“Is it that bad?”
“Just being prudent. We both knew that this might happen someday. I’ll call you as soon as I have more. Keep everything business as usual.”
Jack hung up and downloaded the file on Zoe. There was damn little there except for her hacking career. Not good. He needed more for what he had in mind.
He waited at the top of the dune until he saw Zoe’s lithe figure jogging back down the beach. He watched as she dove into the frigid ocean. She ducked under a large wave, hopped up with another, and let out a shout when one almost knocked her over. Her joyful squeals made him chuckle.
It wasn’t long before she toweled down, donned a tiny yellow sundress, and climbed the warming sand dunes towards him. A wet tangle of black hair cascaded in ringlets over her face, momentarily hiding her exotic features and thick soft pouty lips.
Her carefree walk changed to a cautious prowl when she spotted him. She came close, bent at the waist, and shook her head wildly.
“What’re you doing here? How did you find me?” She paused and screwed up her face. “Damn it. Olivia told you where I was, didn’t she? I’m going to kill her.”
The breeze picked up and whipped her hair around her face and the sun ducked under a dark cloud. He wondered if she even knew how she affected the weather.
“I want you,” he growled, trying to keep his demeanor casual, but even he could hear the dark hunger in his voice.
She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and bent at the waist to wrap a towel like a turban around her hair. The sun’s rays came out again and sparkled on her still damp skin.
“We stopped. I want to try again.” He took a step towards her.
“Where was that footnote, page two hundred and ninety-eight?” Her frown started to crack at the edges.
“You’ve been studying our clan?” It was all he could do to hide a satisfied smirk. He raised his eyebrows and stepped a little closer. Sand, salt water and a sexy scent assaulted his nostrils.
“I stayed up until two in the morning with the biggest book on sex since Masters and Johnson. You guys have an awful lot of mating rules. How do you keep track? It would seem to me like a little sex should be a lot easier than a three hundred page book.”
Put like that, she made his chances sound slim.
“Those are just the rules for a few days out of the year. The rest of the time we’re pretty much like everyone else.”
“I highly doubt that,” she scoffed. “Tell you what. I’ve got a suggestion. Why not subtract a few pages from that bible this year? Excuse me. I need to give one interfering-healer-witch a piece of my mind.”
She turned on her heel and headed smartly towards the street.
Jack put his hands at her waist to hold her back. They gasped simultaneously and stared mutely, as fire and wind ran through them. Good God, when they finally got together, they were going to spontaneously ignite.
He waited for his racing heart to slow, but he couldn’t let go. Patience. Stakes are far too high to fuck up now.
“Don’t touch me,” she whimpered, fear blazing in her eyes.
Shit. He let go and held his hands up in surrender.
He needed to fix this. Fast.
“Okay.” He lowered his hand and extended it. “Let’s take it from the top, like last night never happened. Hi, I’m Jack Fialko.”
*
Zoe stared down at his outstretched hand and weighed the possibilities. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the sinewy muscles of his forearms. Every time they touched, she melted like ice cream on a heated summer sidewalk.
Her knees knocked and her heart pounded. Better to just turn and walk away. Didn’t she already have a full plate of emotional issues? But for the first time in her life, desire raced through her veins like a brush fire.
She took his hand. Sparks radiated through her arm, causing her body to tingle and her thighs to tense. She grew wet between her legs. The breeze blew off the ocean and further hardened the points under her wet bathing suit top. When she tried to pull out of his grip, he gently held her back.
“Let it happen, angel. Feel it.” He whispered to her in the wind. “It’s nature’s way, witch to witch.”
Heat raced down her back through her limbs. She stared up at him, feeling a mixed sense of vulnerability and power. Her body screamed for more. Why not just jump into bed with him? They were both grown adults. She might never feel this sexual pull again.
She shook her head and slipped her hand from his firm grip, common sense and self-preservation winning over lust.
“I’m Zoe Burton. Nice to meet you, Jack. But we’re done here. I don’t think I’m up for your weird courting. The way I recall, it seems to me you were pretty disinterested last night.”
His stunned silence was the perfect opportunity to turn tail and run like hell. The small voice that had moments ago declared she needed to have sex was wrong. Very wrong.
Jack was on her heals in less than a millisecond. Before she knew what was happening his hands were around her waist. He held her with one hand strained against her lower back, while the other grasped the hair at the nape of her neck, his mouth so close to hers that she could feel his hot breath on her lips.
“Don’t run from me, Zoe.”
She started to protest, but his kiss silenced her words. He was surprisingly gentle. If the man had made any other move, she would have continued to resist, but the sweetness knocked her off balance.
Jack groaned, took her chin in his hand, and forced her to look into his eyes. “Are we settled on the question of whether or not I’m interested?”
His cock pressed against her stomach and his heart thumped in counterpoint to the wind and waves. She stared back into dark pools of desire. When his lips met hers again, she couldn’t help but open up to him. His tongue swept into her mouth, creating a fire she couldn’t control.
His gaze sharpened when they came up for air. “You can feel it. The connection. I know you can.”
“Yes…No…” How was she to know anything when he was touching her? “I don’t know.”
