Romance Unbound Publishing
Presents
Cast a Lover’s Spell
Claire Thompson
Cover Art by Kelly Shorten
Ebook ISBN 9781937337223
Copyright 2012 Claire Thompson
All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Paul Windsor moved slowly past the young woman, noting the downward cast of her head, the dark brown hair shiny but unkempt, falling in unruly curls around her shoulders. She held a bag of old bread from which she was crumbling pieces, throwing them out to the cooing birds gathering at her feet.
What’s the point? Why do I bother? It’s so hard to care. Paul paused, appearing to examine a flower as he turned his body slightly away from her. God, Greg, why did you have to die? Why did you leave me here all alone? Now I’m not only alone, I’m unemployed. Bennett was right—I don’t have what it takes anymore. The woman sighed aloud as she dispiritedly tossed more bits of bread to the clamoring birds. Paul felt the heaviness in her mind like a damp fog settled over her spirit.
He sat next to the young woman. He was intrigued by her thoughts, upon which he had eavesdropped more out of habit than a desire to know her secrets. He cocked his head very slightly toward her as he listened to her unspoken words. He couldn’t help the tiny smile that tugged at his lips as he continued to eavesdrop. Shit. Why’d he have to sit next to me? Now he’ll make stupid small talk and expect me to smile and give a damn. I wish I could just evaporate. The woman stole a sidelong glance at Paul. Don’t talk to me, you jerk. I swear to God, if you try to hit on me, I’ll deck you.
She turned her body sharply away from Paul, who was used to women turning their bodies toward him. He sent a mild receptivity spell in the young woman’s direction, a magical suggestion that made her turn slowly back toward him, her head lifting to meet his eyes.
Paul had been expecting the reaction mortal women usually gave him—the dilating pupils and the little gasp of pleased surprise as they fell under the spell of his dark smoldering stare. Paul Windsor was devastatingly handsome with a broad high brow, Roman nose, firm square jaw and full, sensuous lips. But it was his eyes that caught the heart and slipped into the fevered dreams of the women he chose.
Dark and wide, the color something between brown and black, fathomless, mesmerizing, dangerous—Paul’s eyes could captivate any mortal he chose to seduce. For Paul Windsor was no ordinary man. Paul Windsor was a warlock—one of the most powerful warlocks in the secret magic circles that permeated mortal society.
Unlike mere mortals, witches and warlocks enjoyed greatly extended life—spanning centuries rather than decades, impervious to mortal illness and disease. The more skillful and practiced in magic lore one became, the longer the lifespan. The most seasoned witches and warlocks could live close to a thousand years. Though the body aged, the process was dramatically slowed. Warlocks and witches changed their guise at will, usually adopting a shape most admired during a particular era.
Paul found no need to shift and change, preferring to keep his natural looks—the olive-toned supple skin, the even-featured classic face, the broad shoulders, strongly muscled torso and long lean legs never out of fashion. If he maintained a youthful look that belied his several hundred years on this earthly plane, who could blame him? The women he chose to amuse himself with seemed to prefer a man in his mid-thirties and this was the age he projected. He wasn’t especially vain, but he was practical.
As the woman raised her head, Paul waited for the predicted reaction, ready to bestow his slow, easy smile upon her. Instead it was he who gave the slightest involuntary gasp, a small intake of breath as he beheld the loveliest mortal he had ever seen. Her eyes were huge, almost too big for her face. They were luminous, the color of the sea, clear as glass. Her face was delicate, almost childlike, with rounded cheeks and a pointed chin. The mass of tangled curls tumbling to her shoulders added to the impression of youth. Her mouth however, with its full red lips was sensuously lush, bringing to Paul’s mind a ripe, soft peach. He resisted a sudden impulse to bite her lips, to lick them, to possess that feminine, erotic mouth.
