by Michele Hauf
“My distraction?”
“You and that fourteen-year-old boy haven’t stopped staring at my boobs since you sat down to eat.”
“Ahem.” He rubbed his jaw. “I confess, the view is distracting. Man, do I sound like a creep.”
“I don’t mind your distraction.” She tickled the lace framing her décolletage. “I did put on a low-cut dress for a reason.”
“It’s working. From the pine nuts in the pesto to the soft music and candles, I am feeling the seduction.”
“Excellent. I have more candles lit in the conservatory. Let’s move out to summer, shall we?”
“What about the dishes?” Dane gathered up the plates and silverware. “I’ll rinse them quickly for you, and I see you have a dishwasher.”
“A man who insists on doing dishes? Now you’re seducing me. I’ll meet you out among the wild!” she called, and her pink skirt swept the air with her exit.
Dane made quick work of the dishes, a skill his mother had taught him. He could never leave a table now without cleaning up. He wiped off the butcher-block table, grabbed his glass of water, considered it, then checked the fridge. There was a bottle of corked wine, three quarters full. He pulled it out, selected two goblets sitting next to a blue calcite crystal from a shelf, and...he walked over to the table and picked up the rose quartz from the bowl.
Turning it over and inspecting it carefully revealed the many beautiful striations and cracks. It was cold to the touch but warmed in his palm. He knew nothing about chakras, but was aware the woo-woo folks had assigned seven chakra points to the body and each were color-coded and meant various things regarding health and welfare. A bunch of hoodoo nonsense.
And yet, he had been physically repulsed from holding the quartz.
“Interesting,” he muttered, and set the rock down on the table.
* * *
While Dane was putting away the dishes, Eryss lit the emerald candelabra and turned off the main light. The conservatory glowed softly and smelled like the newly bloomed freesia, her favorite flower when it came to fragrance. It flooded the room with a heady perfume.
When he wandered in, barefoot, she smiled. She’d like to see him in a wet suit peeled down to his hips, revealing abs and, she suspected, a hairy chest, for tufts of dark hair peeked out the top of his white shirt.
He poured two goblets of wine—good man for taking the initiative of bringing in the wine—and handed her one. He sat on the couch and stretched his feet over the grass.
“You know, I’m a bit of a scientist myself,” Eryss confessed. She sat beside him and sipped the wine. “Formulating the beer recipes takes math skills, knowledge of yeasts and bacteria, and boiling points and the gravity of sugar. One miscalculation of time and temperature during the boil and I’ve got something so bitter even the triple IPA aficionados will spit it out.”
“Sounds complicated. I’ll stick with drinking the finished product.”
“And you,” she said. “You are more connected to nature than you want to believe.”
“Oh, I do believe in that connection. Electric rocks aside. Surfing is more about knowing the water and myself than any logical reasoning. Though math is involved when calculating a point break or peak. Okay, we connect in the middle ground. And I’ll give you the rose quartz adventure. I do know some scientific research has been done on crystals and their energy. But I’m still going to pass on the tarot reading.”
“Fair enough.”
“I think we should focus on the intentions we both presumably have for this night.”
“Intentions?”
Dane took her glass and set it in the grass and then leaned in to kiss her. He tasted like wine and pesto. He slipped his fingers through her hair, then kissed her cheek and down to the base of her earlobe, where she could feel his pulse against hers.
“Life. Energy. Atoms,” he whispered.
“Don’t think like a scientist, Dane. Respond with your body, not your brain.”
“I thought that’s what I was doing.”
He slipped the sleeve from her shoulder and kissed her there with a soft moan that mined a deep and animal part of her. Eryss tilted back her head and wrapped her legs about his hips, pulling him down onto her. His hot mouth landed on the upper curve of her breast, and his fingers carefully pulled back the velvet to expose more and more of her breast without quite going to the nipple. He lingered on her skin, tracing it with his tongue as if designing runes. She felt it all the way to her toes and back up to her pussy, which was already warm and wet for him.
