Believe the Magic

by Melani Blazer

  “Bad man,” I heard just as I was catching back up to Quentin.

  “Bad man?” I repeated.

  “Huh?” Quentin turned around. We were in front of a house, a giant, looming two story. I thought I could hear the crash of waves over the pounding of the storm. On the coast somewhere, I guessed. From the rain, I’d guess the Northeastern coast.

  “Bad man,” the voice came again.

  “Did you say something?” I asked Quentin.

  “No. I heard you say something, though. I thought you were talking to me.” He slid the key into the lock.

  “Nuh-huh.” I was just hearing things. Must be the wind. My insanity.

  “You hear the truth.”

  I reached up to my ear and felt the culprit. Ah-hah. I jerked my hand down and smiled while allowing Quentin to let me into the room. He didn’t need to know about Winzey yet.

  He slid off his heavy wool cloak and hung it next to the umbrella on the wall. There was no light in here, just the filtering of yellow glow from the end of the hall.

  I’d expected to want to throw myself at him like I had when I first recognized him. Now I just stood there as if I was stepping into the world of a stranger. He was, though. A stranger, that is. I mean, what did I really know? That he was a helluva kisser and had a great bod? And that I slept with him? Half of me decided it was a shame I hadn’t done more than just snore the night away.

  The other half? It sided with the pixie who had gotten swept through the vortex of time and space right along with me. Who now had cleverly appointed herself my guardian. Something about Quentin fit in too easily with the darkness. Bad man, indeed.

  “You been okay?” I thought he’d never ask what had happened. I mean, really, wasn’t it odd I had disappeared from a Hollywood set while searching for the purse that was really lost now? Had he worried? Had they come looking for me?

  I wanted Sam. Needed his guidance. I hadn’t recognized it at first, but I trusted him more than anyone else, including myself.

  Dark. It was dark here. Not just the lighting, but I had a feeling it was set that way on purpose. A skittish shiver climbed my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself and finally answered Quentin. “Yeah, I’ve been okay.”

  He smiled and I glimpsed a flash of the man who had goaded me on at the dump, the one who had flirted incessantly and made me laugh. Just as quickly, it was gone. Magically gone.

  For two days I felt like I was living in a tomb. No television, little conversation and absolutely no venturing outside the house. I could roam the sprawling structure, with its high ceiling and modern but medieval-themed decor. My solace was the library-like room and my hushed, brief conversations with Winzey.

  Whenever I saw him, his eyes would meet mine, and I’d think he wanted to say something, but then he’d go back to ignoring me. I had tried twice to speak to him mentally, but he’d responded with a hissed, “No magic,” and the connection would end.

  Only once did Quentin follow me into the kitchen and corner me against the counter. “I know you don’t like this. Neither do I, but we are practically in the lion’s den here. One misstep and it’s over. Hold on for me, Ella. Just hold on for me.” He kissed me then, soft and promising. The Quentin I knew. I didn’t understand what he meant—not sure I wanted to, but I needed something to believe at this point.

  I nodded, catching my breath as his eyes darkened and his gaze flitted down to my lips again. But he pushed back and left the room.

  Rufus, who owned the house we were living in, was cordial, and treated me like Quentin’s lover. He was full of cute little comments about my figure, immediately turning to Quentin to ask if he’d gotten any sleep the night before. I didn’t ask why or how Quentin came to be staying at his house, and he didn’t say.

  Rarely did our host address me directly, and I knew virtually nothing about him. That was okay, though. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t lift something real heavy and use it to wipe the smirk from his face.

  I had a feeling Winzey would have a say in that. At least keeping her a secret had been easy. And it was nice to have a friend, even if I dared not think or talk about her much. Especially her name. She’d repeated over and over that her name was the key to her power. Knowing it made her as powerful as one of the gems.

  Quentin woke me before dawn the third morning with a curt, “Get up.” It was the harshest I’d heard him yet and I wasn’t going to cross him. He’d never been deliberately mean, I rationalized, but brooding, almost frustrated.

