Page 14 of Love’s a Witch (The Scottish Charms #1)
The singer’s voice carried over the microphone from the back room, and I straightened.
“Going in?” Liam asked.
“Aye.”
“That’s an odd way of kicking the MacGregors out,” Liam observed, a corner of his lips quirking up. “Going to Sloane’s birthday party and all.”
“What do you want me to do? Haul ’em over my shoulder and toss ’em out on their bums?”
“Maybe.” Liam nodded toward the windows. “If that keeps up, I reckon business will dry up. People outside Briarhaven will start asking questions. Only so long you can explain away the snow as a freak early autumn snowstorm.”
“I’m working on it,” I muttered.
“See that you do.” Liam tapped two fingers on the bar and went to serve other customers, and I sighed.
That was the life of a provost.
I wandered back into the birthday celebration, wondering how I was going to solve the puzzle of the MacGregors.
The only answer was to run them out of town.
I could see no other solution for protecting the people of Briarhaven from their curse.
While it wasn’t the MacGregors’ fault that their bloodline was cursed, their neighbors shouldn’t also have to bear the brunt of it.
Since they wouldn’t listen to reason, I was going to have to up my ante and go all in on forcing them to leave.
My breath caught as I spied Sloane in the middle of the dance floor, a ring of women around her. It felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, caught between awe and the sweet terror of falling.
Her beauty illuminated the room.
A silky dress in siren red slipped over her generous curves, her lips painted a matching scarlet.
My fingers dug into my palms. Hers was a body made for touching.
All dips and valleys, soft curves and strong legs, a gorgeous bum that begged for me to take a bite.
Her belly curved, supple and round beneath the silk, and her ample breasts shifted under the dress as she turned and caught me staring.
Sloane blanched visibly and looked away, but not before I caught… something… in her expression. Something that had my blood heating and me striding across the dance floor to examine it more closely.
Because just for a moment, I thought I’d seen interest flicker across her gorgeous face.
The dance started, the singer calling out the steps. I closed the distance between us and hooked an arm through Sloane’s before she could stop me.
“Happy birthday,” I said as I pulled her to the side, getting into formation with the other dancers. “It’s a good thing it’s not too bright in here, as your beauty lights the room.”
Sloane slanted me a suspicious look, and I let her go, as the few men there lined up across from the women. The singer counted off the steps, and I almost swallowed my tongue as Sloane began to bounce in time to the music.
Everything bounced along with her.
Her body shifted under the silk, and desire shot through me.
Grateful for my sporran, to hide the tinges of lust that would soon be visible, I focused on the dance as we wove our way between the other line, and then I reached for Sloane’s hands to dance down the middle of the row.
Music chimed, and people danced around us, but everything faded except for Sloane and her moody, suspicious eyes.
“Why are you being nice to me?” Sloane asked, her voice a bit breathless.
“It’s your birthday. Aren’t those the rules?”
“You’ve been very clear you want me gone.
And now you’re at my party, dancing with me.
” Sloane’s eyebrows winged up her forehead, and I couldn’t help myself.
I reached out and smoothed a silky strand of hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear, and her lips parted ever so slightly.
I wanted a taste more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life.
The craving was so strong that I forced myself to step back, to turn away and follow the movements of the dance as other couples moved down the line.
Why was I doing this to myself? Sloane was public enemy number one, as my parents had made exquisitely clear, and allowing myself to lean into my hunger for her was like playing with fire.
So what if I’d had a stupid schoolboy crush?
That was then and this was now. Circumstances were far different, and the fate of Briarhaven hung in my tenuous grasp.
A flash of red drew my eyes as Sloane whirled past with her next partner, and I swallowed.
Bloody hell, why did she have to be so stunning?
“Careful, lad, or your mouth will freeze like that.” Raven tapped my chin, forcing my lips closed, and I realized that she was my next partner. I’d literally stopped dancing as I’d gaped after Sloane, and I had to shake my head to clear my thoughts.
“Raven. Don’t you look bonnie tonight.”
“Thank you,” Raven said, threading her arm through mine as we fell into step. “But it’s not me you’re pining after.”
“There’s no pining.” Was I pining? Bloody hell, half the town was here. I hoped nobody else had noticed what Raven had.
“Maybe you should stop trying to push the sisters out, and help them instead,” Raven said, as we took a turn dancing down the middle of the floor.
“It’s a centuries-old curse. The Charms barely contained it years ago; what makes you think that will change now?
” Surely the Charms had done everything in their power to break the curse, hadn’t they?
The combined force of their coven’s magick, and those that came before the current iteration, should have been enough to change something about the curse.
“Because Broca had a vision. Sloane and her sisters are the first of three. It will take all three of them to break it. Give them time.”
“I don’t know if Briarhaven has time. Do you see it out there?” I jerked a thumb toward the outside. “What if this goes on for months? Business will dry up. There will be inquiries.”
“So fix it.” Raven shrugged a shoulder.
“I’m trying to. The simplest solution is usually the best.” I glanced up to see Sloane glaring at me from across the room, as though she could read my lips. I startled as my hat lifted and went flying from my head, landing with a plop in the bin across the room.
“I see someone discovered her magick today,” I said. Keeping my eyes on Sloane, I used my magick to lift the hat and return it to my side. There, I dusted it off in my hands, before storming across the floor and cutting off Sloane’s next dance partner.
“You’ve got your magick now, I see. Don’t you think it’s time for you to go?” I lowered my head, my face close enough to hers that I could see the little flecks of gold in her green eyes. A soft, citrusy scent hit me. It reminded me of sipping sangria on a sunny beach.
“I know you live in a castle”—Sloane’s breath teased my lips—“and everyone in Briarhaven loves you and bows to your every word. But you, sir, are not the king of me.”
Something about the way she phrased it made me want to be, though—the king of her, in the bedroom, her silky dress pooled at the side of my bed, my hands wrapping a curtain tassel around her wrists to keep her restrained, bending her body to my will.
Her defiance brought out a dominant side in me that I hadn’t known I had, and I found myself craving her touch.
Maybe it had been too long since I’d been with a woman, or maybe because it was Sloane Freaking MacGregor, who had played many a role in my hormone-filled fantasies in high school.
But I wasn’t a teenager anymore, and Sloane was all woman.
It was enough to almost bring me to my knees. I couldn’t say I liked it either.
“Not a king, no,” I said, my voice husky. “But a protector. Of this town. And you’ll do well to heed my words, Sloane. I will see you leave before your curse ruins us all.”
“You really know how to show a girl a good time on her birthday, don’t you?”
Goddess above, but I wanted to show her a good time. For weeks preferably. Instead, I stepped back when her sisters joined her side.
“Everything good here?” Lyra trilled, in a sky-blue dress that looked like bandages wrapped around her body.
“Aye,” Sloane said, biting her lower lip and sending my libido rocketing. “Knox was just leaving, wasn’t he?”
“Och, I’ll go tonight, witchling.” I bent close to her ear and caught her quick intake of breath. “But you’ll be the one leaving in the end. Understood?”
I don’t know why she brought out this side in me. If I was honest with myself, a sliver of fear rippled through me every time she was close by.
There was just something about Sloane and her witchy eyes that made me think my future would be irrevocably changed if I let the MacGregors stay.
It was like I was the captain of a ship heading into a gnarly storm, and all I could do was batten down the hatches, hold tight to the wheel, and brace myself for impact.