After unbuttoning his tweed vest, she slid her hands up under the crisp white shirt beneath, her fingers gliding through the dark hairs and around his rib cage, which was strapped with tight muscle.
“For a science nerd,” she said against his mouth, “you’re ripped.”
“It’s the surfing. I can’t spend all my time formulating and postulating, can I?”
“You most certainly cannot.”
He nudged down her dress strap, which exposed her breast. The first lash of his tongue to her nipple teased a moan from her. She squirmed beneath him, pulling him closer.
“It’s very warm in here,” he said.
“It is. We won’t feel the winter chill if we shed our clothes.”
“Your postulation is correct.” He gave her breast a quick kiss, then glanced back up to her eyes. “There’s something about you, Eryss. It makes me want to dive in. Like I’m so comfortable with you that I forget this is only our first official date.”
She tilted her head against his shoulder. “Curse you, rational thinking.”
His laughter echoed in the room and the leaves shuddered, reacting to his energy. And Eryss couldn’t prevent herself from reacting, too. She straddled him and pulled down her dress straps further. “This is my body telling me to take what I want. I am a goddess of earth and winter, and I desire that you worship me. Kiss me right here, Dane. On my heart chakra.” She tapped between her breasts. “And don’t stop until you know I’m satisfied.”
His smile was so infectious, she felt joy in her core. He leaned in to kiss her and the sweet, firm touch branded her softly. Stubble brushed her breasts with a tease. And he dashed his tongue over her curves, avoiding her nipple, which frustrated her in a good way. When he explored the underside of her breast, he paused and traced her skin with a fingertip.
“This dark mark here. It’s not a scar?”
“No, a birthmark.” It was about an inch long. A dark line right under her breast and between two ribs. She’d studied it often, wondering over it. “They say birthmarks are scars from a previous lifetime.”
“I assume those who say that believe in reincarnation?”
Oops. She wasn’t about to let him start thinking now.
Diving in, Eryss kissed him hard and deeply, rubbing her breasts against his shirt and vest. His fingers found her nipples and he pinched them gently, then not so gently. She moaned deep in her throat and rocked her hips upon his lap.
Moving too fast? Could one ever move fast enough toward destiny?
“Dane, let’s do this. Share energies.”
He kissed her jaw and nuzzled his nose against her cheek as he whispered, “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly Eryss was airborne, and she landed on her back on the couch. Dane crawled over her, unbuttoning his shirt as he did, and she helped him pull the clothes down his arms and fling them to the floor. She pressed both palms to his chest, reveling in the solid muscle and warm, tickly hairs.
“You’re beautiful,” she said. “Surfer guy.”
He laughed that wondrous and soul-touching laugh, and she laughed because it was infectious and she wanted to take on the energy he put out.
“You are the beautiful one,” he said as he bowed to kiss her between the breasts. “You and your energetic heart chakra.”
He slid his tongue along the curve of her breast and glided up to suckle at her nipple. Raking
her fingers through his hair, Eryss held him there, gasping as his expert touch moved the energy from her breast out through her body and to all parts that now tingled and curled. Her toes dug into the velvet couch.
She reached down and unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, and he chuckled from his throat as he moved to her other breast. A confirmation that she was on the right path. Shoving down his pants to his hips, she then danced her fingers around to land on the head of his penis, which had escaped his boxers. Hot and hard, it filled her palm. He gasped when she clasped her fingers over the top of his erection, and his movement pulled him down through her grasp. She quickly caught him again and this time controlled the pistoning action herself.
“Your energy is definitely very focused,” he said as he glanced up at her and winked. He closed his eyes, and she controlled his silence with a firm grip of his cock. He was able only to moan then, and that pleased her immensely.
“You don’t want to go up to the bed, do you?”