  Whatever had been chewing on his behind must have broken through the skin. He was nothing short of a grizzly bear this morning. And it wasn’t going to have a chance to get me.

  Quentin’s room was next to mine. The sounds of drawers sliding in and out and hangers rattling against each other were unmistakable through the walls. I hadn’t used my magic in days, and yes, was tempted to do so now. But I feared what I’d learn from his angry thoughts.

  It was ballsy, considering his rush, but I methodically gathered my clothes and padded toward the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” He appeared at his doorway.

  “Taking a shower, did you need to get in here? I assumed you were done.”

  “We don’t have time for a shower.”

  “We don’t, but I do. If you wanted to leave right away you should have woken me earlier.”

  I fought back a grin while he narrowed his eyes and tapped his foot. Probably silently cussing me out. I wouldn’t turn on the mental walkie-talkie and give him the pleasure of knowing I was listening.

  Winzey, curled up in my clean socks, hissed at me to stop antagonizing him. My only retort would have been to ask her how such a little thing could use such big vocabulary.

  “Then hurry. We need to leave.”

  “Where are we going? I really should know so I can dress for the occasion.” I couldn’t help the sass. It just fell from my mouth. After two days of silence I was just about to come undone.

  “Away.” His teeth gritted as he spoke. At least I could still strike a nerve. Without a bit of magic either.

  “You’re cute when you’re mad.”

  That wasn’t the right thing to say. His green eyes widened and turned black. His lips curled in a snarl. I stepped backward for each step he took forward. I’d run out of space before he would, making the end result inevitable.

  I was half amused but also rather ticked off at the way he pushed. I ignored the tiny bit of fear, only because I was great at self-denial.

  The house was quiet, but I doubted Rufus would respond if I were to scream. I turned and ran into the bathroom and tried to push the door closed. When my own strength wouldn’t work, I resorted to the muscle of magic.

  Quentin already had his hand around the door. The last thing I wanted to do was crush it in the jam. Even if I thought he deserved it for the last few days. I shoved Winzey, socks and all into the cabinet under the sink and relaxed. He’d won this round.

  My throat constricted when he locked the door behind him. He was pumped up and seemed bigger than ever. I pretended I wasn’t on the verge of peeing my pants and stood my ground. I met him eye to eye. I had to be careful not to flinch when his eyes changed chameleon-like while his gaze stroked my body.

  This was it.

  The mirror fogged up faster than if I’d been standing in a hot shower. His hand snaked out and grabbed me by the throat. Not in a death grip, but a caress both solid and gentle. My will was crumbling under his touch.

  “Listen to me.”

  “I—” I had to clear my throat. My voice box had already given up the ghost with the tension in the room. “I am listening. You’re not talking. You’re doing.”

  His fingers slid over my cheek. His thumb found my temple and pushed with the slightest of pressure. “Listen here.”

  I quit fighting the mental touch. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t have kept his thoughts from melding with mine. When he spoke to me mentally, his voice was low, his breathing labored. His erotic
thoughts were enough to make me sink to the edge of the bathtub.

  “No. It’s not right,” I said out loud.

  “It is. We’ll be good together. You know it.”

  I looked anywhere to keep from falling into the spell of his eyes. It was only postponement, I knew. But I wouldn’t surrender. “You were in a hurry. I need to take a shower.”

  “Undress. Turn on the water.”

  Being the sucker I am I looked right into his eyes. Just like he had planned. “No,” I mumbled with all the fight I had left.

  His hand traveled around my face, just grazing my lips. It was amazing how such a small touch left my body pleading for more. He stepped past me and turned the water on. “Undress.”

  “This isn’t a striptease joint. Please. Leave the room and I promise I’ll hurry.” I barely choked out the last few words. His eyes smoldered like burnt charcoal, his lips parted and advanced much too quickly in my direction. And I wanted it.

  It wasn’t a lover’s kiss. It was desperate, demanding and all the while he filled my head with images of what it would be like. I knew what it would feel like to have his hands on me. And I wanted it.

