“Did you spike your juice?” he asked suspiciously when she tugged him toward the door. “I don’t want you blaming alcohol in the morning.”
She chuckled in a soft, seductive tone an octave lower than her usual soprano. He ought to be weirded out, but he was fascinated—and aroused. She was still Pippa, all graceful angles and luscious lips. Just Pippa without the snarly attitude.
“After what alcohol did to Robbie? What do you think? Are you feeling drunk?” she asked with interest, sliding the door open.
“I’m wary of the siren act, not drunk.” Oz followed her inside, debating the wisdom of taking this further.
He had to decide if he was dealing with a psychotic or trust that she knew what she was doing. He wanted to trust her. And screw her. Definite conflict of interest.
“Siren,” she laughed.
She actually laughed, in a full range of vocal chords that equaled the most melodious chimes invented. Had he ever heard her do that? Her eyes sparkled, and her mouth lost its grim tension. She looked almost as young as her teenage rock star images.
“Like Ulysses, you’re going to crash on my rocks?” she asked playfully. “That works for me. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
If this was about her evil Voice, Oz wasn’t buying a word of it. He wanted her even when she didn’t use the kitten voice. He wanted her when she said nothing at all. She was a leashed tigress, and he admired her strength, as well as other parts. Her laugh was pure joy—and erotic as hell, he had to admit.
“Since I don’t have a faithful wife waiting for me at home like poor Ulysses, I can loll on an island with a beautiful witch all I like.” He loved this new side of her. If sex made her happy, he was glad to oblige.
Instead of following her insistent tug, Oz grabbed Pippa’s shoulders, crouched to scoop up her knees, and carried her down the hall. To his immense pleasure, she circled his neck and began nibbling and kissing anywhere she could reach. The new Pippa was a distinct turn-on.
Her bungalow wasn’t large. He passed by a computer library lined with books and located the bed in the room at the end of the short hall. He deposited a handful of squirming curves and female scents on the covers.
Lying flat on her back, she shimmied out of her capris before he could make his next move. She wore skimpy pink underwear. She lay there tauntingly, one leg propped up, and he could see the frail pink barrier that was all that stood between his aroused dick and her tender flesh.
Heat surged through him. Focusing all his considerable attention on that patch of pink, he dug out his wallet, produced a condom, and threw it on the pillow beside her. She pushed up on her elbow to admire the show as he unbuttoned his top shirt buttons. Rather than deal with the rest of the fastenings, he dragged the shirt over his head and flung it on a chair.
“Surf boy!” she crowed. “You didn’t get those muscles from lying about in tanning beds.”
“Naturally brown,” he corrected, kicking off his shoes and lying down next to her across the covers. “I don’t have time for surfing anymore, but I have a gym.” He slid his hand beneath her baby doll tunic to caress fine skin.
She tensed at the touch. Oz slid his hand north, and she grabbed the hem of her shirt and tugged it over her head.
A pink lace confection pushed her breasts into plump mounds for his delectation. In gratitude, he leaned over and kissed her parted lips.
***
Pippa twined her fingers into Oz’s thick sun-streaked locks and held his head where her kisses could reach him. His mouth was firm and hungry, and the contact with his tongue incited small fires in her midsection. She hated that she’d used her Voice to tease him in here, but he wouldn’t believe her otherwise. She thought he was strong enough to walk away when he finally realized what she was.
She hoped he was strong enough to walk away. He’d already said he’d found an understudy for her part who could read the books, so she wasn’t destroying his project. Just driving him out of her life. But before he left, she’d have one night of finding out what it was like to be normal. Almost normal.
Oz was big and heavy and could easily make two of her, but he balanced his weight on one elbow while his free hand flipped open the front hook of her bra. His fingers encompassed her bare breast, and she bit back a groan of pure ecstasy.
It had been so very long…
She didn’t think it was too evil to seduce him into what he wanted in the first place.
