by Foster, Lori
Large, dark green eyes fringed by impossibly long brown lashes ensnared him. Even the air he breathed seemed heated.
Zane shook his head. He knew, and yet he whispered, “Who the hell are you?”
“Tamara.” She released the doorknob and shifted nervously. Her gaze never left his; like him, he doubted she could look away. “Tamara Tremayne.”
Zane watched a soft, pale curl blow across her cheek. She quickly tucked it behind her small ear. His heartbeat stuttered.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “I never introduced myself properly. Then again, you never really gave me the chance.” Her voice was shaky, husky, and oh so familiar.
Zane watched her lush mouth move, now clean of the shiny red lipstick. The corners tilted up in an uncertain smile that he felt clean down to his groin.
Jesus. He knew lust, knew what it felt like, had wallowed in the intensity of it, the fiery pleasure of it.
This was something more.
This was so damn powerful he shook.
“Tamara.” He touched her cheek, still staring into her eyes, unable to look away for more than a few seconds at a time. She looked so different. His mind was alert to deception, not understanding why or how she’d changed so quickly, but his body had immediately known her—and reacted to her. The erection he’d fought since her visit to the store was back in full force, straining against his slacks.
Tremulous, she smiled again, and that was all it took. She was as irresistible as the air he dragged into his lungs. Zane meant to kiss her gently, to let her get used to his deep sensuality and his agreement to her proposition by small degrees.
It didn’t quite happen that way.
As he leaned toward her, her lips parted, and with a groan Zane took her, his mouth hungry, starving. She made a small sound of surprise, of acceptance, and her eagerness licked over him. He felt ready to ignite with the pleasure of it.
Insane, he insisted to himself, even as he held her face still and, with one hard move, pinned her to the door with his hips. She was small, delicate, pretty ... and she tasted better than anything he could remember. Her mouth was sweet and damp, her tongue stroking against his, accepting his, as eager as his own yet less practiced.
Her hands clutched the front of his shirt, then drifted lower to his waist, sliding slow and easy, exploring with a hunger that fueled his own. As if relishing the feel of him, her fingers spread and her small, hot hands teased. Zane threw his head back, panting, praying she’d touch him where he craved it most, trying to encourage her to do so.
And the door opened behind them.
Zane tried to catch her, but his sluggish brain was slow to react, his body too overheated to be cooperative. Tamara fell flat with a small yelp, and Zane tripped over her. He was barely able to keep from landing on top of her, smashing her into the carpet. He stumbled hard against an enormous solid object, and then was lifted off his feet and dangled in the air.
Confused, he stared down into the most ferocious face he’d ever seen on human or animal.
The man—if this was a man and not a damned yeti—sported a full, black bushy beard, a gold earring in one ear that matched a gold front tooth; his eyes were black as midnight.
Mean black eyes.
Immediately concerned for Tamara and intent on protecting her, Zane reacted on instinct. He brought his knee up in a sharp, solid blow, forcing the giant to gasp and drop him. As the man bent forward, holding his gut and wheezing, Zane grabbed him by his bushy head, ready to bring his knee up again, this time to smash a nose or break a jaw.
Zane’s leg flexed, readying for impact—and something wiry jumped onto his back, clawlike fingers digging in for a good hold.
Twisting around, Zane saw a small, wrinkled face, wild, gray hair pulled loose from a bun, and another set of fathomless ebony eyes. Their gazes locked; the wizened face scrunched up, then let out a screeching war cry that made the skin on Zane’s body crawl and his eardrums reverberate with pain.
Before he could figure out how to get the demon off his back, Tamara had crawled around in front of him. She threw her arms around his thighs and pressed her face to his abdomen.
“Don’t hurt him, Thanos!” she pleaded.
Don’t hurt him? Indignant, Zane heard her words, and everything male in him rebelled. He was protecting her, not the other way around! Hadn’t he already felled the giant? Why the hell was she worried for him? Or was Thanos a name for the witch on his back, yanking at his hair and bellowing into his ear until he thought he’d go deaf?
