Chapter 31

Cole

Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

“ M r. Aidoneus?” A gangly early-twenty-something kid carrying a handful of branded bags stood on his doorstep, looking more concerned than he probably should at being face-to-face with his employer. “Daeira sent me with all of this.”

“Yeah, kid, c’mon in and set it down.” Cole winced when he realized that he should probably know the intern’s name but definitely didn't. He only knew him as “that kid who fucked up the appellate brief’s formatting, which the paralegals had to stay late to fix.” Honestly, calling him “kid” seemed less rude than calling him an imbecile.

The intern walked in, his head swiveling around to take in what he could see of the house. “It’s a nice hou—holy shit.”

Cole’s head cranked around at the worshipful tone he heard in the kid’s voice so quickly that his back cracked. In seconds, he saw what had caused the response: Evie bounding down the stairs, wearing nothing but his shirt. The kid’s eyes were glued to her curves so lovingly framed by the worn fabric. Fury burned through his veins that this barely grown asshole was ogling his witch . How fucking dare he ? A growl rolled out of his mouth, but the little prick wasn’t paying attention to the fact that his employer was about to murder him.

Cole stalked past the kid to Evie, shoulder checking him hard enough that he staggered. With the intern's attention diverted, Cole wrapped himself around Evie, pushing her into the wall and pressing a forceful, claiming kiss to her lips, one that left them both breathless and Evie’s eyes glazed when he finally pulled away.

The kid was still staring at Evie, eyes wide as dinner plates.

I’m going to scoop this fucker’s eyes out with a melon baller. Magic was flooding through him rapidly. Every passing second, he lost track of himself and why it would be a bad idea to murder some kid in his foyer a bit more. His vision was blurring when a small hand rested delicately on his chest, a soothing stroke of familiar yet foreign magic rubbing alongside his.

“Cole.” All Evie said was his name. Just his name in a soft tone meant for his ears only. She might as well have shouted it for how much it caught his attention.

Cole’s legendary temper was still redlined, but his magic faded enough that he wasn’t seeing the world in vibrant shades of blue. When he spoke, though, his voice was distorted with rage. “Set the bags down, and get out. When you get back to the office, pack your shit up—you’re fired.”

“But—”

“I thought I was pretty clear, kid. Get the fuck out.” He heard a tiny laugh from the region of his chest, but when he looked down, Evie’s face didn’t have a hint of a smile on it.

The kid—Cole was fairly certain his name was Dylan, now that he thought about it—dropped the bags and sprinted out of the house, barely remembering to close the door behind him.

“So that was your surprise, hmm?” Evie peered up at him, the smile she had been suppressing breaking through. “Scaring the absolute life out of a child because he ogled me?”

Cole growled at her, pressing her back into the wall. “And I would do it again.”

She laughed, her face breaking into an open expression of pure joy to accompany her bright, happy sound currently lighting him up inside. “I’m yours, handsome. I know it. That kid knows it. Mother of witches, the corpses across the street know it.” The hand still resting on his chest slid up to cup his cheek. “You have nothing to worry about.”

He rolled his head to the side, kissing the inside of her palm. “I’m well aware that I have nothing to worry about from your end, Angel, but it doesn’t make me want to rip their entrails out any less just because they won’t get anywhere with you.”

Evie licked her lips. “That level of Neanderthal shouldn’t be attractive, but it is. Whatever. If you have to gut somebody for looking at me, just do it in a place that’s easy to clean and where I can’t see it, I guess?” She glanced around him at the stack of bags laying haphazardly on the floor, courtesy of the now long-gone intern. “So… what’s in the bags?”

“That’s actually part of the surprise,” he responded, taking her hand and walking her into the entryway. “They’re clothes for you.”

She tilted her head at him in inquiry.

“Just enough to get you through the next few days until I can take you shopping for real clothes that you like.” He gathered the bags by the handles and picked them up in one hand, leading Evie back up the stairs to the master suite and setting everything down on the chaise lounge in the dressing room. “If anything doesn’t fit, we’ll take it back.”

“Why do I need clothes?” Evie asked, eyebrows raised.

Dumbass. Should have led with that. “That’s the other part of the surprise.” Nerves threaded through him as he realized that he was about to ask the woman of his dreams out on a date. “I wanted to take you out. Like on a date. If you want to go.” Where the hell was his legendary charm? He had been smoother in kindergarten when he asked Cecile Fontenot to be his girlfriend and presented her with a Ring Pop as offering. Come to think of it… would a Ring Pop have made this whole thing less awkward? No, that was crazy.

Evie’s mouth curled in a stunning smile, her eyes warm on his. “I would love to go on a date with you, Cole.”

“Really?” He almost winced as the eager, surprised word shot out of his mouth. Have some self-respect, man .

“Yes, really.” Evie glanced over at her new clothes. “How should I dress for it?”

