The moonstone pendant at her neck glowed with a soft, milky light and hummed with a kind of enchantment that was still a mystery to him.
“How many men have you been with? It doesn’t really matter, I’m just curious,” he said.
She peeped up at him with those magic-eyes of hers filled with afterglow. “Um… I’ve dated a few men, but I’ve never… Oh God, this is mortifying.”
“What is?”
“Why am I telling you this…?” she muttered adorably.
“Telling me what.”
She looked like she was about to die of mortification, then blurted out, “I’ve never been with a man.”
“You just said that you dated?—”
“Dated, yes. But I’m a virgin, Malcolm.” She turned her head away. “No one felt special enough. I didn’t want to share myself with anyone… until you.”
She ducked her head as he held her closer, a deep sense of protectiveness surging through him.
“You seemed so confident the other times we got out of control…l ike in the bookshop, and the meadow. And you sounded like you believed those cookies were better than sex.”
A blush the color of spring roses tinted her cheeks. “It was easy to feel confident when it was you I was kissing. You make me feel bold… beautiful… And I couldn’t imagine sex being better than those cookies… but you’re making me rethink my assumptions, given that I actually haven’t had sex. I didn’t want you to know that I was a virgin. I didn’t want you to think less of me…”
He trailed his fingertips over her collarbone, taking in the feel of her skin and the autumnal scents that drifted off her.
“You are beautiful, and I want you to feel bold whenever you want to be.” He leaned in to nuzzle her cheek. “We’ll take our time. We don’t have to rush anything,” he said. “When you want to go all the way, we’ll go.”
“Really?”
He wanted to die at how earnest she looked. It made him wonder if anyone had pressured her before.
“Really,” he said. “It kills me to wait, but it will be so worth it with you.” And that was the ultimate truth. She was worth waiting for; she was everything. It was scary as hell to admit that. “And we should have the talk.”
“The talk?” her brows arched upward.
He chuckled. “The safe sex talk. I got carried away before, but we should talk about it.”
Her face blushed but then she responded back with a cheeky grin. “You must do the talk a lot with all those women you charm.”
He rolled his eyes. Yes, he’d had the talk with every woman and there had been a lot. But now there was only Calli.
“I’m serious. We do need to talk about it.
“All right. I have an IUD, it keeps things easy.”
“IUDs work on witches?” he couldn’t hide his curiosity.
“They do,” she confirmed. “Pills are less effective, but IUDs work.”
“I’m clean,” he volunteered. “I haven’t had a partner in about four months and I got tested two months ago.” He knew she was clean so he didn’t wait for her to answer. “Thank God, the talk’s over.”
She laughed softly, then her face turned serious. “For some strange reason… I want to tell you anything you ask,” she mused.
“That’s probably my fault,” he admitted. “I think that spell lowered our inhibitions or something. Well, more than usual.”
Rather than get mad at him, she burst out in a fit of giggles. Soon he was chuckling as well.
“Well, that certainly explains the last twenty minutes,” Calli said. “I never planned to tell anyone I was a virgin.”
