The Sure Thing

by Samantha Westlake

  I stuck a bookmark into my spot and slammed the book shut. A small cloud of dust whooshed out of it, and I coughed a couple times as I waved a hand to dissipate it. Putting the book back beneath the front checkout counter with the others, I turned my attention to a more pressing question: lunch.

  As if in response to that thought, my stomach growled again, even louder than before. "Soon," I told it, patting it. "I'd really love a good sandwich right now, maybe with roast beef or pastrami, piled high..."

  Unfortunately, I didn't have any of the necessary ingredients in my fridge. I had some old bread, a jar of peanut butter that had been creeping further and further back in the fridge, and some questionable jelly. That was about the extent of my groceries.

  I'd just have to make do with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, convince myself that it was something more, I told my defeated stomach. I didn't have the time or money to go fetch something better right now-

  I glanced up as the bell mounted over the front door of Davies Books jingled. Unbidden, a little smile appeared on my lips – and then immediately grew wider as my nostrils flared at the scent that accompanied the newcomer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ALEX

  *

  As soon as I saw Paxton's eyes light up, I knew that coming to visit her had been a good decision on my part.

  This lasted for a little more than a second, up until she reached, not for me, but for the bag that I carried in one arm.

  "How did you know?" she exclaimed in surprise, reaching into the paper bag and pulling out a couple of small packages, both wrapped in butcher's waxed paper. "This is exactly what I was craving!"

  Her fingers started to unwrap the sandwich – but then froze as her eyes rose back up to me. "Magic?" she asked suspiciously.

  I held up my hands in surrender. "Honestly, I had no idea. They're from my favorite deli, just a couple blocks away from my apartment."

  She kept up the frown for an instant or two longer, but then the smell of a freshly made sandwich overcame her, and she couldn't wait. She tore the butcher's paper off the sandwich – but her frown returned as she held up one half of the meal and looked at its contents.

  "What?" I asked. "Something wrong?"

  "Tuna, right?" she said, poking at the sandwich's filling.

  "Yeah, it's my favorite. So?"

  She sighed, put the sandwich back down. "I can't stand the flavor of it. Something about that fishy smell just really gets to me, make me gag."

  "Oh." I paused for a moment, suddenly not sure how to handle this. "Um, I guess I could go back and get something else?" I reached up and scratched the back of my head. There was a stool next to Paxton behind the counter, and I circled around to grab it and sit. "I usually don't have to worry about what the girl might like when I bring her lunch."

  Her arms crossed as her eyebrows rose. "And why's that?"

  "Because I can just convince them that it's their new favorite thing-" I cut off as I realized how much this made me sound like an insensitive ass. "Sorry. Again."

  Paxton didn't look especially upset, however. Instead, she reached forward and, with her index finger, flicked at my ear. It stung, and I looked up at her in surprise. "What?"

  "Dummy," she said, although she looked like she was holding back a smile. "You can't change me, but what about the sandwich?"

  I blinked. How had the idea not even occurred to me? "So I'm an idiot," I said, wiggling my fingers over the tuna sandwich. "What would you like to eat most right now?"

  Her eyes twinkled. "Pastrami, thin-cut and spicy, piled more than an inch high, with some sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese, on rye bread..."

  I could practically see her drooling. "You got it," I confirmed, adding in every adjective I could imagine describing the tastiness of this sandwich. I finished the sentence, felt that little twinkle flow through me, and withdrew my fingers from above the sandwich.

  Experimentally, she picked up the sandwich half she'd dropped a minute earlier, grinned, sank her teeth into it to take a massive bite. "Oh yeah, that's the stuff," she moaned, her eyes all but rolling back in her head.

  I watched her, unable to keep a smile off my own face. Wow. Watching Paxton eat... she clearly really tasted each bite of food, loved and enjoyed every morsel of it. I couldn't remember ever seeing someone savor food with so much gusto. The way that her whole body shivered a little as she swallowed, the way the very tip of her tongue darted out to run around her lips collecting an errant crumb or smear of mustard, the way that she sighed after swallowing, as if she'd just had a minor little orgasm...

