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He didn’t excuse what he’d said to my mother.

He didn’t have to excuse what she’d done in return.

“What did you want?” he asked when he’d finished. “Before all of this?”

“A little shop. Charms, teas, practical magic. Nothing powerful enough to impress anyone.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Mother calls it wasting my lineage.”

“Your mother wears hats with their own gravitational field. Her judgment is questionable.”

I laughed and kissed his cheek. The touch was meant to be quick and almost shy, but Logan turned his face before I could retreat. The corner of his mouth brushed mine.

We both went still.

“That was either an accident,” he said softly, “or a criminally ineffective attempt at seduction.”

“I don’t make ineffective attempts at anything.”

“The curse would like several words with you.”

I caught the front of his shirt and kissed him before he could become any more pleased with himself.

The bond answered immediately. Heat rushed through me, carrying a fierce sense of recognition that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the man beneath my hands. Logan made a low sound against my mouth and steadied himself with one palm on the blanket.

I shifted closer. The hood dipped beneath our combined weight, and the old station wagon gave a rusty groan of protest.

“If this car collapses,” Logan murmured, “I want it noted that you were in charge of the date.”

“If this car collapses, I’ll turn it into a decorative shrub and destroy the evidence.”

“That is alarmingly attractive.”

I kissed him again. This time, there was nothing shy about it.

He leaned back against the windshield as I swung one leg over his thighs and settled astride him. His hands came to my hips, holding me without directing me. The choice remained mine, and the knowledge of that loosened something tight and frightened inside me.

I slid my hands beneath his shirt. His stomach tightened under my palms. I traced the smooth planes of his abdomen and the hard line of his ribs, learning the body the curse kept trying to turn against him.

“Carolina,” he breathed.

“Yes?”

“I had a thought, but you appear to have touched it out of existence.”

“It probably wasn’t important.”

“Almost certainly not.”

His mouth found my throat. He kissed his way down to the neckline of my blouse, taking his time as if we were not hiding at the edge of town beneath a broken movie screen. My fingers tightened against his sides when the tip of his tongue traced the hollow above my collarbone.

Gold sparks drifted from my hands and scattered across the blanket. Several floated toward the projector, which brightened so dramatically that the onscreen vampire acquired a glowing halo.

Logan glanced past my shoulder. “Your magic seems enthusiastic.”

“It needs to learn discretion.”