Page 24 of A Touch Charmed

My pulse beat out a wild rhythm against my chest. He stood so close. I only needed to take one step forward and I’d be in his arms. One step toward the person who showed me fire and taught me how to burn. The risk was enormous, but God. That reward was everything.

I shifted to take that step, the one my heart had been wanting every minute we’d been apart, when the sound of crackling leaves drew my attention. The curse had finally caught up to us. “It can’t kill us, but I’d rather not go another round with the poison.”

He hadn’t missed the step I’d been about to take. A flicker of disappointment crossed his features as he lifted me into his arms. A blink later, we stood at the front door to his house.

But that moment in the woods was already gone.

Chapter 8

Thora

AssoonasFinnset me to my feet, he went inside without looking back to see if I followed. Because that’s what he did when things got hard. He walked away.

I stepped into the kitchen and found him leaning over the counter, gripping the edges of it with white knuckles. “I’m not upset with you,” he said.

“Maybe you should be.”

“Is that what you want?” He let go of the counter and turned to me. The sun filtered in through the window over his sink, creating a kaleidoscope of shadows over his face. “Because if you need something from me, you’re free to ask for it. That hasn’t changed.”

A tight band of emotion squeezed my midsection. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. Because that’s what I did when things got hard. I stayed quiet.

He waited for me to speak, and when I didn’t, he approached me and tucked my hair behind my ears. “You did good today.”

This routine felt familiar. Finn would push down his frustrations, mad one second then cool as could be the next, while I just pushed mine away and refused to acknowledge them at all. But he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. These weren’t our problems to fix.

I gave him a wry smile. “I thought you said it was a bad idea.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I still think it was dumb as shit to provoke the curse like that, and I’m probably going to wake up in a cold sweat hearing those crackling leaves, but you were amazing.” He circled my wrist and raised my palm to his lips, where he placed a gentle kiss. “This gift of yours is going to be our fighting chance. We’re lost without you.”

The pride and awe in his expression lifted something in me. I’d always been defined by my relation to other people. The mayor’s daughter or Finn Wilder’s girlfriend. But this gift wasn’t anyone else’s. I was the one who defined it.

I took his hand in mine, tracing the swirls that matched the magic flowing between us. “You don’t think I would’ve been better off with speed?”

“You’re a Chase in name only.” He took my palm and placed it over his heart. “Where it counts, you’re a healer. Your gift doesn’t surprise me in the least.” He tilted my chin and pressed his lips against my forehead. “Still wish I could take the pain for you, though.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Thank you. For believing in me.”

He stiffened for a moment, then relaxed into me when he realized this wasn’t a side effect and I wasn’t trying to take anything more. His solid warmth cocooned me. This used to be the place where I felt the safest.

After losing my job, what little confidence I’d been able to scrape together had broken. I’d been picking up the pieces, thinking I was doing okay. I wasn’t really. But when Finn looked at me like that, not just with attraction, but like I was capable, more of those pieces began to mend. And more of who I was always meant to be clawed her way to the surface.

He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, his callouses bringing out little shivers over my heated skin. “Why don’t you go shower, since you’re covered in dry blood and dead zone dirt, and I’ll make us something to eat. After the day we’ve had, we deserve a break for a few hours. No magic, no curse. Just food and drinks out on the cliff.”

“That sounds nice.”

Using magic didn’t exhaust me the way it did with Finn. Mine had a much different cost. But that didn’t mean I wanted to spend the whole night screwing around with my powers. I already understood what I needed to do with them.

After I took a shower and put on loose cotton pants and an old T-shirt from a brewery that had gone out of business last year, I grabbed my sketch pad and a pencil and stepped out back. I loved this side of the island. The tourist side with the charming, candy-colored shops and massive beach with acres of soft sand was more popular, even with residents, but the wild and untouched side spoke to me.

Standing on the edge of the cliffs with nothing but hundreds of miles of ocean ahead felt like standing on the edge of the world. It made me feel small, but not in a bad way. As someone who’d grown up having every one of my actions scrutinized and judged as a reflection of my family, sometimes it was good to be reminded that there was a big world out there, and I was just a tiny fraction of it.

Waves rose in elegant curves before violently breaking apart against jagged black rocks. There was an energy to the ocean. It could be beautiful and calming, but also fierce and damaging. There was room for it to be all things because it didn’t ask anyone to approve of it. It just existed on its own terms. That made it something to be respected.

Finn had set up his Bluetooth speaker next to the wrought iron table in the middle of the half-dead garden he didn’t have the time to maintain. Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby, One More Time” played over the sound of the waves crashing below us. He opened the tops on two bottles of local beer and set them next to the sub sandwiches and chips.

It was perfect.

I grinned as I took a seat in one of the chairs that overlooked the deep blue water. “You always did like that catchy pop music.”

---