I don’t miss any of them.
Especially considering my current outfit. Not that I’d give a damn if they laughed, but I would care if Malachi walked in right now, all tailored confidence and moneyed ease, while I resemble a gigolo fresh out of a saloon.
Mrs. Murphy ambles closer, her long pink-gray ponytail cinched with a scrunchie that perfectly matches the red bandanaat her throat. “My apologies for setting you up with this one, Cillian.”
Electra rolls her lovely eyes.
“So…” Mrs. Murphy circles us to reach the bachelorette tribe. “Which one of you is gettin’ hitched?”
I pivot slightly to watch her close in on Tricia.
She extends a little shopping bag, the sort that usually contains an expensive present. Sure enough, what’s inside is pricey. “Here you go, honey. A little trinket from me and the girls. And by girls, I don’t mean my fantastic bosom.”
“I don’t think anyone assumed you were talking about your boobs, Fi,” Electra calls out.
Calanthe tries to hold it in, but she bursts into giggles again, which she tries to stifle against Diego’s chest. He pats her back, a grin spreading across his face, and I’m struck by how disarmingly unsupernatural they all seem.
“That’s too much! I couldn’t possibly…” Tricia pulls out a chain from which dangles a dime-sized diamond horseshoe.
“It’s packed full of luck,” Mrs. Murphy tells her, making me wonder if it could—in fact—be charmed.
Maybe enchanting objects is Calanthe’s extra power?
Mrs. Murphy gestures to Electra, who stands straight-backed beside me. “Believe it or not, it’s the one with the questionable manners and handsome boyfriend who picked it out.”
A faint blush creeps into Electra’s cheeks, undoing something inside me that’s been wound tight since the moment I broke character in the camper, convinced Sullivan was trying to get a hold of me.
I turn back toward Electra, fencing her from the knot of women clinking glasses. “You mentioned you were done thinking…”
Electra tilts her head to the side, then reaches up. I think she’s about to cup my jaw, but instead, she flips my collar, thensmooths her hands over the snap pockets of my denim shirt, causing my heart to kick. “I am.”
My fingers itch to touch her, but I keep them clenched at my side. “All right,” I say quietly. “What’s the verdict?”
Her eyes lock onto mine, and the intensity ripples across my skin. I’d blame magic, but her eyes aren’t glowing.
She steals my hat and makes it hers. My dick doesn’t just twitch. It goes full-on hard, digging into the fly of my too-fucking-tight denim.
What I wouldn’t give to back her into the wall and lift that tiny dress.
“You know what they say about wearing a cowboy’s hat?” she asks, lashes lowering in a way that makes my blood feel combustible.
Lord knows how I even manage to reply, “I don’t, actually.”
“Should’ve thumbed through those books you gave me…”
And then Electra just strolls away, the fringes on her dress swishing against the backs of her luscious thighs, and I know with bone-deep clarity that I’m well and truly fucked.
Chapter 31
Electra
Cillian is ridiculously talented. And hot. So. Very. Hot.
I didn’t think I’d ever be the sort who’d enjoy following a choreography with a bunch of rowdy, virtually unfamiliar women, but here I am enjoyingtwo-steppingandgrapevines,and Gaea knows what else Cillian’s having us do.
The fringes of my dress swing as I stomp my boots and roll my hips. Whenever I catch my reflection in the gallery wall of mirrors in front of us, I find that I am grinning. Who have I become?
Even though my sense of rhythm is not great and my timing worse, the way Cillian looks at me makes me feel like some prima ballerina—or an exotic dancer. I can’t wait to go home with him, because, yeah, I’m taking him home with me tonight.
