by Cherry Adair
Sorely tempted to douse his ego with water, Serena’s jaw ached from clenching her teeth. That was how she used to retaliate. Not anymore. The fact that he could still reduce her to responding like a twelve-year-old made the bottles spin faster. “Give me a towel. Please.”
“So polite. But speaking civilly doesn’t seem to help that temper of yours, does it?”
She shot him a murderous look, realized what she’d done, and stared down at the puddle she was standing in. She couldn’t leave until she’d calmed down. She couldn’t calm down, damn it, standing in Duncan’s kitchen. Naked. With him looking at her with hot eyes and a smile disappearing from his mouth as his gaze trailed across her body. It felt as if he was actually touching her.
The refrigerator door sprang open behind her, smacking her on the butt and almost sending her straight into Duncan’s arms. She grabbed the counter and held on. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath. Visualized a field of cool, green grass. Breathe. Blue sky. Breathe. Fluffy white clouds. Breathe. Slow. Deep. In. Out. In. Out.
When the noise of the chaos in his kitchen abated, finally, Serena opened her eyes.
“Wow. That was impressive.” He materialized a black hand towel and extended it between two fingers.
She gave him a cool, narrow-eyed look. “Don’t be an ass, Duncan. You wanted me here. Unless you turned into a complete moron, you know how annoyed I am. Give me some cl—” She was suddenly wearing a simple, honey-colored silk charmeuse robe. And she was dry.
“Now that I have your undivided attention, and I’m no longer wet and naked,” she said, tightening the belt around her waist, “why did you bring me here? And what right did you have sending those men to watch my every move?”
He kept his place as cold as a meat locker, but she wasn’t going to attempt any magic until she was sure she had her emotions in check. Instead of a wool sweater, she might end up wearing the damned sheep.
“Henry’s worried about you, and asked me to make sure you were okay. Are you?”
“God, Duncan. Don’t—” Henry was her godfather. Duncan had been one of his students when he’d taught a series of lectures at wizard school. He worked, had worked, for Ian at the Foundation and had brought Serena in fourteen years ago. The rest, as they said, was history. And even though Duncan and Henry had remained friends over the years, it didn’t explain why Duncan was pretending that Henry had asked him for help. “You know he couldn’t have called you. It’s impossible.” Über wizard should have known that.
“Yeah. He did. He asked me to help you. Tell me what it is you need help with, I’ll do what I can, then get out of your hair.”
Just thinking about him in her hair made Serena’s scalp tingle. Before he could distract her again, she materialized jeans, a burnt orange cashmere sweater, thick socks, and tennis shoes. Dressed—as in armored—she felt considerably better. “When last did you speak with him?”
“Spoilsport,” he said, giving a disappointed glance at her fully dressed form. “Henry first contacted me a week ago.”
She shook her head. “Nice try. He had a stroke ten days ago. He can’t move. And he certainly can’t speak. Which you would know if you bothered to return phone messages.”
“You didn’t call me.”
“My assistant did.”
“Too busy to pick up a phone?”
To call you? You bet. “I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah. I know. In the last six months you’ve been to Mongolia, Darfur, Burundi, Somalia, and Schpotistan. Five times.”
“How do you know where I’ve been?”
“If anyone wanted to find you, for God’s sake, all they have to do is pick up a newspaper. You aren’t exactly low profile, Mrs. Campbell.”
“Is there a point in there somewhere?” she asked, dropping a dash of acid sarcasm into her voice. Even from where she was standing, even as uncomfortable and embarrassed, and pissed off as she was, Serena could smell him. Nothing artificial. No cologne. Not even the smell of soap. Just a scent that was uniquely Duncan’s. It reminded her of secrets and dark, sensual promises, and—
Her heart was thumping like crazy. God! she thought, furious with herself, get a grip. Stop romanticizing the man.
Hold your breath if you have to. Remember who you’re dealing with here.
“I’ve been getting mental-grams from Henry—he’s asking me to help stop you.”
