by Myla Jackson
When Edith told him to stop, his hands, lips, tongue—everything—had stopped as if they were controlled by someone else. All the tension and need to fulfill remained, but he couldn’t make himself continue. Why?
“Edith Ragsdale, you should be ashamed!”
The woman’s voice sounded on the landing behind Harry, jerking him from his mindless desire. Hell, what had he done? He’d overstepped his bounds with Edie. The woman that, despite good sense, had taken him in during his time of need. “I wouldn’t blame you if you slapped my face,” he whispered against her ear before he stepped back and faced the irate landlady. “Ah, you must be Mrs. Bartelli.” Harry held out his hand.
Mrs. Bartelli’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, but she took his hand as if in a daze.
Harry smiled using all the charm he could muster. “Harrington Taylor the Third. It is a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” He bent to kiss her knuckles.
As soon as Harry’s lips contacted the wrinkled skin, Mrs. Bartelli jerked her hand back. “Don’t think you can smooth-talk this old lady. I saw what you two were doing. I don’t put up with sleazy shenanigans in my building, do you hear me? You should be ashamed, attacking a young lady on her own doorstep in broad daylight!”
“The sun set hours ago, Mrs. Bartelli.” Edie stepped up beside Harry and slipped an arm around his waist. “This is my…er…boyfriend, Harry.”
“Boyfriend, my Aunt Fannie!” Mrs. Bartelli backed away. “You haven’t dated in the two years you’ve lived here. You’ve hired this man for sex, haven’t you?”
Edith stiffened beside Harry, her arm tightening around his middle. “And if I had, it’s none of your business.”
“Don’t take that tone of voice with me, young lady. I could kick you out of this building so fast your head would spin.” Mrs. Bartelli drew in a deep breath. “We’ll just see what your father has to say about this.”
“Edie didn’t hire me, Mrs. Bartelli,” Harry said. After his indiscreet actions in the hallway, he felt the need to straighten things out for the woman he’d practically mauled.
But the woman didn’t want his help. She held a hand up. “I wish you’d just keep quiet for a moment while I handle this.” Rumbling thunder rattled the doorjamb to Edie’s apartment.
He’d been about to say something else, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He couldn’t push a single word past his lips.
With a deep breath and squared shoulders, Edie leaned toward the landlady. “Mrs. Bartelli, you have the right to rent to anyone you wish, but nowhere in my lease does it say I can’t have guests over. And I choose to have Harry as my guest. If he spends the night, that’s my business—not yours or my father’s.”
Bravo, Edie! Harry wanted to say, but he couldn’t get his vocal cords to function. He raised a hand to his lips, opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out. What the hell was going on?
“Well!” Mrs. Bartelli propped her hands on her hips and pushed her ample bosoms out. “Your father is not going to be happy.” She spun on her black, rubber soles and marched back down the steps.
Edie grimaced and turned back to Harry. “I bet she’ll be on the phone before her door closes.”
Afraid his voice still wasn’t working, Harry opened his mouth and tested. “Hello.”
Edie tilted her head to the side, a small frown wrinkling her smooth brow, while her lips twitched as if she fought a grin. “Hello.”
“It worked.” Harry heaved a relieved sigh and smiled.
“What worked?”
“My voice.” His smile dropped into a frown. “Something strange is happening.”
“You’re telling me.” Edie’s cheeks reddened. “Let’s go inside. I don’t feel like performing an encore, even if it does get Mrs. Bartelli’s goat.”
When Harry stepped into Edie’s apartment he was assailed by the warmth of colors and tasteful furnishings. Rich cherry tables, an overstuffed sofa in soft rose strewn with colorful pillows in red, orange and yellow beckoned him to sit and stay awhile. Her home was a complete contrast to the woman. Here she used color with abandon, while her clothing remained drab and uninspiring. Why the two different sides to this complex woman?