“Just pick whatever feels right to you as long as it’s comfortable. Honestly, you could wear a burlap sack, and I would be happy with it.” He gestured towards the lounge. “Fortunately, I’m sure we've got something a little bit better here for you.”

Evie went on tiptoe. “Thank you for sending someone to shop for me, love.”

His heart pounded at the endearment that slipped off her tongue so quickly he wasn’t sure she knew she said it. When he spoke again, his voice was raspy. “ De rien, mon bel ange .” He stepped back as she reached to pull off her shirt. “I better go before you get undressed. I won’t be held responsible for my actions if I see you naked.”

Her eyes glittered at that, her fingers toying with the hem of the fabric. “Well, then, you better move fast.”

Cole grunted at her but turned and walked down the stairs as quickly as he could, each step a battle with himself. He wanted to turn right around and go back to her, carry her to the bed, and not leave it for days. Instead, he forced himself down the staircase and into the kitchen, leaning against the fridge door and looking to the ceiling for strength. He lost track of time just standing there in frustrated meditation.

A subtle cough drew his attention, and he looked over to see Evie standing a few feet away from him in a black sundress with bold graffiti-style sunflowers in yellows and burgundies splattered across it. It cut low across her chest and flared out at her hips, draping softly down her legs and ending just above her knees. Her feet were encased in slip-on flats in a burgundy that complemented the sunflowers on her dress.

Holy hell . He was the luckiest asshole in the world to have this goddess interested, much less wanting to go on a date with him. She deserved to have him fall to his knees at her feet and give her anything and everything she could ever want. What he did instead was walk over to her and give her a light kiss, fighting against the urge to deepen it and plaster himself against her. “You look stunning, Angel.”

A blush stained her cheeks, and it was all he could do not to skip everything and just propose marriage to her on the spot. “Thank you.” She raked her eyes over him. “Do you need to get changed too? I don’t know….”

He glanced down and frowned. He hadn’t realized he was still wearing his sweats and t-shirt. “Yeah, I should probably get dressed. I’ll be back in five.”

Evie nodded, her eyes trailing to the garden as he walked away, bounding up the stairs and into the master closet. He changed quickly into a pair of worn black jeans and a plain white t-shirt, throwing a well-loved green cable knit sweater over it all and tugging on a pair of black boots, quickly tying the laces before darting back downstairs.

When he strolled back into the kitchen, the back doors were thrown open, the brisk February winds carrying the sweet smell of coming rain and flowering trees into the house. Through the doors, he could see Evie, just feet away from the Crepe Myrtles in the backyard. The were bent towards her, their limbs wafting towards her and gently stroking her face. Her murmurs carried to him across the paved way, loud enough for him to hear her melodic voice but quiet enough he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

A long vine trailed across her waist, and, for a moment, Cole forgot it was a plant. All he could see was something touching his Evie, and the world narrowed to a blue-tinged scope.

“Hey, hey!” Evie’s raised voice broke through his rage. “Stop growling at the trees! You’re scaring them.”

“Well, tell the trees to stop fondling my witch, and I’ll stop growling at them.” She gave him a long-suffering look. “No?”

“No,” she scolded. “You know you can’t threaten everything that looks at me for longer than two seconds, right?”

“I can, Angel, and I absolutely will. With zero guilt.”

Evie rolled her eyes, and his hand itched to spank that perfect ass for her sass. All he had to do was bend her over the outside table and pull up her sundress… he could practically feel her warm flesh under the palm of his hand. It took an inhuman amount of effort for him to rein himself in, pull himself back from the idea of punishing the brattiness out of her. He closed his eyes. Breathed in deeply. When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him, her brow furrowed in confusion.

With a smile, he extended his hand to her. She placed hers lightly in his grasp, and they walked back into the house, Cole closing, locking, and warding the back doors behind them. Then he walked her through the sitting room and out the front door, repeating his protective measures on this side of the house.

“So where are we going?” she asked as they strolled towards St. Charles.

He glanced down at his curious little witch, her hand wrapped in his, even as she reached towards the trees around them, her touch trailing gently over the trunks of every one. A small smile sat on her face as each one greeted her in their own way. His heart squeezed at the sight of her just walking next to him. Being next to him. He had dreamed versions of this moment almost all his life, never believing it would ever happen. To have her here with him was a dream come fucking true. He braced himself—this was the biggest deal of his life, one he had to close. There was zero room for error here. “I thought you might like to see one of the green spaces in New Orleans.”

Evie’s eyes went wide as her head snapped towards him, the trees around them all but forgotten. “There are green spaces? Here? In the city?” she demanded excitedly.

“ Ouais ,” he responded, barely noticing the French slang rolling off his tongue. Before Evie, he almost never used the tongue that his mother taught him unless he was pissed off. Around Evie, though, he found himself lapsing into it more and more, realizing the happiness of speaking his mother’s elegant language to the woman he hoped to make his forever. “Nothing quite so grand as where your coven lived but still beautiful and historically significant. Does that sound good to you, Angel?”

