“He wants to shake hands,” Rowan said quietly.
Maeve snorted, but when Obelix didn’t retract his hand, she reached out and touched his paw. ‘This is ridiculous,” she said, but her face burst into a wide smile as Obelix wiggled his paw up and down, his fat body erupting into a loud purr.
Okay, so maybe Rowan didn’t have the confidence of Flynn and I, but his ability to teach large furry creatures ridiculously useless tricks might see him win over Maeve yet.
If only he could teach Flynn not to be Irish.
“He’s adorable,” Maeve breathed, rubbing Obelix behind his ears. He collapsed against the table, his eyes rolling back in delight as he shoved his head against her hand to beg for more.
“He’s a total pain in the arse,” I growled. “But it looks like he has a new favorite human, so maybe he’ll stop trying to hog my desk chair.”
“Does he like to be picked up?” Maeve didn’t wait for an answer. She slid her hands under Obelix’s shoulders and lifted him against her chest. The cat practically sighed in contentmentas he nestled his fat head against her breast. All four of us clenched with jealousy, totally wishing we could be where that cat was right now.
Maeve had been in the house less than an hour, and this is what it had come to? I was officially jealous of a cat.
I was starting to regret my decision to keep her in the dark about her power. At this rate, we’re all going to die of blue balls by the end of the week.
“Here are all the bedrooms,” Flynn skipped down the hall, kicking open each door with his big, filthy boots. Usually, watching him track soot and sawdust over the immaculate rugs made my hair stand on end and Rowan break out into hives, but today it couldn’t bother either of us – not with Maeve here.
Maeve peeked into each of the rooms, taking in mine and Arthur’s heavy metal posters, Flynn’s enormous Irish flag, and Rowan’s immaculate white space in a single glance.
At the end of the hall, a second winding staircase led up into the tower. At the top was a small wooden landing with an arrow slit overlooking the inner courtyard below. I turned the huge key in the lock and swung the wooden door open.
“This is your room.”
Maeve’s gasp sent a shiver through my body, right into my cock. I imagined that sound coming out of her mouth as I drove into her, my fingers digging into that gorgeous arse of hers as she bent over the bed I’d chosen especially for her?—
“Fuck!”
I spun around in time to see a small ball of flame burst from Arthur’s hand, licking the wooden door. He slammed his hand against the door frame, grimacing as he snuffed out the fire before it could catch.
He caught my eye and nodded.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one struggling to control myself around Maeve. At least Air couldn’t burn the castle down.
Luckily, Maeve hadn’t seen the flame or heard Arthur’s curse. She stood in the middle of the tower room, mesmerized.
We nailed it.
Ever since our solicitor informed us Maeve would be arriving, the four of us had scrambled to decorate the tower room for her – mostly led by Flynn, who had an artist’s eye for these sorts of things. I had to admit that it looked pretty good.
Tall banners hung from the ceiling, painted with Celtic knotwork and figures depicting some of the history of our coven. A dark-framed wooden four-poster bed stood in the center of the room, facing the largest mullioned window, and framed with diaphanous curtains. A second, smaller window was cut low into the wall – right near the floor, and we placed her desk in front of this, with one of the Louis XVI chairs from the other side of the castle angled so it looked out into the gardens below. There was no wardrobe, so Flynn and Arthur knocked up a set of shelves with a hanging rack and baskets and hid those behind an Edwardian privacy screen, also pilfered from the other half of the house. We’d even stuck up some old fashioned astronomical charts I’d found at a local antique shop, and a lamp beside her bed cast a galaxy of stars around the room with a single touch.
Flynn shrugged, as if the hours of work to get it finished were no big deal. “We hope you like it. If not, you’re out of luck. It took me three days to paint those banners.”
It didn’t, actually. Flynn had drawn the designs and Arthur and I had filled them in while Flynn went to the pub. Not that I’m bitter or anything. I rubbed my knee, which still ached from kneeling for hours with a tiny brush in my hand.
The look on Maeve’s face made it all worth it.
“All this… is mine?”
“Of course,” I said. “You’re the landlord. If you want to change any of it?—”
“No!” Maeve blushed. “It’s perfect. But… all this must’ve been so expensive. I can’t… I don’t…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Arthur said, his back resting against the charred patch on the door. “We all chipped in, and lots of the furnishings come from other areas of the castle, so it didn’t really cost that much.”
“Please don’t feel like you owe us,” Rowan added in his quiet voice. “We wanted to do something nice. We wanted this to feel like a…like ahome.”
