by Joy Nash
“Yes, I do. Now could you open the door?”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I can’t in good conscience let you work on my house without making a confession first.”
“Sounds serious.”
She couldn’t quite look at him. “It is. The thing is, you didn’t agree to do this job of your own free will. I cast a candle magic spell. It brought you here.”
He looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted two extra heads. “You wanna run that by me one more time?”
Tori twisted her fingers. “Well, last year I met an old witch who gave me a bundle of candle magic spell kits. After you turned down my job the other day, I lit one of the candles. And you came back and took the job.”
“Tori. Just because you lit some candle hardly means that—”
“It was still burning when you got here. Don’t you remember? You told me to put it out.”
“I remember just fine. But you can’t possibly expect me to believe that candle had anything to do with my taking this job. That’s ridiculous.” He sent a pointed look toward the door.
She sighed. Her goose was cooked, and she knew it. Well, she’d done her best to come clean. If Nick Santangelo didn’t believe in what was obviously very strong magic, that was his problem. Mentally, she made a note to call Mr. Morrison and tell him she wouldn’t be needing him after all.
“Tori. Open the damn door. This lumber’s getting heavy.” He caught her scowl and added, “Please?”
She shoved open the screen and held it while Nick passed through. “Such charm. Such politeness. What woman could resist?”
Nick found a clear spot for his lumber, then straightened. His lips twitched, matching the amusement in his eyes. His smile was slow, and sexy, and beautiful. It sent a sweet, twisting sensation through her stomach.
“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk. Ignore me. I had a rotten day, but I’ll get over it.”
He strode out the door. Tori followed. “Does your bad day have anything to do with why you’re here early?”
“It’s part of it.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, just the usual bullshit.”
His arms flexed as he hefted a bucket of tools from the truck bed. Tori tried not to notice his muscles, or his thick, dark eyelashes, or the tiny scar on his right cheekbone. She held the broken door while he unloaded the rest of his cargo. He had to stack the boxes against one wall to make room for all the lumber.
“This seems like an awful lot of stuff,” she said doubtfully. “I didn’t think there was that much work.”
He mopped his forehead on the sleeve of his shirt. He was standing much too close, on the lone patch of floor not covered by boxes or building materials. She could feel his body heat and smell his sweat. The sweet feeling in her stomach spread downward.
He nodded at the wall between the front room and what used to be Aunt Millie’s dining room. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to have to paint the clouds on that wall all over again.”
His words were a blast of cold air to her wayward libido. “What? No way. I worked on that mural for hours.”
Nick dug into his back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of yellow paper. The building inspector’s list.
“You should’ve read this over more carefully before you started. You need a fire rating between the shop and your living space. That means installing fire-resistant wallboard.”
“Can’t you just put it on the other side?”
“Sorry. Doesn’t work that way. It’s gotta go on both sides. And I’ll have to build a fire separation in the attic, too. Is there an access panel?”
“In my bedroom.”
He looked at her, and she felt her cheeks go blotchy. That was an annoying problem she had. When she blushed, it wasn’t a seductive glow. It was an ugly red rash.
That blasted smile tugged the corners of his mouth again. “Your bedroom? Now that, I’d love to see.”
“Then come on,” she muttered. She brushed past him and nearly tripped over his massive toolbox.
His hand closed on her upper arm.
“Steady.” He was so close, his breath tickled her neck.
Steady? How could she be steady with her biological clock ticking like a time bomb and that blasted dream playing over and over in her head?
She took a deep breath and led the object of her night fantasies into her bedroom, wishing she slept in the smaller of the two bedrooms—the one without the attic access panel. She wasn’t sure she could handle having the flesh-and-blood Nick in the same room where she’d ravaged his dream twin.
He gave a low whistle as he ducked through the door. “Wow. Not big on neatness, are we?”
She shot him a nasty look. “It’s not like I was expecting company.”
“Hey, it’s just an observation. I don’t mind a messy bed.” He studied her unmade futon a bit too thoroughly. “Though how you can sleep on that thing is beyond me. It’s gotta be uncomfortable.”
“I like it just fine.” She kicked a pile of dirty laundry out of the way and wrenched open the closet door. “The attic access is in here.”
Using a chair as an impromptu stepladder, Nick eased the ceiling panel off the frame. “No electric up here. Got a flashlight?”
“No.”
He climbed down. “Never mind. There’s one in my toolbox. Look, why don’t you go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before I got here? I’ll poke around for a bit and set up my schedule.”
She wandered back into the kitchen, vaguely disturbed and vaguely excited. She was also suddenly aware of an embarrassing rumble in her stomach. It was nearly dinnertime; in an effort to detox, per Chelsea’s instructions, she hadn’t had anything but herbal tea since breakfast. That probably accounted for the dull ache in her head.
Opening the refrigerator, she contemplated the choices, then went in search of Nick. The man had to eat, right? It seemed rude not to ask if he wanted anything.
She found him frowning at the lock on her back door. “Something wrong?”
