Hexes and Exes Page 28

  “It wouldn’t be too weird to invite you into my room, would it?” Derrick asked. “The rules here are pretty old-fashioned about men and women not being in each other’s rooms for the sake of decency and propriety, but I’m not planning on inviting you in for . . . well, I just think we should talk.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I trust you.” More than anyone else out there. I felt safer with him than I ever had with Julian. All my instincts told me I could rely on him. I trusted him more than Thatch.

  I allowed Derrick to lead me around a pile of rubble, out a doorway and into a short corridor. Light shone down from holes in the ceiling. A door painted to resemble the front of a blue police box opened to reveal a bedroom. It was so completely Derrick, I had to smile. The door creaked as he opened it wider. Paintings were stacked in one corner. A small bed was unmade. Murals spanned the walls.

  Derrick closed the door behind me and muttered apologies, shoving glass soda bottles to the side and hastily kicking a pair of underwear under the bed. He drew the blankets back over the mattress and attempted to make his room look less like a bachelor pad. A large mirror in a frame stood independently of the wall on a stand.

  “Why do you have a mirror in here?” I asked. “You can’t see yourself.”

  “Sometimes I dress in clothes and want to see how I look. Only the jacket is invisible. I think I must have been wearing it when it happened—the curse—I mean. I had a pair of invisible pants once, but I lost them. That’s the problem with invisible clothes.” He scooped up paints that had been spread across a chair, dumped them in a tool box, and wiped off the chair with a rag.

  Sunlight streamed in from a skylight in the ceiling. The room was about the size of mine, but cheerier. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle peeked out from under a low table. I glanced back to the mirror. I wasn’t supposed to be here. My reflection reminded me anyone could see me from the other side.

  “Do you mind if we cover this mirror?” I asked.

  “Go ahead.” He shifted a few paintings around from their rows in the corner, found the tallest one and handed it to me. I slid it in front of the mirror. It didn’t completely cover it. I removed my sweater and draped it over the top.

  “So, um, do you feel like you’ve improved controlling your affinity? You don’t let it overpower you anymore?” he asked. “I know Thatch was giving you lessons. . . .”

  I thought about what Thatch had said after my last dream therapy. “He says I’m improving, and I can stop being afraid I might kill someone. He implied . . . well, he implied I need to be with someone I love, and I’ll be able to prove it to myself. He. . . .” My nerves made me question whether I was saying the right thing. “He suggested that person was you.”

  “Did he now?” Derrick laughed. “He said, ‘It has come to my attention the invisible man has a crush on you. You ought to give him a chance in the sack.’ Something like that?”

  His impression of Thatch’s indifferent British monotone was comically exaggerated.

  I grinned. “Something like that.”

  “So how is your affinity right now? Are you still ready to throw yourself at me, or have you come to your senses?” His voice grew louder as he walked toward me. He took my sleeve and guided me across the room.

  “I never lost my senses,” I said.

  He sat me in the chair. “I’d offer you some tea or something to drink, but I don’t typically keep a lot of extra food in here.”

  “I’m fine.”

  The bed groaned under his weight. A butt-shaped impression pressed into the blankets. He cleared his throat. “So, um, you know when you said you were in love with me. . . .”

  “It was probably a little too . . . forward.” I tried to think up some plausible excuse that wouldn’t drive him away. He didn’t know me other than what he’d seen during the school year. “Sometimes I say what pops into my head, even when it isn’t the most appropriate.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I like about you. Honest to a fault.” He mussed my hair like he used to do. “That, and you’re pretty cute.”

  I laughed. “I thought the thing you liked about me was that I cared about my students.”

  “Yeah, I respect that, but that isn’t what makes you hot.” His voice receded away. “Do you want to see a trick?” Three empty soda bottles levitated in the air. He juggled them, the bottles lifting and weaving in a graceful rhythm.

  “That’s all you’ve got? How about knives or fire?” I teased.

  “What is it with everyone wanting to see me defy gravity and death and stage fright.”

