After a few minutes of anxious waiting, when the Goddess did not send any warning or annoyed response, Jackie figured it was safe to keep going. Goddess knew she’d have been much happier to turn back, but clearly that wasn’t the plan so forward she went, trudging to what felt like a definite slow and painful death by humiliation.
The walk back to Daniel’s place was not exactly as she remembered. Mainly, she surmised, because she’d never taken an unbeaten path through the enchanted woods. Hopping over a stone wall, to fall into a prickly brush, which came up to her hips and ripped her jeans in four places, then stumbling through a stream turned out to be the very long way around.
“This must be the only dormant place left in the forest. Apparently, you didn’t get the memo about the winter revival.” She plucked a thorn from her thigh.
Right on cue Jackie’s ass-wackery magic began swirling. Brownish-greenish-gray smoke puffed, signaling some impending magical disaster that would inevitably wreak havoc.
“Well, let’s try to be an optimist.” Jackie yanked a giant thorn from her hair. “Maybe, just maybe that’s a cloud of dirt I’ve accidentally kicked up by disturbing this obviously never-before-trod-upon soil.”
A long scratch burned across her arm from another thorny branch and more poopy-colored smoke wafted at her feet.
“For shit sake. How many fucking pricker bushes are out here?” She found herself stuck in the middle of a thorny thistle. It wasn’t until her butt started to itch that she noticed the poison sumac. “Oh, fuckety, fuck, fuck, fuck! This is why I hate this fucking place!”
It didn’t take but mere seconds for the snowy white skin on her exposed butt cheek (except for the raging red welt, gift of the Goddess) to begin itching.
“Don’t scratch it. Don’t scratch it. Don’t scratch it. That shit will end up in your crack and then in your hooha, and fuck knows that would be a fucking disaster!”
At that moment as if summoned by some hideous and evil spirit the forest came angrily alive. Poison oak spiraled down the giant tree to her right. Poison ivy wove its way along the top of the stone wall like a mini wave of green rolling toward her. The sumac wrapped itself around her legs, twisting higher and higher.
“I will not fucking panic.” Brown puffs of magic shot from her mouth and nose. At the corner of her eye she saw billows of brownish gray-green coming from her ears.
That’s when the ground left her feet.
“You have got to be kidding me. This cannot be happening.” Visions of the hideous forest rising up around the castle in Sleeping Beauty sprung to the forefront of Jackie’s imagination when a three-inch thick branch curled itself around her waist and lifted her two full feet into the air. “Watch the prickers!” she tried ordering the thicket not to poke her, but any magic management was clearly not in the cards today.
The entire episode happened so quickly she didn’t have time to realize she wasn’t alone until Daniel spoke.
“I’m not sure what you want, but bringing the forest to life is certainly one way to get my attention.” His deep voice came from a few feet to her right and for some weird reason it made her skin tingle as if he’d slowly dragged his fingers over her naked body.
“In spite of this being completely irresponsible on your part, it’s quite impressive. We haven’t had greenery on this land in twelve years.” He held up a pretty white peony. “It’s been a wasteland. Impossible to cultivate and even harder to sell.”
“You tried to sell this place?” Jackie asked, a bit dumbfounded at the idea. While she may have been befuddled at the news, she was well aware her body was trying to take over the conversation.
She clenched every muscle from her chest to her thighs in hopes of forcing her hips to behave. Good Goddess, but the mere presence of Daniel made her body want to do things, dirty things.
“Yep. No sense in keeping it.”
“But this is your family’s land.” She gripped the vine around her waist and tried to jockey sideways, hoping to put her back to him with no success. “Your dad gave this to you when you became pack alpha. Why would you sell it?”
The thought of Daniel giving up the land that had been in his family for generations, meticulously cared for and then handed down from one generation to the next was enough to make tears form in her eyes.
“You know about me being alpha?” Daniel’s stare hardened.
