by Eton, Kris
"A secret?"
She closed her eyes, intending to kiss that sexy mouth of his and silence him. She should keep him in the dark like all the others. "I can't," she whispered and pulled back.
Justin caught her chin in his hands. "Why won't you kiss me?"
"I can't." She blinked. "You don't understand." Tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
"Don't cry. Please don't." He moved to kiss her.
Marissa broke free of his grasp and reared back. This was no good. She had to get out of here before everything fell apart. She grabbed her purse and scooted out of the booth.
"Marissa, wait!"
She knew he was right behind her and could catch up to her easily. She couldn't let that happen. She was too vulnerable right now. He might win her over, she might kiss him, and then he would be lost to her forever. She bolted out the door, ran down the street and darted down the first alleyway she saw.
"Marissa!"
Once out of his sight, she drew on her powers to turn herself invisible and crouched behind a dumpster. Until she could get her bearings and figure out how to move forward, she was saving them both from failure.
Justin appeared at the mouth of the alley. "Marissa, where are you? I just wanted to talk. Marissa?" The midday sun beat down on him from a cloudless sky.
She wanted to call out to him, reveal herself. When his expression shifted from anxiousness to defeat, though, she knew it would be best to leave him alone. Instead of baby steps, she took one huge leap last night. It had been too much, too fast. In order to make him love her, there had to be more than sex. She couldn't just win him over with her body; she had to let him see her soul.
After a moment, Justin left.
Marissa sighed. She’d need to go back to square one, think up a plan, and stick to it.
Chapter Seven
"Marissa, there you are!" Her mother waited for her in the same recliner chair Demetria had occupied the other day.
"Shit." After doing the old disappearing act on Justin, she’d wanted to mope in her house for the rest of the day, maybe eat a pint of ice cream, and form a new plan of attack. The games she was used to playing with men were not going to win her the love she craved.
Astrid Glenn got up, her back straight as a broom handle, and reached for her only child. "Come, give me a hug. It's been a long time, my darling."
Marissa stood her ground. "What are you doing here?" Mink rubbed against her legs and meowed a greeting. She stroked him.
Astrid pouted. "Is that any way to greet your mother?" She dropped her arms, realizing there’d be no embrace.
"Since when did you want to be my mother?" Marissa picked up Mink and set her on her favorite spot on the sofa. "I seem to recall turning eighteen, showing up at our house after school, and finding you gone." Marissa had tried to banish that memory for years. "I took that as a hint you were done with all the mother crap. When did you change your mind?"
Her mother blew a strand of dark brown hair out of her eyes. "Oh, fine. I should've known I couldn't fool you." The straight back remained, but the singsong, motherly voice switched to the one Marissa remembered, crisp and commanding. "Why in heaven's name did you make that bet with Demetria?"
Oh Lord. The news was out. Marissa had hoped the details of her bet might stay underground for a few more days. "I'm done with this, mother." She walked past her and dumped her purse on the barstool near the kitchen. She opened the freezer and pulled out the pint of ice cream she'd conjured there earlier. She needed the mint chocolate chip even more now.
"Done with what?"
"That curse you gave me." She dug a spoon out of a drawer and scooped out a chunk of ice cream. "I never wanted it. I don't know why you thought it would be a good gift."
"The kiss? You're giving away your magical kiss?" With hands on her hips, Astrid marched over to her daughter and wagged a finger in her face. "Who said you could give that away? Who gave you the right? And to Demetria? You've got to be joking."
Marissa turned her back on her mother's angry face. She didn’t give one whit about her mother’s long running feud with Demetria over magical spells and secrets. "I'm not like you, mother. I actually want to fall in love."
"Want to fall in love?" Astrid repeated, as if Marissa had just told her she wanted to plunge herself into a vat of boiling oil. "Who gave you that crazy notion?"
"No one." She took another spoonful of ice cream. She definitely needed the whole pint. "This was my idea."
