by Avery Flynn
“The Fairy Godmother helped me to see that this sword is my way into the King’s organization—a tribute. I’ll give it to him to get in on the ground floor of his organization.” His cheeks flamed. “Sorry, Red, it’s not personal, it’s just business. If anyone would understand, I figured it was you.”
“You figured wrong, you double-crossing donkey’s uncle.” Red poured enough venom into each word to make Derry take a nervous step back.
He gaped at them for a minute before spinning around and running out the back door like the devil was on his heels.
Fury burned a hole in Liam’s gut. “Doesn’t he realize now we’ll both be after him?”
“No one ever said Derry was the sharpest ax in the shed,” Red said.
“The same could be said for you.” He leaned in close, the wolf inside him hungry for a fight. “Because I’m the last person you should have ever double-crossed.”
Chapter Five
Liam rubbed his aching shoulder and ignored the woman chuckling softly beside him. For the past twenty-three minutes, Red had seethed in the booth, munching on their dwindling supply of peanuts and watching with a little more snarky joy each time Liam had tried and failed to break the magical force field. He’d thrown every destruction spell he could remember at it—not to mention his own shoulder repeatedly—and the damn thing remained solid.
Sitting back against the oversized, high-backed seat, he swiped the last remaining peanuts out of the bowl and crunched them to smithereens between his teeth. He glanced over to Red, who sat with her long legs curled up underneath her while she smirked at him.
“You think this is funny?” He put enough growl in his voice to make a goblin take a step back but she didn’t even flinch.
She toyed with the ruby-red cocktail ring on her pointer finger. “It’s a laugh-or-cry situation and I’m not the kind of girl to get all sniffly.”
No she wasn’t. She was the type of girl who drove sober men to drink. Smart. Sexy. Devious as the day was long. “But you are the type to screw over a guy without a second thought.”
She flicked a stray peanut shell at him. “This coming from the man who I caught trying to steal the Caladbolg sword from me.”
“That’s different.” It was his family heirloom and was the only thing that would keep him from going perma-furry.
“Really?” She batted her thick eyelashes at him, all fake coy and sweet, scooted closer on the bench seat and walked her fingers up his chest, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Oh no! Are we having our first couple’s fight?”
Calling her bluff, he captured her hand with his own, lifting it high. The pulse in her wrist beat at an excited pace, betraying the practiced nonchalant look on her face. Wondering just how far he could push her, he brought her wrist to his nose and inhaled her amber and spice scent. No powder-fresh smell for his girl—and she was his. Even as pissed-off as he was at her at this moment, he couldn’t stop himself from dipping his head and tasting that sweet spot on her wrist where she showed everything she was trying so desperately to hide.
Her breath hitched. “I’m not into kinky love spell sex.” But the little lie detector under his lips gave her away.
“And I’m not into being toyed with.” He kissed and nipped his way up the inside of her forearm, taking his time to enjoy every millimeter of her soft skin. Pausing at the crook of her elbow, he looked up at her. “But of course, you might be able to talk me into using some toys, if that’s what you’re into.”
She pulled her arm away, hugging it close to her body. “Sorry to disappoint you but I’m as vanilla as they come.”
The points tenting her shirt and the slight flush to her brown skin told another story—one he wanted to read from cover to cover. “When will you figure out, you can’t lie to me?”
Her pink tongue flicked across her bottom lip, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled out her phone from a pocket in her tiny excuse for a skirt, brought up the WitcheryRUs website and went to work looKing for a way to bust through the Fairy Godmother’s force field surrounding them. Exactly what he should be doing. And he would if he could remember to think with his big head instead of the little one when he was around her.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Max’s number. If anyone would have a workaround for becoming a bubble boy, it would be him.
Max picked up on the third ring. “Is this an official wedding invitation?”
“I need to break a bubble.”
“Not what I was expecting. More information please.”
Liam caught Max up on the situation. “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”
“Scan it with your phone and send me the info.”
He swapped over to the Enchanted Translation app and pushed his phone against the force field. The phone’s screen blinked on and off several times before lighting up with a strand of code that it translated into the spell more than likely used to create the bubble. Liam punched a few keys and sent the data to Max.
His best friend let out a series of “hmmms” and “huhs” as he read the information. “Do you happen to have a dried lizard tail that’s been kissed by three fairies on you?” Max asked.
Oh yeah, didn’t everyone carry that around? “Fresh out.”
“That sucks.” Max laughed and tried to cover it with a cough. “Looks like you’re stuck until dawn. It’ll pop like a soap bubble then. Do you need some ideas about how to pass the time away?”
He peeked at Red out of the corner of his eye. She’d pushed away her phone, probably in frustration at not finding a way out, and was resting her head on the back of the booth. Her eyes were closed. Her chest rose and fell in a steady beat, her shirt’s material straining with every inhale. Tempting didn’t begin to cover it. He glanced down at his watch. He had twelve hours alone with Red before the bubble burst and they got back to the business of hunting down the sword. It might be Liam’s best chance at convincing her to forget about trying to break the spell.
“I’ll figure something out.”