“If one more person looks at me like that today, I swear I’m going to…to…to do something.” Jackie glared her meanest stare right back and hoped she could hold it without losing control of her hips for long enough to make Daniel believe she’d do something.
“How did you know? Your mom?” He shook his head. “No. You haven’t talked to her. Must have been your grandmothers.”
Jackie ignored him. Despite wanting to know how he knew about whether or not she’d spoken to her mother she had to let the conversation drop because if they got into this discussion of how she knew and what she knew, he’d find out that she knew about him dating other women, which she didn’t want him to know she knew. Some bits of information, especially the tidbits that made her cry, should remain secrets. And besides all of that, she had sworn to her grandmothers on several occasions that she would never reveal her sources.
“Why’d you try to sell the family land?” she countered.
“What’s the point to keeping it? I don’t have the family I’d planned.” He growled.
That did it. That low, deep growl and his mention of the family he’d planned combined with the sexy scents made Jackie lose all control.
The scent of the forest, green and crisp, alive and wild mingled with the rich scent of chocolate and roasted coffee beans. Dark roasted, not those light, wimpy coffees, but something like a dark Italian roast or maybe a French roast. Something strong.
“Goddess, I want coffee now,” she said, dropping her head back and taking a deep breath. “Oh, that’s so good.” Her hips gyrated so fast the vine holding her off the ground creaked.
The unfortunate response to Daniel was always the same. Jackie clamped her mouth shut and jerked to attention as fast as she could, but when he spoke again, she was lost to another episode of climatic humiliation.
“I’ve never understood your magic, but I’m always intrigued by it.” The deep rumble did things to her belly—twisty, fluttery things. Then it made those same damn things happen lower.
“My Goddess, that’s wonderful.” She dropped her head back again and relaxed in a bed of thorny branches.
She’d have ripped her clothes off too, but the fact of the matter was she had poison vines twirled around every limb and they held her body out prostrate so she really had no choice but to remain covered. “It’s just as well,” she said aloud, hips wiggling against the deliciously awful response her body was having to Daniel’s voice. “This isn’t going to end well as it is.”
“As I recall you hate unhappy endings.” The words crawled through her hair, along her scalp and over her skin.
Jackie’s mind descended into the terrible ecstasy only Daniel could provide.
Chapter Three
Jackie had no idea how long she remained suspended in a thorny thistle hammock with vines of various poison plants wrapped around her limbs. She was one hundred percent certain her hips had been pumping to the invisible touch of Daniel.
An invisible touch she was certain he had no idea he wielded. That fact made the entire event a thousand times worse than it appeared. Though, honestly, it did not look good to begin with.
How exactly does a witch explain air humping while becoming imprisoned by forest foliage? She doesn’t. She simply gets mad.
“Well, what the fuck? Are you going to help me or not?” Jackie shot a pissed-off stare at Daniel, and the moment she did she wished she hadn’t because control of her hips was very tenuous and highly questionable.
He stood against the giant oak, arms folded over his still naked, though not so sweaty chest. Now Jackie noticed the fall of dark curls
covering his chest and working their way down in a V-shaped pattern to become a thin line of hair that disappeared into the waist of his jeans.
Beautifully mismatched eyes focused on her, and that smile he always smiled, the one that tugged his mouth to the left, played with his perfectly kissable lips. She watched the way he fought to keep the smile from his mouth. She could always tell when he was trying not to laugh. Clearly, this was one of those moments.
The sight of him was pure torture. Jackie had loved him since, as you know, April 5th of fourth grade, the first day they met. That was the day his family moved back from West Virginia to Rhode Island.
Obviously, he wasn’t muscular or sexy or half-naked that day. But Jackie loved his scrawny, quiet ass. Well, that may have been before she’d have described how she felt by saying she loved his ass.
The fact was she loved him the very moment she met him. At that time he only smelled like the forest. The chocolate and coffee scents came later. Puberty brought out the food-flavored aromas that were all man, wolf-man.
