Page 7 of A Touch Enchanted

I couldn’t voice any of that, though. I’d made my choice nine years ago and did my duty to my family. Telling them what it had cost me would only make them feel like shit. It wouldn’t change anything. So, I continued to keep it to myself and let them believe I’d wanted to go.

“Be careful with her.” Wes narrowed his eyes in warning. “She’s a soft one.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, brother.” I stood and stretched, fully done with this conversation. “You have no clue just how hard Violet can be.”

I opened the slider and stepped outside, where Audrey and Violet stopped mid-sentence. The glare Audrey shot me over her shoulder left me with little doubt as to what they’d been discussing. I didn’t care if every member of my family wanted to disown me, I wasn’t backing down or letting Violet go. Not this time.

Ignoring Audrey, I kept my focus on the woman who had owned my soul for the better part of a decade. “If you’re ready, I’ll walk you home.”

“Fine.” She straightened her spine and headed down to the beach.

If these had been different times and circumstances, she probably would’ve told me to fuck off and seen herself home, but neither of us could afford to be foolish right now. It would only be a matter of time before the curse made its first move on us.

I could only hope we’d be ready when it happened.

Chapter three

Violet

HeatfromDonovan’sbodyradiated off him in waves as he remained close to me, despite my best effort to keep distance between us. I had too much spinning through my mind and needed a minute alone to properly sort through it all. Every time I thought I had a handle on one emotion, a new one would rise over it until they all tumbled together again.

Most of it caused by the man silently walking beside me.

That split second in my apartment, when I’d gotten ahold of my magic and still wanted his lips on me, had not been my finest moment. I’d revealed things I had never wanted Donovan to see. Things that I thought I’d buried so deep, they could never rise to the surface again. But just because the magic pulled those old feelings out, didn’t mean I was powerless over them. I could go on as if nothing had happened. I’d spent nine years denying the love I used to have for Donovan. That practically made me an expert at this point.

Halfway back to my apartment, he cleared his throat. The discomfort between us was so foreign that it made me want to cry. “What were you and Audrey talking about?”

“How much of an asshole you are.”

He let out a choked cough. “I figured as much.”

I’d told Audrey everything that had happened in my apartment because I’d never been able to keep secrets from her anyway. She didn’t seem to think the making out was as big a problem as I did, but that was Audrey. She was open with her sexuality in a way I’d always envied but had never had the confidence to pull off myself.

Except for when Donovan and I had started going at it in my apartment … He brought out a side of me I didn’t recognize. A wild, reckless side that was wholly free.

At least, until he’d tried to voice his regrets.

Audrey agreed that the apology I cut him off from issuing right after we stopped making out against my door was a dick move. As was the lecture he tried to give me about what we needed to do, as if I didn’t already know. I had to hold her back from storming inside and giving him a piece of her mind. He might’ve been twice her size, but I had no doubt she could take him just as easily as she did when we were kids.

Mostly, I was confused. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted from one minute to the next. I’d never felt unstable around Donovan, even when I threw myself at him after graduation and he rejected me. Maybe it was because he had shown up out of the blue, without warning, after not talking to me for weeks. It threw off my sense of balance. Either way, I didn’t like it.

He put a hand on my elbow to stop me. “Can we talk about this?”

The moonlight shimmered in his soft, earth-brown eyes. He’d always had kind eyes. That’s what had first drawn me to him back in kindergarten. The way he’d looked at me when I’d taken credit for the Beanie Baby told me this was someone I could trust with my life, even back then. And it had been true, until recently.

I gazed at the water gently lapping onto the shore, just barely nipping the edge of our feet. “Why did you avoid me for weeks? I know the gills are a lot, but did the idea of finding me sexually attractive really repulse you that much?”

He swore under his breath. “Is that why you think I’ve been avoiding you?”

“Why else would you run from me the minute I popped those gills? I saw what touching me did to you.” I swallowed and averted my eyes. “It was kind of hard to miss.”

He let out a startled laugh. “Thank you? I think?”

My cheeks flamed as I willed the sand to open up and bury me where I stood. I really just told my childhood best friend he had a big dick. “You know you’re impressive in that department. You don’t need me adding to your already enormous ego.”

He pulled on the end of his beard. “Just how much time have you spent studying my cock? It seems like you know more about it than I do at this point.”

“Oh my God.” I rolled my eyes. “Forget I said anything.”

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