###
For the fiftieth time, Red told herself that her wrist was not a sexual pleasure point but her skin wouldn’t stop tingling where Liam had kissed her earlier. She snuck a look at him while he talked on the phone. Everything from his dirty blond hair to the Celtic tattoos to the leather pants that should look ridiculous, but didn’t, had her heart doing the rumba in her chest. The whole situation made her queasy. If this was love, she didn’t want it. She’d stick to her battery-operated boyfriend, thank you very much.
Liam hung up his phone. “We’re stuck here until dawn.”
Everything below her neck became wildly happy while everything above it hunkered down for a fight. “What happens at dawn?”
“The bubble pops.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. The tousled hair only accentuated his bad-boy appeal. “Unless there’s someone you can call tonight for a dried lizard tail that’s been kissed by three fairies?”
If they’d needed a pick-pocket, a smuggler or some muscle, she could have gotten someone in a second—for a steep price. But a friend doing a favor? Not likely. “Nope.”
“Really?” The pity in his blue eyes hit harder than his broad shoulder against the magical dome around them.
She bristled and crushed a peanut shell fragment to smithereens against the tabletop. “Granny’s doing a show in Atlanta and my most trusted employee is the reason why we’re stuck here, so yeah, there’s no one I can call.”
“I might be the werewolf, but you,” he raised an empty pint glass in cheers, “are the lone wolf.”
She laughed despite herself, but the truth of it stung all the same. “It’s hard to miss what you’ve never had.”
Liam settled in and propped his size-fourteen biker boots up on the bench seat on the other side of the table. “How so?”
“Is now where we share our sad tales and get weepy?” She poured on the fake innocent act. There was no way she was going tell Mr. Richy-Rich about h
er Dumpster-diving past. He was out of her life as soon as she broke the love spell and she didn’t share secrets with soon-to-be strangers. She lost every bit of coquette and let the true street urchin she was pour out. “But I already know your story. Your people turn into actual wolves. My people? Well, my people don’t exist. So there you go. Stories told. We can move on now.”
That bitchy little speech would have shut most people up. Liam wasn’t most people. He just winked one of those Caribbean-blue eyes at her, maKing her insides go fizzy.
Reaching out, he twisted one of her brown curls around his finger. “Are you this big of a pain in the ass all the time?”
“Yes.” Even though she sat beside him, she shouldn’t be able to feel that slight touch all the way down to her toes but she did. It zipped along every nerve ending in her body until she felt supercharged. “Now aren’t you glad you’re going to be stuck with me for life?”
“Actually... ” He lifted the curl’s red tip to his nose and inhaled. “I am.”
A warm wave of desire crashed through her, turning her this way and that as she tried to make sense of it all. Lust, she knew. The sensations threatening to drown her right now? That was something different. In an effort to anchor herself, she grabbed ahold of the one thing that had always been her constant: stone-cold bitchiness. “Did you try to break the force field with your head in addition to your shoulder?”
“No.” He let go of her hair, flexing his fingers as if he felt whatever was swirling in the air around them. “Despite your best efforts, I still like you. I’d like you even if you hadn’t touched the Caladbolg sword.”
Rolling her eyes, she gave him plenty of attitude. “Why’s that?”
“Because you’re tough, you’re smart and you don’t give up. I didn’t walk into this place without doing my research. I know how much it took to become the black market fence in Dublin. You succeeded where many before you had failed and you’ve managed to stay on top. If you ever used that brain for legal activities, there’s nothing in the world that could stop you.”
There was nothing she could say to that. No one besides Granny had ever talked to her like that—not that there’d been anyone around before Granny to say that.
Maybe the love spell really was legit and it worked both ways. That would explain the extra something in the way Liam was looking at her that made her heart hiccup and her thighs quiver. It wasn’t just him using a little sweet talk to get into her pants. Enough assholes had tried that for her to be able to spot them from miles away. This was more.
Before her brain could catch up with her body, she took his square jaw between her palms and kissed him like a woman in love.
Chapter Six
With her soft lips on his, all the blood drained from Liam’s brain straight to his cock. Spell or not, the woman was addictive.
The need to feel her, touch her, taste her, nearly overwhelmed him and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue inside her sweet mouth. The move drew him as much as her into a state of blissful torment. It was too much and not enough at the same time. He reached for her, squeezing his arm between the tabletop and her luscious body. There was barely enough room in the cramped space of their overnight prison cell. Side by side with the table only inches from their fronts and the high-backed booth behind them, there really wasn’t the kind of room he wanted for this. He needed to spread her out and feast on her every curve until she trembled in his arms, sated and silly with satisfied lust.
Pushing the base of the heavy table with his foot, he moved it three inches and gave them enough room to maneuver. He clasped her hips tightly and lifted her, ignoring her surprised gasp before setting her down on the table in front of him like a sensual meal he was going to fully enjoy.
It could have been the magic thickening the air, but he couldn’t make himself believe it because when he looked up at her, taking in her desire-hooded eyes and kiss-swollen lips, the world changed. It shrank. It enlarged. It became full of possibilities and hope. He hadn’t been looking for forever when he’d walked into Granny’s Pub, but he’d found it anyway. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let it go now.
