by Tara Quan
Jack had never understood the point of beaches. All the sun ever did was make him sweaty and mess up his skin, and he couldn’t seem to escape the sand. The crafty little granules got in his shoes and socks, dusted his clothes, and always found their way into his hotel room. He’d take the Swiss Alps over the Maldives any day of the week. Babes in bikinis, he could get behind, but since Leo never even checked out broads anymore, what was the damn point of going to the Virgin Islands?
In a word, life sucked. His best friend had turned into an absolute bore, the man’s newfound happiness hurtling Jack’s social life to a new low. He spent close to sixty hours a week as a glorified form filler, and ever since Mina showed up three months ago, he’d crashed and burned on every pick-up attempt.
Leo had the audacity last week to suggest self-sabotage, but what did that even mean? Jack was plenty horny—all day, every weekday, particularly between the hours of nine and five. He had no idea why the desire to bang someone dissipated the moment he left the office, or why he now preferred long walks in the snow to the D.C. club scene. But his dick’s lack of action troubled him. He’d caught himself watching one of those testosterone supplement advertisements, wondering if “low T” might be the issue. Then he’d remembered he was two years over twenty-five, had more energy than he knew what to do with, and kept waking up from a recurring dream with a painful boner.
Hearing a meow, he stroked his hand over the cat’s lithe body, sighing with relief at the current flowing from his palm to the smooth silky fur. So perhaps suppressing his magic had some negative side effects, making him moody, abrasive, and obliterating what little patience he’d once possessed. Being always on guard damned all his relationships before they even started, the crash-and-burn phase earning him a few hard slaps in the face. He should have done something about the problem after its escalation this year, but he’d thought he’d dealt with the planetary shit storm just fine. Since he’d undergone the genuine treatment, he suspected his initial assessment of his wellbeing might not have been 100 percent accurate.
On the topic of treatments, if he didn’t get some serious bedroom action soon, he’d go insane. He’d arrived at this conclusion on the thirtieth day of his dry spell, which was why he’d signed up for the same one-night stand service he’d gifted Leo. But while his friend had gotten a confirmation in less than twenty-four hours, it had taken Madame two months to find Jack a compatible match. He’d received the couriered invitation this morning.
As long as he didn’t follow in his harebrained friend’s footsteps, Jack was on track to taking the edge off his sexual frustration with some no-strings-attached fucking after 7:00 p.m. tonight. The last time he’d graced the Castillo Capital’s posh confines, he’d lost his best friend to a witch in a Catwoman costume—not one of his fondest memories. If he had any hope of salvaging this Christmas Eve, the elusive Madame better have sent him a date with comparable ta-tas.
Not that he considered big boobs an absolute requirement. He’d make exceptions as long as they were proportionate to the woman’s build. One example he could think of was Mina. If she sprouted Double Ds, she’d appear disfigured. A mere three inches over five feet and possessing the narrowest shoulders he’d ever seen, the poor thing would be out of balance with a C cup. Judging from what he could make out despite her unflattering clothing, he hypothesized mid-sized Bs. On anyone else, this would be a deal-breaker, but hers looked about the right size and seemed plenty perky.
Yawning, he settled more comfortably into the seat and embraced the lulling haze. His mind wandered to the day Mina had showed up for an interview. In a departure from her current fashion slump, she’d worn a short skirt suit and glossy-black high-heeled pumps. On her way out, she’d swung by his office to drop off his major weakness—Shanghai White Rabbit Creamy Candy. He’d given her a high five and wished her luck.
That day, she’d stayed for no more than a few minutes and had left the door open. But in this foggy, slumbering vision somewhere between the dreams he could never recall and actual memory, he reached over her shoulder to shut it.
A mischievous grin on her face, she tilted her head back and met his gaze. “What do you want, Jack?”
He lifted his index finger and placed it over his lips. “Shh….”
Sashaying past him with feline grace, she shrugged off her jacket to reveal a crimson silk blouse. After draping the discarded garment over an office chair, she turned to face his desk. Placing her palms on the suddenly clutter-free glass, she threw him a sideways glance and motioned him over with her head.
The warmth of balmy fall allowed her to show off those smooth, toned legs. The tailored dark-green cotton hugged her ass’s subtle curve, the back slit giving him glimpses of her creamy thighs.
Coming up behind her, he closed one palm over her mouth. She remained still, her small body trembling as he nibbled her neck. He grazed his teeth over the slender slope, pausing to suck a bright-red hickey onto her snowy skin.
Hearing a muffled moan, he clamped his fingers tighter as he slid his other hand under her skirt. Finding damp heat, he yanked down her panties. The scarlet lace fell to circle her four-inch heels.
Biting her earlobe, he whispered, “Stay quiet, or everyone will know I’m fucking you.”
With one hand, he unbuckled his belt and freed his erection, his other arm still holding her in silent captivity. He kicked her legs apart and hiked up her skirt. Sliding his length between the creamy cheeks, he probed her wet opening with the tip of his cock.
A loud feline hiss jerked him out of the dream. Sharp claws dug into his thighs as the chair rolled back and hit the wall. The cat scampered off his lap. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to remember where he was. Once his mind regained focus, he glanced down at his crotch and noticed the very visible bulge. He could see why she’d reacted in a rather extreme fashion.