He went for a deeper kiss, tasting and playing. His tongue did delicious things inside her mouth, and his teeth nipped at her lower lip. She arched against him, his touch overriding her common sense.
She couldn’t think straight, and she sure as hell couldn’t fight the attraction when he was kissing her. With every ounce of self-respect she had left, she pushed away, stumbling back on the warm sand.
He lowered his chin, eyes narrowing. “Zoe–”
“No.” She held her hand up to stop his approach. “No more touching. No more kissing. Not until you tell me what’s happening between us.”
He sat on the bench’s top edge, then patted the seat next to him. “Sit.”
She carefully considered the request and took a seat as far away as possible.
He chuckled. “I don’t bite.”
Zoe frowned and shook the sand off her dress. “That remains to be seen.”
The man kept smiling, and the dimple dug deeper into the muscle of his cheek. The wind tossed a roguish lock of hair over one eye.
“I assume Olivia gave you the book to read?”
She nodded and eyed him warily. “You really believe there is something between us?”
“You tell me.” His voice went gravelly and low, like her favorite jazz sax player. “What causes that kind of want in the warring clan during the solstice?”
Zoe used her almost perfect recall. “Sexual attraction is at its fullest during the solstice when two from the same clan are well matched. In the rare case, two can be so well matched that their powers are permanently shared after coupling…” A light went on in her brain. “You think that you and I match? Are you nuts? Olivia told me you are chief or high lord or some such thing of the whole east coast.”
“I usually settle for clan leader.” He gave her a crooked grin. “As for the match, I feel it. You feel it. It is what it is.”
Nan’s voice f
rom last night kept niggling at her conscience. “Uh-huh…”
“I did some studying of my own last night. That little black vortex you conjured, it’s not even supposed to exist.” He tilted his head and studied her. “Tell me, what’s your lineage?”
Zoe gazed out onto the greenish-blue ocean. A seagull screamed in the distance over the crashing of the waves.
“Honestly? I have no idea and I’m still not convinced you guys didn’t put something in my coffee last night.”
He chuckled. “C’mon now. Get real. Tell me. What do you know about your parents?”
“Nothing. I’m adopted. After my parents died last year, I found my birth certificate along with this old letter. I connected with Olivia. We figure she’s my second cousin.” She watched some kind of grasshopper jump off the dune grass and onto the bench. “I hadn’t heard of any of this until I came here.”
He reached for her hand and she pulled away before he touched her. She needed a clear head if she was going to understand any of this.
“What about your powers? Didn’t you suspect anything?”
“I’ve never had any…powers. I’ve never done anything like that tornado thingy before.”
He frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Nothing about any of this makes sense,” she snapped. She bit the inside of her cheek and sighed. “The book said you can only be from the Healer clan or the Warrior clan, but you can’t be both.”
The insect nodded his head in agreement. It took flight, landing by Jack’s sandal foot, which was so damn masculine. He moved closer and their little toes touched. She almost moaned. It wasn’t fair how much he affected her.
“You’re right,” Jack said, watching her with his sexy, lazy smile. “It’s impossible. Except I know what I feel. You have to be warring or I wouldn’t want you.” He looked off into the distance, then turned back to her, his brows drawn down. “What did the letter say? The one you found with your records.”
She shrugged. “It’s in Romanian, to my birth mother from her aunt. It was dated from when I was a baby. Said something about hiding me. Wind talent. I honestly thought my translation was off. Either that or my great-aunt was off her rocker. That’s all I’ve been able to find. Olivia agreed to help me look for more relatives online, but nothing so far.”
The grasshopper jumped again with wings outspread, and landed behind them in the dunes. The blue sky promised a perfect summer day. She guessed they both enjoyed the harmony of the crashing waves against the shore because the ensuing silence was comfortable.
“I think I may have created a dust devil thingy once before when I was very young. I wasn’t even sure, until yesterday, if my memories were real or a dream. It was like I was possessed or something.”
“What do you mean?” His unblinking stare was unnerving.
“I’m not sure. I heard a voice in my head and remembered things from before I was adopted. I was maybe three or four. Yesterday was the first time I’ve ever recalled anything of my birth parents.” She pulled her legs to her body when the breeze kicked up from the ocean and shivered.
“You’re wet and cold. We should head back.” He stood and held out his hand. “We can talk more, later.”
“Talk?” she raised an eyebrow and stared at his outstretched palm.
“Yes, just talk.” His voice was strained and tense. He dropped his hand. “Until you understand more about who you are, I promise–” He swallowed hard and grimaced. “No sex.”
“Why?” The question sounded far too much like a whine on her own lips.
“The solstice madness will affect me and you’ll have to fight me off to have sex. If you aren’t strong enough, I could hurt you, badly. You could do the same to me. You need enough training for us to be safe.”
Zoe shook her head, stood, and gave him a playful smile. “We could just wait five days and have normal, after-solstice sex.”
“I’ve already said the oath.” He moved towards her, slowly, like a predator intent on its prey. “We’re going to finish this during solstice. Neither one of us will be content with anything less.”
