“Teri, please,” the smaller woman said with another polite smile.
“All right, then. Now which piece was Mr. Concannon interested in?” Rhee said, turning toward the showcase, lifting the key ring from the pocket of her boxy jacket.
“The one you are wearing.” Teri said, already reaching for her checkbook. “You need only to name your price.”
The keys went back into her pocket and Rhee retreated back behind the counter. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t for sale,” she said, reaching up to trace the brooch at her lapel. It wasn’t precisely the right piece for her wardrobe, but she had a hard time not wearing it. In fact, she had worn it almost daily since she had purchased it.
For a mere one-seventy-five. She knew of its value but refused to have it appraised by an expert, simply because she refused to let it out of her sight, even for a minute. She had done some rough estimates on the web and was guesstimating it was from the twelfth or thirteenth century. Complete and intact. She didn’t want to share the brooch with anyone.
Sometimes, she wondered if the man who had been selling the trinkets in that tiny little cube had infected her with his insanity. Even though in her gut, she knew he had not been crazy—a bit fey, maybe. But not crazy.
The way he had spoken to her—seeking atonement, maybe—that it was meant to be hers.
But she knew, on some odd level, that this brooch was hers. It belonged to her, and had always been meant to come to her. It was in those moments, when she felt that gut-deep belief, that she was certain she was going insane.
Teri donned her bargaining face and offered, “Two thousand dollars. If you like, I can get you cash.”
“I’m sorry.” Rhee turned her shoulder, donning her glasses and turning her attention back to the photographs. Two thousand? It was worth twenty, easy, and Ms. McGuire knew it.
Recognizing the dismissal was one thing. Refusing to heed it was another thing altogether. “Four thousand.” The pleasant confident smile never left her face and Rhee knew that Terrance McGuire had every intention of acquiring the brooch for her employer.
“I wouldn’t part with this brooch for all the tea in China, all the art in the Louvre, or the Hope Diamond,” Rhiannon replied, shooting the woman a cool glance over the top of her glasses.
“How does ten thousand sound? I imagine that is more than you usually make in a month running this shop,” Teri said, pen still held ready over her open checkbook. “For that amount, sentiment seems to be a foolish reason to decline.”
“For that amount, sentiment seems to be a foolish reason to pay it,” Rhiannon returned, stacking the photographs neatly together and taking off her wire-rim glasses. Meticulously, she folded them and returned them to the breast pocket of her jacket. “And you’d be surprised what I make in this shop,” she smirked.
“Fifteen thousand.”
Slim golden brows rose over her violet eyes and Rhee said, “Exactly how high has he given you leave to go?”
“Eighteen.”
“Not for one-hundred-eighteen.”
“That’s a bit excessive for that piece, even if it is genuine.”
“The piece is genuine, the price is excessive, and I wouldn’t sell even for ten times that price,” Rhee drawled mockingly, lifting a brow. “It would appraise between fifteen and twenty thousand and you could offer me fifteen or twenty million and I would still say no. It belongs to me. Not you, and not your boss.”
“I doubt he’s willing to pay twenty million for a medieval brooch,” Teri said, shaking her head. “You’re nuts to even suggest it.”
“I didn’t suggest it,” she said, exasperated. Rhiannon placed her hands flat on the glass display case, leaning slightly forward as she studied the trim, tidy woman before her. “Exactly what is it you are having difficulty understanding? This piece has not been, is not now, nor will ever be for sale. It is mine.”
Eyes wide, lips pursed, Teri studied the tall, extraordinarily lovely woman in front of her. “You are saying that you have no price,” she said levelly, studying her without betraying any of her skepticism.
“That is exactly what I am saying,” Rhiannon replied in the same tone.
A grin broke over the perky, freckled face and Teri laughed as she shook her head. “My dear, everyone has a price.”
Chapter Five
“Everyone has a price,” Sean said flatly, glaring at Teri.
Rolling her eyes, Teri repeated, “She will not sell it, Sean. For any price. I offered her everything short of…of all the art in the Louvre. And she will not sell it.” Teri leaned back, aware of the dark, angry look on her boss’s perfect face, but unfazed. He was as likely to cause her harm as he was to, well, turn into a troll right in front of her.
She had been thinking sprout wings and fly…but she had learned that far too many of his magic tricks involved real magic. So how did she know he couldn’t fly?
“I need it, Teri,” he said roughly, his accent deepening as he dropped into his chair, burying his face in hands that shook.
“Sean, I—”
“I’ll go meself, damn it. Damn the girl, I’ll go and get it. It is mine by right. I do not know how she came by it, but ‘tis mine,” he rasped, raising his head, rising smoothly to his feet and moving to the window, his big hands curling into tight fists. “Mine,” he repeated, staring outside.
Teri realized he had forgotten she was there. Before he had turned away from her, she had seen his eyes and they had taken on that odd, eerie glow, gleaming like silver moondust, wide, unfocused, while unseen winds blew his black locks away from his face.
The hair on her arms stood on end and she shuddered when thunder rolled outside, through the cloudless sky. The room itself started to vibrate and the spit inside her mouth went dry.
