It… Well, it wasn't like it was intentional. Any of it. I really, honestly, without a doubt did not mean for it to happen. Just like 95% of the time, and basically every other situation I've ever found myself in. Later, I was sure, Jenks would waste no time in buzzing just out of reach in order to oh-so-helpfully point out my talent for just tripping into trouble like some people trip on shoelaces.

Right now, actually, the thought of Jenks laughing at me about this particular situation was downright pleasant, because it would at least mean that it was over.

"I can fix this," I said, hoping my face wasn't really as red as it felt. I blush easily, and fully, and usually knowing that I'm blushing only makes things worse. "Not a problem," I added confidently, but the chuckle that followed was embarrassingly high-pitched.

Ivy Tamwood, of the inky hair and marble elegance, said nothing. I cleared my throat and wriggled a bit, trying to get to a less restricted position, but when Ivy tensed (if it was even possible for her to be more tightly wound…) I froze.

We were lying on the kitchen floor, Ivy sprawled on her back, me awkwardly splayed half across her chest, half on the tile. My right arm was pinned beneath her shoulder, and it really kind of hurt, but I was more focused on the fact that the lower half of my torso was effectively fused to her side. I did have the one free arm, but with my right shoulder incapacitated as it was, I couldn't reach for anything. And anyway, I needed that hand to keep me propped up, because otherwise… Well, otherwise, I'd be plastered against Ivy's front, and we all knew how good an idea that would be.

"Rachel," Ivy said, her quiet husky voice managing to convey utter disgust with just a single word, "what have you done?" This, I'm not ashamed to say, pissed me off.

"What have I done? You're the one that pulled your freaky ninja moves and scared the shit out of me while I was spelling!" Her mouth tightened, nostrils flaring, and it occurred to me that anger was making my heart beat faster. The heart that, you know, was currently pressed against Ivy's arm. Along with my breasts. Shit. I took a deep breath, flushed some more, and calmed myself down. "Ok. It was a simple sticking charm; I can break it."

"So do it," Ivy said, and I noticed she was doing a very good job of not looking at me. Her eyes, I was relieved to see, were brown… but her face was very still and very hard, and I had to fight to keep the sudden surge of panic from leaping up my throat. I closed my own eyes, and concentrated. Then, I allowed to myself as how maybe, just maybe, I had lied.

"Well."

"You can't break this charm?" she asked, and I swallowed. There was a little bit of that good old panic in Ivy's voice now, too.

"It…" My left arm was getting tired, and my shoulder was beginning to cramp, and I had an awful vision of myself toppling down onto Ivy with no warning. "It'll wear off…" Ivy closed her eyes, and I wanted to disappear. Way to go, Rach. Really, good move.

But it really hadn't been my fault! I'd made the charm, which had to be stored in potion form, and was just about to cap it when I'd turned to reach for an amulet and found Ivy right there. So the shriek and the jump and the spilling of sticking potion all over Ivy's side and my front had been perfectly warranted. The instinctive reaching for Ivy to steady myself, okay, had been a little stupid. The just-as-instinctive jerking away to keep the sticking potion from reacting had been the right thing to do; it hadn't been my fault that Ivy had moved at the same time and we'd both lost our balance and crashed to the floor, stuck together like unholy magnets.

All right.

So maybe, overall, it had been my fault.

"Can you just… pull away?" Ivy asked then, evenly, and that was when my arm gave out.

My left arm slid across the floor, and I went from being tilted diagonally above Ivy's chest to being pressed against her, my breasts against hers, my heart pounding into her ribs, my hips sideways across her own.

There was a moment of complete and surreal silence.

"You need to get off me," Ivy said, very softly, and when I met her eyes they were swimming with blackness. She blinked hard, but her gaze kept dropping to my mouth and I found it was rather harder to breathe than it had been a second ago.