The dominance in his voice vibrated across her senses and she froze.
“Say you’ll train with me.” He trailed his knuckles down her cheek. The gold flecks in his light brown eyes seemed to flash with the heat that sparked between them. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” she whispered, but it came out more like a moan.
“Good.” He stepped back abruptly. “Pack up. I’m taking you home with me.”
“I didn’t agree to come home with you.”
He smiled wickedly. “Yes you did.”
She tried to disagree but couldn’t. “What did you just do? Was that some kind of spell? Damn you.”
Jack smirked, looking pleased with himself. “I’ll tell you later. Just know that I wouldn’t have been able to convince you unless you really wanted it. Get moving. We have a lot to do today.”
“I’ve got stuff to do. I can’t just drop everything and stay with you. What about Olivia?”
“Liv will understand, and you can work at my house. I’ve got Wi-Fi.”
She narrowed her eyes. How did he know she worked with computers?
“I’ll make sure you have time to work.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “You promised. You’re coming. End of story.”
Zoe was about to tell him to go fuck himself, but stopped dead cold when her gaze drifted to the beach. It couldn’t be? Down by the ocean, picking up shells in a t-shirt and khaki shorts was the finger-gun-stalker-man from New York. Her stomach cramped. How the hell did he find her?
“What’s wrong?” Jack gripped her hand and followed her gaze, but the man had disappeared behind one of the dunes.
She stood like an idiot for what felt like an eternity before she made up her mind.
“All right.” Her voice trembled. “I’ll go with you.”
Chapter 7
Jack cringed. Maybe he’d been a little heavy-handed with Zoe, but his clan was depending on him. There was too much at stake.
The minute he’d parked in front of his family’s beach house, her face had softened. Together they traversed the crushed stones, took the steps up the porch, and slid around the wicker furniture. She touched everything delicately, sighed happily, and his chest tightened.
“I spent my summers on this deck. Played games of monopoly with my siblings that lasted for days.”
She smiled as if she got it. Jack opened the screen side door and led her up the narrow staircase. They went down a long hallway and he opened the door to the bedroom nearest his.
“My mom decorated this room. The whole house really.”
She fingered the lacy materials like they were pirate booty.
Jack was about to say something about putting her clothes away, but noticed the battered knapsack. The small bag couldn’t hold much.
“My sister says of all the rooms, this is the best. You can throw your stuff in here.” He opened the closet door.
She gave him a small smile and his balls tightened. How in the world was he supposed to last five days?
“Want something to eat?” He fell back on his mother’s favorite line. What was he now thirteen?
“Sure.” She dropped her few meager belongings on the bed.
On the way down, she stopped, did a one-eighty on the landing, and gushed. “I’ve always wondered about the insides of homes like this. It’s huge. Is this your place or are you renting? It’s beautiful. I love it.”
He laughed. Who knew? It wasn’t his amazing charms, his portfolio, or stunning personality that won her over. It was the beach house.
“It’s not mine, actually. Been in my family for generations. I have an apartment in Manhattan.” They descended into the kitchen and she stood beside him as he poured coffee beans into a grinder. “Are you really hungry or will a snack do?”
“I’m starving.”
He nodded in approval.
�
�What do you do for a living?” She leaned with her forearms on the island and watched him.
“I head up a few small startup security firms.” He tried not to smile. There was some truth to that statement. He still couldn’t believe she’d never heard of John James Fialko the third. Wasn’t sure if that pleased him or pissed him off. “I assume you have another job, other than working part-time for Olivia?”
“Not at the moment. I was working for Amazon. I got bored with the whole thing. I’m between careers and trying to decide what I want to do next. Freelance consulting. You know how it is.” She shrugged. “I have a few more web pages to write.”
“I see.” He raised an eyebrow at her, but she was already focused on her hands, ignoring his non-verbal inquest. No point in continuing that line of conversation right now. Once they mated, she’d have to stop with the whole illegal hacking career. “What can I get you to eat?”
She cocked her head to the side when he placed a frying pan on the stove. “You’re going to cook? I thought we could go out…”
“I’m a pretty good cook, actually. Scrambled eggs okay?” Jack opened the door to the large modern refrigerator, pulled out a carton of eggs, and held them up to her.
She nodded.
Jack cracked two eggs using one hand and they dropped perfectly into the pan. Okay, he might have been showing off a little.
“I invited my sister, Kathy, over. I have no idea how to teach a grown woman how to come into her powers. She can help.”
“Okay.” She chewed on her bottom lip.
When he placed the eggs in front of her, she stared at him with her eyes all wide, and they started to water at the corners.
Jack looked down at the plate and frowned. “What? Too dry? I can try again.”
She actually started to cry. Not the big sobbing thing. No. Just a couple of tears that she angrily wiped away with the back of her hand.
“Sorry. That was just really nice of you. I mean people make other people breakfast all the time. Right?”
“Yeah, they do. What’s wrong, Zoe?” Jack sat down next to her, careful not to touch her.
“It’s stupid, really.”
“Not if you’re crying.”
Dark Vortex: Mated by Magic Page 4