Tonight, she desperately needed what he had to offer, if only to clear her hormone-impaired head. So she arched upward, pressing her breasts against him to distract him, before pushing him backward into the mattress. He grabbed her waist and hauled her on top of him.
“He-man,” she taunted, unfastening his belt while kneeling over his hips. Cool air caressed her breasts, but she was hot from an internal fire.
He slid his hand between her legs to finish unfastening his jeans with an expertise she didn’t possess, rubbing her the way she’d been rubbing him, the friction arousing both of them. Together, they shoved the soft denim past his hips, taking his briefs with it. Muscles rippling, he arched to rub his erection against her panties, and she almost came undone right then.
“Siren,” he countered, flipping her back to the mattress and kneeling over her.
While he grabbed the condom and tore it open, Pippa gave in to the wonder of casting aside all her control so she could freely admire the man on top of her. Not a shred of fat marred the bronzed muscular walls of his chest and abdomen. His shoulders weren’t the brawny masses of cord and bulk that characterized men who spent too much time at the gym, but a smooth, tensile motion of muscle and bone. Mesmerized, she watched him open the condom and don it.
She was quite certain Robbie hadn’t been that large.
She was so wet, she didn’t think it mattered.
“Now, where was I?” he murmured, bending over to suckle at her breast.
Pippa nearly came up off the bed as heat and hunger engulfed her in a tidal wave of greedy need. She couldn’t think about the dangers of this act, not when he was giving her everything she could possibly want. Her skin tingled as if electrified where he caressed her. She dug her fingers into his powerful forearms, and when he turned his attention to her other breast, she stifled her scream. She’d proved her Voice worked simply by using it for seduction. She didn’t want to damage him with her cries.
Her muffled noises didn’t appear to distract Oz. Could she actually relax enough to dare let her voice free as she did in the studio?
She rubbed her panty crotch against his arousal, driving him to growl and nip and finally to slow her down by running his hand beneath the thin silk to caress her bottom.
“Take them off,” she urged, squirming beneath his weight in an effort to do so herself.
He complied, sliding the elastic over her hips and down her thighs. But instead of surging into her, he teased her curls with his fingers, stroking and opening until finally—she clung to his arms, unable to control her cries of release.
And still, he didn’t fill her, even when she was weeping and quaking and demanding more.
He was supposed to obey, dammit. She wanted him inside her. Now.
Maybe she said it aloud. She couldn’t remember with her head clouded with the bliss of a long-denied orgasm. She simply knew that one moment he was teasing and kissing and caressing, and the next, he’d driven the thick head of his penis straight up her narrow passage.
He hesitated. She didn’t. She arched upward, driving him deeper, forcing him to unleash the raw passion he concealed beneath designer jackets and smooth charm.
And Oz obliged, pounding into her with increasingly deeper thrusts until she screamed again with exploding pleasure and wrapped her legs around his buttocks to squeeze out every ounce of joy. With a groan, he bucked and drove halfway to her
heart before he gave in to the throes of his climax.
Even then, he leaned over to suckle at her breast and create new ripples of pleasure when she ought to be depleted.
She would regret her foolishness later, when her brain started working again. For this moonlit moment, she indulged in pure pleasure.
***
They had sex again later that night when they both woke and bumped into each other and discovered the delights of sharing a bed.
Later, Pippa woke to the twittering of wrens in the courtyard, mellow sunshine pouring through the shutters, and an empty bed. Weren’t men supposed to be aroused and willing in the morning? She wasn’t ready to give up the best sex she’d ever had in her life.
And that’s what it was—sex. They weren’t making love, she told herself firmly. She flipped over and recognized the sound of the shower and the sight of steam pouring from the bathroom. It was six o’clock on a flipping Saturday morning, and he was already up and showering?
A few moments later Oz turned off the water and paraded into her bedroom wearing a towel draped around his lean hips. She practically salivated at the sight.