From the age of fourteen on, any time Daniel was around Jackie was hungry for one thing or another. Thank the Goddess for witch metabolisms because she’d have been a nine hundred pound ninth grader if she’d been human.
In high school he smelled fabulous. He looked adorable. But, as noted before he was a scrawny fellow. Not that Jackie minded scrawny. Actually, generally speaking Jackie was not attracted to scrawny men. In fact, she rarely noticed them other than to comment about the fact she was certain she might be able to kick an ass or two. But in terms of any sexual attraction, there was none when it came to scrawny men.
Daniel was the only one. The reality was Daniel could have been a literal ape and Jackie would have been attracted to him.
This was a fact she spoke to no one. Not a soul. She hated herself for it. How on earth was it possible for her to be so attracted to anyone, especially someone who was the crux of every humiliating moment of her life?
“So, you can’t undo this?” he asked.
Jackie tapped her feet as if listening to some tune, probably “The Witch Doctor” by Sha Na Na. “Are you always going to be an asshole?” She rolled her head to the side to look at him.
“How would I know you can’t undo this?” He glanced downward as if studying the bush directly below her. “It’s been twelve years since the last time we saw each other, or spoke to each other, or anything else with each other.” That last phrase was more a growl than words, which had the unfortunate affect of turning Jackie to air-humping putty.
Her hips thrust up and down, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not get them to stop until she had finished, and by finished she meant F-I-N-I-S-H-E-D with a moan, a groan, and a head toss that made the thorny branch jostle and nearly drop her.
“For fuck sake, stop that!” She gritted her teeth and glared at the sky because there was no way in hell she was looking at him again.
“Twelve years is a long time.” He moved close enough that Jackie could feel the heat from his body. “Maybe in twelve years you’ve come to terms with your skills. Maybe you’ve mastered your craft.” His breath puffed against her neck.
Tingles raced along Jackie’s skin. Goose bumps shot from her neck down her chest to her breasts, and her nipples rose to perky little pebbles that practically screamed to be touched.
Daniel had to be stopped. Jackie could not allow him to turn her into an air-humping moron. Go for the jugular. That was what they always said, right? She’d just give it right back!
“Oh, yeah? You’d think that maybe in twelve years you’d have mastered your, your, you know what you could have mastered.” It was a lame attempt, and Jackie knew it. But, to be fair, Daniel was standing rather close and looking at her, looking at her the way starving men looked at steaks, or so Jackie imagined.
The wind kicked up sending a frigid breeze whipping about. It didn’t matter. February in Rhode Island with blustery cold weather had no chance of cooling Jackie’s flaming desire. It was like bringing a beach pail full of air to a bonfire. No chance in quelling this newly unleashed need.
Daniel swiped Jackie’s long brown hair from her neck. “Oh, I’ve mastered several things while you were away.” His lips came to her skin. His tongue swirled a circle. His teeth nipped.
Her body bucked in the air, and for a very brief second she pictured herself in an asylum unable to explain why she couldn’t stop air humping every time she thought of Daniel.
“Are you going to get me down so we can get on with this or are you going to torture me until I’m insane?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. When his lips came from her skin, she turned her head and crushed her mouth to his.
The kiss was better than she remembered. Deeper. Softer. Harder. Perfect. He kissed like a man who wanted more than a fuck. He wanted her. All of her, and Jackie was terrified.
“Wait. No. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” She fought with the poison vine holding her wrist, trying to get a grip on Daniel.
“No? How is it supposed to be then?” He ripped the vines from all four of her limbs and snapped the branch holding her suspended. “Am I to set you free and simply walk away.”
Jackie clung to Daniel, arms and legs wrapped tight around him. Her lips came to his so fast she couldn’t begin to form an answer. It felt so much better to grind her body against his instead of into the air. She thought about how wonderful it would be to feel him inside her again.
