My Dangerous Pleasure

by Carolyn Jewel

  “You’ll get towed if you leave the truck parked like that.”

  “No,” he said, very firmly. “I won’t.”

  “Whatever you say.” They walked down the street to Café deMonde, which, despite the name, wasn’t competition for her bakery; deMonde served lunch and dinner, though there were tables for people who wanted only coffee. They didn’t do a morning serve.

  Iskander held the door for her, and she walked in only to stop dead because there was a screamer in here somewhere. The cries of agony that reverberated in her head made her sick to her stomach. She scanned the room, hoping to pinpoint the source so she could sit as far away from that person as possible. The sound ripped through her without ceasing. She shivered.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Tired.”

  He guided them out of a direct line with the doorway. “What do you want to drink? Anything to eat? They have great food and even better coffee.”

  “Americano, two extra shots.” She had the screaming mostly blocked off, but her body quivered from the effort. “I’m not hungry right now.”

  “Find a table,” he said. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

  She did. There weren’t a lot of free tables, and her choices were limited to the right half of the café since the screamer was to her left. This time the source was a slender woman with blond hair and brown eyes. She was sitting alone, a plate of food on her table and an e-Reader in her hand. She wasn’t reading. She was staring at Iskander, a startled expression on her face.

  Lots of women did a double take when they saw Iskander. The facial tats alone were striking, but the total package? Unbelievably sexy.

  While he waited in line at the counter to order coffee and soup, Paisley found a place to sit near the windows on the complete opposite side of the room from the screamer. The sounds broke through again, wails of despair that ignited the now-familiar urge to walk over there and make it stop.

  Only crazy people heard voices in their head. Only crazy people ended up convinced they had to attack complete strangers. The woman wasn’t really transmitting the screams of the damned into her head. But, Lord Almighty, if this kept up, she’d be looking to make herself a tinfoil hat.

  Out of habit, Paisley kept one eye on the street, watching for Rasmus. But she also noted how the café compared to hers. The effort helped her split off the part of her that was hearing the screams and get that awareness, real or not, walled off. She drew her wool peacoat tight around her and stretched her legs under the table while she waited for the chill of outside to fade.

  The screamer was still checking out Iskander. No question her landlord was a prime specimen of man, beyond hot and into the realm of could-this-be-for-real? He was a big man, powerfully built with shoulders that were wide for his narrow hips. He had the body of a man used to physical activity, from his leanness to the size of the muscles that shaped his upper arms. She never saw him exercise, but maybe he worked out while she was at the bakery.

  He turned from the counter, and she glanced away so she wouldn’t be caught checking out his assets. Even though she had been. He brought over a plate with two cookies on it and went back to get her Americano and his Italian soda. With her schedule, she was pretty much immune to caffeine unless she went for quadruple shots. The Americano was nothing. When she got home, she’d still fall asleep. He sat across from her. The cookies looked good. He broke off a piece and gave it to her.

  “Good,” she said.

  He took a bite, too. “Not as good as yours. They should get their cookies and desserts from you.”

  “Maybe I’ll ask the manager if they’d consider it. I could bring over samples.”

  “Sounds like a great idea to me.” He unclipped his phone from his jeans and set it on the table while he checked for calls and texts. It looked like he had several of each. He picked up the phone and responded to one of the texts.

  She almost never got to go out to eat. If it weren’t for the bizarre reason they were here, this would be a real treat. She had the screamer almost completely blocked, but that wasn’t stopping her urge to walk over to the woman and rip out whatever was causing that noise. She focused on Iskander. He had something to say, and she wished he’d just get to it and put her out of her misery. Her mother, however, had taught her to be polite. She waited for him to get around to it.

  He did after he’d finished his cookie. “Have you always been a baker?”

  She leaned back, coffee in her hand. Her frustration came out in sharp words. “What difference does that make?”

  “I need to know.”

  “Fine.” She huddled into her coat. “No, I haven’t always been a baker. My mom wanted me to go to law school. So did my dad, so that’s what I was going to do even though I hated the idea of being a lawyer.”

  He sat up. “Your parents are still alive?”

  “Not my birth dad. He died before I was born.”

  “Are you adopted?”

  The screaming was getting louder again, and she was having trouble concentrating. Iskander misinterpreted her silence.

  “I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t matter.”

  She rubbed her temples. Her head throbbed. The sounds aren’t real. No one is screaming. “Actually, I am. Half adopted.” Iskander made a face at that. “My stepfather adopted me two or three years after he married my mother, when I was five. And before you ask, yes, she’s my real mom.”

  “What about her?”

  “She lives outside Atlanta. Her favorite thing to do is send me star charts proving I should be a lawyer and married to a Taurus.”

  “Is your adoptive father still around?”

  She sighed. “No. I mean, he’s alive, but they divorced when I was seventeen. I don’t really blame him. Sometimes she goes off her meds and things get strange. He lives in Florida with his new wife and new kids. We don’t talk much anymore.”

  Iskander scratched his chin. “Why does your mom need medications?”