It was a miracle he could think at all with Tamara on her knees in front of him. Her supplicating position registered with the force of a thunderclap, and he nearly lost awareness of everything else. Even the pain in his scalp as the witch continued to yank on his head couldn’t quite dispel the lascivious images.
Through the cotton of his pants, Zane could have sworn he felt the warmth of her breath.
Damn, he was in deep.
Zane touched the back of her head with one hand, amazed at how soft her blonde curls felt, and heard her say in an evil voice, “I mean it, Uncle. Put the cane down.”
Cane? Zane looked up from Tamara, still in her imploring position, and observed that the giant now held a cane in one meaty fist, and the cane had a lethal blade on the end. He was also rubbing his stomach where Zane had kneed him, and he looked mad as hell.
Oh, shit.
Well, yeah, maybe he could use her intervention after all, especially since she seemed to know these lunatics.
“Tamara?” He deliberately tried to ignore the heaving behemoth ready to skewer him, despite Tamara’s pleas. Zane tangled his fingers in her hair and urged her face up to his.
She blinked at him, and those green eyes nearly did him in once again. Green, not black. “Yes?”
Uncertain how to deal with such an overwhelming craving, Zane concentrated instead on the bizarre circumstances. “Do you think you can get this monkey off my back? I prefer my hair to stay on my head, rather than being strewn around the floor.”
Gasping, Tamara leaped to her feet. She snatched the cane away from Thanos—thank God she, at least, was thinking straight— and ran behind Zane to remove the old lady who grasped him so tenaciously. It took Tamara a few minutes to get the old woman to disengage, and during that time, Zane lost a little more hair, even while he tried to hold perfectly still.
Thanos no longer held the cane, but he looked more than capable of removing body parts with his bare, ham-sized hands. Zane silently took the giant’s measure; he didn’t want to hurt anyone unless he was forced to.
“Aunt Olga,” Tamara scolded in that beguiling voice he knew all too well, “what were you thinking, attacking him that way? You could have been hurt.”
Olga waved a fistful of hair. “Ha!”
It was a cry of triumph. Zane rubbed his head and winced. He was lucky he wasn’t bald.
Somehow he’d walked into a circus. Tamara wasn’t Tamara anymore; she was better, and more mysterious than ever. And she had giants and witches for relatives. The best thing to do would be to walk right back out, to forget this day had ever happened.
But he wasn’t a weak-spined coward, ready to turn tail and run at the first sign of mental instability. So her relatives were certifiable? He wouldn’t let that stop him. Not when there was something, or someone, he wanted.
And right now, at this moment, he wanted Tamara Tremayne bad. That fact had been driven home to him in no uncertain terms.
Even in the midst of bedlam, he was aware of the vibrating tension in his muscles, and the sexual fever pulsing in his blood. He was too drawn to her to walk away now. But he could handle things his own way, refusing to give her the upper hand.
Zane raised one brow, keeping a close eye on Thanos-the-missing-link, and said, “Tamara, would you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?”
The giant stepped forward and thundered, “You were mauling her! We all saw you.”
Zane couldn’t very we
ll deny that, because he had been all over her—never mind that she seemed to be going along with it, even enjoying herself. And perhaps doing a little mauling of her own.
Not since his second woman had Zane abandoned all finesse during a seduction, but with Tamara, for that brief moment, he’d been aware only of his need for her. Nothing else had registered. They’d been on a stair landing, for God’s sake, but if no one had interrupted them, Zane suspected he’d have taken her right there, with only the night shadows to conceal their activity.
And from all indications, she’d have let him.
As he started to nod in assent, ready to accept the truth of Thanos’s claims, Tamara gasped and said loudly, “I wanted him to.”
That sure got things quiet.
While they all, Zane included, stood there staring at her with their mouths open, she asked, “What were you all doing watching, anyway? I specifically told you to give me a few minutes of privacy.”
