“Finally,” she says flatly, with a flair of entertainment. “Of course it is.”
My eyebrow twitches. “You don’t sound shocked. I just told you that my given, legal name isLucky, and that’s what you have to say?”
Willow chuckles. “Please. You know I never believed your name was Kade. You’ve been ‘Not-Kade’ since day one. It didn’t fit you for one second.”
I groan, scrub a hand over my face. “Fuck. I thought it was at least passable.”
“Maybe for anyone else. But for me? I never bought it for a second.” She grins, wicked, eyeliner sharp enough to cut. “But Lucky? No wonder Kade didn’t fit. Lucky is literally the only name that suits you. No wonder I kept pulling The Magician with The Wheel of Fortune. The cards were practically spitting it in my face.”
And dammit, the way she says it—the way my name finally comes out of her mouth—it’s like a match dragged across my skin. My cock twitches like it’s been waiting its whole life to hear her say it.
I grin, because what else can I do? “Glad you approve.”
“Approve?” She slides closer, and there’s heat in her eyes now, a molten shimmer that wasn’t there before. “It’s the first thing about you that makes perfect sense.” She climbs into my lap again, and holy fuck if this isn’t my favorite thing in the worldnow… “I feel a little stupid now, to be honest. I mean, you got your own damn name tattooed on you.”
She tugs my shirt up, exposing the four-leaf clover on my lower abdomen. “Conceded,” she raises an eyebrow with a smirk. “And the backstory, I don’t know why I didn’t guess it already. I mean, the cards were telling me?—”
“Shut up and kiss me, tarot witch,” I cut her off with a grin. One she mirrors as she leans forward. When her mouth finds mine, it’s different. There’s no mask, no showmanship, no layers between us. It’s raw and honest and hungry. I’ve kissed other women, but this—this is the first time I’ve felt one dig her nails into my ribs and into mysoulat the same time.
Something clicks in my chest, dangerous and irreversible.Shit. I’m falling in love with this woman.
Her lips taste like tea she never finished, like adrenaline, like sin. My hands find her hips, pull her closer. Her body presses to mine, soft and strong, and I’m dizzy with it. Her breasts press into my chest so hard, it’s the best kind of suffocation. By the second, I feel myself lengthening in my pants.
The kiss escalates fast. Her hands rise over my chest, over my shoulders, digging into my back. My tongue invades her mouth and she lets out a heady sigh. I bite her lower lip, pulling her tighter against me, grinding myself against her. My pulse is a drum in my ears. And then?—
She goes still.
Not subtle. A jolt. Like a deer catching the scent of a hunter. Her body stiffens against mine, and the fire in her kiss snuffs out.
I pull back instantly, every alarm in my head going off. Her eyes are wide, glassy, lips parted but not in invitation. My gut twists.
“Willow?” My voice is rough, but I keep it low, careful.
She swallows hard, shakes her head once. “I—” Her breath stutters, and she scrambles out of my lap back to the other end of the couch. “I just?—”
I calm my breathing, swallow once, and shift, trying to ease the tight strain my dick is causing in my pants. But I hope she hears every ounce of conviction in my tone as I tell her, “It’s okay. We stop. Right here.”
Her lips tremble, her voice barely audible. “I want to be open with you, Lucky. I want… I want you. I just…”
And just like that, I know—this isn’t the end. Me finally sharing my full back story wasn’t the end of the confessions of the night. This is the start of something deeper, something jagged and raw. She’s about to hand me a piece of her soul, and I swear, I’ll hold it like gold.
She won’t look at me at first. Her hands twist together, fingers white at the knuckles. Willow Vale—executioner of predators, queen of sarcasm, witch with a blade in her boot—looks like she’s about to splinter into pieces.
I stay quiet. Every instinct screams at me to fill the silence, to make a joke, to promise her she doesn’t have to tell me. But I know better. If she’s going to trust me with this, she needs to do it on her own terms.
Finally, she whispers, “I’ve never told anyone this.” Her voice is raw, scraped thin.
I lean forward, my eyes fixed on hers, even if she isn’t looking at me right now. “I’ve got you, Willow. I’m listening.”
When she looks up, finally, her eyes are glistening, though not for one second does she actually look like she’s about to cry. She looks like she’s about to end the world. “I told you a little bit about it. Scratched the surface. But it was bad, Lucky,” she says. The words stumble out like broken glass. “I was young, eighteen, fresh out of high school. Totally naive. Never been in a relationship at that point. And there he was. His name wasPorter Young. Like I said, he wasn’tmyprofessor. But he was still faculty.”
Fuck. And here it is. I know it instantly. This, not just the cult Willow was born into, is her origin story. The power. The abuse. The reason Willow does what she does.
“He was young for a professor. He was charming. Handsome. Funny. He… knew how to hover. How to make you feel seen.”
Her jaw ticks, and she stares past me, eyes somewhere far away.
“We’d see each other in the halls, his classroom was across from my last of the day. It was just saying hi at first. And then it was jokes. Compliments. And then he invited me to coffee. He went off on how he could see my potential. That I was… different.” The disgust in her voice is sharp as a knife. “It felt flattering at first. Stupid, right?”
