Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I want to know what happens when the energy we create inside of each other explodes.
She breaks away from the kiss and looks around, breathing hard again. The lights of the school have faded into the background, and while we didn’t bring a lantern with us, my eyes have adjusted enough to see the dark trail ahead of us while it cuts through the woods. The horse can see even better than we can. We are alone out here, and while I don’t remember how much time before we hit the village of Sleepy Hollow, I know it’s more than enough.
I run my mouth down her neck, realizing I may be coming on too strong, despite what we just did. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
She lets out an amused breath. “Is that so? I thought you always had to be in control?”
“Doing whatever you want is me being in control,” I tell her. “So as long as I’m giving you pleasure.”
“Mmmhmm,” she muses, resting back against me. “You know, you’re pretty good at making someone forget things.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my hands taking over the reins again.
“The ritual,” she explains, her voice dropping a register. “I was terrified of the whole ordeal, and yet how quickly you were able to wipe that terror from my mind. How quickly my body moved on under your touch. Is that part of your magic?”
I scoff. “It’s not magic, Kat. It’s that terror heightens our emotions. Our senses. Our hearts beat like hummingbirds, and all that energy needs a place to go. Sex is the perfect place to put that energy. The terror only makes it more divine. It primes it.”
“Do you make a habit of making girls climax after they’re scared? Do you have a habit of scaring them?”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “Men too.”
I hold my breath and wait. Witches, as a whole, are open-minded when it comes to different forms of sexuality. I like to sleep with both men and women. But Kat comes from a small town and wasn’t quite raised as a witch. It’s possible she’s not as tolerant as I hope. I wasn’t even aware of my sexual preferences until I moved to San Francisco. Ironically until after I was married.
“Oh,” she says softly.
“Does this displease you?” I ask, my jaw feeling tight, ready for some form of rejection.
She swallows and shakes her head. “Not at all. I’ve just never…”
“Never been with a woman? Never knew a man who’d been with men?”
“Never to both of those,” she says. “But I’m okay with the idea of it.” She glances at me over her shoulder, her eyes bright even in the darkness. “At least with the idea of you with other men. You seem so worldly, and I feel so sheltered.”
“You won’t always be sheltered,” I tell her. “One day, you’ll move someplace far away from Sleepy Hollow.”
A moment of silence passes. An owl hoots from the forest. “Will you come with me when I do?” she asks. Her voice is so delicate and shy that it sends a bolt of anguish through me, this unbearable urge to protect her.
“I would like that,” I tell her sincerely. “Where would you like to go?”
“Anywhere,” she says, her shoulders relaxing. “Anywhere at all. New York City seems nice.” I tense up. She quickly adds, “But I know you came from there. So maybe that’s for some other time.” She pauses. “Do you have bad memories about New York? Is that why you came here?”
I sigh heavily, the past feeling too close at times. “New York, no. It was a blur of opium. A lot of being poor. I should have worked, but I didn’t. I just wanted to forget everything. I wanted to be someone else.”
“Did you break any hearts there? You must have.”
I chuckle. “No. No, but I was close to having my heart broken.”
“Really?” She sounds so surprised. “By a man or a woman?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m sorry. I was just curious.”
I rest my chin on her shoulder, embracing her from behind. “I know you are. Being curious is the way to my heart. And it was a man. A poor, broken soul on the run from something I didn’t understand. He was truly haunted, sick in the head, and yet beneath all his turmoil, I saw someone worth saving. After all, I was running from something too.”
Myself.
“Did you try and read his memories?” she asks.
I swallow uneasily, feeling shame. “Yes. I tried. I needed to know what ailed him, what he was running from. But we were only together for a couple of weeks, and I experienced the same thing I did with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He blocked me. I couldn’t read him. I could only feel what he felt, and there was a lot to sift through on that alone. I didn’t push it. I didn’t talk to him about it or whether he was aware he was blocking his mind from me. Then one day, he was gone. On the run again. I still don’t know if it was something I did that made him flee or the excuse he had that something was hunting him.”