Page 82 of Too Cursed To Kiss
“That. Focus on that.”
How my heart had raced when he walked out in a towel.His annoying grin. The almond-shaped golden eyes traveling over my body with a desire that I’d never gotten a chance to fully return. The way his lip curled when he smiled. The sweat and leather and the musky scent that must be him. His satiny pale skin. The way his bushy eyebrow went up when I annoyed him. The way he moved toward me when my skin ached for his touch. His muscled forearms. The taste of him, and that tongue…
The stone was heating up under my fingers.
Agatha whispered, “Don’t stop, hold that moment, that thought.”
I switched to the bedroom, the kiss that devoured me, that brush of his lips and then the press against mine. The strokes of his tongue I’d drowned in, didn’t want to stop. Him strong and hard under me. Lethal and gentle. His voice, rough and low in my ear. His trust. His belief in my strength. I needed that vibrancy to be part of my life. I wanted that. All of it. All of him. I didn’t want to have a life that didn’t include him.
The scent of stale cloves, the way his R’s rolled. The promises of things to come, of discoveries to be made. Wald was the ultimate partner, sexy and mysterious with a healthy dose of dangerous. His breath on my neck. How he lifted me effortlessly. Velvet lips and bourbon with cherries. The whisper that was close to a purr. Even his infuriating nickname for me that I now craved to hear him say.
Agatha gripped my shoulders. “Keep thinking about that, whatever it is, and keep breathing.” Agatha’s hands were heavy on my shoulders, and they shouldn’t be because she didn’t have a real body. My eyes snapped open. I sucked in a breath and held it, then forced myself to exhale. It took me a minute to settle and go back to Wald-land. His tongue equalparts sand and silk licking down my cheek like it was the best lollipop.
The ring began to warm on my skin. Agatha’s fingers dug into my leather clad shoulders and hissed, “Focus.”
I gripped it tightly, hoping my other hand would absorb the heat and thought about the licking, where I’d like it to go. Where I’d like him to lick me next. How it would feel to merge with him. Where an ending would be a beginning. The ring was searing hot. My eyes flew open. The stone in the ring glowed, blinding me. The metal was fiery hot to the touch, but somehow it wasn’t burning my skin. The red stone burst into red orange flames.
The sensation of molten lava seared across my skin, as if the heat were melting my flesh into the ring. Agatha’s fingers dug into my shoulders as I howled, clawing at the band. I dropped to the floor writhing, my heart beating so fast my chest constricted, my entire body focused on the one fiery spot. Agatha joined me on the floor, holding on to me as sweat and tears poured down my face. Agatha’s fingers moved and tucked things under my bra strap. The pain lessened.
In my head, I heard words I knew weren’t spoken, in a language that wasn’t mine, but I knew what she said in English.
“Too clean. Has no taste.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. The marble in my hand turned icy, biting into my palm. I pried my fingers open, amazed the glass ball hadn’t shattered by my iron grip.
Freezing in terror, a black taloned claw reached over my shoulder and plucked the marble out of my palm. The shiny glassiness disappeared. I turned weakly to face whatever horror was attacking. But whatever it was, was gone, andAgatha had disappeared. The ring had stopped glowing, and my skin wasn’t even blistered.
Tears streamed down my face. I was in the mirror room with the open album, but where Agatha’s photo had been was now pure black. Wald’s waxy pale body was dead as a doornail. Aren’t doornails always dead?
Under my bra straps were two large cards with pictures in a forest setting. I stared down at them mutely, wondering why Agatha would leave me tarot cards lettered with writing I shouldn’t be able to read, but could:The Lovers and Death. The words weren’t even words, written in some kind of runic-style letters.
They glowed.
I shrieked and dropped them. The cards fluttered to the table, settling on top of the open photo album. The now-black photo of Agatha flashed green, then turned into a third card,The Wheel. I reached for it as the door opened behind me, and the air filled with a sweet vanilla powder. I whipped around as Victoria rushed in. Her scent soothed my addled brain to the point I could think again, but then I stared at her, not seeing her, my vision blurring.
“Harlan, what is it?”
I pointed to Wald as tears poured down my cheeks. “He’s still dead,” I sobbed, covering my face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Harlan, you must control your emotions. We have work to do,” Victoria said with far more authority than I’d heard from her before. Was she taller? Maybe it was the mirrors. She’d changed into a long flowing chiffon gown in lavender. On me, the dress would look like I was wearing a set of curtains, but on her, it elevated her to goddess-level.
She motioned for me to come to Wald’s side. I had to concentrate to get my feet to move. I held my breath, praying Wald’s body wasn’t starting to decompose. If he smelled bad, I would never get past that. I didn’t want to remember him that way.
To avoid looking at his face, I focused on his belt. I shoved my hands in my pockets or tried to. One pocket was full of cards. I drew them out. It was the rest of a tarot deck.
“That’s Agatha’s deck. It’s special. Did she give it to you?” Victoria asked, her head tilted slightly as she examined me with her eyes.
“What? No. I mean, maybe. What the hell is it for? I don’t know anything about tarot cards, and I can’t read the words on them. Well, I can, but I shouldn’t be able to.”
“Interesting, the cards would only work if they were given to you by their owner. What else did she say to you?”
“She said we would repair the ring first, and then I could bring Wald back, then she would get the marble. But she took the marble, and Wald’s still dead.” The last words cracked. I’d wanted Wald to be alive so much the grief had started to pour out of me. The wild dreams of what could have been and what I’d lost.
“You’ll need to use the cards then. Did Agatha tell you how you were to use them?”
“No, but she gave me three separately.” I held them out. Victoria looked at them, then nodded and knelt beside Wald in a pool of chiffon, pulling a jar out of the folds of fabric. She smeared a silvery gray paste over Wald’s skin in a series of circles and scrolls, connecting them with lines and symbols I’d seen on the cards and the sides of the ring.
