I hesitate. Did Dru leave this out deliberately, or did she simply forget to put it away? I gravitate toward the thing, my fingers grazing the olive jar’s shiny label. I study the crystal ball. Dru said it’d work. What did she do? Pray to Mercury? And it doesn’t matter if I believe in him or not . . .
Before I can think twice about it, I shake a few olives into a bowl. I find a sharp kitchen knife and prick my finger, letting the blood drip over the olives. If this is real . . . I should be able to do it, right? “Mercury,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “Mercury, help me see.”
When I open them again, the olives have a curl of smoke rising from them. A tiny thrill shoots through me. Magic is real—of course it’s real, I chide myself. I was a cat earlier, after all. It’s still new and exciting to me, though. I peer at the crystal ball, but it’s cloudy inside. Oh. I peer at it, but nothing shows up. It’s like the television is on, but I haven’t picked a channel. Do I need to be more specific? Do I need to focus on someone specific?
I think about my parents, but I don’t really want to see them. If I see them in jail or in the hospital, I’ll be devastated. Better to just assume they’re fine. I don’t want to see Nick, either—it’s late and he’s probably doing unspeakable things to hot Diego. A name comes to mind, and before I can overthink it, I whisper it aloud. “Show me Ben Magnus.”
The crystal ball swirls, as if considering my request.
“Please?” Maybe it wants me to ask nicely.
The mist inside the ball clears, and movement stirs inside. I can’t quite make it out, but I remember those Magic Eye posters and this reminds me of them. I unfocus my eyes and everything comes into sharp, crisp view.
It’s Ben’s shirtless back. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of pants that are barely clinging to his butt, they’re so low. He’s got a big hand on the wall, and his broad, pale shoulders are tense. Wow. It looks so real that he could be standing in front of me, if it weren’t for the fact that the vision’s a little smaller than the reality of Ben’s gargantuan frame. I watch as he stands there, and his body makes a tight, abrupt motion, then another. What’s he doing? I squint, tilting my head to the side as if trying to see more, and the crystal ball obliges, swinging the vision around to the side and—
I yelp, because Ben Magnus, powerful five-hundred-year-old warlock, is jerking off.
My hands fly to my mouth, quieting my noises of surprise. I watch in horrified fascination as Ben strokes a really, really impressive cock with short, quick bursts of motion, his face full of tension. This isn’t right, I tell myself even as I stare. This is a private moment. This is naughty, and he was so, so good to me earlier.
But he’s just . . . beautiful. For a five-hundred-year-old warlock who spends most of his time in front of books, his body is gorgeous. His arm is corded with muscle, taut as he works his length. His chest is broad, and his entire body is tense as he builds up toward a quick, brutal climax. I stare at the big hand on the wall, clenched there for support, and I wonder what it’d be like for him to touch me with that big hand.
I wonder what he’d think if I was the one touching him.
With a horrified squeal at the line of my thoughts, I turn away from the crystal ball. It seems even more intrusive to watch him finish, and I press my fists against my mouth, my mind racing. Where are these dirty, filthy thoughts coming from? Is it because Ben rescued me earlier tonight? Carried me in his arms and promised me he’d look after me? That he’d take care of me?
Or is it because I’m just now realizing that he’s completely gorgeous to boot?
“Please turn it off,” I whisper aloud to Mercury or whoever might be listening. I wait long minutes, my back to the crystal ball so if I turn around, I don’t see an O-face. I’m not ready for the O-face. I’m not even sure I was ready for the jerking off, but here we are.
A worried thought hits me. What if the crystal ball doesn’t turn off, ever, and everyone knows I was watching Ben stroke one out? Oh god. With a whimper of distress, I turn around—
The ball is quiet, the image and mist gone. The olives in the offering bowl are nothing but ash now, the only clue that I used the scrying orb at all. Hastily, I clean the dish out, dumping the ash into the garbage and washing the offering bowl before putting it back in its place. The olive jar is missing quite a few of its tenants, so I lid it and shove it into the back of the fridge, hoping that no one notices.
My cheeks burning, I race back upstairs, and once I get into my room, I pick up Maurice and plop him outside my door. “Plans changed, buddy,” I say, shutting him out before he has a chance to slink back in. I flip the three locks, then dive back under the blankets like a child and stare up at the ceiling.
I just saw a five-hundred-year-old hot warlock masturbate through a crystal ball. I don’t know what to do with this information. I can’t stop thinking about the mental image of him stroking his cock with the same grim determination that he rescued me with earlier . . .
I pull the blankets over my head, as if the world can somehow see my embarrassment.
I’m not embarrassed that I caught him. I’m embarrassed that I watched and I liked it. I’m embarrassed that it’s made me realize that after tonight, I no longer see Ben as the grouchy, horrid nephew of my boss.
After tonight, I might be nursing the tiniest crush on him, and watching him like that? Stroking the most perfect dick I’ve ever seen? It did not help matters at all. I don’t have to put a hand between my thighs to know that I’m flushed with arousal. I can feel my pulse beating, centered at my core.
Even so, I feel guilty that I watched him without him knowing. He rescued me tonight, put aside his own plans and hard work to come and save me. He took care of me, and I repaid him by watching him jerk off.
I’m going to have to tell him, I realize. We can’t be friends and be around each other daily with a secret like that between us.
And I groan at the thought. Tomorrow, over breakfast, I decide. I’ll get it out in the open.
17
BEN
I set up my candle-making workstation in the kitchen again the next morning. It’s a multistep process, so I have all the ingredients shoved onto the kitchen island so they’re in easy reach as I work. There’s an even larger table in the private office I have connected to my room upstairs, but I find that I don’t want to spend the day in solitude. For some reason, I’m looking forward to seeing my aunt’s familiar, to hearing her tart takes on everything.
Part of me wonders if she’ll be back to the whole “magic isn’t real” argument this morning, and then I’ll really have to show her some things. Nothing dangerous like what my aunt put her through last night, just some flashy stuff to convince her.
Showing off, a little voice inside my head says. I squash it. I’m not going to get involved with my aunt’s familiar. That’s bad news all around. I know better. Besides, she needs someone around today after last night.
Reggie heads into the kitchen at a surprisingly early hour, her hair freshly washed. She’s wearing another gym sweatshirt and a pair of tiny shorts that accentuate long tanned legs, and I wonder if she’s got freckles everywhere. I should have looked last night.
I clench my jaw at the thought, because that is not the thinking of a mentor. “Good morning,” I say evenly. “If you’re looking for Aunt Dru, she’s gone.”
“Gone?” Reggie asks, confused. She moves to my side, watching as I drag my specialized wicks through the hot wax trays in front of me. “She left so early?”
I nod. “Said she wanted some time away from things.”
“Oh.” Reggie fidgets next to me. “Did—did I do something wrong? I didn’t get to tell her about my spying mission.”
“You did nothing wrong,” I reassure her. “And I suspect Aunt Dru sent you on that mission less to have you spy and more to teach you that magic exists. Did she cast the cat spell on you? Was it an amulet?” I carefully drag the wicks back and forth in the wax, watching as the layers thicken with every pull through the gluey material.