Color Me Wicked

by Nina Bangs

  “What color, Mandy?” Now that was how a true jungle cat should sound, all husky and threatening.

  Mandy watched as Deimos picked himself up, sat down to wash his face, and then casually padded away as if he’d never wanted to be on the dumb table anyway.

  “Color?” Con shifted closer.

  He was down to one-word questions. Not a good sign. Amanda figured she’d better answer before he abandoned words altogether and resorted to action. Even though the threat of action kind of turned her on, action probably involved touching. And right now her sexual tension tide was almost at flood stage. No, touching would not be a good thing.

  “Cream.”

  “Last time I looked, this was the Castle of Dark Dreams, not a dessert.” Anger simmered and bubbled just below the surface of his self-control. “This room needs rich sensual colors. Had any dark dreams lately, sweet-heat? I bet they weren’t decorated in cream.”

  Okay, no more Ms. Congeniality. “Why do you care? Most men wouldn’t give a damn what color I painted this room.” She couldn’t wait for his answer, so she answered herself. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because I chose cream. You would’ve hated any color I chose. What’s your freaking problem, Maguire?” Wow, she’d scared herself. She sounded like the seventeen-year-old girl who’d lusted after Con Maguire. The one who’d liked clingy purple tops, heated arguments, and loud laughter. But it felt good on a strictly emotional level.

  His mood seemed to improve in direct proportion to her anger. “I think we need to discuss this. Go out and check to make sure I didn’t paint any of your trim red, because you know that’s what you want to do. Then come up to my room and we’ll . . . consult.” His grin was wide, taunting, and sexy as hell.

  “You bet. I’ll do just that.” Huffing and puffing, she slammed out of the castle, her bad temper propelling her to the gate where she’d first seen him painting.

  At first glance, the castle trim looked white. She let some of her anger go. Everything seemed to be . . . no, everything wasn’t okay. She moved closer to the gate. Lime green snakes! Scattered along the length of the trim were small lime green snakes. Ohmigod. They all had long lashes, blue eyes, and small blue butterflies on their tails.

  She’d kill him. She didn’t care if they were whimsical little snakes. She didn’t stop to think about the talent that created them. All she cared about was the blue butterflies on their tails. Who gave him the right to expose her butterfly in a public forum? It felt like she’d pulled down her pants and mooned the world.

  She grabbed her cell phone from her skirt’s pocket and called Holgarth. Now that she thought about it, how did Holgarth get off living somewhere else? She’d include Holgarth in her roaring bad mood.

  “Holgarth, here. I assume the castle is in flames or being attacked by barbarian hordes, because I truly can’t think of any other reasons that would warrant you disturbing me at home, Ms. Harcourt.” He either had caller ID or had recognized her heavy breathing.

  “Conleth Maguire painted snakes on the trim around the gate. Who’s the designer here? If you want me to do a good job, then I damn well better have some authority. I want to talk to the owner.” Blue butterflies on their tails.

  “Snakes? How enterprising of him. The owner values creativity.” Holgarth took snide and snotty to a whole new level. “The owner wishes not to be disturbed, as do I, Ms. Harcourt. You will simply have to deal with Mr. Maguire yourself. I’m sure he’ll soon recognize your superior skills.”

  Holgarth had mastered the big three—snide, snotty, and sarcastic. What a guy.

  “It amazes me, Holgarth, that the owner is paying me a fortune to professionally decorate this place, and yet doesn’t give a flip if someone with no professional training at all inflicts his taste on the castle. Go figure.” She disconnected and wished she’d called from the phone in her room so she could’ve slammed the receiver down. If she were a true professional, she’d pack her bags right now and go back to New York. But she intended to stay, and she wasn’t ready to question why.

  Shoving the phone into her pocket, she walked back into the castle. She climbed the stairs to give herself a chance to cool down. No use going ballistic over the exterior. She needed to concentrate her efforts on the interior. Besides, arguments weren’t won by incoherent babbling. When she reached his room, she knocked. No answer. Well, he’d invited her to his room. She twisted the knob. Unlocked. Without a twinge of guilt, she opened the door and stepped inside.