  “Because she’s loony.”

  “In what way?”

  “For one thing, she thinks she can read minds.” She laughed, because her mother’s issues were just so absurd. Unless you had to live with her. “When I was little, she used to tell me what certain people were thinking. For a while I believed her. She was my mom, right? I was about ten, I think, when I realized she couldn’t read my mind. One day, when I was older—I didn’t want to hurt her feelings back then—I asked her why she could read other people’s minds but not mine.”

  “And?” He wasn’t laughing. Or judging.

  “She said she’d never been able to read my mind.” She snorted. “Classic. Because I could have called bullshit on her and she knew it. After that we agreed to disagree about her supposed abilities.” She waved a hand. “Anyway, I left home and ended up paying my own way through college working at restaurants and selling cookies and desserts to fellow starving students. And then to some people who weren’t starving students.” She smiled. “I could charge them more money. The summer before my senior year, I talked my way into the kitchens at Renegade in north Berkeley. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Ashlin Lau’s restaurant, right?”

  “You’ve heard of her.”

  He smiled, and it was just such a cute smile, she couldn’t help smiling back. “I like food.”

  “Urban’s party is going to be at Ashlin’s house. That’s part of the reason it’s such a big deal. Ashlin’s a big deal in the cooking world. At any rate, I spent that summer in her kitchen, and Ashlin encouraged me, you know? She doesn’t encourage many people.”

  “Smart woman.”

  “That’s where I met Urban. He worked at Renegade, too. One of Ashlin’s projects.” Those days seemed so far away now, living on practically no money, learning how to run a restaurant, and cooking great food. “We all knew he’d be a star one day, and that’s what happened. Now he has a restaurant in New York and his own cooking show. Much to my mother’s dismay, i
nstead of law school, I spent a year in France—Ashlin knew some people in the business. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  He nodded, leaning back in his chair in a careless position that did nothing but show off a perfect body. As far as she was concerned, the facial tats just added to his appeal. To her and probably every red-blooded woman in the room, those tats were drop-dead sexy. “You worked at Renegade for several years.”

  “Until I had enough saved up to open the bakery. I borrowed money, too. It’s not cheap starting a business. Especially a bakery, with all the specialized equipment you need, and I don’t cut corners on ingredients.”

  “Ashlin Lau is a major investor of yours.”

  Paisley didn’t move. “You seem to know a lot about me.”

  “I did my due diligence before I decided to rent to you.” His second cookie was just about gone. “She’s backed a few winners. Including Urban Drummond.”

  “If you knew all that, why are you asking me?” She was getting that weird vibration in her chest again, and it was all she could do to keep from stroking her sternum. She glanced out the window, wondering if maybe she’d see Iskander’s guy again. Nothing. Not even Rasmus.

  “What’s outside, Paisley?”

  The ice in her Americano was melting, so she took a long drink before she answered. Lied, more or less. “Rasmus. Somewhere. He always is. You know that.”

  “I’d know before he got close enough for you to see.”

  His matter-of-fact delivery spooked her. He couldn’t know something like that unless he was as crazy as she was. “What, you have radar for psychos?”

  “Yeah.” He held her gaze, and her heart folded over on itself because he was still serious. “Do you?”

  She put down her drink because she didn’t want him to see her trembling. It was hard enough keeping herself together with the screaming in her head. Add in a conversation that bordered on the absurd and she was right there at the edge. “Maybe you should tell me what you’re after.”

  “You keep looking at that woman over there. Why?”

  “She’s staring at you.”

  Iskander looked in the woman’s direction. “She’s hot,” he said after a longer time watching her than was polite. “I’d do her in a minute if I thought she was looking for a good time.”

  “Don’t let me stop you.”

  “She isn’t watching me because she’s hoping I’ll hop into the sack with her.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Tell me what you think is special about her, and I’ll tell you if you’re right.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Just when Iskander thought she wouldn’t answer, she did, in a low, soft voice that made him hurt inside because she sounded frightened, and he was pretty sure he was about to make things worse. The father she’d never known had likely been one of the magekind. The way she described her mother made him think there was something there, too. Reading minds was a very human way to describe what the kin could do when they had a connection going with each other or with a human. And what did that say about her mother’s origins?

  And if her mother could read minds, or whatever it was she could do, no wonder Paisley was a resistant. She’d probably developed her resistance in self-defense. Paisley’s mother probably couldn’t read her daughter’s mind.

  “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “No,” he said. He wanted to touch her, but he didn’t want any of his magic to leak into her even inadvertently. He kept his hands to himself. “I promise you, I won’t think you’re crazy.”

  She looked at him from underneath her lashes and said, “She’s a screamer.”

  “Well.” He sat back, flummoxed by her response. “That wasn’t even in my top ten most likely answers. A screamer? Like when she comes? Is that what you mean?”

  “No.” She curled her hand around her mostly empty coffee and looked at him from under her lashes. “That’s what I call them. People like her. Screamers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what I hear when they get close enough. Screams. She happens to be particularly loud. Usually I have to be closer before I hear anything.”

