by E. M. Moore
I collapsed over him, smiling into his chest. “I swear I didn’t come here for that,” he said.
I knew what he meant. We hadn’t anticipated that, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t fucking amazing.
“I mean, not that I haven’t wanted you since I first saw you.” He pulled his hands through my hair as he spoke.
“What do you think this is?” I asked him, sitting up on my forearm.
His blue eyes turned thoughtful. “I don’t think you want to hear my opinion on that.”
His words sunk in, and he was right. I didn’t want to hear how he thought I was the fifth and this was some magical bond to the coven. The last thing I wanted to be right now was their fifth.
I started to pull away, but he followed me and grabbed me into his arms. “Let’s not worry about that, yeah?” His hand came to rest on my cheek.
All the while I fought against the very idea of being a member of the Order, I couldn’t also deny the attraction, the feeling of right that came with it all.
But what about what Granny had said? I was in a terrible position, whether it was right or not. She hadn’t been more right in all the years she was alive. But now she wasn’t here to tell me what to do either.
Damn her.
He scooted closer. “We’re going to help you figure this out. Whether we get to do that again—I hope so by the way. Or we don’t—I might just die,” he said cheekily. “But either way, we’ll figure this out.”
I dropped my head to his shoulder. “Right then. So, what should we do now?”
He took a deep breath. “We should probably head back to the apartment and tell the guys what happened here.”
I pulled away and raised my eyebrows at him.
“Not about us,” he said, “I meant about finding you unconscious with your room completely fucked. But now that you bring it up, just how pissed is Randy going to be at me?”
I ducked my head, uneasiness washing over me as I thought about the instant attraction to Randy, as well as Gabe, and how sweet Liam had been to me. “You know him better than me,” I mumbled.
“Hey, I’m not upset,” he said, forcing my chin back into the air. “I’ve been around this magic stuff for a long time. I saw the way Randy acted yesterday and I even see the way Liam is with you, there’s something bigger than just the two of us, but you don’t know Randy. He’s…intense.”
“I actually gathered as much already.” He kind of wore his intensity like a billboard warning.
He chuckled. “I guess it is pretty hard to miss. Just let me deal with him if it comes down to it, okay?”
Fear tightened my throat. Would Randy not feel the same way about me now that I’d done things with Gabe? That just sounded too cruel to be true.
On second thought, how the hell had my mind already switched to wanting these guys?
Chapter Eleven
By the time Gabe and I exited the motel, it was dark out. I still had Liam’s hoodie from earlier so I tightened that around my shoulders as we walked to their apartment past similar looking houses. All of them were huge, old, the kind you would think would house a bunch of antiques. Except, there was nothing antique about the witches I’d just met.
Gabe pushed the door open for me and I walked in, letting the warmth inside the place wrap around me and ease some tension from around my shoulders. Neither Gabe nor I wanted to say anything, but we were both on high alert as we made the quick walk to their place.
Two pizza boxes sat on the coffee table. Travis was the closest to us when we walked in even though he was looking away. His shoulders tensed. He immediately leaned over, tossing a game controller to Liam and left the room. Jeez. He couldn’t hate me any more, could he? The worst part was I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. I’d only went with my intuition and followed my gut to get here. Gabe squeezed my hand, and I squeezed his right back.
By now, Liam and Randy were also looking up at us. “Any pizza left?” Gabe asked, pulling me into their enormous living room. As if on cue, my stomach growled.
Liam was the first to stand, looking me straight in the eyes as he asked if I preferred just pepperoni or another pizza that looked like it had every kind of vegetable imaginable on it. “Pepperoni is good,” I told him.
He grabbed me a slice, handed it to me and then jogged into the kitchen, returning with a paper plate while I stood there. He tugged on the hoodie after passing the plate to me and I smiled another thank you.
I sat next to Gabe on the couch as he helped himself to a slice or five. We hadn’t really discussed how we were going to tell them what happened so I just ate my slice with my heart in my throat the entire time. Randy’s eyes bored into me as he watched my every move. I didn’t dare look him in the eyes. I wasn’t afraid of him, per se. Ridiculously enough, I was afraid of how upset he might be with me. I didn’t know many guys that would still be interested in a girl after they did stuff with their good friend. But at the same time, the pull to him was still there. Before I could talk myself out of it, I gave in. My gaze caught his, and I immediately stopped chewing. It was as if he locked me into place with his missile-like stare. It wasn’t exactly an angry glare, but it didn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy either.
After scarfing down what I guessed was his last piece, Gabe wiped his hands on a napkin and sat back. “Minor problem, fellas.”
“Minor?” Randy barked.
“Should Travis be out here for this?” Liam asked.
“Yeah, he probably should.”
Liam ran off to get Travis as the three of us sat staring at one another. Actually, Gabe and I sat staring at Randy while he only stared at me, sending ice shivers up my back. “We’ll talk later,” Gabe offered.
Randy’s shoulders relaxed only a tad before Liam walked back into the room followed by Travis.
Seeing as how everyone was back, Gabe started. “So, as discussed, I went to see if our new friend, Norah, was okay. Turns out she wasn’t.”