“No, I like it here in the jungle.” He shook back a loose strand of his hair from his eye. “Uh, do you have birth control? I don’t have a condom.”
“I’m good. Birth control,” she replied. It was her standard way to explain that she conjured a birth control spell once a quarter under the harvest moon. But the guy never needed to know the method, or anything beyond that she was safe.
She wiggled her hips as he slid her dress down to her thighs and then her knees, until she eventually kicked it aside. And all without letting go of his cock. So talented.
“You’ve got the hold of someone who must prefer driving,” he commented as he looked down at her firm clasp.
“It’s just so fun to hold. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. As long as you don’t mind me kissing you here.” He slid up alongside her so she didn’t have to let go of him, but also bowed forward to place a kiss at the apex of her thighs. And he didn’t stop there. His tongue dashed out to explore and taste and devour. “You smell like coconut here.”
“I always use coconut oil in my body lotions.”
“I like it. I think that stuff comes in handy as a lube, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oh, lover, we are not going to need it,” she cooed, and met Dane’s winking smile.
Had she seen that smile so many times in her various reincarnations? Possibly.
“Come inside me, Dane,” she whispered.
He moved up to kiss her mouth, and his fingers stroked her folds still, tendering her most sensitive spots with ease and devotion. When she guided his erection between her legs, he propped up on an elbow and met her gaze. In the soft candlelight his eyes twinkled, and as he entered her, the intensity in his irises held her mesmerized. He owned her with his eyes, with the smile that grew as his rhythm began and the thickness of him filled her.
Eryss clutched at his hip, beckoning him faster, and never losing eye contact. The expressions on his face moved from a tense, lip-biting agony to a cool, smirking confidence. And then his eyes closed and his body trembled. His thrusts grew deeper, harder. She dug her fingernails in at his hip, begging, pleading for the mastery.
And the tug and tease of his erection at her clitoris summoned an orgasm that shook her very bones at the same time that he gasped and clutched the couch near her head. They came together.
As they had through the centuries.
* * *
Dane was startled awake by Eryss’s cry. They lay entwined on the emerald sofa amid a wild and weird winter jungle. Still in the clinging throes of sleep, he watched as she sat up and touched her ribs just beneath her breast. Right where that weird birthmark darkened her skin.
“You okay?” he muttered, fighting the urge to come fully awake.
She nodded sleepily. She was fighting wakefulness as well. It was still dark outside. “Just a weird dream.”
She settled beside him and he pulled her close. As her skin melded against his, his erection took note and he smiled against her shoulder.
“Really?” she murmured.
“It’ll settle,” he said. “Unless...?”
“Come inside me, Dane,” she said in a beautiful sleepy tone.
And so he did, slipping into her hot wetness and not even feeling the need to thrust. It just felt great being inside her. And together they drifted to sleep again.
Chapter 5
Dane strode out of the bathroom and down into the kitchen, veering toward the fridge only because it was a natural inclination to seek snacks after sex. But instead he grabbed a glass from the shelf and poured some tap water. He retrieved his cell phone from his coat pocket and propped a hip against the butcher-block table.
Scratching his bare abs, he checked his emails. None. Not that he’d expected any. He was on an unofficial vacation. But he always strived to stay in touch with the Agency. There was a possibility someone might want to get ahold of him. He’d emailed Tor that the dagger pickup would be delayed, but it wasn’t a problem. The Agency was pretty sure the dagger was neither cursed nor contained active magic.
Because sometimes weird stuff did happen around the weapons he debunked. It all had to do with the energies. Blades and weapons made from metal could pick up magnetic properties, and if you stood in the right place at the wrong time, the thing could be propelled toward you due to paramagnetism.
He loved stuff like that. Made the job more interesting than it already was.
“Energies,” he whispered now, and his thoughts returned to last evening when Eryss had asked him to place the rose quartz over her heart chakra. “Who’da thought?”