  He got a chill when she told him what she was hearing. Jesus, no wonder she worried he’d think she was crazy. She wasn’t, though. “Did you ever get that from Rasmus?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “But it’s completely random who’s a screamer and who’s not.”

  “It’s not random.” He scooted his chair in and kept his voice low. “Rasmus Kessler is a mage—that means he can do things you probably think are impossible. He’s killed dozens of the kin, because if he does it just right, he can add a few years to his life. Tell me, how old do you think he is?”

  She frowned. “Midthirties?”

  “Try three hundred and thirty. Probably older than that.” He wished he was better at reading human expressions, because if she thought he was full of shit, he was going to be in some deep trouble. “The kin are… people like me, and the way he kills them, they don’t really die. Their physical bodies do, but a part of them doesn’t.”

  She lifted her eyes to his face and studied him. “You believe that?”

  Iskander took a breath. “Do you have a better explanation for what’s happening to you? The screaming you’re hearing?”

  “Besides going crazy?”

  “You’re not crazy.” He glanced at the witch over on the other side of the café and was reassured to see she was back to reading on her gizmo. “What I think is happening is when you get near one of the magekind, you hear the screams of the kin they’ve murdered.” He pushed away his empty plate. Waste of money, those cookies.

  She grabbed her Americano and drank about half of what was left. Her arm shook. “One of us is crazy, and until now, I would have bet it was me.”

  He set his hands on the table and bent his head for a moment. How much more to tell her? When he looked up, she was watching him with that careful blankness she sometimes got. “How about neither one of us is crazy? Would you go for that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I surely would. But if you ask me, we’re both…

  “What?”

  She pressed a palm to her chest and narrowed her eyes as if she were in pain. “Is your psycho radar going off?” she whispered.

  “No.” He watched the hope in her eyes vanish, and it about killed him, it really did, but he’d told her the truth. He wasn’t feeling what she was. What he didn’t say—because he didn’t have any idea how to say it yet—was that the witch over in the corner wasn’t pulling any magic. If there were other magekind around, he’d know. Which meant she was probably reacting to a mageheld. Mostly likely one who belonged to the witch.

  “I guess now we know which one of us is crazy.”

  “Not necessarily. Paisley, I—”

  The café door opened, and Iskander knew from the look on her face that the cause of her reaction had just walked inside. He turned his head to get a look, and his stomach took a flyer.

  Definitely a mageheld. But not one who belonged to Paisley’s screamer.

  Fen.

  She hadn’t changed at all. She was tall, ballerina thin, and the kind of beautiful that stole your breath. She was dressed to kill in straight-legged jeans, high-heeled fuck-me pumps, and a sheer white shirt over a black bra. Her long hair was loose and still a gorgeous fiery copper-red. Fen surveyed the room like she owned it, paused to check out the blond witch, then turned her head and looked directly at him. A familiar smile spread over her face as she headed toward him.

  For half a second, it was like nothing had changed between them. Except he couldn’t feel her. Their bond was gone, and magically speaking, she was a nullity to him because she’d willingly enslaved herself to Rasmus Kessler. Mageheld, but not against her will.

  The shock of seeing her wore off, and he realized if Fen was around, Rasmus probably wasn’t too far. He slid his phone into his pocket, set his hand over Paisley’s, and pressed gently down. “Do exactly what I say, okay?”
She nodded. “Don’t say a word about who you are or that you’re staying with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s a chance she’ll take the thoughts right out of your head, so if you can, don’t think about me or my house. Recite a recipe in your head or something.” He was counting on her magical resistance keeping Fen out of her head.

  She started to laugh, but he gave her a hard look and she stopped. “You’re serious.”

  “The less she knows the better.”

  Fen was halfway to their table, working the walk in those goddamned pumps.

  “That’s crazy.”

  He pinned Paisley with a stare. She needed to understand what she was involved with. No more keeping her at the far edges of his life or the truth. Ignorance might get her killed. “You knew she was coming before she got here, didn’t you?”

  After a moment, she nodded.

  “That happens with me, too, doesn’t it? Or something similar.”

  She nodded again.

  “If I’m going to keep you safe, Paisley, you need to believe that.” He touched her hand. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  Then Fen was at their table. She was even more beautiful than she’d looked from a distance, every feature perfect. Through the transparent shirt, he could see the five copper-colored bands around her forearms. They looked like tattoos, but like the markings on his body, they weren’t. At one time, those copper bands had been analogous to the traceries on his body. Sensitive and a reservoir of magic they had once shared.

  “Skander,” she said.

  He took his time acknowledging her. “What brings you to the city, Fen?”

  Her eyes jittered the way they’d started to do shortly after she hooked up with Kessler, before she realized the cost of betraying her blood bond with him. He’d been the first to guess what was happening to them and had blocked himself enough to stop his descent into madness. She hadn’t been so lucky.

  She reached for his shoulder but he leaned away. Her smile faded. “I’m here on business.”

  “Good for you.”