Alec knelt down, looking around to make sure no one was watching as he took the waitress’s hand. She was a delicate little thing, but talked way too much. It would put her in danger as much as it had Joe.
“You don’t know anything about Joe because that’s how he wanted it, and that’s not your fault. You are not a slut, you are a lovely young woman, and everything will be fine. I’ll find Joe. You won’t worry, you won’t be sad, and if anyone else asks, you just tell them everything is fine, okay?”
The girl fell into Alec’s sphere of influence very easily, her face clearing of tears, and a smile soon formed. “Yes. I know Joe is just busy or had to pop out of town for a day or so. No problem,” she said happily, returning to her work.
Alec nodded. Something bad was going on, and he had to find out what, but he couldn’t have this young woman telling everyone about Joe, or drawing attention to the matter.
It didn’t take much to figure out that someone had managed to find out his secret and had stolen the lamp. That didn’t bode well for Joe’s fate.
6
NINA SAT WITH HER LAPTOP balanced on crossed legs, a pen stuck behind her ear as she furiously drafted the leads for her story and sifted through the research, preparing for her interview with Alec.
Unfortunately, he was gone when she’d returned home. Much to her disappointment. She was fired up to start the interview as soon as possible, but with no genie there was no interview.
There was still a part of her that doubted he was real. Maybe the stress and disappointment had become too much, and she had finally just cracked.
She eyed her bed. The past few times, he’d always appeared when she was sleeping—if it weren’t for him being with her this morning, she would have continued thinking he was merely a dream.
So this was the test, right? To see if he showed up again, while she was fully awake and waiting for him. Besides, if he found her in bed, they wouldn’t end up doing the interview…they’d no doubt find other, more energetic things to do.
The idea had appeal, she thought with a mischievous smile.
“You’re sexy when you smile like that.” Alec’s voice startled her, making her jump, her laptop and everything around her starting to drop. She tried to catch it, but needn’t have worried. Alec took everything and set it down neatly and safely on the coffee table.
Well, that settled that as far as the reality test went, she thought, smoothing a hand over her hair.
“You need a bell around your neck or something,” she said, jesting, and while he smiled, she saw it didn’t reach his eyes. He looked strained, and even tired. Could genies get tired? Another question for her list.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said sincerely, coming over to sit on the sofa near her, the spicy, masculine scent of his skin surrounding her.
“Thanks for saving my laptop,” she said, regaining her composure.
He looked at the open screen, and nodded. “Working on your story about me?”
She leaned in, turning the screen away. “Yes. Sorry, but I don’t let anyone see my writing before it’s as perfect as I can get it. But I would be happy to let you read through it and okay any quotes and information when it’s done. Actually, I insist. I want to make sure you are comfortable with whatever I print there.”
He stared at her in surprise. “That doesn’t seem like very cutthroat journalism.”
“Journalists try to beat each other to the punch, and we can be pretty cutthroat to get a story, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s make sure your information is right and take care of your sources,” she said, unable to stop a pinch of regret from past failures.
“You didn’t fail, Nina. You know that. Someone else did, letting the information about your informant slip into the article you wrote.” His tone was soft as he raised a hand and let his fingers thread through her hair. He gently wrapped a few curls around his fingers.
“How do you know about that?”
“I’ve been in your dreams…I know your secrets. I know what you are capable of and what kind of person you are. I know your heart. You would never have done that, either by mistake or on purpose.”
Hearing someone say that out loud freed something inside her, and she felt her eyes sting with tears, and tried to blink them back.
“Thank you, for saying it.”
“I mean it. We could try to find out who did it, and why, if you like…All it would take is a wish,” he said, his gaze not leaving hers.
She paused, was tempted. How many times had she wondered who had changed the information in that article, who had followed her, found out the source, and printed it, letting her take the fall?
“I would love that,” she said carefully, making sure it wasn’t expressed as a wish. Alec grinned.
“You’re learning…being careful with your words.”
“I suppose as much as it would be good to know—to have justice, my name cleared, maybe even to have some kind of revenge…it wouldn’t change what happened, would it? Unless I could wish that the entire situation never happened? Can you do that?”
Alec’s expression became very serious. “Yes. Though it’s very dangerous. Much like I changed your office’s perception of your late arrival to work, I could try to change that event, but there is so much more risk…a large change like completely revising something that happened in history. Who knows what the consequences could be? At the very least, you would not have met me.”
“Really?”
“Well, if your unfortunate scandal had not happened, and if you had never come to work for the tabloid, you may never have been in that alley looking for genies, now would you?”
She nodded slowly. “No. And I would still be with Peter, not knowing his true nature, that he didn’t really love me. I guess it’s better how things are this way.”
“Even though you hate your current job?”
She shrugged, fudging a little. “I had grander aspirations in life, it’s true. But since I’ve met you, in just these few days, everything seems different. Even if no one ever believes me, I’ve found the most important discovery I think I could ever manage as a journalist. The truth. It may just look like more crazy tabloid writing, but I know what I know.”
