He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin)

by Susan Squires

  “Something to put on,” she called. Knowing this guy, he would just have walked out naked to get his clothes. Or maybe he would still have needed help across the room.

  Drew could feel herself blush. Worse, she was wet between her legs. Get control, she commanded. But no part of her seemed to be paying attention. She shook herself mentally. Back to the chest of drawers. Be busy. That was the answer.

  She changed the bed briskly and dumped the dirty sheets in the corner with the khakis. When the bathroom door opened behind her, she felt a little tremble in her throat. She turned.

  His hair was dripping in wet curls. His face was bruised and battered, his ribs had nasty looking red and purple marks on them. A couple of water drops hit the planes of his chest and dribbled down across his scars and over his nipples. That made her breath catch. His shorts rode low on his hips, leaving all that chiseled abdomen and oblique abdominal muscles (her favorites) in full view. They matched the muscled thighs. The man looked like those statues in the Louvre pilfered from Greece and Rome. She technically knew there were men who looked like that. But she’d never been this close to one, except maybe her two older brothers, and they didn’t count because she didn’t look at them the way she was looking at Dowser.

  Stop that, she told herself sharply. Execute the plan. “You want some help to the bed?”

  The shocked look in his eyes said he’d mistaken her meaning.

  “Can’t walk? Knee injury?” Don’t you dare think that or I will too. She already was.

  “Oh,” he said, rubbing his good eye. “Yeah.”

  Drew steeled herself and went over to him. “Lean on my shoulder.” She grabbed him around the waist and pretended that it didn’t make her pant. “We’ve got to get you some kind of a crutch,” she muttered. He half-hopped with her over to the bed and sat heavily.

  “Okay,” she said briskly. “Let’s use this alcohol for something positive.” She didn’t want to use the rag in the sink. Yuck. So she rummaged in the take-out Chinese bag on the table and found some unused napkins. Then she took one of his clean tee shirts and filled it with ice from the freezer. “Hold this to your eye.”

  He winced as he pressed it to his swollen eye. “I’m fine,” he said, with only a slight slur. He couldn’t be getting sober again, after just glugging that much vodka.

  “Right. You’re just dandy.” She grabbed one of the half-empty liquor bottles (this one happened to be rum) and soaked the napkins. Then, leaning over, she pressed them gently to the scrape on his cheekbone.

  “Ow!” he yelled, pulling back.

  “Big man can’t handle a little disinfectant?” she cooed.

  That made him mad, but he was embarrassed too. “You surprised me.”

  “Okay, this time it won’t be a surprise.” She doused the napkins again and went for his split lip. To his credit he hissed in a breath, but didn’t move.

  “Damn sadist,” he muttered as she finished with his lip.

  She worked over him for some time, trying to think about his cuts and her plans, and not how close she was to his body. She tried to ignore the scent of soap and something more uniquely him underneath it. And she touched his actual flesh as little as possible. It was bad enough to feel him through a pad of napkins.

  He waited until she was done to grab the rum bottle and upend it. She didn’t object. That was part of the plan. Enjoy it while you can, guy. “Why don’t you lie down for a while? I’ll go into town for some food.”

  “I thought you were going back to Miami.” The slur was back. He was lying down though. Good. She got fresh ice and laid the tee shirt bundle over his knee.

  “I am. As soon as I’m sure you won’t actually starve to death.”

  His eyes were closing. “Right. You should put some ice on your cheek....” He trailed off.

  She waited. Soon his breath came regularly. She got up and found a trash basket under the sink in the tiny kitchen. She scooped the detritus from the table into it and took it out to the bigger trashcan across the parking pad. On the way back, she picked up the coil of thinner rope from the yard. Was she actually going to do this?

  Yeah. For his own good. Who are you kidding, Drew? She was getting him sober just to be sure he wasn’t really the One. Sobriety wasn’t going to last. She couldn’t fix this overnight.

