Disgruntled, he began setting boxes of Chinese on the long contemporary inlaid wood table and let the women settle their differences.
“You picked up the whole image I sent you?” Francesca asked, hunting through drawers for silverware.
“If you mean did I see the general in full uniform and engaging in one of his tirades, yes. I shut down after that.” Nadine slapped some dishes on the table.
Magnus winced. He remembered the general that way the one time he’d met the old buzzard. He’d been behind bars and unable to plow a fist into the bastard’s jaw. That was the image Francesca had been projecting? Bo had been there, too. She’d actually seen that image in Bo’s head?
This psychic business was damned peculiar. And useless.
“It was extremely rude to broadcast that loudly if you know what you’re doing,” Nadine stated matter-of-factly.
Francesca made a dismissive gesture and scattered forks and napkins around the table. “It’s not as if I know anyone else besides my grandmother who is receptive. Generally, I’m the one on the receiving end.”
Magnus grabbed a box, settled on a stool, and began dishing food onto a plate, trying to pretend this was normal dinner conversation. Nadine’s silence, closed eyes, and faintly constipated expression warned it was anything but.
Francesca froze and frowned.
Rolling his eyes, Magnus scooped up whatever delicious concoction Dorrie had chosen for them and started eating.
Francesca continued frowning and spooning up soup as she tried to catch whatever image Nadine was “sending.”
“I can see someone who looks like the photo that Conan sent me of Vera. I can’t tell what she’s doing.” Francesca tilted her head and closed her eyes. “No, that’s all I’m getting.”
“That’s a start.” Nadine set a cold beer in front of him.
How had she noticed his preference for beer when he hadn’t been drinking any?
“But it’s too easy when we’re in the same room and know we’re sending images,” Nadine continued. “We’re both receptors and Vera isn’t. The chances of reaching her are slim unless she’s half asleep or in a hole and sensory deprived.”
As he and Bo had been, Magnus conceded. That Bo had been able to project their location had been a freaky miracle. The psychic business was for crazy people like Adams—an interesting option, but a well-engineered drone would work better.
“Vera has always been a lark who goes to bed early,” Nadine said, pouring wine for herself and Francesca. “Perhaps if we wait until dark and send a message every fifteen minutes, there will be some chance she’ll notice and realize we’re trying to reach her.”
Magnus glanced around to see where she’d found the wine. On the far side of the Sub-Zero was an immense wine rack. The lady might be a few bulbs short of a chandelier, but she was a keen observer. And lacked normal social boundaries—like asking permission to appropriate expensive drinks.
“What message do you want to send?” Francesca asked.
Nadine wrinkled her nose. She didn’t have a redhead’s freckles, Magnus noted. From lack of sun?
“I’ve been thinking about that. If she’s in a place where she can follow the news, then she must know that I’ve escaped, and the general is after us.”
Francesca nodded and sipped her wine. “Nice wine. What is it?”
Magnus glanced at the towering wine rack. “Probably a hundred dollars a bottle, so let’s not ding Oz’s budget too badly.”
Both women shrugged and poured more. Well, he’d wanted independent women. Obedience didn’t come with the territory.
“I want to send Vera a simple password to a basic Dropbox account so we can communicate,” Nadine continued. “We used to share one when she was in high school, but the general thought we were keeping secrets and made me take it down.”
“Were you keeping secrets?” Magnus asked, because he couldn’t help himself.
“Of course,” both women replied and laughed.
That would teach him to keep his mouth shut.
They put away the leftovers and Magnus made coffee while the women explored the house. Francesca was insisting on appropriate feng shui for their experiment while Nadine was more concerned about the sound of ocean waves, warmth, and cushions for some yoga position she claimed helped open up her mind.
If he wanted to learn what made them tick, scientific research required that he just shut up and watch. Up to a point.
They chose the balcony off Nadine’s bedroom, then decorated it with appropriate plants and gewgaws from the rest of the house. As the sun began to hover above the waves, they settled on yoga mats.
