She smiles and shakes her head at me. “Do you realize how incredibly sweet that is?”
Before I can respond, Morgan leans in close, the tip of her nose brushing against mine. There’s a smile on her lips, a bit of mischief in her eyes, and that’s the last thing I see before she kisses me.
The first kiss is tentative, like we’re trying to remember how to speak a forgotten language. Her lips are soft and warm on mine, the tenderness sending a small chill down my spine. But then her fingers tangle in the hair at the base of my neck, and there’s this shift. This hunger. It builds low in my belly and rises into my chest as her kisses grow deeper and her tongue slips past my lips.
I reach out, needing something besides her lips and her hands to anchor me. My fingers brush against the soft cotton of her shirt, and she pulls me up to my knees. There’s a flash of heat as my arms circle her waist, my fingers finding a strip of exposed skin. Morgan shivers beneath my touch, and I can’t get enough of her. Her kisses and her warmth and the way she makes my entire body sing. The way she makes me feel so utterlyseenin a way I never have before.
Wind whips around us, tugging at our clothes, our hair. It batters against us, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything—not Veronica, not the Council, not even the Hunter. All I care about is the girl in my arms and the way she’s pulling me closerand closer, like she’s feeling the same desperate need that’s thrumming hot through my veins.
Morgan trails her hands down my arms and reaches for the hem of my shirt, pressing her palms flat against the skin of my back. Heat blossoms behind me, so hot it almost feels like—
I pull away, breaking the kiss, and press down, down, down on all the feelings raging inside. Now that there’s space between us, I can parse out the magic flowing freely in my veins. I shove the magic deep inside, locking it away. The wind calms, and the heat behind me dies. I risk a glance. The candle is already melted to a tiny nub.
“Is everything okay?” Morgan brushes a thumb along her bottom lip, her face flushed.
“It’s so much more than okay.” I smile even as I can barely catch my breath. I reach for her hand and weave our fingers together. My heart is pounding in my chest so loud I’m sure she must hear it. “That was...” I search for the right word, but I’m distracted, trying to get a firm hold on my magic.I can’t believe I let it get so out of control.
“Yeah.” Morgan sighs, laughing a little to herself. The corners of her lips crinkle as she bites back a smile. “That was.” She clears her throat and sits back down on the blanket. “Right, so. Dessert?”
I settle on the blanket beside her and place a chaste kiss on her cheek, a silent thank-you for changing the subject. “That’s part two of the date.”
“Part two? How many parts are there?”
A mischievous grin tugs at my lips. “I guess we’ll have to see.”
21
MORGAN AND I FINISHour lunch and lie on the blanket, swapping secrets and stories as we watch the clouds float by. Like me, Morgan’s an only child, and we bond over the lack of siblings to blame when we broke something in the house. She tells me about the time she made the disastrous mistake of putting a metal bowl in the microwave when she was ten, and I reenact my dad’s expression the first time I made my own cookies from scratch and mixed up the teaspoon and tablespoon measurements. Turns out, too much salt can absolutely kill a recipe.
Finally, we hike back to my borrowed car and head toward town.
“Now will you tell me your brilliant plan?” Morgan asks, resting her hand against mine on the gearshift.
I slow as the light turns yellow and stop as it goes red. “If you’re up for it, I thought we could go back to my house and take over the kitchen. I have a new blondie recipe I want to try.”
“Blondie?”
“It’s kind of like a brownie, but more on the vanilla spectrum.” My light turns green, and I inch forward so I can make a left once traffic passes.
“That sounds amazing.”
“I haven’t made this version yet, so no promises, but it should be good.” I head down a residential street and sirens wail in thedistance, growing louder. I glance in the rearview and catch sight of the flashing lights, so I pull over.
Fire trucks fly by us, their horns blaring. My heart plummets to my toes, and I know. I justknowthe Witch Hunter has stuck again. I hit the gas harder than I probably should, my tires squealing against the pavement.
“What are you doing?” Morgan asks, her voice high and panicked.
I don’t answer. I’m too focused on the trucks ahead of us. I lose them around a corner, but I can still hear their sirens screaming. I follow them around the bend, the familiar route prickling at the back of my head. And then I see it.
Billowing gray smoke reaches up into the sky.
Someone’s house is going up in flames.
A minute later, I taste the ash on my tongue, and I finally break my silence. “My house is this way,” I whisper, and Morgan’s hand slips from mine as I grip the steering wheel.Please don’t let it be my house.But who else’s could it be? The Hunter already knows who I am, and he’s fought with fire before.
We’re forced to stop at another light while the trucks race through. I lean forward, trying to determine how high the smoke reaches, to see if the firefighters are too late to save anything.
“It’s green.”
