by Tawny Weber
Yeah. Good point.
Rose wet her lips. When that didn’t clear her head, she had to try a couple of deep breaths before she could admit the rest.
“Actually, I do have a few specifics that she wants,” she said, her gaze locked on her fingers as they pleated the fabric of the tablecloth instead of meeting his eyes. “She has a very specific vision for this game and what it needs to include.”
“You’re the one designing the game. Doesn’t that usually mean it’s created to your vision?”
“It used to. But Millicent has her own way of doing things.” Rose glanced up long enough to roll her eyes and give him a grimacing sort of smile. “She pretty much took over the company, shoving her cousins aside. According to her, she holds the money, so the power is hers.”
Rose was oddly comforted by his look of disgust.
“So what’s Millicent demanding now?” he asked, squaring his shoulders.
“Um, well, it’s like this,” Rose said, watching her fingers weaving in and out of the furry fabric of the couch. “She’s done a lot of surveys and studies and marketing research. She said that all pointed to a specific direction that she’s sure will launch Black Magic into a whole new realm of success.”
“Okay.”
Rose knew she was dancing around the subject. So she took a breath and dived right in.
“Sex.”
“What?” Sam blinked twice, as if trying to get the image of her and sex to compute in his brain.
“The story we’re writing together has to include a love story. A love story that includes sex.”
There.
She’d said it.
Now if she could only meet his eyes.
But, with her cheeks as vivid as her name, Rose couldn’t bring herself to look at his face and view the horror she was sure she’d see there.
She was horrified, too.
Of course she was.
But a tiny part of her, the part she was trying to ignore, delighted in the idea of exploring anything that ended in sex with Sam. Even if it was just in a story.
“Let me get this straight,” he finally said. Since his tone didn’t give her any hint of what he was thinking, Rose risked more embarrassment by looking up to watch is face.
Calm.
How could he look so calm?
Maybe he’d been lulled into an emotional coma by the cacophony of color in the room. It was definitely having a weird effect on her.
“Are you telling me that Black Magic is planning to move into X-rated games?”
“Oh, no,” Rose assured him. “Millicent promised it’d be PG13. The sex is supposed to stay tasteful and off screen.”
“Uh, huh. Tasteful off screen sex from a woman who specializes in fairy tale games.” Sam gave an ironic nod. “That makes total sense.”
Not sure why, Rose’s back went up at his easy dismissal of her doing anything sexy.
“I can create a sexy game,” she snapped.
“Can you, now?”
She leaned forward to give him her most smolderingly seductive look—one she hadn’t realized she had in her arsenal. Then she smiled.
His eyes blurred.
Good.
Satisfaction overwhelming her embarrassment, Rose nodded.
“Oh, yeah. I’ll make a game that will knock your socks off. Sex, fantasy and fun, all rolled into one. You just watch and see.”
Chapter Four
Sam wondered how long a man could live in a state of sexual arousal before he exploded in frustration.
Showering off the effects of another night of sweaty dreams and impossible wants, he considered that question.
He and Rose had spent a lot of time with each other, working on her storyline. It was fascinating to watch her sketch her vision of his words, to see their story come to life on under the stroke of her colored pencils. It was inspiring to see her enthusiasm and excitement over developing the game world, the elements and challenges and rewards.
So far, they’d worked together for five days in direct contact.
Five days, they’d discussed the thread of romance, the idea of bringing a hero together with his perfect heroine. Three days talking about what it’d take for him to make a move, or being forward thinking, what it’d take for her to make her move.
So many variations of courtship, so many alluring options, so many seductive ideas. And every damn one of them kept Rose firmly in his mind as the one he wanted to court, to allure. To seduce.
Not on the agenda, he reminded himself. He was here to help her finish her obligation to Black Magic games, to convince her to give Coeur d’Alene and her grandparents a chance, and to be a friend.
The end, period, no further discussion.
And definitely no seduction.
At least, not yet. He figured seducing the granddaughter of good friends when he had a personal agenda was pretty damned, well, unheroic. Which meant seduction was off the table.
At least, until he convinced her to come to Coeur d’Alene. Once there, she’d get to know Stephan and Leah. She’d learn her own family history, see if where she fit into it.
Then, when everything was out in the open and she was comfortably decided on the direction of her life... Then he’d seduce her.
But damn, waiting was hard, he thought with a groan as he got out of the shower. So far, he’d tried counting backward from a thousand by threes, reciting baseball stats and wild mental mad libs. None were any help distracting him the need he felt for her the minute she was within sight.
He was still mulling options and possible distractions when he walked out of the bathroom.
“Good morning.”
“Anja,” he greeted, glad he’d pulled on his pants. “How’re you this morning?”
“Fine and fabulous,” she told him, offering a smile as bright as the vivid yellow sundress she’d paired with a turquoise scarf that draped at the waist and purple beads layered five deep around her neck.
“Are you sure you didn’t have anything to do with decorating this room?” he asked with a laugh, gesturing to indicate how well her outfit went with the décor.
“Please, credit me with more taste than faux fur.” She tossed her long curls behind her shoulder, then tapped one finger on the silver-domed plate waiting at the table. “And with being a good hostess. I brought you breakfast.”
