Page 46 of Charmed, I'm Sure
“Because that was embarrassing,” she groaned into her palms. Slowly, her hands fell from her face, revealing piercing aqua orbs that locked onto mine. “You could’ve been a gentleman and ignored it, butnooo.”
A snort of my own escaped at her dramatics, and her bright eyes narrowed. “Why would I ignore something I find endearing?”
“Endearing?”
“Yes, Mags. Endearing. In the span of, what, five minutes? I’ve learned two new things about you.” Her brow quirked, and she looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Who knows, maybe I had. But I also wasn’t wrong. “I now know you’re ticklish, and when your laughter really gets going, you make the cutest little snorting sound this side of the Mississippi.”
She turned her lips inward, trying and failing to suppress her smile as she rolled her eyes in response.
“You keep blushing like that, and I’m going to want to see how far down it goes.”
Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth, her eyes locking onto mine as flames danced in their depths. Then she pinched them closed and groaned out my name—not in the good way, either. “What is it?”
“We—” she rested her palms on my chest, her fingers rubbing along the fabric of my t-shirt. “We should probably slow down.”
“Slow down…” I repeated, running my hands up her arms and down her sides to her waist, relishing in the way goosebumps followed my touch. Her lips curled inward as she finally raised her eyes to meet mine.
“Yes,” she breathed, her hands curling into fists around the fabric.
“Mags, baby. Your lips are saying one thing, but your body is saying something else entirely. Help me out here.”
“We have… There is…” Blowing out a sharp breath, Magnolia pressed her hands against my pecs and gave me a gentle shove. “There. Maybe now my brain can form words.”
“Come again?” I asked, chuckling.
“You’re basically a… a… walking sex stick, and you smell like a man-candle. It makes my brain go all liquidy, and I can’t do thewordsinto sentenceputting.”
My mouth opened and closed, brows knitting together as I struggled to wrap my brain around the words that just came out of her mouth. I wasn’t sure how, and I was pretty sure that Ms. Bourgeois—my old high school English teacher—would have had a stroke hearing that sentence, but somehow it made sense.
I took a few steps back until I collided with the counter that filled the center of the kitchen. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.” She exhaled all the air from her lungs as she propped herself up on the countertop, leaning back on her hands. “So.”
“So.”
“Slower.”
“As you said. Care to elaborate on that, sunshine?”
“There’s obviously something…” She gestured between us, and I watched her throat bob as she swallowed, her eyes locked onto mine. “Between us.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But I’m not really into the whole…” Her gaze traveled down my body, her breathing slightly labored as her lip disappeared between her teeth, and a flush blossomed on her cheeks.
“The wholewhat, Magnolia?” It took every ounce of self-control I had to remain on my side of the kitchen. There was no denying the attraction between us, especially when the hunger in her eyes matched the fire raging inside me.
“Friends with benefits,” she squeaked out, her cheeks deepening in color.
“It’s a good thing that’s not what I want then, isn’t it?”
“You don’t?”
Expelling a heavy sigh, I shook my head and brought my gaze back to hers. “Permission to approach?”
“What is this, a courtroom?” she asked, a flicker of that fire I was used to igniting in her tone, melting away the meekness from moments before.
“No, but you asked for space so your brain could do the ‘words into sentence putting,’ so I wanted to make sure it was alright first.” When she nodded slightly, I slowly closed the distance between us. Her legs parted, giving me room to step between them, and I rested my handsjust above her knees. “I told you, Mags. I want to get toknowyou. I know we started off kind of strong, but if you want to slow it down, then that’s what we’ll do. We just need to set some ground rules.”
