Quinn Beaumont has been in my life almost as long as I can remember. My best friend, I would do anything for her.
She’s the kind of girl that every guy wants and needs. The kind of girl who lights up a room the moment she steps into it. So when she tells me she’s in trouble, that she’s just had her heart broken, I rush to her side desperate to make her happy.
This can’t be real. I can’t be her. I can’t be in her body.
Magic is nothing but a stupid trick, or so I thought. But what I meant to be a little distraction from heartbreak has turned into an object lesson in being careful what you wish for. With a flash we’ve swapped bodies and now we’ve got to walk a mile in each other’s shoes.
And I don’t know how she takes a single step in hers. Her senses are blazing with life, with excitement and energy. I feel so much in her body that it leaves me gasping and desperate for more.
I have rules about this, about her. I can’t get close without falling in love, but it’s hard to stay distant from her when I’m living in her skin. When I’m feeling her desires. When I’m wanting more.
I’ve been in love with Quinn Beaumont for as long as I can remember, certain all the while that she could never be in love with me. Now I’m in her skin and closer than I’ve ever been before. And if I’m not careful it’s going to hurt.
If I’m not careful I’m going to lose her and myself at the very same time.
Excerpt
“Magic isn’t real,” I mutter under my breath with as much certainty as I can muster, doing my best to ignore the fact that my voice is higher and lighter and more musical than I’m used to, “Magic isn’t real.”
The words echo in my mind and I try to embrace them even as I try to push away from myself. Twisting around I curl my feet underneath me and stand up. Well I try to.
Really I center my balance in wholly the wrong place and I basically only accomplish a half bunny hop before faceplanting into the ground. Scrambling forward my dress hikes up around me until it’s bunched up around my waist and I feel the cool kiss of air on the bare cheeks of my ass, feel my chest pressing into the wood floor below.
Nothing on my chest, nothing covering my nipples. The dress I mean but it’s so slight and light and cool that it feels like nothing at all. And the air on my bare ass confirms that I’ve got nothing on below the waist either. Does Quinn seriously go around wearing no underwear? No, that’s gotta be some kind of illusion as well because there is no way for me to know that unless I was in her body and I’m not in her body because magic isn’t real.
None of this is real.
None of this could possibly be real.
I can hear my heart pounding as I push up onto hands and knees. Figuring I’m safer the closer I am to the ground I crawl myself over to the front hall of her apartment and push up until I’m resting and wobbling in a half-seated position. From behind me there is a shuffle and a deep manly groan and I glance over and spy my body slowly moving himself up to a seated position as well and I blink twice before slowly turning my head forward and locking my eyes onto the sight in front of me.
Quinn has a full-length mirror by the door. She checks herself in it every time before she goes out. I’m staring into that mirror right now and I’m not seeing me, I’m seeing only her.
“Fuck.”
Magic isn’t real. I know this, I’m certain of it. The closest you get is illusions and lies cast by magicians who make a living off of tricking people.
Magic isn’t real but when I move my hand Quinn lifts hers in the reflection. Magic isn’t real but when I speak it’s her lips that move and her voice that comes out. Magic isn’t real, but the pounding in my heart doesn’t sound like my own.
Magic isn’t real, but I’ve somehow become Quinn Beaumont.
And in her body, I feel everything.