Magnus found a wicker chair in the shadows of the room and stayed out of sight. He was out of his element and needed an oily rag and a spark plug to clean.
Admittedly, the ocean waves were relaxing. The soft murmur of voices dissipated when the women concentrated on the paper with the password written on it—image and numbers. Magnus put up his feet and leaned back and closed his eyes.
He hadn’t been this relaxed in days. Weeks. Maybe years. The tide burbled out in a gentle rhythm. The women spoke in harmony. He kept one ear open for anything out of synch.
The next thing he knew, he startled awake with a snore. Anxiously, he checked on Nadine. She and Francesca were finishing off the bottle of wine on the balcony—while perched on the rail three stories above the street.
Nadine—naturally—was blowing bubbles with a giant wand. Where the hell had she found bubbles? Laughing, she swung her arm wide, wafting iridescent soap into the night—and nearly toppling off the edge.
Not crazy, just drunk.
Magnus strode onto the balcony. Ignoring a startled Francesca, he grabbed Nadine by the waist and carried her into the en suite bathroom, where he dumped her into the shower stall and turned on the water. “You’re sticking to one glass of wine until you develop a head for it.”
Nadine sent him a sultry smile and began unfastening her shirt. Caught off guard, Magnus almost stayed to watch. Almost. The water had plastered the gauze and knit to her breasts, which apparently hadn’t been confined in one of the bras she’d insisted on buying. His prick rose straight up for the occasion.
Even more irked, he slammed out of the bathroom and watched Francesca carry off the wine bottle. She gave him a happy wave and a wink and sauntered down the hall. How many bottles had they emptied?
What the hell was happening to him? He knew Nadine was another crazy, too mixed-up to know what she was doing. He had no business looking at an emotionally disturbed and possibly mentally unstable female as he just had.
He had the urge to dive into the waves from three stories up just to see if he could straighten out his head—or his hormones.
Instead, he grabbed the sheet of paper containing the password they’d been trying to convey and located Nadine’s laptop on the balcony. They’d apparently been celebrating something, and he hoped he’d find out what in here. He clicked on her Dropbox and looked for messages from the beyond.
He opened the box’s only contents— a recently received document. An address and a time appeared with no other information. Had they really contacted Vera?
He could grab his keys, hop in the car, and be on the other side of the mountain in time to case this joint before the given time. He reached in his pockets to confirm he had the keys.
And Nadine started to sing in the shower.
Damn, damn, and triple damn. He couldn’t leave La Loca loose on her own.
He couldn’t take her out in public.
For once in his life, he had to think first and act later. Fuck.
Well past disgruntled, Magnus forwarded the message to Conan. He refused to question the mumbo jumbo that had produced the mysterious address. He just wanted this over while he still maintained his sanity.
As if in reward for his good behavior, Nadine emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing.
Twelve
Riding on the courage of half a bo
ttle of excellent pinot noir and Mad Max’s admiring gaze, Nadine did her best to imitate a model and swayed across the room. “Vera received our message,” she said in triumph.
“Or she checked your old Dropbox just in case,” Magnus said, but his tone didn’t sound argumentative. He wasn’t saying she was nuts, and that’s what mattered. “I forwarded the address in her message to Conan,” he added.
Nadine rolled her eyes. So much for seduction. “That was stupid. I told you, she scares easily.”
She hurried over to her laptop to send a message to the Dropbox to warn Vera of the approach of strangers.
“Tell Conan to use the code words Maximus Grandus, and she’ll know he’s safe,” she ordered as she typed.
“Way to kill a mood,” Magnus grumbled, grabbing his phone.
She was standing there bare-assed naked, and they were both typing on keyboards. This was so not what she’d intended.
