Page 32 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

It doesn’t feel like I came to this conclusion in one night though, like a light switch has been thrown on because he was such a good kisser.

It’s been more… gradual. I’ve had ample opportunities the past few months to fully lose my shit, and I haven’t.

Over and over, I’ve seen that I’ve been getting upset, and I’ve refrained from doing anything I couldn’t take back.

Most of the time.

It’s a process.

The sun’s been rising bit by bit; I’ve been living in an in-between not-dawn, not-morning. But the sun is rising, and I think I see it now.

“Thanks, O,” I concede.

He huffs. “You’re welcome, jackass.”

By the time I get to the lab, I’ve decided to call off hooking up with Elethior. It’s the responsible thing to do.

Until I step inside, and see him standing by his desk in ass-hugging dark jeans and a faded gray band T-shirt, his hair tucked behind his ear and a pen in his mouth.

Son of a bitch.

My brows pinch in a whimper I’m thankfully able to stifle.

Elethior looks over his shoulder, notebook open in one hand. His eyes connect with mine and widen slightly, his body going still like he’s worried a sudden movement will make me sprint out of the room. Considering I did that the last time we were both here, it’s a fair concern.

I cross to my workstation and deposit my bag and coat on my desk, gaze on him the whole time.

“Whatcha working on?” I jut my chin at his notebook.

His eyes drop down my body. I forewent smothering myself in one of Orok’s hoodies; seems a moot point now. I’m wearing a blue Henley with tight whitewashed jeans, my brown leather component belt, and faded Converse.

I’d wondered if Elethior had noticed I’d been cocooning myself in oversize clothes, but he’s at least noticing the lack of oversize clothes now, the way his eyes follow the trail his hand took as it snaked up to my neck last night.

Call it off. End it now. Stick out your hand, Sebastian, and say these words: It sucks, but there’ll be no more sucking.

Elethior eases the pen out of his mouth.

Those lips.

Fuck.

By the time his eyes lazily make their way up to mine, an hour might’ve passed. Two. It could be the next day. My heart’s veering onto a runaway course and my hands twitch so I pocket them and lean against my desk, feigning nonchalance.

“What are you working on,” I ask again, but it comes out gruff, a cover question and we both know it.

He plays along. “We’ll start testing that theory for your project this week.”

My gaze zeroes in on the way he grips his notebook to his chest, the veins that swell in the back of his hand, vanish under his tattoos.

“Yeah,” I say.

Then I hear what he said and I jolt back to awareness with a painful lurch.

“Wait—no. We worked on mine, we got some progress, we didn’t kill each other; now it’s time to bring in your project. We need to make some actual steps toward combining our work before the check-in on Friday.”

Elethior catches my tone with a resigned smile. “I’m guessing I shouldn’t ask how you slept, then.”

Better than I have in weeks, but I woke up and you were gone.

My cheeks burn. “I’m serious, Elethior. That was the agreement, we’d start with my project, then—”

“Thio.”

My words trip over themselves, tongue flicking against my teeth. “What?”

He shrugs. Totally chill . “I’ve had your dick in my mouth. Figure you can call me Thio now.”

How hot can the human body blush and not get internal third-degree burns?

Don’t think about last night. Don’t think about last night .

But I subtly shift how I’m standing, hating how easily my nerve endings flare though I have a very logical reason to be talking to him that has nothing to do with my dick in his mouth .

His eyes snap to my crotch and a self-satisfied smirk tugs one corner of his lips, rings flashing.

Then he blushes. Two stripes, perfect lines.

And I remember what I said, how he wouldn’t know if I was wearing anything under my jeans.

I’m not today.

What were we talking about?

“Shit.” I rip my hands through my hair and put my back to him. “We’re going to start on your project. Tell me about your project.”

Heat. Heat’s against my back. The smell of cut greenery.

He crowds in closer to me.

“Sebastian. Look at me.”

I don’t tell him to call me Seb. This isn’t tit for tat. And it definitely isn’t because I like him calling me Sebastian, the way his tongue folds around my whole name.

A frustrated snarl builds and I stay facing my desk.

I am not a flower and don’t need to be drawn to his sun.

“No. We need to have more to present to Davyeras and our advisors this week, and I want us to start on your project before we get too far into any experiments. We have a good amount of funding, but spell components aren’t cheap, and I don’t want to waste anything if it turns out we could’ve doubled up on testing. So talk.”

His heat retracts as he steps away from me.

