Page 1123 of One More Kiss

Chapter7

He was tallerthan I thought he would be. Asa unfolded from his crouch on the glass-covered attic floor, his trim body stretching to towering levels. I couldn’t say when I’d started toward Asa, but before I knew it, I was in his space, or he was in mine. I was staring up, up, up at a pair of chocolate irises with the faintest hint of green in their depths.

I’d done it. I’d freed him. He was real.

Then I wasn’t staring at much at all because a pair of criminally soft lips were on mine. Asa’s rough fingers were threaded through my hair while his other hand seemed to lift me and hold me to him in a move that was so fucking impressive, I could have swooned on the spot.

Shock parted my mouth, and forty-four years on the planet left me ill-prepared for Asa’s version of a thank you.

My whole body felt like someone had lit me on fire, and there was precisely zero brain activity going on in my nugget other than base need. My body had fully taken over, my tongue tangling with Asa’s, his taste, his scent bombarding me with enough stimuli to light up a power plant.

Somehow my hands found themselves latched onto his leather jacket, holding him to me so I could explore every inch of his mouth. I’d never been high a day in my life, but if any kind of drug was as addictive as Asa’s kisses, I could see how people so easily overdosed.

In the back of my mind, I knew I’d barely met the man that day. Still, I was trying to figure out how I was going to undress him without dropping the kiss. Maybe being fully undressed was overrated. All we really needed was a few undone zippers…

“Excuse me,” a voice called, but I was busy. Asa was busy. Everyone was busy and did not need interruptions. Now about those zippers.

“Jasper St. James, I will vomit on your first edition of Mansfield Park if you don’t stop kissing that man this instant.”

I broke the kiss and was about to attack Jeff when Asa’s strong arm yanked me back by my middle. The heat of his body filtered through my shirt, and that was just about the only thing that kept Jeff alive.

“Later, Sugar Plum. We’ll revisit our conversation, Jasper. That is a promise.” Asa’s slow Southern drawl made everything south of my navel clench in the most delicious way.

Still, I had half a mind to flick Jeff in the nose for the threat.

Jeff rolled his eyes at me. “I don’t know if you realized this yet, but you didn’t just break Asa out of the mirror with that spell. Look at the window, Jasper.”

Frowning, I pulled myself from Asa’s clutches to stare at the attic window. Set in the pitch of the roof, the circular-paned window was a showpiece for sure. Then I stepped closer to inspect it.

Each and every pane had a crack in it.

Shit.

“Exactly. The whole house ward may be cracked. I knew we should have done this outside. I thought…” He trailed off, not telling the room what exactly he thought. “As soon as they figure it out, they aren’t going to just keep cooling their heels on the roof, Jasper. Beatrice is going to be coming in here, and we’re going to be ten shades of fucked.”

A healthy dose of fear filled me as I stared at the cracked glass. Sure, I’d gotten Asa out of his mirror, but that didn’t mean I knew what to do after that.

“What do we do? Can we bolster the ward or something?” Sure, it kind of felt like a stupid question, but even with my recent infusion of knowledge, I still felt like I knew less than nothing.

“Yes, but Mercy’s ward was the only thing keeping Beatrice out. We need to protect the books, Jasper. Nothing else in the house matters.”

Loud thumps sounded overhead, the noise reminding me of when Asa’s boots hit the floor. Those were feet. More than a few sets of feet, to be accurate.

“Get started on the ward. Jeff, please tell me there are weapons in this house.” Asa’s request came out more like a command, but I did not mind one bit. I knew diddly squat about what I was doing here, and the direction was most definitely welcome.

“Guest room closet. There are edged weapons and bludgeons. I’ll show you. Jasper, there should be potion bombs in the cabinet. Use the red and purple ones. Do not touch the yellow ones. As funny as it might be, making our opponents accidentally shit themselves is less than ideal.”

Jeff and Asa scampered off to procure a way to defend ourselves while I rummaged through the giant apothecary cabinet for potion bottles. In the third case, I found them, each one carefully labeled with their purpose. The “To Bleed” was the red, and the “To Dismember” was purple. There was a black “To Sleep” one and the aforementioned yellow was simply labeled “Revenge.” There were other colors, too, a green one labeled “Bad Luck,” a blue “Freeze,” and last but not least, an orange called “Inferno.”

I grabbed the canvas tote hanging from a nearby hook and stuffed handfuls of them in it—all except the yellow and green ones. No one needed the trots, and I had no idea what Bad Luck did, but I figured it would likely be too slow to take affect for an advantage. I slung the strap over my head, keeping them near me just in case.

Racing back to the book, I tried Jeff’s trick for finding what I needed and snapped my fingers. Mercy’s book rose off the table in answer to my request, slammed closed and went back to the shelf. As soon as it returned, a three-inch-thick monster of a tome flew out, smacking on the table as it flipped to the right page.

The best I could do was blink at the books and pray there wasn’t a ghost in this damn attic. I mean… yesterday I thought witchcraft was reserved for my favorite novels. Not once did I think any of this was real. Not once did I actually suspect that there was an arcane world just on the other side of the veil. Now that it was right in front of my face, my brain was having a bit of a time catching up.

Hiking up my big girl pants, I peered at the open page. This tome was older than dirt, and all my training with rare books made me not even want to breathe on the thing. It was written solely in Latin, an older dialect to be sure, and I wasn’t a hundred percent certain what exactly it did. It involved drawing runes of protection onto the planks, or…

There was a working to do them all at once, but it required—you guessed it—my blood. What was with all the spells wanting to bleed me dry?

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