Charmed: Destiny Romance by Emmie Dark

stay the night. We can have breakfast in the morning and then I’ll take you home – or work, or wherever you need to go. And we can talk about when we’re going to do this all again.’
    She stepped into her underwear. ‘Thank you, I appreciate the offer. But I’m going to get moving.’ That damn smile was still on her face. She looked all calm and regal – like she was in a yoga class.
    Maybe she’d missed the point. He stood up and swept her into his arms, pressing her body into his. He knew it’d be more effective if he had a rock-solid hard-on to poke into her belly, but his cock was definitely down for the count. He couldn’t blame it.
    She gasped, but then bit her lip as if to hold the noise inside. He took a deep breath, deliberately ensuring his chest brushed against her nipples – he’d learned she liked that.
    ‘Stay with me,’ he said, before pressing a teasing kiss to her neck.
    For a moment she went limp in his arms, her head falling back to open herself to his caress. But then she stiffened and pushed him away.
    She laughed awkwardly, and busied herself with putting on her clothes. ‘I thought I’d worn you out.’
    ‘You have. Which is why I want to go to sleep with you.’
    She pulled her blouse over her head and wrapped her scarf around her neck. ‘You’ll sleep better if I’m not here. Besides, I’ve got to get to work tomorrow. I need to go home.’ She smiled at him again – all calm and serene and somehow blank.
    The smile was doing him in. He tried to stem the strange sensation rising inside him – if he didn’t know better, he’d call it
panic
. He wasn’t about to beg for her to stay. But some instinct compelled him to give it one more try.
    ‘Why do you have to leave?’
    ‘I just do, Michael. This was our day. And it was wonderful.’ That awful smile slipped for a moment and she swallowed hard. ‘I really hope everything works out for you at work.’
    It felt like goodbye. She hadn’t said those exact words, but it felt that way. And Michael had to grow up and cope with it. Wasn’t this just the kind of life experience that his newly decided maturity was going to have to deal with? He pulled on his boxer shorts and found a T-shirt. ‘I’ll call a cab.’
    They waited together for the cab to arrive, making polite small talk as if they were strangers on a bus, not two people who’d been naked, sweaty and entwined with each other just minutes earlier.
    When the buzzer rang out in the quiet of his apartment, Michael accompanied Mel down to the street – against her protest that he not come out into the cold – and helped her into the cab. He hoped for a farewell
something
 – a kiss? a hug? a genuine facial expression? – but it didn’t come.
    Back in his apartment, chilled to the bone from going out in the icy night air in barely more than his underwear, he stripped off his clothes and sank into bed, pulling the covers around himself.
    His magical day had just had a very
un
magical
ending.
    Mel unlocked the front door of Crystal Gaze wearily the next morning. She was sapped. Her body ached in the most glorious ways possible, but her grey mood meant she couldn’t even enjoy that.
    She sat beside the huge amethyst near the counter, hoping to soak in some of its energy. If she’d thought her life before Michael had lacked spark, that was nothing compared to now. It was as if he’d shone a bright light in her eyes, and now everything else was dimmed in comparison.
    All she could do was put on her practised smile, the one she’d had to paste on last night to be able to say goodbye to him, and deal with customers as they walked in the door. Anything else would just have to wait.
    She was shuffling through the stack of angel cards they left by the register – finding the Michael archangel card turning up far too often for her liking – when Aunt Gertrude waltzed through the door, setting the chimes jangling in a way no one else did. She paused