by Jane Cousins
Cara’s words bought his gaze up to the massive hanging pot, swinging in from the left, aimed for his head. Shit, did he have an invisible target painted on his skull today? He bought up an arm to block the large copper pot, sending it careering off in a different direction… away from him… now back to the vicious little book.
And just like that he found himself sailing forwards through the air, his skull ringing like church bells at Christmas mass as the second pot plant he hadn’t seen coming, clocked him from behind.
Cara gasped as Erik went flying across the room, her ears ringing as more metal hit the tiles. Merda, what was left to fall in the dome? Erik! Oh God, if he wasn’t dead then he was certainly badly hurt. She’d called him an asshole, admittedly, but that didn’t mean she wished him grievous bodily harm.
Keeping low, eyeing the swinging copper pots above her head she scrambled across the colourful tiles towards Erik, who remained lying flat on his back a few feet away. Putting off looking at his head, which was no doubt broken and cracked open like an egg, she started with his ankles. Moving her hands up quickly over his lower extremities, looking for broken bones or open wounds. As she searched, a colourful stream of Italian swear words spilled from her lips as panic and fear gripped her. Straddling him, she confirmed his legs seemed okay, his arms, his chest, throat, all fine.
Cupping his jaw, she hovered over him. “Erik, Erik. Are you alright? Open your eyes.” He didn’t seem to be bleeding from any open wounds but with that last crack to the back of his head, she was surprised there wasn’t a spreading puddle of blood beneath him. “Erik?”
“I could listen to you swear in Italian all day.” Cobalt blue eyes flickered open, a grin spreading across his face.
“You’re alive.” Cara issued a deep sigh of relief. Not stopping to think, she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly, quickly releasing him when he groaned. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Where does it hurt? Should I call for an ambulance?”
“Hey.” Erik reached up, grabbing the tail end of her dishevelled braid, more hair spilling free than was still contained. “It wasn’t a hurt groan, it was more of a - we haven’t even had a first date yet but this is going surprisingly well - groan.”
“What?” Cara frowned down at him, frozen in confusion for a split second, then his meaning became clear as she suddenly realised that it wasn’t Erik’s belt digging into her lower body… it was his arousal… for her?
With no warning the pulsing power between her legs exploded outwards once more. A split second later one of the swinging loose copper pot plants came free of its moorings completely, dropping to the tile below like a bomb. There was an explosion of sound, dirt and ferns flying every which way.
“Goddess.” Erik looked over at the mess a few feet away. “It’s like I’m suddenly cursed or something.”
Cara bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything. The man had no idea how close to the source of the curse he really was. Merda, what was going on with her? She was like a gun going off in all directions, spraying chaos shrapnel. She needed to focus, get some sort of control or this chaos thing, this magic of hers was going to kill Erik and possibly her, if the family history records were right.
Despite all his bravado Erik had to be hurt, she’d seen that last hit he’d taken. Okay, so his head hadn’t cracked open but there had to be an injury. To distract herself she grabbed two fistfuls of his green t-shirt and pulled. Once he was upright, she wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pushed his head down low, running her fingers through his thick silky hair.
“Hey.” Erik was now eye level with Cara’s breasts and thoroughly enjoying the view. Maybe he should try and strike up a conversation. “Come here often?”
“Are you talking to my breasts again?” Cara huffed in exasperation.
“Oh… do that again, the huffing thing.”
Cara grabbed a fistful of the hair on his clearly undamaged head and yanked so Erik was forced to sit up and make actual eye contact with her. “I can’t tell if you’re brain damaged or if you’ve always been like this. But I can’t find any blood, lumps or bumps… it’s kind of weird.”