“Really?” She arched a brow. “He said, ‘Stop Serena, Duncan’?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘Stop her. Help her.’ You are the only her we have in common. And since I didn’t know what, specifically, he meant, I sent a few of my men to protect you.”
“I’m a humanitarian, I don’t need protecting. Butt out of my life, Duncan. If that’s all you have to say, I’d like to get back to my shower.” The image of Duncan, naked, in that shower with her made her skin feel hot and tight, and her heartbeat pick up speed like a jungle beat.
Something smoldering and primal flared in Duncan’s eyes as if he, too, had had the same thought, but it was quickly masked as if it had never been.
“Henry has never been an alarmist. He sounds scared. You have to stop what you’re doing, Serena.”
“Stop building latrines in Mongolia? Stop planting crops in Africa? Building schools? Feeding starving children? I don’t think so.”
“I do. Henry’s concerned about you.”
A lump formed in her throat, and it was a few seconds before she could speak. “I’ll go and see him again.” She’d been there yesterday, and all she could do was hold his hand. He was completely unresponsive, and it broke her heart to see him that way.
“I’ll go with you.” He put up a hand when she started to protest. “Like it or not, Henry wants me involved. If not, he would have communicated his concerns to you. He didn’t. Suck it up.” She smelled like soap. Something intoxicating and floral. Jasmine, he thought.
A jasmine-covered arbor, planted by Martha Morgan years ago, was still growing in Henry’s front yard today. Did Serena remember the night he’d kissed her beneath it?
He wanted to reach out his hand to touch her. To see if her skin felt as soft as it looked.
She’d probably retaliate by raining on him.
Might be worth it, he thought, almost—almost tempted.
“We don’t have to go together.” Emotion danced across her expressive features as her gray eyes flashed. Duncan could see the effort it took for her not to lose it again. He braced for shit to go flying, but this time she managed to rein in her temper.
“I’m trying to figure out why my accompanying you to see Henry makes you nervous.”
Up went the chin. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then it’s not going to Germany together that has your pulse pounding, it’s me.”
Her lovely eyes widened. “Oh, please. We’ve known each other for most of our lives, when have you ever made me nervous?”
“I can think of at least half a dozen times, as a matter of fact.” The night he’d kissed her outside Henry and Martha’s house, for one. Innocence had never tasted so perfect.
“If it makes you feel macho, then by all means—keep believing that b.s.” She stared at him for a long challenging moment. “Then put your ego away and remember that you make me furious. Not nervous.”
She got furious when she was nervous. He smiled. Fury was all grown up. She was all life, passion, and vitality. And vividly, achingly…Technicolor. She made everything around her recede into blacks and grays. And he didn’t mean his black-and-chrome kitchen.
“You’re smiling like that to annoy me,” she said crossly. “It won’t work.”
His smile widened. Yeah, it already had. As a kid he’d intentionally grinned at her to make her lose her temper. He’d enjoyed the hell out of seeing shit go flying in the classroom. Or on the playground. Or at a party. But as they’d both gotten older, he’d recognized that he teased Serena for that brief, one-on-one, interaction with her.
His heart bea
t too fast as they stared at one another. The smile slipped from his mouth. He wanted her, and there was nothing rational or civilized about it. The intensity of his need made a mockery of his self-control.
Serena was the most gloriously, unabashedly alive woman he’d ever met. Interestingly enough, she was sublimely indifferent to her allure. Yet she’d always drawn attention. Even when she’d been a scrawny little kid with freckles and that incredible, eye-catching hair. It truly was the color of flames. Fire orange, it licked and curled past her shoulders and halfway down her slender back. Maybe that’s what had first caught his attention, at the ripe old age of eleven.
Fire was his power to call, and Serena embodied everything about it. Hot. Dangerous. Seductive.
Or perhaps it had been her eyes, a cool misty gray, as clear as water. The sadness was gone from them now. And she no longer sported braces and scabbed knees. These days she was tall and slender with small, perfect breasts and a narrow waist and legs that went on forever. She’d figured prominently in Duncan’s fantasies for as long as he could remember. Band-Aids or breasts, it didn’t matter. Apparently Serena Br—Campbell possessed something that always made him sit up and take notice.