She broke the kiss. “We should stop this. It’s gone too far already.”
“If that’s what you want.” His arms opened up and he stood perfectly still. “I won’t try to stop you from leaving this time.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jackie jumped down from him, half-pissed and half-dazed by the perfection of the moment.
She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, shoving them down his thighs. That’s when she noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes. “Aren’t you cold?”
It was a stupid question based on how erect everything stood. Daniel had grown considerably since last she’d seen him, and Jackie was delighted.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “No. Werewolf, remember?”
Before she could nod a response, because at this point words were out of the question, he’d ripped her shirt, bra, and jeans from her body. Still stunned Jackie couldn’t think to remind him she was for all intents and purposes, still human so she was cold being naked in February in the woods.
One surefire way to keep the frostbite away was to cuddle up with a big, hot werewolf.
She hopped back up into his open arms and in seconds found her back against a giant oak tree and the man she’d loved for nearly twenty years making crazy love to her once again.
Shit. This fucking visit was far more complicated than she needed.
Chapter Four
Three hours later Jackie stood under a hot stream of water in Daniel’s shower, scrubbing a soapy washcloth over her skin and praying the Goddess would have some mercy on her.
“Please do not let there be any poison anything inside my hooha. Puhlease!” Could there be a worse punishment? No. Absolutely not. Not even having to explain why every tulip in Mrs. Auberchon’s award-winning garden shrank, recoiling back into the bulb wasn’t worse than poison in the hooha.
So far it had been one hell of a day—from being ripped out of bed, dressed in a 1980s Madonna costume, teleported to Zelda’s for a humiliating review of her inept witch crafting, then sent to “help” Daniel Ridgeback, ass zapped twice, attacked by the forest, to being sexed by the object of her every fantasy until she had to be carried back to the house because her legs were too rubbery to work.
Jackie would have loved to say the day was looking up, but the truth was being anywhere near Daniel was not where she wanted to be. She didn’t trust him or herself. She didn’t want to trust him or be with him or touch him, though she did really, really like the touching, which was far more dangerous for her fragile heart than poison ivy was for h
er hooha.
After all, irritated rashes healed. Hearts broken to a bazillion pieces could not be mended. Ever. This she already knew.
The best plan of action was to figure out how she was to help Daniel and then get the hell out of town. Clearly, he had some land issues. Obviously, Baba Yaga had a cruel sense of humor. How else could anyone think of the punishment of sending Jackie, an inept creator witch, to help Daniel, the man she loved but couldn’t stand to be around?
“Hey, I think I’m done with this assignment.” She rinsed the shampoo from her hair. “He said his land had been dead. I’ve brought it back to life. I’ll just teleport bac—”
The water sizzled along her skin, sending larger than tiny, but much smaller than bolts of energy, whizzing over her body.
“Fine! I won’t leave, but for the record, I have fixed his land, even if I didn’t mean to and don’t know how it happened.” She dried off as fast as she could because it was true that water was an excellent conductor of electricity.
Finding three lime green suitcases sitting in Daniel’s bedroom was a pleasant surprise. “Even Cousin Carol’s taste in traveling bags is hideous.” She opened the biggest one and found, thank the Goddess, her own clothes neatly folded.
Pulling out a pair of jeans and a soft, fluffy teal sweater with coordinating socks must have meant the day was heading in the right direction.
Finding six sets of matching bras and panties in an array of colors and fabrics she had not purchased meant Baba Yaga clearly had an agenda for Jackie. “Well, these are all new.” She held up a hot pink lacey set. “At least she has nice taste in underwear.”
Getting dressed and snooping around the room didn’t take very long. Even opening every drawer in the dresser, nightstand, and desk as well as searching the closet and under the bed didn’t occupy more than fifteen minutes of her time.
Magic and Mayhem: The Witch, The Weeds, and The Were (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Spaghetti Romance Book 1) Page 2
