Page 45 of Meet Cute Magic

Somehow, my fantasy has moved back to where I needed to get it away from, and I’m fucking myself thinking about my neighbor.

I should stop. I should definitely stop.

But instead, I picture his head dropping, running kiss-swollen lips and tongue and teeth over my neck as he starts to fuck me, hard and fast.

“Oh god,” I groan, as he fills me over and over, pleasure so intense starting to build in my belly.

“That’s it, Rosie girl. That’s it. Take my cock like my good little witch.” My hips buck to get the toy deeper, to get him deeper, and my other hand moves to pinch my nipples as the need and desire continue to build and swirl in my belly, taking me higher and higher.

“Fuck, Jack,” I groan, and with his name, I feel those golden strands of the kiss bond, tugging and tightening, like even my magic wants it, wants him.

“Come for me, Rosie,” he groans through gritted teeth, and that’s all my mind needs for the pleasure to rush over me in intense waves, over and over again, tightening around the toy and bucking to get it deeper in the most intense orgasm I’ve ever given myself—or had, period.

And when I come down from my high, the walls still glittering with my magic, I stare at the ceiling and count down the minutes until this bond is out of my system.

31 days until Halloween

“So which one of you kissed Jack Haggerty?” my sister Violet asks when Poppy and I are hanging out at her place. With her words, I nearly spit out my muffin. Instantly, I try to think of an excuse, a work-around, but just as quick, I realize I’m already a lost cause: the muffin was touched by her magic.

It turns out her call for a sister night was nothing of the sort; instead it was a planned attack I didn’t even see coming. The bitch.

“I did,” I admit quickly.

Loose-lip orange olive-oil muffins. Fucking Violet. I love my sister and I love her baked goods even more, but god, I have to be more careful when accepting whatever she gives me. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson when I broke a vase sneaking into the house when I was seventeen and tried to blame it on her, only to be slipped this same goddamned muffin and then told the truth. It happened to Poppy, too, when she lost her virginity but wouldn’t tell either of us because she was scared we’d judge her.

It’s the oldest trick in Vi’s book, but I love her stupid muffins, so I fall for it every time.

The bright side is, I’ve had this happen before, and while I know there is no chance of lying, there is a way to avoid the worst of its effects. As long as I don’t tell an outright lie and as long as Violet doesn’t ask too-specific questions where I can’t tiptoe around my answer, I’ll be safe.

Probably.

Hopefully.

I’d been avoiding Vi and Poppy all week and thought I was safe to see my sisters again, since when I woke up, the golden strands were gone, visually, at least. While the pull of the kiss bond is mostly gone as well, I still feel the occasional phantom tug to see or talk to Jack that I’m hoping will wear off sooner rather than later.

“I knew it,” Vi says with a laugh, and I fight the urge to needle her. Obviously, it would be me: I’m the only one of us who talks to Jack, not to mention he lives right across from me.

“I’m sorry, what? You kiss bonded Jack Haggerty? Why?” Poppy, our sweet head-in-the-clouds sister, asks. “And why did Vi know before I did?”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out. She came into the bakery a couple of mornings in a row, asked what he liked, and got coffee for two. I thought it was strange, but she told me that she had annoyed him again and was trying to win him over so the metaphorical war could be finished once and for all. But then he came in the other day and was glowing like golden Christmas lights. Poppy, you can’t keep a secret to save your life, so I knew it wasn’t you. But now I’m wondering why our sweet sister gave her first kiss bond to the grumpy nerd across the street.” I groan, feeling the pull of her magic again.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I say, glaring at the muffin. Despite the fact that it’s one of my favorite flavors (the bitch), I refuse to eat more. The more I eat, the stronger the spell, and I can’t have them asking too many questions or finding out the truth.

I don’t know if they know about the family curse, but neither of them has been able to maintain a long-term relationship either, further cementing my need to break this curse. In my perfect world, they’ll never find out about the curse and never have to have that dark cloud hanging over them. They’ve had enough misery and sadness in their lives; they don’t need to know our family is cursed to loneliness too. Deep down in my soul, I want all of us to find love, the kind that lasts and doesn’t end in heartbreak or tragedy. But if they knew the extremes I was going to—communicating with the dead, dragging random Heartwood Hollow citizens into our world, taking my neighbor to the supernatural club in Diamond Ridge—they would have a lot of concerns.

Rightfully so, but that’s neither here nor there.

“We have time,” Poppy says, sitting back and staring at me.

“Casey saw them at Ghastly,” Violet spills, and I sigh, sitting up and putting my fingers to my temples. God, this is getting worse and worse. I force myself to focus on the version of the truth I want to share, fighting the urge to whisper a breaking spell because that would be far too obvious, and depending on how Vi made the muffins, wouldn’t work, instead only making them more suspicious.

“What?!”’ Poppy shouts, and I groan at the hurt in her voice from not knowing. I know she sometimes feels like Violet and I are closer than we are to her, since we’re so close in age, and Vi knowing these details first won’t help that.

“Okay, okay. So,” I take in a deep breath and make my decision. “Two weeks ago…” I try to embellish my story, to tell them that Phillip came out of nowhere, but the words don’t come, so I keep it simple. Magic is all about knowing the rules and how to move around them, after all. “A spirit appeared in my shop.” Violet’s eyes widen, but Poppy nods. She’s often approached by spirits, given that the flower shop she owns is located next to the cemetery. “It turns out, it was Jack’s grandfather. He won’t leave me alone.” Not a lie, because Phillip has been hovering around my house all day, every day, to the point where I think he’s actually stuck within the confines of my home until I break this curse. All the more reason to do it quickly. “He wants me to help him move on to the other side.”

“Rosie, no,” Violet says, a stern look in her eyes that I find annoying since I am the older sister, after all. But Vi was always the more responsible one.

“What was I supposed to do?” I ask. “Just let him hover in my place for eternity?”