Along with the beauty however, was pain, stark in those clear green eyes. An aura of loss seemed to hover over her. Paul released his magical hold on her, hoping she would continue to look at him, searching for the spark of desire he was so used to seeing. For a moment, just a moment, when returned to her own free will, the woman did look at him, desire clear in her eyes. Yet the moment passed as she turned away, scattering the last of her crumbs to the birds.
She stood, her face again averted, her thoughts a tangle of whispered longing and sadness. Through the tumult he detected a response—despite herself, the young woman had been attracted to the stranger next to her. He’d felt the flash of attraction zip through her mind before it was again overtaken by her self-absorbed misery.
Paul watched as she strode away, an enigma in jeans and a man’s oversized shirt. He felt a curious sense of loss as she walked away. It made no sense. She was nothing to him. A total stranger. Yet in the brief moment their eyes had locked, she had entered his being, whispering her need, arousing his desire.
He waited a moment before rising to follow her—this one would not get away.
~*~
Anne Kaliner let her late husband’s shirt fall from her shoulders as she moved toward her bathroom. Her shoulders were in knots and her head was throbbing. She took off her jeans and pulled down her panties, kicking them away into a pile of dirty clothes heaped in a corner of the bathroom. She ran her fingers through her tangled curls and sighed.
This had not been a good week for Anne. It had not been a good year. She had watched helplessly as her husband of three years died from pancreatic cancer despite painful and invasive chemotherapy. Only thirty-eight, he had been diagnosed too late. In the course of a few months he had changed from an energetic joyful person to a withered, beaten shell of a man—emaciated, jaundiced, the spark gone from his eyes. When he had died after slipping into a coma, a part of her had died with him.
Anne, widowed at thirty-two, had been a successful investment banker, tagged at her New York firm as an up-and-coming go-getter. She and Greg had met at the firm, falling in love over commodity trades and equity investing. They had been happy to spend sixty hours a week at work, assuming they had all the time in the world together. Who could have predicted a mutating cell could wreak such havoc on a strong young man in the prime of his life?
Unable to reconcile his senseless death, Anne focused on something concrete to be angry about. She became bitter toward the firm, resentful of the expectations placed on the young bankers to devote their lives to the business. Forgetting she herself had been more than willing to put in the time necessary to earn the ridiculously high salaries she and Greg pulled down, she now felt the company had robbed her of the precious little time she had had with her husband.
Her work had suffered, even after the two-month hiatus they had allowed her to take as she struggled to continue a life without Greg in it. She couldn’t seem to focus anymore, indifferent to capital markets and innovative fund-raising techniques, her heart and mind lost in a past she could never retrieve. Her bosses had at first been understanding, but after six months their patience had worn thin and she had been warned to adjust her attitude.
When Bob Bennett, her immediate boss, had summoned her last Friday to his office, she’d known from his face the news wasn’t good. After hemming and hawing a while about the grieving process and how they were all “in her corner”, he finally got down to the reason he had called her in.
“Anne, we’ve tried to work with you but you just aren’t putting together the deals necessary to sustain your salary. I’ve tried to cover fo
r you but you don’t seem to have your heart in the game anymore. You know what it takes to make it in this business. You have to be willing to kick ass, to give it your all. I just don’t see it anymore, Anne. Since Greg—well, you know, since all that—you’ve lost your drive. You’ve lost that killer instinct necessary to compete with the big boys.”
Had he expected her to protest? To beg for another chance? To promise to buckle down and “give it her all”? If so, he was disappointed, because Anne just looked at him, unable at that moment to feel even anger as she realized the last six years she’d devoted to the firm had come to nothing in the space of a few months. He was right—she’d lost her drive. She felt numb. She couldn’t get excited about money and schemes when the one man she’d ever loved had been torn from her arms, ripped from her heart…
“Jesus,” she said aloud as she turned on the hot water in the tub. “You sound like something out of a soap opera. Get a grip, Kaliner.” Speaking of soap operas—the image of the stranger on the bench at the park floated back to her. Where Greg’s looks had been open and sunny, blond and puppy-young, the stranger had a dark almost dangerous edge. He was naturally tan with thick dark hair curling in a sexy way over his ears and down a strong, masculine neck. He was the kind of man she thought of as too handsome for his own good. He probably considered himself God’s gift to women and was used to having his choice of young hotties.