Erik reached up to push his hair back off his face, already missing the delightful feel of Cara running her fingers through his hair. Discreetly he hooked a finger through the belt loop of her jeans in case she remembered she was still effectively sitting on his lap and tried to get away. His whole being revolted at the idea of her creating any distance between them. Everywhere she’d touched him felt branded with her essence. And now that she was in his arms, that driving, practically over-whelming compulsion to finish the sculpture had momentarily receded. For the first time in almost three days he felt like his head was clear and he could think. Although thinking with a woman of Cara Devigne’s calibre in his lap almost seemed like an oxymoron.
“Are you okay?” He reached up, brushing back her dishevelled hair, checking her over with his eyes for bumps and bruised. “That was a nasty fall you took and then in all the mayhem…”
“I’m fine.” Cara assured him ruefully. “With all my padding there’s little chance of me doing any real harm.”
Erik’s fingers trailed up her arm, to trace the loose neck of her sweater that was currently exposing too much shoulder.
The feel of his finger skating ever so barely across her bare flesh made the breath hitch in Cara’s throat.
“Skin like silken gossamer… curves to worship, a waterfall of hair that makes a man long to dive in and wrap himself in those strands.” Erik’s finger moved ever so slowly up the side of her creamy golden throat to trace over her puckered top lip. “So soft, a newly budded rose waiting for the touch of the sun… a kiss…”
Erik wasn’t one to normally wax lyrical with words, he was an artist, to express himself he used his hands, his tools, yet there was something about Cara… different… special. Goddess, just staring into those sapphire blue eyes behind the lens of her glasses as she watched him with both hesitancy and he thought maybe more than a little anticipation made him harder than he’d ever been in his life. He could spend a lifetime discovering her secrets, sculpt her a thousand times over, bring her to life in wood, marble, clay and iron and still… still he wasn’t sure if it would be enough time.
His out of character thoughts were suddenly shattered, thank the fucking Goddess, by the tenacious magic book that had started this whole clusterfuck of an unnatural disaster. Had he actually been thinking that a lifetime exploring the many facets of Cara Devigne wouldn’t be long enough? Shit, how much marble dust had he been inhaling recently? A gorgeous curvy woman drops quite literally into his lap and his willpower melts like iron ore dropped into a furnace.
When he’d taken the crack to the back of the head he had instinctively flung the book as far away as possible across the room. The little beast must have had needed a few minutes to recover from the experience and was now back wanting its weight in leather and possibly blood if any fleshy bits accidentally got in the way.
Cara heard it approaching, one second she’d been mesmerised by Erik, that barely there finger caressing her lip, his words stoking a fire between her legs that both scared and made her yearn for more and the next she heard the scrape of leather and the crackle of paper.
“Oh, God.” She tried to scrabble off Erik. What the hell was she doing just sitting on his lap? No time to think about that, she needed to climb something, get to higher ground. “Orff.” She found she couldn’t move, Erik’s other hand had somehow become entangled in her hair. “Hey?” She really didn’t like how he was sitting there so calmly, waiting for the vicious chomping book creature to close in on them.
Erik waited, waited for the exact right moment and when the book was only inches away he bought his fist down hard on top of it, effectively slamming shut the covers. And just like that it was a book again, a harmless, dusty old leather bound book.
“How… what did… ?” Cara’s eyes were wide as she contemplated the now utterly ordinary l
arge book.
“Get the strap around it, would you. Someone must have left it loose and that’s how it got out.”
Cara really didn’t want to touch the thing, no matter how inert it currently looked, but she was a librarian at her core, it was her job to handle books. Snatching it up she quickly pulled the straps around the book and made sure they were secure. “How… how did you know that would work?” She hurriedly put the book back down, not wanting to handle it any longer than necessary.
Erik laughed. “When we were kids we used to drive Aunt Patricia nuts by letting the books loose in here for fun. Catching them again was all part of the game.”
“You are so weird.” Cara shook her head trying to imagine growing up with magic.
“I’m weird?” Erik chuffed a laugh. “I’m not the one who’s a walking disaster.” He finally untangled his hand from the silken bonds of her hair.
