by Myla Jackson
“I don’t have to listen to you. You’re nothing but a criminal and a liar. And if you r-rape me, my father will have you dissected, one piece at a time, starting with…” She gulped, her eyes round and luminous.
“With this?” Mitch rubbed the evidence of his arousal against her center.
Her throat muscles convulsed and she nodded. “If it’s money you want…”
“I don’t want your goddamn money! I just want you to listen, then I’ll leave you alone and you can get on with whatever is so all-fired important.”
Her lips set in a firm line, and she squirmed beneath him, only making his hard-on worse.
“Will you quit moving? A man can only take so much from a beautiful woman and not lose control.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. Like you’re attracted to me.”
“You can’t tell?” He leaned back enough to allow her a glance at his engorged cock. “I don’t get that hard over just anyone.”
“Bullshit!” Her back arched and she rocked beneath him, her breasts bumping against his naked chest. “You’re nothing but a womanizing sleaze who lies to women to get them in bed and then takes off after scoring.”
Mitch frowned. “I don’t have to lie to get women in bed. They come willingly. Like you did, if I recall correctly.”
“You crude bastard!” She jerked hard on her wrists. If Mitch let go, he knew he’d be slapped yet again. “You led me on.”
“No, you invited me up, not the other way around.”
“I know your type. You always get what you want, don’t you? Then you leave.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough to know you’re scum. Let me go!” She rocked back and forth, jerking on her hands to loosen them from his grip. The more she bumped him, the slower her movements and the shorter her breaths.
Mitch held tight, his body stretched over hers to keep her from gaining leverage, his one hand holding both of hers above her head. There were other things he’d like to do to her all night, but if he tried, she’d have every right to hit him up with charges of rape. Mitch had never in his life forced a woman to have sex. They usually threw themselves at him. He wasn’t going to start now. But the woman beneath him had made love to him then sent her father and her bodyguards in to clean up the mess—him. “I can do this all night,” he said, his voice a low croak. “But I’d prefer to talk like civilized adults.”
Her brows rose. “You’re the one holding me down, who’s the uncivilized one here?”
“If you promise not to make a nuisance of yourself, I’ll let you up.” His cock chose that time to twitch. Oh hell, had she felt it? Was he up for full-blown hysterics? He didn’t have time for this. He had to find out what had happened to Edie and Harry. The last he’d seen them, they were fighting for their lives and the Stone of Azhi against the evil Danorah Hakalah. Were they alive or dead? Had they managed to save the stone from her clutches? “Look, you’re sexy and all, but I just don’t have time to play games. Behave and listen or I’ll have to tie you up.”
Amira’s deep brown eyes rounded briefly, the flush of red creeping into her cheeks. Oh she had felt his cock nudging against her all right. Then her gaze narrowed into a cool, hard stare. “Okay, I’ll behave and listen. Now let me up.”
Mitch studied her eyes, trying to read into their dark depths to the thoughts behind them. Not a chance, her black-brown eyes were mysterious pools of ink, impossible to read. He had to trust that she would keep her word.
He let go of her hands and backed off the bed, grabbing a pillow to cover himself down there. No use advertising his arousal for her. She’d made it quite clear she wasn’t interested in him for more than the one night they’d shared.
She pushed up onto her elbows and stared at the pillow covering his groin. “Okay, cowboy, you have exactly one minute to convince me I shouldn’t scream my head off and shoot your ass for breaking into my apartment.”
“Let’s start from the beginning. I didn’t break in.” He sighed and shook his head. “Oh hell, you’re never going to believe this.”
“Fifty seconds and counting.” She tapped her fingertips against the duvet.
“Amira. What day is it?”
“Thursday.”
“What year?”
“You know what year it is. Stop playing with me. You have thirty seconds.”
“It’s important, Amira.” He reached out and captured her hands in his. “What year is it?”
She stared down at his hands, squeezing her smaller ones. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
As quickly as he’d grabbed them, he let her hands go. “Please. Answer me.”
“It’s two thousand and seven. Why?”
He heaved a sigh. At least it was the same year. “What day?”
What she told him was only a couple weeks from the time he’d last seen Edie and Harry. But anything could have happened to them in that short time. Much as he’d like to explore the beautiful Amira, she was off limits, and his friends could be in serious trouble. “I have to go.” He backed toward the door.
“Wait!”
“I can’t, I have to find my friends. They could be in danger.”
“But you can’t go!”
“I have to.”
“You promised to tell me why the hell you were in my apartment. If you don’t, I swear I’ll call every cop in the city.”
“Why do you care?”
“I deserve an explanation. You owe me at least that.” She nodded at the pillow. “And you can’t run around the city naked. Tell me what the hell’s going on and I’ll loan you some clothes. That’s more than fair considering you’re the trespasser here.”
Mitch glanced down at the pillow. She was right. And she was being more than fair. “Okay. First tell me, did you come into contact with a bottle today? A very old, blue-green bottle?”
Her brows tugged downward. “Yes. How did you know, and what does that have to do with why you’re in my apartment and naked?”
“It has everything to do with both.” He ran his free hand through his hair. “Where did you get the bottle?”