“What?” Liam shouted, his fingers curling into the fabric of the green armrest where he perched.
“She didn’t answer the door when I got there as well as her phone. I tried the door. It opened and there was Norah, unconscious on the floor with her hotel room ransacked. As you can see, she’s okay. She has no memory of what happened. She can only remember getting back to the room after the attack at the cafe.”
Liam held his head in his hands. He stared at the carpet at his feet, deep in thought. Randy cracked his knuckles in front of him one-by-one, a more than ominous gesture that sent butterflies scurrying in my stomach.
“I knew we should’ve brought her to headquarters with us,” Liam mused.
“I don’t need to tell you how many rules that’s breaking,” Travis said flatly.
“Still,” Liam said, his voice turning hard. He made me uneasy. He was taking all the blame on himself and I couldn’t have that.
I stood from my seat and went over to his chair, placing my hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Liam. I’m fine.”
He looked shocked I’d made the gesture, and I didn’t think I hated my own sex more than in that moment, or hated what in Liam’s past would make him surprised I would be concerned for him. Life could be cruel. He blinked at me, his mouth moving though he still couldn’t form words. Eventually, he said, “I think you should stay here from now on. You’re not safe at the motel and this place is warded off with magic.”
“Sure, let’s just give the outsider all the information,” Travis sneered.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I dropped my head and peered over at him. “I’m not the enemy here. I told you everything I know about why I’m here, and considering I’m the one who’s been attacked twice, I’m not sure I’d be acting like the victim in all this if I were you. I was perfectly safe in New Orleans.”
“She’s right,” Liam said.
I sucked in a breath and stared down at him. “I didn’t mean that for you.”
“I know,” he said, smiling grac
iously, “but that doesn’t make it any less true. We’ve been left alone since Jax, but now that Norah shows up, she or we, are being targeted. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”
“We don’t have anything to go on,” Travis said, saying the most logical thing I’d heard him say since we’d met. “The two attackers gave us nothing and if you didn’t get anything out of the motel room, then there’s really nothing to do but sit back and wait until they make their next move.”
Gabe leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Swept the place from top to bottom. Couldn’t find a thing. The whole place just looked staged. Norah doesn’t even have anything worth taking and they didn’t harm her.”
“Scare tactic?” Randy grunted.
“Fuck if I know,” Gabe said, “but I agree with Liam. Norah should stay here. At least until we find out what’s going on.”
My magic surged in agreement, but my own mind grumbled. I’d been a step away from leaving all this behind. One measly step. I was still confused as fuck as to what needed to be done so I guessed another day or so here couldn’t hurt. If more bad shit turned up though, I was getting the heck out of dodge. Good to know my survival instincts were alive and well.
A shiver ran up my spine and I instinctively looked over at Randy. Travis stayed long enough just to hear our plans and then he went back to his room. Liam looked back and forth between the three of us, and sensing, as just about anyone could, that things needed to be said, excused himself. When he walked past Randy, Randy whispered something to him, but Liam shook his head. A little while later, his door closed.
Gabe leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “So, Mate, there’s something going on here and I have no idea if Travis or Liam feel it, but I know you and I both do. In the interest of Travis not giving a fuck and possibly embarrassing Liam, I didn’t want to say anything in front of them.” Randy nodded so Gabe continued. “From the way you were acting at the bar last evening, I know you feel it too.”
Jeez, had the night at the bar just been yesterday? It didn’t seem possible that so much had happened in such a short period.
“I know you had an opinion earlier on something,” Gabe hedged. “But I got to say that mine is unchanged, and there’s only one reason why I think we would both feel the same way.”
“What?” I asked, feeling dumb. They had obviously all discussed me earlier, so I was missing out on half an event.
Gabe patted my knee. “You don’t want to know.”
“Dammit. It’s the fifth thing again.”
Gabe shrugged, then turned his attention back to Randy. “What does it feel like around her?”
“Dude, seriously? I’m not going to discuss this with you.”
“A pull, right? A tug in your stomach? That every time she touches you, it feels like your body is humming, surging you forward?”
Randy made a low growling noise. My mouth dropped. He explained what I’d been feeling to a ‘T’. “That’s what it feels like for you too?”
Gabe nodded. “From the moment you walked in the bar last night, I felt your presence. The rest of us did, too. You walked in and all of us were at attention. Travis doesn’t have the head space right now to deal with something like this and when Randy started to show interest, I backed off because it was his birthday.”
“I see that lasted only until midnight.”
“If you feel what I feel for her, you wouldn’t be able to let it go either.”
Randy’s jaw clenched together, pretty much giving up his true feelings. He shook his head, and I felt the tightly wound connection between us fraying. As if I was being pulled, I walked toward him, the tips of my sneakers hitting his socked feet. He ground his teeth down and looked up at me. “What the hell did you do to me last night?”
Everything came crashing down on me. His question, my premonition, then finally, the sleep spell. Part of me wished I’d just put Gabe in a sleep spell too, left this town after he woke me up and never looked back again, but already I could feel that the connection between us all would be very unhappy about that. I knelt between his legs and put my hand on his knees. “I got scared, so I put a sleep spell on you. I didn’t realize what was going on. Everything was so intense and I didn’t even know who you guys were. It had been my plan to come in here and look around so that’s what I did. I put you in the sleep spell and searched your rooms. For the record, I didn’t find anything.”
