L. Banks: My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

When his kiss became more aggressive, she returned it in kind, knowing full well this was foolhardy. All the nights that they'd come close to breaking their vow to wait began to come crashing down on her. The ache he'd produced within her was a fire that hadn't burned out since the day they'd met.

Each near miss had only made it worse. Each chaperoned get-together, dating in a church group from campus, now made her ready to shriek. Each time they'd gone to either his or her apartment, supposedly to watch movies, they had ended up in a passionate tussle of way-too-heavy petting on the sofa, the movie neglected. The past two months, they'd both agreed not to tempt fate by doing that, cit­ing church tenets as the reason—but there was more to it than that. Then he'd messed up and given her a ring during a quiet, unplanned dinner for two. That had almost broken them down. But today . . . she couldn't take it. Her willpower was gone.

"Jefferson, we can't," she gasped, stopping the next kiss and lean­ing her forehead on his chest. She could feel his heart thudding against her skull and connecting to the thud of desire between her legs. His USC T-shirt clung to his hard torso, dampened.

"Baby, I don't know how much more of this I can take. . . ."

The fact that Odelia had used his full given name made him nervous. That was a no, for sure. Right now, he couldn't hear that word. He didn't care what his momma and her brothers promised would hap­pen if he ever, in his life, hooked up with a Hatfield woman.

"You know there's no sense in us getting ourselves all worked up," she said breathlessly. "That's why I stood up and got off the darned blanket."

"I can't help it," he said, kissing the crown of Odelia's head, pant­ing. "Ain't nobody gonna see us. Won't nobody know. We could fly to Vegas and get married tonight."

"The woods have eyes," she said, resting both hands on his shoulders.

"Then let's go back to your place," he said, hugging her to him hard, still unable to stop touching her. He had to make love to Odelia or heart Failure was probable. It was already nearly impossible to breathe, he wanted her so badly. His Family could conjure all they wanted, but this woman was the one. He refused to let them throw bones and chase her away like all the others before her.

"We can't fly to Vegas ... I know you spent everything you had on this ring."

"Don't worry about it," he murmured as his hands slid down her back and began to caress her bottom.

Just feeling the rise of her firm behind beneath his palms made him shudder and close his eyes when her tight butt muscles clenched to the rhythm of his touch. Who cared if he was two months late in his rent and had used the last of his book money, food money, and student loan living expenses to put a rock on her hand—she was worth it. It didn't matter that he was currently flat busted. The con­dition was temporary, any ole way. She didn't need to worry. When he turned twenty-five in a couple of months, he'd come into a little inheritance money that had been put in trust for him by his dearly departed father. He'd use that to start their lives, buy their first home. Never in a million years would he take that home to plow it into a conjuring business with his uncles. Odelia Hatfield was worth every penny he had to his name.

His better judgment in shreds, his body continued to move against her softness, stoking the ache that swept through his groin and radiated sheer agony through his abdomen. They were not gonna force him to come back home and join the family conjuring busi­ness, in exchange for them lifting the celibacy spell.

Try as he might to forget the threat, the more Odelia moaned and yielded to his affection, the more his mother's words rang in his ears: You're young, baby, and sooner or later you gonna need to get that spell lifted or lose yo' natchel mind. It was your uncles' idea, not mine. Don't shoot the messenger. Your uncles was jus' angling for a compromise, suga'. So, meet 'em halfway; go on to school, and then why don't you jus' stop fighting your birthright and come on back to us after college and work with the family, like family should. Marry a nice girl from down home who understands our ways.

It was extortion, pure and simple.

Jefferson tried to push it all out of his mind as he deepened the tender kisses that Odelia's lush mouth demanded. So what if the clan claimed he was the strongest conjurer that had been born into their Family in generations? How in the world could he bring a soft, gentle creature like her home to his insane kin? She'd bolt for the hills, and he couldn't live without her. Odelia promised a normal, or­dinary life, with normal, happy children. He'd be a big attorney one day and would figure out how to get a restraining order on his en­tire family. He'd sue them for criminal trespass! Paranormal home invasion.

His hands soon found Odelia's face, and he cradled it as he stared into her eyes, speaking in a low, urgent tone and lobbying hard for his cause. "You and me are meant to be, 'Delia. What are the chances that we're both only children? You lost your momma on the same day and year I lost my daddy, we're even born on the same day, July twenty-first, and just so happened to be at the same university at the same time from the same part of the world, graduating the same year, and both feeling things the way we do? We practically breathe the same breath . . . can finish each other's sentences. Girl, we have the same fa­vorite color, sky blue, and like the same music, believe the same things, and both want to be together like nobody's business; what are the odds? Tell me this ain't meant to be." His argument was hard to deny as she stared into his eyes. They had a hypnotic quality to them that she'd seen before but just couldn't place. And the things his touch did to her body just didn't make any kinda sense. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a rush of breath exited where words failed. He pulled that same air into his mouth through his barely parted lips. Just seeing him do that made her nipples sting so sharply that she crushed her breasts against him, forcing him to wince and close his eyes.

"I know," she finally said, swallowing thickly as the ache sent slingshot spasms of desire between her thighs. "We're a perfect match."

He nodded. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. Can't nothing break us up."

"My people got Funny ways," she said, practically swooning as his palms slid up her arms until his fingers were able to tease the edge of her tank top. She could barely catch her breath while his fingertips danced beneath the straps and across the swell of breasts, but not dar­ing to go beyond the fabric border.

"Mine do, too," he admitted in a rough whisper. "You wanna go to my place? It's gonna rain."

She could only nod and gently stroke his cheek. He had no idea how serious funny ways could be. Her folks took the meaning to a whole new level. Yet he'd made the statement about the weather without even looking at the sky, just like her daddy always did. Heavy-laden clouds had indeed formed, now pregnant with pending doom. Yes, it was gonna thunder and lightning and rain cats and dogs, and all hell was gonna break loose, once her family found out she was dating a McCoy. But marry one?

Odelia almost cringed at the thought but kept her expression serene as she stared at him with love. They'd put the hoodoo on her Jefferson, would throw every conjure in the mojo book at him, just to get back at his Family For possessing the wrong gene pool and be­cause of an old Hatfield versus McCoy land score unsettled. IF she slept with him, they'd know.

"We can't go back to your place. . . . You know what's likely to happen if we do." It was all a conjangled web of spell versus coun­terspell. Her aunties had cast a conjure that only a legit marriage could shield. They'd promised her that they had from the moment she'd begun to bud with puberty . . . and the insidious roots that had been worked promised that if any boy went too far, he'd fall dead away. It was their insurance policy that she'd return to the fold, bring her dead momma's inheritance with her to add to the Hatfield larder, and work alongside them one day. She believed them; her aunties didn't play. She'd never tested the theory, until Jefferson Mc­Coy made it hard not to. The way he was looking at her now made it next to impossible to hold the line, even For his own safety.