Skye backed off and let Grady finish assembling the salad. She understood his reasons for resisting, and could add a reason of her own: namely, that it was surely wise to fight the magic as long as they could. Maybe they’d even find a way to reverse their spell. How, though? She couldn’t even Google the question; the words wouldn’t transfer from brain to fingertips. She had tried.
On the other hand, she didn’t see a lot of point in resisting, because at least kissing and fondling him felt good. Not nearly enough of life felt good for her lately. She had to admit, with a guilty sort of thrill, that it was a turn-on to know they’d be unable to fight their mutual magnetism much longer. Given this was the one single aspect of the curse that actually involved pleasure, why wouldn’t she pursue it?
While Grady assembled ingredients and whipped up salad dressing, she sketched various parts of him, divided into random-sized boxes around the page. In one, she drew his big feet in their black socks against the kitchen tiles (he’d taken off his shoes at the door). In another, the back pocket of his jeans, with the shape of his phone making a rectangle of faded denim within it, and his T-shirt’s rumpled hem draped just above. The back of his neck, near-black hair inching halfway to his shoulders, vertebrae showing in subtle bumps. His hands selecting a knife. His profile, eyelashes swept downward, full lips set.
As she finished shading in the stubble on his skin, he glanced at her and smiled. “I’m being lazy for this lunch. No actual cooking required. I brought some chicken that I cooked last night.” He pulled down two plates from the cupboard. “I figured, less time cooking, more time…doing other stuff.”
She nodded, and slid the sketchbook out into the center of the table.
He didn’t notice it yet. He loaded both plates with salad, already tossed with its dressing, sprinkled crumbled goat cheese on it, added chopped chicken and walnuts, and pulled over a plastic bag of something dark red. His hand was inside it, closing around a fistful of the stuff, when Skye recognized it as dried fruit.
Her voice surged to the surface. “No!”
He jolted and looked at her, then back at the bag. “Oh. That’s right. You’re off fruit.”
She nodded, lips pressed together, stomach clenching. Would the goblins make her eat that disgusting magical fruit again when she did finally join them? Would she actually like it at that point?
“Then no dried cherries. No problem.” He twisted up the plastic bag to close it. Turning to face her, he rested his back against the counter. “There was an apple in one of those pictures you drew. Evil queen with an apple. I feel like fruit is another clue.”
Skye looked sadly at him.
“It sometimes seems like I’m starting to get it.” His gaze wandered to the table, and halted at the sketchbook. The haunted look dissolved from his eyes, and his sunnier everyday expression slipped back in. “Hey. You drawing me?”
She drew in a deep breath to settle her queasiness, and nodded.
He came forward and planted his knuckles on the table to study it. “Dang. You’re good.” He flicked a nail against the drawing of his sock. “Even got the holes in my clothes.” He kissed her forehead. “I love it. Can I take a picture of it?” When she nodded, he got out his phone. “Then we can have lunch.”
After their salad, they settled on the couch, Skye nestled against Grady’s arm, to chat via text. This time the topic was past relationships. Both of them had gone through a share of drama, now worn down to amusing by the passing of time.
It was probably inevitable that they’d detour through the woods again before he walked her to work. Probably just as inevitable that she’d end up leading him down a side trail into the quietest depths of the forest. She hopped up onto a fallen log, which had landed at a slant, propped against an upright tree. She pulled him in for a kiss.
After what she’d started this morning, it was also inevitable that he’d slide his hands under her wool coat and grip her. Or that her hand, before long, would roam across the front of his jeans.
He groaned against her mouth. Awash in spell-magic and normal lust, unable to tell anymore how much she owed to each, she clung to him and urged him on with rhythmic writhes. Moss squished and crumbled under her, his tongue tangled with hers, their hands teased and pressed.
“We should stop,” he begged, not stopping.
“Should,” she said, also not stopping.
He gasped against her neck. “Or not.”
“Or not,” she agreed.
She took a foil-wrapped condom from her pocket and slipped it into his hand, a minor victory for human responsibility in the face of reckless magic, she felt.
Grady turned it over in his fingers. “Brought some myself,” he admitted. “Just in case.”
He lifted his blue eyes to her. Here was where he should have smiled, where the old Grady would have smiled. Instead his gaze searched her face, drenched with desire, drugged with magic.
This was terrible of her. She knew full well they were watching. She couldn’t see or hear them; no one would in the daytime; but they were most certainly there, ogling the two of them as free entertainment, laughing, commenting to each other in the crudest and most offensive ways. She knew it, and Grady didn’t know it yet, and she did this with him anyway. Because that was how much she wanted him, and because in the house Grady might be able to resist her, but out here he couldn’t.
Afterward, they caught their breath, her forehead against his temple. He shivered, tucked his coat back around his body, and hugged her. He looked with wonder at the evergreens swaying above. “Well,” he said, his voice a bit unsteady. “This is my new favorite place in the whole world.”
Skye could only cling to him and hide her face on his neck, in sorrow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KIT HAD LIVY OVER AT THE CABIN AGAIN THE NEXT DAY AFTER WORK. HE ARRANGED TO HAVE GRADY BE ELSEWHERE, and Grady cleared out willingly, almost cheerfully. Probably “elsewhere” was wherever Skye was, like down at Green Fox for her shift.
It wasn’t unusual for Kit to see a woman more than once. If it got to more than four or five dates, then that would be shading into unusual. His vacationer hookups usually only stuck around town a week, if that. But being treated again to Livy’s soft curves, slick heat, enthusiasm, and laughing wit was enough to make him start formulating plans he didn’t often entertain.
To his surprise, she voiced one of them, lying comfortably beside him afterward. “So are we friends with benefits?”
“I would not object to that.” He touched the cute plump tip of her nose. “Though at the moment I may have a teeny crush on my ‘friend.’ Hope that doesn’t complicate things.”
“You need a teeny crush for these things to work.” She lifted herself up on her elbow, wheat-colored curls tumbling around her bare shoulders. “Does this mean I can booty-call you if I want?”
“Yeah. Why would I ever say no to that?”
She laughed. “Thank goodness. This winter was looking bleak otherwise.”