Page 1136 of One More Kiss

Chapter3

Still,nothing happened. I straddled his waist and slid my hands under his shirt. Twelve months had passed since the last time I touched Griffin intimately, but I knew every inch of his skin. Every scar, every birthmark. Muscle memory drove my hands over the hard planes of his muscular body.

Fingers splayed over the expanse of his bare chest, I opened my third eye, tapped into the ley line running beneath the old mill town, and invoked a Salutaris spell.

Confervo, emaculo, percuro.

I used my body as a conduit for the earth magic, pulling it straight from the line and funneling it into Griffin while repeating the spell two more times.

His body thrummed with the magic that coursed through his veins in search of injuries to be healed. I focused the energy from the ley line and the spell on the most significant one--the trauma to his head. Griffin's eyes fluttered opened. His pupils were dilated and his pulse elevated, but we'd worry about that later.

Griffin was alive and that was all that mattered.

"What, no mouth-to-mouth?" He rolled to his side, groaning behind gritted teeth, and inched his way up to a sitting position. "Holy Hecate, I feel like I've been electrocuted and my mouth tastes like I gargled with dumpster water."

"I don't want to know how you know what that taste like." I resealed the useless vial, tucked it back in my pocket, and made a mental note to visit the Authority's herbalist to swap it out for a new potion.

"Back when we first started dating, the case with the goblin." He touched the back of his head, eyes widening when his fingers came away covered in tacky blood.

He'd been healed from the inside out, but the physical evidence of his injuries remained.

"I remember, but you didn't say anything about a dumpster." I got to my feet, offering Griffin a hand when he tried to do the same on his own. "I kissed you when you came home. Gross."

There was no point in asking if he brushed his teeth or gargled before he kissed me that night. I already knew the answer.

"Thanks for saving my ass." Griffin laced his fingers through mine and squeezed my hand.

"You saved mine first." I slipped free of his grip and jabbed my finger into his chest, the reality of what could have happened rocking me to my core. "You didn't even know what spell he fired."

"You're supposed to go easy on me." Griffin rubbed his palm against the spot where I poked him. "I'm still recovering."

"You almost died from a knockback. What if it I couldn't heal you?" I blinked back tears and wrapped my arms around my midsection, hugging myself tight and closing myself off from him.

The sudden crash after the adrenaline rush wore off left me jittery and raw. Griffin's near-death experience had me in my feelings—feelings I thought I had long since gotten over.

But there was no getting over a warlock like Griffin Wildes.

"I made the mistake of living without you once, Morgan. There was no way in hell I was doing that again." He pried my arms from around my middle, draping them around his hips, and pulled me into a hug. He tucked my head under his chin and breathed me in, the way he used to when we spent our days off spooning in bed. "I miss the way you smell, like honeysuckle and summer storms."

"Griffin, I don't know if I can—."

"Don't, please don't say it." His pressed his lips against my forehead in the barest of kisses. "Hear me out first."

"It's just, this is all...." I buried my face in his chest to avoid meeting his gaze. It was all too much, too fast, and it terrified me how much I still wanted and loved him.

"Your dad was in my ear the entire time we were together, whispering about how I wasn't good enough for his daughter, for the Byrnes family. Like I was just after the money and prestige." He sighed and I felt the weight of his next words in that one breath. "The thing is, he was right. He rushed to rephrase part of his statement when I went rigid in his arms. "Not about the money and prestige. At least, not in the way he meant it. I didn't want you because of your name or your money. That never mattered to me. And yet, at the same time, it mattered. It mattered a hell of a lot because what did I have to offer? Nothing."

"I only ever wanted you, Griffin." I tilted my head back until our gazes locked. The pain in his eyes almost took my breath away. "I loved our apartment, our life together. I loved you. That was enough for me. When you left the way you did, without telling me any of this, it broke me, Griffin."

"I know, Morgan, and I will spend every day of my life making it up to you, if you'll let me. I don't blame you if you won't but I need you to understand that I needed to make something of myself first. I needed to have something to give you."

"I understand that but what I don't understand is the way you did it, Griffin." I shook off the memory of walking into our apartment, empty of every last shred of evidence that he'd been a part of my life.

"I was weak. I wouldn't have been able to walk away from you or the Authority if you were there." Griffin cinched his arms tighter around me, as if he were afraid that I would pull away.

"You left the Authority?" I didn't keep tabs on him when he left and assumed he transferred to another region.

"I started a freelance agency." Griffin unwrapped one arm from around my waist and pulled his wallet from his back pocket, flashing me an independent agent badge. "I give the orders, which is easy since I only have one employee at the moment, but I take the cases I want, when I want."

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