  “Stupid, stupid, girl,” she whispered fiercely to herself as she pushed inside. This is how she’d gotten into the whole Roger mess, by believing in her destiny to the exclusion of facts. She didn’t even want a drunken, itinerant sailor who was almost forty to turn out to be her one true love. But something was wrong about this whole power/attraction thing. So she couldn’t let it go.

  Dowser was snoring gently. Excellent. She gathered the wrist and ankle weights and slipped quietly over to him. If he woke up while she was working on him, she might just get a black eye to match her bruised cheek. So she’d start with his wrists. It took some sawing with a semi-sharp knife from the kitchen to cut the rope. She lifted a wrist gently. His snoring sputtered and she froze. But he was back at it in another breath. She slipped a rope under one wrist weight and buckled its two leather straps around his wrist pretty tightly with the buckles to the back of his hand. So far so good. These weights were a godsend. She didn’t trust her ability to tie his wrists with the rope, even though she knew some knots from sailing on the family yacht. He’d either have them off in a minute or they’d be so tight his hands would turn blue and fall off. This way was better. She knotted the rope around the bedpost.

  As she stood up and surveyed her work, her satisfaction evaporated. What would her mother or Jane say about tying a man to his bed? More than just crazy, this was appalling. She sucked her lips in between her teeth and put her hand over her mouth.

  But they weren’t here, damn it. And what would they say to do? Leave him to his own devices? Turn her back on what might be the only time destiny knocked at her door?

  No. She was going to do this.

  She made quick work of the other wrist and tied him so he couldn’t move over to one side and gain enough slack to reach the knots. When she’d finished his ankles, she breathed a sigh of relief. Dowser was in la-la land. He wouldn’t know what had happened to him. He sure did look good enough to eat, spread-eagled like that over the bed, even though he was bruised and scraped. The mosquito netting hung on the rough four-by-four posts gave the bed almost a romantic look.

  Yeah. Like he was going to feel romantic when he woke up and found she’d tied him up.

  She made a round of the little cabin, gathering up liquor bottles and pouring them out down the sink. She went through the few cupboards and found a couple of his “spares.” Wait. He wouldn’t keep one in the cupboard under the bathroom sink, would he? That was gross. She headed for the bathroom.

  Yep. He would. This guy was far gone. She hauled the trash basket out to the garbage bin. The glass tinkled against the metal. She’d better hit town next in case he woke up. She could give the place a thorough cleaning later. She hurried up the porch stairs to grab her purse.

  *****

  God, his head hurt. Hell, his body felt like somebody had beaten the shit out of him.

  Oh, yeah. They had. He smelled onion and garlic in butter. The sizzle was accompanied by humming. He cracked his eyes, or rather one eye. The other was swollen shut. Light from the overhead bulb in the kitchen stabbed at him. He squinched his good eye shut again. It was the girl who was humming. What was she still doing here? Hell, her suitcase was now in his shack, over by the couch. He groaned and rolled over. Or tried. His right hand and leg wouldn’t roll.

  He craned around. “What the hell?” He was fucking tied to the bed. He couldn’t be tied up again. He couldn’t stand it. Not after that fourteen months. “What did you do?” he yelled. That made his head hurt. He groaned and flopped back onto the pillow.

  “Not feeling your best?” the girl asked, way too sweetly not to be sarcastic.

  “Untie me.” He made his growl as threat
ening as possible. She’s only a girl. She isn’t going to torture you.

  “Sorry, no can do. I am making you dinner, though. Quiche Lorraine and a nice salad.”

  He pulled at the ropes. She’d used his training weights as cuffs. That was actually smart. And she’d put the buckle side around to the back of his hands. He tried to twist his wrist around, but they were on too tight. He pulled at bindings on his legs. Nope. He started to panic. “I’m gonna strangle you. Now get over here and let me loose.”

  “Threats of strangling.” She came to stand over him with a bowl balanced against her side in the crook of an elbow. “You see, that kind of talk is just why I can’t let you loose.”

