by JoAnn Ross
“I hope I haven’t interrupted your work?”
“Nothing important.” He moved aside, inviting her in. “And I’ll always have time for you, Roxi.”
She glanced around, getting a vague impression of bold colors and bright movie posters, but her nerves were too knotted for her to concentrate on any one thing but her reason for having come here today.
“I brought your spell. The binding one,” she said when he didn’t immediately respond.
Had he forgotten? Oh God, even worse, had he changed his mind? Wouldn’t that be ironic? If she came crawling to a man only to end up being the one who got dumped?
“Ah. I hadn’t realized Hex Appeal had delivery service.” He sat down in a chair behind a glass-topped desk, braced his elbows on the arm of the chair, and observed her over the top of his tented fingers.
“You had this delivered to the inn,” she reminded him, lifting the dragon pendant from where it had been nestled between her breasts ever since May Day morning.
“So I did. But it was two blocks from your shop to my suite. This is a bit more of a trip.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy on her. He hadn’t even asked her to sit down. So much for her midnight fantasies of him dragging her down onto his casting couch and ravishing her the moment she walked in the door.
“True. But being a firm believer in the value of service, I’ve always been willing to go the extra mile to keep a valuable customer.”
She took out the small, black silk drawstring pouch containing a vial of rose water made from petals picked while they were still wet from morning dew, seven vanilla beans, a lock of her hair tied with a red ribbon, and a small seashell she’d picked up on the Tybee Island beach and charged beneath the full moon.
“I’ve written the spell on a piece of paper. It’s best that after you do it you place the package beneath your lover’s bed for seven days and seven nights.”
“That presupposes that I’ll be anywhere near my lover’s bed for the next seven days and nights.”
“Well, all magic has its challenges.” She echoed his neutral tone, which was beginning to make her last nerve screech.
Deciding that, having tried subtle, it was now time to pull out all the stops, she went around the desk and settled herself in his lap.
He might have been able to keep his desire for her from his voice, but the enormous erection pressing against her bottom was proof that he was no more immune to her than she was to him.
“What are you doing here, Roxi?” he asked. “Really?”
“That should be obvious, cher.” She began unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ve come to seduce you.”
He sucked in a sharp breath when she pressed a wet, openmouthed kiss against his chest. “I do so love the taste of your skin.” Her lips skimmed over him, reveling in the rich male flavor she’d been dreaming of ever since he’d been gone. “It tastes so dark. And warm.” She circled his nipple with the tip of her tongue and felt his penis leap. “And forbidden. It’s the dark side of the dream.”
He thrust his hands through her hair, burying his face in the sleek black strands. “You’ve changed your scent.”
“Because I’ve changed. I blended it up special to help me seduce you.” She pressed her lips against the hollow in his dark throat, thrilled that his pulse echoed the trip-hammer beat of her own heart. “Is it working?”
He caught hold of her waist, shifting her on his lap. “You know damn well it is.”
His hand slid up her bare thigh, slipped beneath the sherbet pink, yellow, and green skirt, and discovered hidden delights.
“Damn, sugar. You must’ve been in one hurry this morning, leaving Savannah without your underwear.”
“I haven’t worn panties since you left,” she revealed. “I’ve been walking bare-crotched all around Savannah, feeling the river breeze and the heat on my pussy, imagining your hands and your mouth on me there, remembering how you felt inside me.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.” He dipped a finger into the moist cleft, causing a secret thrill. “Doing the same damn thing and it’s been driving me fuckin’ nuts.”
He shifted her slightly again, giving him access to the fly of his jeans, opening the metal buttons with hands that were not nearly as steady as Roxi remembered them.
Her eyes went dark and warm as she took his freed cock in one silken hand, brushing her thumb over the drop of pre-cum.
Her gaze, when she lifted it to his, shone with a heady mix of lust and what he knew to be love. “I’ve never felt this way with any man,” she murmured wonderingly. “Oh, I’ve had sex before. Good sex. Even great sex.”
“Well, that does a helluva lot for my ego.”
She laughed like the sexy, seductive witch she was, then anointed the thick and throbbing head of his penis with her lips. “It’s another world with you.” She looked up at him again, her heart in her eyes. “You’ve got a dark and dangerous aura at times that both scares me and thrills me. But at the same time, whenever I’m with you, I feel totally safe. As if I’m exactly where I belong.”
“I’ve felt the same way. From the first. The dark and light.” He skimmed a finger over the pendant he’d bought to symbolize it. “All in one.”
“Yes.” She smiled. Lifted her face for a long, deep, soulful kiss. “I thought it would be hard.”
“It is.”
“No.” This time her laugh was merry, reminding him of sunshine on water. “I meant submitting. Not sexually, which is exciting on occasion, but giving myself—all of me—to another person.” She framed his face in her hands. “But once I made the decision, it was not only easy but exactly right. Because Beltane was all about looking ahead, not back, and I realize that whatever the future brings, you’ll be there with me.”
“I know the feeling.” His own laugh was one of pent-up relief. “Very well.”
Her nerves settled, she glanced around the room, her gaze settling on the black leather sofa.
“Is that your casting couch?”
“Why?” He arched a sardonic brow. “Do you feel like auditioning for a part?”
“Actually, I do.” She slid off his lap and pulled her dress over her head. Then stood before him wearing only a pair of strappy pink Manolos and perfumed and powdered skin. “I want to audition for the part of your wife.”
Desire. Lust. Gratitude. And love. She could read them all on his beautifully sculpted face.
“That’s a very important role,” he said. “It’s important I choose right.”
“Oh, Mr. Movie Director, I so agree,” she said in a breathless little Marilyn Monroe voice she’d practiced back in junior high. It had worked then. It worked now. “I’ll do anything to get the part.” She trailed a hand across the crest of her breasts. Around her taut and tingling nipples. “Absolutely anything.”
He stood up, crossed the room and locked the door. Then scooped her into his arms.
“I hope you didn’t have any other auditions scheduled for today, sugar,” he said as he carried her over to the couch. “Because this may take a while.”
A full moon rode high in sky, casting a warm and benevolent white light over the Southern California coast, illuminating the man and woman.
“Mine.” He needed to say the word out loud. Needed to hear her response.
She didn’t hesitate. “Yours,” she agreed on a soft, shimmering breath.
For all time.
Clinging to him, her body bowed, her slender hands racing up and down his back while she chanted words from an ancient time, the witch opened completely. Utterly.
As the man opened to her.
And together, moving to music only they could hear, they surrendered to the magic of the night.
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“One Last Weekend” copy
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