“This place needs more work than what’s on your list. For one thing, this lock is broken.”
“It is?” She took a closer look. “I didn’t know.”
He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “It figures.”
“Leaving your doors unlocked during the day is one thing. You can’t leave your back door open all night. I’ll run over to the hardware store before it closes and pick something up.”
“There’s no rush. I’ve been here a month already, and nothing’s happened.”
“Yet. The season’s just getting started, and there’s more crime in the summer. This is asking for trouble.”
He looked so serious she couldn’t resist prodding him a bit. “That door’s not completely unprotected, you know.” She kept her expression carefully neutral. “There’s a warding on it.”
He fiddled some more with the lock. “A warding? What’s that?”
“A spell of protection. It repels evil intentions. I guess you could call it a kind of magical dead bolt.”
Nick’s head jerked up. He stared, looking for all the world as if she’d whacked him upside the head with one of his two-by-fours.
She swallowed a laugh. Practical guys were so easy to tease.
“First the candle, now this. You can’t seriously believe in magic,” he said finally.
“Of course I do,” she said loftily. She really had set a perimeter warding around the house, though it was meant to repel psychic attacks, not a physical one. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“It becomes my business if I leave you with a broken lock and some deadbeat breaks in and attacks you. Christ, once you open the shop, you’re going to have cash in here. What you really should get is an alarm system.”
“Yes, but I—”
“—don’t need one,” he finished, looking disgusted. “You’re nuts, you know that? Freaking nuts.”
&nbs
p; He started to laugh.
She’d been about to say she couldn’t afford an alarm system, not that she didn’t need one, but now that he looked so amused at her expense, she gave a huff and poked his chest.
“I’m not paying you to make fun of me, you know.”
He chuckled. “Consider it a freebie.”
Turning his back, he opened the door and strode into the postage-stamp backyard.
“What are you doing?”
“Proving your spell doesn’t work.” He came back in, making a big show of opening the door and stepping back into the hall. “There, see? Your magic is worthless.”
“No, it’s not!”
“Yes, it is. I got back in, didn’t I?”
“That doesn’t prove anything. You don’t have evil intentions!”
He captured her gaze, his dark eyes dropping to her lips. His smile slowly faded. The intense expression that replaced it made her breath catch.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I was thinking,” he muttered.
She blinked up at him. “I wouldn’t?”
“No. Definitely not.”
And then he kissed her.
Chapter Six
Never give the key to your house to anyone but family.
Nick kissed her.
He didn’t plunge right in, though. He cruised into the kiss slowly, and Tori saw it coming a mile away. She had plenty of time to take evasive action.
But she didn’t.
His lips were hot. Just like the rest of him. Her caution flew right out her open back door as she melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He pressed her up against the faded wallpaper, a low groan rumbling in his throat.
Lust blew through her like a summer squall. It had been months since she’d been kissed, and she’d never been kissed like this. Nick devoured her like a starving man.
She tangled her fingers in his hair as he made love to her mouth, dipping and tasting and nibbling, awakening her body in ways she didn’t want to think about. His hands stroked down her bare arms, halting at the sides of her breasts. She expected him to touch her more intimately, but, surprisingly, he kept his thumbs just clear of dangerous territory. It was as if he wanted to tell her he wasn’t the kind of guy to cop a feel this early in the game.
And that only turned her on more.
He angled his head and teased her lips with his tongue. She matched his play, opening her lips on a sigh and tangling her tongue with his. He stroked into her mouth. The hard length of his erection pressed into her stomach.
Abruptly, sanity returned. No, no, no! This wasn’t right.
She slid out of his embrace. He let her go. For a moment she just stood, arms wrapped around her torso, staring up at him. “What…what was that?” she asked.
He smiled a little. “Don’t you know’?”
Her cheeks blotched. “But…we just met! We don’t even know each other.”
“I’d like to change that. We’d be great together. I can tell.”
Something about his smooth tone irritated her.
“Does that line usually work for you? Because it’s failing miserably right now, so you might want to rethink it for the next woman you maul.”
He winced. “Ouch.”
She rolled her eyes and headed past him down the hall.
Nick muttered something under his breath and followed.
“Look,” he said, catching up to her in the kitchen. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I’m not usually this forward.”
When she shot him a look, he held up both hands. “Okay. I admit it. Sometimes I am. But I really do like you, and I think you like me.” He grinned. “At least, it seemed like you did back there.”
“Hmph.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll behave. And I won’t attack again until you give the go-ahead.” He crossed his heart and gave his dratted slow smile. “Scout’s honor.”
She tried not to smile back, and failed. “You probably really were a Boy Scout.”
He grinned. “Yep. And an altar boy, too. And it wasn’t a line, you know. About us being good together.” He backpedaled when her expression told him she wasn’t buying it. “Well, not completely, anyway. Am I forgiven?”
She sighed. “Do I have a choice?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “I can be very persuasive.”
