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Audrey
OnceWesgotholdof himself and was able to let the energy flow out of him, we hiked back down the trail. I couldn’t deny that I got a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing him struggle with control for once. Not that either of us seemed to have a great handle on our powers, or our hormones, but it was nice to know I wasn’t alone. Magic was hard.
The ice and lightning had been more potent than anything we’d produced from accidental contact, and I wondered if we’d continue to see an increase, or if it all depended on how much we touched one another. If we had sex, would we end up calling down a hurricane? Not that we’d take it that far. I was just throwing hypotheticals out there.
Despite coming off of a brutal case of blue balls, Wes seemed to be in good spirits. He kept me entertained with stories about how he and Donovan had been messing with Cole since he became the CEO of Zodiac Enterprises. Like swapping out the images on one of his PowerPoint presentations for pictures of The Rock, or rearranging the letters on his keyboard so it spelled out swear words.
Out of all the Lathams, Cole was the one I’d interacted with the least. Just at family gatherings back when I dated Seth. Like his brothers, he was devastatingly sexy, but not nearly as approachable as Wes or Donovan. He had a reputation for being a bit of a hard-ass. As a result, most people kept their distance. I’d never seen him have a drink down at Leo’s or heard about anyone he had dated, though I very much doubted he was celibate. Just private. Maybe even lonely. It made me feel kind of bad for him.
“Don’t you think that you and Donovan should give Cole a break?” We cut through the clearing by my hot spring. “He’s probably been under a lot of pressure since your dad got sick.”
Wes chuckled. “I love your soft heart, but I assure you that my brother dishes it out as well as he takes it and he would not appreciate your pity.”
“Fine, but I still think he’d be nicer if someone showed him a little affection.”
“He’s not an alley cat, baby.” Wes’s lips quirked with amusement. “Cole is a big boy with his own furniture and everything. He also happens to be a grouchy prick who needs to be reminded from time to time that there’s more to life than business.”
“If you say so.” I didn’t want to put us back on the wrong foot arguing about Cole, who I didn’t really know well enough to defend. “I don’t have to get back to close up the shop for another hour. Should we squeeze in a quick practice? Or have we done enough damage today?”
“The more we practice, the better. Let’s start slow though, since things tend to get a little…uh…” He scratched the back of his neck. “You know.”
“Got it. Start slow and work our way up to full body contact.”
“Something like that.”
He took my hand and a small burst of pleasure rippled through me. If I ever learned how to bottle this stuff, I’d be a millionaire within a week. He held his other palm outward. Electricity danced over an emerald glow. With his face screwed up in concentration, the lightning began to shoot outward, hitting the ground and popping like bang snap fireworks.
A light mist hung suspended in the air around us as gold glimmered off my free hand. “I never know if I’m going to get ice or rain. I wish I could decide.”
He smirked. “Want me to piss you off and see if anything changes?”
“No, thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “You manage to do that just fine without the extra effort.”
“I think you secretly love how mad I make you.” Humor buoyed his expression, and my energy shifted, turning my mist to snow. “Well, isn’t that interesting?”
“I hate you.” Though it was hard to put a lot of heat behind my words when those delicious tingles running through me felt so damn good.
“Try rain again.” He moved behind me, trailing the rough pads of his fingers down my arms before circling my wrists and turning my hands upward. “Let yourself let go.”
My breath quickened as my body begged me to push my ass against him and grind. Instead, I turned my focus inward, connecting my mind with the energy that swirled and flowed through Wes, into me, and out of my palms. I grabbed hold of it and my snow turned to shards of ice, as if trying to force it in another direction made it pull back harder the opposite way.
“It’s not working right.” I blew my hair out of my face. “You didn’t even believe in the legend last week. How do you have more control over this than me?”
“I’m practical. You know that. I’ll believe what’s in front of me and accept it without issue. As for why you’re having trouble, I think it’s because you had expectations that I didn’t. It’s holding you back.”
The last thing I wanted to do was ask Wes for advice, but I needed magic more than I needed pride. “Can you show me?”
“Close your eyes for a minute.” Wes’s voice poured over me like warm honey. I was helpless to do anything other than comply. “Let it be what it is, not what you want it to be.” I ran a mental hand down the length of my power. I could’ve sworn it purred in response. Wes rubbed his hands over my shoulders and I shivered, leaning my back against his chest. “It’s a part of you. You can’t push it into doing what you want. You have to work with it.”
I stroked my power again, encouraging it to fill me. It tightened in my stomach, pulsing lower. Heat flooded my core. My magic twined itself around me, like vines scaling the wall of a building. I spread myself open, letting it inside, until the heart of it beat within me. Magic wasn’t something I could possess and wield as I wanted. It was a conversation. An exchange. I belonged to it as much as it belonged to me.
The golden glow gathered in my palms, and my eyes fluttered open as a warm summer rain slid over my skin. “Holy shit, I did it.” Riding the high, I spun around and threw my arms around his neck. “I actually did something with my magic on purpose.”
“Never doubted you could.” His brilliant smile was warm enough to light me up from the inside out. This was the Wes I thought I knew years ago. The one who liked to give me shit, but still went to bat for me at the end of the day. He set me to my feet before the close proximity sent me spiraling again. “Now that you’ve got that part figured out, let’s work on making our physical reactions to each other more manageable. I can’t keep walking around with my dick on high alert every time I accidentally brush against you.”
“Manageable would be good. What do you suggest we try?”
He took his phone out of his back pocket and thumbed through it, turning up the volume on Garth Brooks’ “To Make You Feel My Love.” Setting his phone on a nearby rock, he held out his hand to me. “We’re going to dance.”
