Magical Mayhem: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Witches of Gales Haven Book 2)

by Lucia Ashta

  Sighing loudly, Quade ran fingertips along my arm, returning me to the present with a quiver.

  “I should probably go to the town hall to see what I can do to help,” he said.

  “Help who? Your parents or the town?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered miserably. “My mom disowned me, did you hear?”

  “I did. I’m really sorry.” What else was there to say? Delise was a royal bitch who’d at the very least emotionally abused her husband and child. Thank goodness Quade was an only child. At least no one else had had to suffer through Delise’s charms.

  When I could tell I’d lost him to his worries again, I spoke to him softly. “Hey. You can go, you know? I’ll be fine. You don’t have to stay here with me.”

  “Bessie asked me to.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only because, for whatever reason, my family’s been trying to get me laid ever since I got here. I have no idea why. Do you remember how hard they used to work to keep us from sexing it up when we were dating?”

  He barked out a laugh. “It was ridiculous.”

  I chuckled too. “Do you remember Aunt Jowelle? When she’d sit in the complete darkness in the living room or the hallway by my room, thinking we wouldn’t notice her if she didn’t move?”

  “Or when she gave up on that and tried to use her magic to get into our heads to convince us that we didn’t want to even kiss?”

  I snorted—ladylike, that was me. “I couldn’t figure out why I kept having thoughts about not wanting to have ‘premarital sex’ or wanting to remain ‘chaste.’ They were such Aunt Jowelle terms, but it took me forever to figure it out.”

  “We might’ve never figured it out if your Aunt Luanne hadn’t put us on to her.”

  Chuckling again, I smiled broadly. “Aunt Luanne … can always count on her to encourage everyone to have sex. Her and Aunt Shawna. I’m pretty sure they’d be happy if the whole town had a massive orgy.”

  “They’d spearhead it. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard them tell people that orgasms are the secret to longevity.”

  I face-palmed while shaking my head into my hand. “I have quite the family, don’t I?”

  “So do I. At least yours didn’t try to stage a coup—or whatever my mom was thinking.”

  I looked at him seriously before busting out laughing, all vestiges of exhaustion fleeing. “True. Finally, after all this time, you’ve got me beat on outrageous families.”

  He shook his head, a few strands of his shiny dark hair sliding across his forehead, free of his usual low ponytail. Absently, he swiped them away. “Even after all my mom did, I’m still not sure my family wins the prize. Your grandmother and aunts have only gotten crazier while you were gone.”

  The mirth dropped from my face. “I missed them. A lot.”

  His eyes met mine, the whiskey color alight while he seemingly waited for me to say what he wanted to hear.

  I knew exactly what he was waiting for.

  “I missed you,” I told him, and his gaze grew intense.

  The seconds beat out to the rhythm of my pulse, speeding up the longer he looked at me like he wanted to claim me as his.

  “Marla,” he said softly. “I want to be with you again.”

  “Yeah, me too.” I scanned his body, up and down.

  “I don’t mean making love.”

  “Shit, I do. After all this time, I want that. I really do. I want to make love with you.” Like all the time. Every day, at least twice a day. Three times a day. Maybe at that rate we’ll make up for all the time we’d lost, for all the passion we could have shared but didn’t.

  Chuckling, he squeezed my hand. “Yes, I want that too. But it’s not what I meant. I mean, I want us to be together as in dating. I want to be your boyfriend again, or whatever term we’d used now that we’re, you know.”

  “You’d better not say ‘old.’”

  “Hell no I wasn’t about to say that. How about … ‘seasoned?’”

  “Seasoned to perfection? I’ll take that.”

  “So? Will you let me take you out, wine and dine you?”

  “Sure.” I grinned like a fool. “Can we make out in Moonshine Park like we used to?”

  At the mention of the park, I remembered the bag of Bab’s Enchanted Hearts I’d left behind on the bench. Surely someone else had picked it up by now. I so didn’t care.

  Quade’s smile grew to match mine. “Of course we can make out in the park. We can head up to Lily Lake and the Cracked Caves too.”

