Page 73 of A Witchy Spell Ride
No fear.
No hesitation.
Just want, raw and honest.
She rolled on top of me and kissed me like it was hers to take and it was. “You’re not done with me,” she said into my throat, the words low and wicked.
“Not even close.”
I flipped her beneath me and this time I didn’t rush. This time I showed her. I drew her up, brought her knees toward the bed’s edge where the old standing mirror leaned in the corner, tall, scuffed frame, glass that had watched fights and homecomings and too many dawns.
She started to speak. I caught her chin gently between my fingers.
“Look,” I said.
Her lips parted, caution warring with curiosity. “Ghost…”
“You see her?” I murmured. “That woman?”
She swallowed, eyes lifting to meet her reflection.
“That’s mine,” I told her, not a claim on her body, but on the truth that lived in it. Not his story. Hers. Ours.
Her breath shook. I kissed the line of her jaw and let my hands teach what my mouth couldn’t say without breaking. I moved with intention, contained and sure, an unhurried rhythm that rebuilt her sense of self where hands had once tried to unthread it. Every time she tried to look away, I turned her face back, gentle but unyielding.
“Watch,” I said, voice husk and gravel. “Watch how powerful you are.”
Her cheeks flushed, not with embarrassment, but with dawning recognition. Her body answered mine without flinching. She stared like she couldn’t decide if she believed the evidence, the strength in the set of her shoulders, the fierce line of her mouth, the woman in the glass who took and took and took because it was hers to take.
“That’s it,” I whispered, a rough encouragement. “Look at you.”
“Ghost—” Her voice fractured, not with fear, never that now but with something like triumph.
“You see how beautiful you are when you come apart? When youletyourself?”
She made a sound I wanted to wear, and I held her steady and carried her through it, every breath a reassurance, every word a map back to the parts of her that had been doubted and dimmed and were busy relighting.
When the shaking eased, I didn’t leave her. I kept her close and moved slower, deeper, not demanding anything from her that she wasn’t already giving freely. The mirror caught the soft collapse of her smile, the slip of her lashes, the wildness tamed into something honest and owned. I watched her watch herself and I don’t mind saying it undid me.
When the last of the tension left us, the bed accepted our weight and the mirror accepted our truth.
She lay with her cheek on my chest, breathing in the evening, heartbeat slowing into mine. I smoothed damp hair off her temple and kissed the spot my hand had warmed. “You seenow?” I asked, voice dragged raw. “You’re not broken, Selene. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”
She shifted, eyes finding the mirror again. A small, slow smile tugged at her mouth, the kind that means belief is finally louder than doubt.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I think I do.”
We stayed like that for a long time. Long enough for the room to cool and the outside noise to sink back into the background hum of a building that loved as hard as it fought. Long enough for the part of my brain that always plans to whisperaftercareand for my hands to answer water, a warm cloth, the careful slide of fabric over skin, the soft reset of covers. She let me, unembarrassed by the tenderness, almost greedy for it. I could’ve saidloveright then and it would’ve fit, but I kept the word behind my teeth and let the actions hold its shape.
Eventually she propped herself on an elbow and studied me the way a person studies a map before they commit to a road. “You’re not going to be kind,” she said, not a question, remembering what I’d promised about the man who’d slipped notes into sacred places.
“Not to him,” I said. “Never to him.”
Her fingers traced the scar on my shoulder like a comet path. “But to me,” she said, testing.
“Always.”
That earned me another kiss, slow and deep, the kind that rearranges a future. When she pulled back, her eyes were clear. “Tomorrow, we dress up and pretend this is normal.”