She hesitated.
“It’s equally important, please.”
“From a friend at a local museum,” she answered.
“The American Museum of Natural History, by chance?”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“Did you happen to run into a woman named Edie?”
“No, but Mr. Baumgartner said she hadn’t shown up for work for days. How do you know all this? Were you following me?” Her eyes widened. “Or were you one of the men chasing me just a little while ago?”
His chest tightened. “What men? Who was chasing you?”
“I thought they wanted to kidnap me since I’d ditched my bodyguards.”
“You ditched your bodyguards?” Mitch glanced around as if waiting for men to jump out of the shadows and shoot him as they’d warned him last time.
“Yes, but they’re stationed in the lobby, should I need them.”
“What about the men who followed you?”
“When I left through a back door of the museum, two men followed me.” She smiled, looking pretty pleased with herself. “But I lost them.”
Mitch ran a hand through his hair. The situation was worse than he thought. “Look, Amira, you’re not safe.”
“Sure I am. My bodyguards take me wherever I need to go and the security in this building is top-notch.”
“You’re not safe as long as you have one of the bottles from the tomb of Princess Vashti.”
“Princess Vashti? Is that her name?” The curator had mentioned the bottle had belonged to a princess, but he hadn’t mentioned her name. Yet somehow, the name had a familiar ring to it, as if she’d heard it before.
Her heart skipped a beat. Princess Vashti, the princess from the bedtime story her father used to tell her as a little girl. But it couldn’t be. How would Mitch know about the story?
Fro
m her father’s accounts, Princess Vashti had been given the power to make all her wishes come true, except one. She couldn’t make a man fall in love with her. Because of this, she had died from a broken heart. Why her father had chosen to tell her that story, she had never understood. The ending had always made her cry, as though she had been the one to die of a broken heart.
Now more curious than angry at Mitch’s sudden appearance in her apartment, Amira wanted to know more. “Who is this princess and why did she have this bottle?”
“It’s a long story and I really don’t have time to go into it.” Mitch moved toward the door.
“You do if you want those clothes.”
“Then I’ll have to do without the clothing.” With the pillow firmly planted in front of him, he turned toward the living room, giving her a wonderful view of his very fine, tight ass.
“I wish—”
“No!” Mitch swung around before she finished her sentence.
“What?” Amira rose from the bed, pulling the duvet up around her body.
“Don’t say those two words.”
“What two words?”
“I wish.”
“I wish? Why the hell not? You show up in my apartment, naked, attack me when I’m only trying to protect myself and then you leave me hanging on your pathetic excuse for an explanation. I wish you’d march your ass back in here and tell me what the hell’s going on.”
Mitch spun around, dropped the pillow and marched like a toy soldier back into her room and stood in front of her. “Princess Vashti was the beloved daughter of Azhi, the Devil Shah of ancient Persia. She died of a broken heart. Her father was so angry he buried her with the Stone of Azhi, a magical stone. Any man who touched it would be forever confined in one of these bottles. And any woman who owned one of the bottles would own the man within and he would then be bound to grant her wishes.”
Amira stayed out of grabbing range. “What does that have to do with you?”
“In the wrong hands, the Stone of Azhi is a powerful weapon. A woman by the name of Danorah Hakalah found out about the stone and was in the process of stealing it from my friends Harry and Edie when I grabbed it.” Mitch’s gaze strayed to the corner of the room, his mind obviously far away from Amira’s apartment.
Amira still didn’t get the connection and could barely concentrate with him standing right in front of her, stark naked. She remembered her first time with him and how she’d thought he was a classic male specimen, everything about him perfectly proportioned and larger than life. Her lungs tightened and she prompted him in a breathy gasp, “So?”
“I touched the stone and that’s all I know.” Mitch shook himself like a dog crawling out of a lake and looked down at his exposed body. His hands moved as if to cover himself, but then he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest, daring her to say anything about his state of undress. “Now that I’ve granted your wish, I need to find out what happened to my friends, Harry and Edie. If you’d please give me those clothes you promised, I’ll get out of your apartment.”
“Okay, but move away from the door. I don’t want you grabbing me again.” She wrapped the duvet around her, Roman style, tucking the end between her breasts.
She led the way into the room where her father slept when he was in the city. The closet contained a full wardrobe of expensive suits and casual wear. She grabbed a pair of trousers and a polo shirt, handing them to Mitch.
Mitch didn’t immediately take the proffered clothes. “These belong to your boyfriend?”
“No, they’re my father’s.” She held them out. “Are you going to take them or not?” She tossed them on the bed, averting her gaze from that part of his body so incredibly male and still hard.
Oh, she’d had sex with other men before. But none quite measured up to Mitch’s size and talent. Since Mitch, she hadn’t wanted anyone else. The jerk had ruined her for other lovers.
Her tongue darted out to moisten her suddenly dry lips and she caught herself staring again at his cock, naughty thoughts of mounting him racing through her head. Her father would be appalled at her depravity. She was shocked herself, after he’d so callously dumped her. She wished she could be as casual about sex as other girls, but her cloistered upbringing and being in the constant company of her bodyguards kept her from experimenting very often.