“Excuse me?” Cara eyed him, suddenly realising he was much too close and part of the reason for that was that she was still seated on his lap. “You…” She scrambled to her feet, uncaring that a stray knee and elbow had Erik wincing. “How can you be groaning about a simple knee to the groin when you’ve just been battered by flying furniture, candelabras and hit on the head by a pot plant that must weigh a ton or more?”
“I’ll have you know there is nothing simple about my groin…” He shot her his predatory grin, the one he often reserved for her breasts. Run little girl, run far and run fast… take those tempting curves, enticing kissable lips and award winning breasts with you.
“You might have the hardest head of any man I’ve ever met, I swear to God, but I’m thinking that’s only so your extra thick skull can protect the soft gooey centre that masquerades as your brain.”
“Oh, and the librarian gets feisty.” Damn, the woman just kept getting hotter and hotter. He got to his feet, resisting the temptation to get any closer to her. He needed to drive her away and he needed to drive her away now. Before he said or did something stupid again. Like touch her. Because once he started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop the next time.
Damn, the woman was gorgeous, no, stop thinking with your dick and start coming up with plan to scare her off. Oh, what had been her hot button issue just a minute ago? Ah, yes, she’d taken umbrage when he’d accused her of being a walking disaster. “What is it with librarians anyway? Is it spending all your time with books and not men that makes you so tightly wound? Are you like the Stephen King equivalent of Carrie set in a library? Books chase you, pot plants throw themselves off walls, and whatever can possibly go wrong, will, causing mayhem and damage of epic proportions. You should wear a sign or something… beware, danger walking here.”
“That would only work for people who can actually read.” Cara shot back, her hands on her hips, glaring a drop dead look his way. How dare the man be all sweet, and hot and say such nice things one minute and be this… this asshole the next. Back to leering at her, accusing her of being the cause of all this damage… which, okay, he might have a tiny little speck of right on his side in regards to that last accusation. But to point it out… well that was just rude. “You know… you really are an ass.”
With that she scooped up the library book and stormed back into the magic mojo wing, determined to ignore and avoid Erik Valhalla from here on in at all costs. The man was an utter jerk and it was completely typical that he had to have the last word, didn’t he, he was just that type of guy.
But his muttered words made no sense, she must have misheard him. Climbing the spiral ladder to the upper walkway to re-shelve the escapee book she played them over and over in her head. And don’t you forget it.
Forget what? That he was an asshole? No chance of that.
Yet, why did he want her to remember? In case he turned charming for a minute or two again? Okay, so her body tended to react to him against her better judgment… all she had to do was keep her hands off him.
Note to self Cara, next time you are being chased by a vicious leather thirsty book, don’t throw yourself at any tall, darkly handsome, broadly muscular men. The results were bound to not only explode in her face but in all likelihood send the entire town sliding into the ocean. Which reminded her, she still hadn’t checked if Haven Bay was on a fault line… absently she yawned.
Damn her exhausted state, with the adrenalin rush of the last twenty minutes, she was ready to crash. She should get her things and head home. Glancing up at the nearest large circular window, she took note of the debris swirling by, it looked like the evening gale force winds were back. A cold shiver raced down her spine and goose-bumps dotted her flesh.
Hmmm, she wondered how comfortable the sofa was in the employee break room. No time like the present to find out.
Ten minutes later, as she pulled herself into a ball, hugging one of the large sofa cushions she couldn’t help but think how lucky Erik was that he hadn’t been hurt earlier, not even a scratch. Which was weird, wasn’t it? There’d been falling metal poles, missile like furniture, crashing candelabras and pot plants flying around the room in all directions and Erik didn’t even have a bump or a bruise on him.
It was an anomaly. In her experience over the past eighteen months, whoever was at the epicentre of the major disaster with her usually bore the brunt of the accident… Meggans case in point and his smouldering toupee. Yet Erik… she found herself blushing, except for her knee in his groin had escaped completely and utterly unharmed. Maybe it wasn’t her curse… but his luck.
