Page 51 of Once Upon a Curse for True Love
Donatello pulled back, victorious.“See?Was that so hard?”
“You fight dirty.”
“Only when necessary.”He touched his lilac locks with an exaggerated sigh.“Do I have to beg for you to fix it?”
The image of Donatello Malatesta—powerful, cocky, self-assured—begging her for anything sent a wave of heat through her body.“That’s… an interesting proposition.”
He caught the shift in her tone, his eyes darkening as he leaned closer.“I could get on my knees right now if that would help,” he whispered in her ear.
Andromeda swallowed hard, torn between taking him up on the offer and showing mercy.She sighed dramatically and kept stroking his lilac strands.“I suppose I can be persuaded without the begging.But I’ll miss this color.It’s grown on me.”
“You can turn it back tonight, baby,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple.“If that’s what you want.”
The casual endearment combined with the assumption they’d be spending another night together sent a warm flutter through her chest.Rather than examining the feeling too closely, Andromeda focused on reversing the curse.
Under her fingertips, the texture of his hair remained the same—soft and thick—but the magic drained away as the color shifted.“This might feel weird,” she warned.She closed her eyes, concentrating on the counter-spell.
“It already—hex!”Donatello shivered in her arms.“Your coursework is freezing!”
When she opened her eyes, his hair had returned to its natural midnight black, the strands still caught between her fingers.He wasn’t any less handsome.Still the same intense, brooding, skilled-in-bed cop.
“Better?”she asked, admiring her handiwork.
“Much.”His hands were moving again, sliding down her back to pull her closer.“But now I’m cold.Think you could warm me up?”
She smiled as she let her weight drop on him, trailing her fingertips down his arms.His mouth claimed hers, hungry and demanding, as he rolled her beneath him.
This time was different—less frantic, more intentional.His hands moved with careful precision as if cataloging her responses for future reference.And he held her gaze with an intensity that made her breath catch.There it was again—that something that ran deeper than a physical connection.Andromeda should have found it terrifying, but instead, she arched up to meet him, surrendering to whatever this was becoming.
Afterward, they lay tangled together, Andromeda’s head pillowed on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.His fingers traced lazy patterns on her shoulder, and she melted into the touch.
“Shower?”he suggested.
What was meant to be a quick rinse turned into another round of intimacy when Donatello backed her against the cool tile wall, lifted her with those strong arms, and made her forget her name.Water cascaded over them, steam curling around their bodies as they moved together.She clutched his shoulders, her thighs locked at his waist, wondering how she’d ever go back to showering alone after this.
By the time she made it to the kitchen, wrapped in his too-large robe, her legs wobbly, and her skin bearing several marks from his eager mouth, the clock on the microwave read9:17—later than she’d expected.
“Hex!Quill will be worried sick.I didn’t tell him I wasn’t coming home.”
Donatello grinned as he cracked eggs into a bowl.“Your hedgehog’s going to hate me even more now.”
“He already thinks you’re the devil incarnate.”Andromeda rummaged through her bag for her phone.“Yikes.Seven texts from Sarah Michelle.”
She scrolled through them, her cheeks heating as her roommate’s messages grew increasingly suggestive.The last one being:
You’d better be handcuffed to Malatesta’s bed.That’s the only reason I might forgive you for not replying
Andromeda groaned and typed back:
Stayed at D’s.Will be home soon to change.Tell Quill to chill
Almost instantly, three dots appeared, followed by:
D, huh?So… on a scale of 1-10, how accurate was that “my penis is small” meme?Asking for a friend
“Gargoyles,” Andromeda muttered, her face flaming up.
“What’s wrong?”Donatello glanced over his shoulder from where he was cooking scrambled eggs.
