Pedimented pillars, he was so concussed, he was discussing his fantasies with a cat. He set the fickle feline on the floor, so she lay on his bare feet like a warm, purring cat rug. He shivered. She’d upset the balance of his plummeting body temperature.
He’d hardly recovered from the lingering sensual haze of Destiny’s touch when she returned with the first aid kit. “Stay,” she said when he tried to rise.
“Woof,” he barked, and Caramello yowled.
“What are you, a guard dog?” Destiny asked him.
“I was responding to your doggie-type command. I’m a schnoodle.”
“Is that a joke?”
Hell. It was hell. Screw the positive words. He knew hell when he lived it. “A child I loved wanted a schnoodle. When I move in, I plan to honor her memory by getting one.”
“Her memory? A child? I’m so sorry.”
Morgan swallowed the guilt rising in his throat like bile. “So am I.”
Destiny looked concerned, tender; God protect him from her brand of tender. “What’s a schnoodle?” she asked.
“It’s a cross between a miniature schnauzer and a poodle.”
“That’s so human of you, wanting a dog. Gives me a picture of a different Morgan Jarvis. Way less scary.”
“Me scary? You’re kidding. All this time, I thought you were the scary one. Mysterious, you know?”
Destiny scoffed and opened the first aid kit. “I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”
Morgan coughed, a trickle of insecurity creeping in. He was getting too comfortable with this woman of experience. A goddess so far out of his league, he’d have a heart attack if they got any cozier, sex books or not. “Where’d you get the medical supplies?” he asked to turn his thoughts.
“I’m the klutzy triplet. That’s why Harmony reminded me that I could find the first aid kit in the closet beneath the stairs.”
Morgan willed his heart to slow. Of all places. “I’m surprised you went inside. It’s a deep, dark cavern with no lightbulb in the socket.”
“You’re right. Dark as a dungeon, but the first aid kit was on a door shelf inside.”
Thank God she hadn’t spotted it. When, where, and how could he hide the evidence of a past that Destiny, of all people, would never understand?
“I should think you’d know where to find the first aid kit, with you staying here so often.”
“I’ve never needed a first aid kit. I’m not the klutz, here.”
In response, she raised a brow and vindictively dumped the contents of the first aid kit into his lap.
“Ouch. Victim of near castration, here, begging for mercy.”
“Victim of snark here, being klutzy.”
Make that one for Destiny.
Bless his loose-cannon libido, was she now going to grab each spilled item right out of his eager lap? He might be bruised, but Lazarus had nothing on his neglected manhood.
Morgan looked beyond the yellowed ceiling. Just hit me with a lightning bolt now and get it over with.
I know You think I deserve it.
Chapter Four
“HOW did you get here?” Morgan asked, thinking of ways to ship her out.
“As you suspect. I rode in on my broom.”
Morgan covered his amusement with a cough.
She stepped back. “From you, that’s almost hilarity.”
I must have a concussion, then, because there’s nothing entertaining about this situation. “It’s too late for you to have taken a water taxi, so you must have brought your own boat.”
“What’s it to you?”
Their relationship had always been strained, not just because she called herself a witch and claimed she saw ghosts while he debunked the paranormal, but because she exuded sex, and he—less than a year before—had turned his back on, well, everything he’d ever been taught, which included his vow of abstinence. But, well, he hadn’t considered taking up the sport until he met Destiny.
Frankly, he didn’t know what he’d been missing, emotionally or physically, until he got close enough for one of Destiny’s sex sparks to land on him and smolder, but she didn’t know that, yet. And maybe this was a bit too soon for her to find out. He wasn’t ready. Damn it—slam it—he’d needed her in Scotland for these two weeks.
As if to prove the strain between them, she hit the gash on his brow with a glob of antibiotic ointment.
“Ouch, damn it. Why did you do that?”
“So it wouldn’t get infected.”
