have to do is say I’m considering it?” she asked, her voice raspy with a desire I wanted to fan into a flame the size of the Great Wall.
“You have to truly consider it.” I grabbed her chin, tilting it up. She opened her eyes, staring at me with her mixed-color ones.
“I’ll consider it,” she said and then reached down and pulled her top off to show me a black lace bra that hid nothing. Showed everything. I groaned and bent my head, pushing the gauzy fabric aside and taking her full round breast into my mouth.
She gasped and moaned and ran her fingers through my hair.
It felt like I’d journeyed to a different plane. A different place entirely. It wasn’t Tennessee. It wasn’t Earth. It was somewhere above. I knew she’d agree. I knew it like I knew my own name, because I had found out the truth about Ginny. She loved to do the things no one thought she was capable of: Krav Maga, salsa dancing, skydiving, snowball fights, and sports cars. But she loved it, even more, when someone goaded her into it. When they issued a dare.
Tonight, I was going to dare her to do many things. Many things but one, and I had no doubt she would meet every single demand with a fierceness I might have been the only one ever to see. I was going to have to be okay with that. We’d have moments…days…months together.
We’d already had them. Each kiss felt that way. Like a lifetime. Like the beginning and the end all tied together. Like she really was a witch. Messing with time and space and my future. And I gladly went along.
Ginny
LOVE IS EVERYTHING
“Let your heart believe,
That love is everything.”
Performed by Ariana Grande
Written by Thomas / Dixon / Edmonds / Riddick-Tynes
The sun was trying to peek up from behind the mountains as I turned Mama’s SUV down the drive to the house. I was tired and awake at the same time. Just like my body was sated and yet desired more.
Finding my nerve endings suddenly awake was a gloriously painful experience. Having Cole take me over the edge into a bliss I never knew was real was life-changing. It was like I’d been living with a sheer curtain in front of my eyes my whole life, and now it was gone.
Everything was brighter. Clearer. Stronger.
I got out of the truck, wiping at my face that I was sure was a smudged mess of makeup. I turned to watch the sky change from black and gray to a mix of pinks and oranges and purples. The few clouds that were left behind as the storm moved on were billowy and light instead of dark and threatening. The snow was already melting, the temperature already in the upper thirties instead of the teens that had originally been predicted for New Year’s Eve.
I stared at the colors one more moment before quietly entering the house through the back door. Hanging my coat and leaving my wet shoes in the mudroom, I intended to go take a shower before anyone realized I had been gone all night, but when I rounded the corner to the kitchen, Ty was sitting at the island.
He looked up, down, and then back up at me, eyes narrowing.
“Where were you all night?”
I moved into the kitchen and grabbed a mug to fill with the coffee he’d made.
“What’s it to you?” I asked back.
“Jesus, just don’t let Mama see you. She’s already had one too many shocks this holiday,” he said, rubbing his face.
My happiness popped like a bubble because he was right. Our family had been hit with surprise after surprise after surprise. They didn’t need me adding one more. So, while I’d truthfully promised Cole I’d think about going to Europe with him, the reality punched me hard in the gut.
Ty seemed to see the change come over me, because he stopped whatever he was scribbling on the paper and gave me his full attention. “I didn’t mean it. You know I talk before I think sometimes.”
“No, you’re right. Mama’s dealing with enough. What are you working on?”
“My draft declaration.”
He had to do it soon. With the college football season ending, there was a clock running down on his window of opportunity. He’d been working with agents and Maleena to juggle it all over the last few days. It was more work than I’d expected it to be.
I sat down on a stool next to him.
“You sure about