With a soft popping sound, the woman whose bare butt he’d envisioned appeared in front of him, her snowflake earrings swaying against the sides of her rosy face. At least she’d lost the Santa hat. “What the heck were you thinking about?”
The most honest answer would give her the wrong idea. After all, he wasn’t attracted to her. He’d happened to be envisioning office sex with someone who bore a remarkable resemblance to her, at the same time he got an erection, while she’d been on his lap—all unrelated events. “My hot date tonight, obviously.”
She scrunched up her cute little button nose. “Gross. Couldn’t you have waited until I left?”
He checked his watch. More time had passed than he’d thought. “I’m a dude, and you were on top of me for two hours. If I’m not distracted, I start thinking about chicks. Why do you care?”
Her round pink cheeks turned an even darker shade. Considering she’d done him a huge favor, he decided not to comment. “I’m better now, by the way. You can go do your salon thing.”
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and munched on her lower lip. He’d made her nervous. He wished he knew how he’d done it. She took a step back. “You’re in better balance now, but you need a long-term solution. You know that, don’t you?”
Why did she always have to be right? He found it annoying as all hell. “Can’t I just buy you a steak once a week or something? God knows you need the calories.” Sighing, he gritted out an admission, “I’ve already gotten better since you started working here. If we could come up with an informal arrangement, I’d be all set.” This unprecedented level of commitment should have driven him to the hills. Instead, spending one night a week with her sounded pretty damn nice.
She hesitated for a moment before answering, “While I’m here, sure. But I’m leaving in the spring, so you should start searching for permanent help. Astrology isn’t my thing, but I heard this amplification effect might last a few years.”
For some reason, her words felt like a sucker punch. “What do you mean, you’re leaving?”
She fiddled with the ponytail that had draped over her shoulder and fell in
a straight line down her chest. “I turned in my notice before my boss went on vacation. She asked me to keep it on the down-low until she came back.”
His throat went dry. “If you’ve got a better offer, I’m sure Dad will match it.” And if the old man didn’t, Jack would put his own trust fund to good use.
She shook her head. “It’s kind of a career change. This whole full-time job, taking grad school classes at night, and dumping my paycheck into tuition isn’t working out so well. I applied to join Teach for America back in October, and I got accepted. The pre-service training starts in May, so I gave the firm until April first. I want to do some traveling before I move to Detroit.”
“Detroit? What the fuck is in Detroit?” He hadn’t just shouted, had he?
Her brows drew together. “Low income schools? They’ll help me get loans to finish off my master’s so I can actually go into practice, and I’ve always been interested in teaching. Anyway, you shouldn’t count on me hanging around.”
Glancing at her own watch, she edged toward the door and sent him a hasty wave. “I’ve got to go. Merry Christmas, Jack. And have fun on your date.”
Chapter Three
Dulcina Gato, who preferred to go by her nickname Sweets, lifted a pair of rusty scissors in the air. “So the guy seriously had a boner? That’s so messed up.”
Mina rolled her eyes at their joint reflection. “I know, right? And since I’m an empath, I could sense him getting, you know, all hot and bothered. Whoever he was fantasizing about, she turned him on big time. I don’t know how he could think about sex when he’s on the verge of exploding from too much unused magic. ”
Sweets snorted. “Men—warlocks or human—they care about one thing.” She picked up a handful of Mina’s hair. “Ready?”
Mina swallowed. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Using the scissors, Sweets pointed at the set of combs and razors peeking out from a battered leather sleeve. “Can’t you feel the mojo rolling off my grandmother’s enchanted tools? These babies are idiot proof.”
Since not even her cousin could squeeze her in after 3:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Mina’s options had been limited enough to make her take a gamble. “But you have done this before?”
Patting her shoulder, Sweets bent at the waist and squinted one eye. “I cut Shelley’s hair all the time. She hates leaving the house, remember? Okay, yours is too long. You need to stand so I don’t get a backache.”
This idea seemed worse by the minute. Rising to her feet, Mina made a pinching motion with her index finger and thumb. “All I need is for you to take off the ends—nothing fancy.”
Her friend’s mock salute didn’t bolster Mina’s confidence. “Your hair is safe with me. Your head is another story.”
Mina closed her eyes. “Very funny. Do it already, will you? The anticipation is killing me.”
She heard a snip, followed by “Oh, wow.”
Her lids snapped up. “What do you mean, ‘Oh, wow’?”
She saw the answer for herself. Scissors and razors slashed around unguided in the air, slicing off huge chunks of her tresses in the process. Her friend stood several steps away, staring at the spectacle as if seeing the phenomenon for the first time. Since moving risked impact with pointy magical objects, Mina glared at the culprit’s reflection in the mirror. “I thought you said you’d done this before.”
Sweets’s expression lacked any hint of guilt. “Okay, I lied. Shelley’s grandmother is the actual owner of these puppies, and she always uses them on herself in the bathroom. Since her hair turns out fine, I figured they’d work on you, too.”
Her hands fisting, Mina hissed, “How do you turn the darn things off?”
