Spicy Little Curses

by J.T. Geissinger

“How’d you know my name?” The same way I knew her face. Knew her scent. Knew the husky-sweet sound of her voice, though I’d never met her before this moment. I’d been seeing her in my dreams for months.

The second she touched my skin, everything stopped. Time. The pull of gravity. The whistle of the wind outside. The hum of the city beyond the walls faded until nothing remained but the sound of my thundering heart.

She tasted like sweet dreams and bad decisions. And I was already in too deep.

I drank deeply and took what she was offering. I felt like a starving man. Like I had no choice.

The little psychopath was actually bewitching.

I didn’t mean to follow her. Didn’t mean to slam the door, to back her against the desk, to devour her like a man possessed.

Now shut your pretty mouth and make me forget I don’t like you.”

She wasn’t a stranger anymore. Or an adversary. Or even the key to unlocking a curse. She was mine. And she was always meant to be mine, no matter how impossible that seemed to either one of us.

There was no going back now. I’d kill to protect her.

The fireflies had followed us out, drifting lazily into the sky above the tomb. But even their ethereal light and all the winking stars in the sky couldn’t compete with her beauty. Her mouthy, sassy, exasperating-but-somehow-endearing beauty that I fervently hoped to be able to gaze at for the rest of my life.