Page 38 of Hopelessly Teavoted

“I can do that,” he bit out. Goddess, his heart would shatter for this later. But he was weak, and he wanted her, and the fire crackled, highlighting remnants of glitter in her soft brown waves. There always seemed to be a little bit of glitter in Vickie’s hair.

Vickie smiled, plush pink lips stretching wide, and then stepped back again to safety.

“Look,” she said, pointing to the corner.

“My knight in bejeweled armor,” Az said softly, looking at the suit of armor.

Unlike the set in the entryway, this one was hollow, uninhabited by spirits.

Though he didn’t try it on often, a man with a full suit of armor at home can’t resist the occasional summer renaissance festival while home from college.

Or, if he was honest, the occasional drunken sword fight with imaginary foes.

And now it was what he needed, a romantic homage to knights and ladies of storybooks.

The suit of armor was a perfect solution; he was witch enough to have already tailored it so that he could move easily, and his drunken antics in years prior had suddenly put him in a position to be perfectly prepared for this very occasion.

Vickie smiled at him wickedly, and for a moment he couldn’t understand what it was that had her looking so pleased with herself.

Until she traced her fingers along the hem of her shirt, pulling it off over her head, and then sliding her sweatpants down to her knees and wriggling a little, stepping out of them to reveal the fancy underthings he now suspected she favored.

The unexpected lack of clothing, paired with a lavender see-through bra and the neon pink lace thong against her smooth, freckled skin, made Az’s heart throb. Among other things.

He could get used to that sort of a predilection.

“Magic me into something elegant enough to dance with you in a suit of armor.” Her face was earnest, green eyes wide in a challenge.

“It would be my pleasure. Just don’t move for a second.”

Vickie paused, one arm holding the elbow of the other, skin prickling in the air.

Az flicked his fingers, and Vickie was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked, pink floral-patterned gown he remembered from the costumes in the attic, complete with gloves and boots. It was fitted, but it covered her securely enough to help prevent actually burning for her.

“Is this your mother’s?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t know whose it was, but Persephone Hart would never have been caught dead in anything so festive.”

She smiled, picking up the heavy, finely stitched fabric.

“I look like an extra in a Jane Austen movie. And I can’t walk in these shoes.”

“Yeah, but an attractive extra. At least as attractive as any rendition of Darcy moving through the misty moors, and that’s saying something.

” He snapped his fingers, and the shoes were gone, replaced with her worn green Chucks.

“I was really, really into him in that moment. My very own pansexual awakening.”

“I remember.” She bit her lip. “I think we left off in an unfair advantage for me,” she whispered. “I showed you mine…”

“My lady.” Az gave a mock bow and pulled his shirt over his head. “Your wish is my command.”

“Fuck me, Azrael. I thought I felt them in the Packard, but fuck, when did those abs happen?”

“It was a long lockdown, and I was bored and lonely. We need to work on this fuck me expression,” he said, shifting his weight to prevent his blood from going straight south.

“Never,” she said solemnly. “Now take off your pants, and let’s dance.”

“You’re missing a step there,” he said wryly, pulling off his pants and tossing them at her.

He stood in front of her in his boxers for a minute longer than he needed to, not mentioning that he would magic light sweatpants and a shirt on under the suit of armor because, frankly, it was not comfortable to wear a suit of armor naked.

If she wanted him to strip, he’d do it, gladly, old rumors from high school and all.

A few snaps later, and he was suited up, peering at her through the visor. Holding out a hand.

Vickie stepped into his arms, sliding one around his metal waist and shivering.

“Cold?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just glad you’re willing to do all this, Az. It’s— It means a lot.”

He took her gloved hand in his and pressed it against the breastplate of the armor.

“I would do more for you without batting an eye, Victoria.”

Quietly, she pulled him closer, and he wrapped her waist with his other arm.

“Sometimes I pretend that everything that could go right did, instead of the opposite. I pretend that it has just been me and you, since we were kids.” He was glad for the armor to hide whatever emotional tornado wrecked his face as he admitted that one.

“I think things like that too,” she said, pressing a hand against the metal. “Sometimes.”

It was a little more clunky than he’d imagined dancing with her to be, because, of course, in his dreams he wore a different sort of suit.

But the smile on her face, stretching from ear to ear, and the laughter gently nudging him into a whimsical happiness, made it worth it.

A thousand times over, he would do things strangely if it meant being with her.

He hoped he wasn’t about to ruin it with honesty.

“Vickie, about what Priscilla and Evelyn figured out,” he said.

She tensed in his arms at the words. “What?”

“It would be a very serious solution, but a soul-sealing ceremony is an option for us, to get around the curse. Not that we would have to. And not assuming you would want to.”

“Like what your parents did? The seal?”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her through the visor. “The soul seal.”

And because he wanted so much for what they were pretending to be real, he told her.

“If I’m honest, all pretending aside, I would turn to ash for you. I’d burn if you touch me. And, if you wanted to, though I have zero expectation that you do, I’d absolutely fix this by making it permanent between us. I’d seal my soul to yours, if you’d have me.”

“I’m not sure I completely understand the soul seal, or how it would fix the curse.” She looked up at him, a wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Can you explain it?”

