“For the love of pepper sprouts,” Taylen groans. “I am never going to live this down.” He does look unnaturally pale, tired, and stressed too. “This is a disaster! A cursed, bloody disaster.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You should be saying it’s bad! The curse! You should be asking me what the hell is wrong with me and ripping me a new asshole.”
“Umm, I’m not exactly the asshole ripping type. It’s…”
“Do not say fine!”
Even stressed, and maybe because he’s extra fired up right now, Taylen’s beautiful. I’ve never known a second of my life where Taylen Cromwell has not been beautiful. Is it wrong to wish that maybe he had been dreaming about me? Yes. What am I thinking? Of course it’s wrong. He’s right. This is bad. It’s probably the curse.
I was going to say fine, but I switch it up, just for him. “Do you think we’re really cursed together just because your granny gave me the brooch?”
Taylen considers it, then he shrugs. His eyes are glowing golden in the light from the lamp when he looks at me. “I don’t have any idea how it works, honestly. I would have passed it all off as craziness until it affected my cousins and brother.”
I can feel my forced smile wobbling as I think about how serious a curse could be. I’ve never messed with any of that stuff before. Ever. I’ve never even gone for so much as a tarot reading, and I live in New Orleans.
“Maybe, maybe if we are cursed to be soulmates, it wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, as I said before, we’re friends. Soul siblings. We’ve used that term before. As long as the curse thinks we’re together, maybe we could like…I don’t know. Just live our lives regularly. Maybe it’s already satisfied because we’ve both bled on the thing when we pricked ourselves.”
“So you think we might be able to live regular lives?”
“We could marry other people, have families, get on with it.” Neither of us has done that. Taylen never even took the chance to find someone who was remotely right for him, probably because of the pact he made with his cousins about fighting the curse. He couldn’t risk falling in love then.
But what’s my excuse? I did have plenty of time before my parents picked out a husband for me. I guess I was just happy with being single for a good while. I had my friends, family, and Taylen and his family. I didn’t need to date someone just so I wouldn’t be lonely. I could never have been lonely. I felt happy and satisfied.
Because I have Taylen, that’s why I was happy. I didn’t need to date him to feel fulfilled.
Has something changed? Is it the curse? Because back then, I was just happy to hang out with him and talk or do whatever it was we had planned. If he was around, then night or day, I always had a better time, but I never wanted to…I mean, I never got wet in the panties before.
Is the curse a wet panty curse? Is it a curse of longing, aching, throbbing, and hard nipples? Because I’m experiencing every single one of those things all at once here, just thinking about how Taylen was pressed up against me before.
Maybe that’s why I never wanted him like that. Because he’d never given me a taste of…
Hard no! Brake hard. Stop, now! What? The? Actual? Bloody? Farge? No!
“I can’t do that,” Taylen says, and it takes me a second to remember what we were talking about. Right, cursed soulmates. “What if you never find a husband because of me? I know you want kids. You have a wonderful and generous heart, and you could make someone very happy.”
Taylen doesn’t rake his hair again, but he does look down, just briefly enough, that I see something flash in his eyes. I can’t decide what it is, but it’s there. It’s something protective, I realize. That’s what it is. Because Taylen wants me to be happy. Yes, that’s what it is. He’s worried about the curse. He can’t be thinking about me with someone else and getting… jealous?
“Anyway!” Taylen jumps up suddenly. “We’re packing up and going back to NOLA. We’re going straight to Granny’s, and she’s going to tell us how to break the curse. If she can’t, I’m going to demand she find someone who can. The person who cursed the damn thing or…or…well, whatever it is, we’re going back. I can’t…this is…I’m sorry, Elodie. I never meant to…”
“Stop.” Jeffers looks up at the force in that word. He had been sleeping on the floor on my side of the bed, but now he looks up at me quizzically. I soften my voice. “It was fine. It wasn’t your fault, and even if it wasn’t the curse, it was just biology. Also, it was not the worst thing in the world. It was kind of cold in here with the rain, and you’re very…strong and warm. I felt safe,” I rush on, making a mess of things, no doubt. “I felt nice, like when Jeffers growls at creepy dudes when I walk him.”