  I waggled my eyebrows at him. “And can we do all the things we used to do once we’re there?”

  “That and much more.”

  “Much more, huh? Sold.”

  “Awesome,” he said.

  “Super awesome.”

  We smiled and grinned at each other until my blood began to simmer.

  “You’re here,” I started. “And Gawama Mama House isn’t going to throw you out a window…”

  He inched forward. “We do have lots to celebrate.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?” I was flirting, proving to myself I still remembered how. I’d wondered if I’d forgotten after all that time married to the wrong person.

  Quade leaned his head closer to mine until his strong chest pressed against my breasts. My nipples pinged to alertness. A shiver followed, running the course of my entire body, leaving me literally breathless with the anticipation of what I hoped like hell was about to come.

  “I did lock the door to your room,” he said. “No one can get in here unless the house helps them.”

  “And she won’t.”

  “And she won’t,” he repeated, eyes beginning to glaze over from the heat building between us.

  I tingled everywhere as he touched the tip of his nose to mine.

  “I’ve waited a very long time for this,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said, then smacked his lips in a quick kiss, unwilling to wait another moment for what I wanted with so much desperation.

  His eyes widened in surprise, and he froze … but only for a second. In the next, he returned my kiss and claimed my lips as completely as he ever had.

  His lips were as full and soft as I remembered them, and when he urged me to part mine for him, I did, moaning when his hot tongue met mine.

  His shoes dropped to the floor with a thud, and he shifted his body so that it pressed against the length of mine.

  Hell to the yes. Come to mama. I was about to get some.

  One hand swept all over my body, seemingly trying to touch me everywhere at once in a frenzy, while the other settled across one breast, squeezing it before sweeping the pad of his thumb over my erect nipple.

  I moaned with abandon, surely sounding incredibly wanton, free in the fact that we were alone in the house that almost always contained too many curious family members. Aunt Luanne and Aunt Shawna would be proud.

  With both hands, I gripped his ass, tugging him against me, reveling in his hardness as it pressed against the money spot. He was already almost right where I wanted him. There were far too many layers of clothes in between.

  Tugging his shirt up, he helped me pull it over his head. We popped a button as we went, but neither of us cared. The t-shirt underneath went next, and I hungrily ran my hands along his bare, muscled chest. He’d bulked out a bit since I’d last touched him. He was even stronger than before.

  I, however, most definitely wasn’t. I was rocking a post-baby mom bod.

  When he slid my own sweater upward, I covered his hands with mine, stilling his progress.

  “What is it?” he asked, gaze blazing hot so that I doubted we’d get to date at all before we made love. He appeared as hungry as I was to reconnect in that deep, intimate way. To reclaim the connection we’d both feared was lost forever.

  “It’s just ... I mean, you’re amazing. Your body is as beautiful as before, if not more so.”

  “Thanks. So is yours.”

  I grimaced awkwardly. “Thanks for playing, but
no, not really. Not at all, actually. My stomach and boobs have been stretched out so far they passed the point of no return. I carried around two humans and then I nursed them. You should’ve seen my boobs, leaking milk everywhere like they were a water balloon on its way to popping. And my stomach is Stretch Mark City. I even have a lovely C-section scar that pushes in, making my belly bulge out a little bit on either side of it. I now have one of those lower tummy bulges. Not really, but a tiny bit. It’s not sexy at all.”

  I finally realized what I was saying and shut my trap. But the damage was done.

  Quade pushed up onto his straightened forearms to perch over me, staring intently at me.

  Wincing, I added, “Way to ruin the mood, huh? I never did learn when to shut up.”

  He shook his head at me, his ponytail tumbling forward over his shoulder. “That’s really how you see yourself?”

  “Kind of.” And by kind of, I meant yes, absolutely. I’d come to terms with the fact that my body would never be the same, but looking in the mirror could still be painful when I studied all that my body had gone through to bear my kids. I was like a war survivor. I realized there was little I could do to change some aspects of my body. Sure, I could skip a doughnut or twenty, and I could run more often, but life was difficult enough without making it more so by denying myself the creature comforts.

