Page 107 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

Neither of us moves.

Then Flora fully smiles, and whatever pretense we were maintaining dissolves completely.

I reach for her, and she meets me halfway, one hand sliding around my waist as I kiss her. It’s supposed to be a hello kiss, which I think should have some kind of natural expiration point, but neither Flora nor I have any respect for established greeting protocols, it seems. Her mouth stays against mine, warm and unhurried, until I forget entirely that we’re standing in an open doorway.

When we finally separate, she looks past me into the house. “Are you going to let me in?”

“Oh. Right.” I step aside. “Come in.”

Flora does, and for some reason, watching her cross the threshold makes me approximately seventeen times more nervous than kissing her on the porch did.

Which is, of course, incredibly ridiculous, because again, I’m at a certain age. And also this woman has been inside my house before. Flora has been considerably more inside several other things that belong to me, and apparently that I can handle, but watching her toe off her shoes in my hallway on a Tuesday evening has my heart beating like we’re about to meet each other’s parents.

“You can… Um, yes. You can put that there,” I say, pointing uselessly to the space where she has, in fact, placed her shoes.

Flora looks at the shoes, then at me. “Thank you.”

“Sorry. I don’t know why I’m giving you a tour of basic household infrastructure.”

Her mouth twitches. “I mean…”

“I know, okay? I’m nervous.”

The admission escapes before I can stop it.

Flora’s expression softens. “Why?”

“Because you’re here.”

“You invited me. And I’ve been here before.”

“I know. That was the exciting part. Now we’re dealing with the consequences of my filter-less mouth and my….” I take a deep breath. “Sorry.”

She laughs, and some of the tension in my shoulders releases with the sound. “I thought I came for an earring.”

“Yes, yes. Very important earring exchange. Extremely legitimate reason for you to drive all the way over here.”

“I walked,” she says, and she tilts her head just so, and I finally, finally after three decades of simply existing on this planet, understand the term cuteness aggression.

“Please don’t undermine the elaborate justification I’ve created for this.”

Flora smiles and comes closer, close enough that her fingers brush mine. “Okay.”

“Thank you. I’ve put a lot of work into it.”

I kiss her again because apparently that’s an option now. That might be my favorite development of the week.

“Are you hungry?” I ask when I remember I had another reason for inviting her inside. It’s more abrupt than I intended, but Flora follows me into the kitchen anyway.

“I could eat.”

“Good. I made pasta.”

I say it casually, as though this is something I do all the time. Invite women I’ve recently had mind-blowing sex with to my house under false pretenses and have dinner conveniently waiting when they arrive.

Flora stops beside the stove and looks into the pot. I watch her face.

“You look surprised.”