Though she was surprised when it worked.
He laughed. She laughed. Everything was cool.
And in a second, she thought,he will be gone. He was going to leave as usual, armed with Werewolf Killer, and other protectionpotions, and lots of promises on his lips to text her the second he got back to his home-slash-shack. And she would finally be able to relax. She was already relaxing, in fact.
Then he leaned forward, and did what he told her he would do.
What hecoulddo, now that the combination of the protection potions and the scent blocker and the Feel Better and his first orgasm in eight years was providing a moment of calm.
He put his arms around her. Awkwardly, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Because the second he did it, she didn’t just get a wave of that syrupy heat.
She felt more pleasure than she’d ever known, from any touch at all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cassie decided the best thing to do was sleep on it.
But the problem was—sleeping on it was not exactly easy.
She felt as if every horny atom in her usually pretty quiet body had been shaken up. Her entire being was a bottle of Pepsi, that had been dropped on the floor. And she had no way to safely unscrew the cap. Every time she thoughtjust stop being ridiculous and fuck yourself out of this, her mind immediately followed it up with an image of Seth.
Like she’d filled out a masturbation-fantasy order form.
And been supplied the exact opposite of what she ever wanted to want.
Just give me some Carmy Berzatto for a few seconds, she begged her brain. But her brain wasn’t listening. And it continued to not listen no matter what she did. She tried sexy pictures, sexy books, sexy fan fiction. Nothing shook Seth’s face out of her head.
Seth, who was now her friend. Maybe even hergoodfriend.
And good friends could not think like this.
Good friends had to answer the door to each other, while being a normal, calm, non-horny mess. But somehow, she didn’t think she was going to manage that. It took so much effort just to get dressed without getting flustered. And even after she heard him let himself in, she couldn’t immediately go down. She had to take deep breaths and tell herself that she would feel fine when she saw him, just to make it to the top of the stairs.
Then she made it, she finally made it.
And she took one look at him.
And somehow her feelings actuallyincreased.
Even though he looked more ordinary than she’d hoped. Heck, he lookedworsethan the ordinary she’d hoped for. No jeans, no boots, no leather jacket. Instead, he was wearing a plaid shirt. And the kind of boring pants and footwear he used to love: brown cords with a cuff, and a pair of old Converse high-tops.
Plus his hair had not been styled, in the least. It was shaggy, and soft, and kind of fell over his forehead, instead of swooping up to the sky. Yet somehow it still made the thing happen. That hot rush, that syrupy sensation, that buckling in her legs.
And now it seemed even keener. Sharper.
Almost like greed, in some inexplicable way she didn’t know how to fight. She couldn’t tell herself,No, you really don’t want to eat that poison cake. Her body didn’t register theno. It didn’t accept that the cake was poison. It just acted, without her permission.
It made her reach forward.
And put.
Her hand.
Directly into that soft hair.
Much to his astonishment. His eyes went enormous; he tried to step back and failed. Then finally he blurted out her name, in a strained, nearly outraged tone.
