“Because I can’t keep my hands off you and when I touch you, all I want is to be inside you,” he says instantly.
Oh. “Well, I won’t argue with that,” I say shyly.
“Tomorrow, I propose we don’t leave the bed. Do that bubble thing you just did, and we can just stay in it until you have to be back on Thursday. I don’t care if the world ends while we are away, I just want to be with you and have you all to myself.”
“Now, I definitely won’t argue with that. Although…”
“What?”
“I told Cole we would go somewhere else. It’s just weird, if we stay here.”
“We will go to Ponte. It’s perfect.”
I nod. “That’s what he said.”
He looks at me in surprise. “He did?”
“Yes. He knows the score, CK, and he wants me to be happy. I just wish the two of you would get along.”
He gives me a searching look. “I’ll try harder,” he says eventually. “I want you to be happy too.”
“I know. Thank you for saying that,” I say, casually trailing my hands up and down his chest as he has been tracing small circles on my thighs. I can’t keep my hands off him, either.
“So, how do we do as we have been requested?”
“It’s easy enough, but, I’m a bit worried.” I chew my lip.
“Why? Is it dangerous?” he asks, concerned.
“No, no, that’s not why I am worried.”
“Why then?”
“I…I’m not ready…if it works sooner than they think,” I admit reluctantly.
“Oh, Aefre. It seemed clear to me that they had been trying for quite a while. They just need us to get the ball rolling. She wanted this, the Future you. You saw that. Who is to say that Future you isn’t you in a year's time?”
“I suppose. It was so strange seeing us like that, wasn’t it?”
“Happy and so much in love, completely in sync with one another and married? Yes, I must admit it was quite strange. But it was perfect. They are perfect. I cannot wait until that is us.” He kisses me softly and I want to ask him about Sebastian, but he won’t have any answers for his future self’s actions, and it will probably ruin the mood.
“Shall we then?” he asks, pulling away.
“Yes. We need to share blood and then I will say the ritual and you just need to repeat it. It’s in Latin so you won’t have trouble following it.”
“I should hope not, seeing as it is my native language,” he says sardonically, and I have the grace to look apologetic.
“Sorry, I just meant that it is one of the few spells in the Grimoire that is in Latin. Most of them are in a Demonic text that I don’t understand and I’m not sure that I can perform them correctly without instruction.”
“From Xane,” he snarls, and I brush his face with my hand.
“Shush,” I say quietly and take a few seconds to try and locate the undoing of the curse spell, which my brain finds, but again it’s in text I don’t understand. I quickly mutter it in my head, hoping that I have it right and hoping that Future me knows what she is talking about.
“You will have to slash my palm,” I tell him. “I don’t know how to get hold of that dagger that cuts me.”
“I’ll do yours if you do mine,” he says with a smile.
“Deal,” I say and hold my palm out. He smiles apologetically and slashes a deep, agonizing cut across my hand. I flinch and repeat the action on him but with none of the pain for him. Lucky fucker.