by Linda Wisdom
“We’re entirely alone,” she whispered in a silken voice that promised pure pleasure, as she answered his unspoken question. “Stasi won’t disturb us—you might say I hung a witchy necktie on the doorknob.”
He smiled. “There’s no door, much less a doorknob.”
“I’m very innovative.” She rocked slightly, increasing the pressure.
Jake’s breath hitched at the sensation as electricity shot all through his body. He gripped her hips, planning to direct what was happening, but he quickly learned that his hexy lady had plans of her own.
She straightened up slightly, changing the angle yet again. Each time she moved, Jake felt ready to shoot out of the chair. He arched up, feeling her even more deeply. He watched her eyes shine in the candlelight and inhaled the scent of her arousal, which was more potent than any perfume.
He pulled her toward him, pushing up her camisole and unhooking her bra. Her breasts gleamed in the soft light as he cupped his palm to the rounded skin. This time she was the one to hiss in reaction as he rolled her nipple between his fingers before leaning forward to take it into his mouth. He felt her cheek nestle against his hair while she wrapped her arms around his head.
It wasn’t until then that he realized just how much Blair’s touch meant to him. For one who wasn’t used to experiencing much physical contact, it was like rain in a parched dessert. Suddenly, Jake wanted this woman to hold him forever.
When he used his teeth on her nipple, he felt her move faster against him and he rocked up against her. The need increased to a pleasure-pain that was ready to explode, and his arms tightened around her as her movements quickened.
“You can’t scream this time,” she murmured in his ear, her breath raspy with the knowledge of what was to come.
“Men don’t scream,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear. “You were the one doing the screaming last time.” He reached down and found the tiny hooded bundle of nerves. As he rolled it between his fingers, Blair started to keen softly and as the chain reaction hit them both, he covered her mouth with his. But while Blair’s scream was kept quiet, her magick went flying around them and the room lit up with golden sparkles.
Jake was wrong. It wasn’t nirvana he experienced, but something so intense and addictive that the minute they collapsed in each other’s arms he couldn’t wait to experience it again. He held Blair in his arms, her face nestled against the crook of his shoulder as they slowly recovered.
“Not looking. Not seeing a thing.” Horace walked through the room with his claws over his eyes. “Just going to the kitchen for a drink of water. I’ll be gone before you realize I was even here.”
“Augh!” Blair screamed as Jake jerked upward, almost dumping her off his lap. He managed to grab hold of her before she landed on the carpet.
“Get out of here, Horace!” Her voice threatened dire consequences as the gargoyle appeared to be peeking through his claws. “You don’t even drink water, and you don’t need to walk through this room to get to the kitchen!”
“Yeah, well, if I were you, I’d tell Stasi I want my money back on that push up bra. It does nothing for you.” He scurried into the kitchen before she could retaliate and made sure to leave the kitchen via the other doorway that led down the hall to the bedrooms.
Jake breathed in sharply through his nostrils. “At least he didn’t come in a few minutes earlier. Or did he?”
“That’s one thing I’ll find out in the morning, and he’ll be one sorry gargoyle if he did.”
Jake had never felt closer to Blair, but the mood had been broken, and this probably wasn’t the time to see if Blair truly could accept his animal nature the way she claimed she could.
“I’d better go.” He stood up, setting Blair on her feet. “Ted dropped off the lumber for the booths and I want to get an early start setting them up tomorrow. Are you coming out to help paint?”
“Stasi and I will be there,” she promised.
She didn’t try to argue, just followed him to the back door, where he grabbed his jacket off the coat rack and stepped outside. He turned back and brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek.
“You’re making me crazy, you know that, don’t you?”
Her blue-green eyes glinted with humor. “Welcome to the club.”
Jake was going to leave her with only a light kiss on the lips, but the minute his mouth covered hers he knew it wasn’t to be. Their kiss threatened to start the fireworks all over again until Blair moved back a step.
