Page 63 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“That’s lovely,” said Vickie, stepping closer, though not close enough. Az could smell her again—berries and lavender, and, he thought, with his hand deep in the ancestral magic of the grimoire that sharpened his senses, lust. He had so much power, touching this book. He could read her, and he knew,knew, that she wanted him as much as he did her. The knowledge of it burned through him, tautening his entire body like a rubber band pulled back and stretched too thin, ready to snap.
“Here,” Az said, feeling the warmth of her next to him and of the fire, and fighting the uncomfortable instinct to go completely rigid against the zipper of his jeans just knowing what Vickie was feeling.
Az pointed at the book to distract himself from the blood rushing to his lower body.
“The tracing spell is simple.” He snapped his fingers, summoning the necessary herbs from the garden, and a speck of gravedirt from the pot that Priscilla used to ferment it, mixing in the ashes of a gravedigger, willingly given, every so often to ensure that it was potent enough to provoke truth.
At the behest of his snapping fingers, the ingredients stirred themselves in the cauldron with a long metal spoon.
“Now what?”
Az shut the grimoire, stroking the cover once, lovingly, and then snapped his fingers, making the book disappear again.
“Now we wait, and in an hour, you offer something of yours to it, and we hope that it’s enough to trace a similar gift.”
“The question is…” she started, stepping closer to him, close enough that it was hard to ignore all the tiny moments of her perfection.
So.
Hard.
“What should we do in the meantime?” Vickie’s eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed.
The house shuddered a little, and the doors to the library slammed shut, the large wooden bolt sliding closed. Velvety drapes swished shut with care. Soft flame jumped up in chandeliers, and the record player popped on; a vinyl recording of a passionate tango flooded the air.
“I think the house has some ideas for us,” Az said, and he wondered if maybe the house was right. Perhaps he could let himself be wild and untethered with her for just a little while. They almost certainly were approaching dangerous territory, and who knew how long any of their lives were, in the end? “There’s something I need to tell you, but how could we deny the house? The Hart Manor wants what it wants, Vickie. Let’s pretend. We can be normal, for a moment.”
The smile she gave him in return for his foolishness dazzled him. His heart could hurt for this later; he didn’t care. He closed the distance between them, as far as he could without dying, and snapped his fingers. The recording switched to Hozier, she was his darling, and Azrael was starving.
He snapped his fingers, donning gloves to avoid catastrophe. Eight years too late, his traitorous fingers finally listened, running across her cheek and tucking her messy brown hair behind her ear. Vickie sucked in a sharp breath at his touch.
“Shall we dance?” She asked it so solemnly that it almost broke him.
Az swallowed. His clothes felt too tight, and the tension building against his zipper pressed an outline into his jeans he definitely could not pretend away.
“What did you have in mind in terms of avoiding death?” Everything was too much for him now: the memories, the chemistry, and the clothes. There were far too many clothes. He smiled at her. “Or would you like me to die holding you? I’d be willing. It would be worth it.”
It would, he realized, and he thought his heart might beat out of his chest, or explode entirely with all the things he wanted from her.
“Don’t die. We can think of something.” Vickie’s mouth tugged a little. “How hard can it be for two people who can’t touch to dance?”
“How much do you want to pretend?” Az reached up to trace the side of her arm, a glove’s fabric between him and the utter annihilation that he longed for. She stepped closer.
This was such a bad idea.
“Pretend that this isn’t just one stolen moment in a very romantic wingman of a library. That things are easier. No curse. No restrictions. No misunderstandings.”
“I can do that,” he bit out. Goddess, his heart would shatter for this later. But he was weak, and he wanted her, and the fire crackled, highlighting remnants of glitter in her soft brown waves. There always seemed to be a little bit of glitter in Vickie’s hair.
Vickie smiled, plush pink lips stretching wide, and then stepped back again to safety.
“Look,” she said, pointing to the corner.
“My knight in bejeweled armor,” Az said softly, looking at the suit of armor. Unlike the set in the entryway, this one was hollow, uninhabited by spirits. Though he didn’t try it on often, a man with a full suit of armor at home can’t resist the occasional summer renaissance festival while home from college. Or, if he was honest, the occasional drunken sword fight with imaginary foes.
And now it was what he needed, a romantic homage to knights and ladies of storybooks.
The suit of armor was a perfect solution; he was witch enough to have already tailored it so that he could move easily, and his drunken antics in years prior had suddenly put him in a position to be perfectly prepared for this very occasion.