She threw off the covers they’d finally turned down last night, exposing her bare breasts. “Let’s not get hasty just yet,” she murmured seductively, thinking her Voice had its purposes when the towel stirred with interest. “It’s too early to be up and about.”
He leaned over and kissed her tousled hair and then straightened and reached for his jeans—ignoring the temptation in her Voice. “I’ve got obligations. I need to head into the city. Want to come with me?”
No, she didn’t want to go with him. She didn’t want him leaving. Hadn’t her Voice made her desire clear? She’d made men crawl when she’d purred. Perhaps she wasn’t releasing enough of her emotion. After all these years of holding back, she was out of practice.
She wrapped a sheet around her hips and kneeled on the mattress while he hunted for his clothes. “Where is Ulysses when I need him?” she asked, pouring all her need for him into the sensual tone generated by her admiration of his superb backside.
“Ulysses is out of condoms and going back to his ship for more,” he said, throwing her a laughing look over his shoulder while he pulled up his jeans. “Come with me, and we’ll explore foreign shores. I’ll take you to a birthday party. You can read to the kids while I talk to our director about the production.”
Pippa sat down on her heels and stared at him. He’d told her no? He wasn’t down on his knees, begging for more?
Now that she thought of it, Oz hadn’t gone over the edge when she’d cried out last night either. Robbie used to get frantic when she urged him to go faster. A cry of pleasure would make him weep with his efforts to please her more. Not that she’d understood that at the time. Mostly, he exhausted her, which hadn’t helped their marriage much.
But Oz was oddly resistant to her demands. Had she been denying herself sex for no good reason?
She didn’t think so. She’d tested men’s reactions to her voice while attending college. She couldn’t think of one of them who hadn’t come when she called. Or even when she hadn’t. She simply had to talk to them when she was feeling horny, and they were all over her like white on rice. She’d learned to speak harshly to drive them away.
Oz was walking away even though she didn’t want him to. Which said she’d gone beyond perverse into the realm of unreality. She’d been trying to get the man to go home all week. Now that she wanted him to stay, he was leaving.
She flung a pillow at him. “I’m not going into the city. Ever. Again.”
Although, if her Voice had actually lost its touch… could she? She didn’t dare risk it until she experimented more.
“Do you want to take my computer to your brother?” she asked, pushing her fear deep down inside her and summoning her stoic calm.
Buttoning his shirt, Oz turned to study her. “You’ve gone back into your cave again. I like it better when you’re shouting and throwing things at me, among other things,” he added with a lopsided tilt of his lips.
“You like it when I shout?” She tried to keep the incredulity from her voice, but she wasn’t certain she succeeded. He was not only a wizard if he could resist her Voice, but he was a perverse wizard. She ought to shout him into a cowering kitten.
“Shouting is real. That monotone… not so much. Drive into L.A. with me. You can sing along with the radio and see if I drive off a cliff.”
“You’re making fun of me.” Angry now, she dragged the sheet with her as she climbed out of bed. “Just because you’re too thickheaded to be affected doesn’t mean I’m imagining what my Voice does. My life may be limited, but I really don’t want to end it like Robbie did.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” he called after her.
Well, at least he was apologizing if not groveling. Pippa turned on the shower to drown out anything else he said.
He’d turned her quiet life upside down. Now she had to deal with this amazingly new perspective. Was her Voice dead?
Chapter 16
Oz kicked himself thrice over for the stupid crack about the cliff. But Pippa had been so enticing, sitting there in a pool of yellow sheets and sunlight, her luscious lips pouting because he didn’t leap to do her bidding, that he hadn’t been thinking straight. She must have led some freaking weird life to think men preferred that sex kitten act to the passionate woman she concealed.
But he wanted back in her bed again, so he had to make amends. She was obviously not experienced, but that meant she responded eagerly to everything he did, which could dangerously inflate his already brawny ego. But she was smart. And athletic as all hell. She’d catch on quickly, and he would have a hard time keeping up. He really enjoyed that idea. A woman who challenged him in bed was worth working to keep around for a while.
