“I have a set of them. They belonged to my grandfather. He was a barber in his day.”
“Aha! So it has meaning for you?” Rita questions him further.
“Yeah, quite a bit actually. My grandfather taught me how to shave with them when I was in my teens.”
“A gift that holds meaning given to one who means something to you can be a powerful thing, especially so if the gift is bestowed upon a person with magic,” Noreen interjects sagely.
“Meaning…” Finn prompts.
“Meaning Tegan is your close friend and she has magic, which in turn means that when you gifted her the blade there was an exchange of power, or of skill to be exact. Through the giving of the gift you have also given her your talent for using it,” Noreen explains further.
Finn turns to me with a huge grin. “Score! That’ll save me the time teaching you how to use it.”
“Handy,” I agree, smiling back and bending over to pick it up from off the floor.
When I glance at Rita I see her shaking her head at me and smiling. “Every day it’s something new with you. Tomorrow we’ll probably discover that you can time travel or something.”
“That, too, would be handy,” I tell her, closing the razor and slipping it back inside my pocket.
“Can we get back to the topic at hand?” Ethan requests coldly. He seems annoyed that the attention is on me, or maybe that I’m being praised.
“Of course,” says Gabriel. “I plan to continue researching this matter. Perhaps there’s a way for us to break the connection Theodore has with hell. If we can do that then it’ll be one less thing he has to use in his favour.”
“Me and Alvie can help with that,” Rita adds.
“Thank you,” says Gabriel.
“Well, if that’s everything, we have a long night ahead of us. We better get moving,” says Delilah, rising from her seat. Lucas, Ethan and Rita follow her from the room. Gabriel heads upstairs to his room and Noreen and Alvie go out to the RV. That leaves me still sitting on the counter, alone in the kitchen with Finn.
He grins. “No need to thank me.”
“Thank you for what?”
“Uh, for giving you my skills with a blade. Now you’ve got your magic and expert knife-fighting chops. Any opponent you come up against will be hard pushed to get the upper hand with you.”
I laugh. “Yeah, you’re right. I must be in, like, super hero territory now or something.”
“And it’s all thanks to me,” Finn adds. “So, I’ll say it again, how are you going to thank me for this wonderful gift?”
“I dunno, bake you a cake?”
He shakes his head. “I haven’t got much of a sweet tooth. How about another kiss? I don’t think I got enough of one from you last night.”
I do my best to come across cool and unaffected. “If you want one, take one.”
At this he moves to stand before me at the counter, pushing my legs apart and standing in between them. He runs his hands up my thighs, taking in a deep breath. Instead of going straight in for my lips, he brushes his mouth along my jaw line. The sensual touch causes a small moan to escape me. Next he grips the back of my neck, his hands warm and solid against my skin. His mouth moves along to meet mine and he slips his tongue slowly inside.
I grip his shoulders, pulling him in closer. His hand moves from my breast, to my torso, to down between my legs, where his cups me gently over my thin black leggings. Then he starts rubbing, creating this delicious friction. For a little while I get lost in the vibrations that his hand cause to shoot through me. We continue to kiss, slow and languid, but intense. The movement of his hand gets more urgent and our breathing becomes hurried. My entire body explodes seconds later, as I tremble against him in orgasm.
“Fuck,” I hear him swear into my mouth.
I drag my lips from his and bury my face in the warm skin at the hollow of his neck. I love how he smells. Sort of like home, or maybe just homeliness? We stay like that for a while, holding each other, unsure whether to throw caution to the wind and run up the stairs to my bedroom.
“I thought you said you wanted to take things slow,” I mumble against him.
“Yeah, about that, it’s kinda hard sometimes.”
“I agree, it’s very…hard.”