Magical Midlife Love (Leveling Up #4) - K.F. Breene Page 0,9
“What about after I go to bed, but before I actually go to sleep. Like…late at night…”
“When you pleasure yourself? Yes, I feel that.”
I could do nothing but stare. In mute horror.
Whatever he felt through the link got the words flowing.
“At first that confused me,” he said, “since you did not express interest in bedding me. Then I thought maybe you were trying to pleasure me through the link. Only, it was just the feeling of pleasure and not actual pleasure, if that makes sense?” My expression clearly insinuated that it didn’t. “I could sense you were feeling pleasure, but it wasn’t directly manifesting into my pleasure. So I finally realized the link was like a two-way radio, and each person controlled the volume from their side.”
This was the most he’d ever talked in my presence. He rarely said a couple of sentences jammed together, let alone a whole paragraph. This wasn’t the subject I’d have chosen for him to find his voice.
“Please tell me you started turning the radio down during those times?” I whispered.
Wariness crowded the link now, so heavy that I felt like I was drowning in it.
“I didn’t know I should,” he responded. “Gargoyles are sexual beings. We share it freely. I thought…”
His words ceased at the shaking of my head, at the continued horror that was surely on my face. Not that he’d need the cue. He could apparently feel it.
I turned and headed for the house, my mind whirring.
“Do you know if it’s the same with Ulric?” I asked.
“I have not asked,” he said, falling in behind me.
It occurred to me that one or the other, Jasper or Ulric, was always out in the halls whenever I got up from a nightmare, a frequent occurrence lately. Almost as if they knew what was happening. And then there was Mr. Tom, who was always one step ahead of me when it came to getting up in the morning, either waiting by my bed or getting coffee ready to bring up. He could accurately predict my hunger and had a sixth sense about what I needed before I asked for it.
Because he’d been feeling my emotions the whole time.
We neared Ivy House, its massive shape cloaked in dark shadows that matched my mood. Niamh sat on her porch across the street, a rock in hand. She was watching a man who’d stalled in front of Ivy House. He reached into the satchel hanging at his side, probably to grab a newly created potion. Given she hadn’t thrown the rock yet, she knew he wasn’t a tourist. Now she was watching to see if he’d become my next professor.
I had my mind on other things. Mainly, the fact that Mr. Tom and the gargoyles were not the only people who’d been lying to me.
Austin had been able to feel me all this time as well. He’d randomly called when I was upset for some reason or other, or in danger, to check in. The “coincidence” had always been welcomed. But now I realized those calls hadn’t been random. He’d been responding to my distress.
He hadn’t turned the volume down on his side. At least, he didn’t all the time.
In this time of peace, did he still feel everything I felt even though I was giving him the privacy I thought he wanted?
My gut pinched in anger and I started forward again, Jasper shadowing me, back to silence. He hadn’t apologized, and why should he? He hadn’t known any better.
Austin did.
The man in front of Ivy House upended a bottle of yellow potion into his mouth before putting it away.
“Not enough power,” I murmured. The color was wrong for that potion, which meant the creation wasn’t powerful enough to mask him from Ivy House.
I quickly crossed the street onto the sidewalk, passing in front of Niamh’s house, Jasper following suit.
The mage stepped onto the walkway leading to my front door. One hesitant step, two… Picking up the pace now, four steps, five…
He reached the magical panel Edgar had installed in the sidewalk. I’d covered it with a simple masking spell, blending its look and characteristics with the landscape around it. A good mage should have been able to recognize the spell—fuzzy edges and a slight sheen gave it away.
The panel popped up with a loud snap.
The man didn’t have time to swear. The vial flew out of his hand. His body soared up into the air, the spelled and spring-loaded panel flinging him in an arch.