“The least you could have done was use a soothing motion to apply it.” Damn his libido, he needed to get her the Hades out of here, not reel her in.
Destiny raised a brow and formed gentle circles along his cut. To a man like him, this was as good as foreplay.
Their gazes met as she licked her barely parted, berry-ripe lips, and it was all he could do not to lean forward and lick them himself.
Besides cinnamon, she smelled of cherries, chocolate-covered, oozing juice, and in addition to his heart palpitations, he finally understood an expression that had always puzzled him. He could eat her up with a spoon.
“Do you need me to rub salve on you anywhere else?” Destiny asked, gazing down at his lap, her look stimulating, flirty, and dangerous as sin.
If she knew how close he was to liftoff, despite his bruising, she’d grab her bone-crushing carts and run.
Heck, maybe he should tell her and let her go, save himself from her seduction and his own humiliation.
She raised a bandage toward his brow.
He ducked—smartest thing he’d done all night. “Oh, that’s rich,” he said, eyeing the cartoon bandage. “Maim me then use me for graffiti? No thanks. The goop will do.”
While she tended to his friendly-cat scratches, he examined her hands, gentle, long-fingered, and tipped with a polka-dot pastel version of every color in the rainbow, including several combinations thereof.
A woman who couldn’t make up her mind? Or a woman who wanted it all?
“Anything in your grocery bags that needs refrigerating?” he asked, though maybe if he let her food rot, she’d go home.
“Nope, I stowed the perishables in the fridge before I started my ritual.” She made her way back to the kitchen. “As a matter of fact,” she called, “I have just the thing for that prune on top of your head.”
“My flowerpot prune?”
Looking sheepish, she returned with two bags of frozen vegetables. “Here you go.” She looked at the two bags as if weighing her options. “I think butterbeans for your head and Italian pole beans for your crotch.”
“I appreciate the pole bean analogy.”
She put the bag of butterbeans on his head like a hat. “Icing it will help the swelling go down.” Then she placed a bag of beans on his crotch, surprising him so much he could only watch with shock as she arranged it and patted it into place. “Feel better?” she asked.
He would have felt better without a bag of pole beans between her hand and his concrete wishbone. “After getting kneed by a grocery cart, concussed by a flowerpot, and caught in my skivvies by a dagger-wielding candle lighter, I couldn’t feel more like an ass if I tried. Why were you chanting so loudly, anyway? You woke me up so fast, I thought the place was haunted, until I remembered that I didn’t believe in ghosts.”
She looked quickly down at her hands, as if hiding something. “I was chanting for peace.”
“Boy, did that backfire.”
“You have no idea. Is your head and, ah, everything else feeling any better?”
“You bet your flying buttress,” he lied. His headache could put a teamster to bed for a week. His nuts would be black by morning.
“Good,” she said, putting the first aid kit back together, raising both fear and elation in him every time she swiped something from his lap, though the frozen vegetables protected him better than an athletic cup.
“Come and help me get my things up the stairs,” she said, turning and walking away.<
br />
“What things? What stairs? Why?” He followed like a drunk duck, one hand on the icy vegetables between his legs and the other holding his butterbean crown. Sick bastard. Hurt, concussed, and turned on. “Hey, I’m wounded, here.”
She faced him with a wrinkled brow, wrinkles he’d like to smooth with his lips.
“You might really have a concussion,” she said.
A concussion, an obsession, and a painfully throbbing dick, yet two words formed a rhythm in his head, pounding blood through his veins so fast, everything hurt: one bed.
He knew she’d been mad at him since the night of Harmony and King’s wedding, when he walked out on their make-out session, presex, but if he’d stayed, she would have been appalled at his fumbling attempt.
He’d stayed away from her since, while he worked toward a level of sexual expertise with one thought in mind: taking Destiny Cartwright to bed and pleasuring her until she passed out. But now, with her so close, he was losing faith in his practiced prowess by the minute, which could be due to his injuries or his humiliation or both.
