Witches Get Stitches by Juliette Cross

Chapter 32

~NICO~

I staredat the scribbled writing in my journal on my lap. Trying to focus was a herculean effort after last night. I’d woken next to the love of my life, my mate, and couldn’t stop grinning like a fiend. I’d snuggled closer, contemplating ways I could wake her that might put the same smile on her face.

But she was so tired after that long ordeal. It would’ve been selfish to wake her just so I could see that look in her eyes when I made her come. My need to know she was rested and cared for overrode my need to bury myself inside her. Another reminder of how absolutely she’d ensnared my heart.

I’d cooked chocolate chip pancakes and fried bacon for her, thinking she’d be up by nine or ten a.m. I was wrong. It was approaching eleven and the woman was still out. But there was something beguiling about having her asleep and safe in my home. A warm contentment seeped through flesh to my bones, rapping out a gentle reminder that she was exactly where she was meant to be. With me.

Knock, knock.

Setting my journal on the coffee table, I meandered to the door. I’d wondered how long it would take for a Savoie to show up at my house. By the scent, it was Clara who’d finally broken down.

“Good morning.” She beamed brightly, her voice chipper as always.

“I’m surprised you or your sisters weren’t banging on my door at dawn.” I stepped aside for her to come in.

Laughing, she removed her fuchsia peacoat and set it on the back of a chair in my living room. “I told them she was perfectly well and fine, and they believed me. Especially after Mateo showed up and recounted events for Jules.” She walked over to my bookshelf and perused the books and photographs. “Of course, Jules wants a full personal account as soon as she’s up.”

“I expected that.” After taking a seat on the sofa, I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, my nerves jacking up. “Clara, I wanted to tell you something. Ask you something really.”

She turned away from the shelf and plopped down in the cushy chair opposite me. “How can I help?”

“Do I seem to need help?”

“Your anxiety spiked to alarming levels three seconds ago, so I think that you do.”

“You’re right. But not in the way you might think. I don’t need an Aura spell or anything like that. I wanted to tell you that Violet and I are together.”

She blinked her bright blue eyes, identical in shade to Violet but holding none of the aggressiveness Violet’s usually held. “Yes, I know. And?”

“And, well, we’re very together. In a permanent way.” That sounded a little creepy. “What I mean is that she’s my mate and, for wolves, that’s as good as marriage. Not that she’s agreed to marriage or anything.” I laughed nervously, wondering how to say this without sounding like a fool. Too late. “But I suspect or hope she will at some point. Either way, what I’m doing a terrible job of explaining is that I love her. And since you’re her closest sister, her twin, I wanted your approval. Of us being together.”

Her smile grew from serene to blinding, then she launched herself around the coffee table and into my arms, hugging the hell out of me. “Of course, I approve,” she said into my ear, squeezing me tight. “I’ve always known you were soulmates.”

“You have?” I chuckled, confused.

She eased back and squeezed my shoulders in a very maternal way. “Your auras have matched since the first time I saw you together.”

“Matching auras means we’re soulmates?”

“Of course not.” She laughed and let me go then took a seat on the sofa.

I settled beside her. “I’m confused.”

“Hmm. It’s hard to explain exactly. My magic is extremely intuitive. It wasn’t just the matching auras. It was that you matched all the time. Within seconds if there was a shift. If your aura turned blue, so did Violet’s. If hers turned red, so did yours. And then there was the whole lust-field.”

“Lust-field?”

“Big time.” She nodded her head vigorously, her blond tendrils sliding in front of one shoulder, then she leaned forward and whispered, “Like y’all were sexually in-sync.” She straightened again and said matter of fact, “But, of course, you weren’t.”

“We weren’t?” I was so fucking muddled I had no idea what she was talking about.

“It wasn’t your fault.” She patted my knee in that maternal way again. “It was Violet’s. She’s the most stubborn person I know. Except Jules maybe.”

“I can believe that.” Finally, something that made sense.

“So you see, even though I knew you two were fated to be together, it didn’t matter. Violet has to see things for herself. If you tell her to do something, she’ll only run in the opposite direction and reject whatever it is. Bit of a rebel.”

“Just a bit.”

“And a dummy if you ask me. I wouldn’t have made you wait that long.”

Wow. Clara was...something else. The most forthright, direct person I’d ever met. I almost felt sorry for the man who finally snagged her because he probably would have no idea how to handle her insanely honest nature.

“Oh, you wouldn’t, would you?” Violet stood in the arched entry to the living room from the hallway.

She was wearing my Rolling Stones T-shirt, which hit her mid-thigh, her hair looked like a rat’s nest, and the stitched cut at her hairline had turned blue from the faded bruising. She looked like hell, but still my stomach somersaulted and my mouth went dry.

I stood and went to her, then gently cupped her jaw and tilted her face up to get a look at the cut. “How do you feel? Want some Advil?”

“Meh.” She shrugged. “A visit to Isadora will do the trick better actually.”

“I’ll go feed Fred,” Clara called out to us before disappearing.

“Smart sister. Giving us privacy.” Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to her sweet mouth.

