Page 67 of Meet Cute Magic

“Tell me you were jealous, Rosie.” His words, low and gravelly, roll through me with heat, making me tighten against him.

“I—” I try to protest, but his hand moves again, grinding, this time his leg shifting to increase the pressure on my clit, and I have to bite my lip.

“Tell me you were jealous that I was flirting with Jeanette.” I fight the sudden urge to tell him to stop saying her name. I don’t want to even hear it on his lips. “Admit that it made you fucking nuts and I’ll tell you about how I felt when you walked into that bar with your tits out and your sweet little dress, every man’s eyes on your ass, to go sweet-talk your ex.” My words clog in my throat as I think about the look on his face when I walked in, the way his jaw was tight.

Was he jealous then?

Back then? But we weren’t… anything then. We were neighbors, enemies turned unwitting partners… we were…

I never hated you, Rosie. Suddenly, those words might not fit into the perfect little box I forced them into moments before.

“Tell me, Rosie,” he whispers, his head dropping to nip at my jaw.

Common sense and self-preservation leave my mind.

“I was jealous,” I say in a quiet confession. “I was jealous because she wants you and right now, for a short time,” I add that part for myself as much as to prove a point, “you’re mine.”

“Yeah, I am,” he growls, barely a breath, then his hands are moving again, pressing more, pinning me tightly to the wall so all other thoughts besides him and his body and the pleasure he’s bringing me leave my mind. There is no full moon, no curse, no Jeanette. Just Jack and me and this alleyway. “Now I’m going to make you come here, nice and quick on my thigh before I take you back to my place and fuck you until you scream my name, a reminder of just whose I am.”

“Okay,” I concede in a breathy whisper, and he lets out a chuckle before moving quicker, faster, just the way I need and want, like he somehow knows my body better than I do. Better than anyone ever has. “Yeah. That’s it.” His fingers dig into my hips as he rocks me back and forth over his thigh, my breathing becoming heavy.

“So fucking pretty and so at my fucking mercy.”

“Yes, yes.” Unable to keep my head up, I drop it on his shoulder with the pleasure rushing through me. He bites at the back of my neck, then growls low.

“Fucking come, Rosie.”

And I do.

Right there in the back alley in broad daylight with no magical reason to explain my sudden lack of sensibility, I come on Jack’s thigh, biting into his shoulder to hold my moan back.

And after, I let him take me back to his place and fuck me hard and fast, pulling another three orgasms from me before he follows me over the edge. As we lie there, panting and naked after, Jack tucking my body into him, all I can think is, suddenly, I’m not so sure I want to forget all of my relationships post–curse lifting.

CHAPTER 24

Rosie

15 days until Halloween

It’s anticlimactic, getting the last item, the bark of a northeast willow tree. I simply have to go two towns over to find it, spend a total of $14.37, and it’s done.

Upon bringing it home, I set the bag with the bark on my desk alongside all of the other ingredients, including the hair I had gotten two days earlier. I had gone to the barber shop with some treats from Violet’s, lying that I was just delivering a neighborly gift. After flirting a bit with Tom, I said hello to the mayor, who was already halfway through his trim, hair clippings scattered about on the floor. While chatting, I clumsily dropped my phone right over a lock of his hair, then swiped both up, securing the goods.

Now we have all the ingredients for the potion to help Phillip cross to the other side. And I…

I am miserable.

Even more so because for the last item on our list, I went alone. When I woke up this morning in Jack’s bed and told him I was going to Fair Meadow after I closed the shop early to grab the last item, he told me I could go alone because he had an appointment of some kind.

Alone.

After weeks of him insisting he join me on every task, he lets me go on the last one alone.

I’d rolled over onto him, giving him a small smile that felt fake. “So you trust me?” I asked. His hand lifted, sliding up my back and to my face, tucking my hair behind my ear slowly and softly, almost reverently.

“More than you could know,” he said low, and something about it settled in my gut. If I’m being honest, I can’t quite tell if it’s in a good way or not. We walked to Vi’s together to get coffee before separating for the day. When I closed up shop and glanced across the street, the lights were off in his shop, the sign flipped to closed, and it was the same when I returned.

Now it’s nearly seven and I’m still waiting for Jack to text and beginning to wonder if he will at all. Maybe his appointment went long. Maybe he doesn’t feel well. Maybe he just wanted some alone time.