Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(49)
And if you ask me about it later, I’ll totally deny it, but yes, I pivot on the love seat so I’m mostly facing him and taking in all the details of his face, from his thick eyelashes, which are just long enough to make me jealous; to the random strands of red hair in his otherwise brown eyebrows; to the small scar right above his top lip mostly covered by his short, clipped beard.
He finishes the last bite of muffin while mine sits forgotten in my hand. He glances down at it, then back up at me, a kind softness in his eyes as he pats my knee. “You came up with a good plan for the heist.”
My brain blanks the moment he touches me.
Heist?
“It’s smart to use the fact that everyone watches your every move already as the perfect distraction to stealing The Liber Umbrarum,” he says. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”
Stealing?
Worry?
Gil cocks his head and shoots a questioning look my way that is the absolute most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
Liber Umbrarum?
He reaches over and straightens my glasses, his fingers brushing my temples and sending shock waves of lust straight to my clit. Fuck. What is going to become an erogenous zone next? My chin? My nipples pebble against the lace of my bra, offering themselves up as tribute.
Damn, Matilda! Get your brain together!
Frazzled and driven to the edge of sanity with lust, I set my barely touched muffin down on the table at the end of the love seat and clasp my hands together to keep from reaching out and grabbing him. “Do you think we’re gonna pull this off?”
“Honestly?” He grins at me. “Yeah, I do.”
What I wouldn’t give to be that confident. There are a million things that can go wrong—and that’s even without my inability to think of anything but Gil Connolly naked when I’m in the same room as him. “Why?”
He leans forward and puts his hand down next to my thigh, not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the zing of awareness. “Because when you’re involved, I don’t see how anything can go wrong.”
“Is that the duíl spell talking or the muffins?” And why is my voice so high and squeaky all of a sudden?
He brings his hand up and cups my chin, brushing the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “Just the truth.”
Yep. There’s a lot I can take. I have been mocked to my face and online. I have spent my life as the family disappointment. I have resigned myself to the fact that humanizing my family via social media, hanging out with my magical misfit buddies, and having one-sided fights with Barkley the rooster from hell is pretty much as good as my life is ever going to get—and that’s okay.
It’s a fine life.
But sitting here with Gil as the train rushes up the East Coast on the way to an event where we’re going to try to steal the unstealable, it feels different. In that breath of space between now and the next moment, I would swear on The Liber Umbrarum that there could be more, that I could be more, that this something between Gil and I could be more.
I’ve never wanted that more desperately in my entire life.
So I take it, embrace the possibilities, and kiss him.
Best. Decision. Ever.
The love seat, his tiny cabin, the passenger car, the entire train, the rest of the world all disappear as Gil kisses me back. Things go from hot to sizzling as he cups my face and tilts my head, slips his tongue into my mouth, and deepens the kiss. He’s not touching anything below my face and yet every single part of me feels him; my breasts grow heavy and my nipples harden into tight, sensitive peaks while an electric sense of want buzzes through me and sets loose a wave of desire that takes my breath away. I could drown in this man and I’d go under happily. Everything is full of promise, and the anticipation of what’s coming next is so palpable I can feel it in every cell of my body, exactly how the books describe a potent spell. That doesn’t make any sense for a null like me to experience, but Mom always said that love is a magic so powerful it gives nonbelievers faith, makes the impossible probable, and inspires hope in the most dire of circumstances.
Love is dangerous, powerful, and as scary as facing down a goblin with a grudge and, until this moment, I have never understood the books where the main character said they were willing to risk everything for a chance at it.
Now I do.
I’m still trying to process that revelation when Gil breaks the kiss. There’s something fierce in his eyes, as if he’s not sure he can control what’s happening either. As the hero in my favorite holiday movie says, welcome to the party, pal.
“Tilda,” he says, an edge to his tone, “there’s something you don’t know.”
This man and his need to overexplain the duíl spell. Fates love him, but this is more than just the spell and we both know it. I start on the buttons to his shirt, revealing a little bit more of his broad, muscular chest with each slip through the buttonhole. “Tell me about it later.”
He covers my hand, stopping my progress in stripping him naked. “Are you sure?”
“Never more sure about anything in my life.” Until I said the words, I hadn’t been, but now? One hundred percent.
Gil must see it, because he lets go of my hands and moves his to my sweater, tugging it free from my pants as his mouth crashes down on mine. This kiss is different. It’s hard, demanding, and full of a million possibilities. Then his lips go from kissing me stupid to my neck, hitting every single one of the responsive areas. The soft moan of pleasure filling the room is mine, and in another life I’ll be embarrassed about that, but right now it just feels too good.