  I picked up another empty bottle from the floor. “Let’s see if we can push your skills a little further.” I tossed the bottle at him.

  Effortlessly he caught it and added it to his cascading pattern. I scrounged around for more. I threw another bottle and an unopened, jumbo tube of paint that was about the same size and weight. He threw the paint back at me, and I caught it, laughing.

  “Nice catch, for a hobbit,” he said.

  I felt like I was in high school again, our banter falling into the same familiar grooves.

  “Nice throw for a blue-haired beanstalk,” I said.

  He tossed another bottle at me. “How’d you know I have blue hair.”

  “Magic.”

  “No, really.” He threw another bottle.

  I juggled the three and tossed one at him. “I saw you through the mirror.” A half-truth. “You were painting in here. The glass is enchanted, so it really was magic.”

  “Did you see me . . . naked?” I imagined his eyebrows waggling. He tossed a bottle at me.

  “No comment.”

  “And you accuse me of being a pervert!”

  We tossed bottles back and forth until I dropped the tube of paint. I was out of practice. Derrick threw his bottles onto the bed.

  I hugged two of the bottles to my chest, glad to have something to hold on to. “Are you afraid I might kill you if I kiss you?”

  He plopped onto the bed and shifted the bottles under the frame in a neat row, bowling pins for feet. He took his time answering. “No, you don’t have the homicidal vibe.” He tugged the bottles from my hands and added them to his collection. “Sometimes I think you remind me of someone I used to know. Maybe someone in middle school or a cousin or something.”

  I stood there feeling awkward, not knowing what to do with myself. I tugged at the hem of my shirt. Something brushed against the back of my hand. I froze.

  He took my hand in his. He guided me to the chair again. His hand remained around mine, even as he seated himself across from me on the bed. Parts of his fingers and palm transitioned into opaque peach hues. I smoothed my thumb over his skin.

  “You look so serious,” he said.

  “It hardly seems fair you can see me, but I can’t see your expression.”

  He lifted my hands to his face. I cupped his cheeks and smoothed my hands across his jaw, watching the blood flush to his skin. I ran my hands through his hair, and it turned blue.

  He sighed and leaned into my touch. “Just so you know, I’m not wearing any clothes.”

  “I sort of guessed that.”

  The bed creaked as he shifted. He scooped me up in his arms and sat me on his lap. “You know when I said I wasn’t inviting you into my room to seduce you?” His breath brushed against my ear, a sensual caress. “It wasn’t a fib, but I’m ninety percent sure I changed my mind.”

  My affinity fluttered in my core. I smoothed out the flares and calmed the nervous energy, breathing slowly. I felt along his jaw, trying to place the location of his mouth. He caught my hand and held it in his.

  “Why aren’t you a hundred percent sure?” I asked.

  “I want to hear you say you still want me.”

  “I want you even more than before.” More than when he’d kissed me the night of homecoming. “More than when I hugged you for five minutes in the wardrobe, and far more than the time you kissed me in the forest.”

  His lips brush
ed against my neck. “That’s a relief because it would be really awkward if I told you that and you said, ‘I feel kind of meh about you.’”

  I leaned into him, laughing. We fell back onto the bed intertwined. He kissed me and rolled onto his side, hugging me to his chest.

  He kissed his way down my neck. “So, um, I haven’t had a whole lot of practice at seducing. I am seducing you, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure the seduction is mutual.”

  “I mean, you want to have sex with me, right?”

  I savored the sensation of his lips against my skin, his warmth casting away the chill of lingering doubts. “Yep. I haven’t changed my mind, but I’ll go back to juggling instead if that’s the way to prove my yearning for you.”

  “Heh. Maybe later.” He gave a little cough. “Not to be über personal and make things awkward, but do you understand how this works? The having sex part?”

  “Just because I’m a virgin, doesn’t mean I haven’t read up on the topic.”