“You’re the one who shot off her address without warning me.” This was probably why she’d never have sex. She didn’t know how to shut up. Still, she had to learn to stand her ground or be walked over by obsessive military take-charge types for the rest of her life. Wine nicely removed her inhibitions. “Two-way street, buddy. If you want to go your own way, leave me out of it, and I’ll go mine.” She turned to face him.
His chest and shoulders filled her field of vision. Nadine whacked him on a shirt button. “You’re not Tarzan and I’m not Jane.”
He grabbed her waist as he had earlier, lifting her until they were face to face. Only this time his rough hands dug into flesh, and her bare breasts rubbed his soft polo shirt. He smelled of raw male with a hint of salt air and sent her senses reeling.
She propped her hands on his gorgeous shoulders, meaning to blast him again, but he wrapped his arms completely around her and crushed her against him. Before she completely understood the turn around, Magnus kissed her. One big hand slid through her hair and pressed her closer.
Forget argument. She nearly strangled on the rush of desire. Falling into those firm pecs, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and returned the kiss with all the fervor that had been pent-up inside since he’d stomped into her life.
His tongue touched hers, and in an excess of energy, she wrapped her legs around his waist and thought she might never let go. He took her weight without flinching.
Bliss and excitement and raging need spun her head far more than wine.
He explored her mouth while she explored his. He still tasted of coffee. His jeans abraded her thighs as he carried her toward the bed, as if she cared about abrasion when she had his tongue claiming her mouth. She wanted his shirt off but couldn’t work out how to do it while she was clinging to him for dear life, feeding on the heady elixir of his desire.
Magnus set one knee on the bed and lowered her, still covering her with soul-searing kisses. His bristled jaw scratched her cheek, but his big hands were gentle as he settled her against the silken sheets. He stroked and squeezed her buttocks until she tugged inexpertly at his shirt, and he had to let her go to help her pull it from his jeans.
Big silent Max didn’t say a word when she ran her hands under his shirt and explored the powerful muscles he concealed there. He was solid as rock but warm and smooth, and she didn’t think she could ever let go. She found his nipples and tweaked, and he finally growled and climbed over her.
“You’re not going to tell me tomorrow that you were drunk and didn’t mean this?” he asked, tearing his lovely lips away from their plundering.
“I’m not any more drunk than you are, and I’ll regret it more if we don’t do this,” she said honestly. Even her awkward timidity didn’t stand a chance against the burning desire to feel. For once in her life, she wanted to surrender all thought and just enjoy the moment. “No strings, I promise. Just please, let’s have this one night.”
He hesitated, but Nadine caught his hand and tugged it toward her breast and there was no turning back. She cried out with the sensual wonder he created with just the brush of his rough hand against sensitive skin. Need coursed through her like liquid flame.
He bent and licked the nipple he’d just set on fire, and she grabbed his hair, murmuring senseless encouragement as her body came truly alive for the first time in her damned sheltered life.
At some point, she became nothing more than sensation. The surf pounded against the rocks in time to the beat of her heart. The night smelled of salt and male sweat and sex, and hunger consumed her. She cried out at the chilly air when Magnus rose to remove his jeans. She shuddered happily from a different sensation when his naked heat covered her again.
She reveled in the brush of his hairy masculine legs against hers as much as in the soft caress of his kisses along her belly. He pried her thighs apart, leaving her vulnerable and aching. When he applied his tongue there, she nearly shot off the bed.
She needed only that slight spark to ignite a river of desire. Twisting, rocking, more out of control than in one of her psychic seizures, she wept with pleasure as he tormented her with his tongue. Tremors rushed through her in waves more forceful than the surf outside.
Finally, when she was limp and wrung out, Magnus rose on his powerful arms, kissed her cheek, and rolled over to don a condom. She tugged him back, needing his heat and strength to hold her together. He resisted until he was ready, then sprawled on top of her again.
“You’re amazing,” he murmured, spreading his kisses across her cheek and nibbling at her ear. “I may explode if I don’t have you now.”
“Now, please,” she whispered eagerly, opening her legs, needing more than she could possibly explain.
