Page 59 of Wickedly Ever After
I also have a matter of business that I must speak to you about regarding an item I need to dispose of safely.
Yours sincerely,
Hector West
Hector eyed himself critically in the mirror. Of all the foolishness, this was the worst. Ida didn’t care what he looked like. So why did he? He wished Heartsease potion worked as a preventative against this overactive love magic—he’d have guzzled a whole bottle of it, just in case. His damned heart. He ought to have gotten rid of the thing long ago. At least in another two days, he’d have nothing more to worry about. He’d sent his missive to Sebastian by high-speed vulture. The ghoul wouldn’t ignore it. And after all, it was only one bed, not Only-One-Bed magic. He’d manage.
When Hector came out of the garderobe, having brushedhis teeth down to the gums, he found Ida on the right side of the bed, clad in a low-cut blue silk nightgown, glasses perched on her nose, reading.
He coughed, feeling self-conscious. He’d donned his favorite nightshirt, the red one missing a button at the top, but it was short, falling partway down his hairy thighs in the front and barely concealing his backside. He wished he’d brought a bathrobe, but he didn’t own one. Tinbit didn’t care if Hector walked around the castle naked, and the skeletons were too polite to laugh. With as much dignity as was possible in a threadbare flannel nightshirt missing one button, Hector paced to the bed, pulled the covers down on his side, and slipped in.
Ida closed her book. It winked out of sight along with the illumination.
“You didn’t need to stop reading,” he said. “I don’t mind.”
“I was done with the chapter,” she said.
“Is it a book of spells?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is that what you read before bed to help you go to sleep?”
“Well, no,” Hector said. His sleeping aid was a genealogy of the kings and queens written in the ridiculously begat-begot style. He never made it past the fourth page. “But if it was a book of good spells, pertaining to Happily-Ever-After, I should like to read it.”
“Should you?”
“I’m not familiar with your end of the magic—at least not the application. I’m comfortable enough with the theories.”
“I’ll find one for you,” Ida said. “But I wasn’t reading spells. It was simply a good book.”
“A romance?”
Ida glared at him. “No, a thriller. I deal with romance enough in real life. Now, I suggest we both get some sleep.”
“I agree.” He closed his eyes, turned onto his side, and flopped into a trench in the center of the bed. Ida crashed into him a second later.
“Oh, for the love of magic!” She thrashed and clawed her way out while he fought to get back on his own side of the bed. “There must be a weak spot in the middle. Perhaps if we balance—”
He positioned himself on the extreme edge of the bed. Ida did the same. One shift—back in the trench.
“Well?” Ida’s nose bumped his.
“I could sleep on the floor—maybe Tinbit would let me…”
Ida wriggled around and put her back to him. “Just don’t kick me. Please.”
“I won’t.” He’d break if she moved against him, he was so tense now. He hadn’t touched another person like this since—since never. Her hair tickled his neck, tangling on his remaining buttons. Her slick nightgown brushed his thighs. If he moved at all, her hips would be touching him much more intimately.
Well, he simply wouldn’t move or sleep. His entire body was on high alert, every sense heightened to an almost hallucinatory degree. With each breath he drew in her scent—sharp and clean, like lavender soap mixed with basil. How had she managed to find soap in this inn?
Ida moved. He gasped as her shapely rear end rubbed suggestively against his nervous penis, only not so nervous now, more intrigued by this new and strange development.Oh, Gods.He had to get out of this bed. “Uh, Ida?”
“What?” she muttered.
“I really should sleep on the floor.”
“Hector, I don’t like your cock on my ass any more than you do,” she said sleepily. “Please relax. I am quite familiar with what happens to a man when he’s pressed, so to speak.”
“I do apologize.”
