He wanted to remember.
Brandon didn’t feel the door shut behind him, he merely heard the click as the catch slid into place. He didn’t know or care if he’d shut the door or if it had been moved by some force of the cosmos. He took a single step forward, leaving the eye of the hurricane. He was assaulted anew, this time by a fire that caught deep in the base of him and swept upward. An unseen force pulled him to her as she stood motionless awaiting him.
His arms slipped around her, anchoring her in place as his mouth fused to hers. His shirt dropped soundlessly from her fingers, again forgotten on her living room carpet. Easily lifting her, he followed the pull in his belly to her bedroom, shedding his shoes as he went.
Her fingers hooked the hem of his cotton shirt and lifted it over his head. She discarded it, his breath rushing out when her touch found his skin again.
This, he remembered.
Only now as her hands re-learned the planes of his chest, her sweet mouth followed their trail. His breath sucked in as she plucked the snap on his old jeans and slid the zipper open. She pushed his clothing down his legs until he was naked under her ministrations, her fingers and tongue tracing mystical shapes on every part of him.
His hands sought her hair, nudging her to slide her body up along his, her soft skin brushing against him, sparking wildfires at every point of contact.
He couldn’t touch her enough. Driven by some unseen force, he acted upon his every urge, stroking and tasting her until they both writhed in need. Her breathy gasps for relief penetrated his mindless want. Pressed fully along her, he slid between her open legs and buried himself to the hilt.
Their voices mingled in the nonsense of want as they moved together, reaching for release. Harder and harder he pushed into her, driven by the sounds she made. Twice she spoke his name, trapping him in the filmy haze of desire and something deeper.
At last, the movement of her body beneath him pushed him over the edge. Her own cries echoed in his ears, as her body, hot and wet, clenched him while he spilled into her.
Forever he fell, his body pumping mindlessly as he came.
For some unknown time after, he lay against her, her skin a swath of carnal heat amidst the cool sheets. He breathed deeply and evenly, slowly resetting his internal axis. Her breath came, soft and warm against his neck, a sweet reminder of the woman beneath him.
A woman he didn’t know.
Slowly, his brain managed to shake off some of the lethargy that had stolen over him, even if his body didn’t. She hadn’t taken his wallet, or anything else, for that matter. Maybe he’d lost his memory of the night some other way.
But a drug was the only thing that made any sense.
Maybe she hadn’t been responsible for it. That was what he wanted to believe. That this creature curled up soft and quiet against him couldn’t be responsible for it.
Unfortunately, her innocence didn’t add up either. While she might not have hopped right up and thrown herself at him when she spotted him at the bar, she wouldn’t have pretended she didn’t know him either. Unless she knew he wasn’t supposed to remember.
She’d been involved in some way. That much was certain.
Slowly he gathered the power to lift his head and ask her about it. Even as he did, he pondered the wisdom of asking such a question while he was still intimately joined to her.
That brought another question, as important as the first. How was it that she made him lose all reason? He’d had plenty of sex, but he couldn’t recall it being as mindless right from the first kiss as this had been. He took a little dose of honesty and admitted he had been lost pretty much from the first second he’d seen her standing there in her underwear holding his shirt. Had she been waiting for him?
There were simply too many questions. And he wasn’t about to ask them from on top of her, naked. So he found what little remained of his strength and pushed himself away the few inches required to separate them. As his mouth opened to ask her the most pressing of the questions, her voice came to him soft and firm.
“I have to go to work.”
When he rolled to look at the clock he was almost startled to see that it was after two a.m. He wondered where the hours had gone, if maybe they’d fallen into sleep or an alternate realm.
“All right.” It was the only thing he could say. He didn’t know what to ask first, or how to ask it. And there clearly wasn’t enough time anyway.
She pushed herself upright, her naked body lithe in the dark of night. As she disappeared into the bathroom, the click of the door closing and the sound of running water signified an end to the interlude.
Blinking several times to himself, Brandon wondered what the hell had just happened. Then he resigned himself to the fact that he might never find out. As he pulled on his pants and shirt, he wondered if he’d even remember this later. Or if this night, too, would just slip his memory, leaving another blank in his mind.
When he was dressed, she came out of the bathroom, with a robe on, tied tightly at the waist. No admittance. Brandon stood next to the bed, the four to five feet of space between them simply too large to breach.
Her voice was solid even if the image of her in his mind wasn’t. “Good night, Brandon.”
It had the ring of good-bye in it.
“’Night, Delilah.”
She smiled softly, and he figured it was her real name.
Without looking back, he let himself out of her apartment, this time remembering to scoop the button-down shirt off the living room floor as he passed.
Chapter 9
Delilah heard the door click. The sound released the tight lock she had on her knees. Her legs buckled under her and she sank soundlessly to the floor, too weak and too far away to get to the bed.
With great gulping breaths, she curled herself into a small ball and cried.
Tears poured down her face. Her chest heaved in deep sobs. It didn’t seem there was anything she could do to stop it. All of it was too much.