  He’d never separated our lips, but my clothes vanished. His own were finding their way to the tiled floor as well. When his mouth left mine it burned a path down my throat. The beads nestled there hummed and pulsed like an extension of my heart.

  My hands slid under the waistband of his cotton pants. Quentin answered my moan with his own as he guided my hand to find the full length of him. He was hot, hard and ready. I wanted it now.

  “Not yet,” he mumbled in a voice that sounded almost as frantic as I felt. The tremble in his words gave me a boost of power. It wasn’t simply a conquest thing in my mind anymore. This was a game of equals. Give and take.

  His head dipped lower, finding the rosy peak of my breast that strained for his attention. His hot, wet tongue managed to show me give and take all at the same time.

  I slid down his boxer briefs. He released me from his oral assault and freed himself of the rest of his clothes. We stood in the puddles of our garments, flushed, panting and naked. I waited for him to come back to me, to touch me. His mind continued the mental movie of wet flesh, tangled arms and legs and desperate gasps as he pinned me against the shower wall.

  I could barely stand. Yet he didn’t move.

  His eyes finally flitted behind me. I followed his gaze. The shower. “Aren’t you going to get in?” he asked, as if he wasn’t standing there in full arousal.

  “Yeah.” It came out a hoarse whisper.

  I stepped over the tub and gave the curtain a frustrated tug. Messing with me. He was freaking playing with my head and I fell for it. Now he knew what putty I became at his simple kiss

  A flick of the wrist sent the water to an icy stream. My chastisement. I let it pummel my aching breasts and run down to cool the fever between my legs. This wasn’t fair. I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything but him. Tried to forget the musky, masculine smell that permeated the room.

  Then I felt him behind me. His hands slid up my water slick waist and cupped my breasts. Even the cold water couldn’t stop the renewed rush I felt. He teased the back of my neck with his teeth, leaning forward so I could feel him hard against my back.

  “Warm the water up, Ella. You don’t need to punish yourself for this. How can something so good be bad?”

  He had a point. What harm would there be? What if? I readjusted the water and turned to face him.

  His hair was wet and slicked back off his face. An outline of stubble darkened his cheeks and chin, making him dangerous looking. And just plain dangerous. Water beaded on his lips; I licked my own, impulsively wondering what he would taste like.

  “Taste,” he whispered, dipping his head to mine.

  That was all it took. Our wet bodies skimmed off each other. I’m surprised the water didn’t boil at our feet.

  His fingers encouraged my nerve endings to scream with sensitivity, leaving me shuddering and gripping him for balance when they circled my nipples and dipped low on my stomach.

  I slid my hand around him. Would I simply go crazy before I felt him inside me? His touch answered that. “Now,” I demanded.

  “Not yet,” he muttered against my lips, his fingers teasing and probing the most vital spot until I thought he’d drive me over the edge before we got to the best part.

  He used the magic to hold me up, back against the tile. I didn’t care. I might have used my own if I’d been able to control it.

  “Tune into me.” I did. I felt him hot against me. I writhed to position him, moaning when he didn’t fill me immediately. “Feel what it’s like,” he commanded.

  I realized what he meant. I felt his throbbing anticipation against mine when his satiny length finally slid inside. Our minds connected, co-mingling the bursting sensations when we touched in the most intimate way.

  His fingers gripped my thighs, waiting, holding, until he pulled back, then pressed forward again. Muddled with my own pleasure, I knew the exact level of his own. I traced my nails down his back, and felt both the exterior and interior tightening reaction.

  And like a violin string, the tension wound tighter, until it all broke loose. He caught my final moan in his mouth, finishing the erotic feelings with an immeasurable awareness of each other’s satisfaction. I raked his back, knowing I had torn open flesh. His hands would leave their own fingerprints in the flesh of my hips.

  The water was gone. I opened my eyes, expecting to find myself simply moved out of reach of the shower’s spray.

  What the hell is going on? I sat cross-legged on a blanket with food spread out picnic style. I was dressed. The sun shone overhead, oblivious to my confusion.