Seeing her naked was going to take those fantasies to a whole new level. Fortunately his tongue had, eventually, come unglued from the roof of his mouth. Serena fully dressed was a thing of beauty. Serena naked…Holy hell.
How in God’s name was he ever going to erase that image from his brain? Because erase it he must. He had to resist the lure of her beauty and vitality, resist the…want.
Wanting wasn’t getting.
Like the pact he’d made with his brothers years ago, the vow that the ancient family Curse would end with them, Duncan had also made a promise to himself. To stay away from Serena Brightman.
He’d known, the second he’d taken his first look at her, that she was going to be to him what kryptonite had been to Superman. Too close proximity was going to be detrimental to his health. Mental health, that was.
A man could never be too careful.
He had plans for his future and Serena didn’t figure into them. Worse when those plans included taking her godfather’s position on the Council. He wasn’t sure how she was going to feel about that. Serena adored Henry. He was like a father to her, and she’d always been very protective of him. Henry’s stroke must have scared her to death.
He’d offer sympathy, but Serena wouldn’t accept it. The woman might look soft and silky, but she had a steel bar strapped to her spine.
“Fine. Don’t believe me? Then come with me if you insist,” she told him with clear reluctance. “He’s in a hospital in Germany.”
“In a coma?” He didn’t doubt her. Serena was nothing if not brutally honest. “Damn. Hard to believe. I had dinner with him last month when he came to London—looking for a power source for something he was working on. He seemed fighting fit then.” When he’d been a kid his instructor had seemed ancient. But the twenty-six-year age difference didn’t seem as vast now. Henry was only fifty-nine, far too damn young to remain in a comatose state. The man was not only Master Wizard and as such Head of the Wizard Council, he was also a brilliant scientist and Duncan considered him a good friend. “Can you tell me what happened?”
For a second he saw the fear in her eyes, and he wanted to protect her from the pain of losing someone else she loved. He didn’t know the whole story about her parents’ deaths, she never talked about it, but he knew how attached she was to Henry. If he died, Serena would be devastated. Christ. If Henry died, he’d be devastated.
The small chink of vulnerability slammed shut; Serena was good at masking her pain and she did so now. “He collapsed while he was working.”
Though clearly excited, his friend had been strangely cagey about the project he was working on for the Foundation. Had been for the last three years or so. Usually when they got together, Duncan had to listen to an hour-long soliloquy of how amazingly wonderful Serena was, before he got caught up with what Henry was working on in his capacity as head of scientific research and development for Serena’s foundation.
At their last meeting, in between hearing about Serena ad nauseam, Henry mentioned his current project only in the most cursory terms. He’d even been closemouthed about the location of his latest project, which was unusual. “Where was this?”
“Schpotistan. His assistant, Joanna Rossiter, was with him when he suffered a massive stroke. Fortunately, the Foundation has a medical team on-site; they kept him breathing until the medevac got there. He was immediately airlifted to Germany.”
“And the prognosis?”
“Guardedly optimistic to too soon to tell—depending on who you ask.” Their eyes met, for once perfectly attuned. They both cared, they were both worried, and they both felt helpless.
“I just have to make a quick call, then we can go.”
She stiffened. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Business, Fury, business.” Duncan took his phone out of his back pocket and shot her a grin. “I’m not calling a lady friend, don’t worry.”
“A: You’re the last man in the solar system I’d ever worry about. For any reason. B: I don’t give a flying fig who you call. Just hurry up! I have better things to do than hang around waiting for you.”
The phone vibrated in his hand before he could dial. “Hi beautiful,” he greeted Lark Orela, one of T-FLAC/psi’s controls. It was unusual for her to call unless they were working together. They weren’t at the moment. “What can I do for you?”
Serena rolled her eyes, then crossed the kitchen to pick up the flotsam and jetsam her temper had scattered.
