Chapter 23
It was nearly two in the morning by the time Vivi used her spare key to unlock Something Wicked. The Eurydice Candle was tucked in her satchel, and even though it just looked and felt like a regular candle, she didn’t want to hold on to it any longer than she had to, and she definitely didn’t want it in her apartment overnight.
The storage room at the store had seemed like the best place to keep it, and she made her way to that space now, Rhys close behind her.
They hadn’t talked much on the drive over, and they definitely hadn’t talked about that moment in the closet, much like how they weren’t talking about the kiss in the library.
Vivi and Rhys were getting really good at Not Talking About Things, which, she thought, was how it needed to stay.
And, she thought as she pushed back the curtain leading to the storeroom, she needed to remember that whole thing about not being alone with him in dimly lit spaces anymore.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered to herself as she stepped into the storeroom.
She’d forgotten that Aunt Elaine’s spell made the room shift depending on time of day, even depending on the weather. If it was raining outside, there’d be a fire in a fireplace, candles glowing cozily on the walls. If it was sunny, there were windows letting in soft pools of sunlight.
And if it was the middle of the night, you got the fire in the fireplace, the candles and a sky full of stars overhead.
“Is your aunt meeting someone in here later?” Rhys asked, looking around him, and Vivi kept her eyes on the wardrobe ahead of her as she said, “No, this is just . . . the vibe.”
“The vibe,” Rhys repeated, clearly pleased. “I like it.”
Vivi didn’t say anything to that, just opened the wardrobe and gingerly took the candle out of her bag. It was still a little cool to the touch, colder than a normal candle would be, and Vivi was careful as she set it among a pile of plain white candles and several jars of dried herbs.
In the morning, she’d text Gwyn and Elaine to tell them about this, but for now, she just wanted to go up to her apartment and take a very hot bath, followed by several hours of sleep.
“Christ, it’s late,” Rhys said on a sigh, and Vivi nodded as she finished settling the candle in its place.
“I know. I’m glad I don’t have morning classes tomorrow.”
From behind her, she heard Rhys give a low chuckle. “Scheduling teaching around witchcraft. Or witchcraft around teaching, I suppose.”
“That’s my life.”
Except that Vivi hadn’t done this much witchy stuff in ages. And even though tonight had not exactly been a joy, there had been something a little exhilarating about it all. Creeping through the woods to a haunted cabin, summoning up the spirit of a long-dead witch . . . It was the kind of thing Vivi had thought of when she’d first learned about who—about what—she was.
Maybe that’s why she didn’t feel all that tired or worn out or stressed about teaching her classes tomorrow.
She’d gone into a haunted house, lit a magical candle and captured a motherfucking witch ghost.
And that felt pretty awesome.
“Thank you for your help,” she said to Rhys now, shutting the wardrobe and turning the key in the lock. “I’m sure being terrorized by a ghost wasn’t high up on your list of things to do tonight.”
Turning around, she leaned back against the wardrobe, crossing her arms over her chest. Rhys was still standing there across the room, the firelight playing across his handsome face, his hair definitely doing The Thing and his stubble really upping his whole rakish air.
Which is probably why Vivi said, “And let me add a retroactive thank-you for never trying to have sex with me in a haunted house back when we were in college.”
“Young Hainsley does need to rethink his game,” Rhys acknowledged, mimicking her posture against the cabinet just across from her. “But to be fair, had the option been available back then, I probably would’ve tried it. I would’ve attempted to shag you most anywhere. Haunted house, abandoned asylum, Department of Motor Vehicles . . .”
“If you’d done that last one, we could’ve also tried to have sex in jail,” Vivi replied, ignoring the way her heart seemed to flutter in her chest at both his words and the half smile he was wearing, wishing Aunt Elaine weren’t quite so committed to her aesthetics because this room with its warm wood and soft lighting and plenty of available soft surfaces was not helping matters.
“Would’ve been worth it,” Rhys said, and then his smile faded even as the look in his eyes grew warmer. “I was mad about you, Vivienne,” he said softly.
Sincerely.
“Utterly mad.”
Vivi swallowed hard, her arms tightening around herself. She wanted to find a joke to throw at him, something that would puncture this moment like a balloon.
Instead, she told the truth. “The feeling was very mutual.”
“Was?” Rhys pushed himself off the cabinet, moving closer to her. It was late, so late by now, and Vivi had been up for nearly twenty hours, but she felt like she had when she’d touched those runes in Piper’s cabin.
Electrified. Alive.
“Because the more I consider it,” he went on, still moving toward her, slowly, his hands in his pockets, “the less I think I should’ve used the past tense. Shall I try it out?”
He stopped, watching her, and Vivi knew if she told him not to, if she said they should leave, he would, without question. It was one of the things she’d loved about him so much all those years ago, how easily he put the power in her hands. She could stop him in his tracks right now.
Or she could let him come closer and hear what he had to say.
Not sure if she trusted herself to speak, Vivi just nodded, and one corner of Rhys’s mouth hooked up. “I am mad about you, Vivienne Jones. Again. Or maybe I should say still, because I’m gonna be real honest with you here, cariad. I don’t think it ever went away.”
Cariad. He’d called her that, that summer. She could still feel it, growled against her ear, whispered into her skin, murmured between her thighs.