  “I’m just asking because it might hurt. I just wanted to make sure you were prepared for that. I kind of overheard pain is a magical weakness for you.” He planted kisses across my brow as though sowing seeds of affection. “I’ll go slow and be gentle, but you should tell me if you don’t like what I’m doing. I want this to be perfect for you.”

  Didn’t he know, it already was perfect because I was with him? I kissed him, greedily drinking him in to make up for every other kiss I’d been denied in the years we’d been apart. I smoothed a hand over his chest, admiring his sculpted muscles and the tufts of hair starting to become visible. The more I touched him, the more real he became. I smoothed fingers over his closed eyelids and when he opened them, the blue of his eyes smiled at me with the same warmth I remembered.

  He didn’t disappear like he had before. He remained visible and tangible before me, my hands finding patches of skin I’d missed. I wanted to touch every inch of him. His erection pressed against me, and I squeezed.

  “Holy rusted metal, Batman!” he panted. “Slow down.”

  I laughed. I fumbled to remove my shirt. He set me on his lap, kissing me and hindering me as much as helping me. My hair got caught on a button as I tried to lift my shirt over my head in a sexy and dramatic move I’d probably seen in a movie. He cracked up as I wiggled the rest of the way out.

  He cupped one of my breasts, teasing the fabric of my bra back. The moment his lips touched my skin, my affinity flared again. Desire swelled through me. It was hard to separate the two. I struggled to gain control. I imagined the red tide rushing back inside me, staying contained and separate from my body.

  Derrick kneaded my breast with his tongue, beguiling my nipple to pucker and swell. Yearning trembled through me. His hand kept feeling along the back of my bra. It took me five minutes of him groping and tugging at the back to understand why.

  “This one opens in front,” I panted. I showed him.

  “Wow. This is all my dreams come true.”

  He kissed every inch of me, and when he’d finished, he kissed every inch of me again. I relished every moment of it. He stroked a finger inside me, exploring the slippery depths with the care of an artist drawing a paintbrush across a canvas. My thirst for him swelled. I focused on my affinity again, reminding my magic to stay out of this moment.

  I was determined there would be no electricity involved in this.

  His erection pressed between my legs. A thrill of eager excitement made my heart hammer against my chest. I circled my arms around his back and held him. Our closeness reassured me, reminded me he was what I wanted. He kissed my face and pushed deeper, filling me. My insides stretched beyond what I thought my body was capable of, the pinch of pain growing. I gasped, and he withdrew. He entered me again, just as slow and careful, pleasure mixing with pain. That initial pinch intensified with his next thrust. My breath caught in my throat as he came again, deeper.

  He panted, and with it came the rasp of wind whistling under the door, wailing like a ghost. The pages of a book fluttered. He bit my earlobe, and a spike of pleasure washed away the pain that had been there moments before.

  I moaned as his fingers teased my breasts. My affinity pulsed, electricity running under my skin and fighting to break free. It ebbed and flowed with the agony and ecstasy of the physical sensations inside me. Blue crackles danced under the skin of my arms. I didn’t want to electrocute him. I lifted my hands away from his back, staring at the flashes under my skin.

  The wind gusted harder against the door. The wood rattled against the frame. His lips left my neck, and he stared into my eyes. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, and his hair was damp.

  He watched me, taking in the flashes. The sky overhead had grown darker, leaving us in shadows, but flickers of blue light reflected off his face.

  “Your touch makes me tingle,” he teased.

  “As long as there aren’t any fireworks or tornados.”

  “I’ll do my best.” He nuzzled his face into my hair, inhaling and sighing.

  I visualized the storm inside me calming and flowing back to my core. The electricity cooled and faded.

  As he thrusted again, the discomfort between my legs twinged and then flared. A cyclone of firebolts tumbled inside me. The wind twirled dead decaying leaves past the window above. Derrick’s blue hair shifted back from his face while mine whipped into mine.

  Derrick leaned into me, his pelvis tilting. He slid deeper. Sharp pangs of electricity threatened to explode.

  “Too much,” I said. “It hurts too much.”

