“Nothing,” she said.
“You sure?”
She nodded before studying her hands. She needed to talk to Briggs about the research she’d done last night, but she wasn’t quite ready to handle that level of embarrassment. Instead, she said, “I hope the smell of the burned herbs in the house didn’t bother you.”
Before they’d left the house, she’d burned sage and rosemary throughout the house, repeating her cleansing intention in a soft chant as she did so.
“It was fine,” Briggs said.
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.”
Silence filled the truck, and Briggs said, “Say what you need to say, Cece.”
“How do you know I have something to say?” she asked.
“You have a very expressive face. You can’t hide your expressions for shit.”
She scowled at him, and his lips twitched up into an actual smile. Desire immediately pooled low in her belly, and she quickly looked away. Now was not the time to let lust lead her thoughts.
She took a deep breath. “I was having some trouble sleeping last night, so I did more research into the conduit thing and if it was possible to break it.”
“And?” Briggs’s voice was carefully neutral.
“No luck,” she said. “From what I can tell, there’s no potion or spell that will stop you from being my conduit.”
He didn’t reply, and her cheeks already heating up, she said, “But I did find something that might help. Sort of. I mean… it won’t stop the conduit thing, but it could… it might help us… Never mind. It’s dumb.”
“Tell me, Cece,” he said.
Her face roughly the same temperature as she imagined the deepest pit of Hell was, she said, “There’s some information regarding conduits that indicate the more the witch and their conduit touch, the more often they have sex, the easier it is for the witch to control the excess magic it gives her, and with time, the conduit becomes somewhat immune to the effect of the witch’s magic on them.”
She stared out the window, her embarrassment too great to even look at Briggs. After the longest minute of her life, he said, “How much sex and how much time?”
“I… I’m sorry?”
“How much sex do we have to have for you to control your magic, and how much time will it take for me to become immune to you?”
“From my readings, it seems that it’s different for every witch and conduit,” Cece said. “But there are some instances where it got to the point that the conduit could leave the witch and not, uh, crave their magic anymore. They moved on with their lives and found their real partner or, um, mate, or whatever.”
“How many instances?” he asked.
She pressed her lips together. “I found two.”
The silence ticked by, and unable to sit in it for any longer, she said, “There is the other obvious option where we don’t see each other anymore. I’m open to either, so you can make the final decision on what you’d like to do.”
She continued to look out the window. He would pick the sex one, she was sure of it. Why wouldn’t he? The attraction between them was a powerful one, and she knew he liked the hit of her magic it gave him.
He might not choose the sex option, Cece. You barely know him, and you have no idea what he’s really thinking. Not all guys are ruled by their dicks.
Her inner voice was right, and she hated it. She’d only touched Briggs twice, and already the thought of never again feeling the powerful magic only he could give her made her feel twitchy and a little frantic. She wasn’t saying she had the urge to immediately tie Briggs to her bed so he couldn’t leave her, but she wasn’t not saying it.
She sighed inwardly. The realization that she wasn’t a good person, that she was perfectly willing to use Briggs to increase her magic, was a low, steady hum in her brain that never entirely disappeared. Despite that, anxiety brewed in her belly at the thought of Briggs leaving her. Of course, being this upset by the thought of losing Briggs was a good indication that walking away from him was the right decision.
Every part of her cried out in anger and panic at that thought, and she barely heard Briggs’s low voice when he said, “Little witch.”
She stared at him, hoping the panic wasn’t apparent on her face. “Yeah?”
“Take some deep breaths.”
