by Susan Arden
With his damp dark hair combed back and freshly shaven face, his square jaw was even more pronounced. She seriously had to force her gaze elsewhere if she didn’t want to stare a hole through him.
“Coffee is almost ready” she announced and rose, crossing the plush carpet of her office.
“I should just open a vein.” His watchful eyes followed her, making her racing heart beat that much faster. “What’s got you biting down on that lush lip of yours so early in the day?”
“Staff.”
Quinn walked around her desk and peered down at her screen. “Stud books? On the pull?”
“Please. Have you gone daft? We already discussed my dating habits.”
“No harm if you’re looking out of self-interest? I can recommend a couple but honestly, there’s only one stud who can take care of your needs. Wouldn’t you agree?”
From her chest upward, heat surge and in turn he chuckled licentiously. There was no sense arguing. He ate up whenever she argued back; worse, like right this second when he made her blush.
With a mug in hand, she focused on pouring the steaming coffee. “Get serious. I had to let one from our active rooster go. Now, I’m scrambling. Karpunia is a tiger. Not an easy match if things get rambunctious. Staff working the floor must be for sure low ranking betas.”
“Mind if I click out. Those you tentatively highlighted are cagey. Their strong natures aren’t in synch with the client. Controlling the evening requires a light touch. I’ll need a couple of bangers that can keep things moving in the right direction, since you’d like me to take second chair. Does that mean you’ll be around when… things start to heat up?”
“I think not. Here,” she said, setting his mug down on the desk. In the evenings, she worked at maintaining the shields. She told Quinn she went to the gym. It was her cover. “I work the morning. I’m sure Sonya is perfectly capable of tending to the Karpunia’s get-together.”
“If we find the right match. Otherwise I’ll deal.”
“I’ve never understood how you can step in when a beta is needed?”
“Ah, an alpha doesn’t rank above me. So it’s a simple matter to keep control. Everyone cooperates. You’d have to be there to understand.” He arched a brow.
Her stomach plummeted at his innuendo and the thought of all the naked bodies he had enjoyed and might soon enjoy. Suddenly, she was very bothered by the thought he could find comfort in another woman’s arms.
No. She wasn’t going to fall because he potentially—more than likely—might break his word. She backed up, seeking safer, less confusing ground. “Have at it if you think you can find the right man.”
“Honored. I just might prove my worth after all.” She knew he wasn’t lying. Whatever he did, he was masterful. Lawyering, finding new business ventures, heck he was even a wiz at rugby.
And then there were his whirlwind social skills. In a pinch, Quinn could easily show up at the party and take over, both in crowd control and orchestrating an event that would rock. This was his thing. She wondered how many times he’d gotten in on the action in these private affairs. The coffee in her stomach soured at the thought.
Quinn turned back to the screen and sank down in her chair. She couldn’t tear her gaze from his profile and watched mesmerized. He clicked into the records, a muscle twitching along his jaw, and his eyes tracking across the screen. He took a sip of the coffee and flashed his eyes over the rim of his mug at her. Their gazes locked and the jolt of connection was palpable. A searing dart to her chest could not have been pierced deeper. A growl emanated from his chest up through his throat. Primal.
Quinn’s overt masculinity assailed her senses. His scent and the intense way he regarded her sent unwelcome waves of excitement through her body. When had that started? She’d known him for almost two years and had maintained her cool. This had to be some sort of hormonal imbalance from being overworked. She needed a vacation and soon.
“You have an idea?” she asked, pretending to move rather than tremble like a mindless lamb before a wolf.
“A few,” he smirked. Ever since Quinn had stalked into her office, the space had shrunk immensely, and she guarded each of her movements. She stared back at him, unwilling to act like she was the least bit affected.
“If you honestly still believe I can read your mind, you’ll be sadly disappointed.”
“Pity. I’d love your opinion on a few issues. But to prove I’m not a total tosser, I can converse like a regular bloke. The coffee tastes as smooth as satin. Thanks, Sher.” He smiled, the type that reached up into his eyes making the reddish glow flicker. No less predatory, if anything more focused and contemplating. Her body tingled under his heated perusal.
“Choices? Do you see any possibilities?” She grasped her mug between both of her hands. It was all she could do to remain leaning against the counter, especially when his stare broke hers and traveled down her body. Quinn made no effort to hide his study of her legs and swung his glance back to meet hers when he was good and ready, which felt like hours.
“Oh yeah. I see a wealth of possibilities,” he said in a low and sure voice. “Try Redlings. He’s a switch hitter and panther. Sense of humor that doesn’t quit and can talk about virtually any subject. Your thoughts?” He languidly pushed back in her chair.
In a second, he’d dive into her turf and she was pleased to have something to cling to besides Quinn’s overpowering sexuality.
“Are you certain?” she asked. “Whenever I’ve had a conversation with him, he’s as quiet as a mouse. Let me see his report from last week. He’s new to LoDo and from what I gathered a nice, country boy. Some cow county in Texas?”
