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His eyes narrowed. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Why?”
“Because as tempting as you are, I’d draw the line if you’re about to do something you might not do stone cold sober.”
She hiccoughed loudly. “What a gentlemen.”
“Not really. But I do like a consenting partner.”
Her voice turned reedy, catching with promise. “So, you want me to consent?”
“Yeah.”
“I do, gorgeous,” she murmured solemnly.
For a second, everything went silent, as if the room itself had suddenly inhaled a sharp breath. Yes, this cinched it. Sex was on her agenda. The heat in James’s veins started localizing, pooling in his belly, teasing his groin and making him strangely conscious of the hairs on his bare legs, then the tingling between them.
Half asleep, he remembered how she’d looked earlier when she’d gotten out of her car to ask directions. Her short silken hair had been the color of freshly harvested wheat, and it had lifted with the breeze, while the strong sunlight had done wonders for the rest of her, outlining her nipped-in waist and the gentle flare of her hips. She had sweet, enticing slopes of breasts, and each time she’d moved, rays of light had shined through her blouse, looking like fingers caressing her as the breeze ruffled the fabric. As he sucked a breath through his teeth, James’s mouth dried. When he’d gotten into bed tonight, getting lucky had been the last thing on his mind….
He waited for her to make another move.
Every month, these wild women came tearing into the park, their engines roaring, shouting ribald comments and tossing back drinks like sailors. The next morning, they were always hungover. Usually, they decamped as quietly as church mice, as if something so much as turning on the car radio might make their heads explode. They always left, swallowing down aspirin and leaving a wake of lost clothes in the woods. James kept a finders-keepers bin of bras and panties in the main office, but so far, no one had shown up to claim them. This was the first time a witch had actually propositioned him. He couldn’t have felt more beguiled.
She was still paused at the edge of the bed.
If he’d known she was coming, he would have changed the sheets, but seeing as it was too late, he tossed back the covers, feeling a sleepy stir of air hit his naked body. “Abracadabra,” he said, “c’mon in.”
Another giggle sounded.
In the darkness, he couldn’t see so much as an outline of her body, so he only sensed it when she leaned forward. “Hocus pocus,” she teased. As her splayed hand hit the mattress, a water droplet splashed his face.
“You’re one wet witch,” he said.
And then she stumbled. Uttering a barely audible gasp of surprise, she lurched headlong on top of him. If he hadn’t reached instinctively and looped his arm around her waist, she would have gone over the other side. As it was, one hand caught her hip, and the other, her arm. Settling her on top of him, it was his turn to gasp.
She was naked. Clammy. She sucked in a breath and murmured, “I’m so sorry,” but she didn’t really sound sorry about crashing into him. He wasn’t the least bit sorry, either. She said, “I’m wet and cold.”
“We’ll have to warm you up.”
Every lake-drenched inch of her was searing into him. “You’ve been swimming,” he said, his voice lowering seductively. He couldn’t believe that this sexy woman was right on top of him, her breasts cushioning the hard muscles of his chest, the sweet, taut tips of her nipples nestled down in his chest hairs. Her belly was molding to his. And below…
Crisp hairs brushed his thighs, teased the space right below where he most wanted to feel her. The tantalizing crush of her pelvic bone threatened to destroy any shred of reason. James had no idea what he’d done to deserve this midnight gift, but it must have been something good. Probably giving all those kitty-cats homes. Silently, he thanked the goddess to whom these women always seemed to pray. His next shaky breath hit the air, sounding like a whistle.
“I was swimming naked, gorgeous,” she clarified.
“Sorry I missed seeing you.” Just imagining moonlight dancing on her skin was enough to give him another shove toward the edge of sanity.
Her chortling laughter came again. “You don’t mind?”
“That you were swimming? Or that you were naked?”
“That I was naked in the park.”
Did she think he’d really assert his authority as a ranger and arrest her? “Not in the least,” he assured her.
Feeling her body move against his gave him the slightest pause. Earlier, at the ranger’s station, he’d thought she was a larger woman, taller and with fuller breasts, but then sundresses could be deceiving, and the airy fabric had swirled around her legs, nearly reaching her ankles. Maybe that had made her look taller. Now he realized she was just a wisp of a woman. Five-five at the most. Had she been wearing high-heeled sandals? He squinted, thinking back to their meeting, trying to remember, but he couldn’t….
And then he wasn’t even trying. He couldn’t think at all. Her mouth came closer; soft pants of breath that smelled like sassafras teased the rim of his ear, and then the enticing moist, pointed tip of her tongue wetted a spot…right before she blew on it. He shuddered. Unable to take her teasing, he lowered his hands on her back, gliding them downward on either side of the most delicate spine he’d ever felt, until he hit her silken backside.
“No panties,” he whispered.
“You don’t have any panties on, either, gorgeous,” she whispered, laughing with another burst of pure hilarity.
He sure didn’t. Her splayed hands thrust into his hair, and when he reached up to touch her short locks, he realized they were as wet as the rest of her. As droplets fell from her skin onto his, they heated right up, sizzling as if they were oil hitting a griddle. When her mouth touched his, he knew he was moments from losing the last vestiges of male control. Not that he cared about hanging on to it. He was as hard as a rock, and her slick, waiting heat was calling to him like a siren’s song.
