by Judi Fennell
The first one was almost back to pink.
He dropped the roller with a curse when he saw her. “Vana, please. Can you fix this?”
She linked her fingers and took a deep breath. She was going to miss that color. It was the same color as her gemstone. Bright and happy, and it had always made her smile. “I can try.” She puckered up.
“Wait.”
She stopped mid-pucker. “What?”
“What’ll happen if, you know… it doesn’t work?”
She lost the pucker. Nothing like instilling confidence. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think, that is… should I kiss you?”
After the night she’d spent last night? Aching and lonely and frustrated? Vana shook her head. Forget what his kiss would do to her magic; she had to think about what it’d do to her. “No, this should be fairly straightforward.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Truth was, she wasn’t either. But what was the worst that would happen? The gargoyles would turn to stone?
Speaking of which, she should probably look for them at some point. They could stand as still as statues—duh—but she didn’t want anyone accidentally bumping into them. Both the gargoyles and their finders would get the shock of their lives.
She blew out a breath and put that on her mental to-do list. Then she closed her eyes, puckered up, and kissed the air.
The walls were still pink.
Zane was looking out the window. “Well, the good news is that the porch isn’t moving.”
In any other household, that sentence would make no sense.
“Okay. Fine.” She flung her arms to her sides. “You can kiss me.”
That was her, team player. Taking one for the team.
Liar extraordinaire.
Zane took a step toward her. Hesitant. As if he didn’t quite know what to make of her—a far cry from how he’d looked at her two nights ago.
Yep, she must have really changed the way he felt about her during that last time travel. She was going to have to check the chapter again to see if DeeDee had mentioned that side effect.
“I’m not going to turn you into a toad or anything, Zane. Only fairy princesses can do that, and we’re all agreed that a fairy princess is one thing I’m definitely not.” No, she spent her time cooped up in a bottle while those chicks flounced around castles and gardens with handsome princes and unicorns and fairy godmothers. She, lucky lady that she was, got Merlin, the sarcastic firecracker.
“I seriously do not want to know about any of that,” Zane said, closing the gap between them to mere inches so their toes were touching. Until his breath was warm on her cheek and her breasts were barely grazing his chest. Close enough that she could feel each breath he took—each shallow, shaky breath—yet far enough away for her to ache with wanting to be pressed against him.
She tilted her head back. She couldn’t help herself. Her mind might be shying away from this, but her body was one hundred percent on board.
She watched his lips descend until he was so close she had to close her eyes or go cross-eyed.
And then he kissed her.
Soft, gentle, the kiss still reached deep down into her soul and tugged every bit of love out of it, drawing it through her veins and up around her heart, tying it up in one big bow before passing through her lips into his, giving him every bit of what was inside of her.
She was in so much trouble.
His lips lingered a few more seconds. Just long enough to make her knees wobble.
“Go ahead, Vana,” he whispered against her lips. “Work your magic.”
He’d certainly worked his. She could feel it, the quicksilver tumbling and flowing through her, carrying all her magic with it.
She puckered up, kissed the air softly, then opened her eyes.
The walls were sunshine yellow.
“Wow,” Zane whispered, and it was absolutely the best word for what had just happened.
He gripped her arms a bit tighter and smiled into her eyes. “You did great, Vana.”
She could only smile back while she searched for her breath.
“Now what about the rest of the house?”
“What?” That kiss must have rattled her brain. Or his.
“The rest of the house. With your magic working, you can fix it up now. Floorboards, paint, trim, the appliances, any cracked windows. Everything.”
“But I thought you didn’t want to use magic.”
“That was before Gary got involved. I need you to do a general ‘make the whole house perfect’ spell because I’m not giving him any ammunition to condemn this place. I’ve been thinking about it all night.”
Pity. She’d been thinking of something completely different. “I told you, Zane. I don’t do spells.”
He waved his hands. “Incantation, mumbo-jumbo, whatever it is that you do.”
Whatever it is that you do. As if it were the easiest thing in the world to do magic. Aside from the gods who could do it without thought, magic required concentration, knowledge, know-how, and an inherent ability she didn’t have.
Vana tamped down the utter dejection that thought brought, focused on what he wanted, and kissed the air.
Nothing. No quicksilver, no magic, no feeling.
“Well?” Zane’s smile was hopeful.
Hers… not so much. “I can’t.”
Now his faded, too. “What? Sure you can. You just blow a kiss and…”
She shook her head. “It’s not working again.”
“Oh.”
Yeah. Oh.
“I should kiss you again, shouldn’t I?”
No, he shouldn’t kiss her again. She wanted him to want to kiss her again. To need to. Not do it for the end result. The best part about a kiss was the journey.
Vana almost stamped her foot in frustration, but the poor guy wasn’t responsible for her stupid heart and feelings. “I think… well, it’d probably be a good idea.”
He nodded as if it were his solemn duty, while she stood where she was, bracing for his touch. She closed her eyes and waited to get lost in his kiss all over again.