  Incredibly, I felt a stiffening in between my thighs, and hastily tightened my legs together on the stool to keep it from being visible. What the hell was wrong with me? I was getting a hard-on from just watching this woman eat!

  Paxton glanced over at me. "Aren't you going to eat your sandwich, too?" she asked through a still somewhat full mouth.

  "Yeah, in a minute. You go ahead."

  She took another bite, once again letting out a little sigh of pleasure, but her eyes lingered on me. "What's going on?"

  Hell, honesty had gotten me this far. Why stop now? "I like watching you eat," I said, slipping forward off the stool, reaching out to rest my fingers lightly on her hips. "You really savor every bite of the food. It makes you look very... satisfied."

  She narrowed her eyes at me, perhaps suspecting some sort of trick. "That's a joke, right?"

  I tightened my fingers on her hips, pulling her back against me. God, this woman had a great ass hidden away inside those baggy pants. Why didn't she put it on display with some properly fitting clothing? I pictured her reclining in skin-tight leggings and nearly choked. "Not joking at all," I murmured as I moved my lips in towards the back of her neck.

  "Totally inappropriate for this public setting," she sighed, but she really didn't sound like she believed her own words. Instead, she leaned back more against me, resting her warm softness on my lap, letting me kiss the little hairs at the nape of her neck.

  She tasted odd, a strangely tempting combination of old library books and an herbal sweetness that had to be from her shampoo or body wash. "I bet I can make you feel even better than you do when you eat that sandwich."

  She opened her mouth, and I tried to push her to say yes. I'd completely forgotten about her immunity to my power, had forgotten about the reason why I first showed up here today with the sandwiches. I'd wanted to ask her about the mention of research, but now, I wanted to do something entirely different. Her apartment was just upstairs, right? I could get her up there, naked and luscious on her bed, under me like my own feast. I'd discover all the ways I could make her let out more of those satisfied little moans...

  "That's enough," she said. The words sounded a bit forced out, but they still splashed over my libido like a bucket of ice water. She stepped forward, out of my arms, although I sensed a moment of hesitation. "Let's not lose control."

  "Damn. I'll get you one of these days, Davies," I promised her, keeping my tone light. "And it will be the best day of your life, trust me."

  "I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," she retorted, but her tone and expression didn't match the harsh words. "Now, if you let me eat, maybe I'll reward you by telling you what I've found so far."

  She'd done some research already? Guiltily, I thought about my own morning, wasted on sleeping in, sitting around my big apartment and replaying the events of last night in my head. "Fine. I guess I'll dig into my own sandwich while I wait."

  I pulled out the second sandwich from the bag. This one hadn't yet been magically transformed from tuna, and I demolished it in a few bites. Apparently, sexual frustration does wonders for my appetite!

  Even still, Paxton nearly beat me. She just had one bite left as I swallowed the last of my sandwich, and she popped it in her mouth with a flourish – and then looked suddenly sad.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I just feel bad that there's nothing left," she said, looking
down at the crumb-spotted waxed paper. "That was amazing, but now it's gone!"

  Time for me to get in a little manipulation for once, turn the tables on her. "I could always magic up another, if you'll share what you found with me in your research," I offered.

  "Deal." It came out immediately. She bent over, fumbling for something beneath the counter, and I unashamedly craned my head to try and get a glance down the neckline of her sweatshirt.

  She straightened back up with a book in her hands, blinked at me. "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing. What's that?"

  "This," she answered, dropping the book on the counter with a thud that seemed to rattle the entire building, "is one of the research books I've found. Unfortunately, it's super dense, and I haven't uncovered much yet."

  I blinked at the massive-looking tome. "So?"