Fact: This was too soon.
Fact: He needed to take a stand on this cohabitation thing and nip it in the bud. He was so hot for her, if she stayed, he’d be screwed, and not in a satisfying way.
No denying the facts. She had to go.
She gave him a worried look. “I’ll bring this stuff upstairs, myself, while you sit and rest.”
He set his frozen vegetable bags on the stairs. “I think maybe you should grab that other cart and follow me.” He grabbed the cart that had accosted him and dragged it through the parlor, the kitchen, and out the back door, heading for her boat.
She chased him, a turn-on in any other situation. “Morgan Jarvis, where the devil are you going with my things?”
“I’m sending you home, you hot little witch pretender.”
“You think I’m hot?”
You bet your flying buttress! “No. It was a figure of speech. You’re hot like a potato that gets handled too soon. Dangerous hot.”
She purred. Purred! “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Boat. Now. Go.”
Chapter Five
HE thought she was hot.
So why was he getting rid of her?
“Plucking patchouli, I’ll go. Over my dead body, I’ll go!”
Normally Morgan smelled of fresh nutmeg and sandalwood, as if he’d been working on a spice plantation. Normally, his presence fine-tuned her senses and played her like a priceless violin. He could shiver her with a look, except when she wanted to beat him, like now.
“Dead or alive,” he said, stiff-backed and stubborn, continuing down toward the dock. “Go any way you want. Just go.”
“If you think I’m hot, then why send me home?”
Still no answer.
Panic claimed her. She had to get a grip. “You’re pissing the stinging nettles out of me, Jarvis!”
In his bare feet, Morgan “ouched” his way down the crushed-shell path; his determination despite his pain would be impressive if this were any other situation.
She caught up, grabbed the cart, and pulled it in the opposite direction.
Morgan dug in with his bare feet. “Son of a witch!”
“Listen, Blue Balls, you want the B word not the W word for your itch. Mix them up again, and I’ll show you the plucking difference in a way you’ll never forget.”
As if the sea was on his side, its wind cut through her like a blade of ice, and she shivered.
“I’m not the one shuddering in my shoes,” he said, too cocky for his own good.
“Because you’re too stupid to wear shoes.”
“Because you woke me from a sound sleep, which will not happen again.” Did he really not want that to happen, again?
He did want it. She could tell. He did. He so did. “You, Cartwright, are going home.”
She crossed her arms. “You, Jarvis, are an ass.”
“Positive words, please,” he said, mimicking her with a twinkle in his eye that made her want to stuff her fist down his throat.
“I’m positive you’re an ass.”
“Say apse, but never ass.”
The cart fell over on the uneven shell path. “Double bargeboard!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Architecture. You use witch-speak to be positive; I use architecture. It’s that or profanity. Take your pick.”
“I’ll take architecture for a thousand.”
He laughed. Morgan Jarvis had just laughed. She felt good about that. Hopeful. “Stop trying to get rid of me. You’re shuddering in your bruised body, and I’m the witch who can break you.”
“Gritty Spanish stucco, you can’t even get the cart away from me,” he said. He tried to lift it, to prove himself right, but his string of curses told her that his bruised body had taken another hit. He put it down fast, his curse having nothing to do with architecture.
They returned to playing tug-of-war, but at least she had her shoes on. “I’ve never wanted to turn a man into a slug, more. I’m staying, I tell you.”
“I’m repacking your boat so you can leave. Now. Tonight.”
Prickles of rage raced up Destiny’s arms and legs, weakening her, allowing Morgan custody of the cart. He picked it up, succeeded this time, and ran with it, “ouching” all the way.
Beyond the red haze of fury, Destiny considered her options. No boat, no way home.
He reached the boat at the same time she reached its mooring behind him and untied it.
Morgan lowered the cart as the tide stole the boat from beneath it.
Her cart sank like a thug in cement shoes.
Her heart sank, too.
