Page 35 of With All My Haunted Heart

I hold my breath as Elle comes to a decision, and it feels like I’m getting a peek into the mischievous teen that Xander talked about. She tucks her hair behind her ears, still worrying at her lower lip. “It’s not that salacious,” she says at last. “My ex-girlfriend liked it when I wore a strap-on.”

Hearing the world girlfriend leave her lips does terribly wonderful things to the growing tingles inside me. Xander asking for queer-friendly roommates is one thing. Having Elle confirm that she’s dated women before is another entirely. God, and imagining her with a harness strapped around those hips, a cocky smirk on her face…

I shove the image away and try to ignore the aching want that’s sparked between my thighs. But then the phrasing of her words registers, and it nudges gently at my intuition. “She liked it…but did you?”

Elle shrugs, dragging a chip through the salsa. “It was fine, I guess. I could never get the friction right to…well, you know.”

“That’s why you need a witch in your life. You have to body bond your acc-sex-ories.”

“Body bond?” Elle asks, completely missing my pun.

“It’s a type of sex magic. You magically link the strap-on to your…” I fumble for an appropriate word. I’m not so high that I’ve forgotten that Elle and I aren’t technically friends. That we don’t have a personal relationship, even if she is willing to talk about her sex life in the context of the game. “Your personal anatomy,” I say at last. “That way, you feel what the toy feels.”

“How does it work?” Elle studies me, her pupils wide. “Kinsley isn’t a witch. Sex magic wasn’t on our radar.”

“I could show you,” I say, and Elle’s eyebrows arch toward the sky before I realize the implications. Fuck. “Not in a sexy way! I could bond your hand to a game piece. For educational purposes.”

For several seconds, I sit in my chair, willing the ground to open up beneath me and swallow me whole. God, I’m such an idiot. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have realized someone new to magic wouldn’t know anything about body bonding. I should have waved off the question and rolled the damn die. Moved us on from this question into something less personal.

But then Elle reaches into the game box and pulls out the pink token. She hands it to me. “Will this work?”

The relief that courses through my body would have brought me to my knees if I were standing. I accept the piece with a nod. “Cannabis dampens magical ability,” I warn. “The effect will be subtle.”

She cocks her head to the side. “It turns your smoothie straw into a coffee stirrer?”

“It’s not that bad.” I reach for the magic around me, funneling it as best I can in my altered state. After I’ve traced a series of sigils along the surface of the token, I set it on the table. “Do I have your consent to temporarily bond you to this game piece?”

Elle nods and holds out a hand.

This is a bad idea. Irresponsible and ridiculous and destined to come back to bite me in the ass. I have to live with this woman for twenty-three days. Twenty-two, since today is nearly gone. Twenty-two days is a long fucking time if I make things awkward between us. If she wakes up tomorrow embarrassed by the games we played while high, I might lose the little moments of connection we’ve had. She might go cold and distant again.

But also, if this is her flirting, if she means it…

A lot of fun things could happen in twenty-two days.

I slip my palm beneath Elle’s and hold her gaze. “I’d prefer verbal consent before I do this.”

The smirk that pulls at her lips might kill me. “Pippa Ainsley, you formally have my permission to sex magic me to that token for educational purposes.”

“It’s called body bonding,” I remind her as I turn her hand over in mine. I trace the same series of sigils along her palm, where the sensitive skin can make up for my weakened magic. When I’m done, I release her and hover my palm over the pink game piece on the table. “Ready?”

She flexes her hand. “Ready.”

I pick up the game piece and hold it between my hands. Elle’s eyelids flutter closed as she concentrates. “It’s warm,” she says at last. “There’s a pressure, too. Subtle, but there.”

Opening my hands, I trail the pad of my index finger across the edge of the token.

Elle gives a full-body shudder and opens her eyes. “And you can…you can do that spell on anything?”

“Any item,” I confirm, my voice strangled by emotion. “And any body part.”

“There you are!” Xander’s voice fills the space between us, startling me into dropping the game piece. “I found your stash of special chocolates on the kitchen counter. Why didn’t you invite me?” He slides into the chair next to mine and picks up the pink token.

“Don’t touch that!” Elle and I say in unison, earning a confused look from Xander.

“Why not?”

“Pippa sex magicked it.”