  The sound of running water reached her. He was still in the shower. She’d give a shout just so he couldn’t accuse her of sneaking. “I’m here.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” He sounded suspiciously cheerful.

  She’d make sure that didn’t last long. How could he plaster a symbol of their night together all over the trim where the whole world could see? She should be frothing at the mouth over the green snakes, but the snakes were merely blips on her radar compared to those little butterflies. Where’s your sense of humor, Harcourt? Her humor didn’t extend to the butterfly on her behind.

  Calm down. He only wins if you react. She did some deep breathing and in a few minutes felt almost tranquil.

  The sound of running water stopped, and visuals of something more immediate replaced the hated blue butterflies. He’d probably stepped out of the shower, all bare and wet gleaming male. He’d reach for a towel.

  She skipped right past images of him toweling his hair dry and rubbing the cloth over his yummy chest. She pulled up images from ten years ago, made age adjustments, and found them excellent. He’d run the towel over his stomach and then his gorgeous ass.

  Freeze-frame. The guys she’d known in New York had firm, muscular, or rounded butts, but Conleth Maguire was the only man she’d ever elevated to “gorgeous ass” status. This was not a good thing. She’d wanted to come back to Galveston, look at it through her grown-up eyes, and proclaim that everything was better in New York, including asses. There was still hope, though. She hadn’t seen Con’s bare buns lately. Maybe they had lost some of their star quality over the years. She could only hope.

  Okay, moving onward with her visuals of the Body-Maguire. Next, he’d reach between his legs, cup his . . .

  Where was the thermostat? He must keep this place set at ninety degrees. For the first time, she looked around the room. Amanda blinked, and her sexy mental images disappeared. She hated when that happened. But she couldn’t ignore bad taste.

  Blue. Everything in the room was pale blue. Ugh, ugh, ugh. She finally located the thermostat. Hmm, seventy degrees. Must be wrong. She pushed it a few degrees lower, then took a closer look at the room.

  There on the night table beside his bed sat a plant that was almost identical to Sweetie Pie. Except this plant was healthy, happy, and, dare she say it, perky. “Where’d you get this plant? It looks really . . . green.”

  “Jessica? She belongs to the owner.” He turned on the hair dryer.

  Why did Jessica look so happy? Amanda got all slitty-eyed thinking about how he might’ve kept Jessica entertained.

  He turned off the dryer. “I can hear you thinking, Mandy. No, I didn’t have crazy sex every night this week to keep the plant happy.”

  She could hear him coming out of the bathroom. “Then why does Jessica look so great? Did you slip her some plant food? How many times did you water her?” She turned toward the bathroom door.

  And watched Con walk out with only a towel wrapped around his waist. The room immediately overflowed with perkiness. “Whoa, unfair advantage. Jessica is a she, and you’re renewing her root system with the sight of all that bare skin.”

  During her years in New York, she’d had brief romances with a few men. They’d all shared her vision and been cool, calculating, calm men. Insight—had she subconsciously chosen men who were the exact opposite of Con? But they all faded to the same shade of blue as this room in comparison to Conleth Maguire. He was deep pulsating red. Her mental images hadn’t done him justice.


  He shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not going to dress in the closet for a plant.” Lifting his gaze to hers, he smiled. A slow slide of heat. “Or you.”

  Amanda could feel the artificial layers of her New York self peeling off to reveal the real woman beneath. Desperately, she tried to pull them back on, but they didn’t quite fit anymore. The scary part? Underneath the layers was someone she recognized from a long time ago. And there was nothing neutral about her.

  She was a woman who was heating up just fine at the sight of a beautifully sculpted male body. A woman who could get down and dirty with a lean mean loving machine. A woman who’d scream her joy as she climaxed, and trace a black rose tattoo with her tongue. Sheesh, she was seventeen again.