"I can't," I said, or tried to say. It came out a sort of croak. Very sexy, I'm sure. Wait. Sexy? I didn't care about being sexy for Ivy. I didn't worry about my voice around her. I didn't…

"Rachel, please," she said, the panic more clear now. Her fear brought mine to life, and I yanked at my trapped right arm. It was stuck hard, and the movement just jerked Ivy's shoulder up off the floor, pressing her even more firmly against me. She gasped, and both her hands came up to grip me at the waist just above the line of my hips. Her fingers, long and strong and deadly, were very warm through my thin shirt. "Hold still," she bit out when I tried to shove myself up with my left hand. "Hold still!" I stopped moving, my heart fast and scared in my throat, my face burning, horribly aware of the heat of her beneath my hips and my stomach and my breasts.

I do not want Ivy. I do not want Ivy. I do not-

She breathed out, shuddering, and it was warm and faintly spicy against my cheek.

"How long?" she asked, the words short and pained.

"A… an hour, maybe?" I replied, and was horrified at how breathy my voice was. Oh, god. I could feel her beneath me, I could feel all of her and I didn't want Ivy Tamwood but by the Turn, I did.

"Okay," she said, visibly fighting to keep her voice calm. Her hands on my waist, those elegant fingers. Her breath on my face.

"Ivy…" I don't know what I was going to say. I don't think I'll ever know. The sound of her name on my lips made Ivy's eyes snap to mine, and there was only the narrowest sliver of brown there. That scared me. Her ragged breathing scared me.

But what scared me most of all was the fact that, my face inches from her own, those dark tormented eyes swirling to black, a sinuous whisper somewhere in my head thought that she had never looked so fucking beautiful.

Maybe that explains what I did next. Maybe that could be twisted and stretched into a decent excuse. Or maybe it was just vintage Rachel Morgan stupidity, straight from the source. Yeah, probably that last one.

I kissed her.

I. Kissed. Ivy.

Her mouth was hard at first, then slack with shock, her black eyes wide enough that I could see white all around the irises. Then her lips firmed and her head lifted off the floor and I stopped paying attention to her eyes.

Ivy's hands slid from my waist to just below my ribcage, pushing up off the floor until, somehow, she slid me up to sit almost in her lap. My right side was still glued to hers, my arm plastered against her back, but my left arm was free and my left hand found its way to the silky thick wash of her hair as Ivy took over.

She kissed me like I was the strawberry and she was the chocolate, like we were a spell and only getting our mouths as close as possible would make the magic work. And, gods help me, I kissed her back.

It wasn't until, very slowly, my lower lip caught between her small, sharp teeth for a lingering moment before she let it go, I pulled away that I reopened my dizzy eyes and remembered what exactly I was doing.

"Oh, man…" Let no one say I lack eloquence.

"That," Ivy said hoarsely, the colors of her eyes warring for dominance as she caught her breath, "was not my fault."

And I just couldn't help it. There was fear and confusion and lust all dancing around in my stomach like merry little honey-drunk pixies, but at the unlikely mix of desire and petulance in Ivy's usually-sophisticated tone… I burst out laughing. Then, seeing the crease of Ivy's brow, I stopped myself.

"Sorry. Sorry." Shook my head, realized my hand was still tangled in her hair, and couldn't quite bring myself to remove it. "Uh."

"You kissed me."

"I know."

"And you really need to… find a way to break this," she continued, her eyes dropping from my lips to my chest. I was still in her lap, and sometime between the kiss and the laugh, I'd straddled her. "Or…"

"I d-don't… I… It was…"

"Yes, Rachel," Ivy murmured, and her lips fell against my chin. "You're very good at that." I coughed, trying not to be distracted by the way she kissed one corner of my mouth and by the way I so obviously wasn't stopping her.

"Good at what?" I managed to ask, mortified by the way my hand was clenching in her hair as one of her own hands dipped beneath the waistband of my jeans.

"Talking," she said, kissing the other corner. It took me a moment to realize I'd just been insulted.

"Stop it," I said, nearly choking on it, and Ivy paused. I looked down at her, and my jaw nearly dropped.

Her eyes weren't black anymore.

"Kiss me again," Ivy said. Ivy with the warm brown eyes and the barest hint of a smile and the not-so-hidden vulnerability. Ivy who had kissed me as a vampire and was asking me, just now, as a woman. "I won't hurt you."

And because one of the reasons I get into all this trouble is that I don't think things through… I did.