“Sean, are you all right?” she asked quietly. The magic was breaking out so she spoke louder, calling him back to himself, and the magic started to calm.
“Leave me be, Teri. Fine, I am. Or will be,” he muttered, driving a hand through his hair.
Hours later, he was in his rooms, pacing. Teri had already made arrangements for him to fly into Louisville International. He’d been into the city a time or two before on tour. From there, he’d rent a car and drive into Bardstown and find this shopkeeper. He smirked as he imagined just sending himself there…but such actions could cause too many questions.
And he definitely did not want that.
Damn her.
Whoever Rhiannon Welles was, she had no fucking right keeping that brooch from him.
It belonged to him, no matter what she thought. It had disappeared from his family hundreds of years ago, and he had been seeking it since he was twenty. No. Longer. He had always remembered.
Not all of it, no. That would have been torture. But he had always dreamed of a beautiful woman with hair every shade of blonde imaginable, with wide blue eyes and a pink, pretty mouth who could spin rainbows and fire in her hands.
It was from those dreams that he learned how to do the same.
It was odd—in this life, he had such magic. Would Aislinn have it as well, when he finally found her?
Oh, those dreams. They had grown more vivid, more complete, as he grew older. The night after he turned twenty, he remembered all of it, the night he had gone to her, lain with her, knowing it would be the last time, waking from their bed in that tiny little shop her parents had owned, telling her that he was to wed a young Spanish noblewoman in only three days.
And Aislinn, purposely flaunting her magic, at a time when fear of such ran rampant, just so they would kill her. That brooch, first on her bodice, then, just as she breathed her last through tortured lungs, it was in his hand, his fingers closing around it, the sharpened piece driving deep.
And even though he had held nothing in his hand while he slept, he had woken with a small, disc shaped scar on his hand that he still carried to this very day.
Nicholas had been a fool, Sean could admit that now. It stung his pride some, but he
wasn’t the same man he had been centuries ago. Losing her had seen to that. Living four long meaningless lives searching for her had changed that. He wasn’t the same man.
She had been right about one thing, at least…You will never know a moment’s peace for what you have done.
And he hadn’t, not in that life, or those that followed.
But Aislinn had been a coward.
And cruel. He never could have imagined his sweet, loving Aislinn could be so cruel. A cold smile settled on his face as he completed packing. It was an easy chore. The magic that had not come so easily to him in his first life was child’s play now—packing took barely a thought.
When he found her, he was going to make certain she understood they were on equal ground now.
* * * * *
Rhee settled in bed, stroking her fingers absently over the glass of iced tea, eyes focused on the book she had just received in the mail. Her staid, sedate, sweet parents would be very shocked to see her curled up on her four-poster bed with this very naughty book. And the handy little vibrator next to her.
She’d had a few boyfriends, none she had brought into this bed, though. None she had liked enough.
The vibrator suited her just fine.
She was happy as could be this particular publisher had gone into paper publishing. She liked eBooks, truly. But some books were just better read in bed. And an eBook reader just wasn’t as…cozy, somehow.
Sometime later, the book forgotten, she lay panting, the vibrator deep inside her, the outside piece quivering against her swollen clit, head flung back. The swollen, wet folds of her sex clung to the ridged pulsating vibrator as she rocked her hips against it and moaned, busily stroking her hips up and down.
Panting, she worked it in and out, and groaned as the climax broke over her.
Not as good as a man, but a hell of a lot more reliable. And she was pretty damn certain some men would never live up to what a good Jackrabbit could give you. That, and Dreamsbynight.com could take care of her just fine until she found a good man.
The phone rang five seconds later.
She answered, her voice husky and rough, “Hello.”
“Rhiannon Welles, please.”
The voice was male and Irish and distinctive. Even though she had never spoken to him, she knew damned good and well who was calling her at nearly midnight. Amused, aroused, and aggravated all at once, Rhee stuck out her tongue at the receiver and said, “Mr. Concannon, I’m not selling the brooch. Get that through your thick Irish skull and leave me alone.”
Before he could answer she hung up the phone, turned out the light and went to bed, sliding into sleep with a sated sigh.
She had not just hung up on him.
He stared at the phone and fought the urge to call back. If she had just hung up on him, she would surely repeat the gesture, which would only make him madder.
Sean shook his head, baffled.
Her voice…called to him. Was it her?
Impatience filled him. He couldn’t wait for the bloody plane. Questions be damned. He called Teri and told her to make sure his luggage got to Kentucky and then he flung his arms high. When he materialized, he was standing just outside the airport in Louisville. A place he had been to before. It worked that way…had to. He couldn’t just pop from one place to another without having a picture in his head. Even magic had its own rules, and those rules had to be followed.
He pulled his wallet out and strolled casually inside, projecting an image of indifference to the security clerk. And fancy that, he thought with a smirk. Security hadn’t even seen him.
He had rented a car within thirty minutes.
And was on the road to Bardstown within the hour.
He took the turn onto the tiny country road at breakneck speed and slowed only when it was that or take out the stupid cow that had wandered into the road. A cow, he thought with a laugh. How…quaint. Almost like home.
