through me like I was cold turkey and going through withdrawals, but if anything, I was saturating myself with my own personal drug.
Theodosia Kinkade.
I ground my dick into her, going slow and thrusting deep, not stopping until I was fucking throbbing with the urge to come, my balls aching with the need to explode inside her.
Suddenly, she tore her mouth from mine and released a high scream that hurt my ear drums, even as I gloried in the sound.
She shattered around me, and in turn, brought me into the explosion. As I cascaded around her in a thousand pieces, I felt us unite, our broken bodies fixing into one cohesive unit.
I gasped into her throat, gulping in air that was tinged with the scent of her and soap. As I came down from that high, I loved how she didn’t let go. Her hold was just as fierce as it had been during that explosive act.
I knew I was sweating, I could feel it gathering on my face, making our bodies stick together, and I didn’t think it could have been more perfect than it was at that moment.
Life, for once, didn’t suck.
And I wasn’t about to complain about that.
THEA
I knew Adam was being serious. He wasn’t going to let me go, and the worst part of it was, I was starting to believe that we should be together.
One night in his arms, sleeping with him and waking with him with nothing else to do than be with one another for the rest of the vacation, and he was turning my head.
Danger, danger.
It bleated a warning in my subconscious, but I pushed it aside. Doing as my mother had begged me not to.
Maybe it was apt that, as soon as we woke up, things started to fall apart.
The curse.
I’d never thought about stuff like that before my visit with my mother, but in the aftermath, it was there, at the front of my mind as I fought the constant battle to be with Adam.
But I’d never seen it working.
Never seen it roll out.
Destined to know one another, but to never be together.
I couldn’t think of a worse punishment.
“Why us?” I’d asked her, and she’d flinched at the plea in my words.
“Because Fate was jealous. No mortal should have been able to see as far as Eulalia Kinkade could, so she was punished for that sight, and the punishment tainted us all.”
I shook my head. “That’s stupid. That makes no sense.”
“Our culture is stupid? Our culture makes no sense?”
The words were like the lash of a whip to my mind.
I gulped. “I wasn’t raised like you.”
“And I can tell. You’re more Gadže than Roma.”
I shrugged, even though I knew she’d said that with the intent to insult me. “It was either fit in or fade away.” I refused to be ashamed of that, and maybe she’d seen that, because her temper had dispersed, even as her shoulders had sagged.
“More guilt to weigh on my shoulders,” she muttered, and I’d watched her pick up the box of Mike and Ike’s again and tumble more candy into her palm.
“You don’t have to believe it, but you’re living in the aftermath of its effects. Nicodemus would never have hurt me. He was a good boy. Only the curse would twist him.”
I refused to believe in something so stupid, refused to let my life be ruled by that, until she’d said, “I won’t let you visit again, Theodosia. I meant it before, but this is the final time I’ll see you—and I want you to give me your word that you’ll take heed.”
“Why won’t you let me come again?” I’d ground out, angry. “We still have time. We can get to know one another—”
“Because it’s too late for us. I’m tainted, and I won’t have you stained with my mahrime even more.”
The word had sunk into me like a knife through butter.
Mahrime.
One part of our world that I still stood by.
She was sacrificing our relationship because of it. She believed in this nonsense to the point where she was willing to lose me forever over it.
“Did you believe in the curse?”
Her lips curved into a bitter smile. “Momma told me about it. But no, I didn’t believe it.” She sucked in a breath. “Not until he raised his fist to me that first time, then I started to have doubts, and only when I sunk that knife into him, did I realize she was right. I should have left him alone.”