“I’m not really a witch,” she confessed raspily.
“Could have fooled me.”
Thrusting his hands from her nape, up into her hair, he stopped talking and drank in her kiss…deeply…more deeply. The softest lips he’d ever plundered parted under the pressure, and she opened for him, her tongue darting outward and sliding against his. An involuntary moan was wrenched from somewhere deep inside his chest, as if it had been buried there, hidden and lodged inside him for his whole lifetime—until this very moment, when this witchy woman pulled it out.
His mind blanked. He could barely believe this was really happening. He didn’t even know her. And yet this felt like so much more than just a kiss with a stranger. Need burst in him. Raw hunger as the open-mouthed kiss turned hotter, wetter and greedier. Electricity that no man would deny was sparking between them. Moaning, he grasped her backside and pulled her closer still, right to his hard, waiting heat. “I want inside,” he whispered, his voice strained, completely foreign-sounding to his ears.
Her heart was hammering against his chest. The thought came from nowhere: one love, one heart. She said, “Me, too.”
Melting, he skated the never-ending kiss downward, from her mouth, to her cheeks, to her neck, and then he shifted his weight, rolling her to her side, so his itching palm could mold her breast.
“Ah,” he murmured simply, caressing the silken slope of the underside, then lifting her from beneath and angling down his head to better suckle. After pressing the liquid, searing heat of his mouth to her straining nipple, he used the tip of his tongue to flick it to the bud, then he circled it until her seeking hips were arching; she was silently begging now, for what she’d come here to get.
“Are you sure I’m not dreaming?” he managed to whisper, gliding an open hand down the most succulent body he’d ever felt twining around his own. Wanting to touch each inch of her, he fantasized using his mouth and fingers to make her writhe. “I want to see you wild,” he murmured.
“Wild?”
“Yeah.” The crazy woman had taken the risk to come in here wet and naked, and now that she’d lit his fire, he intended to make it well worth her while. He definitely didn’t want her to walk away, feeling sorry for her nocturnal visit. Sliding a hand between her legs, he felt his body boil as his fingers dipped into her warm, running honey. She was so ready that he drew in a sharp, satisfied breath…and then he began to probe.
“No—” She exhaled the word, making his blood dance. He stopped immediately, and she giggled. “I meant yes, gorgeous.”
“You’re sure you’re real?” He was almost beginning to doubt it. No woman had ever made him feel so good. And while the blonde had looked promising, this was more than he’d hoped for. Her every touch was arousing so much more than sexual need. She was conjuring darker things. Like the need to possess. To frustrate and toy with her until she was begging him for satisfaction only he could give.
“I’m real,” she said.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am, gorgeous.”
He did. At least he recalled her asking directions. But he wanted more now. Her name. Her address. Her phone number. The promise that he wouldn’t wake to find her gone.
Before he could say so, her hand reached down, sending him crashing into shuddering oblivion as slender fingers curled around his length. She grasped him firmly. Stroked. He nearly screamed. Vaguely, he wondered if she’d said something. He wasn’t sure. The friction of her hand, the way she was rising to meet the ministrations of his own touch, was more than he could bear. Each ridge was pleasured, her nails skimming over flesh until the whole world narrowed focus. There was only her and him. Alone in the middle of the woods on a dark night drenched in moonlight. There was no sound save soft pants as they climbed.
He pulled her back on top of him. Swallowing hard, since his throat was raw, he whispered, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I cast a spell on you, gorgeous,” she admitted.
“You really think I’m gorgeous?”
“Of course you are,” she murmured.
“You cast a spell on me?”
“That’s why you’re in my bed.”
She was in his, but he didn’t correct her. Not when he was so flattered. None of these wiccans had ever cast a spell on him before, at least not so far as he knew. “You cast a spell because you wanted to have sex with me?”
“Yes,” she murmured, nibbling his lips and groaning as she slid her hands into his chest hairs again. Releasing a moan, he curved his hands slowly over her hips, then down shapely, sexy legs. Fire surged through him once more. Waves of heat seemed to roll through him, only to be drenched by the water still dripping from her body.
“You’ve got leaves in your hair,” he said huskily.
“Take them out.”
He did. One by one, he lifted out the dry twigs and brittle leaves that had lodged in her short, wet locks as she’d come from the lake. “You were lucky not to get caught in the brambles,” he said, even though his mind was really on the deft movements of her now rolling hips. “Whatever you threw in that cauldron,” he added, his lips capturing hers once more, as the damp curve of her belly cradled his, “it’s definitely working its charms.” Reaching, he stretched an arm toward the bedside table and pulled out the drawer.
She startled, her hands tightening on his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. He imagined them, how they’d feel moments from now, raking down the rest of his back. This was one wildcat whom he’d gladly let claw him to ribbons.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Condoms.”
“Good thinking.”
“Mere habit,” he assured. With her in the bed, any logical thought was truly eluding him. Feeling bereft with her body warmth gone from his, he readied himself, then hauled her back on top of him, simply saying, “Ride me.”
