Page 26 of Magic and Matrimony

I toss back the rest of my drink, not missing Ambrose's perceptive gaze.

Josephine reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. What must it be like to have the worry of your curse gone? For years, Josephine couldn’t touch someone without feeling pain. Even though her curse wasn’t terminal, like mine will end up being, it was still awful. To no longer have that pain must be so freeing.

My eyes dart toward the street. I can’t see Rebecca outside but the rabid way she stared at Ambrose lingers in my mind. The universe really found the perfect way to torture each of us.

“We'll help you figure out how to break the hex, Piper,” Josephine promises.

Hope swells that I could be rid of one curse, at least. The one from the Briar Witch isn’t going away and it will kill me someday.

14

AMBROSE

Piper’s quiet on the ride home back to the chateau and all the way up the stairs to our bedrooms. We’re standing in the hallway and she’s just about to go into her room, but I don’t want her to disappear in there for the night. We’ve been together for hours and yet it’s still not enough.

“How are you feeling?”

Piper freezes with her hand on the doorknob. Her head slowly turns until she stares at me with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“It was a big day. We’ve got new council buddies. You were introduced to the consequences of my curse.” I keep my tone light, but I study her. Rebecca’s reaction to me has dulled over time, but it’s still intense.

Piper sags against the door. She looks paler than usual tonight, her blue eyes somehow more vivid and larger as she blinks slowly at me.

“It was definitely an eventful evening. I don’t understand how Tucker and Francesca are qualified to be on the council, but I guess we’ll find out.”

Piper turns back to her door, her shoulders tense as she hovers in between the hallway and her room. She surprises me by asking a question, her head is tipped down, but her eyes look up at me. “How many women have you kissed?”

I take a step toward her. Her eyes scan up and down my body.

“It took me a little while to figure out what my curse was.”

Just because the firstborns of all of the most powerful magical families in Mystic Hollows are cursed doesn’t mean the curse stays the same from one generation to the next. Many of us don’t even know exactly what our parents' curses were, because they never told us. They were dirty little secrets that we’re never supposed to talk about. My friends and I said fuck that.

Most of our curses kick in when we turn sixteen. I was a horny teenage boy. I kissed a few girls. It didn't take me long to figure out that something was very wrong, but the damage was done. One girl had to be hospitalized. Another family moved out of town.

“So you kissed a lot of girls,” she whispers.

“Not that many. And none who meant anything,” I murmur. She’s not judging me and I have no obligation to tell her any details about my past, but I want her to know I’m not some horrible person who went around bewitching people with my kiss. As soon as I figured out what was happening, I never kissed another woman.

Piper stares at my mouth. I brush a finger over my lip as I close the space between us. She reaches up and mimics the move with her finger. A lick of pleasure radiates from the touch.

I cup her face and mimic the move, brushing my thumb over her bottom lip. “I bet you taste so sweet.”

Piper swallows. Her hand is still on my face, and her fingers are cold.

“Were you jealous tonight?” I take another step forward until Piper’s back is pressed against the door frame. I lean down and run my nose up the column of her neck. She shivers, and a soft gasp escapes her mouth.

“I don’t have the right to be jealous.” She exhales as I drag my lips under her jaw. As she tips her head back obligingly, I scrape my teeth over her skin.

“You’re my wife, Piper.”

“Just on paper,” she whispers, all the while her hands are sliding down my chest.

I glide my hands over her hips to grab a hold of her luscious ass. I pull her tight to my body so she can feel how fucking hard I am.

“What are you doing to me?” I growl. Whenever I touch her, the world flips upside down and I lose my fucking head.

“I’m not doing anything," she responds, but her hands have worked their way under my sweater. Her fingers dig into the muscles of my lower back.

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