  I knew I shouldn’t give a flying hoot. I wasn’t just a body, I was so much more than that. And who cared if I had a whole zip code of stretch marks? I’d made people. That was like a superpower!

  But Quade had last seen me naked when my body was pristine. It hadn’t been stretched all to hell and back.

  He pushed up my sweater.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Showing you how I see you.”

  Gingerly, he uncurled my fingers from where they clutched the hem of my sparkly purple sweater. Then he slid it up until it pooled beneath the bottom of my bra.

  Oh crap.

  I was wearing my utilitarian bra today. I hadn’t expected to get any action. Bras for DD cups weren’t the sexy, lacy things you saw perfectly displayed and color coded in lingerie stores. D-cup bras could only be found in the back of the shops, tucked away where no one would notice them unless they were the sops in need of them. They were big, cumbersome things focused on holding up twenty pounds of boob.

  My thoughts and fears—ridiculous even to me, though it seemed I couldn’t keep myself from having them—came to a swift halt when I felt the first of his tender kisses.

  Quade kissed the center of my stomach, below my belly button, where the worst of the stretch marks squatted, unwelcome. He peppered gentle adoring kisses to the left, to the right, and lower, until he kissed a trail straight across my depressed C-section scar.

  Mesmerized, a wave of raw emotion bubbled deep inside me. I couldn’t tell if I was about to sob, scream, or laugh at how foolish I was to beat myself up the way I did. At how relieved I was to finally find myself back with this man again.

  His love would accelerate my healing. If I could learn to see myself the way he saw me, I’d be set.

  His kisses spoke of a total and complete adoration that tore through my soul, shaking my true self awake.

  “Quade,” I whispered.

  Tilting his head up, he offered me a smile that warmed me in every single fiber of my being.

  Emboldened, I pulled my sweater all the way off, throwing it to the floor with an abandon that shed a decade off me.

  Tilting my hips upward until they met his, I said, “I want to feel you. All of you. Now.”

  His fiery whiskey gaze met mine, recognized my resolve and hunger. He pulled back, hands reaching for the button of his jeans.

  Something plopped onto my cheek, bouncing off me and onto the floor.

  I yelped, stunned. “What the...?”

  Quade’s eyes were as wide as mine must have been. He leaned over the bed and retrieved the missile, inspecting it.

  “A … piece of popcorn?” His face screwed up into a what-the-ever-living-freak-is-going-on look, one I also surely wore.

  As one, we stared at the popcorn, then slowly tilted our faces up toward the ceiling.

  “Ah, hehe, hey there,” Hugh, whom I was definitely going to call Humphrey from now on since he hated the name, said to me.

  “Humphrey,” I growled.

  “Is he talking to you?” Quade asked.

  “Yeah, and he has a crap-ton of explaining to do, so give me a minute.”

  Hugh, AKA Humphrey forevermore, perched atop the single shelf that hung a foot down from the ceiling. It was currently empty except for the mouse who surely didn’t belong there, especially since he held a small plastic cup filled with several pieces of popcorn.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked Humphrey.

  “Ah, em, well, I’m watching the show while eating popcorn. That’s what you people do, right?” His face cracked into an oh-shit smile, making the little mouse look almost human—well, for a mouse.

  “You’re watching the show?” I asked, my voice growing deadly dangerous.

  He laughed nervously. “Yeah. That’s what I was doing. It was just starting to get good too.”

  I glared. Quade, seeming to understand the gist of what was going on, glared at the talking mouse too as he pushed to sit back onto his knees around my thighs.

  “Don’t mind me,” Humphrey said. “I won’t make another peep. You can keep going.”

  I stared until I was sure death rays were about to shoot from my eyes, cartoon style.

  “I didn’t mean for the popcorn to drop. I thought I had a good grip on it, but then things were really getting spicy, and well, I got a little overly excited, I guess, and it slipped.”

  I blinked at him as ferociously as I could manage.

  “Seriously, you guys were doing well. Almost as good as those romances your Aunt Luanne likes to read.”

