Page 69 of The Pumpkin Spice Spell
Her hip presses into mine. I feel her laugh more than I hear it. She’s warm, relaxed, golden in the lamplight. And I’m toast.
The movie plays. Kids run around throwing popcorn. Ivy accuses someone of a hate crime for putting marshmallows in chili. Lilith is reading a palm. Rowan’s passing out caramel apples at a little table in the back. Someone dressed like Bigfoot is flirting with someone dressed like a colonial ghost, and no one’s batting an eye.
Willa leans her head against my shoulder.
I turn slightly, brushing her hair back from her cheek. “So,” I whisper, “about that offer to keep me warm…”
She lifts her head, amused. “You’re really gonna bring that back up?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
Willa bites her lip. “God, you’re impossible.”
“Yet here you are.”
She says nothing. Just stares at me for a second too long.
Then, softly, she says, “You’re trouble.”
“You like trouble.”
“Maybe.”
I tilt my head, brushing my nose against hers. “Then stop pretending you don’t.”
When she doesn’t move away, her lips part, and her breath catches like she’s daring me to keep going. My mouth crashes into hers, and every ounce of restraint I’ve been clinging to shatters. She gasps against me, and I take the opening, kissing her like I’ve been starving for years and she’s the only thing that will ever feed me.
Her hands grip my shirt, sliding up my chest, tangling in my hair. I can’t get close enough. I haul her against me, feeling the curve of her body fit into mine like it was made for me. My hand finds her jaw, tilting her up so I can go deeper, claim more.
She’s making these soft, desperate sounds in the back of her throat, and it’s driving me insane. I kiss her harder, like I can pour every unspoken word, every sleepless night, every damn thing I’ve ever felt for her straight into this moment.
When we finally break for air, we’re both breathing like we just ran a mile, our foreheads pressed together, her lips swollen, my heart punching against my ribs. And I know there’s no undoing this. Not now. Not ever.
And I know that this is it. This is the moment the walls have fallen. We’re both in.
The full moon hangs over Wisteria Cove like a spotlight, casting long shadows between flickering jack-o’-lanterns and fog machines that wheeze and sputter outside Main Street storefronts. The sidewalks are packed with townspeople in costumes, half of them tipsy, the other half high on sugar and nostalgia. The ghost tour has been an annual tradition as long as I can remember. It’s like trick or treating for adults and one of my favorite Wisteria Cove traditions.
And here I am wearing a pirate costume.
“You look ridiculous,” Remy mutters beside me, adjusting Junie’s little fairy wings. “And yet somehow, it’s working.”
“It’s the eyeliner,” I say, tossing him a wink. “Women love a roguish man with dark secrets and a sword.”
Junie, dressed in a sparkly green tutu with a plastic crown sliding down her forehead, tugs my sleeve. “Captain Tate, are you really a pirate?”
“Absolutely. I stole a hundred ships and a thousand hearts.” I tell her in my best pirate accent.
“You’re certifiable,” Remy mutters.
“And yet here you are, participating. Nice lumberjack look, by the way. A big hit with the ladies,” I tease.
He glares, “This is just the way I look.”
I ignore him and hoist Junie up onto my shoulders so she can see over the crowd. “Where to, Your Highness?”
