Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(44)
I’m breathing hard by the time I’m done and there’s a raw edge to the atmosphere inside the witch’s den as if anything could happen.
Tilda stands just out of reach, her eyes round and her pretty pink lips forming an O of surprise, of anticipation, of excitement? I don’t have a fucking clue, because I’m a man about to jump happily into the abyss as long as it’s with her.
She closes the short distance between us, her hand coming to rest on my chest above my fast-beating heart. “But with duíl magic, the witch just has to get what they desire and then they’re fine, the spell is complete.” She pauses, looks up at me, and moves her palm lower so her fingertips are resting against my stomach. “Right?”
“Supposedly.” The word comes out as a whisper that barely registers above the fuck-yeah from every part of me desperate to touch her that I very definitely cannot listen to. “But you don’t have to worry. I’ll figure something out.” My palms are sweaty and my heartbeat erratic; I scan the area, looking for some way—any way—out of here. “We can get out. Somehow. There have to be tools in here we can use to break out.” I grab a metal spade from the shelf to my right. “You holler for help. I’ll use this to hack my way through the wood or—”
Tilda stops me with a kiss, her soft lips teasing mine.
I’m not a great man; really, I’m not even a good one with all of the lies I’m juggling, but for a second it feels like I could be—and there is nothing more dangerous in the world than that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tilda . . .
I should be pissed about the fact that Gil thinks wanting me is a curse. I should be straight up irate and plotting his nonmagical comeuppance. I am neither. I am trying to figure out how to get him naked without ending this kiss because I’m not sure I can or will ever want to.
I’m grasping his shirt with both hands because I’m afraid if I don’t that I’ll slide right off the face of the earth and float right out into space. No, that doesn’t make logical sense to me either, but what does when it comes to Gil Connolly? I shouldn’t trust him, but I do. I shouldn’t feel safe when I’m with him, but the spell this morning correctly sent me to him. There’s something here in the push and pull between us, a soft chenille thread that winds around us both, bringing us closer and closer until we’re bound to each other.
That’s why I don’t want this kiss to end, why I open up beneath him, deepen it. It’s why I wrap my arms around him, entwining my fingers in his dark hair. It’s why I tilt my chin upward as he moves his lips down my throat and revel in the feel of the hard bristles of his beard scraping just so against my sensitive neck.
Every part of me is tuned into only him. The press of his fingers on the small of my back at that spot where the hem of my sweater meets the top of my skirt. The push of his hard cock against me, so close and yet so damn far because of the layers of clothing between us. I slide my fingers down and start to tug his shirt upward when he breaks contact and steps backward. The shock of missing him hits immediately, like having a door slammed in my face.
“Tilda,” he says, managing to make my name sound like a plea and a prayer as he backs all the way up to the stone workbench in the middle of the room. “I want you, fuck do I want you.” His whole body is strung tight with an all too obvious tension, his eyes are dark with a wild lust, and his movements are jerky as he shoves his fingers through his hair. “But the spell is the only reason why you’d act on wanting me—otherwise you’d keep your distance. You’d know better than to be with someone like me. I can’t—”
“And what about what I want?” I interrupt, striding over to him, the air between us crackling with awareness. “Does that factor into things at all?”
“It’s different for you. I’m not the kind of guy you should want.” He lets out a shaky sigh as he grips the edge of the workbench behind him as if it was the only thing keeping him from reaching out toward me. “We can—”
“And what about for you?” I put my hands on the workbench on either side of him; there’s several inches of empty space between us, but it might as well be nonexistent. Being this close to him has me on edge, craving what I shouldn’t want but I can’t stop needing. It might be the duíl magic bringing all of this from my subconscious to the forefront—it probably is—but at this moment, I don’t care. All I know is that every part of me is desperate for him to touch me, to kiss me, to let me feel every part of him. “Is it just the magic for you?”
“I don’t know.” His knuckles are white with the effort not to give in to the enchanted air swirling around us. “There have to be other ways to satisfy the duíl magic that don’t put you in such an awkward position, if we take a second to think and—”
“Is that what you want?” I cup his face, tilting it down so he has to look at me, so I can see the naked want in his eyes. “Is that what you really want? And if this”—I drop a hand to his chest above his fast-beating heart—“is only this strong because of the duíl magic, then maybe we should give it what it wants. No harm. No foul. Only magic giving us what we both need.”
He lets out a ragged breath that goes to show he’s fighting this attraction. “And after that?”