He lowered his hips until his rock-hard penis brushed wet, aroused tissues. Mindlessly, she rose up to meet him.
He was huge.
She obviously wasn’t.
He pushed. She cried out and backed away.
He slid gently back and forth to arouse her again, then pushed deeper.
She dug her fingers into his biceps, bit his shoulder, and tried not to fight him.
“Damn, you’re tight,” he whispered as if it were a good thing. “Wrap your legs around me.” He helped her raise them to show what he wanted.
Dazed, she did as instructed. He sucked her breasts until she whimpered and squirmed with need again. And then he pushed so fast and deep that her head hit the headboard, and he filled her so completely, she no longer existed.
That’s when her vision opened and she saw him in entirety, as if she had slipped outside herself.
Nadine watched his large, magnificently male body bucking over hers, filling all the empty places, taking charge—possessing her. She saw his taut buttocks pump, his hard tree-trunk thighs conceal her more slender ones, his wide back obliterating all but her inner vision.
And she fell apart, weeping, clinging, hanging on as he overpowered her with sensation, as the tides of pleasure ripped through her, and Magnus shouted his own release.
Exhausted, unable to separate what was real and what was not, Nadine fell asleep in his arms.
***
Magnus considered himself an uncomplicated man. He’d had his fair share of one-night stands, walking away in the morning without regret. Sex was sex, just as food was food.
Nadine turned that theory on its head and whacked the stuffing out of it in ways that Diane never had.
He woke in the morning with her head on his shoulder, her breasts cuddled against his side, and her hand curled trustingly on his chest. His morning woody was ready to play.
He had the uncomfortable notion that he’d hurt her last night, and she wouldn’t be as eager as he was.
Words like sheltered formed in his brain. Naïve. Inexperienced. He nudged uncomfortably around virgin. She was twenty-three years old, dammit. Surely . . .
How rough had he been? Alarm and regret roiled through him. The black cloud of responsibility formed. It ate at his gut as she stretched and shifted to warm herself against his body heat. They’d left th
e balcony door open and the air was damned chilly.
He’d hurt her. She should have warned him . . . Damn, but he was the one who should have known.
He didn’t have time for inexperienced females and nut cases, Magnus reminded himself. Diane had wiped out all hope that he might learn how to do relationships. Nadine knew he wasn’t the lovey-dovey kind of guy that women wanted. Besides, she would be off with her sister in a day or so, and there was no sense in getting used to this.
And he was lying through his teeth. He wanted the comfort Nadine offered. He wanted to teach her that last night wasn’t what real lovemaking was about. He wanted to watch her reaction to each new discovery in the world she scarcely knew. She was even more intriguing than the damned new Camaro engine.
There be dragons. Magnus carefully unwrapped himself from Nadine’s embrace, pulled the covers over her luscious curves, and took his hard-on to the shower.
He’d left his clean clothes in another room and had to don yesterday’s. She was awake when he emerged. Her big green eyes filled her elfin face.
Magnus wanted her nimbus of hair back. It had made her look stronger and older. Short curls emphasized her vulnerability.
“I’m going to fix some coffee. Conan will bring your sister here if he can. We’ll hear from him if anything goes wrong.” Magnus felt like a heel as she watched him with a hint of wariness.
“How long will it take to drive across the mountains to here?” She pulled the sheet around her and up to her chin.
“I’ll check online. Go back to sleep, if you like. We have time.” He walked out with a ten-ton load of guilt on his shoulders.
Francesca was already downstairs, fully dressed, sipping coffee, and reading from her tablet computer. She gave his unshaven jaw a cursory glance, snorted, and returned to reading.
The whole damned family would know what he’d done by sunset.
Thirteen
Disoriented by Max’s abrupt departure, Nadine checked the time and hurriedly rolled out of bed. She was sore, damned sore. At the same time, she felt remarkably centered.
THE RISK OF LOVE AND MAGIC Page 10