She set her brown leather purse on the counter and turned toward him, her gaze wary. “What was that all about out there in the hallway? I’m not sure I should let you stay here if you think you can do…” she glanced away, her cheeks blooming with color, “you know…that…to me anytime you like.”
“I tried to tell you out there, something strange happened.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “One moment I was standing next to you, the next I couldn’t stop myself from kissing you.”
“If you can’t control your actions, I can’t let you stay here.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you were the one who wished for a man to make passionate love to you in front of Mrs. Bartelli.”
The red in Edie’s cheeks deepened. “I know, but that doesn’t mean I wanted you to be the one to do it.”
“Like I said, I couldn’t stop myself. And then for some reason, I couldn’t talk while you were…er…explaining things to Mrs. Bartelli.” He grinned at her. “By the way, you were impressive.”
“I was?” Edie ducked her head at his unexpected compliment. “Thank you. But, what do you mean you couldn’t talk?”
“After you said you could handle it, no matter what I tried I couldn’t get words to come out of my mouth.”
Edie pressed her fingertips to her temple. “Too bizarre. I wish I knew what the heck happened.”
Thunder shook the windows and the floor vibrated beneath Harry’s feet. “The Stone of Azhi gave me the power to fulfill your wishes since you were the one to wake me from the bottle. Anything you want, I have to grant.” The words came from Harry, but he couldn’t remember thinking them before they came out. What the hell was happening? Why were words coming out of his mouth he hadn’t put there? Once again, his body and brain acted without his consent, as if he were nothing more than a puppet on someone else’s strings. Edie’s strings.
Edie sank down on the arm of the couch. “What did you just say?”
“I don’t know. The words just popped out.” He felt around in his pocket for the stone and pulled it out. “It has to be the stone.” With care, Harry turned the rock over. “Maybe if we clean it up a bit, there’ll be some kind of inscription on it.”
“Bring it into the kitchen. The lighting is better in there, and I might have something to scrape off the dirt.”
Harry followed Edie into the kitchen. Only this was different from the kitchens he was familiar with in 1924. Instead of a white, enamel wood-burning or gas stove, this kitchen sported smooth-topped black and metal surfaces. “Where’s your stove?”
“Behind you.” She pulled a dishtowel out of a drawer and laid it on the counter. “Put the stone on this. I’ll see if I have an old toothbrush we can use to clean it.” Edie disappeared around the corner.
Harry glanced behind him at a shiny black surface. No cast-iron grills jutted from the surface. He pressed his hand to the smooth top. Cold. The words “Right Front”, “Left Front”, “Right Back” and “Left Back” were written in red across the back. Harry touched his finger to the one marked Right Front. A sharp beep startled him and he stepped back. The black surface glowed red in the shape of a circle on the right front of the stovetop. Cautiously, Harry waved his hand over the glowing circle. Heat warmed his fingers. “Amazing.”
“Cool, huh?” Edith strode back in the room, her shirttail neatly tucked back into her skirt. “And easy to clean.” She held up a toothbrush. “Do you want the honors, or shall I?”
“I’ll do it.” He snatched the toothbrush from her fingers. “Like I said, this relic could be dangerous. I’d rather you didn’t touch it at all.”
Harry wrapped the stone in the dishtowel and carried it to the small table in the middle of the kitchen, where he bent over the task of cleaning the artifact. Gently, he brush
ed away centuries of dust and dirt exposing the true exquisiteness of the finely etched carvings on shiny black obsidian.
“It’s beautiful,” Edith breathed over Harry’s shoulder.
Her nearness sparked his body to life, a jolting reminder of his poor behavior in the hallway. Determinedly, he tamped down his baser urges and immersed himself in what he loved, learning about past cultures, solving ancient puzzles.
The rounded stone with its intricate carving of the two-headed dragon could have been any artifact from ancient Persia. Harry flipped it over and worked at the other side where dirt encrusted every groove. “Do you have something a little more sturdy, like a knife? I think there’s an inscription on the back.”
Edie dug around in one of the drawers and brought him a paring knife with a plastic handle. “Try this.”