  Okay. Okay. He took a breath. Best to sound sane and in control, at least until she untied him. “No strangling. Just untie me.” She was smiling down at him. What kind of a look was that? “This isn’t funny. And I need a drink.”

  “No. Not funny.” She sobered. “And no drink. I threw out all your liquor.”

  “You what?” He strained forward, jerking at the ropes. The knots at the bedposts held.

  “Drinking that much isn’t good for you,” she said calmly.

  “How do you know what’s good for me?” he muttered. Insufferable little busybody. Probably a college girl down for summer break. And now she’d tied him up and was withholding liquor? Didn’t she know that he couldn’t stand to be tied up? Who was she? His head throbbed at him. His eye felt as big as a baseball. His knee hurt and his ribs, and his jaw. Hell, he hurt all over. And still it wasn’t enough to drown out the other pain. Liquor was the only thing that could numb that. “Untie me and get out,” he spat. “Leave me to drink in peace.”

  “No chance,” she said airily, whipping whatever was in the bowl with a whisk for Christ’s sake. Where the hell had she gotten a whisk? “What I will do is get you some more ice for your eye. And your knee,” she added. She went to the freezer and packed a couple of little plastic bags full of ice. Then she came and sat on the bed next to him. She smelled like some spicy harem in a far-off place—one of those complicated perfumes. It wasn’t overwhelming, just a subtle note of the exotic as she got closer. That slender neck, her skin white, unlike any other girl in south Florida, made the throbbing center itself right where it shouldn’t be going. He needed ice in places that weren’t bruised. How could he be getting hard when he felt this bad?

  She laid a bag of ice over his knee. Then she leaned over him and placed the other bag gently over his eye and his cheekbone. “Don’t move,” she said, in a low, throaty voice.

  He wasn’t going to move. The view from here was paralyzing. The V neck of her drapey top hung forward. He could just see the top curve of her white breasts and the edge of a lacy bra. Not helping his little problem. God, he was disgusting. He hoped Alice wasn’t watching.

  “Can you be still so these will stay in place while I finish making dinner?”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed. The bed creaked as she rose. He reached for calm. This wasn’t Afghanistan. “How long do you think you can keep me tied up here?”

  “Until you’re detoxed.” She poured the contents of the bowl into a pie tin lined with crust. “Just tell me when you have to pee. I thought I was going to have to make do with a roasting pan, but Marathon actually has a medical supply store. Which figures if you think about it, what with all the old people retiring here. So I got a bedpan.”

  Oh, my God. He flashed on those movies about men being held hostage by crazy women: the one where Kathy Bates broke James Caan’s legs, or the one where the crazy old ladies during the civil war tied up Clint Eastwood. Maybe this would be as bad as Afghanistan. He tried to get control of his breathing. Don’t panic. “What do you want with me?” he asked hoarsely. The icepack slipped off his eye.

  At the tone in his voice she hurried over, wearing a worried frown. “You don’t think I mean you harm, do you? I’d never hurt you. But you’re hurting yourself with all this drinking. And you can’t tell anything about a person through such a haze of alcohol. I promise I’ll take you right into the hospital if you get the DTs.”

  “Gee, thanks,” he said.

  “I had to tie you up,” she said defensively. “You’re going to get very cranky until the alcohol is out of your system. That could take three days or so. I saw it on the Internet.”

  She saw it on the Internet. Yeah. This was just great. A fucking do-gooder who had no idea what she was doing. She was determined to “help” him because he’d bailed her ass out at O’Toole’s. Not that he’d been very effective at that. Got himself beat to shit. Shows how low he’d sunk that those four could get him down on the floor. Well, he didn’t want her “help.” Didn’t she understand he didn’t want to be sober? Ever. She couldn’t stay here forever, and as soon as she left, he’d hit that bottle. He wondered if he could survive losing his precious protective haze in the meantime. It might make the nightmares about that hole he’d been in for fourteen months come back with a vengeance. And those last days with Alice.