Zane held her away from him. Only inches, but each one was killing him. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and pull her against him and do a hell of a lot more than kiss her.
But he wouldn’t. It’d taken every ounce of control to stop the last kiss, and somehow he needed to summon that control again to keep this one from getting out of hand.
But, man, he did not want to.
Her lips trembled beneath his and her breasts quivered against his chest, so softly he might have imagined it, but the tightness in his shorts argued that he hadn’t.
What was his argument for not wanting to do this again? Oh, right. Magic. Genie. Opposite sides of the house issue. A complication he didn’t need. Life throwing him enough curves.
But it’d also thrown him her curves and he wanted them plastered against him, filling his hands, wrapped around him as if there were no tomorrow.
He slid his arms around her shoulders; he couldn’t not hold her.
Her chin dipped slightly, and her lips parted. He couldn’t not slip his tongue inside.
And then she moaned softly, and he couldn’t not deepen the kiss. Couldn’t not slide one hand down her back, tracing all the curves. Couldn’t not twine his fingers in her hair and tug her head back just a little more, open her mouth a little wider, taste her a little deeper.
Her fingertips brushed his rib cage, and Zane couldn’t not crush her to him.
And then all bets were off. The kiss turned hot and sexy and steamy as all hell.
He fanned her hair around them as her breasts tightened and swelled against his chest. His cock did the same thing against her abdomen, as his knees tightened when hers wobbled. He took her weight in his hands—yes, holding her by the ass, but it fit so damn perfectly he just had to.
She shifted just a bit, and there, sweet Jesus, her hand slid beneath his shirt, the warmth of her palm searing
his back like a branding iron. He wanted to take off every stitch of his clothing and hers and lay her down on the drop cloth and pound into her to the rhythm of the blood pounding through his ears.
Wait.
That wasn’t blood.
Someone was knocking on the front door.
“Yoo-hoo! Hello? Anyone home?”
Vana stopped moving in his arms. Truly a sacrilege.
The door rattled again. “Hello?”
Vana pulled back, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed. Her lips swollen and wet.
He couldn’t not kiss them again.
“Mr. Harrison, it’s Mrs. Ertel.”
He couldn’t pretend the woman wasn’t there. He pulled his lips from Vana’s—reluctantly—and held on to her until he was sure she could stand. And that he could.
“She’s not going to go away,” he muttered.
Vana nodded.
He brushed a strand of hair from her bottom lip. “I’ll see how quickly I can get rid of her.”
He left her there. Felt her watching him walk out of the room. Tasted her all the way down three flights of steps to the front door—which he might have yanked open a bit too hard because Mrs. Ertel gasped. Or maybe she gasped because—
Zane looked down. No, his shirt was still buttoned and his cock was behaving itself better than his manners were.
He pasted a smile on his face. “Hello, Mrs. Ertel.”
The woman recovered and held up a basket. “I wanted to welcome you home so I thought I’d stop by with my homemade cherry pie.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice of you. I appreciate you and Mr. Ertel looking after the place. I’ll handle it now that I’m here.”
“Well, I, that is, we, Mr. Ertel and I, we were wondering if you’re planning to move back in because, you see, we’ve gotten used to our cable television and the money you’ve paid us has helped out with that, and, well, if you’re going to be taking care of things from now on, we’ll just have to find another way to pay for it. I do love those real housewives, you know. Such entertainment.”
Zane had no clue what she was talking about. He couldn’t imagine a show about housewives being all that entertaining, but then he wasn’t Mrs. Ertel. But he realized he hadn’t thought how selling the house would affect her. Her husband had had an accident and was on disability. They obviously counted on the money he paid them.
“I’m not sure what my plans are at the moment, Mrs. Ertel. But don’t worry. This month’s check will still be coming. Next month’s, too.” And at least six more after that. Maybe a year. It wasn’t as if it’d break him. Even playing second string.
“Aren’t you a sweet boy! I told Jack you’d say that.” She patted his arm. “Well, I best be going and let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
Yeah, he wanted to get back to what he’d been doing, too.
“Oh, by the way.” Halfway to the porch steps, she turned back with a finger against her bottom lip, a pose he remembered really well from his days of dodging the gossipmongers.
“Is there a reason, I mean, that is, do you know there’s pink smoke coming from your chimney?”
Zane wanted to congratulate himself for not altering one iota of the smile on his face. “Yes, I am aware of that.”
“Oh.” Her finger curled into her hand and she laughed an insincere, inquisitive laugh. “It’s just that I’ve never seen pink smoke before.”
“It’s a new way of cleaning out a chimney,” he deadpanned.
“Ah.” She nodded, her mouth twitching as if she wanted to disbelieve him but wasn’t sure she should. “Well then, I’ll be going. I hope you and your lady friend enjoy the pie.”
Lady friend. A term that could mean a whole host of things, and he wasn’t about to clarify any of them for her. “We will. Thank you, Mrs. Ertel.”
He stood in the doorway, watching her walk all the way down the path and get into her car. The woman was too curious for his own good. He didn’t need her waltzing back in here on the pretext of wanting to ask him something else just to satisfy her curiosity.
