She nodded then gasped as he went back to tasting, teasing then taking again. The man knew how to use his mouth. When she felt him suck hard she bucked against his mouth and her hands flew to his head, fingers sliding into the thick strands of his hair.
He groaned as she pressed up into him, the sound encouraging her to let go and enjoy, making her pulse even more at his own pleasure.
The rain picked up its torrent outside, matching what was happening inside of her. The pitter-patter of the drops became more forceful, more intense against the windows as Taylor slid two long fingers inside of her drawing out another moan. She must have said his name because he groaned again and told her to say it again.
And again.
Until she was shaking and her body was out of her control.
He licked and sucked her harder putting her body on the most razor-sharp edge as she started rocking against him chasing her release. He flicked her clit once, twice, and then sucked hard pushing her over that edge.
The wave. She could have basked there in that space of floating between somewhere else and reality forever. It felt like something changed inside of her as she allowed her body to feel it all.
She felt warm like starlight had dug under her skin claiming her.
What if all of her pieces never quite fit together again after this? After him?
Moments later, Taylor was sitting her up and dragging her limp body across the bar and off until she was straddling his lap on the stool where she buried her face in his neck. She felt him hard beneath her and she held herself back from rubbing against him. The way he held her...
It was close but she could also feel the control he was trying to keep.
"I think hearing you moan my name is the closest to good magic I've ever been," his low voice whispered into the dark.
And they sat there, tangled in each other, lovers who could never be, both cursing the dark magic that would cut off hope so deliberately.
The rain softened as it slowly dripped down the dark windows and the world closed curtains around the two inside of the empty coffee shop. Two hearts pressed against cages holding them apart.
23. Hexes and Murmurations
Eloise lay on the couch looking at the windows that showed only the black vastness of the world beyond. Just hours ago, Taylor White had made her feel beautiful, sexy, wanton. She felt something wholly new now- cherished. After he had given her pleasure, he had dressed her slowly, reverently. And then he had brushed the hair that had fallen out of her messy bun out of herface and kissed her so gently she had to squeeze her eyes shut against tears, against the sadness in his lips and his eyes.
He drove her and Lady Macbeth to his cabin making sure she was safe before he kissed the top of her head (and was there anything quite as loving and deeply intimate as a head kiss from a man like this) before he left her to her thoughts peering out of a darkened window. He had begged her not to hate him and she hadn't said so, but how could she hate him? She understood, as terrifyingly sad as it was, that he couldn't love and therefore wouldn't put a woman through that. But she feared her own heart was trying to do what his couldn't.
So when he pinned her in the storeroom, she wasn't sure there was any stopping what she wanted.
Just like him, she had thought about him this way, had played their earlier kiss over in her head; the same way she would at that tender age of hitting repeat on her beloved silver cd player. She spent longer than she would admit to a soul remembering his taste and cementing that feeling of experiencing his soft, demanding lips against hers into memory.
She smiled into a corner of the blanket she had pressed against her cheek. Sweet oranges and a hint of that smoked hickory. She lazily pet the sleeping pregnant racoon as she relived tonight, letting the goodness of it circle around her bloodstream. Then tomorrow she would close it off. She would not let the sadness overwhelm her.
They would be friends. He could be a man in her life that she cares for deeply, laughs with, enjoys talking to. He could be just a friend who makes her smile more than any man ever has; a man, who when she sees, something inside of her takes flight. That was possible. She would make it possible.
And she drifted off to those impossible hopes as her mind was pushed back into a dream from the other night.
A woman in white with a pretty, unknown face looked at her as she raised her hands and a dancing fire flickered and cracked, spitting embers into the dark sky. Then she looked down when she felt something and gasped as dark red snapdragons, the black prince, drove up through the ground, cracking the earth and breaking apart the grass and its roots in a velcro ripping until they were curling around her calves and legs trapping her in place.
She tried to scream.
"Hey, Jenson has that varnish stuff and he said it's yours. He also offered to help and of course I'll help. I love that man," Ursula said with a dreamy smile.
Eloise had just walked into the kitchen with Lady Macbeth, who now had her own food dish next to Casper's and Sulphur's in the kitchen.
When Ursula saw the look on her face her ghost mug paused midway to her mouth. "What's wrong?"
Eloise held out this morning'sSalem Settlerand theCrescent Couriersilently. Ursula skimmed both articles as Eloise poured herself a mug of coffee, finding a new one in the cabinet.
"Wow," she said putting both papers down, theCrescent Couriercurling up into a black and white bat before taking flight and then poofing into sparkles and dust. "So, they're starting a petition to bring charges against us."
Eloise sipped her coffee and nodded. "Against The Lost Souls Witches, so props for our cool name."