“Heads up, Hot Edge. The Council wants you in Chambers in five minutes. Bring Serena.”
“How the hell did you kno—” He was talking to dead air. “Change of plans,” he told Serena, admiring her heart-shaped ass in those tight jeans as she bent down to retrieve a sauté pan. His heart picked up a little speed. The Council was convening the first Test meeting—
He frowned. Maybe not. There was no reason for them to invite Serena to sit in.
Or was there?
She straightened and turned to face him, brandishing the small pan like a club. “Take her flowers.”
“Lark?”
“Is that your girlfriend’s name?” She opened a lower cabinet and tossed the pan inside, using her foot to close it. “Wasn’t the last one something you’d name a cat? Miffy or Fluffy?”
His last marginally serious relationship, with Marta Jorgensen, had ended five, six years ago. Right after he’d seen Serena and her then boss, Ian Campbell, at the Met. Although the two incidents had nothing whatsoever to do with each other. “No cat. Dixie was my dog.”
“It’s okay for you to call your girlfriend a bitch in front of me,” she said sweetly.
He smiled. “Jealous?”
“That would imply that I care. I don’t.”
“And on that subject,” he said, completely changing it, “why does the Council want to see you?”
“Me? They don’t.”
“Yeah. They do.” He glanced at his watch. “In four minutes.”
“Another psychic flash like the one you claim you got from Henry?”
He held up the small phone he was still holding. “Call from my office.”
Serena shook her head, clearly not believing it was a business call. “Are you coming to see Henry or not?”
“Absolutely. After we see what the Council wants.”
“Someone’s pulling your leg. They never warn us when they want to see us, you know that. They teleport whoever they want when they want them. And no one is seeing them for the next ten days because of the Tests…What—Oh, don’t tell me—You’re running for Head of Council? You?”
Her surprise and incredulity stung, but there was no point prevaricating. Once the three contestants were announced, everyone would know he’d thrown his hat into the ring. “Yeah. Got a problem with it?”
“Actually�
��no. I don’t. You’d make an excellent Head. You’re cool and calm under pressure, you’re fair, you’re intelligent. You tend to make quick, smart choices.”
“Why do I hear a giant ‘but’ in there?”
“You resolve matters with your fists.”
Serena didn’t know he worked for T-FLAC. The incident she was referring to had happened when they’d been in their early twenties. A party they’d both attended in New York. “The guy,” Duncan said mildly, keeping an eye on the time, and remembering just how damn many people he’d had to bribe and coerce to get an invite to that particular party, “was stinking drunk, and grabbed my date’s breast in public.” The guy had tried a lot more than grabbing—what had been her name? Mandy? Megan? Monica? Something like that.
The guy’d almost succeeded in raping her in the bathroom. He’d cut her with his pocket knife, and bitten her hard enough for her to require plastic surgery on the nipple. Duncan had no regrets that he’d teleported her to the hospital and then returned the same way to beat the shit out of the little prick.
“What was I supposed to do? Ask him nicely to cease and desist?”
“I wasn’t referring to Denise’s party—where, by the way, you beat the crap out of some poor drunk idiot, and threw him out of a window on the second floor for a minor infraction. Especially since Moira was wearing a dress cut to her navel advertising her very expensive silicone breasts. I’m referring to the time you were arrested in that Hong Kong nightclub three years ago, and the time you ended up in the hospital because for once some other guy beat the crap out of you. Or that time some guy broke your nose—”
“You should’ve seen the other guy.” Henry. That’s how she knew this stuff. His friend was bound by secrecy not to discuss Duncan’s line of work. Apparently that didn’t keep his old mentor from sharing Duncan’s assorted bumps, bruises, and worse. Henry had obviously shared his worry with Serena, who took it as just another reason to dislike him. Hell.
Duncan glanced across at her and cocked a brow, realizing that she remembered the name of a casual date he’d had more than ten years ago. A cabinet door slammed. Then slammed again. “What?”