He waved good-bye as she drove away and watched her make all three bends in his driveway, then closed the door, set the pie on top of an unusually quiet Henry, and ran up the steps to the bedroom.
“That was June Ertel,” he explained when he walked back in to find Vana by the window. “I’ve been paying her and her husband to look after the house.”
Vana nodded. “I recognized her voice. They come over every Saturday. She stays in the kitchen while he checks the rest of the house. He repaired the window in the attic once when a storm had sent a branch through it. I’d hoped he’d find the box I was in and open it, but that never happened.”
“It must have been lonely in there, huh?”
She shrugged. “Part of the job.”
The job. Genie. Right.
“So, um, how’d your magic work while I was downstairs?”
“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t want to risk something happening while she was here.”
“Ah.”
“Yes.”
They were dancing around the kiss as if it’d never happened. As if it weren’t hanging in the air between them, charging every look, every word, every breath with meaning. But it had, and it was.
And Zane wanted it to happen again.
“So any chance you want to try it now?”
“It?”
Crap. He was never like this around women. Uncertain. Unsure. Especially ones who were as into kissing him as Vana was.
He walked over to her and stopped himself just shy of pulling her into his arms. He was sending her mixed signals again. “Vana, I know last night I said I wasn’t coming on to you.”
She walked around him and picked up a paintbrush. “I know. And you also said no more kissing and no more magic.” She pointed the brush at him. “What’s it going to be, Zane? I’m a genie, not a ping-pong ball.”
He had to smile. He liked women who wouldn’t take shit from him or anyone else. And he really liked Vana.
“I’m an ass, okay?”
“What?”
He’d surprised her. Good. That was always good for a relationship.
Wait. They weren’t having a relationship. A few kisses did not make a relationship. Hell, a few rolls in the sack didn’t make a relationship. He’d been clear about that with every woman he’d slept with. Somehow, though, he had a feeling Vana would be different.
He brushed a hand over his face. “I’m an ass, Vana. You turn me on. I can’t deny it. But this isn’t the right time in my life to explore it.”
She put her fists on her hips. “You were doing more than exploring a few minutes ago.”
He liked that she wasn’t letting him off the hook. Uncomfortable as hell, but he respected it. “I know. And I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry. You’re gorgeous, you turn me on, and if the only way to make your magic work right is to kiss you, I’m man enough admit I’ll do it.”
“Is that supposed to be an apology?”
“Um… yeah?” He pulled out his charming smile.
“Seriously? You’re going to kiss me because I’m here, I’m hot, and you have a convenient excuse? Pardon me while I swoon.”
Okay, so the charming smile didn’t work. He’d go for just charming. “I was paying you a compliment.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? No wonder you’re still single.”
“Hey, I’m single because I’ve chosen to be single. There are a bunch of women who want to marry me.”
“Good. So go kiss them and get them to fix up your house.”
“I just might.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
They glared at each other from opposite sides of the room.
He scrubbed his face again. He needed a shave. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was a lame apology. And I am sorry. For the lame apology and for sending you mixed signals and for acting like an ass.” He held out his hand. “Please accept my apology?
”
She glanced at his hand, nibbling her bottom lip. Besides fidgeting with her fingers, she also nibbled her lip when she was nervous. And thank God for it. He didn’t like being the only one nervous here.
“All right. Apology accepted.” She put her hand in his. The one with the paintbrush.
That had wet paint in it.
He laughed, glad he had a reason to not tug her the rest of the way into his arms and break the truce. “So, about your magic… Can we start this over? For the good of the house?”
She rolled her eyes and blew out a breath, but there was a hint of a smile beneath it. “The good of the house? Okay, whatever you say.” She tugged her hand back (leaving the paintbrush), puckered up, looked at him one more time, and blew a kiss.
Then the bottom fell out of his world—or rather, out of the bedroom.
29
Vana waved away the plaster and dust, coughing to clear her lungs as she tried to figure out what had gone wrong this time.
“Vana! Are you okay?” Zane moved a chunk of floor—or maybe that was the ceiling of the room below them—off her calf and helped her stand.
She flexed her toes. Nothing broken, thank the stars. “I’m fine. Well, I would be if I could figure out what happened. I swear I was trying to fix everything.” And now she had even more to fix. Gods, what was wrong with her? Even the most simple of things…
“Maybe it was too much at once.”
“Come on, Zane. This is pitiful. It’s not like you asked me to repaint the Sistine Chapel.”
Vana clamped a hand over her mouth. Please gods, let her not have just destroyed that masterpiece.
“It’s all right, Vana. We can fix this. The key is not to get discouraged.”
She shoved her hands onto her hips. Leave it to a mortal to lessen the magnitude of an epic fail in magical ability. “Oh it is, is it? Do you not see this? Looks pretty discouraging to me.”
“No, it looks pretty powerful to me.”
Way to rub salt in the wound. “Powerfully destructive.”
“So let’s make it constructive.”
“Huh?”