"So, you sought out Demetria and came up with the bet?"
"Well, no . . . ." Marissa's stomach dropped.
"How could you be so stupid? If you didn’t want your gift, why didn’t you come to me? I could’ve gotten rid of it for you.”
“What?” All along, all these years, and she could’ve been free of her kiss? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Astrid shrugged. “I never thought a daughter of mine would ever consider something so stupid. But it’s too late anyway. You’re caught up in this bet. My powers mean nothing now. How could you trust that witch with your gift?"
Marissa faced her mother. "My gift? It's a curse. You forced that potion on me when I was a child. I had no idea what it meant."
"That potion has run in our family for years. It's a thousand-year-old secret. You were privileged to receive such a gift." Her mother clamped her lips together and narrowed her eyes. "Damn it, Marissa. What did you think you were doing?"
Marissa placed the half-empty ice cream carton on the counter. Nausea set in. "Living. For once in my life I decided to live."
"What do you call this?" Her mother gestured at the cozy cottage, at the nice furniture, the high-end television, the travertine tile on the kitchen floor. Her gesture was so forceful a jeweled bracelet flew from her arm and skittered across the floor. "You have more than most because of your powers. Dammit, where did my bracelet go?” She made a cursory check of the kitchen floor, but Marissa wouldn’t let her mother distract her from the topic at hand.
"I'm not giving up everything, mother, just this one thing. I'm not like you; I don't want to be alone."
"Witches always live alone." Astrid gave up her search and rested her elbows on the counter. "Except for the years I spent raising you, but that's expected. Witches aren't meant to be part of the human world. Not in a meaningful way. You want to find love with a regular human? Well, it just won't work."
Marissa thought of Justin with his ocean-blue eyes, his sinful body of hard muscle, and his quiet intelligence. She wanted him. She didn't care if it wasn't supposed to work. She had to have him. Every little conversation they'd had, each laugh they’d shared . . . she remembered them all. Secretly, she’d wanted to believe they could somehow have more than what she thought possible. The curse of her kiss had kept them apart. She didn't want him to be another man under her spell who'd forget her quickly. No, she needed more. For some damned reason she needed more. "It’ll work. I love him."
"You love him?" Astrid scoffed and shook her head. "Oh my dear, you will soon see that love is impossible for witches. The best you could hope for is a daughter to love you. Why do you think I decided to bring you into this world?"
"I've been wondering that my whole life."
"It's too late to renege on the contract you signed with Demetria. I understand that. Heaven knows, if you'd only asked me for some advice on the matter before you signed it."
"Yes, it’s too late. So why are you here?" Marissa put the lid back on the ice cream and made it vanish back into the freezer. She blew away the sparkly dust that remained. The sparkly dust always made her sneeze.
"Why, my dear, I'm here to help you catch that man you have your eye on."
"What?"
"Well, isn't that the agreement? Win the bet and you keep your power?"
"And the man. I also get to keep the man."
Astrid rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, you keep the stupid human. Now, if you grow tired of him I think I have just the right potion . . ." Astrid conjured
up her thick, black book of ancient family spells. It floated in the air between them. The pages flipped themselves.
"I won't grow tired of him." Marissa hadn't thought past the 'falling in love' part. All of her focus was on winning him. "So you say you're here to help me?"
"Yes." Her mother made the book of spells disappear.
Marissa had been looking forward to the day her mother deemed her an advanced enough witch to share some of the secrets in the family spell book. It looked like today, however, would not be that day.
"Come," her mother said. "Sit with me in the living room, and I'll give you some advice on the matter."
"As if you know anything about getting a man to honestly, truly fall in love with you?"
Astrid took a seat in the recliner again. "I may have given you the magical kiss when you were a child, but my mother didn't gift me with it until my eighteenth birthday. So trust me, I know how to catch a man without the kiss."