  Like a steam whistle, I bellowed, “Out! Get out now!”

  He huffed. “Jeez. Fine. I’ll go, but you don’t need to be so rude about it.”

  “Me? I’m rude?”

  “I’m glad you realize it. An apology would be welcome.”

  “Get up,” I told Quade. “I have a mouse to flatten.”

  Quade climbed off me and I hopped onto my feet on the bed, stretching up toward the mouse.

  He squeaked, dropped his sample-sized cup of popcorn, spilling it all over my bed, and scrambled across the shelf, squeezing himself through a crack in the corner of the wall and disappearing.

  “He’s lucky I’m short.” I shook my fist at where the mouse had disappeared.

  I breathed my frustration upward in a huff, floating errant strands of hair upward. I brought my hands to my hips and stood on my bed, waiting for thoughts of murdering Humphrey to pass.

  Then I realized Quade was laughing. Spinning, I lost my balance, and fell to my butt on the bed.

  Quade raced forward to try to catch me, but I’d already landed.

  I pegged him in a squinty-eyed stare. “What’s so funny?”

  Shaking his head, his eyes watered as another belly laugh tumbled out of him. “There’s never a dull moment with you, is there?” Then he laughed and laughed … until I finally joined in.

  When we were both wheezing and gasping for air, we plopped onto our backs on the bed, feet on the floor, chests bare except for my practical bra. We turned to face each other.

  “So,” I said, “want to pick up where we left off? Assuming we can forget that we had a mouse for a Peeping Tom. Like Tom and Jerry from the cartoons, only in reverse since Jerry was the mouse. I mean, he was really going to watch us … you know. With popcorn! Like some creepy voyeur at a peep show.”

  “Like I said, never a dull moment. But how about a rain check? When it’s time, I don’t want to be in a hurry. I want to go slow and enjoy every bit of you. Fully. Intensely. For hours. Days.”

  I swallowed, nodding my eager encouragement. “I’m sure I can cl
ear my mad caper detective schedule for that,” I said in a husky squeak that sounded like I’d stepped on a dog’s toy.

  He ran a slow, sensual finger across my lips, down my neck, across my collarbones, and paused at the swell of my breasts. “Good. Because I’m going to start making plans for you. And I won’t let you leave this time.”

  “Trust me, I’m not going anywhere. I’m home now. Here. With you.”

  He stared at me until he must have seen proof that I meant what I said. Then he nodded. “Good. Glad to hear it.” Then he sighed loudly. “Ready to go deal with my crazy mom before she gives Tessa reason to zap her senseless?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  When Quade and I emerged from Gawama Mama House, our hands were entwined.

  Despite all the recent craziness, my heart beat a steady rhythm of happiness and the promise of all the wonderful things to come.

  Chapter Twenty

  The contentment that fluttered inside me, beating against my rib cage, flew away like an escaping bird the moment Quade opened the door to the town hall for me. In rushed chaos and commotion, devouring the afterglow of our kissing.

  Quade’s hand settled against the small of my back as he led me through a crowd of standing townspeople and up the crowded aisle.

  It looked like everyone in Gales Haven had assembled to see what the council would do with Delise and Maguire. Like any good small town, news traveled wickedly fast. Every single seat was occupied. The proceedings were standing room only.

  “Are our kids here?” I asked Quade over my shoulder.

  “I haven’t seen them yet. I hope they’re at home. I’d rather Harlow not see whatever’s about to happen.”

  I didn’t blame him. The townsfolk, ordinarily peaceful enough despite their wild ways, demanded punishment for Delise’s violation of their trust. I could hear it in the anger of their barely contained whispers, the way they shot nasty looks up at Quade’s parents, who stood next to each other up front, facing the council members atop the dais. Nan, Darnell Adams, Irma Lamont, Stella Egerton, and Tessa Smate sat straight in their high-backed wooden carved chairs, representing the G.A.L.E.S. in Gales Haven as their ancestors had done. They sat in the same chairs, resolved to protect all that the village represented since 1803.