He still stood a few feet away from her, still giving her the opportunity and the space to put an end to this if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
Closing the space between them, Vivi rested her hands on Rhys’s chest. His skin was warm through the material of his sweater, his heart thudding steadily against her palms, and as Vivi leaned in, she could smell the outside on his skin, the woodsmoke from the forest, the scent of night air clinging to him, and it suddenly seemed so stupid to have pretended she didn’t want this.
Lifting her face, Vivi brought her lips to his.
The kiss in the library had been frantic, a match touched to gasoline, anger and frustration fueling it as much as lust.
This was different. Slower.
His hands came up to cup her face, thumbs rubbing soft circles against her jaw, and Vivi found her own hands resting low on his waist, opening her mouth under his, sighing as his tongue stroked along hers.
“The taste of you,” he muttered when they parted, his mouth dropping to her neck as Vivi closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Can’t get enough of it. Never fucking well could.”
Another memory. That first night at the Solstice Revel, tangled together in his tent. Vivi had never gone to bed with anyone so fast, had always gone through what felt like the appropriate number of dates for each stage. Kiss on the second, little further on the third and so on. She’d only had sex with one other guy before Rhys, and that had been after a solid year of dating.
But within two hours of meeting Rhys, he’d had his mouth on her, her thigh draped over one shoulder as he’d kissed and licked and sucked and driven her completely out of her mind, telling her over and over again how good she tasted, how gorgeous she was, and she’d felt gorgeous. Powerful, even, unashamed, uninhibited.
Sometimes she thought what she’d really fallen in love with that summer was the version of herself she was when she was with him.
But as lovely as that memory was, she didn’t want to think about the past when the present was right here in front of her, hands skating over her sides, fingertips brushing the skin just above the waist of her jeans.
“Vivienne, if you’ll allow me to make you come tonight, I’d consider myself the most fortunate of men.”
The words were muttered against the place where her neck met her shoulder, and Vivi felt her entire body clench in response.
Suddenly, there was nothing more she wanted in the world than to let Rhys Penhallow make her come in the back room of this store, and she didn’t want to look too closely at it, didn’t want to think about all the reasons she shouldn’t.
It had been a long night, she was feeling powerful and good, and a handsome man wanted to give her an orgasm.
Why shouldn’t she have that?
Her hands clasped around the back of his neck, Vivi leaned in to kiss him again, letting her tongue stroke along his, loving the low sound that came from his throat as she did.
“Please,” she whispered against his mouth, and then they were stumbling back against the ancient velvet settee by the fire. Some distant part of Vivi’s brain reminded her that it had belonged to some famous witch, that Aunt Elaine was really fond of it as a result, but she couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t think about anything except Rhys and his hands on her.
They fell back onto the couch, Rhys reaching out to make sure the full weight of his body didn’t land on her, and Vivi cuffed a hand around the back of his neck as he nuzzled her jaw, her neck.
Rhys was tugging her shirt out of her jeans, shoving it up over her breasts, and when his mouth closed over her nipple through the lace of her bra, Vivi gasped, fingers tightening in his hair.
His tongue made lazy circles, the drag of the fabric plus the wet heat of his mouth making her writhe underneath him, needing, pleading.
The rasp of her zipper sounded very loud in the quiet room, and Rhys looked at her again, his eyes meeting hers, pupils blown wide with desire. “All right?” he asked, and she nodded, almost frantically, as she clutched the back of his neck, bringing his mouth to hers.
“Better than all right,” she panted, and then his hand was there, sliding over the cotton of her panties, and she was lifting her hips off the couch in a silent entreaty.
For a moment, he paused, rearing over her, his hair over his brow, his lips parted with the force of his breath, and it could’ve been that first night all over again. There in his tent at the Solstice Revel, looking down at her, that same pendant winking against his chest.
“Christ Jesus, you’re lovely,” he said, his voice a wreck, accent thicker, and Vivi almost could’ve come from that alone. From the look in his eyes, as fond as it was heated, and not for the first time, she thought how much easier it would’ve been if they hadn’t liked each other so much. If it had just been sex and heat and desire, and not this warmth, too.
“Make me come, Rhys,” she heard herself say, her voice faint against the crackle of the fire and the roaring of her own blood in her ears. “Now.”
She needed the heat to blot out the warmth.
If she could tell herself this was just about sex, just about getting off, it would be easier to watch him walk away this time.
Or at least she hoped it would be.
For the space of a few breaths, Rhys just kept looking at her, his eyes nearly black, his chest rising and falling, and Vivi tensed, wondering if he’d put a stop to it, or try to make this more than it was.
And then his fingers found her again, pressing and circling, dipping into her wetness and using it to slick his touch, dragging his fingertips back over her, and Vivi was closing her eyes, incoherent cries coming from her lips as he touched her, and touched her and touched her.
The orgasm seemed to start somewhere deep inside her, radiating out to her toes, the tips of her fingers, her nipples, and she held him even tighter as sparks exploded behind her eyes, as she lost herself to everything except him, the same way she had that very first night.
It’s different this time, she told herself even as she kissed his neck, his jaw, his mouth, anywhere she could reach.
It has to be.