“Lucky me.” But she couldn’t help laughing. “You know, what I wanted to ask you—before you started mauling me—was, do you want dinner? I could make us something while you’re working.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “What’ve you got?”
“I was thinking veggie burgers.”
“Excuse me if I don’t jump at that suggestion. What else is there?”
“Soy chili and mesclun salad.” She’d stocked up on healthy choices from Chelsea’s just that morning. “Or whole-wheat soy-cheese pizza. Oh, and Dreamy Rice for dessert.”
“Dreamy Rice? What the hell is that?”
“A nondairy frozen dessert. You know, like ice cream, but vegetarian.”
“Sounds horrendous. Don’t tell me you’re vegetarian.”
“I’m vegan.” As of a few days ago.
“What’s that?”
“No meat, no dairy, no fish. I’ve cut out white flour and refined sugar, too.”
He was clearly taken aback. “You don’t eat any of that? What’s left?”
“Vegetables, obviously. Fruits and whole grains. Tofu.”
He shook his head. “No wonder you’re so skinny.”
“Skinny?” She blinked. “What are you, blind? My butt is huge.”
Okay, so that wasn’t something a woman usually pointed out to a man. But Nick’s comment had caught her by surprise. She wasn’t huge, but skinny? No way. It was clearly another one of his smooth player lines. No matter how sincere he’d sounded.
He raised his brows. “Do you really want to get into a discussion about your butt? Because if you do, you know, I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“You’re impossible,” she said with a half laugh.
“You’ll get used to it. Tell you what. I’ll run to the hardware store for a new lock. You shoot over to Sack o’ Subs and get me a cheesesteak.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a veggie burger? It’s a lot healthier.”
“Positive. This is south Jersey. I was weaned on cheesesteaks.” He plucked a twenty out of his wallet. “Fried onions and provolone. And a Diet Coke.”
“The ‘diet’ part is completely meaningless,” she informed him.
“You know, you’re right.” He grinned. “Better make it a regular Coke.”
Sack o’ Subs on Ventnor Avenue had been raising cholesterol levels at the Jersey shore for decades. It was a tunnellike restaurant with a long stretch of Formica lunch counter on the right and a row of red vinyl-upholstered booths on the left. Signed photos of past Miss Americas and aging casino stars beamed down from the mirrored walls.
White-capped cooks stood in full view behind the counter, conjuring up Philly-style steak sandwiches on incredible Atlantic City sub rolls. The aroma of grease and onions saturated the air. It’d been seventeen years since Tori had been in the place, but it hadn’t changed a bit. Even the hanging plastic geraniums were the same.
She relayed Nick’s order, cringing at the thought of what all that animal fat would do to his arteries. And salivating at the thought of sinking her teeth into a cheesesteak of her own. But she didn’t order one for herself. She was supposed to be vegan.
Nick was still at the hardware store when Tori got back. She climbed the steps to the porch, only to discover Nick had locked the front door. Which was pretty funny, really, considering the broken lock around back.
She hadn’t thought to bring the house key with her. She turned, intending to head around to the back door, just as Nick pulled up in his truck. He joined her on the porch and unlocked the door.
“Hey,” she said. “That’s my key.”
“Yeah. I found it on t
he floor. I thought it was your spare, but I guess that was too much to hope for, huh?”
She held out her hand. “I’ve only got one.”
Nick handed it over. “Not anymore. I made myself a copy at the hardware store. That way you won’t have to worry about being here to let me in. I hope you don’t mind.”
Did she? She supposed she should have been mad, but in reality, she wasn’t. “Just don’t surprise me in the shower,” she quipped.
His slow smile started up. “Now, isn’t that a thought?”
Oh, God. She should have kept her mouth shut. She could picture the scene all too clearly. Water sluicing down her body. A sound at the door. Footsteps. Nick pulling the shower curtain aside…
She looked up and found his dark eyes on her.
His regard spread through her body in a tingling wave. This situation was a slippery slope if she ever saw one. Flustered, she hurried inside and threw together a tofu-and-raw-veggie salad. Nick sat at the table and unrolled his cheesesteak from its white butcher paper. The aroma of steak and onions drifted through the kitchen.
Her salad suddenly looked a lot less appetizing. She sneaked a peek at the sub as she took the chair opposite Nick.
He paused with his sandwich in midair. “Want a bite?”
“Of course not.”
“Could’ve fooled me. You look ready to take my hand off.”
She picked up her fork and speared a righteous cube of tofu. Bland, but healthy. She forced it down.
“You sure you don’t want a bite?”
She stabbed a carrot. “Quite sure.”
“All right, but if you change your mind, let me know.” He proceeded to inhale the foot-long sub. Tori soaked up peripheral grease fumes as she worked her way through her salad.
After dinner, Nick installed her new back door lock, set up a temporary workbench of saw horses and plywood, then returned to the kitchen and sketched a quick floor plan of the house, with notes, in a small notebook he carried.
Tori watched his long, sexy fingers guide the felt-tip pen across the paper.
And she felt herself falling.
Chapter Seven