“No,” Briggs said.
She blinked at him. “What do you mean, no?”
“You’re not sleeping downstairs,” he said.
“It’s my house, and I’ll sleep wherever I want to sleep,” she said.
“It’s too dangerous,” Briggs said. “The window isn’t secure in the living room, and you’re too far away from me if there’s trouble.”
“The window has locks,” Cece said.
“I already told you they were useless.”
“Fine. You can stay in the living room with me,” Cece said. “I have an air mattress I put in front of the fireplace, and you can take the couch.”
He shook his head. “Until we install better locks on the windows, neither of us is sleeping downstairs.”
“It’s too cold in my room,” she said.
“Put extra blankets on the bed,” he said.
“I have every extra blanket in the house on my bed,” she snapped. “Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I can’t sleep when I’m this cold, and I need my sleep. I’m not someone who can go without sleep and function on adrenaline or caffeine, or whatever. I need sleep.”
“Fine. You can sleep with me,” Briggs said.
Her mouth dropped open. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You can sleep in my bed. I throw off a lot of heat, and it’ll keep you warm.”
“Are you insane?” she asked. “We can’t touch. If we do, my magic will… we can’t share a bed.”
“Break the spell you cast on me, and we can,” Briggs said.
“I didn’t cast a spell,” she said.
“Bullshit you didn’t,” Briggs said.
“I didn’t,” she insisted. “You’re my conduit.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Wishing she had just stayed in bed and risked freezing to death, Cece said, “Conduits are humans or paranormals who increase a witch’s magic. They’re incredibly rare and only happen to blood witches. When the witch touches their conduit, it boosts their magic, and the conduit gets a taste of the witch’s magic. Not enough to cast spells or anything, but apparently it’s a very, um, addictive rush for them.”
“I am not your conduit,” Briggs said.
“You are. Conduits are rare, but what happened between us that night at the hospital indicates that you’re mine. My magic went haywire, and we were… uh, immediately attracted to each other.”
Do you want to be fucked, little witch?
She pushed the errant memory away, but even just remembering Briggs’s deep voice, his kisses, his hand cupping her pussy, brought a rush of heat to her body that stopped her shivering.
“So, how do I stop being your conduit?” Briggs asked.
“You can’t,” she said. “It’s not something either of us can make disappear.”
“There has to be some sort of spell or potion that will work,” Briggs said.
“There isn’t,” she said. “The most we can do is avoid each other and definitely not touch one another. If we touch, we’ll have sex. We won’t be able to help it.”