Alec looked down modestly. “I am not that important, but it’s good that you’re feeling better about your life.”
“Thanks,” she said, realizing it was more true than she’d acknowledged. Everything had changed upon meeting Alec. “You have been more important to that happening than anyone. So I guess as awful as it was, I wouldn’t change what happened. None of it,” she decided.
“That’s a good choice,” he affirmed, seeming relieved.
“Where were you today? Where do you go, when you’re not here?” she asked, back in journalist mode, grabbing her laptop to take notes.
“I was searching for a friend, the one I told you about. Joe. He wasn’t where he should have been. I fear some harm has come his way.”
“What kind of harm?”
“Some people know we are real, have encountered jinn in various guises or points of their lives and will become addicted to the power of wishing. They will sometimes try to trap us, making us their slaves, bending us to their will.”
Nina frowned. “You mentioned that, but it’s hard to believe an ordinary human being could have any power over a magical creature like yourself. Couldn’t you just blip yourself free?”
Alec sighed. “We have some weaknesses. I don’t necessarily want you to print what they are.”
She took her hands away from the laptop. “Okay, off the record.”
He paused, looking at her closely, and nodded. “We can be trapped in various ways—a spell, being locked inside our vessels or being chained.”
“Chained? Can’t you just slip out of chains like you do clothes?”
“Steel, especially pure iron, is poison to a jinn. It renders us helpless, like the weakest human, and if we are chained in iron long enough,
we will lose our magical abilities and can be easily killed. Iron is often used by jinn hunters to capture and allow them to control us.”
“Jinn hunters?”
“Unfortunately, there are those who think no jinn should walk the earth. There are those whose sole purpose is to rid the world of our kind.”
Nina watched Alec’s expression change, becoming dark and more dark. She reached out to touch him, instinctively offering comfort.
“You think that’s what happened to your friend Joe?”
“I hope that isn’t the case, but he has disappeared. When a jinn disappears from his own kind—we are all able to sense each other, no matter where we are—then it’s almost assured that they have been trapped or killed. That jinn’s magical essence, their signature, has been erased. The iron will do that, and so will death.”
“Have you known Joe for a long time?”
“Over twelve hundred years now…and I have no idea how old he was when I met him then.”
She swallowed hard, trying to get her mind around that. The man she was talking to was over a millennium old. But he wasn’t really a man, was he?
“Is there anything I can do to help? To find him?” As soon as she said the words, the idea seemed silly, but the question fell from her lips before she could stop it. She almost took it back, but then saw the emotion in his eyes, his lips parting slightly.
“You have the purest heart I have ever known,” he said simply, and the distance between them was closed as his firm mouth moved over hers. For long minutes, no coherent thought passed through her mind. When she did separate herself from him for a moment, she realized her laptop was back on the table, and she was wrapped around him, arms and legs, as close as two people could be, almost.
“I am concerned about Joe, but you are my mistress. My duty is to be here with you, to please you,” he said seductively, and she felt the warmth of his voice straight down to her toes.
“It doesn’t feel right, making you stay here. You should go look for him,” she said, though the last thing she wanted was for him to stop touching her.
“There is nowhere to look. If I cannot sense his presence, he could be anywhere, or nowhere,” Alec whispered into her ear. The vibration of his voice traveled over her skin, hardening her nipples, making her wet. She gasped when he bit one tender lobe. “And we are here, and alive,” he added, pushing her down into the cushions of the sofa and covering her with his body.
She liked the weight of him. Though he was a big man, he didn’t feel heavy to her at all, and she parted her thighs instinctively, welcoming him. She knew she wanted him; why pretend? She was going up in flames and couldn’t think of anything but having him, so why fight it?
“Yes,” he said against her neck, “open for me, Nina.”
With one easy movement he was deep inside, and she didn’t need to ask how either one of them had become naked. His cock filled every bit of her, stroking the sensitive skin inside her body as his hands moved over the rest of her, tweaking nipples and caressing her thighs until she bucked underneath him. Spasms of release exploded through her body all the way to her fingertips.
“You’re so beautiful, so amazing,” he crooned. “I love your hair, like black silk.”
Nina nearly purred. What on earth could he ever expect her to wish for besides this? Her eyes widened as she felt them gently lifting up, the sofa cushions beneath them gone and only air remaining. She jerked reflexively, but he held her still.
“Shh. I would not let you fall,” he reassured her as the entire room changed around them. She gasped, gazing around as she stayed horizontal, still connected to Alec in the most intimate way possible, but floating amid a magical scene of crystal waterfalls and pungent flowers. She could actually smell them.
“H-how…?” she asked, and then smiled. “Never mind. I guess ‘how’ is just magic.”
He moved inside her again, his own jaw tightening as pleasure built. “This is magic…the rest is window dressing,” he said, his own voice catching slightly. She was moved to think she could cause that kind of pleasure for him.
Nina gave herself over to the fantasy, letting go and floating through the magical space, Alec lifting her up and bringing her forward until his mouth fastened on to the sensitive flesh of her sex. The combined sensations of the floating, the pounding of the waterfall, the succulent scent of the flowers took her out of time, out of place.
