Page 30 of Season of the Witch (Toil and Trouble #3)

He was as terrible at the games as she remembered, and she tried to hide her laughter as he missed shot after shot at the milk-bottle toss. He’d joked about winning her the giant red bear but ten minutes later, several pounds down, his face had gone hard with competition.

She leaned her hip on the stall and exchanged a humorous look with the middle-aged human operating the game. “Give it up,” she advised Henry. “That bear’s going back in her car at the end of the night.”

“Nope.” He rolled his shoulder like a baseball pitcher. “This next one is the one. I can feel it.”

Tia’s lips twitched. She watched as he threw the ball, hard and fast. And missed.

“You haven’t improved with age,” she commented, raising her voice over the burst of noise from a ride.

He threw her a look. “I’m warming up.”

“Uh-huh.” Taking pity, she added her own bill to the ones already on the stall. “Give him some balls. Man needs them.”

The woman snorted and plonked a case on the top. “Good luck, handsome.”

“You hear that? She appreciates me.”

“Maybe you should leave with her and the bear, then.” Tia shook her head at his next throw, clucking her tongue. “You’re not aiming right.”

“Stop backseat throwing.”

She ignored that. “Here.” Tia moved behind him, tucking her body in close enough to feel his heat.

From the way he inhaled, she figured he could feel hers, too.

She slid a hand down his arm, over his muscled biceps to his forearm and angled his wrist. She wasn’t tall enough to whisper in his ear, so stroked a finger down his back as she murmured, “It’s all in the wrist.”

“You have a lot of experience?”

“Oh, I’ve had many compliments on my wrist action.” She grinned, pressing her breasts into his back.

The small tremor went through his body into hers. “From me?”

She squeezed his wrist and stepped away. “Throw the ball.”

Color flushed his cheeks as he glanced at her before focusing on the bottles again. “So, tell me,” he said, winding up. “When did we go to a carnival?”

“Not often. A few times when we were teenagers.”

“Did I ever win anything for you?”

Tia thought of the tatty purple cat buried in the back of her closet. “With your skills?” she evaded. “It’s just getting embarrassing.”

He swore when he missed. “All right, hotshot,” he said, turning with a hand flourish. “Show me what you got.”

“You’ve already seen what I got.”

His eyes glinted. “The memory’s fuzzy. I’ll need to have another look.”

She snorted and took the ball he offered, rolling its weight in her hand. “What’ll you give me if I knock the bottles over?”

“You’ve got to be the most competitive person I’ve ever met, Celestia.”

“I take that as a compliment.” She cocked her head as a drunk man nearby belted out a Christmas song. Neither of them blinked. “Ante up, Henry Charles.”

His grin was fast. “I like when you call me that.”

Her light mood filled with shadow. “You always did.”

“I guess some things don’t change.”

“Right,” she said, an ache forming in the pit of her stomach. “Right.”

He touched her nose and she batted at him out of habit.

“Sometimes they do,” he told her, lips curved but eyes solemn. He leaned down. “How about a kiss? For the bet,” he clarified.

“Lame,” she told him, relieved he wasn’t going to push. She didn’t want to think about the heavy topics. She was still just…in the moment.

Challenge rose into his expression. For all his talk, he was competitive, too. He moved in, so close his words whispered across the sensitive shell of her ear. “How about an orgasm?”

Her pulse spiked. “Right here?”

“Maybe not this exact spot.” He brushed his lips over her earlobe, sending thousands of tiny sparks over her skin. “But somewhere close.”

It was dark, sure, but still. Excitement shivered over her as she stared up at him, before twisting to suspicion. But—no, she’d told him about the party they’d almost been caught at, she realized, relief easing the tightness in her chest. He was guessing.

Still, she recognized the dare in his eyes as the one he used to give her. When he’d been reckless and free, before expectations had buried that part of him.

Choosing to play along, she shot him a cocky smile. “How many chances do I get?”

“Three.”

“You had about fifty.”

“Not my problem.”

She huffed but stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

Instead of shaking it, Henry lifted her palm to his mouth. He nipped the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger. “Deal.”

Lust sizzled through her as he released her hand and leaned casually on the stall. His hair fell messily, longer than ever, the green of his eyes shocking against those thick lashes.

He lifted his eyebrows in question. “Nervous?”

She released a breath. With complete nonchalance, she adjusted her grip on the ball in her hand, faced the milk bottles and threw.

The trick here was that one of the milk bottles was always heavier than the others.

Since the carnival operators were cheating, she figured it was only fair to even the odds.

Using a nudge of telekinesis, she toppled the bottles on her first try.

Henry’s mouth fell open as she crowed in victory and pointed to the pink unicorn.

She offered it to him with a flourish.

With a laugh, he took it. “You cheated.”

“Prove it.” She tilted her head back, hooking her fingers into his belt loops. “Now, about that orgasm.”