Her hands went between her legs, pushing the short skirt to the table while inching it higher at the same time, teasing him with an almost view of the Promised Land. “You aren’t going to eat me are you, big bad wolf?” she asked, desire turning her voice husky.
He gave her just the leer she wanted. “Without a doubt.”
Liam encircled each of her wrists and placed her hands behind her. The move pressed her tits hard against her shirt, the pinpoints of her puckered nipples tenting the material. “Keep them here.” He held her hands to the table for a moment, knowing that if she touched him now he wouldn’t be able to take the time to do all the things they both craved.
Mentally cursing the tight fit of his leather pants as his cock grew with each inhale, he brought his hands to her front and lifted the hem of her shirt. Slowly. So slowly it almost broke him. But there would only be one first time and he wanted to make it last, because he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t run when the spell wore off. He had tonight though, and he meant to make the most of it.
She made a sound, a sweet moan that was half surrender and half encouragement. Thanking the fates for every last bit of light from the streetlamps coming in through the large front windows, he returned to his leisurely visual feast as he moved her shirt upward. Freckles circled her tummy button like planets around a sun and he traced their trajectory with the tip of his tongue. She undulated under his sensual assault, begging for more without saying a word.
He pushed the red shirt higher as she shivered under his touch. Inch after inches of mouthwatering brown skin came into view. Aching to touch her and unable to draw out this divine pain anymore, he pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a white lace bra that did nothing to hide the perfection of her dark nipples and full breasts. He circled the pad of his thumb around her tempting nipple, feeling every bit the proud caveman when it peaked even more.
“Are you trying to kill me?” She groaned out the question as she scooted closer to the edge of the table so that her heavy tits where level with his mouth.
“Maybe just myself.” Every part of him strained toward her, even as he kept himself as still as possible. He needed a minute to calm the fuck down or everything would be over almost as soon as it began.
“We can’t have that.” She reached up her back and unclasped her bra.
“Fuck me.” The words came out with all the reverence he felt, even if his word choice was influenced by the lack of blood north of his waist.
“Such a flatterer.” She laughed and twisted to the left to reach the side clasp of her skirt.
That’s when he saw it. An inch wide, the scar traveled across her left side, narrowing as it curled around her ribs and stopping at a point just under her breast. He traced his finger across it. “What happened?”
Red stiffened, transforming from the teasing, relaxed sex goddess she’d been a minute ago to the hard-as-nails badass he’d first met. “It’s nothing.”
Anger bubbled under the surface, popping against his skin and expanding with each inhale. “I know an enchanted lash’s mark when I see it.”
“Then get your fill.” She turned more, displaying her back and shoulders, revealing the faded scars marring her skin.
“Who?” He needed the name as much as he needed oxygen because that person was going to pay. Dearly.
She shook her head, still keeping her face pointed away from him. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her shoulders shook. Just the tiniest fraction, but that, combined with the dull flatness of her tone, was enough to stab him through the heart as fury and impotence ate away at his gut. “Tell me.”
“I grew up in The Woods neighborhood, not that far from here. It’s dangerous—especially for a little girl left on her own at eleven. I did better than most.” She paused and turned back to face him, her eyes hard and her chin thrust out. “I live
d.”
Liam’s life hadn’t been easy—watching your family transform into wolves and lose any sense of their former humanity wasn’t exactly child-psychologist approved—but he’d had friends, guardians and people in his corner. “What happened to your parents?”
“They trusted someone they shouldn’t.” She grabbed her shirt, holding is close to her chest in a tight grip. “End of story.”
Someday he’d get her to tell him the whole story and help her put the memories to rest. Then, during a full moon, he’d hunt down the responsible parties and devour their still-beating hearts. The silent vow seeped into his bones, becoming as much a part of his future as she was. “You can trust me.”
Red snorted, making even that ridiculous sound sexy. “Why, because of some love spell that neither of has any control over?”
His conscience elbowed him in the ribs; if she ever found out, she’d never forgive him for his lie of omission, but it was too late to go back now. “Because I promise from this day forward to never hurt you. Ever.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale to me.” Her voice remained tough, but her chin trembled.
He tugged her shirt from her hands and dropped it to the table’s smooth surface before pulling her to the edge and bringing his mouth to within millimeters of hers. “So let me prove it to you.”
###
Girls like Red didn’t get happily ever afters, but damn if Liam didn’t have her thinking it just might be possible. The way he kissed wasn’t fair. Strong lips. Talented tongue. Sure fingers. Hint of cocky dominance. He checked off every one of the must-haves on her orgasmic bliss list. But he brought more than the physical. She trusted him. It was that more than anything magical he was doing with his lips that pushed her over the edge. Even if it was only for the night, she was going to believe.
She wrapped her legs around his chest and pulled him closer. “I hope you’re going to take the skirt off me a lot faster than my shirt.”
“I’m not planning to take off this ridiculous excuse for a skirt at all.” His long fingers slid up the outside of her thighs, under her skirt and hooked her panties’ elastic band on both hips.