Page 85 of Too Cursed To Kiss
“You twit. Agatha didn’t make this happen, you did. The first time you put the ring on and then you bound yourself to the album and used the marble from the other world, your fate was sealed three times over. But regardless, you weren’t entirely human to begin with or you wouldn’t have been able to do any of that. It’s so clear now.”
The gears of recognition creaked. I wasn’t human? So this was my father’s fault? Whoever he was. I didn’t feel any different. Wait, I did feel different. The glowy bits, the skin warming, the—oh my God. “Okay let’s say I’m not quite fully human, maybe slightly more so than before. What does that actually mean?”
“Nothing really, you may go on as you have, but know that now we have found you, you will always be part of our family,” Victoria said soothingly. “Of course, you’ll want to get back to your life. Once you’ve used the ring, the Grigores will learn it has a new owner, and you will not interest them. They need it untethered to a family.” She glared at Britannia.
“And what about Wald?”
“I can take care of myself. You don’t owe us, or me, anything,” he said, his full bottom lip twitching.
Yeah sure, he owed me, and there was no way he was getting off that easy. “I need totalkto you—alone, before we do this ring thing,” I said, meeting his eyes. They were glowing again, and sparks flew between us. I picked up the fallen tarot cards, adding them to the deck in my pocket.
“Mother, I’ll call you when we are prepared for the ritual.” He nodded at Victoria and walked to the mirror as if he could walk through it, but when he approached, the wall opened for him. Mason was waiting on the other side of the door.
“Welcome back, sir. Is there anything you might require?”
“Send a bottle of wine, some meat, and bread to my room.”
“Of course, right away sir,” he said, ambling off with a pronounced stiffness.
Wald’s words,my room,bounced around in my head intime with the butterflies frolicking in my stomach. I had plans. Apparently, Wald did too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Iclosed Wald’s bedroom door behind me and leaned against it, my heart thumping with the anticipation of what lay ahead. I’d spent the last hour triple-locked in the spare bedroom preening. Victoria had dropped off a bathrobe and some of Britannia’s things. I was clean but smelled like a vanilla cupcake and looked closer to a sex worker asking a buck fifty, which for me was as close to traditionally gorgeous as I was going to get.
Wald stood in prime form at the foot of the massive four-poster bed, miraculously healed and with no finger paint. He’d showered, and damp strands of his hair clung to his cheek. I itched to brush them away and run my fingers through the silkiness. I intended to do way more than that, but baby steps. He dipped his head, raking his gaze from my stilettos to where the balconette bra lifted my breasts above the low-cut bodice. I couldn’t see his eyes with his sunglasses on, but he licked his lips and rubbed a hand over his freshly shaved jaw.
I’d done well.
He nodded at the door. “Lock it.” The simple direction lingered like an order, with an open-ended take. I smiled. I liked a man who knew what he wanted.
I turned, giving him a solid view of the dress’s corset back as I locked the door. I was nervous as hell.
“Mason will use the wall entrance,” he said softly, as if noticing my pause.
“Is there a room in this place that doesn’t have a wall entrance?” Having a could-open-any-minute secret door wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for a secluded romantic spot. Sleeping with him while his family was downstairs, or wherever they were in the house, was goddamn creepy. Still, I was willing to make the sacrifice. God, he looked good without a shirt.
“The house was built with many secrets. It suits our lifestyle and our visitors. How are you feeling? You look gorgeous.” His voice dropped, as if the last parts were a whisper between us. My heart fluttered.
“I’m okay, but I have some questions. I mean, rules,” I said. The wall door opened, and Mason shuffled through with a tray large enough to hold a suckling pig. On it was a baguette, a basket, a plate of cold cuts, a bowl of reddish chunks, a bottle of wine, and two glasses.
Mason looked at me but talked to Wald. His eyes didn’t focus. I hadn’t noticed it before—as if he were blind and looking through me. “Will there be anything else, sir? Shall I open the wine?”
“No, I have it, Mason, thank you,” Wald said, walking over to the bottle. Mason gave an almost imperceptible shrug, then disappeared through the wall again. Wald picked up the wine and pulled the cork like an expert. It would have taken me five minutes of cursing to get that cork out. Hepoured out a small taste into a glass, swirled it, and then sipped it. Holy crap it was sexy.
At this point, everything he did was reading sex to me. Because I knew what I wanted, and I intended to get it. Filling both glasses a third of the way, he handed me one. His fingers dusted mine, the effect like he’d run a hand up my inner thigh.
“You were about to say?” he asked.
I took a sip. Dark cherries exploded in my mouth, wiping out all conscious thought. “Wow,” I sputtered. “This is good wine.”
“Everything will taste different now your senses have been awakened by Agatha’s gift.”
“What… oh you mean, oh. So, like…”
“Yes, Tails,” he said. The hissing of the S’s got me. I lifted the glass to my chest, as if it might stop me from launching at him. I was all-throttles ready, but I wanted to know exactly what I was in for, first.
“Okay, so I have some rules.” I wanted him, but man, the giant-thing element scared the crap out of me.