  “What did you do now?” I demanded of my companion.

  “I figured a little exercise would rustle up an appetite. And what’s better than a picnic of fried chicken and apple pie?”

  I stared for a minute out of the corner of my eyes. Picnic. Yeah. “Were we just, uh, in the shower?” I pointed over my shoulder, but who knows where said bathroom was now.

  Quentin winked. “Yeah, but the nice thing about magic is you can skip all the awkward stuff and get right to the good things in life. Like food.”

  Hello. I just had awesome sex. The best of my life, in fact, and this man was able to snap his fingers and get food ready.

  He was reading my thoughts. “It’s better than a cigarette, right? Besides, it would’ve gotten soggy under all that water.”

  I nodded my head. This was a whole new reality. I still kept expecting the Candid Camera guy. But let’s hope they missed taping this morning’s episode. Wowza. That would have been embarrassing.

  “Bare-assing is the better said term for it.”

  “Shut up, Quentin. I’m trying to convince myself this is really happening.”

  “You regretting it?”

  Million dollar question. “Should I?”

  “No.” He took a bite from a chicken leg. His nonchalance did little to ease the butterflies in my stomach. “It was bound to happen. We’ve been attracted to each other from the beginning.”

  “But you’ve been a whole different person these last few days.”

  “Was. I had Mr. B’s people closing in. I was waiting for Sam. He never showed. We had to get the heck out of there. Especially after the shower. We used way too much magic. They’d have found us in a heartbeat if we’d stayed even long enough to get dressed.”

  So we jumped again and left Sam behind. And…I couldn’t think of it. I almost asked if he’d pulled my socks from under the cabinet. No. No reason to cast suspicion. “Now what?”

  “Eat your lunch.”

  I was hungry. I ate and studied Quentin. He was no longer the brooding, dark soul I’d seen the last few days, but he wasn’t quite the jokester who’d taken me to the landfill either. While I definitely wished Sam was around to tell me if we were running from something or after something—and all the deta
ils that go along with it, I decided it wasn’t so bad to be here with Quentin like this. It felt...normal.

  “I wish I wouldn’t have eaten so much.” I leaned back and patted my stomach.

  Quentin leaned up against the tree and looked out over the view he had chosen. A few small sailboats bobbed in the bay beneath the hill where we sat. The gentle melody of water lapping against the sand rocked me to sleep. My eyes were just about closed when he spoke.

  “You didn’t tell me what happened when you went after your purse.”

  “I was followed. Then cornered. Then rescued.” I only opened one eye wide enough to watch his features. Nothing unexpected.

  “By who? Where and then who again?”

  I reached for my glass of lemonade, lifting it with magic when my arm was too short. “Who ever followed me was invisible. From what I could tell, two guys. I got lost—”

  “I figured that was going to happen.”

  I plucked an ice cube from my glass and tossed it at him. He caught it and raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard a lot of nice things about ice cubes and hot bodies. Don’t waste these.”

  I stuck my tongue out. “Do you really want to know this story or do you want to talk dirty?”

  “If you’re asking—never mind…just tell me.”

  “Quentin.” I rolled my eyes mentally. I was too tired to open them.

  “No. Honest. I’d like to hear it.” He popped the ice cube in his mouth and smiled with it between his teeth.

  “They followed me into this storage building. I thought they were going to kill me. I managed to use some magic and get away. But only temporarily. Then some guy named Jim grabbed me and zapped us off to some island.”

  Quentin leaned forward then. His hair dropped over his forehead and hid half of his eyes. I almost reached out and brushed away the hair when he spoke. “An island, really?”

  “Well, we went to this house first, but then an island. He thought we’d be safer there while we figured out what we were going to do. He said he used to be Sam’s partner. I don’t quite understand how their relationship went. Not even sure what side he was on. He creeped me out. But then a bad storm blew in and it was either get sucked up in it or zap back. I pictured your face and tried the gems.” I shrugged. “They worked.”