This new bit of history interested Marissa. Her mother once had to work for a man's affections? Fascinating. She never thought she'd say the words, but suddenly they were coming out of her mouth. "Could you please help me, mother?"
* * *
After conjuring some tea, they got to work.
Astrid added milk to her cup. "See, the problem is, you went right to the sex."
Marissa blushed at the comment. "I thought men liked sex?"
"Oh, they do, but it's not the way to their hearts. You have to show that you are more than a body. Any woman can satisfy a man's baser needs, but you have to show him that you have a mind he finds attractive, too."
"Men care about my mind?" Never having had to work for men's attentions and knowing it wouldn't last beyond one night, she'd never bothered to observe other couples and how they interacted. She'd always assumed there were mating rituals of one kind or another.
"The good ones do." Her mother stirred her coffee and tapped the spoon on the edge of the cup. "You need to ask him out on a date."
"What kind of date?"
"Dinner, a movie, something that shows you’re interested in getting to know him. Didn't you say his fiancée dumped him not too long ago?"
Marissa repeated what John had told her. "She cheated on him with some other guy only a few months before their wedding. A friend of his, I think." She couldn’t imagine any woman leaving Justin for another guy.
"So he's fragile."
She laughed. "He's not fragile." She remembered the way he'd strained at the ties, his arms tensed.
"Emotionally fragile. He needs to trust that your feelings for him are real and that he won't get hurt again."
Marissa thought of earlier today when he'd shown up at her favorite coffee place wanting to talk. Was that what he was trying to do? Feel her out to see where he stood with her? "Fuck."
"Excuse me?"
"I think I may have screwed up already." Her blood ran cold that she could have reminded Justin of his ex.
Her mother touched her hand. "You can do this, Marissa. No daughter of mine can lose a bet to Demetria."
Although her mother had her own reasons for giving her this help, Marissa was grateful for some guidance on a topic. Sex she had down pat. The rest of this courting stuff, however, was a mystery to her. By the time her mother had disappeared, she’d convinced Marissa she could win him over.
Chapter Eight
Justin tossed his leather jacket on the table near the pub entrance and nodded at John. "Hey, how's it going?"
His co-worker sipped a bottle of water. "She's been waiting for you, you know." He tipped his head toward the bar.
Justin's breath caught in his throat. He thought after yesterday he'd gotten the message. Marissa wasn't interested. He was only another one of her flings.
He hesitated. When she curled a finger at him, however, beckoning him over, he headed toward her. This should be interesting.
"I was wondering when you'd get here." Her voice was as smooth as a fifty-year-old scotch.
"My shift starts at seven." She wore jeans, a tank top, and no make up. She always showed up at the pub dressed to the nines. This Marissa he'd never seen before. "What's up?" He kicked himself for the off-handed question. They'd had hot, passionate sex on this very bar, and all he could come up with was 'what's up'?
"I think we got off on the wrong foot." She smiled shyly. Without all the make up and the sexy clothes, she looked like a woman who could get hurt easily. "I wanted to . . . that is, I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me sometime? A real date."
"A date."
"Yes." She took a sip of club soda. "You mentioned the other men. I'm done with that. That's not me anymore."
His thoughts drifted to the memory of her naked body poised over his. Her red-stained mouth slack as she came. He hoped she wasn't completely done with that Marissa. "So you’re asking me out on a date?"
"Why are you making this so hard?" She pressed her lips together.
"I'm sorry. It's been a long time since a woman asked me out. I hope you didn't think that the other night was all I wanted.” He sat down next to her. “That's why I wanted to find you yesterday. I didn’t mean to ambush you like that."
Her face relaxed. He'd freed her somehow with his words.
"I wanted us to get off on the right foot, and I think I went a little overboard. Gave you the wrong impression."
"Oh, trust me; it was a very right impression.” She blushed. He smiled. “I'd be honored to be your date for an evening. When?"
"Friday. I thought we could go to dinner. Maybe take a walk on the beach?"