“Dickson to be exact. That’s a positive. Fresh. Booked a week out it looks like. We can move appointments around. No major. From what I can tell, he’s no country boy but a capable cowboy in the saddle. He might turn out to be one of your best Doms, if he is trained right.”
“I’m not against him. Far from it.” This was her turf. Her staff. Sherry came up to her desk, standing next to Quinn, and peered down at the screen. “Impressive. I’ll see that he’s on track.”
“On track. You’d better hurry. He has been booked every night for the past week, sometimes twice or three times.”
“Whatever that cowboy brought from his hometown is in hot demand. And you’re versed in his numbers because?”
Quinn cocked an eyebrow at her. She forced herself to stop running, and gave into her frenzied desire to lean into him. She met his tawny-colored eyes and the breath froze in her chest. His predator expression was all consuming, trapping her, and all she could do was stare back. She sensed something primitive going on between them.
“I can read our daily profit and loss reports without tripping,” he said wryly, the corners of his lips curling. He set his cup down on her desk.
“I didn’t mean—” she began.
Quinn’s reflexes were lightning fast. In a flash, he was up on his feet and had positioned his hands on either side of her waist. “Damn, you try the patience of Job.”
Pivoting her so that she rested against the edge of her desk, he stepped over her feet so that he straddled her legs. She pressed her hands on his chest, absorbing the steady beat of his heart.
“It hasn’t been a week yet,” she whispered. He was coming for her and she wanted him to sweep her up, kiss her, own her and make her forget the reasons why she sequestered the decadent side of her nature.
Worse, she wanted to feel his strong hands on her skin, wedging open her legs, and taking smug possession of her body the way he did everything in life. So powerful was the wild desire to have him thrusting into her body, she trembled seeing the future play out with her on top of the desk and him rocking his hips still wearing his jacket, shirt and tie. So close, so close, so close it was either lift her skirt or do the unthinkable. To open that door would spell trouble with a capital “T.”
“It feels like an eternity.” Qui
nn’s fingers wrapped around her hips. “Sher, what is going on this morning between us? This isn’t sheer compulsion.”
“I don’t know what to say.” She couldn’t put into words everything she’d felt. It might be her imagination. Lust. A bad case of sushi she’d eaten last night. That did not explain his interest… other than that he was a wolf.
Maybe she exuded some scent. Wolves had incredible senses. Unbelievable strength in some species. His fingers dug into her hips, and lust pooled in her body, a warm glow, and hard as she tried to discount possible reasons it all boiled down to the look in Quinn’s eyes. Intense. He stole her next breath. No one had ever had this effect.
“Then tell me to stop. Tell me this is ludicrous. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You are wrong. I’m wrong. But together this seems… right,” she murmured. “I mean you’re right.”
They both were being fueled with a sensual energy too strong to resist. A wrecking ball did not have this much force. Quinn’s hands blazed hot and hotter across her skin. She opened her legs. She wanted him to touch to her, make her fantasy real, but that came with a cost. One she couldn’t afford.
One choice and Sherry took it, her fingers worked the magical hand gestures while her tongue formed the ancient syllables without releasing a sound. “Li-be-ra.” Her mind echoed the syllables, loud and louder.
Quinn’s fingers were lifting her skirt, caressing the skin of her thigh, edging up the garter she wore. “Figures you’d be wearing sexy as hell—”
In the very next instant the energy cementing the particles of her body together abated and she rapidly focused her mental acumen across the room. Only the molecules from her body were attuned to this vibration that hovered in a point tinier than the tip of pin. This type of focused conjuring took up all her concentration. Time, as most beings on Earth perceived, waffled and with ancient incantations she could walk in between the realms of existence, gliding through a shimmering doorway that opened to her.
Today, she reconfigured her physical being in the time it took Quinn to blink. A sweep of his lashes and she was gone. From being pressed up against him, she’d slipped into an offshoot of the ley highway, and moved what seemed like a few inches. Then back through a ley energy portal. A doorway of sorts. Puff. It was as though she’d morphed across the room, and stood in front of the wet bar.
A look of shock spread across his face instead of hers. She’d slipped from his grip without so much as a twitch of her muscle. It was volition and she’d not conjured to relocate a body in space in years while a witness was around. Well, except for yesterday. Twice in less than twenty-four hours. Shit!
Pressing her hands to her forehead, she wiped her fingers over her brows. Jeez, she had not needed to use her powers for her personal use until this moment when she thought she would succumb to Quinn’s advances. Her body radiated from the energetic reconfiguration. She chanced a speedy glance down her body to verify she’d gotten it right. Nothing backward, missing, or an additional appendages coming through a portal. Sherry wiggled her fingers just a slight assurance that things were working as she remembered.
Then she heard. “What the fuck?”
Oh yeah, it was about to rain down buckets of disbelief. “Please. Hear me out.”
“What in the world are you capable of Sher?” Quinn took a step toward her with his palms facing up. “I’ve never had a woman want to escape from my embrace to the point of dissolving into thin air. What the hell just happened?”
“It wasn’t dissolving. What I mean is I didn’t dissolve. Merely transferred my physical presence. From one reality into another, and then back. Time and space aren’t rigid. It’s physics… not fantasy.”
