.
“Something was scratching there at the screen and knocking on the window frame, trying to get in.”
“What? No way. You must have been dreaming.”
“No, I wasn’t—I was wide awake, because it was so hot. I opened the window and then I could hear…it sounded like something crying outside.”
“Uh huh. I think you were having a nightmare.” I walked over to his window to pull back the curtains. It had stopped raining, and the sodden clouds had parted in patches across the sky, displaying a pale, yellow moon. It was almost full, so the moonlight bathed everything in an eerie, unnatural light. Wewere on the second floor, and there was nothing at all outside the window, just like I thought, though the stillness outside did seem different. It was a listening kind of silence, broken only by the almost constant, distant rumble of thunder.
“Why does that moonlight look so funny?” he asked, standing at my shoulder.
“I don’t know. We may be in the eye of the storm that’s coming through, because there’s more rain to come for sure.”
“It’s been raining all day off and on.”
“Well, that’s why it’s so green here. Because it rains a lot.” I ran my hand over the sill, whispering a little spell to seal the window. “Sule latch domman. Domman latch sule.”
I thought I’d said the words under my breath, but he must have had ears like a bat, or maybe he sensed the magic.
“What was that? You just said something.”
“Nothing, really. Just something Rosalyn used to say at night.”
“But what was it?”
“Just a little cantrip to make sure nothing comes this way. Kinda the same principle as a kid saying, ‘I pray the Lord my soul to keep.’”
“No, that wasn’t any kind of prayer, and you don’t strike me as particularly religious anyway. You said a magic spell, didn’t you? What language was that? Don’t tell me you guys do that shit here too, like my grandma does.”
“Of course, I use my magic, Ash. But like I said, it wasn’t a real spell. More like a cantrip. It’s harmless.”
He snorted. “A cantrip? What the fuck? Like in Dungeons and Dragons? Give me a break.”
“No, the word is from the Scots, actually. Very old. And more or less appropriated by D&D.”
“God, don’t tell me you believe in all that shit? Like my grandma does?” He shrugged. “I don’t believe in that magiccrap,” he said, managing to sound scornful and nervous at the same time.
He’d expressed that idea so many times before that I was already bored with it.
“Whether or not you ‘believe’ in it makes no difference.”
I felt the heat of him and caught his scent as he stepped closer. Regardless of how scornful he pretended to be, he was suddenly pressing up against me. He smelled good, like shampoo and the soap Rosalyn bought from a little shop in town, made with oatmeal and honey. Reluctantly, I took a step away from him.
“Wait. Please, Ben. Don’t go. I know we don’t know each other very well, but could you stay a little while?”
“I’m tired, Ash. I have a lot to do tomorrow.”