Mitch took the clothing and slid the pants up his thighs. The legs were too short and the waist several sizes too big, but they covered that part of him so blatantly male and aroused.
Amira caught herself on a sigh and turned toward the closet, snatched a belt from the rack and held it out behind her. “This should help.”
When she faced him, he had on her father’s shirt, the shoulders stretched taught. Was the man a bodybuilder or something? He had no right to look so deliciously masculine.
“What happened after you touched the stone?” Amira asked.
Mitch shrugged. “I assume that, like Harry, I was sucked into the bottle you now own and you awakened me by rubbing on it.”
Amira laughed out loud. “You expect me to believe you’re some kind of genie in a bottle?”
A frown settled between Mitch’s blond brows, his blues eyes flashing. “Believe what you want to believe. I’m not too happy about the situation either way. You think I want to be at the beck and call of some spoiled little rich girl?”
If there was one thing Amira couldn’t stand it was to be called a spoiled little rich girl. What did anyone know about her life? She wasn’t Paris Hilton, free to flaunt her wealth and fame for all of the country to gawk and laugh at. Amira had to fight for freedoms most poor people had automatically. Anger raged inside at the way he lumped her in with all of society’s ne’er-do-well poor little rich kids. “Now wait a minute. You’re the one who barged into my apartment. If there’s any name-calling to be done, you deserve it, not me.”
“Whatever. I granted your wish and told you the truth. Whether you choose to believe it is up to you. Frankly, I don’t give a damn.” He cinched the belt, gathering the loose waistline tight around his trim hips. Then he fished in the closet for shoes, finding a pair of her father’s tennis shoes and slipping them on his feet. He winced as he put them on and left the strings untied.
In his too-short trousers, too-small shoes and his belt holding his pants from falling around his ankles, he should have been laughable. But Amira’s breath caught in her throat. He was still incredibly hot, despite his clownish fashion statement.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have to find out what’s been going on.” Mitch headed for the door and Amira couldn’t think of anything to say that would keep him there. She hadn’t been so flustered and…aroused in so long she didn’t want him to leave, despite his previous hit-and-run routine. “What about the men who chased after me? Any advice?”
He turned with his hand on the doorknob. “Hire more bodyguards and stash that bottle somewhere safe. Don’t let anyone have it. Anyone.”
Chapter Three
Harry Taylor, III tucked the revolver in the back of his trousers and closed his jacket over it. “Are you ready?” He stared at Edie Ragsdale beside him, her tangle of red hair pulled back in a tight ponytail at her nape. When she smiled up at him, he smiled back, then his gaze swung to the other two people preparing for the next step in their attempt to reunite the treasures from the tomb of Princess Vashti.
Kate Ralston stood with her feed braced apart, wearing khaki slacks and a blue chambray shirt. Beside her, Harry’s partner, William Prater Moreland adjusted a new fedora on his head.
Harry would give good money for the hat, but he had bigger fish to catch. He had to find Mitch and collect the remaining bottles taken from Princess Vashti’s sarcophagus. That, plus the Stone of Azhi had to be returned to break the curse he, Will and Mitch were under.
“I don’t know why you’re in such an all-fired hurry,” Kate grumbled. “It’s not as if you two are suffering or anything over our wishes.”
“Maybe not now,
but there’s no telling when another wish will go awry.” Harry nodded at Will. “I don’t know about you, but the sooner this curse is broken the happier we all will be.”
“I’ll second that. I have no desire to return to hell whenever this pushy broad gets mad at me.” He covered Kate’s lips with his own before she could voice a protest over his use of the term pushy broad. She hated it when he called her that.
When he let her go, her brows dipped briefly into a frown, a weak one. “Watch it, buddy, or that’s exactly where you’ll end up, in hell wearing an Elvis suit.”
They stood in the courtyard of the palace in Sand City, somewhere in the desert. They had already said their goodbyes to Kate’s father who preferred to remain in the mysterious hidden city. All they needed now was for the girls to say the magic words.
Edie held Harry’s hand, her long slim fingers fitting nicely in his palm. “Where to?”
“Make it the warehouse at the back of the museum. We need to see if Mitch landed in one of the remaining bottles.”
Edie stared up into Harry’s eyes. “I wish—”
Harry covered her mouth before she could finish. “Be careful, we don’t want to end up in a porn studio or on a pirate’s ship.”
Her coppery brows rose. “Don’t you trust me?”
“You, yes. Your wishes, not so much.” He kissed the end of her nose. “Repeat after me, I wish we were in the museum warehouse close to where I work in New York City.”
Edie glanced at Kate. “Ready?”
Kate nodded. “We’re right behind you.”
Edie repeated Harry’s words to the letter and before long the ground shook, thunder rumbled and a bright flash blinded them. As the world faded around Edie and Harry, Kate’s voice could be heard as if in the distance, repeating the same words.
* * * * *
Amira stared at the door to her apartment after Mitch left, her mouth hanging open, her body surging with energy of a kind she remembered from the night she’d spent with the odious man. The sexy, odious man.