She kissed me back, then slipped her hands around my waist and burrowed her cheek into the middle of my sternum. “Why did you leave me in bed all alone?”

“Because you were sleeping like the dead, and I didn’t want to wake you.” I smoothed my palms in circles on her back.

“You should’ve.”

“You needed sleep.”

“What smells so good? Did you cook?”

“That would be bacon and pancakes from three hours ago.”

“Pancakes?” She lurched back and gave me her wide-eyed excited face.

“Chocolate chip.”

“Aww! You remembered?”

“I remember everything you say.”

She didn’t respond, just looked at me. I’m perfectly content with that smug expression on her face. I have no problem that she knows how twisted I am around her little finger.

“I’ll go heat up a plate if you want to tell Clara she can come inside.”

Right then, Clara opened the door and stepped into the entryway off the kitchen. “I forgot to tell you, Devraj figured out Archie’s escape trick.”

“No way.” Violet turned to the side so she could see Clara. “How was he doing it?”

“A jump to an upturned bucket then to the recycling bin then to the garbage then over the fence. Quite the acrobat, that Archie. Anyway, Fred can come home now.”

I tightened my hold on Violet. “I kind of like having him here. It’ll make you visit more often.”

“Or I could just move in with you. He loves his new house you made him.”

I was stuck on the moving in with me part. “Seriously?”

She scoffed. “It’s better than the one he has at our house.”

“No, I mean about you moving in.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Why not? I know what I want now. Plus, I like the idea of getting sex on demand.”

Stunned. This woman had put me off for so long, and now was perfectly fine to move in. “What has made you so agreeable?”

She arched a brow and slid her bare leg forward between my jeans. “I think you know.”

“Noted.”

“Nico, I love that statue you have of Violet,” interrupted Clara, her voice coming from the kitchen. “Did Mateo make it for you?”

My pulse skittered ahead as Violet’s head swiveled toward the kitchen then back to me.

“Whaaaat?”

“Okay, I know it seems weird—”

Violet took off running outside with no pants and in bare feet.

Heaving a sigh, I gave Clara a disgruntled look after walking over to the entryway “You were my favorite sister. Now she’s going to be impossible.”

“You mean she didn’t know?” Clara rolled her eyes, tearing off a piece of chocolate chip pancake and eating it cold. “For a witch, and a psychic, she’s so clueless.”

Following Violet out to the courtyard, I found her standing in front of the fairy on the far side of the fountain, grinning like the cat who got the cream. She propped her hands on her hips.

“You were so in love with me the whole time.”

“She bears a slight resemblance to you.”

“She’s me. Exactly me. She’s even got a smirky smile that looks like me, not Clara.”

Crossing my arms, I pretended nonchalance. “You’re delusional.”

“Admit it.” She hopped from one foot to the other.

“It’s fucking freezing out here, Violet. Come here.” I started toward her around the fountain.

She maneuvered away from me, circling to the other side. “Just say I’m right.”

“I’m not saying that.” I juked her and ran around the other side.

She squealed and yelled, “Say I’m right!”

I caught her around the waist and swept her off her feet, tossed her into the air, then caught her in both arms, knees dangling over my left arm. She cackled with laughter, flinging her head back with unfettered joy. The sound lit something inside me, rekindling that deeply rooted warmth we’d found in the bedroom last night.

I leaned down and nipped her exposed neck, smiling against her tender skin while striding toward the house.

She wrapped her hands around my neck and sing-songed, “Just say it!”

“Okay, fine, fine,” I whined begrudgingly. I stopped on the stoop right in front of the door and hauled her closer till I could press my forehead to hers, then I whispered, “I was so in love with you.” I closed my eyes, admitting words that had terrified me months ago and now only made my heart soar with bliss. “The whole time.” I opened my eyes to make sure she heard me. “And it might’ve taken you two years to figure out what I already knew, but I would’ve waited longer for you.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Well…” She swallowed hard and pulled on a longer lock of hair at my nape. “I might be as clueless as my sister says I am, but my eyes are wide open now.”

“Yeah?” I set her gently on the welcome mat and rested my hands on her hips. “And what do you see?”

“I see…” She tilted her head, her crazy bed-hair so wild and untamed like the woman herself that it made my heart hurt. Her hands skated up my shoulders to rest on the sides of my neck. “My man.”

“That’s right, you do.” I opened the door behind her then popped her behind. “Now go eat breakfast before you earn another spanking.”

She marched through the door then tossed me a sexy look over her shoulder with a low, “Yes, sir.”

When I growled, she jumped right back into my arms and cupped a hand against my ear to whisper, “I really want breakfast because I’m starving. But I want another spanking later, too.”

Then she was swishing back toward the kitchen, my T-shirt just barely covering her fine ass. That woman could twist my heart and my dick into knots so fast, I never knew what I wanted to do more, cuddle her or fuck her. What I did know was that now we had plenty of time for both.

And no matter what happened from here on out, what trials and tribulations life threw at us, one truth would never change. She was mine. I was hers. And that’s all that mattered.