"Okay. That sounds nice." Without thinking, he swept his finger around the shell of her ear to tuck back a strand of hair.
She ducked.
He pulled away. “We'll take it slow this time."
She tipped her face up, her gray-green eyes bright even in the dim lighting. "Yes, slow."
He nodded. "Well, I've got to get back to my post. The manager doesn't pay me to talk to pretty girls all night."
She smiled sweetly, looking so vulnerable at that moment—the polar opposite of the Marissa he'd met the other night. She was full of mysteries he'd like to untangle. On Friday night, he'd been given the chance to do just that.
* * *
Marissa's laughter made Justin's cock twitch. Throaty and sexy, her laughter reminded him of the noises she'd made when she climaxed. He shifted in his chair. She’d chosen a seafood restaurant, and over drinks before dinner they'd tackled the easy parts of getting to know each other’s simple likes and dislikes, favorite movies, a few childhood memories. In the dark intimacy of the candlelit dining room he’d wanted to focus on getting to know her on a deeper level, but his body betrayed him every step of the way. He finished his story about his most embarrassing moment. "After that, I never skateboarded again."
She took a sip of her white wine, and her full lips caressed the edge of her glass. "One fall off a railing, and you quit?"
"I had to wear an ice pack in my shorts for two days." He could watch her all night. The way the candlelight played in her eyes, the strand of hair that fell across her cheek, the elegant fingers curled around her wine glass. He couldn't get enough. "So tell me something about you. That was my most story. What's yours?"
Marissa leaned back in her chair and took another sip of wine. "I can't swim."
"That's not an embarrassing story. Come on, you promised to share." The waiter brought their main courses. He dug into his salmon and waited for her to elaborate.
She sighed. "My mother took me to the beach when I was fourteen.” Her voice was barely audible above the chatter of the other diners. “We were exploring the tide pools down near Monterey. She was teaching me about . . . well, she was showing me things. A school bus full of kids from the high school showed up. Some science thing. I slipped on a rock, fell into one of the deeper pools, right in front of this group of guys." She picked at her plate of food. "I panicked. A teacher from the group pulled me out. The end."
"I didn't really have any friends growing up. It was just me and my mom." She shrugged. "She reminded me the incident was my own fault for getting too close to the edge.”
He nodded, but inside he hurt for her. Her childhood had been lonely. "Well, I promise I will never let you get too close to the edge, okay?"
She looked up at him. Tonight he could read her face like an open book. The mask of brittle, tough beauty she wore at the pub was missing. He smiled inwardly at the thought he'd managed to reveal a little more of the real Marissa Glenn tonight. Jana had been such a different kind of woman. Loud, a bit too concerned about keeping attention on herself, and, ultimately, a liar. He didn't want memories of his ex to spoil the evening. "So how's your food?" He gestured at her plate of shellfish.
"Delicious. I don't eat out very often. I'd forgotten what I'm missing." She picked out a juicy mussel and popped it in her mouth.
He felt a pull deep inside his chest as he watched her. He ached for the closeness between a man and woman he'd been missing all these months. "Me, too." He settled a hand on her knee under the table.
At the intimate touch, her gaze shifted from sweetness and light to dark and sexy. He'd hit a switch. His heart sped up in response. Although he'd meant to keep this date all about talking and getting to know Marissa, that look in her eye sent the evening in another direction. He crept his hand up under the hem of her skirt.
"I think I'm done." She set her fork on her plate.
His fingers brushed the edge of her panties. He wanted to pleasure her. Let her know that her loneliness could be over if she would just trust him with her heart and her secrets. "I'm not quite finished." Her breasts rose and fell.
"Oh?" Her voice was breathy.
He slipped a finger under the silky material. "I want one more taste." He spread her cunt lips and tickled her clit with the lightest of touches. Would she let him do this to her . . . here? Now? How much trust would she give him?