She was lucky that anger was his only retribution for what she’d done. She deserved far worse. Instead he had kissed her, fierce and swift, and reminded her why it had been so important that he forget last week.
She couldn’t handle him. That was certain. She’d get attached, and she simply couldn’t survive another betrayal. The last had broken her. She was only just now getting on her feet. Only just now not waking up every day feeling angry and guilty and resentful. Judging by the force of the simple wrong she’d done to Brandon, that was not a safe combination in a witch.
It was clear now that she had to stop. At least Tristan would be happy about that.
She hiccupped a small smile at that thought, but it brought on another wave of hurt. This one swamping her with its force, and she began crying in earnest again.
She cried for all the past that had gotten her here. She cried for the Jules she had lost. A missing piece of her heart she only rarely let herself feel between months of hate. She cried in anger over the Jules who had wounded her so savagely and seemed to think it was no big deal. Nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up with a little magick.
She wailed that she couldn’t actually have Brandon. Not now, after how she had abused him. And not now, after she’d been so abused. He seemed like the kind of man who would one day decide he wanted a wife and family after all, and he would simply get them. The universe had smiled on Brandon, until she entered his life.
Then again, the universe had smiled on her, until she had learned the truth.
Tears came again, even more savagely this time. Then a small voice broke into her thoughts.
Li?
It was three a.m. and Tristan was awake. She was broadcasting her misery to any and every receptor in the area.
I’m fine, Tristan. Just getting the last of it out.
With that thought she mentally closed the door on him. It was easy enough to keep Tristan out, but like so many things, she had to remember to do it.
Tears came fresher this ti
me. Not the old, wrung-out tears of misery that should have passed, but fresh guilty tears.
She hadn’t really flat-out lied to Brandon.
Not before tonight.
When she’d told him last week that she worked at three a.m. he hadn’t believed her. He’d demanded proof. But this time, he accepted it, when she was lying through her teeth to get him out of her apartment. She couldn’t handle the questions she saw forming in his eyes. Didn’t want to admit to what she’d done.
Worse, she had even contemplated casting another ‘forget’ on him after he left. She did the right thing and left him alone. Only partly because it was the right thing to do. Ultimately, she decided not to cast on him because she had bungled it so badly the two times she’d tried.
The first hadn’t stuck, and she still had no idea why. It had been good, solid magick. She’d felt it working. Maybe it was because of the half-spells when he’d interrupted her. But she’d felt it. She was one of those witches: she felt her magick.
Tonight he’d caught her in the middle of trying it again.
His shirt had been in her fingers over the flames. She’d been fighting the low power of the new moon. Still, she’d felt it starting to catch. This one would have done the trick. The wrong trick, but he would have forgotten everything.
Then he’d thrown open the door that she’d forgotten to lock because she’d lost all sense when he started accusing her of things he shouldn’t remember. And she hadn’t expected him to show up here of all places. He’d looked so angry, she had been certain he was going to kill her.
Instead he’d kissed her.
The spell had gone horribly awry from that point.
Ready to feed his shirt into the smoke and make him forget, she’d stood in the midst of all that power—now focused only on the feel of his kiss.
No wonder they’d gone off like a rocket.
And now, like every time she’d cast a strong spell, she was wrung out and empty.
Still on the floor in only her bathrobe, with her knees tucked up under her chin, she finally cried herself to sleep.
Chapter 10
The sun was coming in the windows, forming squares around her on the carpet where she lay. Her muscles creaked as she made the first move in hours to get herself off the floor. When she tried to look up at the clock, it came to her in blurry red letters and her eyelids hurt just from looking at it.
She’d cried herself to sleep on the floor and it was time to pay.
Dragging herself into the kitchen, she pulled a cucumber from her vegetable drawer and cut two thick round slices. Still sniffling after last night’s downpour, she shuffled back to her room and laid herself out on top of the comforter. She pushed the cucumbers against her eyelids and spent a moment focused on coming awake. She pictured her face as she was used to it—eyelids not puffy, smooth complexion with no little pink blotches, her nose a normal skin tone rather than red. Then she put some power behind the picture.
Still she lay there, as comfortable as she could be given the aches and cricks in every bone and joint. The bed was soft and warm from the light that fell across it in the late morning. And her mind wandered off out of her control.
She’d gotten the job as pastry chef the same day she’d chosen the apartment. She’d just spent two weeks planning funerals and packing boxes and had been in no shape to make major life decisions. But they’d needed to be made. Delilah had completely not cared where she wound up but forced herself to see no less than five different apartment buildings.
When she walked into this bedroom, something had spoken to her—she didn’t know or care what. She only knew that the universe was always right. So she’d taken it.
During the next week, as she started work and tried to establish a routine, she realized that the sun came in through the big windows only by mid-morning, warming the bed and waking her softly. Or creating a soft distant glow when she pulled the shades and fell asleep after a long night baking. Now, it was a godsend, the light comforting her when she needed it.