  She shrugged. "Maybe you could use your magical powers to... I don't know, summarize it for me? Highlight the relevant parts, so I don't have to hurt my head trying to get through eight hundred pages of Old English?"

  I held up my hands. "No can do, I'm afraid. I've tried using my powers to find out more about themselves before, and it doesn't work. I think it's like trying to power an extension cord by plugging it back into itself. The loop shorts it out or something. I don't want to risk it."

  "Well then, you're no help at all." She stuck out her tongue at me.

  "Hey!" I protested. "I brought you sandwiches!" Standing up from the stool, I stepped across the single foot or so of space that separated us, looping my arms back around her waist. "Doesn't that get me something?"

  "Like what?" She looked up at me, but this time she didn't pull away.

  "I'll start with a taste." I tightened my hands, pulled her body against my own. Her chest bumped against mine, and my rod in my pants instantly shot back up to full mast. Either she was drugging me with a chemical cocktail, somehow, or I'd totally missed at the club that this woman was pure sexiness distilled.

  I bent my head slightly forward, kissed her. I could still get a little hint of the spiciness of pastrami on her lips, but there was also that deeper, more intoxicating taste of Paxton herself. I slipped my tongue into her mouth, felt her reciprocate as her body melted against me.

  "You taste like gross tuna," she murmured when we separated for a second, although this didn't seem to discourage her at all.

  "Next time, I'll rub a slice of pastrami on my mouth before making out with you."

  "That's better," she said, already reaching up to draw my mouth back down for another kiss.

  I felt my heartbeat quicken in my chest as our lips met again, opened to let our tongues cavort with each other. A little part of my mind marveled at how she seemed to drive me crazy so easily. When had I last felt so attracted to a woman, been driven so crazy by her even when she still had all her clothes on? I'd become accustomed to my diet of supermodels and perfect tens, each one leaping into bed with me with a single push of my magic, but they flitted in and out so quickly that I could scarcely remember anything about them after the deed was done. They all blended together inside my head.

  But Paxton... I'd spent all last night and this morning thinking about her body in particular, her face, her curves. Now, touching her, letting my hands slide down from their starting position on her hips to wrap around the full curves of her ass, I found that reality agreed perfectly with my memories.

  She made a soft little noise as my hands tightened on her butt, pulling it towards me, and her tongue pushed back. But even before I could really get a good grip, haul her up to carry her off to the nearest horizontal surface where I could go about stripping all this annoying clothing off her body, she was again pulling away.

  "Afraid that's all you get right now," she panted out, her eyes sparkling mischievously at me even as she still breathed heavily, her lips still slightly parted.

  "Wow. What a tease." I didn't mean a word of it. How did she drive me so crazy? "When can I get the full experience?"

  She tapped her chin with one finger. "Are you going to smack me if I say 'when you've earned it'?"

  "Probably."

  "Well, I still have to finish out my shift here for the afternoon. But maybe, if you promise to be good, you can take me out for dinner afterwards?"

  "I promise no such thing," I countered. "Now, here's my offer: I'll take you out to dinner, and in exchange, you have to do something very naughty for me."

  Her eyebrows rose. "Naughty? Like what?"

  I ran my gaze slowly, languidly, up and down her body. "I'm thinking whipped cream and strawberries."

  She smacked me, but a gleam of aroused interest flared in her eyes. "And there's Sir Asshole, rearing his head," she said. "How about dinner first, and then we'll see what happens next?"

  "I guess I'll have to settle for that." I stepped back around from behind the counter, my hand reaching for the door. "But keep that strawberries and whipped cream idea in mind. I think they'll look especially good on you."

  Her blush, rising up in her cheeks to suffuse almost her entire face, was enough to send me skipping happily down the sidewalk as I headed back to my car. It took me an entire block and a half to get myself under control, to snap out of it.

  Really, skipping? Me, the sexiest cross between the two Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling) that you can imagine, skipping?