“It’s permanent binding. Like my parents did. It’s a bit like tattooing your soul onto another person, but they’re marking the soul on yours too. The two branded together. Prissy thinks it’s a way to get around the curse. If my soul is tied to yours, then you can’t reap it.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Because you can’t reap your own soul, and if our souls were bound together, then I couldn’t. Oh…” She trailed off, chewing on her lip. It was a lot, but he was in it now, so he went on.

“I’d still rather break my own heart than tether you to do something you’re not sure you want. I would never chain you in that way. I would want you to be free, rather than with me, if that makes you happy.”

Vickie remained silent, but she pressed herself closer to him, as close as two people separated by old-fashioned cloth and a suit of armor could be.

The music rose and fell.

“Is it too much, Vickie?” He murmured the question. He wished he could brush her hair back from her forehead. Cradle her face in his hands.

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “It’s a lot, but it’s good to hear all our options, Az. And it means a lot to know how you feel. I’m thinking. Let’s just stay here for a moment. Don’t stop.”

That was something . A hope flared in his chest. He would never stop.

They turned in slow circles, over and over across the dance floor, until his feet grew sore from dancing in heavy metal and his heart grew sore from holding her but not really pressing against her skin.

When the house slowed the music to a low background noise, she sighed.

“I’ll think about what you’re asking me,” she said. Her voice sounded careful, but not, thank goddess, scared. “Can we sit down for a little?”

“Anything you want.” He meant it. His heart was on a platter. His whole self was laid bare for her to burn. Everything he owned, which was only half a haunted manor and a cranky yet affectionate cat.

“I’ve always loved those armchairs,” she said, and he snapped his fingers. The chairs slid close to them, one directly behind her.

“Are you going to change, or do you want me to do it for you?” Az was honest with himself enough to know that he was motivated not just by knightly chivalry, but also by a keen interest in seeing her in her underwear, however briefly, once more.

“Take off the dress for me. I know you want to. And I wouldn’t mind another glimpse of everything you’ve got going on under that suit of armor either.

” She gestured toward him, and he magicked them out of dress and armor.

They stood there, underwear and space between them, before he shut his eyes and forced himself to snap his fingers and put them both back in their clothes.

She pulled her sweatpant-clad legs underneath her, settling into the velvet armchair, and he returned the armor to its rightful place in the corner.

He smiled, sinking into his chair.

“Azrael,” Vickie said breathily. “I know this complicates everything. But I’m going to think it over, the soul sealing and all the what-ifs.

I have to admit that I might not be ready to brand our souls together in this moment, but I want to be honest. It’s not as scary as I thought hearing something like that would be.

And I, I love all the little charming bits of you.

The abs. The parental puns. The neurotic worrying. Everything about you is for me.”

Azrael took a few deep breaths and tried to remember his name—she had just said it—and wondered what he was doing here. Gave himself a moment to calm down, snapping his fingers to brush her hair gently, and then again to magic a stick of lip balm into her hand when she rubbed her lips together.

“Everything about you is for me, too, Vickie,” he said, his voice quiet. Solemn, like he was vowing it to her. Like it was a promise. “No matter what you decide you want. You can pretend or not.”

She smiled and looked at him, applying the ChapStick in an impossibly sexy glide that he would definitely think about later.

Among other things. So many other things. Some lavender, some pink.

“What would you do if you could do anything at all? Not for pretend, but if you could for real?”

“I’d kiss you,” he said, his voice coming out low and laced with longing.

She waggled her eyebrows.

“Where?”

“There would be many delicious places to choose from, but for right now, I think I’d choose the press of your lips against mine. The way I miss already.”

She bit her lip. “I have an idea.”

“I love ideas.”

“From a show.”

“What do you know, I also love shows.”

Vickie giggled and propped her head onto her elbow. “Can you get us plastic wrap?”

“Your wish is my command.” He snapped his fingers, and the roll appeared on the arm of her chair.

“It’s an old trick, but a good one.” She stood up. “Face me.” Her voice was thick, honeyed. He wanted to taste it. He needed to taste it.

She stretched the plastic wrap out, carefully tearing an arm’s length of it off on the perforated edge. “You hit me like a hurricane tonight,” she murmured, and she leaned down to where he sat, raising the wrap between them.

“Is that bad?”

“No.” She leaned closer. “It’s just big.”

It wasn’t quite a kiss, lips against thin plastic, but it wasn’t quite not, either, with the plushness of hers against his, and the desperate, deadly desire to bite her bottom lip unspooling in his stomach.

He wanted to reach up and touch her face; he had everything he needed already in this one lingering, chaste kiss.

“I think I could lose myself in this,” he said.

She pulled back and lowered the barrier. “Don’t.” Her face was drawn. “You mean too much to me to lose.”

He swallowed, unable to collect his emotions completely. “I won’t.”

“The tracing spell, then?” She stepped back and toward the fire.

“Yes, it’s ready.” He joined her, snapping to still the spoon in the cauldron for a moment.

“What do I need to do?”

“A strand of hair, lit on fire and dropped into the cauldron, should do the trick,” he said, and Vickie, cheeks still flushed with the almost kiss and all the emotion that he had wrung from her, nodded and complied.

Her scent, lavender and strawberry, brushed his nose as she stepped back from the fire.

This pretending was going to hurt in the morning when he woke up without her.

Az wasn’t sure he cared, though.