Sanity didnotchoose that moment to intervene, but his jeans were just enough of a hindrance that he couldn't shove them down and shove himself inside of her.
He was so hard it hurt, his zipper biting into his erection. It took every shred of willpower he possessed not to lift her against the brick wall and bury himself in her welcoming heat.
Instead, he removed his finger and met her eyes before sticking his finger in his mouth and licking it clean.
Her taste exploded across his tongue. He watched her pupils dilate as she stared at him, her chest still heaving with aftershocks, her lips swollen and red from kisses.
Elise watched him with wide eyes. But after a moment, she shook her head violently and stepped back out of his grasp, righting her dress and adjusting her underwear. She picked her clip up from where it had fallen on the ground and looked at him with a harsh expression that wasn't quite a glare.
"You can't come here again. We're both dead if we get caught." She reached out and trailed her hand down his forearm before grabbing onto his wrist and squeezing once.
And then she walked away, leaving him in that little alcove alone.
He leaned his head back against the brick wall and then thumped it back a second time. No matter what he did, he just seemed to make everything worse.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Elise was prettysure that her coven sisters knew she was hiding something.
Serena had come to lunch about an hour after her little interlude with Nico at the zoo, and Elise had spent the entire time hoping desperately that her cheeks weren't flaming red or that Serena couldn't somehow tell what she and Nico had done.
Why had she worn a dress to the zoo that day? She never wore dresses, but it sure had been convenient.
She pulled Nico's shirt tight around her chest. She knew that she should have gotten rid of it by now. There were probably trace elements of him that could be used to track him down or perform magic against him, and she didn't want to put him at risk.
But there was still a faint smell of his cologne on the shirt. It was the one she had been wearing when he dropped her off at the university. And she'd been sleeping in it ever since.
She had to get rid of it, or at least throw it in the laundry so that any magical trace of him disappeared, but she couldn't make herself do that if it meant the last of his scent woulddisappear too. Though at this point, she might have been imagining the scent, she wasn't sure.
She couldn't have him. If he got anywhere near her again, she was going to send him away before he got into kissing distance because she couldn't trust herself if he was within arm's length.
But she was allowed the shirt, she decided. And she would clean it soon to protect him.
For a second, she considered going to the mall and testing all the colognes until she found one that smelled like him. Would that make her even more crazy?
Someone banged on the door and yelled, "Come on! We're supposed to be heading out now."
"I'm coming!" Elise tore the shirt off and threw it in the laundry basket. She put on a regular shirt and ran down the stairs to find her four coven sisters waiting in the kitchen. She wasn't exactly sure who had banged on the door.
"You good?" Serena was leaning against the counter and raised an eyebrow. Elise gave something she hoped was a convincing smile and nodded.
"We definitely need this," Serena said. Delainey was nodding along with her.
They were planning to perform a spell to invite good energy back into the coven and banish the negative. No one hadquiteaccused Elise of ruining the vibe, but Elise knew they wouldn't need to be doing this ritual if it wasn't for her.
She needed to get her head on straight. She needed to make a decision about EMT programs, and shedefinitelyneeded to stop wallowing in her feelings for Nico.
She decided she was allowed one more day to feel sad and then she was putting him out of her mind for good.
On the street, they piled into Briana's Jeep, and Elise was ready to take her normal spot in the middle seat in the back, butDelainey held the front passenger door open for her. "How about you sit up here?" She gestured to the seat with a tilt of her head.
It was probably because Delainey and the others felt sorry for her, but Elise wasn't too proud to turn down the clearly superior seat.
Briana drove them to a place on the border of witch territory. Unlike with the werewolves, territory among the witches was much more fluid. They didn't get hung up on certain street corners or forests or anything like that. They all had some level of freedom of movement.
There were unofficial territories. It might be an issue if another coven moved down the street from Elise and her sisters. But there was no need for bloodshed. In general, it made it easier to protect themselves from the wolves, which made the spot they were doing their spell a little bit complicated.
