Page 26 of A Touch Charmed

By the time the sun went down, he’d exhausted the last of his energy. He leaned against me as we went back inside. Stumbling through the living room, he got as far as the couch and collapsed face-first. He didn’t move again. I took off his shoes and tucked a blanket around him, then watched a movie in bed before I attempted to sleep.

Around two in the morning, a crash rang out from the living room. I sat up with a start and shoved my hair out of my face. Nothing but silence greeted me. Still. It didn’t hurt to check things out. I slipped out of bed.

My stomach twisted in knots as I crept into the hall. I wanted to laugh at myself for being so freaked out. As long as Finn was close by, nothing could hurt me anymore. But that sense of unease continued a slow slide down my spine.

Maybe he had gotten disoriented by his surroundings and crashed into something on his way to the bathroom. Why hadn’t I heard him cursing or making any sound though? Rustling from the couch drew my attention. I fumbled with the light switch, and when I flicked it on, I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming.

Finn’s face had turned a light shade of blue. He wrapped his hands around his throat as wasps the size of walnuts crawled across his face. Raised and blackened patches of skin distorted his features and both of his eyes had swollen shut.

I ran for him and began swatting them away. Whatever poison they had on their stingers had already closed his throat. As the wasps hit the floor, they banded together and reformed. A smoky outline of a black snake loomed over us, swaying from side to side. It reared back as if it wanted to strike, but couldn’t become corporeal. I crashed my mouth against Finn’s puffy lips and forced air into his lungs using both my magic and the CPR I’d learned in Girl Scouts.

Smoke darker than a starless night hovered in my peripheral vision, motionless and subdued, as if changing forms had used up what little energy it had been able to gather since the show it put on by the cave. If it made a move for my mind, I didn’t know if I’d be able to fight it.

I pushed more air and magic into Finn. My own throat closed. I gripped my neck as panic tore through me, but it quickly subsided. My veins twisted and burned, dragging that merciless poison through my own system before letting go of Finn. He sucked in large gulping breaths as the swelling on his skin transferred to me and disappeared.

Within seconds, he’d fully healed. My power worked faster than it had the day before. Thankfully. I had no idea how long he’d been without air, and I didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t managed to knock a decorative dish off the coffee table.

The smoke vanished. Only a light black vapor remained. As if the curse had never been there at all. I opened the back slider and the wind carried it away.

Finn sat up and rubbed his hands over his stricken face. “It never made a play for Wes and Audrey in their homes. I thought we’d be safe here.”

I crouched in front of him. Kneeling in the shards from the dish he’d broken, I rested my hands on his thighs. The glass cut me and I healed, not even feeling it. My eyes roamed over his face, his throat, my heart still hammering my chest.

I’d come so close to losing him. Again.

If I’d been only a minute slower, the curse would’ve taken him. “What happened?”

“I felt them crawling on my face.” He shuddered. “When I opened my mouth to call for you, one stung my throat. It swelled from there. I couldn’t breathe.”

I flung my arms around his midsection and laid my head against his stomach. “We can’t be alone like that again. You have to sleep in the bed with me.”

He swore under his breath and stood. “Let me make a few calls.”

He got on the phone with Wes first to make sure he and Audrey were safe. The curse hadn’t gone after them since they stopped it from burning the island to ash. It seemed as if the curse only had enough energy to focus on one set of partners at a time, and right now, we were in the way of it being able to effectively pull off physical attacks.

That limited energy wouldn’t last forever. The curse was still much weaker than it had been before the descendants gave up their magic to bind it within the cave. Once it trapped us here and threw us into an endless night, it wouldn’t run out of energy until it finished us.

“I’m going to ask Galen to come in the morning,” Finn said. “He talked about creating an alarm system for the twelve over a week ago, and I want him to examine the area around my house, see if he has any suggestions for how we can protect ourselves better.”

“Okay.” I’d take any measure of protection we could get right now. Anything that would help me keep Finn safe. “Are you going to be able to sleep with your speed running?”

“I’ll make it work.” He gathered me against him and kissed the top of my head.

We settled into bed and his arms came around me. I melted into his embrace, my body molding to every part of him. As I snuggled in deeper, my ass bumped against his hard length. Heat instantly flooded my core.

“Ignore that,” he said.

I couldn’t. Having him this close, feeling what I did to him pressed into my backside, sent a wave of arousal through me that had nothing to do with my magic. His thumb stroked my rib cage, sweeping under my breasts. My nipples tightened to painful points.

I let out a small whimper. The stress of the evening had abated, but I was still wound up. As his thumb continued its slow and lazy strokes, the pulsing need between my legs increased.

He rose up and traced the shell of my ear with his lips. His breath was warm against my skin. “You doing okay like this?”

I shifted to face him, my hands roaming up and down his bare chest. “No.”

“What can I do to make it better?” Moonlight filtered through the curtainless windows, highlighting his open and genuine expression. It made me bolder. Like I could tell him what I wanted under the cover of night.

“I want you to touch me, but I’m afraid my magic will take over and ruin it.”

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