She shoved him for forcing her hand. “My clothes, slam you!”
Unprepared for her assault, he teetered, lost his footing, and fell into an icy October sea.
“Morgan!” she screamed. She hadn’t meant to drown him, but when he popped back up, her anger returned. “You deserved that for sinking my clothes.”
“Truce. Help me out. It’s freezing in here.”
“I don’t think so. Ice water’s good for blue balls and dented brains.”
“The sea salt’s not helping my cat scratches!”
He fought the tide, up and under, up and under, sputtering and cursing, words she didn’t know he had in him, pure man smut. Really turned her on. “Wha’d’ya know,” she said. “You got a mouth on you.”
He conquered the undertow and swiped water from his face. “And I’m about to get my jollies.” He grabbed for her ankle, but she stepped away and stomped on the hand clamping him to the dock.
Destiny shivered. If he ever got out of there, he was gonna kill her. “You owe me a thousand dollars for new clothes,” she called, backing toward the house, planning to stake her claim and lock him out, to save her delicate hide.
“Did you spell me into this?” he shouted, swimming against the tide.
“Careful, debunker. You sound suspiciously like you believe I could.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past you after this stunt.”
She stopped. “This stunt was yours. Take your own boat back to Salem. I’m locking you out.”
“I don’t have a boat. I took a water taxi, and it’s not due back until Wednesday.”
“Too bad you can’t stay at the castle or the windmill. They’re fumigated and sealed.”
“Lookee here.” He swung something thick and white, lasso-style, above his head. “Lose the attitude, brat, if you want what I just found.”
“My skirt!”
“Somebody’s things are popping up all around me.”
“My clothes!”
“Oh? Are they yours?”
Strangulation came to mind as she watched him ignore them. “Morgan Jarvis, you grab my clothes.”
He got his hands on the dock’s edge again, and she couldn’t stomp on them this time, which annoyed the stinging nettles out of her.
“You want
these things floating around me?” he asked. “Here’s the deal. Let me in the house, and I’ll bring the clothes with me.”
“You tried to throw me out first.” True, she came to get away from him, but that was a moot point.
“I apologize,” he said, so close he made her jump, and scream, and step on his hand by accident.
Prepared, he’d pulled away, giving her an evil, teeth-chattering grin, retribution written all over it. He was pulling himself along the edge of the dock, coming closer and closer to her.
“Get my clothes!” she snapped.
“Lock that door, and you can’t have them.”
“Damn. Witch’s promise.”
“Is a damn witch’s promise as good as a hot witch’s promise?”
“Yes, damn it—slam it. My clothes are going out with the tide. Please, Morgan, get them.”
“A deal with a sorceress, or so she claims. One of my former teachers just turned over in his grave.” Morgan hooted and went fishing for clothes.
At least he was in good spirits, stronger, too, probably because his cracked head and sore balls were numb with cold.
“I’ll throw your things on the dock,” he said. “Leave them. I’ll get them when I get out. No need for both of us to freeze to death. One of us should be able to function.”
She went in the lighthouse to get a blanket for him, and when she saw her second cart, she was happy that he hadn’t grabbed the cart with her art supplies and portfolio. True, some of her clothes would be lost or ruined, but most would be fine. Salt-stiff, wrinkled, and scratchy as nettle shirts, but nothing a good washing or dry cleaning couldn’t fix.
Good Goddess, her magick supplies. They were packed beneath the blanket. She would have lost them, too, if he’d taken the wrong cart. She needed them to find her psychic path and—barn door closed too late—throw her attraction to Morgan in the sea.
She guessed she’d already done that by throwing him in the sea.
Why hadn’t he gone to Scotland as planned?
Wait. Why had she gotten a vision of the lighthouse when it was practically Morgan’s? He’d been coming here for years. Did the universe want them together? Where were the ghosts she’d seen? She looked for them as she went back outside.
Never Been Witched Page 3
