Page 75 of Witches of Dubious Origin
“Tell me what you were thinking about when you tried tomove the water.” His eyes smoldered and I knew he knew exactly what I’d been thinking about. Him. I felt a rush of embarrassed heat in my face and I knew I was blushing.
“Just the water,” I fibbed.
“Really, love?” he asked.
Ugh, that damn endearment was going to be the death of me. I arched my back and stared at the ceiling overhead. He lowered me closer to the water. “All right, I was thinking about you. Are you satisfied?”
He held his arms still and I was held in place, suspended over the gently rippling surface while he considered the question. Then he grinned and said, “No.”
He dropped his hands and I was plunged into the pool. I came up sputtering and furious. I had admitted the humiliating truth and he’d still dunked me! The nerve!
I broke the surface riding a wave of soggy indignation. Without even thinking about it, I moved my hands over the water’s surface, creating two tall waves that came at him from both sides. He let out a pleased laugh and raised his arms, putting up a water wall that effectively blocked my waves. They crashed together in a tremendous splash that soaked us both.
I swiped at the water dripping down my face, then used both hands to push a spout of water up underneath Jasper, lifting him into the air. I could feel the heat of magic burning inside me and I was giddy from the power when he crafted the spout into a pair of wings and used them to fly by me. As he sailed past, he moved his hands as if fashioning a knot, and a rope made of water looped around my upper body, trapping my upper arms at my sides.
I thought I could shrug it off—it was only water after all—but no. I closed my eyes and lifted one hand, bending it at the elbow and focusing on the churning waves around me. A blade of water formed and slipped between my body and the water rope, slicing it. I was free. Jasper was standing in the shallows and I focused on the water between us, forming a bridge. I pulled myself up and strode toward him with all the swagger I was feeling. It was a lot, to be honest.
“Zoe, love, that was incredible!” Jasper dove at me, snatched me around the legs, lifted me off the bridge and held me high in the air. “Look at you! You’re a natural.”
His enthusiasm was infectious and I laughed, bracing my hands on his shoulders and feeling the afterglow of the magic that had unfurled inside me. I smiled down at him. “Is that how you teach all your students? By annoying them into retaliation?”
“I suppose so, given that you’re my only student.” He eased his grip and I slid down the front of his body. The warmth of the magic inside me was quickly replaced by a different sort of heat and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to slide my arms around his neck and kiss him.
It was supposed to be a simple kiss. An acknowledgment of the attraction I felt for him but also a thank-you. These moments in the pool were the first time I’d felt as if I could truly be the witch everyone assumed I was.
But his mouth fit mine perfectly and his lips were soft, while the kiss was firm, and I felt dizzy with the wave of want that swept me under more definitively than the water. I broke the kiss and pulled back. He wasn’t having it.
Jasper locked me against him with one arm while theother slid into the hair at the nape of my neck, then he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me with a ruthless thoroughness that left me clinging to him. When his mouth left mine and slid across my jaw to the sensitive spot beneath my ear, my fingers flexed, digging into his shoulders and causing him to grunt with approval.
I cupped his face with my hands and brought his lips back to mine. I could feel the rough rub of his chin stubble against my skin as my mouth opened beneath his and his tongue tangled with mine as we tasted each other.
“Zoe, I—”
Whatever Jasper had been about to say was interrupted when the overhead lights snapped on and a voice said, “Oh for fuck’s sake, the two of you are emitting enough magic to bring the local coven down on our heads.”
Jasper and I broke apart to find Olive standing poolside with her arms crossed over her chest, looking like a dark thundercloud. Impatiently, she gestured to the pool, which was no longer blue but a swirling mix of black and red.
“Clean this up and go to bed. You need to be in top form tomorrow.” With that, Olive turned and strode through the doors without opening them. Jasper watched her go with his eyebrows raised and an unrepentant smile on his lips.
I would have been embarrassed, but I was a grown woman and didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself for my actions, including Olive. Also, I was too fascinated by the water lapping at our hips. “Did we do that?”
Jasper cupped a handful of water. It ran out of his palm in streams of red and black. “It would seem so.”
“How?” I asked.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the circle of his arms. “At a guess, I’d say want.” He paused to kiss me. “Desire.” He kissed me more deeply. “Lust.” This time his lips trailed down my throat to nestle in the exposed skin above the V made by the zipper of my tracksuit. He pulled back. My ears were ringing and my brain fuzzy, but even I could see the water surrounding us was churning with whirlpools of black and red.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I mean, I do.” I paused and fanned my face, indicating my reaction to his kisses. Jasper laughed. “But I don’t.”
Jasper turned me around, pressing my back against his front, and I noted that we fit together perfectly as we surveyed the pool together. The underwater lights illuminated the ribbons of red among the black, and it was eerily beautiful.
“Every witch or mage has their own signature color. It enhances their powers and comes to light when they are in possession of deep feelings,” he said. “Mine is black, so I’m confident we can say yours is red.”
“Red.” I skimmed my hand across the surface and crimson ribbons rose to the surface, twining around my fingers. I smiled. I’d always loved the color red.
23
Olive hadn’t been kidding when she’d said we would leave at dawn. I barely had time to throw back a mug of coffee before we were headed to Hagshill. Thankfully, my clothes had been washed and dried and the shuttle bus returned to Mystwood Manor—I didn’t ask—and we were now back in our rented SUV where I was happy to discover my backpack. I tucked the grimoire into it for safekeeping.