She was practically vibrating with excitement next to him. “Yes,” she squealed. “I would love to see it!”

That one thrilled sound did it. Nothing in his life—not graduating in the top 10% of his class at Tulane, not passing the state bar, none of his professional accomplishments, not even his charitable ones—could make him feel quite so victorious as making Evie this happy.

“How are we going to get there?”

The light changed, and they strolled across the busy street to the median splitting St. Charles. “You seemed interested in the streetcar when we were driving in, so I figured that you might have fun riding it rather than driving. We will have to walk a little bit once we get off.”

“We’re going to ride the trolley?”

“Sweetheart, please don’t ever call the streetcar a trolley again. I’m pretty sure there’s still a city ordinance on the books making it a criminal offense to call them anything other than streetcars.”

“Okay, fine, the streetcar,” she drawled at him in a passing mimicry of his own accent. “We can ride it?”

“We can.” A low horn blew, and he looked over, seeing the faded green streetcar making its way towards them. “There it is.” Fortunately, the stop closest to the house wasn’t a crowded one so they were able to get on, pay in cash because he still hadn’t replaced his melted cell phone, and take a seat on one of the wooden benches next to a grimy, partially open window. Cole saw all of the imperfections of the transportation, after having lived in New Orleans all his life and being subject to countless streetcar-related traffic issues. With Evie sitting next to him, though, her eyes darting around excitedly, taking in every single inch of the historic streetcar, he couldn’t remember a single negative thing about them.

The streetcar jerked to a start, the entire body of the vehicle shaking with every move. Evie was bouncing next to him. He suspected it was only partially due to the uneven, jostling drive, given that her eyes were taking everything in, and she was maintaining an almost stream-of-consciousness-style conversation about their surrounding, which seemed to require no input from him.

His lips quirked upward in satisfaction. She's happy.

With each stop, the seats around them filled, but that didn’t stop his little witch, who was still pointing out everything she saw through the window to him. They were closing in on Canal Street when she turned to him and said quietly, “I’ve never seen this many people all at once before.”

“Is it too much?” he asked, tightening his grip around her shoulders.

“No, not at all!” she exclaimed. “It’s wonderful. I just… I never knew the world could look like this. I mean, I’ve seen photographs, but it doesn’t really give you the full idea of what it’s like. It must have been incredible to grow up in this place.”

“Yes and no.” He thought back to his childhood. “Don't get me wrong, New Orleans is an amazing city, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. But there’s a fine line between wealth and poverty here and really no one living in between the two extremes. I grew up in vastly different circumstances than I live in now. My parents weren’t poor, but they were definitely working class. I grew up a little over a mile from where we’re going in one of the most culturally diverse areas of the city. Even though we were all different, we were still family and shared our food, our stories, our lives with each other in a way that I’ve never experienced where I live now.” Chuckling, he grimaced. “Or maybe that’s just the nostalgia of a little kid who missed his parents and his home when they weren’t there anymore.”

Evie leaned into him, petting his chest comfortingly. “Why can’t it be both?”

He tilted his head at her. “Why can’t what be both?”

“Why can’t it be both nostalgic and true?” Her stormy grey eyes were thoughtful. “You can crave the familiarity of your childhood while still knowing it’s true that you were close to everyone in your neighborhood, even if you weren’t actual family to most of them. Just because something’s nostalgic doesn’t mean it can’t also be real.”

Cole blinked at her rapidly. He was doing that a lot around Evie, but she kept surprising him at every turn. And the insight that she just gave him about how her mind worked? Fuck, that was hot. Hot enough that he was now sitting in the middle of a crowded trolley, his dick half-hard, and needing nothing more than to kiss the sense right out of her. He was leaning down to do just that when the streetcar screeched to a halt at the end of the line.

“Last stop,” the operator called. “Time to get off, folks.”

People streamed past them off the bus, tourists garbed in tacky t-shirts and beads—even though Mardi Gras was still weeks away—mixed in among the professionals wearing headphones in a last-ditch effort to block out the noise. Once everyone was off, Cole stood, pulling Evie up with him, and ushering her down the aisle ahead of him.

Evie stuttered to a stop as soon as they stepped off the streetcar, and he couldn’t blame her. There was nothing quite like Canal, even late in the afternoon on a random Wednesday. Colorful townhomes and ultra-modern skyscrapers lined the street, fighting for dominance. Neon blazed everywhere from the bar signs to the traffic lights, and cars filled the road as far as the eye could see. The noise was a dull roar, a symphony of horns, streetcars, people, and music, both from street performers surrounding them and the piped-in bar tunes.

