Page 18 of A Touch Enchanted

Audrey clamped her lips between her teeth as she tried not to laugh. I turned around and ran for the back of the bar. Sparks from my aqua light trailed behind me.

The dim bulbs in the narrow hallway leading to the bathrooms flickered overhead. I’d only ever been back here when it was crowded and sweaty with a line a mile long. It seemed so much wider and emptier when it was just me.

I reached the ladies’ room door and leaned against the wall. I didn’t actually have to use the bathroom. I just needed a minute to release some of the energy that pulsed through me.

My skin was overheated and my bones were loose. I was so turned on, I could barely hold myself up, and it wasn’t going away. It had been at least two minutes since Donovan pressed his thumb against me. Shouldn’t this feeling be going away by now?

I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, willing the desire to flow out of me.

“Did I take it too far?” Donovan’s voice had my eyelids snapping open. As he approached, that feeling, my need for him, only got stronger. A fluttering sensation in my core sent my heart racing. “Is that why you came back here?”

“No.” While I’d always had a soft voice, I was downright breathless now.

He rested his arm on the wall over my head and leaned into me, careful not to touch. So careful to keep a whisper of distance. “Is it okay that I touched you like that?”

I nodded, losing the use of my voice altogether.

He leaned closer, his breath tracing the line of my jaw, but still not touching. “Do you want me to do it again? When we’re alone, so you can make all the noise you want?”

My mouth had gone completely dry. I couldn’t form thoughts or words and every nerve in my body hummed, a current leading to my most sensitive point, where I desperately wanted him to touch me again.

“I need you to say the word, Cricket.” His fingers tapped the wall next to my hip. I flexed toward him, but he leaned away. “I’m not going to touch you unless you say the word.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

It was an unleashing. His mouth captured mine and he swallowed my moan. His chest rumbled with a barely concealed groan as his tongue stroked mine like it owned me. Digging his fingers into my hips, he lifted me against his rock-hard length. My hips pumped against him, greedily absorbing every bit of that delicious friction.

He stumbled toward the emergency exit in the back. This was a clear violation of the term “emergency,” but I’d let it pass. The cool night air kissed my skin and goosebumps peppered my arms as he backed me into the outside wall and broke the kiss.

“Is it you or your magic?” He searched my eyes. The urgency in his voice made me want to lie, but I couldn’t. He’d see right through me anyway.

“I don’t know.” I tightened my legs around his waist. “Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.” He set me on my feet and took a step back, running his hands through his thick dark hair. “Fuck. I’m so fucking out of line. I can’t keep doing this.”

“Can’t keep doing what, exactly?” If he was about to tell me that he couldn’t keep practicing, or keep being around me, that would be it for me. I would end my friendship with him permanently. Even if it killed me.

He raised his gaze to me, misery rolling off him in waves. “I’m taking advantage of you.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I choked down the laugh that threatened to rise up. “What makes you think I haven’t been a fully willing participant in this?”

“You said yourself you don’t know if it’s you or the magic.”

And there it was. The moment I’d been dreading. When I’d have to make a choice one way or the other. Continue denying my feelings for Donovan, do the friend thing we’d been doing for decades, and save face. Or admit it hadn’t always been the magic. Sometimes it had been me, fully present, aware, and wanting him so badly it ached.

Was the inevitable heartbreak worth the quick orgasm? Probably not.

So I took the coward’s way out. “I don’t know.”

“Until you do, I can’t touch you like that again. It’s not fair to you or to me.”

“I understand.” I lifted a finger to my lips, where the burn from his beard had swollen them slightly, and still I wanted more. Was denial really the route I wanted to take? “What happens if I decide it’s not just the magic after all?”

He cupped my face. “Then I’m going to fuck you so good, no one else will even think about asking you to dance, because the entire island is going to hear my name when I make you come.”

It took everything in me to keep my knees from giving out.

“Think about that when you’re trying to sleep tonight.” He pressed his lips against my forehead, so painfully gentle, and went back inside.

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