IT WAS WET THE NEXT MORNING, A JANUARY DRIZZLE A FEW DEGREES ABOVE FREEZING. THE RAIN WAS SO THIN AS TO be almost a mist, a gray gauze shrouding the water. As Grady drove across the bridge to the mainland, he could barely see anything on either side. Even the marina, just down the beach a mile, was now invisible. Two lonely round buoys in the middle of the inlet, one red and one white, were the limit of his vision, and looked like they were hovering on the edge of the world.
His insides cartwheeled in excitement as he carried his latest load of groceries to the Darwens’ door. Livy greeted him, let him in, then dashed off to get ready for work.
Grady entered the kitchen.
Skye was already showered and dressed this time. She sat at the table, sketching. Her pencil flew back and forth in her notebook.
“Hey.” Grady set the groceries on the counter.
She looked up, gave him a nod, and went back to sketching. She had a plaid flannel shirt on today, teal and black, not a baggy skater type but one of those cute tight stretchy ones, with the top two buttons undone. Her damp hair waved loose down her back. In a flash he imagined unfastening the rest of the buttons and sealing his mouth to her warm skin underneath.
He managed not to whimper. He resolutely put the groceries in their places, said goodbye to Livy when she left for work, and found the pots and pans he would need today.
He at least had to cook lunch as he was hired to do before making out with Skye on top of the kitchen table.
Skye could draw a goblin, but she couldn’t draw the goblins seizing her and stuffing fruit pastries into her mouth. She had tried, lots of times, and it ended up like her attempts to write the words: her pencil turned the shapes into something different. What was meant to be Skye on the page became a butterfly or a frog; the pastries became burgers, candy canes, coffee cups.
But Grady was starting to get her. Kind of. So maybe if she used symbolism, he’d understand. Warning him was the absolute least she could do for the poor guy. (The poor, adorable, sexy-smelling guy, her mind amended.)
“So today it’s soup,” Grady told her. “Scotch broth. Sounded good for weather like this.”
She nodded without looking up, finished shading in the cloak on the figure she had drawn, then examined the sketch in full. Not her most polished work, but it would do. She spun it around and pushed it toward Grady.
He scooted aside the measuring cups, and leaned on his knuckles to study the drawing. “Huh. Snow White kind of thing? Looks like an evil queen in the woods, holding a poisoned apple. A very creepy evil queen. Are those fangs?” He looked up at her, and his curious expression altered to concern.
Skye kept staring at him with as much intensity as she could sustain. This is important, Grady. Get it. Understand.
“When you look at me like that,” he said, “I feel like I’m close to the truth.”
She kept looking at him like that. Come on. Please.
“This means something?” He ran his eyes over the sketch again, and furrowed his brows. “You…got hurt? Cursed?”
Breathing fast, she reached across and gripped his wrist.
He snapped his gaze up to hers again. They stared at each other. “In the woods,” he said softly, as if to himself.
Their eye contact stretched out several seconds. She saw he was no closer to understanding, and why would he be? No one in their right mind would look at her situation, her sketches, and say, Ah, I get it, it’s a magic spell, thrown on you by goblins in the forest!
She let her grip on his wrist go limp, and dropped her gaze. It didn’t really matter if he understood right now anyway. He’d find out eventually. Even if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t have any idea how to save them, any more than she did. She just wished she could warn him. She’d feel less guilty.
Grady wrapped his warm fingers around hers. “Then I kissed you. That broke the spell for Snow White, right? I see some similarities here.”
Yes, but for Grady and Skye the kiss did the opposite. Dragged him down into the spell along with her. She blinked back tears.
“It’s all right. You keep sketching. I’ll puzzle you out one of these days.”
He spoke with such gentleness. How could she have done this to him?
In defeat, she pulled her notebook back over.
The urge to speak through art had passed for now. She closed the book and helped him prepare the soup. She echoed words when he talked, enough to make sense as conversation. Then, while the soup simmered, they plopped onto the sofa side by side, and opened the photos on their phones to show each other pieces of their lives. Grady displayed shots of his siblings, his parents, a couple of friends, and his home and hangouts in Moses Lake. Skye showed him last year’s photos, herself and Livy and their mom and some of the cafe employees on Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Grady took the phone from her to look at a shot of Livy and Skye lifting their wine glasses on Thanksgiving, grinning. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. You’re…really beautiful.” He looked at her. “I wish I could make you smile.”