He had her address and used a map he had bought to lead him to her house. His blood pounded hotly through his veins. This is it. Sean knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that he and Aislinn would find each other this time. This would be their time. And maybe the searching was already over. Maybe the brooch had found its way to Rhiannon Welles because Rhiannon was Aislinn.
His cock hardened.
God, to be inside her again, after all these centuries. To hear her laughter, and feel that happiness he had felt only with her.
To once more share the joy of making rainbows and spinning magic out of the air. To feel the wet clasp of her pussy around him while he rode her hard…feeling their magic join as their bodies mated. Damn it.
And then Sean stood outside, staring at the quaint little house and the hope that had been blooming inside him withered and died. It wasn’t her. If Aislinn had been inside Rhiannon’s body, her magic would be permeating this house and he would sense it.
He scrubbed his hands over his face and muttered, “Fuck me, I’ve gone bloody insane.”
All because her husky voice, for one brief second, had sounded familiar.
Grimly, he turned to get back into the car. He’d wait for her at the shop. Get the brooch, even if it involved stealing it from her. He’d replace it with a replica and she’d never notice, mortal that she was, and he would get back to searching for Aislinn.
And then the door opened.
Turning, he looked.
And stopped dead in his tracks.
Aislinn.
* * * * *
Rhiannon left the house, tired and achy. She hadn’t slept. Those damned dreams. Dreams of a medieval knight with dark hair and wild green eyes, and strong, gentle hands that held her close. Magic that she used to make, rainbows and laughter that filled her soul.
And fire.
Scorching her skin, her hair, her lungs, burning her, eating her flesh. Smoke burning her lungs, choking her, until it killed her, and she still kept burning, until the fire turned her flesh to blackened ash.
She had woken with the screams still ringing in the room.
She had always had a deep, abiding fear of fire. Her adoptive parents had done everything they could think of to soothe her past it, but to no avail. Every therapist, every counselor, no luck. One shrink, upon learning she was adopted had suggested she had been burned, or perhaps witnessed a bad fire before they adopted her. But they had taken her at birth.
Scratch that idea.
But Rhee hated fire.
No fireplaces. No fireworks. She couldn’t even stand cookouts, or cigarette lighters.
She was halfway to her car when she saw the man standing there, staring at her with eyes that saw through to her soul, burning silver, scorching eyes that stared at her, eating her as though starved for the mere sight of her.
And she froze as some bone deep recognition tore through her.
Chapter Six
It was her.
Aislinn.
Sean moved across the distance that separated them and caught her shoulders, staring down into her face, so much the same, even the blonde hair that fell around her shoulders in soft waves. Her eyes were wide and purple, not blue, but purple, her mouth wider, lusher, her figure trimmer, and she was a bit taller.
But it was her.
“Bloody hell,” he whispered, staring down into her face as shock raged through him. Cupping her face, he covered her mouth with his and ravaged her.
Rhee went still. That odd moment of recognition was gone. She knew him, of course. Most people did know his face. Who didn’t know Sean Concannon? He was easily as well known as David Copperfield. Tall and lean, with wide shoulders, slim hips, handsome, winsome, with a sexy Irish accent and illusions that stunned and awed.
He was at her house and wanting her property.
But that didn’t explain why he was staring at her as though he knew her.
Or why something inside her seemed to know him, know how he would taste, how his body would feel against hers, how it would feel to have his naked chest crushing he
r into a bed a of grass…grass?
Or why he ran across her property and took hold of her like he had a right to, burying one hand in her hair and fisting it, pulling her head back. It didn’t explain why he was kissing her. And man, oh man, did the guy know how to kiss. His tongue easily breeched the barrier of her lips and he tasted her, sucking her tongue deep into his mouth. He was nibbling at her lips, biting hungrily at her chin, kissing his way down her throat.
She did not know how it happened. One moment they were on her sidewalk. Then they were inside her house.
Rhee’s blouse was gone, her skirt pushed to her waist.
His clothes were just gone. Poof. Like magic.
Then Sean Concannon, world famous magician, was lifting her, cupping her, driving his fingers deeply inside her, working them into her slippery wet sheath as he ate her mouth and she whimpered under his touch and craved more.
And some analytical part of her whispered…Okay, this is all moving a bit too fast.
Sean sifted through her mind, took a picture of what her home looked like, held it inside his head and focused, so he could whisk them away inside her house as she stood there stunned and let him kiss his way down her neck. Her pretty silk blouse was nearly the same color as her lilac eyes so he whisked it away as well, rather than rip it from her body.
Damn it, Aislinn, he thought, raggedly. Staring down into her flushed, upturned face, those smudged violet eyes, Sean felt his heart thudding in his chest, his cock aching.
Her scent filled the air, vanilla and lavender, and her skin…soft, silken, so smooth. Rubbing his thumb around her clit, he leaned into her and ducked his head, catching one diamond-hard nipple in his mouth, suckling hard and deep, feasting on her sweet, exotic taste as her rough moan filled the air.
Hot Spell Page 5