Despite herself, his image remained her mind. What had made her look up at him? She’d been determined not to look, not to give him an opening for stupid small talk. Yet something had compelled her to raise her head, to seek his eyes with her own. Was it his scent? She recalled it now vividly—something warm and spicy, almost intoxicating without being overpowering or cloying in the slightest.
What had gotten into her? Anne Kaliner did not moon over strange men. Since Greg had gotten sick, she’d barely socialized at all, never dated and certainly didn’t fantasize about strangers. Yet this man…what was it about him? Was she wrong to have walked away? To have run from the unfamiliar pull of desire? No, surely she had done the right thing.
He was probably shallow and vain, obsessed with himself, using women as objects to satisfy his own self-love. Yes, she told herself, his smooth good looks with those delicious dark eyes and the hint of passion in the half smile he’d deigned to bestow upon her probably hid the vacuous, empty mind of a conceited oaf.
Anne added scented oil to the now steaming water filling the old-fashioned lion-clawed tub. She and Greg had spent many lovely evenings soaking together after a long day at the office before moving to the bedroom for a night of sex and cuddling.
Anne lit several fat scented candles she’d placed on the low shelf next to the tub. She sighed with pleasure as the hot water enveloped her body. As she soaked, she moved her hands idly over her body, enjoying the silky feel of the hot fragrant water gliding over her flesh.
Despite still being in mourning, lately Anne’s body had begun to reawaken, its dormant sexual needs pushing through the soil of her grief like pale green blades of new grass. She was visited sometimes by dark and sensual dreams in which the old Greg would return to her, eager to make love. She would awaken with her fingers on her sex, her nipples hard. Anne found herself confused by the feelings, as if she were being disloyal to Greg’s memory.
Anne had no close girlfriends. If she had, perhaps one of them would have told her it was natural to begin to feel again after a time. They might have consoled and reassured her Greg would not want her to totally shut off her feelings for the rest of her life. Anne would have answered with some vehemence that Greg had only just died—it wasn’t even a year. She would have said there’s no time limit on grief and she couldn’t imagine ever loving another man.
Anne was rather reserved, though with Greg she had been able to relax more than with anyone else. If only he were still alive, she would give him every ounce of herself, nothing held back, no corner of herself kept secret and aloof, afraid of being hurt.
Anne leaned forward and turned on the faucet, adding more hot water. Taking a cake of moisturizing soap, she began to lather her body beneath the water, her hands lingering over her sex as she lifted a leg over each side of the tub. She closed her eyes, expecting Greg’s image to drift into her mind.
Instead to her surprise and consternation, the stranger eased his way in. Tall, dark, dangerous, he smiled slightly as he gazed at her. Oddly, Anne had the strange sensation he was actually watching her—not just in her fantasy but in fact. She sat up quickly, gripping the sides of the tub as she looked around the bathroom. She shook her head, trying to dispel the strange sensation—half desire, half fear.
Leaning again against the porcelain, she closed her eyes, her fingers seeking the sweet, hot spot at her center, rubbing and swirling in the oiled water against hot, soft flesh. “Greg,” she said aloud, but it was another man she saw behind closed lids.
His hair was black and his eyelashes were fringed with dark, velvety lashes. Hooded eyes flashed with lust as he stared at her, his tongue slipping between parted lips as if she were a meal and he a famished man. As Anne’s defenses dropped in proportion to her arousal, the handsome man stood and unbuttoned the white shirt he was wearing, letting is drop from his strong, masculine shoulders. Leaning down, he scooped the naked, willing Anne into his arms, lifting her effortlessly as his head dipped for a kiss.
The fantasy shifted from the park where she’d actually seen him, the background melting into a bedroom. Soft, silky sheets cradled the now naked lovers as the stranger’s hands began to move deliciously down her body, his lips caressing her neck, his cock nudging itself insistently between her legs.
