Page 27 of Witches and Wine
When the gargoyle was no longer blocking my view, I zeroed in on Dion’s piercing gaze instantaneously despite the dozens of bodies between us. Something happened in that moment I couldn’t explain, but my magic sputtered at my fingertips, a tingle trickling down my spine until it landed in my tailbone, intensifying there. I’d suddenly developed the overwhelming urge to get to him, and, keeping my eyes locked with his, I pushed through the horde, irritation bubbling with each passing second that I wasn’twithhim.
The one instant I blinked, I’d lost sight of him, and the pulsating music fell from my ears, my quickened breaths replacing it. I spun circles, confused and erratic, the rotating lights and shoulders bumping into me from every angle, doing nothing to soothe me.
“Hey, Red,” Dion’s voice, like liquid chocolate, rumbled in my ear from behind me. His arm snaked around my waist, his palm resting on my stomach, and Imeltedagainst him.
Threading my fingers with his, I finally found the will to open my eyes after letting his scent tantalize my senses. “This place is amazing.”
A brief chuckle thundered from his chest, his lips feathering my ear lobe before he playfully nipped at it. “The night hasn’t even started, Stewart.”
Dion had many nicknames for me, but I’d come to learn whenever he referred to me with my last name, he intended to challenge me.
Challenge accepted, frenzy god.
Turning, I held the metallic gold clutch in one hand and hung my fingers from his belt loop with the other. “I’m all yours. What do you want to do with me?”
Dion’s gaze shot downward to my hand hovering near his crotch, and he frustratedly dragged a hand over his beard. “Gods and martyrs, Chels. WhatamI going to do with you?”
The question had my heart racing, core clenching, and my magic humming in my veins.
Dion pulled me to him, my breasts thumping against his ribs and making me gasp. “For starters—” He plucked the clutch from my vice-like grip and held it up between us. “You’re not going to need this.”
That calm demeanor I pretended to exude moments prior? Gone and scorched.
“But my?—”
Dion cut my words short by slipping his hand to my exposed lower back, his forefinger resting on one of two dimples there as if he’d already perfectly mapped my body. “Tambie, would you be a dear and lock this in the safe?” He said to a female with small antlers extending from her forehead and a pixie haircut carrying a silver tray. Dion dropped my clutch onto it.
“You got it, boss,” Tambie answered, flashing me a sultry grin and unabashedly roaming my body with her gaze.
I turned to follow her, but Dion’s grip tightened on my back. “Dion, my credit cards are in there, my ID, my?—”
“Mágissa,” Dion whispered, beckoning me to settle on his gaze. He rested a knuckle under my chin and tilted it upward. “Do you trust me?”
Yes, and no? My gut told me I could trust him, but the rational part of my brain questioned how that was possible given the short time I’d known him.
“Yes?” I’d dragged out the word, squinting one eye.
Grinning, Dion kissed me delicately, slipping my upper lip between his. “By the end of the night, I hope to turn that question into a definitive answer.”
My eyes remained closed as I waited for the kiss to continue, but I blinked when his hand wrapped with mine.
“But first, you need a littleencouragement,” Dion said, lightly tugging me toward the bar.
Letting him pull me, giggling over it, I leaned an elbow on the bar once we’d reached it. “Ambrosia wine? Is that your plan? Get me intoxicated and throw all scruples to the wind?”
Dion became transfixed on the dip at the front of my dress, his finger lazily tracing circles on exposed skin above the fabric. “Part of it. Encouraging beings to let loose and have fun happens to be my specialty, but you, my dear Chelsea—” The bartender handed him two drinks, and Dion offered me one. “—have been an enigma.”
The idea of my making things difficult for him gave me a perverse thrill.
Taking the drink, I raised it to him. “Here’s to challenges then.”
“To cracking your nut, Stewart,” Dion countered, a delicious twinkle casting in his eyes as he tapped his glass against mine.
A massive golden statue toward the back captured my attention—a man with long, wavy hair and a full beard lounging on a bench in only a toga that exposed his chest, stomach, and legs. One hand raised a goblet, a pitcher hanging lazily by one finger in the other, and clusters of grapes and pine cones were strewn on his lap and at his feet.
“Dion, is that monstrous statue supposed to be you?” I’d paused mid-drink to gawk at it and still held my glass near my lips.
Dion shifted his glance behind him, barely looking at the statue before turning back to me. “I happen to think it’s one of the best likenesses anyone has sculpted of me.”