Just what sort of magic was Erik Valhalla packing? Besides that mesmerising muscular chest, killer cobalt blue eyes and damn, even when he was leering, sexy grin. Was it something to do with his looks? Is that why he said such idiotic things? Tired of women throwing themselves at him the man came up with subterfuge to keep them at bay. No, that didn’t make sense, he’d been coolly professional with his art students, no sign then of the jerk lurking in his demeanour.
Maybe she just needed to get it through her own dense brainbox that the man really was an asshole. And don’t you forget it. His final words drifted in a spiral around her head, forget? She’d forgotten something else this evening, hadn’t she? In the mayhem and the madness, she’d never asked Erik Valhalla exactly what he was doing in her library so late on a Sunday night.
Damn, another mystery to keep her tossing and turning all night.
Chapter Nine
By Wednesday afternoon Cara was going a little stir crazy. All anyone in town could talk about was the annoying nightly wind storms that buffeted the town from dusk until dawn, and how sand seemed to have drifted everywhere, gotten into everything. As if to prove the point, Cara looked down to find eight fine grains marring the gleaming oak finish of the main reception desk. Holding back a sigh she wiped them away.
Yet despite everyone complaining about how unusual the wind storms were and groaning about the sand, no one but Cara seemed to find them eerie and unnatural. It was stupid, she’d had a lot to deal with over the last eighteen months, but for some reason the sound of the wind at night… it scared her. So much so, she’d slept on the couch in the employee break room for the last three nights, only going home during her lunch breaks to fetch more clothes.
It was silly, every night in the magic mojo wing as she turned off the desk lamp and put away all her research papers she fully intended to gather her belongings and go home. But every night, as she looked up at a window, watching the gale force winds batter the glass with sand and debris she turned and headed for the safety of the break room. Where, despite how comfortable the couch was, she tossed and turned, haunted by a pair of cobalt blue eyes every time she tried to close her eyes.
Thanks to her cunning plan of hiding out full time in the library she had managed to stay true to her promise of avoiding Erik Valhalla. Yeah, like that man ever cracked open a book. With those muscles he probably spent all his spare time at the gym… sweating, probably not wearing much of anything… hmmm, for pity sake Cara, snap out of it.
The new arrival was wearing an eclectic outfit. From the waist down she was giving off a hippie vibe with a floor length layered multi-coloured hessian skirt but from the waist up, she was wearing a tightly fitted emerald green sweater. The low scoop neck working overtime and deserving of triple pay as it fought to contain the woman’s bountiful assets.
Cara quickly fixed her gaze on the woman’s face. Damn, even a quick glimpse of all that cleavage was like looking into an eclipse, her eyes burning slightly as she noted the woman had a pretty round face, wide blue eyes and long, almost to the floor blonde hair that she’d weaved into two long plaits. Hippie meets playboy bunny.
“Hi.” Cara fought down the urge to rub at her eyes. “How can I help you today?” She watched as the short blonde began to unload her books on to the desk. It was an impressive number, mostly hardbacks and from only a quick inventory, Cara could see that the books covered one topic, and one topic only. Conception.
“I…” More books were dumped on the desk. “…need to…” The blonde strained to reach the books at the very bottom of her trolley, “…extend my loan on these books.” She finally stood upright, breathing hard… that poor sweater.
“Um, you sure have a lot of books there.” Cara eyed the multiple piles. She was betting if you created one big stack of them they’d be taller than the blonde. “Looks like you practically cleaned out that particular section.”
The smile on the blonde’s face disappeared in an instant. “Are you saying I missed a book?” Her blue eyes shifting to an icy cold colour.
Cara kept very still, forcing a small non-threatening smile. “Not at all, I’m sure this is all of them.” She pulled the nearest one over to her slowly, feeling it prudent not to startle or make the blonde feel threatened in any way. With a slightly shaking hand she waved the electronic wand over the book’s barcode. “Let’s just see about extending them then… oh.” She could feel the blood drain from her face, this was not good… this was not good at all.