Randy blew out a breath and ran his hands through his hair. “That’s it? Just a sleep spell?”
Aw, fuck. I really wanted to keep my premonitions to myself. It was a special bit of magic I had. Granny knew about it, but she was the only one. There really wasn’t much to tell since I couldn’t control it. “Yes,” I said, my voice strained. I hoped it seemed more like I felt sorry for what I did and not that I was lying. Really, I wasn’t lying, I was omitting. There was a difference.
He cupped my chin. “So, you did want me?”
I gulped, his eyes taking up laser focus on my own. I nodded.
“And you want Gabe?”
I nodded. At the same time, Gabe’s hand squeezed my shoulder.
“Liam?” Randy asked, his eyebrow quirking.
I groaned, not entirely loving the way he was dragging this all out of me. Couldn’t a girl have some secrets? “Yes,” I whispered. Liam would be a tough one though. He was so shy, and that was something I never was. I couldn’t deny the pull to him, but in what way? A romantic one? A friendly one? “I don’t know what it is.”
“Travis?”
My initial reaction was fuck no, but just as the words were about to spring from my mouth, I sat there in shock. “There’s a pull. I can’t say I like the dickhead very much, though.”
“He’ll grow on you,” Gabe said.
“Not likely,” I growled. I preferred men who weren’t assholes.
“She’s the fifth,” Gabe said, saying what all of us were thinking.
I shook my head, still denying it. The truth was, we didn’t know. I could still have some sort of freaky reaction to all of them that was magically-based even if it had nothing to do with being their fifth. “I’m not—no.” Giving into that would be like giving into a life I didn’t know and wasn’t prepared for. From what I’d seen of it already, I didn’t want it. I’d do everything in my power to stay the hell out of it, too. That much I could promise them.
“It’s okay,” Randy said. “We don’t have to know that right now. I think all of us have shit to figure out.” He squeezed my hand and then stood. He towered over me as I watched him walk around the sofa and toward the room he’d taken me to last night.
“He just needs some time,” Gabe said. “Don’t worry about it.”
The magic in me flickered and all around the living room, the lights dimmed to match my mood. I’d just opened up, told them everything, and still, Randy walked away. There was no trace of anything we’d shared last night. Nothing. He was like an emotionless pit just scraping me for information and piling it in his bank to keep without giving me anything in return. What the actual fuck?
My chest burned. Gabe pulled me to my feet and spun me, holding me close. I immediately relaxed, and he continued his slow circles on my back and whispering into my ear. After a few moments, he asked, “I can sleep on the sofa if you want and you can take my bed. Or…?”
“Or,” I said, deciding for him before he even voiced his question.
He chuckled into my ear and then led me down the hall. His room welcomed me like I’d known it for awhile and I immediately stripped down as he handed me a shirt of his to wear to bed like we’d done this very thing for all our lives. When I pulled it over my head, he shook his head. “Damn, you’re sexy.”
“You have no idea,” I breathed as he whisked his own shirt off and I took the sight of him in.
For the first time since getting to Salem, I felt secure. I felt like I was right where I needed to be as I drifted to sleep on Gabe’s chest.
> Chapter Twelve
Gabe
Feeling like the literal King of England, I strutted into the living room, leaving that perfect ass in my bed behind as she snored softly, her hair a wild mess around her. I couldn’t even keep the goofy grin off my face as I waltzed straight into the kitchen and turned on the Keurig.
“Don’t look so damn full of yourself,” a voice from behind me said.
I snickered. Randy could act all he wanted, but he was jealous as fuck of me. “Yeah, yeah.”
I retrieved my favorite football mug from the cabinet and turned toward him. He was in the small entryway that led from the kitchen to the living room, his eyes trained on the hallway.
“She’s still sleeping.”
“No shit.”
As much as I would’ve loved to tease him about me getting her first, I felt guilty about it. I wouldn’t want to feel that way if I was in his position. And what positions were we even in anyway? She had feelings for all of us. She admitted as much last night, and ditto for the rest of us, maybe minus Travis. Were we really going to do this? Did we even have a choice?
“You look like someone shit in your Cheerios.”
“Bugger off,” I said, turning to start my single serve cup of heaven. I dribbled my fingers against the counter before turning around, unable to keep my mouth from vomiting up everything I was thinking. “So, we’re really going to share her?”
Randy shrugged. “Sometimes I hate fucking magic.”
Seriously. “How is this going to work?”
“Fuck if I know. We’ll probably tread carefully at first.” He walked into the kitchen and leaned against the fridge. “This is going to sound stupid as fuck, but I wasn’t as jealous as I thought I’d be at the idea of her in your bed last night.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “I mean, I didn’t hear any noises or anything so who knows how I would’ve reacted to that, but I was kind of just thinking that I hoped she was comfortable. I know how you snore sometimes, Dude, and it’s super unattractive.”