  He must’ve seen something in her eyes, because his smile turned predatory. “Have a seat.” He gestured toward a blue chair. “I’ll sit on the bed, and you can tell me all about why you think the walls in the great hall should be cream.”

  Amanda perched on the edge of the chair while he settled himself on the bed. Settled? Ha. Displayed would be a better word. As he sat cross-legged, his towel rode up so high that only shadows kept both Jessica and her from bursting into bloom.

  She needed to get to the point of their conversation before she forgot what it was. A calm discussion about cream walls first. Then lots of shouting and arm waving about blue butterflies.

  “I assume you’re going to use your extensive knowledge of interior design to explain why the walls should be bloody red instead of cream.” Okay, sarcasm would only beget more sarcasm. “Cream is a quiet color that doesn’t have the sterile feel of white. It lets the warmth of wood, and the colors of furniture, paintings, and accessories come forward. Cream is always quietly powerful without fighting for supremacy.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed.” He studied her a little too long and made her a little too uneasy.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I think a rich red would express what this castle is all about. Think, Mandy. We associate red with some of our deepest emotions—anger, passion, hate, and love. The Castle of Dark Dreams should reflect those emotions.”

  He had a surprising grasp of color, but then he’d taken art classes in high school. It didn’t matter what he thought, though, Con’s red-wall idea was going down. This wasn’t about the castle at all. It was a defining of who they were.

  His sudden smile was impossibly sweet and incredibly insincere. “Haven’t you figured out by now that I didn’t ask you to my room to talk about walls?”

  Yes! That truth was from the sluts who lived in her basement. “I think the walls should be our only topic.” That was from her penthouse dwellers who had a close working relationship with her brain.

  “Later.” A lot later. He supported his argument for later by leaning back slightly so that his towel slid even higher.

  Sure, using his body was cheap, but after a week of hard-ons thinking about Mandy in his bed or any other place he could get her naked, he didn’t give a damn.

  She stared at his towel with wide-eyed alarm, and something else. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he’d swear he saw hunger in her gaze. She’d better say something soon, because he was fast outgrowing his towel.

  “Don’t move. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Mandy almost ran to the door and was gone. She’d been in such a hurry she didn’t even close it behind her.

  Well, hell. What was that about? Before he had time to think about closing the door, Darth Destroyer padded into the room. Con had avoided the cat for most of the week, because he was still way into denial. But now that he was faced with Deimos, Con had to find out once and for all if he needed a shrink.

  “How’d you get into the castle, pal? I locked all the doors.” He wasn’t big on praying, but Con was praying right now for a simple meow.

  “Trade secret. How’s the sex thing going? Are you two gonna hook up?” Deimos clawed his way up the bedspread and then sat facing Con. “Still can’t jump. The four legs don’t want to work together. So let’s talk sex. When’re you gonna do it? Where’re you gonna do it? Why haven’t you done it yet? I need details, man.”

  Sheer willpower kept Con on the bed. “Who are you? What are you?” He braced his hands on his knees to keep them from shaking.

  Deimos cocked his head to study Con. “Sorry about scaring you, but Sparkle said the cat form was best for spying. That first time, when I ended up wearing the paint, I didn’t mean to talk to you. It just happened. You must have some old magic in your past, or you wouldn’t have heard me.” He stretched out and made himself comfortable. “Maguire. Irish, right? Any Druids in your past?”

  Con nodded. He gripped his knees so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Who are you?”

  Deimos eyed Jessica with interest. “If Sparkle finds out I’m telling you this, she’ll kick me off the job. But she’s already pissed, so what the hell.” He yawned. “We’re both cosmic troublemakers, supernatural beings who get off on causing trouble. Sort of the badasses of the universe.”

  Con swallowed hard. This was not happening.

  “It’s happening. Believe it. My job is to make sure you copulate, fornicate, conjugate . . . all those ‘ate’ words. So let’s talk about what a woman wants.” The expression on Deimos’s furry face said he wasn’t quite sure what a woman wanted, but he’d give it his best shot. “You should get naked first. Wait until I leave, though. I facilitate, but I don’t rubberneck results.”

