Don’t lie. He didn’t care much for lying anyway, so he took the path of least resistance: a whole lot of leaving out the details. James linked onto her wrists, his thumbs making circles on the bones. “I’ll live. It’s like a flu,” he told her, “Gone in no time.” And when he was sprawled out in a sweat-soaked conjuring hangover, he wouldn’t have to think about Celeste running around the desert with rib fractures and pneumonia, not driving herself to a hospital.
Feeling as rough as he did, James wasn’t blind to the fact that a dark-haired girl who was impulsive, a little frayed around the edges, distractingly good-looking, and had a black sense of humor -- in other words, his type -- was looking at his mouth. Not thirty minutes ago, she was swallowing valium and crying on his chair, and then he opened up a channel into her torso. Magic made people vulnerable and the spell was still warm.
He let himself have one thing, the pad of his thumb on her lips.