When Sweets answered with a shrug, Mina began to question how they got along so well at night school. Yes, they happened to both descend from familiars, but that was about all they had in common. Having earned her bachelor’s online, Sweets was a year younger and a decade less mature.
Mina’s expression must have approached homicidal, since Sweets elaborated. “Shells explained how it works. I put the kit on top of your outfit, it figured out what cut would suit you best, and it’s doing its thing. When it’s done, it’ll stop. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Since much less of her hair had dropped to the plastic-covered floor than she’d feared, Mina embraced the madness. “Fine, but talk about something to distract me. I’m this close to making a run for it.”
Sweets’s gleeful smile suggested this might have been her plan from the get-go. After all, she’d turned Mina into an immobile prisoner of the enchanted hair-cutting apparatus. “So, why do you still have a crush on Boner Boy?”
The question confirmed her suspicions. “I don’t.”
“You were about to stand up your date tonight until I practically beat down your door. You should thank your lucky stars Shelley had a vibe about this.”
Narrowing her eyes, Mina voiced an ongoing suspicion. “Right…Shelley. Remind me, who’s the one with foresight? You or this mutant elemental earth mage who shouldn’t have the ability to begin with?”
The witch’s golden cheeks colored. “Who are you, Veronica Mars?”
“If I figured it out, so will Enforcement. Precog familiars are supposed to register with the Council. Rumor has it they’ve been hunting one for a year.”
Sweets stuck out her tongue. “You’re dodging my question. I can tell you’ve been around lawyers all day.”
“They’re the boring kind. All they do is write briefs and fill out forms to send to the Patent Office. You can’t find a nerdier cluster of people in D.C.”
Her friend waved away the clarification. “Again, more distraction tactics. We were talking about Boner Boy.”
“Can you stop calling him that? His name’s Jack.”
“Touchy, touchy. Okay, so what did this Jack do back in the day to win your undying devotion?”
Mina focused on not flinching as scissors and combs hovered far too close to her face for comfort. “Nothing. He was just nice. We both had very distant parents, I guess, so he always treated me like his annoying little sister. He still does, which is why I decided to move on years ago.”
Sweets strolled around Mina’s four-hundred-square-foot studio apartment. The small room was in an up-and-coming neighborhood in South D.C., and she counted every time the hot water worked as a small miracle. Stopping at the huge collection of snow globes on her single chest of drawers, Sweets remarked, “Holy shit. This is some serious juice. Boner Boy give you these?”
While Mina’s brother and Jack had always accompanied their fathers on various trips throughout her youth, she’d never left the tri-state area. Travel cost money, which her parents preferred to spend on their son. Perhaps noticing the well-hidden hurt from the unequal treatment, Jack had returned from each sojourn with a souvenir. Each globe contained an actual miniature snowstorm, all of them still brewing, even though the first one had been conjured more than fifteen years ago.
She recalled the afternoon he’d gifted her the final one. She’d been filling her parents’ beat-up old minivan with her luggage when he’d appeared out of the blue to wish her luck before she left for college. Having flown in from Boston, he’d given her a globe modeled after the Maparium. To this day, it remained her favorite present. “Yeah, those are all his. They’re how I know he’s nice guy, but it’s hidden so deep I sometimes forget.”
Flicking her shoulder-length hair back, Sweets turned, placed her hands on her hips, and fluttered her long, dark lashes. “My my, Ms. Mina Mao. I think you’re in love with the man.”
Mina snorted at the horrible impression of a southern belle. “It’s platonic love. I told you, he treats me like a baby sister.”
“Did your big brother ever give you presents, or did he spend his days putting bubble gum in your pigtails and stealing your allowance?”
Tony had done both—and once they grew up, it had gotten even worse. Shuddering at the memory, she remembered w
hy she needed to get out of the city. As much as she loved her brother, the situation had become too difficult. “Trust me, Jack and I might share a…bond. But he’s never seen me that way.
“I thought you said you could never figure what he’s feeling, since he doesn’t seem to know himself?”
Her friend had a point, but she refused to go down that path. After watching him dump a score of girls over the course of a decade, she’d learned that falling for a Frost was a recipe for heartbreak. “I thought you came here to convince me to see this one-night stand through?”
Sweets lifted her index finger into the air. “I said it was imperative you go on this date. What happens once you get there is up to fate.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s up to me.”
Her friend waved away the objection. “Same diff. Besides, you need someone to wipe away the bad taste of your ex-boyfriend. He poisoned the pool for the rest of mankind, and it’s not healthy.”
Mina avoided alcohol for a reason. Because of a twisted quirk of genetics, it took a single glass of wine to turn her into a babbling idiot, which was how the meddling witch in front of her had gleaned the details of that unfortunate mistake. “Trust me, I got over the dude when I broke up with him two years ago.”
The flurry of activity around Mina’s head calmed down somewhat. To her relief, she’d lost two inches of actual length at the most. Layered and wispy tendrils replaced the straight heavy glob. The scissors had flown back into the case, but two combs continued to battle with her slippery locks. With the coast clear, Sweets strode toward her. “When was the last time you got laid?”