So he’d give the idea of stones possessing energy credence. Because he had witnessed it, and was pretty sure she hadn’t tricked him with a low-voltage device such as the type magicians palmed for unsuspecting suckers. That didn’t make her a real witch, just a woman connected to nature.
And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.
He almost tucked the phone back in a coat pocket when cool morning light glinted over the window above the sink—and he noticed a symbol that frost crystals had formed on the glass.
He padded over and studied the window. Sunlight fractured through the ice crystals in blue, red and violet. It was almost a mandala, though not symmetrical. A fractal of sorts, but again, more homemade than precise. Impossible to have been formed by frost. The only way was if someone had traced a finger on the window first, which was likely the case.
He raised the phone and snapped a picture of the symbol. He always recorded stuff that fascinated him. And his job made him extra perceptive for out-of-the-ordinary happenings. Eryss’s house was full of fascinations. She thought stones could heal? And now this symbol. And the full garden out in the conservatory. And reincarnation and souls. Talk about open-minded.
Perhaps a bit too open, he thought with a grimace.
Could she really believe she was a natural-born witch? No, she hadn’t said as much. She was simply someone who was fascinated by crystals and plants, which might naturally lend to the more woo-woo sorts of artwork like the one on the window.
She seemed too smart for that, a woman who would never blindly accept the unknown without the facts. Yet if she were a real witch...that was another scenario entirely. But he had no reason to consider it.
Setting his phone on the table, he glanced to his coat, which hung by the door. He didn’t wish to spend the next few days sitting alone in a hotel room. He could, but that wouldn’t be fun. So a fling with a sexy woman who could seduce him with her cooking and a conservatory overflowing with summer?
“Bring on the magic.”
* * *
Eryss woke on the couch alone. Had her lover left in the early morning hours? But had he walked back to town? No, Dane must have gone looking for the bathroom or—what was that incredible smell?
She shot upright and the chenille blanket fell away from her bare breasts. She wrapped the blanket about her shoulders and waist, forming a snuggie sort of cape, and then padded into the house,
following the scent of cinnamon and...
“Bananas?” she said as she wandered into the kitchen.
Dane stood before the stove, spatula in hand. He wore nothing but the black pants he’d worn last night, no shoes or socks. The back view of him gave no clues that he was a nerdy scientist. Those delts and lats. Mercy, she was glad she knew her anatomy. On the other hand, who cared what those hard stretches of muscle were called? Oh, but what was that?
She touched his hip, above the three red scratches.
“Wild woman,” he said over a shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”
“A deliciously painful reminder of a night well spent.” He turned and kissed her forehead. “I’m a bit of an early riser. And since I have no way of getting back to town without absconding with your car once again, I am at your mercy. So I thought I’d butter you up with banana pancakes. Gluten free, thanks to your almond flour in the pantry. And a nice lemon and blueberry syrup.”
“Wow. If this is the bonus round, I’m in.”
“The bonus round?”
She hugged him from behind. “Last night was incredible. Now you’re upping the stakes by making me breakfast. It’s not very often a girl brings home a man and scores so highly.”
“You don’t know me well yet. I have a terrible habit of leaving my beard clippings in the sink, and you don’t even want to ask about how often I do laundry.”
“Then I won’t. Can I help?”
“No, you sit down. These will be ready in a few minutes. I like the morning attire.”
She wiggled her butt, which was half revealed by the short blanket as she walked to the table, where he’d already set two plates and silverware. She picked up the creamer and sniffed at the blueberry syrup, which was still warm. He must have crushed the fresh berries from the fridge for that. Were hidden culinary skills present in every scientist? Or was the man just too good to be real? Her intuition told her no, he was real and quite the catch.
And her witchy senses said the same. He was hers. Had been for a very long time. Now, what to do with him?
“My mother used to make these all the time,” he said as he delivered the steaming pancakes to her plate with a flip of the spatula, and then sat down beside her. “I added some chia seeds. The omega-3s are good for the brain, you know.”