Page 138 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

“Ow.” I twist, trying to look behind myself, even though there is absolutely no angle from which a human neck is designed to accomplish this. “Something is stabbing me.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, fuck, sorry.”

“I think your seduction has become hazardous to my health.”

The corner of her mouth tilts up, and in the same breath, she catches my face and kisses me again. The laugh caught in my chest disappears immediately, and the interruption hasn’t done a single thing to derail her.

Flora presses closer, one hand at my waist and the other sliding into my hair, and I let myself have it for a while. The weight of her against me. Her mouth and the quiet confidence with which she touches me now that we’ve had enough time together to stop treating every movement like unexplored territory.

But as her mouth moves to my neck…

I take hold of her waist, and Flora barely has any time to look at me before I turn us again.

I walk her backward to the little bench beside the door.

“Merry,” she pants. Her eyes are heavy-lidded when they meet mine, dark with an unmistakable kind of want.

“Sit.”

There’s a beat where she just looks at me, and my stomach does that little swoop it loves to do every time Flora is close by. When she sits, something about the fact that she does it without argument sends a rush of satisfaction through me.

I step between her knees, and Flora’s hands settle automatically at my hips, but I catch them and guide them around my waist instead before sinking to my knees.

Her eyes widen as understanding crosses her face, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across mine.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she says back, and her eyes are searching now.

I run my hands along her thighs and part them without even thinking.

Flora’s breathing grows heavier, each inhale a little less controlled than the last, and there’s something intoxicating about knowing I’m the reason for it. I trail kisses over her jeans, taking my time because the way Flora shifts on the bench makes me want to drag this out as much as possible.

My hands eventually find the waistband of her pants, my fingers lingering there while I look up at her and watch anticipation settle across her face. A small whine escapes her lips, and she flushes, a dark pink settling on her cheeks and down her chest.

“Please,” she mumbles as one of her hands finds my hair.

“Tsk, tsk,” I say, unable to keep the smile from my lips. “And here I thought you were the patient one.”

Flora’s eyes narrow, although the effect is somewhat diminished by the flush covering every inch of visible skin and the way her fingers tighten in my hair.

“Merry.”

There’s a warning in my name this time, but it only makes the satisfaction spreading through me worse.

I like this.

I like seeing her like this, with some of that careful composure stripped away. I like knowing I did it. That the woman who can silence me with a look and make my brain stop working with two perfectly chosen words is sitting in my entryway asking me for something.

For more.

So I let my fingers linger a little longer, my mouth hovering right above her pussy.

She’s so warm, I can feel it against my lips, and when I look up, Flora is watching me with her breath caught somewhere in her chest.

“Hands on the bench,” I tell her.

Flora’s fingers still.