“Your apartment isn’t big enough for privacy,” Thanos told her.
“It’s big enough if you don’t press your nose to the door window and snoop.”
Zane was surprised not only by what she said, but also her vehemence and the number of words she’d used to say it. In the time he’d known her, Tamara had managed to be mysteriously soft-spoken and far from chatty.
Olga, brushing Zane’s hair from her hand, shrugged her narrow, frail shoulders. “We heard you hit the door. We thought he was attacking you.”
Another woman, a bit older but looking just as mean, harrumphed as she came up next to Olga. “He was attacking her.”
Olga narrowed her eyes. “Now that I think about it though, she didn’t seem to be fighting him off.”
Zane rubbed the back of his neck. This was too much for him. Way too much. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with a woman’s relatives. “Look, I’m sorry I jumped on her that way. I’ve never done that before.”
Tamara took immediate offense. “Don’t you dare apologize, Zane Winston. You didn’t jump on me, you kissed me.” She stepped closer to him, pointing that lethal cane at his chest. “And it was wonderful.” Her fierce expression was enough to melt his insides.
Zane’s libido stirred, and he fought to keep his responses at bay. Not here, not now. It had been bad enough dealing with an erection in the store, with swarms of customers moving around him. In front of her less than reasonable relatives, it would be impossible.
Zane didn’t move except to let his eyes shift, taking in all the curious faces surrounding them. Thanos looked bemused. Olga and the other woman were pressed together, eyes wide, staring at Tamara.
“Uh....” Zane knew he had to regain control somehow. “Care to introduce me, Gypsy?” He figured if he was to be accosted and threatened and put on display, it should at least be on a first-name basis.
Tamara clapped a hand over her luscious mouth. “Ohmigosh. I’m sorry, Zane. Of course I should introduce everyone.”
She stepped to his side and clasped his arm, providing a united front against the others. Zane refused to dwell on the emotions that her action stirred, how her stance pleased him. Plenty of women had stood at his side throughout his life, but none had ever seemed quite so right there. That realization disturbed him.
“Zane Winston,” she said, now smiling, “this is my uncle, Thanos, and my aunts, Olga and Eva Tremayne.”
The relationship was easy enough to see. Though they didn’t look anything like Tamara now, they certainly looked like her when she wore her Gypsy getup. And while their eyes were black, and hers were green, the slanting, cat-eyes shape was the same.
“You called her Gypsy,” Eva accused with a smile. She looked very pleased by it.
Zane shrugged. He wanted to touch Tamara again; he wanted to find out what the hell had happened with the long black hair, the penetrating black eyes. In the most basic ways, she was the same woman without the unusual clothes and makeup, yet she was also doubly intoxicating.
Now she seemed more real, more attainable, and that played havoc with his senses. She wasn’t that gorgeous, and she certainly wasn’t stacked. But she was still so intrinsically sexy that his temperature had automatically gone up three degrees the second he’d seen her.
He was starting to sweat.
“She claims to be one,” Zane explained, and hoped he was the only one to notice the gravelly, aroused tone to his voice. “But seeing her like this, I have to wonder.”
“There, you see,” Olga said with satisfaction. “Without the right props, no one would know your heritage. You’re far too fair, too slight, and plain. We were right. You need the enhancement.”
Tamara frowned at Zane, and her eyes were lit with a touch of disappointment. At him?
“They insist I wear the dumb costume—”
“Not dumb,” both women exclaimed, obviously appalled that she’d utter such sacrilege.
“—otherwise, I’m like the white sheep in the family.”
Thanos shook his huge head and laughed. The windows rattled at his exuberance. “Little Gypsy, even without the costume, you’re still a white sheep.” To Zane he added, “She’s too good, too tenderhearted. She has a conscience as big as the moon. How she came to be in our family is a miracle.”
Eva added, “It’s amazing she plays the game so well, considering her romantic nature.”
“The game?”
Nodding, Eva said, “Fortune-telling, palm reading, and the rest.”