Again, that maddening giggle sounded. “Like a broomstick?”
He laughed. “You witch, you.”
Her tongue traced his lips, silencing him, sending another shock of awareness through his system. “O, ye spirits bring to me,” she whispered huskily, “a night of sexy revelry.”
So, that’s what she’d asked for. “I think we can manage that.”
Her laugh was tempered by need now. “All night?”
“There won’t be a thought in your pretty little head until dawn,” he assured her, then he added, “I’ve only got one question.”
“What?”
“Well, men and women can do an awful lot of things together,” he began. “So, which of those things do you want to do first?”
Her tone was strangely dark, lusty. “You mean, seeing as we’re going to eventually do them all?”
“Yeah.”
He heard her intake of breath. “Man’s choice.”
He urged her closer. “You on top, then. And later…” As his words trailed off, everything except the spellbinding woman vanished from James’s mind—he forgot his wildcat capture team certification and the hours he’d spend tomorrow, cleaning up after the wiccans—and he touched a thumb to his bedmate’s chin, tilting back her head and spiraling kisses down a slender neck that, beneath his tongue, had the smooth consistency of fresh cream.
As her knees bracketed his hips, she exhaled an excited rush of breath. “Later?” she urged as she positioned herself above him and slowly impaled herself, sliding downward on his shaft until he could no longer bite back another moan.
“Everything,” he promised hoarsely, seeing himself tongue-kissing every inch of her legs, then burying himself between them, tasting her while she drowned in pleasure. He saw her kneeling before him, too, tasting him with the same abandon. Maybe they’d head outside, right before sunrise, and he’d take her, hard and fast, against a tree, until both of them got so crazy with lust that they’d start howling at the moon.
After all, it was Halloween.
“Sliding down the broomstick,” she whispered. He would have laughed, but he simply couldn’t. His blood was pumping too fast, his mind racing with fantasies about the woman who kept calling him gorgeous. The tight, slick folds of her body were enveloping him, stealing away his breath. His arms swiftly circled her back. Squeezing her tightly, he hauled her even closer against him and rolled, so that he was on top of her. Unwilling to simply lie back and take the pleasure, the way he’d initially asked, he realized he wanted to be the one to give it.
“Hold me tight, you wicked little witch,” he coached as he thrust deep inside her, feeling her open all the way. “Because the man you’ve beguiled is about to show you some midnight magic.”
WHAT HAD HAPPENED?
Signe slid a hand down her belly, as if she half expected to find that her own body parts had vanished in the night. Whew! That herbal-root punch had really packed a punch. C.C. hadn’t been lying! Nor Diane, who’d said it contained grain alcohol. Signe felt as if she’d been run over by a Mack truck. Which was just as well. She’d actually forgotten about the stolen statue and Detective Perez for a few blissful hours. Now she tried to slit her eyes open, but decided it was just too painful. Yes, she was going to have to spend all day pressing thin slices of frozen cucumber to her eyelids.
This was why she never drank. While the herbal-root beverage had been great going down, she now felt as if a heavy cement block had lodged in the space where her head used to be. Except that couldn’t really be the case, since her head was pounding. It felt as if an army of little men were inside it, trying to bash their way out with hammers.
Everything hurt. A big white hole seemed to exist where her memories once were. It was as if she’d become a cyborg from the movies, whose brain existed only on a CD-ROM. Now she was simply waiting for her memory element to reconnect….
Just opening her eyes hurt. Breathing hurt. Her skin hurt.
Everything.
Except the dream. If her lips didn’t hurt, too, Signe would have smiled. She’d actually dreamed that Gorgeous Garrity had been waiting for her in bed. She’d whispered the words to the spell she’d cast, and they’d made love. Not just the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of love, either. But no-holds-barred sex that had lasted all night long.
It seemed so real.
Astonishingly real, she decided with a frown. In fact, the more her memories came back in snatches, the more it seemed as if the event had happened. Was she going crazy? Or had Gorgeous taken her up on her offer and come to the Catskills?
She was still in too much pain to open her eyes.
She could remember his touch, though. Every kiss, every sexy smell. Big strong hands had stroked every inch of her. His hairy chest had teased her breasts in a way that actually made her…have an orgasm?
Yes, he’d barely touched her, and she’d gone off like a rocket. He’d lit her up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. She’d burned and sizzled.
“Whew!” she mouthed.
As he’d pushed inside her, she’d felt as if a thousand massaging fingers were probing her, driving her toward new, dizzying heights of ecstasy. But that was crazy! Sex was never that good! She was healthy, of course. But a long time ago, Signe Sargent had realized that men were human and had their pretty obvious limitations.
Last night, however…
Had the spell affected their bed play? They’d gotten so down and dirty that just thinking about it made her whole body flood with heat once more. She could almost hear his voice, saying, “I’m about to show you some midnight magic.” And boy, had he!
Maybe there was something to this wiccan stuff, she thought, her heart skipping a beat. If it improved sex to this degree, she would certainly become an adept. As soon as she got back to the city, she’d get her own spell book. The dream really did seem so sharp, vivid and full of detail…