  This girl was driving me crazy, but a part of me loved it and couldn't wait for more.

  Chapter Seventeen

  PAXTON

  *

  Uncle Ryland emerged from the back of the shop as I finished up at the end of my shop. He approached the front counter but paused there, frowning at nothing and drumming his fingers on the scarred wood surface.

  I recognized the gesture, of course. He'd done it for years, and I knew by now exactly what it meant.

  "What's bothering you, Uncle?" I asked him.

  "That young man, the one who brought you lunch," he answered after a second, and I felt a little residual blood flush into my cheeks. I hadn't realized that Uncle Ryland noticed Alex showing up.

  "What about him?" I asked, trying to sound innocent, like there was nothing improper going on between us.

  "I met him the other day, didn't I? He came in and chatted with me before he asked you out. We didn't talk for long, but I was very convinced that he was a great man, and you should go out with him."

  "Yes..." I watched my uncle's broad forehead wrinkle. "So?"

  He reached up and scratched his thinning hair. "So if I was so convinced that he was good enough for you, why can't I remember anything about the actual conversation? Seems strange. I'm pretty sure that I'm not losing my mind, since I remember everything else. Just not that conversation."

  Uh oh. Alex had mentioned that he'd used his power to convince my uncle to like him. But it seemed that the magic wasn't holding – or maybe, if he did it shoddily, someone could figure out what was going on and unravel it? It would be fascinating to study – if it wasn't happening to my uncle.

  "Don't worry, Uncle," I said instead, reaching out to place my fingers on top of his, still their drumming. "You made a good judgment call, I think. He's a really great guy, and I like him."

  As I spoke these words, I realized that I was telling the truth. I did like Alex, way more than I'd expect for only knowing him a couple of days! Logically, I shouldn't be willing to trust him very far; after all, he'd told me openly that he cheated and blew through life, relying on his power as a crutch. He was, essentially, a fake.

  But he'd told me openly, had chosen to be honest with me. And his powers didn't work on me. For a deceitful fake, he'd been incredibly open to me, and I somehow knew that he didn't share like this with anyone else. He'd chosen me, even though I might be the one who could most hurt him.

  And whenever he reached out for me, pulled me against that gorgeous, tall, broad-shouldered and muscular body of his, drew my lips up to meet his, tightened his hold on me... even now, remembering it, I felt another little surge of warmth. Yes,
I was most definitely attracted to him.

  But I'd still heed my uncle's words of caution. I wasn't about to lose my heart to this man, no matter how openly he approached me.

  "Well, just be careful," Uncle Ryland said at length, patting my hand with his other, forming a sandwich to trap my hand between both of his. "I know you don't have a man in your life, Paxton, but I would rather that you be choosy than get hurt. I just want you to be safe, that's all."

  I smiled at my uncle, even as tears threatened to swell in the corners of my eyes. "I know you do, Uncle," I answered. And I did know. Uncle Ryland came to my rescue after college by offering me this temporary position at his bookstore (which turned out to not be so temporary after all), but even before that, he'd always been my support line. After my parents passed away, he'd been there for me, a comforting rock that never budged. For that, even if he hadn't done anything else for me, even if he hadn't offered me this job, the apartment that came with it, any more help, I still would have held him in highest regard for that strength.

  "But be careful about him, in particular," Uncle Ryland continued, and I paused.

  "Why? Do you remember something from your conversation with him?"

  Again, I saw my uncle's face wrinkle up as he tried to remember. Clearly, whatever magic Alex had worked was messing with his memories. "I know that I liked him a lot," he said slowly, "but I'm still not sure why, exactly. But I can remember that he came across to me as... careless."

  "Careless?" I repeated, not sure what he meant.

  He nodded. "Yes, careless. Thoughtless. I've known the type before. He's the kind who doesn't always think about the consequences of his actions, thinks that everything will magically fix itself, and it isn't on him to be tactful."