With the patience of a sculptor, Harry cleared the grooves of crud symbol by symbol, revealing a message in ancient Persian.
“What does it say? Can you read it?” Edie’s short syllables and higher pitched voice reflected the excitement Harry felt.
Although he’d studied ancient Persian, he wasn’t sure he could translate it. “I don’t know.” He ran his finger across the engraved swirls and dots. “I believe this is the symbol for give or grant.” Harry shook his head. “I don’t think I can translate this without some reference material.”
“Damn.” Edie sat down in the chair next to Harry and cupped her chin in her palm. “I don’t want to wait for a library to open. I wish you could translate it now.”
Thunder boomed outside and the floor trembled.
“Uh-oh.” Edie’s gaze darted around the room.
As if someone else controlled his body and mind, Harry leaned over the stone and read. “Men beware. If you touch the image of Azhi, you will be forever captive in a gilded bottle. Should a female awaken you from your prison, you are destined to grant her every wish.” When he uttered the last word, Harry sat back once again in control of himself.
“Ohmigosh! You’re a prisoner to that bottle?” Edie ran to the other room, returning with the blue-green bottle with its slim bands of gold. She sank into the chair opposite him and stared across the table a frown wrinkling her brow.
“I guess that would explain why every time you wish for something, it happens. Since you woke me from the bottle, that means you own me.” Harry wasn’t so sure he liked the idea of being owned by anyone. He was footloose and fancy-free Harry, not a slave to another’s whims.
“Don’t say that. Nobody owns you.” Edie shook her head. “This whole thing is like a page out of the Arabian Nights stories.”
“Only worse. I’m the genie trapped in the lamp.” Harry dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “What a mess.” Then a thought occurred to him and he looked up. “Will touched the stone as well.”
“Then why wasn’t he in the same bottle?”
“I don’t know. Wait.” He thought back to that day over eighty years ago. “When we opened the sarcophagus back in 1924, there were at least a half-dozen bottles.”
“I only found one, today.”
“Only one?” Damn. Where the hell was Will? Had his bottle been stolen or broken? “I wonder what happens if the bottle breaks?”
“Maybe there’s more information on the sarcophagus. We can check tomorrow.” Edie’s eyelids dipped and she yawned. “For now, all I want to think about is food and sleep.”
“I’d give all the camels in the desert for a bath.”
“I can do better than that.” A secretive smile curved her lips. With her hair hanging in soft curls around her face, the smile softened her features. When she allowed herself to be unguarded, Edie was a truly beautiful woman. “Wait until you see the shower.” Her eyes were the shifting colors of the sea, one moment aqua-green, the next moment slate gray.
Harry could fall into those eyes. But beside his nakedness of earlier that day, he still had the sands of the desert coating his skin. “Shower? Like in the fancy houses?”
“Yup. Only, just about every house has one, now. Follow me.” She rose gracefully from the table and stepped out of the room. Having shed her serviceable pumps, she padded around in her bare feet. With her long coppery waves hanging down her back to her waist, she looked like a little girl or a helpless waif. No. Make that like a goddess rising from the sea.
Harry could still feel the silky smoothness of her skin beneath his fingers, the weight of her breasts in his hands. Even though he hadn’t really instigated the lovemaking of his own accord, he had appreciated every moment, rising to the occasion, stimulated by her body not her wish.
Maybe she’d wish for him to do it again. His cock sprang to attention in ardent anticipation.
* * * * *
So, his display of affection hadn’t been stimulated by desire for her body. Then again, it hadn’t been inspired by pity either. Prior to the heavy petting in the hallway, Harry had been nothing but a gentleman despite appearing in the nude. Damn, why couldn’t he be a little less gentlemanly?
Edie wanted to continue the kiss where they’d left off and follow through to consummation. Who knew when she’d get another opportunity? Twenty-nine-year-old women who looked like her didn’t have sex. They dreamed about it.