She certainly hadn’t bored him yet.
So he rummaged in her freezer and found frozen muffins. He wondered if there was room in her tiny kitchen for a coffeemaker. He was dying for caffeine. But he poured juice while warming the muffins. He cut up fruit in a dish and doused it with yogurt. And he carried the lot into the bedroom on a silver platter he found in one of her cabinets.
She was wrapped in the fluffy white robe she’d loaned to him earlier in the week, drying her hair, when he entered. Oz took her look of surprise as reward for his efforts.
“Nick Townsend and I go way back,” he said, setting the tray on the bed. “I’m godfather to his eldest. I can’t miss the kid’s birthday. And I promised to fill Nick in on what we’re planning up here. His wife isn’t too happy about him working away from home all week and commuting a couple of hours a day, so I have to pacify her too.”
Recognizing the rising look of panic in her eyes, Oz stepped back, giving her space. Where had last night’s tigress gone? “If people are going to recognize you, you might as well start with friends. It’s a controlled environment. Just Nick and Mary and a few kids. You’re used to kids, so they shouldn’t be a problem.”
She sipped the juice and glared at him through slitted eyes. He couldn’t predict if she’d kick him in the balls, fling the juice at him, or try to seduce him again. And here he’d thought she was a passionless stick. So much for his boast that he understood people.
“People don’t recognize angelic Syrene in my natural dorkiness,” she finally said. “People see what they want to see, so I’ve established my author image here, and they don’t look beyond it. But if I walk into your friend’s house on your arm, they’re going to expect to see some glamorous bimbo, so they’ll be suspicious and look deeper.”
Oz grinned. “I never take women to Nick’s. Mary hates my dates. She’ll like you, and that’s all that matters. You can handle her and the kids for an hour or so. Then we’ll go stand over Conan while he empties your computer innards. You can make c
ertain he doesn’t open any dangerous files.”
That caught her attention. She sipped her juice and thought about it. “You really think there’s something in my computer that might lead you to your son’s kidnapper? It sounds pretty far-fetched.”
“I don’t know anything. I just take one minute, one minuscule piece of the puzzle at a time and try not to hope too hard,” he admitted. “Shall I disconnect your computer and carry it out to my truck?”
“The one in the house is my business computer, not the one with the music in it. We have to go to the studio for that.” She set the glass down, opened her closet, and pulled out several of her colorful overalls.
So she’d really meant it when she said she kept the computer behind locked doors, Oz realized. Breaking into her studio would be serious business. It was less and less likely that someone had copied files from her home.
He crossed the room, leaned over, and removed a filmy hot pink and orange sundress from a hanger. “Wear this, and you won’t have to paint your face. You don’t need to be a clown to entertain kids. And there’s no point in hiding if you’ll be working with Nick for weeks.”
She shot him a look that should have killed and flounced off to the bathroom, slamming the door after her.
Well, that had gone well, hadn’t it?
Any time she wasn’t trying to rip off his balls was good, Oz decided.
***
Wearing the bright sundress, a floppy-brimmed straw hat, and sunglasses, Pippa ventured off her mountain for the first time in years. She told herself it was to protect the computer stored behind the truck’s seat and to prevent anyone from harm if they got curious enough to listen to her dangerous emotional outpourings.
She suspected it also had a lot to do with wanting Oz in her bed again that night. One night was not enough to make up for the years of loneliness. She’d forgotten how marvelous it was to share space with another human being.
He hadn’t run away or done any of the things she’d expected. Maybe she was losing her aberrant talent. Maybe he was impervious. She didn’t dare hope for either; it was too dangerous. But she desperately wanted to learn more, and as impossible and annoying as it seemed, Oz was apparently the man who could help her.
Lure of Song and Magic Page 12