“Good night, hexy,” he murmured, gently pushing her back into the kitchen and closing the door.
“Hexy?”
Blair turned to face her best friend, who stood just inside the kitchen. “Seems he likes calling me a hexster.”
Stasi grinned. “Oh, that’s very cute. I went ahead and wallmailed Ebenezer and left him a message that the order still stands on the land up here not being for sale, no matter what price anyone offers.”
“If they’re smart they won’t try to bully him. He loves nothing more than going toe-to-toe with the Were community.” Blair switched off the lights and they headed down the hallway together, parting at their bedroom doors. Blair went inside to her private sanctuary.
With the chill in the air, Blair opted for a pair of lilac fleece pajama pants and matching sweatshirt top. She noticed the glow in her eyes as she brushed her teeth and washed her face.
“Too bad he’s not still here to keep this glow going.” She headed for her bed and shivered at the feel of the cold sheets.
“Can I sleep in here?” Horace called out, opening the door a crack and peeking in. “Stasi’s talking to Trev again and even a silence spell isn’t working tonight.”
“I thought you adored phone sex,” she teased, nodding that he could enter.
“Yeah, but only when it’s me doing it.” He walked in and hopped up to sit on the end of the bed. He groomed his horns and sat down as close to cross-legged as a stone gargoyle could. “And I didn’t see a thing, I swear.” He held up his claws in his own version of the Boy Scout salute. “So can we watch TV? There’s a Nicole Kidman marathon on cable. Practical Magic just came on.” The Australian actress was a favorite of his, and they’d smuggled him into the theater more than once so he could see her on the big screen. He’d been so excited that he not only behaved during those trips, but he hadn’t hogged all the popcorn, either.
“Sure, go ahead.” She piled up her pillows behind her, ready to watch with him.
If nothing else, watching the cinematic witches and their erratic love lives would take her mind off Jake.
Or not.
***
It hadn’t taken Jake long to realize that leaving Blair was a big mistake for him. Sleep was non-existent; he finally fled to his workshop, where he could lose himself at his drafting table laying out plans for his new project. Even then, memories of her laughter and her taste and touch haunted him.
“Hey poochie!” Blair’s shout brought his head up off the drafting table where he’d finally fallen asleep not long before dawn. “Come on out, I brought breakfast.”
He almost fell off the stool as he straightened up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen asleep at the drafting table, so the aches and pains in his body from the unnatural position were nothing new. He dry-scrubbed his face with his hands but knew he’d need plenty of coffee and a hot shower to finish the job.
Jake left the workshop and locked the door behind him, turning to Blair, who stood near his kitchen door. He laughed at the sight before him. Blair wore a red wool hooded jacket and carried a large basket with a towel draped over it. He inhaled the mouth-watering fragrance of eggs, bacon, and pancakes coming from the basket. Her mouth was slicked with a warm red shade that he ached to kiss off her lips.
“Hey, Red Riding Hood, are you off to see Grandma?” he asked, walking toward her.
“Nope, just looking for a sexy wolfie, and while you may look canine, you do have your lupus side.�
� She grinned. “Hurry up. The food’s getting cold and so am I.”
Jake pushed open the back door and ushered her into the cabin. Thanks to the timer on the coffee pot, the hot brew was waiting.
“I’ll be down in a minute.” He loped upstairs while Blair unpacked the contents of the basket onto the table.
Jake took the fastest shower in history to wash the cobwebs out of his head and returned downstairs, pulling on a clean T-shirt. By the time he reached the kitchen, a breakfast feast lay before him.
“I’m impressed.” He sat down, unsure where to start first. He helped himself to eggs scrambled with bits of green and red bell pepper and hints of onion, along with smoked bacon, and golden fluffy pancakes. There was a pitcher of maple syrup between their two plates, and two glasses held orange juice, which he knew wasn’t in his fridge. He hadn’t stocked up lately, so all anyone would find in there were some containers with what looked like science experiments inside and a few bottles of beer. He forked up some of the eggs and savored the taste.