“Uh huh.” He stepped closer, lifting the dome with caution. An omelet, fried potatoes with vegetables, a rasher of bacon and basket of fragrantly steaming cranberry muffins.
It smelled incredible. And it looked safe enough. But he wasn’t sure he was willing to chance it.
“You think I’d bespell you?” Anja sounded more amused than offended.
“I think you’re a clever woman who likes to see people she cares about happy,” he sidestepped.
“And what would make you happy?”
“Who says I’m not already?”
“Are you?”
“You’re good at answering questions with questions. Have you ever considered dabbling in psychiatry? If you ever give up the magic and baking, that is.”
“I don’t need to be a psychiatrist to recognize deflection when I hear it.” Anja gave him an arch look before picking up the fork, cutting off a bite of the omelet and eating it with an mmm of enjoyment. “There. No spell.”
“Try the potatoes, too,” he suggested.
She didn’t bother to hide her eye roll, but she did eat a scoop of potatoes, then snipped off a bite of bacon before setting down the fork and crossing her arms.
“Well?”
“Well, what? Look, I am happy. I have a great career. I’m financially sound. I like my house, the town, the people I’m around. I’m healthy, active and have all my teeth.” To prove it, he bared them at her. “See? Happy.”
“But is your heart happy?”
“My heart is just fine, thanks.” Although Sam was tempted to check his penis, just to make sure he hadn’t turned into a girl for giving in to this con
versation.
“And what about Rose?”
“If you mean the project we’re doing? It’s going well. We have a lot of elements to hash out still, but we have a pretty solid storyline to go forward with.” To forestall whatever words might go with that look on Anja’s face, he grabbed a bite of the omelet, gave a yummy noise, then continued, “If you’re referring to my personal hope of talking her into spending some time in Coeur d’Alene? There’s nothing to tell there, but only because I haven’t broached the subject. Once we’ve made a little more progress on the story, I’ll discuss it with her.”
Anja broke off a small piece of the cranberry nut muffin on his tray and ate it before tilting her head to one side.
“And her magic?”
Damn.
Sam rubbed two fingers over the sudden throbbing in his forehead and dropped into the ladder-back chair.
“She does have magic, doesn’t she?” At Anja’s nod, he sighed. “I thought I felt hints, but I couldn’t be sure. I mean, everyone has inherent abilities. I figured that’s what I was feeling.”
Figured. Hoped. Pretty much the same thing.
“Her power is untapped. Asleep, even. But the potential is great.” This time it was Anja who sighed. “But she may choose to ignore it. To let it slumber, untapped and unrecognized. If that’s the path she chooses, you won’t get her back to your friends and their home in Coeur d’Alene. She won’t be able to awaken to the possibilities.”
“You’re sure?”
Of course she was sure. Anja wouldn’t have made a point to warn him if she wasn’t.
Great. Sam rubbed his fingers over his eyes. This added a whole new layer of challenge to his task.
“I know you decided to ease Rose into the news about her heritage, about her grandparents’ needs. But there isn’t much time. She has an enemy. Someone jealous of her place in their world, someone who benefits more in keeping Rose asleep and under their thumb than awake and out of their reach.” Anja’s eyes took on that dark, otherworldly seers glow that told Sam that she was getting her words from somewhere beyond. Then she blinked and gave him a sympathetic smile. “I suppose it’d all be easier if you didn’t have feelings for her. But maybe those feelings are what will help you decide.”
With that and a gentle pat on his cheek, Anja swept from the room.
Sam sighed, then shot a dismissive glance at the breakfast she’d left behind. He had no appetite for food. But he was starving for a few solid, workable ideas.
Some people meditated. Others turned to the tarot, the stars, the runes. He knew one guy who put on a turban and communed with spirits.
But Sam?
Sam grabbed a notepad and a mechanical pencil and settled into the corner of the weirdly comfortable couch.
When he was stuck, he wrote.
Lists, ideas, outlines, plans.
He emptied his mind, words onto paper. Once there, he could revise them, rearrange them, put them in an order that made sense.
Once he’d finished, once he’d put all of his thoughts in writing, he leaned back and began to read through the stream of conscious notes for a pattern, searching for the message.
And shifted uncomfortably.
Her lips were a luscious invitation, waiting for his tongue. Every move she made sparked a flame of lust in his belly, a flame he was desperate to quench in her moist depths. He wanted to make her smile, to give her pleasure, to make her scream in time to his thrusting lust. He wanted her like a cat wanted a mouse. He craved her like an addict craved a hit.
Sam grimaced.
Obviously, he didn’t have much talent at erotic romance, he realized with a sigh. And just as clearly, he wanted to sleep with Rose. Or take her to bed and not sleep for hours—for days—on end.
He blew out of breath, wishing he could release the hunger as easily. Unfortunately, he couldn’t ignore the feelings raging through his system any more than he could the words on the page. But like the lust he felt for Rose, all he could do was pretend to ignore it and get on with what he was supposed to be doing.
With that in mind and another deep, cleansing breath, he ripped the pages off the tablet and tucked them behind the rest to deal with later.