With a sigh, Edie walked into cream-colored bathroom, digging her toes into the soft bath mats. What would it feel like to lie naked on a rug like this and do it until her eyes popped out?
The word was fuck.
Fuck. She’d never used that word before now. Something about Harry must bring out the worst in her…or maybe the best…or perhaps the correct word was lust.
Leaning through the sliding glass doors she adjusted the water to a pleasant temperature and spraying pressure. “You should like that.”
“I’m sure I will.” His voice rumbled next to her ear.
When she turned back to Harry, he stood so close she had to tilt her head back to see into his eyes. The janitor’s coverall stretched open exposing that chest Edie would die to touch again.
Her heart fluttered and she backed up a step. All those automatic responses to his earlier foreplay leapt back into place. Her skin became positively charged, ready to ignite at the barest stroke.
Space. She needed space between her and that torso.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Edie scurried out the bathroom door, damning her voice for the desperate squeak she’d managed to get out. Why did she act like a scared virgin running for her virtue?
Chicken shit. That’s what I am, a chicken shit.
Here she had a gorgeous man in her apartment, had already seen him naked, and she couldn’t be within one foot of him without wanting to run. What’s wrong with me?
“Looks aren’t everything. You can make up for it with brains.” Her father’s words echoed in her head.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Too bad she didn’t have her mother’s confidence and her creamy clear complexion, coal-black hair and eyes the color of sapphires. No, I had to get stuck with carrot-red hair and freckles and I’ll probably die a lonely old lady with an apartment full of cats. Who could love a woman with this mop? Her fingers touched a fiery ringlet.
“Edie, do you have a towel?” Harry called out from inside the shower stall.
Oh God. Harry needed a towel and there weren’t any clean ones in the bathroom. Edie abandoned the mirror, ran to the linen closet and grabbed her biggest, best towel.
Now what? How the hell was she supposed to give it to him?
With her back to the bathroom door, she listened to the sound of running water.
She could wait until she heard the water go off and hand it to him when he asked. But then he’d have to drip across the cold tile to get to the door. If he slipped and fell he might knock himself out. Then she’d be obligated to administer first aid to his wet, naked form.
Edie’s breathing quickened until she felt a little dizzy. If she weren’t careful, she’d hyperventilate.
Perhaps she could toss the towel i
n while his head was under water and he’d never know she’d been there.
On the count of three. “One, two, three.” With a deep breath, she shoved the door open and dashed in to hang the towel over the rail of the clear shower door.
Harry stood with his face under the spray, water running in rivulets down his back.
With the towel clutched to her chest, Edie froze in place.
The man was gorgeous. Broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist and a firm yet perfectly rounded—
“Want to join me?” Harry turned to face her giving her a full frontal view through the clear glass shower door. His penis stood at attention, thick and proud.
Caught staring, Edie’s face burned. “I b-brought you a towel.”
“Thank you.”
Edie tossed the towel on the rail and lunged for the door. Her foot hit a wet spot and she fell flat on her back. Pain shot from the base of her skull to her temples.
She laid still, all the air jettisoned from her lungs. Edie tried to inhale but nothing worked, except her hearing.
The water shut off and the swishing sound of the shower door sliding in its tracks echoed off the walls.
Breathe, stupid, breathe.
“Edie!”
Stars spun in her vision, and her head throbbed.
Then Harry was there, leaning over, dripping water into her face.
Why did she have to be such a klutz? With her mouth open, she tried to tell him she was all right. But nothing would come out. The wind had been completely knocked out of her.
“Edie!” He lifted her shoulders.
When his fingers touched her skin, her lungs woke up and she wheezed in air. “I’m…all…right. Really.” Her breathy voice didn’t sound very convincing, so she pushed against him trying to disengage herself from his embrace. But her hands pushed against his wet, hairy chest. Her fingers threaded into the springy curls. The smell of her soap on his skin and his own special male musk assailed Edie’s nostrils.
None of the x-rated videos had done this for her. Scents and textures were so much more potent than two-dimensional sight and sound.