“I heated up everything in the microwave,” Blair explained, digging into her own plate. “I tried calling you to invite you over for breakfast, but when I couldn’t reach you on the phone I figured you were locked in your workshop. I know you won’t answer your cell when you’re in there, so I thought I’d bring breakfast to you.”
“Ginny will wonder where I am.” He grinned. “While I do some cooking, I tend to eat breakfast at Sit ’N Eat.” Ginny’s family had been running Moonstone Lake’s popular café since the 1800s.
“She’ll survive without your business.” She poured syrup on her pancakes and cut them into bite-size pieces. “So, what were you working on in your secret lair?”
“Finishing up a custom piece.” What would it be like to see Blair sitting across the table from him every morning? She’d taken off her red coat to reveal a faded sage-green sweatshirt over a striped shirt with a frayed collar that she wouldn’t have to worry about while working at the lake today. He slid along the breakfast nook’s bench seat and reached for her hand. “You make me smile.”
Blair’s face lit up as if he’d given her a truckload of diamonds.
“I’m just happy I don’t have to put your breakfast in a bowl,” she teased. “So are you going to tell me about your new project? I know you’ve built some furniture and you do a lot of carpentry in the area, but what else goes on out in your secret lair?”
“I build custom pieces,” he admitted, now working on the pancakes that he had covered with butter and syrup.
“Custom as in furniture?”
He exhaled a deep breath. This was something he had always kept to himself, but maybe it was time to reveal a little. “Actually, more like dollhouses.”
“Dollhouses?”
He nodded. “I build custom dollhouses, and I try to put a twist in each one. I’ve built English country homes, French chateaus, a Swiss chalet, a Southern mansion, recreations of a family home—but I might put in a secret room, a dungeon, or family portraits that look a bit off. I have a source that creates the furniture and the small figures for the houses, but I do the designing. You might see an elegant Regency-style chaise with skulls for legs or a four-poster bed that’s twined with snakes. A collectibles seller in LA sells them through their catalogs and on line.”
“Wait a minute! Are you JH Creations?” in her excitement Blair almost bounced off the bench. “You built the house that looked like a cross between a movie star mansion and the Addams Family house? I wanted that one so bad, but your prices are way too high for my budget.”
“They’re worth it. Besides, you wouldn’t want that dollhouse. You’d want something that was definitely you.” He thought of the drawing on his drafting board. One he didn’t want her to see because that dollhouse was very much Blair.
“I could see one for Stasi as a Barbie’s Dream House with a peaked black hat for a chimney. What about me?”
“Modern, elegant, with a touch of Edward Gorey for spice.”
“I could live with that; it would mean no pastels. They do absolutely nothing for me.”
Jake glanced up at the clock. “While I’d love nothing better than to relax here, I guess we’d better head out to the lake. I dread to think how much trouble the elves will cause if they’re out there, and knowing Agnes, she’ll put them to work, too.”
Blair slid out of the bench and began gathering up the dishes. She rinsed them off in the sink and left them on the counter. “We haven’t received any frantic phone calls from Agnes, so that’s a good thing.”
Jake chuckled. “Or she’s locked herself in a closet and refuses to come out.”
“Won’t happen. Floyd doesn’t have the cojones to take on those elves and Marva’s such a wuss she won’t go within ten feet of them without Agnes pushing her.” She pulled on her coat and retrieved her gloves from her pocket while Jake got his jacket.
“I put the boards on a sled last night, since my truck can’t get back there.” He walked around the back of the shed and pulled out a sled piled high with boards and the tools he’d need to put up the booths.
“No harness?”
He shot her a glare that she returned with her most innocent gaze. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“Just remember it can go both ways. You start with more dog jokes, and I’ll be loading you down with brooms and cauldrons,” he warned her, starting off for the lake.
