Page 28 of A Touch Enchanted

Wes slapped me on the back and directed me out of the office before I took Cole’s head off. Apparently, fist-fighting in the workplace was bad for employee morale. “Don’t let him get a rise out of you. You know how he is. Did you really put together a spreadsheet?”

“Yeah.” I steepled my fingers together. “But I also embedded a virus in it that will blast “Macarena”from his speakers every time he hits the space bar.”

As if on cue, Los Del Río’s annoyingly infectious signature song pounded through the walls of Cole’s office. The passing staff wore expressions of mixed amusement and horror. Cole would absolutely make me pay for that, and his wrath would be explosive. Worth it.

“Motherfucker!” Cole’s frustrated roar had Wes bent over with laughter in the hall.

“Go.” Wes waved me away as he wiped tears from his eyes. “I’ll hold him off.”

I didn’t need a second warning. I sprinted out the front entrance just as Cole’s office door punched a hole through the wall behind it. His fifth broken door stopper that month. He bellowed my name, but I was already on my bike and zipping back to my house.

I had a few more places to deliver my spreadsheet, the virus-free version, and a handful of business owners I wanted to have initial conversations with, then I’d drop Sandy off at my parents’ before heading to Violet’s. I hoped tonight would be the night she’d find what she was looking for, and we’d be one step closer to ending the curse.

And maybe I’d also be one step closer to getting Violet to admit there was a lot more than magic between us.

Chapter ten

Violet

Thiswasfine.Iwas fine. I was not freaking out at all.

I paced around my living room, as much as I could pace. Which meant taking five steps and turning back around again. Tapping my fingers against my palm, I glanced at the clock again. Donovan should’ve been here fifteen minutes ago. He was never late. He was a Virgo. He made punctuality one of his core personality traits.

I called him for the third time, wondering if I was crossing the line of a stage-five clinger, but it’s not like it had been a normal day either. The curse had taken a swing at me when I’d been alone and my magic hadn’t been activated. I didn’t like the idea of us being separated like this. It made me feel powerless and vulnerable.

What if he was lying in the forest somewhere, bleeding out, and Finn didn’t know, so he wouldn’t be able to reach him in time? Or what if the dark seaweed had come back to finish the job of dragging him into the depths of the ocean? A hundred equally horrifying things could be happening to him at this moment, and I was just standing here, doing nothing.

Well, fuck that.

I yanked on my sandals and grabbed a flashlight and some pepper spray. Not sure what good either of those things would do for me against the curse, but I hated the idea of wandering around empty-handed. I flung open my door and stumbled back when Donovan appeared before me with his fist raised as if about to knock.

Collecting myself, I threw my contraband to the floor and launched myself into his arms, clinging to his neck like a baby monkey. “You’re here. You’re okay.”

He carried me inside and kicked my door shut with his foot. “Sorry I’m late. My last meeting ran over, and it was close enough to here that I figured I’d be knocking on your door just as fast as I’d answer the phone.” He set me down, but still kept his hands on my hips as he gave me a half-grin. “Were you going somewhere?”

“Oh, um …” How did I explain this without looking like a complete lunatic? “I was just going to run out and grab a pizza from Andromeda’s.”

“Really.” He moved in closer. Heat flared in his eyes as his groin grazed my stomach. Aqua and sapphire light glowed from our palms in a steady pulsing beat. His gaze dropped to my lips. “I thought you said you didn’t like pizza.”

“I don’t recall saying any such thing,” I whispered.

He pulled my hair back to a ponytail at the nape of my neck. “You ready to find what you’re looking for in the ocean?”

“You ready to kiss me when I do?”

“Damn right I am.” He gave my hair a slight tug, tilting my face up. His nose and lips traced the contours of my face. I breathed in his clean, woodsy scent and let my eyes fall closed, lost to the sensation of his skin barely skimming mine. “We could skip the ocean.”

A buzzing noise at the back of my skull was urging me on.Yes, yes, yes. Forget the curse. Stay in bed with this man. Let him do things to your body you’ve only dreamed of in the dead of night with your hand between your legs.

The warm liquid pull that flowed through me was so tempting. I could have him if I wanted, but for how long? Until the magic wore off and he realized I wasn’t the intoxicating sexpot he couldn’t resist touching? Just what would it cost me to spend the night with him, only to wake up and see him looking at me with regret?

Reluctantly, I took a step back. The light between us died and the air around us grew colder. I couldn’t even point to a specific reason why I kept pulling away when everything inside me wanted to reach for him and drag him closer. He’d made his feelings clear and Donovan wasn’t a liar or a player. I’d never be some kind of conquest to him.

So what was I so afraid of? Rejection? Heartache? Been there, done that, and I survived just fine. While I wasn’t eager to repeat what I went through nine years before, maybe the fact that he was the only man who felt like a risk really just meant he was the only man worth taking a risk on in the first place.

Right then and there, I made my decision. It didn’t matter if we found what the curse was guarding tonight or not, I was going to kiss Donovan Latham under the stars. And I didn’t need to be afraid of giving him my heart, because he’d already been holding it for my entire life.

“Let’s search the water first, then go from there,” I said.

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