With sex off his brain, or at least out of sight, he looked at what was left.
Anja claimed Rose had an enemy, and that was true. But a bigger threat was Rose’s inability to break the spell of guilt she was under.
Before he could help her with anything, she had to accept that she wasn’t responsible for someone else’s debts, that she didn’t owe Black Magic—or more to the point, Millicent Faire—a single damned thing. Any debt she’d incurred from their putting her through college, for them helping her and her mother out over the years, had been repaid time and time again with the success of the games she’d created for them.
Despite whatever ideas the new CEO might have.
Bitch. Sam hadn’t met Millicent, but he knew her cousins. Three sweet ladies with the talent and cleverness to take their grandfather’s company worldwide, they’d visited Coeur d’Alene from time to time. He figured anybody who’d pull a hostile takeover on women like that—on family, no less—wasn’t a shark, she was a dragon.
But even a dragon would bargain for gold.
Which meant all Rose needed was a story worth its weight.
A vivid story she could translate into a brilliant game. One filled with magic and quests and challenges of power. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
Whatever it took, he’d make damned sure Rose nailed this game. He’d get the pretty little blonde out of Millicent’s clutches, and she’d go out on her own terms.
Then she’d be free, and probably a little grateful, and more than ready to hear his suggestion that she visit her grandparents.
A little voice, one that might sound a little like his conscience, nagged that he was manipulating her potential gratitude. That same voice pointed out that it’d be better to just be upfront.
But upfront left her the choice of saying no. And he couldn’t risk that.
Because choice or not, he thought as he flipped through the notebook until he reached his tucked-away lust-filled pages, he wanted her there. He wanted her with him.
Choice or not, simply wanted her.
In every way possible.
It took Rose a good ten minutes to find a parking space near Karma Café. A good sign for the business, but man, she was tired of the big city. She loved hearing Sam talk about his hometown. No parking issues, no angry commuters, no crowded sidewalks filled with irritated people trying to mow you down.
She shook her head at woman who pushed between her and two other people, the woman’s huge purse slapping Rose on the hip hard enough to leave a bruise.
Yeah. Sam’s hometown sounded pretty good right now.
So far, she’d resisted the urge to stay later than business hours with Sam at his funky apartment. And since she lived with her mother, she had a built in deterrent to even thinking about inviting him back to her place.
But she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to resist the man, Rose admitted to herself as she dodged through the crowd. She was halfway to the café when her phone rang.
She glanced at the display and rolled her eyes.
Did the woman have a locator or something that let her always call just before Rose settled in for a creative session?
“Rose? What’s taking you so long to report in? I swear, girl, you sleep right through life. Where is your sense of responsibility? Your ambition? Do you even own a watch? Because, in case you didn’t notice, it’s noon,” Millicent said, her words snapping through the phone line like a rabid dog. “I expected a report from you this morning. Noon, in case you forgot, is after morning.”
“I emailed the report last night,” Rose reminded her. “I’ll be in the office when I’ve finished the sketches and storyline draft of this game.”
“And when will that be? Black Magic is depending on this game for the holiday season. We need it
to pull us out of the slump the last few yawn-worthy games caused,” Millicent ranted, her tone so nasty that Rose imagined flames spouting out her nose. “So I don’t care how good you claim it is, if this design is late, I’ll be very put out. Believe me, Rose, you don’t want to make me angry.”
“This game will break the slump,” Rose promised, wishing she’d ignored the call until she was with Sam. Something about him made her feel invincible. Since she hadn’t, though, she tried to call up some of glowing sense of power she felt when she was with him. Feeling it coil like desire in her belly, she put it in her voice. “It’ll be the best thing I’ve ever made.”
“So you say.” As if appeased, Millicent sucked in one of her trademark loud breaths through her nose. She gave a low harrumph, then cleared her throat. “In the meantime, there is someone here who wants to talk with you.”
Oh, hell.
Ignoring the crowded sidewalk, Rose let out a silent groan. The power faded from her belly so fast, she had to lean against a pretty building.
The phone hummed as the call was transferred, then a cheery voice called out a greeting.
“Rose, darling. How is my baby.”
“Hello, Mother.”
“Darling, I know you’re busy. Of course you’re busy. And you’re doing your best. You always do. But it would have been so much better if you’d have come into the office when you were supposed to.”
“Don’t worry about it, mother. I’ve got a handle on the game and will make the deadline.”
“We owe Millicent,” her mother reminded her. “Darling, I can’t pay her back for everything she did, everything Black Magic did for me. For us. She’s family now. And family takes care of family, darling.”
Rose wanted to object. Her mother had turned her back on her own family. She’d forbidden Rose from having anything to do with them. The only loyalty to family that Effe had was to her husband’s kin. The ones with money. Money she now owed.
But the words died in Rose’s throat.
Because she knew her mother had saved her. She’d gotten her away from a horrible family, from a terrible environment and given her a chance at a good life. Sure, Effe MacBriar expected a lot in return. But as she’d often said, she’d sacrificed for her daughter, and it was only right that her daughter make sure she didn’t have to sacrifice ever again.