Cole wrapped his arm around Evie’s waist, moving her down the sidewalk so that the people trying to get on the streetcar going back towards the Garden District didn’t decide it was a good idea to fight her. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed her hand dart up, quickly wiping something from her face. Leaning down, he asked, “You good? We need to head home?”

She whirled in his arms, palms flying up to rest on his chest. Her eyes were glistening. “Don’t you dare, Cole Aidoneus. This is stunning.” A tear slid down her face. He traced his thumb over her cheek, worry coursing through him. “They're happy tears, I promise. I never thought I would ever see anything like this in my life, and I got overwhelmed by how wonderful it all is. Please don’t take me home yet,” she pleaded.

What she didn’t know was that he would take her anywhere she wanted, no questions asked. And when she requested something in that pleading tone like she wasn’t used to getting what she wanted or was scared to ask for it? He was powerless to do anything but agree. “Not going home,” he confirmed, his heart pulsing as her face lit up. “We’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us, though.”

She looked almost amused at his words. “I regularly run through a forest,” she reminded him gently. “Is it likely to be more distance than that?”

He snorted. “It most is definitely not. Alright then, witchling, you ready?”

She nodded enthusiastically, and he guided her down Canal, taking a right on to Rampart Street. Her head swiveled with each step they took, taking in everything around them as they passed historic buildings now housing local businesses, more realtors than he could count, dive bar after dive bar, and the tall green lampposts lining the center of the street.

Finally, they reached Arch Armstrong, the tall white archway designating the public entry to Louis Armstrong Park. Through it, the brass sculpture celebrating the tradition of the second line was visible. Surrounding it all were massive trees, live oaks and bald cypresses all holding court over Congo Square.

Evie walked in through the archway, running her fingers along the archway, the brass statue of the jazz musicians, before looking longingly at the trees surrounding them. Before she could make her way to them, she hissed out his name on a breath. “Cole.” Her eyes found his, and he was shocked to see them drowning in radiant blue. “There’s so much death here.”

“Yeah, this land has a lot of history associated with it.” That was a nice way of putting it. “I didn’t think it would hit you this hard, though.” He could feel the magic rising in her, his own power and body responding immediately to her. Fuck. This is bad . King of the relaxed date, that was definitely him.

Without any sort of instruction from his brain, he found himself plastered against her, his hand tangled in her hair, tugging her head back so he could ravage her mouth. His tongue stroked along hers as her hands dragged down his chest and around his waist. Jesus Christ .

“Cole.” Her voice was needy against his lips, her hips rocking against him. “Please.”

He pulled back, breath ragged. As he cupped her face in his hands, an almost painful electric shock tingled through his fingers. “Angel, I’m not going to fuck you in a public park. Not for the first time at least.” The idea of his mouth planted over hers, tasting her cries while he plunged in and out of her tight little body in one of the dark unused rooms in the park theatre was almost more than he could bear. The theatre, though . That was an idea. They could work off this overwhelming desire then go back to their sexless afternoon together.

Nope, that’s not going to work, dumbass , he thought even as he dipped his head back to kiss Evie. It was practically guaranteed that, if he took her to a dark room to relieve their ache by finger fucking her and jerking himself off, he would end up balls deep inside of her before he could even get a hand on his own dick. And, as much as he would maim, torture, and kill somebody to make that happen, it had to wait. She was going to choose this. Not be magically roofied into it.

With a groan, Cole tugged himself away, their lips separating slowly.

Evie whimpered lustily, nibbling at her kiss-swollen bottom lip.

“Not like this, mon ange .”

She closed her eyes for a second but nodded in agreement. “I know.”

“Jesus Christ, you two, get a room,” somebody yelled, the unexpected shout breaking the tension.

Evie clapped a hand over her mouth to smother her giggle, but the sound poured through her fingers anyways.

“You still want to see the park?” Cole asked, shaking his head in a half-hearted attempt to clear his vision of blue and his brain of the desire fogging it.

“Yes,” Evie responded immediately. “But can you tell me about it while we stand here for a few minutes?” At his confused look, she added, “My legs are a little wobbly right now.”

“Fuck, baby, you can’t say things like that right now. I’m barely holding my shit together here. That just makes me want to drag you to the first private place I can find.” Evie’s lips twisted in a wry grin, letting him know that she was perfectly okay with him doing exactly that. “No.” He pointed a finger at her. “Absolutely not.”

“Okay,” she muttered. “Even though I know exactly what I want, and I don’t need to wait to make any decision.” At his pointed glare, she raised her hands in surrender. “Fine. Fine. Yes, sir, I’ll behave.”

His dick twitched behind his zipper, and he wondered if his witchy temptress knew just how fucking hot the idea of her calling him sir actually was to him. “Good girl,” he said. Her eyes flashed at him, that rosy blush settling back over her cheekbones. “Now, c’mon, Angel. Let me show you the park.”