I exhale a long breath.

“I’m studying the limitations of the energy connection between a conjurer and their conjured item,” he says with no inflection.

I face him, arms still crossed. “Well, that tells me absolutely nothing.”

Elethior— Thio —goes to his workstation, dumps his supplies on his desk, and sits in his chair, swinging it around so he can look up at me. A good few feet of padding stand between us again. My breathing ratchets up, body hating that space and desperately needing it all at once.

“How much do you know about conjuration?” he asks.

My glare flattens and I move toward him. “Enough to understand what I’m sure is a concept you believe to be beyond my feeble human brain’s aptitude.”

He smirks. It blows into a wide grin.

“Even so. I—” His hands twitch where they’re resting on his lap. “Could you back up?”

I’m standing an inch away from him. Between his spread legs. But he’s rattled, so I don’t move.

My turn to smirk. “No. Even so, what?”

His face shutters, darkening as his hands fist. “Baby boy, you keep standing there, I’m going to pull you onto my lap.”

It was a huge mistake to hook up.

Just, like, an enormous mistake.

But we’re in it now. We’re barely treading water in the aftermath of our stupidity typhoon.

“I’ll move if you tell me about your project.”

He grimaces. “We should go over some basic conjuration ideas this week while we test your theory. Give you a foundation in—”

“I don’t need a basis in conjuration,” I cut him off. “Why won’t you tell me about your project?”

“It’s not that,” he counters. But it’s absolutely that by the way he adjusts on the chair.

My shoulders bunch. Gods, swinging from pissed at him to horny over and over in such a short timeframe can’t be healthy, can it?

“What, we’ll report on Friday that what progress we’ve made is me going over freshman conjuration bullshit?”

Thio points at the shelf over his desk where the kindergarten workbooks sit. He’s got them displayed like trophies.

I roll my eyes. “That was a joke, asshole, and you know it.”

“We’re on to something with the measuring cup theory,” he tries. “The fact that you and I are working on your project with conjuration theories should be enough for our check-in meeting.”

My gut sinks. Plummets right through my toes, leaves a hole in the floor.

“When did you decide we needed to test my theory first? After you heard my dad last night?”

Thio’s eyes widen. It might be in revulsion, but my brain says I was right, I hit on why he’s going back on our agreement: he heard my dad tie this project into Camp Merethyl, he knows how fucked that place is, and he feels sorry for me .

Rocks settle in my lungs, gravel and weight. “Fuck you for—”

Thio grabs my arm and yanks me forward.

I’m already off-balance, so I topple into him, and he deftly grips my thighs and tugs until I straddle him.

“I’m not doing this because of what I heard last night,” he tells me. “Believe it or not, despite your massive ego, not everything is about the almighty Sebastian Walsh.”

I try to shove away and he holds me tighter, fingertips bruising me again, and I hate my body, the traitor; everything stings where it touches him, everything broils in the best, most toxic consumption. But that fire is in my chest still, too, anger and shame warring for dominance, and I buck.

His chair skids but he holds on to me; I’ll definitely have bruises.

“ Stop! ” he shouts. “You’re not the only one whose project hurts !”

I don’t exactly go limp, but I don’t keep trying to shove away. My body’s rigid and my thighs strain where I’m pushing myself up so I’m not fully seated on his lap. I don’t say anything, staring down at him, lips parted.

His eyes lock on mine and we both feel his words, the threads they weave around us.

My legs give out and I fall down on him. He takes my full weight with his arms constricting even more. Not holding me down; holding me to him.

The same emotion emanates from us both: uncertainty. How did we get here, how did I go from yelling at him to sitting on his lap.

So we don’t react to it. Can’t. If we acknowledge it, it’ll shatter.

“I’m trying to disconnect a conjurer from their conjured item,” he tells me, his voice a feather brush of noise in the disappearing space between us.

“Typically, when a conjurer summons an item, they’re connected to that item.

If the item gets destroyed or used up, the conjurer is hurt, too.

It isn’t excessive for most things—like with fire, small flames make the conjurer woozy.

But for bigger things, it can be incredibly dangerous. ”

That’s not how it is in evocation. Since we create something new, the energy draw is entirely from components, which means evocation wizards go through insane amounts of components. Conjurers use components, too, but only to trigger the initial spell, so their required amounts are typically less.

Thio stares at me for another second. Two. And when his tongue darts out to lick his lower lip, I hiss in a breath like I can feel that roughness on my skin.