She became a creature of pure pleasure, no longer just plain Nina, but something special as Alec’s tongue danced over her clit, suckling at the opening to her body, worshipping her with his mouth as they circled and floated. When she came, it wasn’t like the normal, earthly orgasms she was used to, but an effervescent kind of pleasure that went on and on, singing through every nerve ending, taking her out of herself to a kind of reality she never imagined was possible.
Nina knew magic was real. She could feel it with every ounce of her soul, and it was Alec who had brought that to her. He’d single-handedly lit up her no-nonsense, career-oriented, boring life with light and imagination.
Her heart squeezed with emotion as her body closed around him again. She brought herself up through the air, smiling at him as she held tight to his broad shoulders and moved. Loving him, giving back, seeing what it took to push her jinn past the limits of his seemingly boundless control.
“Why don’t you let me create a little magic for you?” she said as she pushed him back into the middle of the air, the blue pool reflecting beneath them.
“Be careful. You must maintain contact with me to stay suspended,” he warned. She smiled back over her shoulder.
“I don’t think that will be a problem.”
She looked down to find him watching her with hot eyes. In fact, she thought she saw little flames leaping in his irises, but shook off the idea as she stopped teasing and levered herself into a sitting position. Balancing her hands on his thighs, she turned her back to him and took him deep inside her. She heard his hiss of pleasure. She had to admit, the new angle surprised her with its intensity, as well, allowing him to touch her inside in a new way, and snuggling her clit against the base of his cock just perfectly.
“Oh, Alec, this is so good,” she said, wanting him to know that no man had ever made her feel this way before. Digging her fingers into his thighs, she wrapped her legs around his hips and started moving, grinding and pumping against him. She lifted one hand from his thigh to delicately stroke the sensitive skin under his balls. She was rewarded when he thrust harder, his hands gripping her backside as they moved in a frantic rhythm that drove them both over the edge.
Pleasure coursed through her, Alec’s uninhibited response touching her heart as well as her body. They drifted slowly back down to where he lowered her into the glistening pool, washing her gently. She did the same for him, marveling at the water that was so real, and yet couldn’t possibly be. Just like Alec, she thought, tucking in against him.
“I know I shouldn’t fall for you, but I’m not sure I can help it,” she said plainly. There was no point in subterfuge.
He stroked her hair and she felt his chest rise and fall in a deep sigh.
“I am a jinn, Nina. If I could be with anyone, it would be with you. Of all the women I have known, only you have touched my heart, but I cannot belong to anyone, not truly. I am of fire, you are of earth. I am immortal, you are human. It’s how it has always been, and will always be.”
“If I don’t make my wishes, then you have to stay?”
He tipped her face up to his, and she was surprised to find his gaze filled with pain. “Yes, in that way, I could stay with you, but it means I would have to watch you grow old and eventually die, while I remain the same. I would be free only when I lost you forever, which, my love, I’m not sure I could stand. For both our sakes, it is better that we enjoy what we have, and accept what is.”
He’d called her his love. Nina’s heart broke a little, but she knew he was right. Keeping Alec with her longer than necessary was
wrong for both of them. It would draw out the pleasure, but also the pain.
“You’re right,” she said bravely, lifting up to press a kiss to his lips and pushing down any pain or fear she felt at the idea of this ending soon. “But I need you to know that before you, I don’t think I ever really knew about love. I only thought I did. And when you leave, I’m afraid then I’ll really know what it means to lose it, as well.”
The thought terrified her. She thought losing Peter had been hard. Losing Peter was nothing.
He nodded, pressing a kiss to her forehead in a gesture so sweet her heart broke again. Wasn’t it just her luck that the only man who could really make her happy wasn’t a man at all?
7
NINA TAPPED HER PENCIL on the side of her notepad. Something was missing.
After she and Alec had come back to reality, she’d dealt with the mess of emotions she felt for him by pouring herself into work. She started asking him questions, and luckily, he was eager to cooperate.
Eager to finish their business together so he could leave her, she thought, her heart twisting. She couldn’t blame him. What future did they have? The idea of growing old while he stayed young and buff held no appeal at all.
Still, staring down at her questions, it was hard not to wonder, what if?
Can jinn have children? she’d asked. Yes, he’d said, a warm light in his eye. But only if they want to.
Did he have children? No. He’d never found anyone he could imagine being a mother to his children until now.
The words until now had nearly undone her, but he’d assured her that she wasn’t pregnant—human birth control wouldn’t prevent magical progeny, but he had made sure their coupling was safe. Nina, for the first time in her life, wasn’t sure if she felt relieved for that fact. Though she loved her work, she’d always hoped to have a family, much like the one she’d grown up in. It had never occurred to her that she couldn’t have it all.
She could never have that with Alec, she reminded herself abruptly. Also, he informed her, there was a large chance that his children would be jinn, like their father. Their children would be destined to a life of servitude, as was the jinn’s fate, so she couldn’t blame them for not having much interest in procreation.
Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume IV Page 14