“I wish.” God, she did wish it.
The corner of his mouth curled up. His eyebrow rose too. “Are you ticklish?”
She mirrored the eyebrow lift, a clear invitation.
Within two seconds, he had planted a knee on either side of her, the phones were bouncing onto the sofa cushions, and his deft fingers were dancing up and down her ribs, armpits, and hips.
Stupid fucking curse. Normally she was the most ticklish person alive. Today, though she squirmed and twitched like someone electrocuted, she still didn’t laugh nor even smile.
“Wow.” Grady stopped, letting his weight settle halfway onto her. “Not even with tickling, huh?”
She shook her head. This was comfortable, this position. The heat where he touched her felt like a luxury. He smelled intoxicating, like male skin with fresh whiffs of the celery and parsley he’d been chopping.
Maybe she couldn’t smile. But she could make him happy another way.
She slid her leg outward so that he dropped further between her thighs. He caught his breath and tucked his lower lip under his teeth, his gaze drifting to her mouth. His hands rested on the sofa on either side of her ribs, caging her in. Skye lifted her shirt, exposing her navel and a few inches of skin above it.
He blinked, a flutter of dark lashes, then watched his own hands as they settled onto her bare waist, as if it were the most important event happening in the world. She pulled the shirt one rib higher.
He sank onto her with a long exhalation, and kissed her throat as his hands slid upward. She craved him, felt heat flooding her for him. When he discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra, he groaned against her neck, and pressed hard against her thigh. She caught his leg between hers and squeezed it tight.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
Skye wasn’t lushly curvy like Livy. She’d always been skinnier, and was approaching gaunt these days, what with the stress and vanished appetite during the last month. She could go without a bra because you could do that with A-cups, and she occasionally felt like apologizing when it came time for a lover to place his hands on her unimpressive little breasts. To the boys’ credit, they usually seemed to enjoy it regardless, and Grady’s appreciation of her was blatantly evident.
He caressed her as he rocked slowly against her, his kisses dampened her neck, ears, mouth. Though his breath rose and fell faster than ever, he kept his movements unhurried, as if demonstrating he wasn’t going to push her. The restraint was so luscious that she was provoked into unbuttoning her shirt until it fell open.
That capsized some of his restraint. He leaned his face against her chest, and groaned again. “God, you’re sexy.” Then he lifted his face to squint at her, looking tortured. “Why are we doing this? I’m not supposed to be doing this. This isn’t what your sister’s paying me for.”
“Why?” Skye echoed, using all the skepticism she could muster.
“All right, I mean, I know why. Because we want to, apparently.” At the word want, he glided one of his hands up to cover her breast. “But I feel like I…I shouldn’t.” With great reluctance, he withdrew his hand and pulled the sides of her shirt back over her chest.
Skye understood, sullenly. She was mentally unstable. He’d be taking advantage of a disturbed woman.
He shifted his weight off her, and she tugged herself up and hauled her knees to her chest, scowling.
“I’m not…” she managed to force out, then her tongue refused to work any further. Not mentally ill? Not having psychological problems right now? Not under the spell of aphrodisiac magic? Well, those would all be lies.
Grady, bless him, once again understood her, or at least more than most people did lately. “I know. Believe me, I want you. Jeez, obviously. But I…” He shifted to sit beside her, and ran his hand through his dis-arrayed hair. “There’s been a time or two where I hooked up with a girl too early on in the friendship, and even though it was hot at the time, it was weird afterward, and it kind of ruined things. But I don’t want to ruin anything. I want to be something good for you, not something that makes your life worse.”
Well. She couldn’t have chosen a nobler man to haul into an eternal curse with her. Skye buttoned her shirt, then leaned over and kissed him on the shoulder, more or less chastely. When he cast her a glance, she nodded in acceptance.
His kiss-reddened lips curved again in a smile. “Argh, you’re so pretty. We’ll see how long we can keep our hands off each other, anyway.” He leaned down and treated her to a light nibble of a kiss.
Yeah, better him than a goblin. Or rather, better to become a goblin with him than with just about anyone else she could think of. That counted for something, in a sad way.
Grady drew back. “Let’s go check on that soup.”