Unbound (8 page)

“But he loves you.”

“Oh, Aunt Surtie. He doesn’t and no matter what magic you use on him, it’s all false. You just can’t go around exploiting magic to suit your own needs. Sebastian doesn’t love me and I’d rather die than have you make him love me. And besides, I don’t love him.”

“But this is the match of the millennium,” Aunt Surtie cried.

“See, just because you think it’s so, doesn’t make it so.”

“But it is,” Aunt Lindie said.

“It’s beyond magic,” Aunt Esmie said.

Michelle rubbed her forehead. There was no getting through to her aunts. “Okay, that’s beside the point.”

“Then what is the point, Michelle?” Aunt Lindie asked.

“I…don’t know anymore. All I know is Sebastian is safe and will be returned back to his world without any of these memories. And I guess I just want you to stop trying to help me, stop trying to fix me up with men. I…I might end up being a spinster just like you.” Her heart cracked. Never to see Sebastian again, to hear his voice and feel his touch. “It’s wrong what you did to Sebastian. He shouldn’t have anything to do with me, especially now that I’m a witch, not by my own choosing though.”

“I have everything to do with you.”

She whipped her gaze toward the entrance of the kitchen. Sebastian strode in without a care in the world, lithe yet powerful, ambling toward her with a glint in his eyes. Did he hear her whole conversation with her aunts? Did he see her banishing the fireflies to the bread bin and Henry from a wannabe camel back into the cat he really was? She hoped not.

Her aunts ambushed him. Hugging and kissing him and welcoming him back for long minutes until all went silent. His eyes fixed on her. She didn’t hear or see her aunts escape the room.

“It’s always been you, Michelle.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. You must be still under the spell, perhaps just a remnant of it, but you don’t know what you’re saying.” She sidestepped him. “Sebastian, I must again apologize for involving you in what is clearly an insane situation. From my own lust spell, to the ones my aunts stupidly put on you as some last-minute matchmaking hoax. You are innocent in all this. I hope you forgive me.”

She raised her hand, ready to erase his memory. With a speed that knocked the breath from her lungs, he caught her hand in his, slipped his other around her waist and dragged her body into his. “Sebastian—” His lips crushed hers. Punishing yet eliciting moans from her throat and wetness between her legs. She tried to overpower him, to use her magic to relegate him to the other end of the kitchen, but flunked out. Too weak to do anything when he held her so close. He broke the kiss. She labored to get her breath back.

“Don’t ever use your magic on me.” The command, delivered quietly, demanded her full obedience. Yet how could she comply? She had to make him forget the sordid past days he’d been unknowingly duped into. “Your aunts didn’t do that spell on me as a last-minute matchmaking hoax.”

“Stop protecting them. They—”

“I asked them to do it on me because I wanted to be with you.”

“They… What?”

“Dammit, Michelle, after everything I’ve done, you’ve been too stubborn to notice that I did it because I cared about—”

“My aunts. You care about my aunts and I appreciate that. I know it might not seem like it, but they are my life so I am very much grateful that you’d do anything for them.”

“Will you shut up? I asked for the spell. I couldn’t live without you.”

“I think you might be suffering from something, maybe the repercussions of the lust spell, together with the strain of shifting back, something must have happened to you.” She paced the floor then spun around. “I can heal you with a memory-erasing spell.”

He charged toward her again, deadly intent in his eyes. If he came too near, if he touched her again, she’d fall to her knees and beg him to love her. She reacted by enclosing herself in an invisible glass shield. He slammed into it, swore horribly and ran his hands through his hair.

“Take it off.” He looked straight into her eyes. She melted. Those three words stoked a fire in her heart and basked her body with desire. The way he said it, the way he looked at her, he could have been asking her to take off her clothes. She quivered inside her fragile cell, weakened by his presence. The shield dissolved. He didn’t move.

“I love you. I love you and I’ve loved you for forever. That night when I touched you I stopped, because a second longer and I’d have parted your thighs and taken you right there. I didn’t want to scare you and I didn’t think I’d go slow with you, not when I wanted you so badly my cock ached just being around you. And fuck it, you were so young, only a week after turning seventeen. I never slept with Catherine. Every other woman I did sleep with meant nothing to me. You were the one I waited for. The one I wanted most. The girl I’m going to marry and have babies with.”

He loved her?
He loved her.

“I’m a witch—” The excuse fell feebly from her lips.

“I’d have it no other way.” He closed the gap and gathered her into his arms.

“Sebastian…” She kissed him, giving herself to him completely, opening herself up for him. “I love you. I’ve always loved you, even when I thought I didn’t, I still loved you.”

He picked her up and backed her into a wall. She raised her leg to cradle him between her thighs and sighed as his cock locked into place. His hands traveled up her heavy black skirt, his mouth nudged aside her black velvet embroidered jacket to suck on her nipple through her red blouse.

He raised his head and commented on her clothes. “I like this.”

She laughed. “They’re the only clothes that would stay on my body.” Her aunts had given her the outfit complete with boots the day she turned six and frightened the leaves right off the oak tree. The age they thought she’d accept her bloodline. It had stayed in her closet for twenty years magically increasing in size the older she got.

“Marry me.”

She nodded, tears drenching her cheeks. But at the sound of shuffling boots and smothered giggles they separated, trying to figure out where it came from. They swirled around the large kitchen, examining possible places at either ends. Where were her aunts hiding? In the walls? All they heard was the planning of their wedding in vivid detail. A wedding cake that sang, hot air balloons that dropped snow from the sky, fortune-telling lanterns and a black cat for each of the guests to take home as a remembrance of a great love.

“Still want to marry me?”

“Come here, witch.”

Michelle lifted her skirts and flew into his arms.

April Vine writes erotic romance by night and is a professional dreamer by day. She has two precious sons who keep her sharp and one very tolerant husband who chivalrously defends her honor on a daily basis.

April welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her
author bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com
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