  He started to withdraw but that only made the flares of lightning closer to breaking free. Bright light flashed across the walls, painting his room in flickers of blue and then pink. Any moment now my affinity would break free and shoot out of me. I didn’t want to kill him.

  “Don’t move,” I cried.

  “I’m not moving,” he said. “I won’t move.”

  He didn’t.

  The wind knocked over the bottles under the bed and tipped over a canvas. His muscles knotted under my hands. He let out a long low moan as he buried his face against my shoulder. His hands clenched my arms. From the thunder of my heart, I couldn’t feel his heartbeat or feel him breathe.

  The vision of Julian’s body sizzling and convulsing with electricity flashed before my eyes. Why hadn’t I considered what had happened before? Why hadn’t I remembered what I might do to Derrick? I loved him. I shouldn’t have put him in danger. I punched the electricity back down into my core.

  But Derrick wasn’t Julian. He had always been attentive and thoughtful. In high school, when I had gotten mad at him for stealing my tater tots from my plate and told him not to, he’d never argued. He’d smiled sheepishly and stopped. I’d loved him when I’d been fifteen, and I loved him still.

  He leaned against me, his weight pressing me into the bed.

  “Derrick?” I asked.

  He drew in a deep breath and laughed. “Wow. That might have been the most incredible fifteen seconds of my life.” He lifted himself off me so he wasn’t crushing me.

  I laughed in relief too.

  Derrick smoothed a sweaty strand of pink hair from my eyes. He kissed my nose. Now that the flickers of light inside me had diminished, it was difficult to see his expression.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  My voice came out a raspy wheeze. “Yeah. I just need a minute to get my affinity under control. Can you not move for a little bit longer?”

  “Of course. Whatever you need.”

  I closed my eyes again, coaxing the magic back into place inside me. It must have taken two whole minutes this time.

  “I think I’m ready for you to go again,” I said.

  He shifted out of me, the sensation slippery and warm. My insides burned, and I flinched as he tried to enter me again.

  “Maybe we should do something else,” he suggested.

  He withdrew, the sensation of not being full such relief I sighed. My breath was lost
in the rush of wind groaning under the door. The breeze chilled my arms and chest, goosebumps rising on my skin. He shifted and rolled onto his side beside me. He scooped me up next to him, and I turned to face him.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Well, technically you’ve been deflowered, and we both survived. That isn’t bad.” He kissed me deeply, his tongue tasting my lips, and hands pulling me close again. “Let’s see if we can survive something more.” He adjusted my knee over his leg. Even in the semidarkness I could see the grin on his face and hear the mischief in his voice.

  His erection rested against my inner thigh. He stroked his fingers between my legs. The sensation made me melt. Bliss pulsed through me in waves. My affinity wanted to join in. I couldn’t push it down. It was too strong, and there was too much of it. Pleasure crested higher in me.

  The tip of him pressed against me. The desire in me built, and my skin prickled with fever.

  I couldn’t suppress my magic. Like wet clay in my hands, I reshaped the energy inside me. It wasn’t so different from what Thatch had showed me to do with pain, to cool it into more palatable energy. This was already luscious, but I had to render it safe for Derrick. I didn’t know what I was doing on a conscious level, but some instinctive part of me must have understood how to reform electric power into innocuous magic.

  The pleasure crested, exploding through me. The electricity flickered and flashed, but as it traveled out of me, it transformed. I transformed. I didn’t feel like I was made of human flesh, only energy, as though I were made of pure joy. A burst of radiance slipped out from me, painting the room in rainbows of light.

  Derrick kept kissing me. Prisms of color danced before my eyes.

  He looked down at the kaleidoscope radiating from my vagina. “That’s different. It tickles.”

  I sighed in relief. Rainbows, not lightning.

  My fleshlight died away. The room grew dark. I lay in Derrick’s arms, snuggling closer. He snapped his fingers at the corner of his bed and a candle flared with a torch of light before fading to a reasonable level of brightness. He swept his hand toward the other side of the room and more candles hissed into life.