  “You’re so much bigger than I am ... well, I want both of us to come out of this in one piece. You might find you don’t want to drink yourself to death anymore.”

  This girl knew what he was doing. Drinking himself to death was taking the coward’s way out of course, but he was trying to slip one by Alice. She’d never forgive him if he blew his brains out. Funny. He didn’t believe in heaven or hell. But he was pretty sure she was still out there, watching. Sometimes he could almost feel her, just on the other side of a pane of smoky glass where he couldn’t touch her. “Why do you care if I drown in a bottle?”

  “Because ...” She gathered herself. “Because you might be special. Maybe.”

  “I find sunken wrecks for rich fucks with nothing better to do.” God, his head hurt. “Not exactly special.”

  She looked crestfallen. She heaved a big sigh and came over to gently replace the ice bag. He resolutely kept his good eye closed so he wouldn’t see the way her breasts hung over him. “See if you can keep this on your eye. It really will make you feel better.”

  “I doubt that.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Drew made salad while the quiche was in the oven. The older man at Starbucks had let her look up the effects of detoxing from alcohol on his computer. Really, people could be very nice. She missed having her own computer. She didn’t think Kemble would spy on her. She was on a spa retreat for all he knew. But she couldn’t take the chance.

  After her research, she’d actually bought a pint of vodka. The Internet article said a little alcohol in small quantities could make detoxing easier. And she’d bought some over-the-counter anti-vomiting remedies at the drug store. She sure hoped he wasn’t going to get really ill—like emergency room stuff. But she’d located the nearest hospital just in case.

  “How long have you been drinking, Dowser?” she asked as she worked.

  “None of your business.”

  “That’s helpful.” He was angry. She could understand that. “Guess I don’t need to try asking why you drink.”

  “Nope.”

  “And I probably shouldn’t expect a thank-you for cleaning up your house either.”

  “Does it look like I care about that?”

  “I didn’t think so.” She came out to the table, having poured herself a glass of wine. He looked at it like a man dying in the desert looks at a fountain gushing water.

  “If you untie me, I’d be more talkative.” He was actually looking a little panicky, though he didn’t want her to see that.

  “I doubt that. You’d probably coldcock me and toss me off the porch.”

  He looked at her appraisingly. “I don’t hit women. Throwing you out, though....”

  “Maybe you’ll thank me in a couple of days.” She took a sip of wine.

  “Maybe I’ll still think you’re a stone-cold bitch.”

  That made her nervous. She was feeling strange about herself. She’d never done anything like this before. She wasn’t sure she w
as right to try to detox him. That was a first. She’d always been sure of herself. Until Roger. And, for what it was worth, since her mother had said Drew just couldn’t fix people. She hadn’t realized she’d been so controlling. This was probably the definition of controlling. She’d actually tied Dowser up. But how could she back down now? “Maybe I am a stone-cold bitch, but at least you’ll be sober.”

  He grunted and closed his eyes. “For about ten minutes after you leave.” Drew sat at the table, sipping. He wasn’t asleep. He occasionally twitched and his breathing would get raggedy for a while. Outside the insects began to make night insect noises, and the light turned from golden glow into shadows deepening into indigo. Drew tried not to think about how unsure she was. She also had to avoid looking at his taut and muscular body. So she thought about Jane, just coming in from a swim for a drink at the bar. Maybe with a week at a spa by herself, she’d break loose enough to have an affair. Jane needed an affair. In some ways, she seemed resigned, to what Drew didn’t know.

  The oven dinged, which brought Dowser’s head up like someone had slapped him. Sounds must be starting to get to him. In the light from the kitchen she could see that his body was covered in a light sheen of sweat. It was still warm in here, but she didn’t think that was why he was sweating. It had probably been six hours since he’d had a drink.

  She got up and took the quiche out of the oven, made a plate with some salad, and took it over to the bed. She set it on the low dresser, and switched on the little light that sat there.