  “You can read my mind.” He’d spent his childhood listening to Dad tell tales of magical happenings in Ireland. Con could almost accept paranormal events there. Ireland had a reputation for fairies, banshees, and haunted castles. But Galveston, Texas?

  He had a choice. Either accept what was right in his face or run screaming from the room. Since he was pretty sure he wasn’t crazy, Con had to believe Deimos was being straight with him. “I can take care of my own sex life. Why does Sparkle care about us anyway?”

  “She specializes in creating sexual chaos by bringing together people who don’t much like each other. She gets off on emotional turmoil. I have special talents in this area, so Sparkle is mentoring me.” Deimos stood and moved closer to Jessica.

  Con had real doubts about Deimos’s talent level. “I don’t get it. I like Mandy.” His body affirmed he did indeed like her.

  Deimos glared at him before edging even nearer to Jessica. “My talent level’s top-notch. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you hanging on to your mad because she went off and got a life of her own. Get over it, Maguire. Have sex with her. You know that’s what you want to do.” He narrowed his eyes to sneaky slits. “Either the earth will move, or it won’t. What’s to lose?”

  Anger pushed away Con’s fear. Deimos must’ve been reading his mind since the first time they met. “Stay out of my mind.”

  “Or else you’ll do what?” Deimos oozed obnoxious self-confidence.

  Con thought about Sparkle. She’d deliver some serious butt kicking. “I’ll tell Sparkle you can’t even stay in the room to make sure the job’s done right.”

  Deimos hissed at him. “Okay, okay, I’ll stay out. But you might need me soon.” He was so close to Jessica now that his nose was almost touching a leaf.

  “Don’t hold your breath.” Con wanted the cat gone so he could pull himself together before Mandy came back. If she came back.

  “Hey, don’t insult the cat with inside info. Remember, I’m the only one who can read your woman’s mind for you.” Deimos touched one of the plant’s leaves with his tongue. “Turns me on like catnip. Jessica’s one hot babe. Think I have a chance?”

  “Get. Out. Of. Here.” He wondered how ticked Sparkle would be if he laid some serious damage on her precious apprentice.

  “Sure. Sure. Let me know what happens tonight so I can pass it on to Sparkle and make believe it was a live report.” Scrambling from the bed, Deimos fled the room.

  Con drew in a deep calming breath. He had to push what had just happened to the bac
k of his mind until he could deal with it. But Deimos had a point. Con had never expected Mandy to come back to Galveston, and when she did, his first impulse was anger. Why the anger? Who knew? But when had anger kept him from wanting Amanda Harcourt? Never.

  Con stopped thinking as Mandy returned to the room. She had Sweetie Pie in her hand. Walking around his bed, she set Sweetie Pie next to Jessica. “I figure a few days with you will give new meaning to her life.”

  “We could give new meaning to her life a lot faster than that.” Con was through being subtle. He wanted to lay her down on his bed, slide his fingers though her hair, and cover her mouth with his while her body came alive beneath him. He’d touch every warm secret spot on her body with his mouth, and then bury himself in her, creating a new memory to take the place of the one from ten years ago.

  She saw the intent in his eyes, and the part of her that had worked damn hard for ten years to earn her BA in mature decisions demanded she leave. Now.

  He unwound from his cross-legged position and then swung his feet to the floor. His towel slipped a little lower on his hips.

  Her mature self pointed out that taking pleasure with Conleth Maguire would be a really poor business decision. If he thought he could override her color choices now, what would happen once they made love? She’d end up with purple walls with neon orange smiley faces on them.

  Con stood and walked toward her, each stride focusing her attention on the towel’s precarious position. Each stride showcasing the beauty of powerful muscles beneath smooth, supple skin.

  Her mature self, still calm and firmly in control, assured her she’d walked away from men with beautiful bodies before. Beautiful bodies didn’t mean a thing if there was a troll inside.

  He stopped in front of her. Six feet plus of power, muscle, and the mysterious ability to roll back time. She expected to be Zit Central at any moment.