Slowly she drifted into a state of non-being. Open of mind and free of her own concerns, she lay there only half awake. The bed cradled her like a lover’s arms and she sank into it. The heat of the sun warmed her soft robe like breath against her skin. The sheets gave off the comforting smell of man. Delilah rolled over, burying her nose in the scent, as though she could reclaim the sensation of Brandon wrapped around her.
With a jolt, she sat up.
She did not need to be rolling in her sheets that, once again, smelled of that man. The cucumbers fell from her eyes and so did her illusions.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she sought another way to free herself from last night. Dressing quickly in jeans and a t-shirt, she pulled her hair up into an easy ponytail, wrapping the elastic around it several times to hold tight. Then she went off to practice her own brand of magick.
Tristan’s magick was simple yet effective. He didn’t own or use ninety-nine percent of the pieces he sold in their mother’s store. He considered them puff and show. Juliet’s magick had come from somewhere powerful inside her, a natural gift that needed no conjuring. It seemed Juliet had only to wish something and it came to be. And Delilah was the chef.
She had an instinct for the colors and smells and textures to create the outcome she wanted, whether it was a spell or a pie. Food was an excellent delivery system for magick, and their grandmother always said that cooking was a kind of sorcery in itself.
Tristan would likely appear in about half an hour. The eternal bachelor, he showed up on her doorstep when he was hungry and she was home. Never mind that she fed him out of guilt, too. The colossal explosion of herself and Jules and David had put him off finding his own relationship. If she didn’t feed him, who would?
She stepped up to the counter and enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing what she was doing. It was a welcome change from the tears of last night and the truth of this morning.
Delilah reached for flour and baking powder and finely ground salt. She used skim milk and a dash of rum and five minutes later peeled the first crepe off the griddle and threw it into the trash. With an economy of motion she turned out a large pile of the perfect thin pancakes, which she stacked under a cloth and stowed in the warm oven.
Next she sautéed thin strips of chicken, then reached for pears and deftly peeled them. Using her mandolin slicer, she reduced them to a pile of precise slivers, then popped them into the pan she’d used for the chicken, adding chardonnay and molasses.
Li? The key turned in the door, and slowly it opened, giving her the chance to shout out a warning if it were necessary.
When she’d first moved here, Tristan used to just turn the key and barge right in, never considering that he should check first, that his widowed little sister might not be alone. But one Saturday morning she’d been in the back and he’d opened the door on a half-naked man who put up a fight. Her overnight guest had figured she’d lied. Since the man coming through the door possessed both a key and an easy familiarity with the woman in the house, it was likely an easy assumption that he was her husband. It was also wrong. Nevertheless, the man had taken a swing or two at Tristan before Delilah could close his fist around the lavender and send him off.
Tristan had stumbled backward into the hallway, too shocked to conjure any answers or even simple questions as Delilah’s guest passed by. Only later did he ask about her new boyfriend. Unwilling to lie to him, she wound up explaining about the ‘forget’ spells and the fact that it hadn’t been the first time.
Her brother had worried about her ever since. Probably rightfully.
Now he came up behind where she worked and sniffed at the pears bubbling in thick juice on the stove. “Mmmmmm.”
She smiled, sliding the chicken back into the pan and sprinkling raisins throughout the mixture.
She wiped her fingers on the half-apron tied around her waist, and turned off the heat. She pulled down plates and didn’t need to speak. Tristan let
himself into her fridge and got out a large bottle of sparkling water, pouring it into two glasses and setting the table.
She loved this, having him here. He was an anchor for her as she still tossed about in a torment that should have been long gone. He was the only one who seemed to really understand. Rolling the mixture into the crepes, she made two plates, his much larger than hers and turned to carry them to the table.
“Delilah?” The sound was accompanied by sharp concern.
He was looking at her face. Her still-a-little-puffy, still-a-little-blotchy face, because she’d cried herself to sleep and then couldn’t lay on her bed long enough to fix it because the bed smelled like the man who’d burst through her door and made love to her then left.
She sighed. There was nothing she could do now. And she just wanted her crepes. She offered up a sad smile and tried eating.
Before the first forkful hit her mouth, Tristan had the question out. Only it wasn’t the one she’d been expecting. “Does this have anything to do with the rotisserie?”
Finding no point in lying, she said, “Yes.”
Again he didn’t say what she expected. Didn’t ask what kind of trouble she was having, didn’t ask about the man. Instead he went straight to the point. “I thought you were doing better. Why is it all coming up now?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know.”
She had no clue why her spells were going awry. Why Brandon had been able to come back. Why she’d been so scared last night when she saw the questions forming behind his eyes.
Finally, she got the fork into her mouth and ate the first bite of the crepe. Letting it melt on her tongue, she stayed quiet and enjoyed the simple peace of eating.
Chapter 11
Brandon’s week went much better than the previous one had. He still had no idea why he’d been drugged or what role Delilah had played in it. But at least now he remembered all of it. Seeing her, walking up her street, making love to her, had all triggered memories. He got his missing night back.
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