Page 41 of The Royal Street Witch
“You mean, witches,” I whisper and run my finger along his leg.
“Don’t touch me,” he says, but a smile cracks on his lips. “Hey, I got an idea. Let’s skip all the resisting, all the back and forth, ‘No, we can’t. We shouldn’t’ and just go to my place.” He turns to me and everything in my body seems to be pulsing. “I’m tired of begging, Aster.” His eyebrow raises, his dominant side surfacing, and anyone else I would laugh and say,Too fucking bad, asshole. But not him. I’m not tired of his begging, will never tire of him begging to take me to bed, so I lick my lips and I decide right then and there to succumb to what I want, what my body wants.
“Fine. But tonight I’m the one in charge.” I down my drink and face him.
“Well I won’t argue with that,” he says, eyes eager, face stern. “I want to kiss you so fucking bad right now.” He whispers it, his breath tickling my ear, and I look up to see Cherry’s eyes on us. Two scrutinizing slits.
Careless.
He notices and pulls away. “Can you meet me at my house in thirty minutes? I have to run to Nightwalkers.”
“For blood?” And something exchanges between us, because I already know the answer.
I grab his wrist under the bar. “Don’t kiss her.” It’s an order, not a request.
“I won’t.” With sincere eyes and a dutiful expression, he walks out.
I’m all liquid inside, my temperature rising like a feverish child. Someone pinches my arm, and I turn expecting to see Bastian, coming back for another word. But it’s Jade and the fever extinguishes, my temperature going frigid. Did she see Bastian and I talking?
“Look, it’s a witch in the wild,” she says, sitting next to me.
“Hey mama, what are you doing out tonight?” Grabbing my pendant, I slide it back and forth along the chain. Jade eyes my nervous hand and bites her lip.
“Running errands. You okay?” she asks and I nod as Cherry walks down the bar, popping her gum.
“So that was the real man you’re ready for, huh?”
“What real man?” Jade asks and I could have a stroke right here. I gather my breath, and my thoughts, exhaling with a fake laugh.
“Oh, no,” I say to Cherry, then turn to Jade. “Bastian Delacroix was here, the one that just showed back up in town.”
Jade’s eyes swing from Cherry back to me, knowing we can’t discuss vampire and witch business in front of a human.
“All troublemakers, those Delacroix’s,” Jade chuckles. She winks at me and it’s code. Code for “If only Cherry knew vampires were off limits.”
But not to me apparently. The traitor that couldn’t keep her hands of the sexiest Delacroix in New Orleans. I wink back, swallowing hard, hoping I’ve gotten away with being careless. Just the thing I accused Bastian of.
I leave a walking flesh bag of nerves, telling myself I should call it off. I shouldn’t go to Bastian’s. But find myself knocking at his door, practically begging to be let in. Because I want him all over again. And not even Jade’s or Cherry’s skepticism stops me.
I slept with him again, as promised, and it was just as mind blowing as every other time, and I wonder if something this powerful is even capable of lasting. This time magic undressed him, magic slid his fake bed for all the humans aside, revealing the secret bed only vampires and I know about. And magic allows him to see who I really am, what I’m truly capable of.
“What you can do—the magic. Was it taught to you? Is it natural?”
We lie together, the coffin bed opened, cuddling like a couple of lovers and I don’t hate it, not even a little. My head on his chest, his arm around me, tickling my arm back and forth. No, I don’t hate it.
I look up to him, his tan skin velvety under mine. “Both. Most comes naturally, but as children, especially teens, we must learn to control it. Spells and potions are taught, but being able to do things, like undress you, I can just order it with a word or sometimes with my mind and it happens. That’s natural.”
“I’ve seen a lot in my life, but nothing like you. You’re a puzzle I want to put together.”
I rest my face back on his chest so he can’t see my expression. But his finger finds my chin and pulls it up so our eyes meet.
“Do you always turn from emotions?”
“Do you always say everything you’re feeling in the exact moment?” Our serious faces quickly dissolve to smiles as we stare each other down.
“Only when mesmerized.”
“I’m not all that mesmerizing. You know the plant morgue on my shelf? Those are the plants I try growing without magic. And they are dead.”