Olga went on tiptoe to murmur into Zane’s ear, “She comes from sure stock, yet doesn’t like fooling people. Can you imagine?”
Zane wasn’t exactly sure what they were all prattling on about, but he could feel Tamara’s distress. He knew he was partly responsible, and regretted it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
Didn’t these people—her own family—know they were upsetting her? It angered him, and made him feel not only protective, but defensive. They weren’t emotions he normally associated with anyone other than his family. He frowned with that realization. “I’d like to talk to Tamara alone now, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Thanos barked a rough laugh. “It’s not talking you have thoughts for, man. Your lust is there for all to see.”
Olga sighed dreamily. “For our little Tamara.”
“It’s about time,” Eva added.
About time? What the hell did that mean?
Tamara, her face coloring hotly, whirled on them all. Zane had never seen her angry, never heard her loud.
Never seen her blonde.
“Don’t any of you even think of interrupting me again, do you understand?” She pointed toward a hallway and said, “We’re going to my room, and if I hear even a creak of a footstep”—her voice dropped to a demonic growl—“I’ll make you all so sorry.”
As far as threats went, it wasn’t specific enough that Zane would have worried. She was one small woman. What could she possibly do to them?
Thanos gave her an approving nod, unmistakably pleased with her show of anger. “The Tremayne temper. She has it in spades.”
The two old women twittered.
Exasperated, Tamara grabbed Zane by the arm and practically dragged him down the hall. He felt the gazes of her aunts and uncle boring into his back like fiery brands. Without any of them uttering a word, he heard their threats loud and clear, and they were a lot more specific than Tamara’s had been.
If he hurt her, they would make him sorry.
Zane shook off his uneasiness. He was about to be alone with her, and that filled him with undeniable expectation; there was no room for anything else.
Tamara dragged him inside a room and shoved the door shut. Bright, overhead lighting, centered above a huge, modem computer desk, nearly blinded him, drawing his attention first.
She flipped a wall switch, and there was only moonlight filtering through her window, and light from one small lamp on a table beside her queen-size bed.
Zane stilled. He was in her bedroom. They were re
latively alone. He looked at Tamara and caught her bewitching smile.
Oh, no. He wouldn’t make it so easy on her. She’d led him in here, and now she was smiling at him, her eyes filled with promise. Teasing, taunting, using her Gypsy tricks and her curses. He was on to her.
Now was as good a time as any for him to take control. She claimed only to want sex. Fine. He’d give it to her, in abundance. He’d brand her in the best way known to man.
His gaze raked over her, seeing the thrust of her pretty breasts beneath her top, the gentle slope of her belly, and the curve of her hips in the snug jeans. There wouldn’t be a single part of her he left untouched.
He’d see to it that she experienced the best damn sex she’d ever had. When all was said and done, she’d be as emotionally raw and hotly wired as he now felt.
Having made his decision, Zane gave Tamara his own slow smile, and watched her eyes widen in wariness. She swallowed, and said softly, “Oh, my.”
Zane had the awful suspicion she’d just read his mind, and anticipated his intent.
Christ, what had he gotten himself into?
Three
“Oh, my, what?” Zane demanded.
She licked her lips, tried for a negligent shrug, but her eyes told it all. She had beautiful, incredible eyes, the green much nicer than the darker contacts had ever been.
“I was... just....” She gestured with her hand. “You look so ...” Clearing her throat, she said, “Never mind.”
Refusing to let her see his unease, purposely shifting the mood, Zane glanced around the room and was amazed by what he saw. In direct contradiction to what he’d seen of her shop through the large front window, her private room was plain—and modern.
Neither the desk nor the computer fit his original image of her. As a Gypsy, she used candles and incantations as her tools, not a state-of-the-art computer complete with fax and scanner and copier. Yet the system arranged neatly on her desk was most impressive. Zane eyed it with appreciation, wondering what she did on that computer, if she’d learned to cast spells through the Internet.
