Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(43)
Tilda Sherwood is a spellbinder from the most powerful family in all of Witchingdom. I’m a shifty double agent from The Beyond and I’ve been lying to her since the day we met. First about not getting Griselda to set us up. Then about being one of the Council’s agents. And now about her being a spellbinder. All I do is lie.
When she finds out the truth, she’s going to hate me even more than I hate myself for what I have to do right now.
Moving my hands so I’m clamping down on her hips, I lift her up and off me. The sight of her skirt falling back into place, floating down like a curtain to block my view of her, is like taking a knife to the kidney.
I stand up and take a few steps back from her, clasping my hands behind my back to keep from reaching for her because I’m holding on to my sense of control so tightly that I’m afraid I’ll break it myself. “We can’t.”
“So you keep saying.” She stands up and straightens her glasses, her gaze locked on the floor as if she couldn’t force herself to look at me even if she wanted to.
It is better this way. No one in Witchingdom should be trusted, least of all me.
I’m halfway to the door to get out of this place and away from Tilda before I forget who we are to each other again when a bright, crackling, light blue glow appears around the door frame. It zips around the frame and lights up the doorknob like a neon sign hanging in a bar window for a few seconds before it turns off with a snap.
Tilda jumps up and sprints over to the door, turning the knob and yanking. “It’s not moving.” She turns to me, her eyes huge and round behind her glasses. “What did I mess up now?”
Realization slaps me across the face. “It wasn’t you.”
The pieces come into place in a heartbeat. The protective push I felt from the Sherwood magic. The snap of my duíl magic hitting back at it. Using magic is like fucking with the universe. You have one thing, you want another, so you cast a spell. You need something but don’t have it, you cast a spell. You want to protect someone you love, you cast a spell. The thing is, though, that sometimes the universe fucks with you back. The magic zipping through the ozone and wafting on the wind decides it wants something too. Add to that the iron ribbon of hereditary magic that connects everyone in the same family together (like my duíl magic) that, because it thinks it knows better, occasionally takes hold of that magic for its own ends without a single witch in control and it takes on a life of its own, shoving us in one direction or another.
Locking us in here is a test, an experiment, a spell cooked up by my duíl family magic in an act of supernatural matchmaking to force us together and see what comes of it. This is the last fucking thing I need right now when I can barely resist Tilda as it is. “We’re not going anywhere. We can’t.”
“Can’t you just whip up a quick unlock spell?” she asks.
I scan the Sherwood witch’s den. It’s on the large side, with room for several dozen dried herb stations, a canning area to store the herbs until needed, and even a greenhouse section for the herbs that are too delicate for outdoor growth, but it is still the size of a large walk-in closet. And if I keep looking and noting each terracotta pot, stainless steel gardening tool, and purple watering can, then I can pretend I’m not in here with Tilda. “No.”
She marches over to me, looking like she is ready to do battle, demanding my full attention. “Why?”
Something inside me snaps, splitting like an old twig under a werewolf’s paw. All of that frustrated need and want and can’t have explodes inside me.
“Fine. You want to know everything? Well, buckle up.” It takes everything I have not to reach out and grab her, pull her close, and kiss her until both of us are desperate for more. Blood pounds in my ears as adrenaline and lust rush through me, shrinking the world down to just us. And she wanted to know why I couldn’t stop the spell? “Because that day with the dragon’s blood tree? Something happened with you and with me and with my family magic. I didn’t mean to, but I cursed myself and now I can’t stop thinking about you, wanting you, obsessing over how hot you look when your glasses go crooked and what it would be like to touch you.” How I manage to censor myself so I don’t confess to becoming a walking hard-on whenever she is around I have no fucking clue. “Even worse, the duíl magic can’t force a desire into being that doesn’t already exist, which means I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. Something in you connected with some part of me, and that has fucked up all of my plans. I don’t do relationships or commitment or looking out for anyone but myself—only a fool would look at you and see anything but a person who makes a witch want to be that person.”
“And all of that is a curse?” she asks, a dangerous look in her eye that has my thickening cock pushing against my zipper.
“Fuck no.” I step closer to her. I can’t help it. The need to fuck her and keep her safe has wound me up to the point where I have no clue if I’m coming or going. All I know is that Tilda Sherwood has cast a spell on me without even fucking trying and I’m not sure it will ever be broken. “I want you. I can’t stop wanting you. And now it’s reached a point where the magic is taking over and I don’t even care because you are everything I want. That blast of magic shoving us in here? The door? It’s all duíl magic making a point. It wants to complete the spell to give us each what we desire.”