Blair walked past the sled until she was walking side by side with him. “We’re more Oreck than brooms, and no way I’d ever try flying on one. That’s so twelfth century. Plus I’d suggest you forget mentioning the ugly black dresses and striped stockings. So not us.” She looked back at the sled piled high with boards. “How many booths are you putting up?”
“Agnes wanted about fifteen. Some of the high school kids are coming out to help paint them. With all the cold, dry weather they’ll dry just fine.”
“Oh sure, if they remember to get up at a decent hour. We are talking teenagers, you know. So you’ve got me this morning and Stasi will show up this afternoon. She’ll watch both shops then I’ll take over. Felix and Horace offered to watch the shops, but not a good idea. Horace would probably give away Stasi’s stock as long as he got a peek at any part of female anatomy.”
“You witches sure have your share of oddball sidekicks.”
“You have no idea.”
When they reached the lake, Blair took a deep breath, relishing the scent of pine mixed with the cold air.
They found a casually dressed Agnes and Floyd along with ten elves who, while they were attired in grubby clothes, at least looked cleaner than they’d been the day before. And when Alberic turned toward her, he didn’t look at her breasts first.
“Hey toots!” He grinned and waved the unlit cigar that had been clamped in his mouth. “Don’t worry, I’m only chewing on it. We’re here to help.” He gestured for his friends to help Jake unload the wood from the sled. “We’re good at this stuff. You know those cartoons about the elves coming in during the night to help the baker or the shoemaker? Some of us have really done that kind of shit.”
“Good.” She was still surprised to see them bathed and shaved, and even their pointed ears didn’t have any creepy crawlies on the tips. “You… uh… you look really good.”
He leaned toward her. “You know that Agnes dame ain’t so bad. She makes a fuckin’ good lasagna, too. After dinner she sat down with us and gave us the scoop.”
“The scoop?” Blair was afraid to speculate.
Alberic nodded. “She was really upfront, even telling us what she paid Mickey. That troll bastard Mickey lied to us about what Aggie’s paying him, and that means he should be paying us a whole fuckload more than he is. She was pretty pissed about that and said we should be getting what we’re worth. She wants us to stand up to Mickey and demand the money he cheated us out of. She also said we can’t look like bums, that we wouldn’t be taken seriously as long as we didn’t clean up our act. She wants us
to call that Stasi chick’s boyfriend and see if we can retain him to sue Mickey. She feels we have a good case. I gotta say she’s pretty savvy for a human.”
“That’s something I’d like to see.” Blair had never been so happy that Trev was meant for Stasi, because she had a feeling it was Stasi the elves would now latch on to. She tapped into her inner witch to see if there was any guilt or sympathy for her friend. Nope, not a bit. Stasi could take care of herself.
“Blair, dear, you’re here!” Agnes tittered, as she approached her. “I’m sorry, the rhyming was unintentional.” She pressed her hand against her throat as she leaned in closer. “Could that mean something I should worry about?”
Blair shook her head. “You’re safe. We don’t always rhyme our spells.” She looked to one side of the lake, where a crew of men had been busy smoothing out the ground and boards were now unloaded from the sled and laid out for each booth space. “I’m amazed with the improvement you’ve made with Alberic and his crew. And overnight, no less. I don’t think I could have done as good a job as you have.”
Agnes’s smile brightened under her praise. “I admit I love to cook and making several batches of lasagna wasn’t all that difficult. Actually, I made ten batches. I wasn’t certain I wanted to sit down with them for dinner when they invited me, but they turned out to be very polite, with halfway decent table manners—at least, better than I expected. Although some have no idea what napkins are used for, but I quickly corrected them on that,” she said graciously. “And the stories they told about their travels was heartbreaking. That horrible Boggs creature sends them all over the country for such little pay and without providing for any type of medical insurance or any benefits at all! No wonder they live like animals. No one’s ever truly cared for them before. Those that are married said their wives don’t want them to come back.”