Anne arched up, rubbing her pussy as the stranger draped his strong body over hers. His lips were warm, his tongue entwining with hers. She felt his hand on the back of her neck as he pulled her closer. Anne moaned, her fingers acting for the man as she found and rolled each nipple, squeezing them as he pressed his body to hers.
She felt the head of his heavy cock teasing her wet opening. Wantonly, desperately, she tried to pull him into her, wrapping her bare legs around his back. The man laughed, pulling back, holding himself just away from her, just out of reach. Anne moaned with frustration, her pussy now aching to be filled. How she longed for the nearly forgotten sensation of a man’s shaft pressed deep inside of her, her body trembling with lust as she reacted to the tumult of delicious sensation.
Anne clamped hard with her strong thighs, gripping him as she arched up to feel his hard, thick manhood penetrating her slick, hot tunnel. “Jesus,” she whispered aloud, almost feeling a real cock fill her, almost tasting the salty tang of sweat on his strong neck as she licked his skin, wanting to bite him, to consume him, to take him into her body completely—to recapture the closeness with another person that had been all but lost to her.
“Fuck me!” Anne cried to the silent stranger as he began to move inside of her, finally giving her what she so desperately needed. The heat of the bathwater became the heat of his strong, hard body draped over hers. Her fingers moved in rapid tattoo over her spread sex, her breasts rising out of the water as her hips gyrated in rhythm to her fantasy lover’s movements.
Unlike the usual spasm of release her fingers caused, sometimes little more than a tremor of pleasure, Anne felt a climax rising like a tide through her body, lifting it as water sloshed over the sides of the tub. As wave after wave of pleasure roiled through her, Anne felt her body go rigid with shuddering pleasure. Finally her fingers fell away from her sex as her body continued to tremble and spasm. Slowly she sank back, submerged to her chin in the warm water.
She lay still some moments as her breathing and heart rate returned to normal. She could scarcely admit it to herself, but this orgasm had been more intense than any that had featured Greg as the focus of her fantasies. She felt a stab of guilt as she shifted in the tub, sitting up and pushing back her tangled wet hair. How could she be so disloyal to the only man she had ever loved?
Who was that man on the bench? She couldn’t seem to shake the image of his dark smoldering eyes glittering in the spring sunshine with some dangerous, enigmatic secret. Whoever he was, New York City was a big place. The odds of seeing him again were slim to none. She was, after all was said and done, alone. Alone without her husband, without a friend, without a job. She wasn’t even sure she had retained the capacity to connect with another human being. She was truly bereft.
As Anne looked around the empty bathroom, silence seemed to drop like a shroud over her. Loneliness bore down so hard she gasped, shivering in the cooling water, the pleasure of her orgasm nearly forgotten.
~*~
Paul gazed up at the second-floor window of the charming brownstone near Washington Square where he had observed the young woman enter. With a stealth natural to witches and warlocks, he had easily followed her unobserved. He liked the way she walked—long confident strides with a feminine grace but also a certain strength.
Her luminous eyes were haunted with loneliness, but it was the loneliness of one who had once loved well. Paul closed his eyes, focusing on the image of the young woman, whispering an incantation to connect with her. Without actually seeing her, it was much more difficult to enter her mind or sway her thoughts. Paul concentrated, seeking her in his mind. Ah, he felt her presence. She was on the second floor. He sensed she was naked, her body wet. The thought grabbed his cock and pulled it to erection. She must be having a bath.
What did her body look like when she’d taken off the oversized shirt and jeans? He recalled her face—the fragility of her bone structure juxtaposed with a strong, sensuous mouth and those large intelligent eyes. Beneath the clothing she was certainly slender, probably lovely.
He imagined the curve of her breast, its nipple sweet and dark at its center. He imagined the tapering waist, the gently flaring feminine hips, the rounded ass. Paul sought the girl’s mind as he gazed up at her window. She had rejected him in the park—why was he bothering with her now?
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