Home for a Spell (34 page)

I tried not to think about that, but the loss of Steff would be a big one. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

Marcus had felt the shift in my energy. “You know, we never finished talking about that.”

“About what?”

“About you moving your things in here. You are staying, aren’t you?”

My breath had gotten stuck somewhere between my ribs and my throat. “Well, I don’t know,” I said a little shyly. “I mean, I don’t think you really asked. I mean . . . did you?”

His fingers were playing with my hair, twisting strands of it into spirals and then brushing the ends along my jaw and neck. “I’m asking now.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’ve gotten kind of used to having Minnie around. It would break my heart to have to give her up— ow!” he said, laughing, as I reached up and tugged hard on his ear.

“I think you deserved that,” I said, giggling myself, as the ebullience of the thought of staying here . . . of staying with
him
. . . filled me.

“Hm. Probably. So . . . what do you say? Do you think I deserve you?”

Danger be damned. Shifting cautiously in order to not flip us over onto the ground, I eased myself over the length of his body. His arms came around me, one beneath my hair, the other smoothing repeatedly down the small of my back, and he was smiling up at me with a look in his brilliant eyes that took my breath away entirely. “Oh, I most definitely think you deserve me.”

“You don’t think this is too soon?”

“Hm. Probably. But I think I can risk it if you can.”

It was amazing, all the things a man can make a woman feel with a single, luscious kiss. Desire, yes. Heat, most definitely. But what about all the other things, like the wonder of being so alive that the power of it fills you to bursting, or the delicious thrill of being taken, countered by the equally delicious realization of your own power over him. But underneath all of this was the warm, wonderful sense of belonging, and of being safe.

And isn’t that what home is all about?

Guess Liss’s spell really worked.

As if there was ever any doubt.

 

THE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC
A CHARMED DEATH
HEX MARKS THE SPOT
NO REST FOR THE WICCAN
WHERE THERE’S A WITCH
A WITCH IN TIME
HOME FOR A SPELL