“Physics, my arse,” he swore. “You and I need to talk. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know you and I have more to discuss than financial reports and who’s on first base at some bachelor party. Is this what you do when you’re off from work?”
“Don’t get excited. I haven’t done anything like that in years. If you discount yesterday.” She waved her hands at the confusion blanketing his face. “Look, it just happened. Please, Quinn, can we just forget it. I promise it won’t happen again. You’re overreacting and considering you’re a shifter, that’s rather provincial wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh so, it’s okay for you to bend the rules. I should have known you weren’t as tight-laced as you pretend. I do respond to a simple ‘no’ from a lady.” Glowering, he picked up his mug of coffee and took a long slow sip, eyeing her over the rim. After shaking his head, he moved from his position at her desk. “Here, take your seat back. I don’t want to force you into another disappearing act.”
The tension had ratcheted way up between them. She considered for a moment how unusual her little stunt was on a scale of one to ten. If he were a regular guy, one hundred and ten. But he was Lycan for Christ’s sake and off the charts on many issues. Still, what she did kinda rocked. Was it an eleven in his world? More likely a twelve. No wonder Quinn stared at her without blinking.
She arched a brow. “Don’t you do something of the sort? I mean shifting is pretty much the same.”
“Doll, vanishing into thin air is hardly the same. Now you see me, now you don’t. No. Sherry. Guess again.”
It wasn’t exactly disappearing. Not that she couldn’t. But that was downright crass. Bodies changing from human to primal form was no different than a welt rising and falling in her mind. Shifters’ contorting forms were accepted on certain limited terms by humans. That was one reason why the Downtown Den existed, giving all sorts of shapeshifters a place to go when their urge to hunt and mate became unbearable. Why did he continue to stare at her with such a look of utter disbelief?
“Don’t treat me like you’ve had your face slapped. I felt trapped is all. I’m not some carnival act. Are you going to pretend you don’t know about spellcasters.”
His jaw dropped. “Really. Well that explains so very much about you.” His eyebrow quirked, his whole arrogant manner egged her on.
“You’ve an overpowering way about you. I’m not ready to… have sex. In my office,” she quickly added.
“I wasn’t going to ravage you. From your moans, you seemed pretty fired up. And all this time, you’re a spellcaster. I wished you’d told me sooner.”
She refused to tap into his awareness. That would be grounds for a resounding lecture by the Sisterhood Council in protocol. “I bet you’re thinking, is that how I get so much done? Don’t bother. I’ve heard it all. Really, Quinn. Is that how you’ve been accepted? Like a freak of nature?”
“No,” he said in low voice.
“Liar. Some of those so-called normal people treat shifters with disdain. My God how can you forget the laws in place, ordinances that dictate no public shifting permitted in city limits? How does that make you feel?”
Shawn headed a newly formed justice council designed to effectively provide shifters with the means to address civic concerns without resorting to violence. Nascent in terms of existence, but each state now had a justice council thanks to Shawn’s clan. Even Quinn was intrinsic to the running of the justice council and being a well-versed attorney. She knew the law. He ate, slept, and worked the law. She crossed her arms over her chest, and clenched her jaw.
“You’ve got the wrong idea. Way off base. I’m just in shock. I’d thought you were…a woman.”
“I am,” she snapped. “I’m just a little different. I’m… a spellcaster. Third level.” There she’d said it. The truth she’d kept bottled up for years. She struggled to stop from shouting the words. But in the end, the truth came out a soft whisper. “A regular conjurer working nine-to-five.”
“Excuse me. You’re what?” he roared. “Jesus H. Christ! Full-blooded. I thought you meant you had a great-great-great aunt somewhere in your lineage. Let me see the mark. To prove you’re a full-blooded spellcaster. I know there’s a secret mark.”
“Stop shouting. Is that so hard
to believe?”
“In a word. Yes!”
“What you think I’m not capable?” This was insane, yet how could she turn back when he had her so riled. She tugged her blouse from the waist of her skirt and lifted, peeling down the waistband down displaying the iridescent line that had become redder today.
“That’s not what I expected. Why don’t you have a tattoo?”
“No tattoo or branding.” She had an angry looking scar. “At times it bleeds, but not right now. Happy?”
“An altered type of stigmata.” He whispered, racking a hand through his hair. “Don’t you belong in an abbey or some Covent? I thought your kind weren’t allowed to roam free. Aren’t you supposed to be kept under lock and key?”
“False, Einstein,” she said. “There aren’t any rules for my kind as you so adroitly phrased it.” Obviously, he knew something of conjurers. Her kind existed for as long as mankind, if not longer minus the royally decreed pedigree. “Honestly, Quinn, I thought you of all beings would understand. A Lycan. And talk about throwing stones? You’ve heaving boulders. This is just freaking great.”
He paced in front of her desk, every now and then glancing over at her. “Sherry, you first evaporate right before we’re about to… you know. And then, you spring this revelation on me. Sure, I’ve had to deal with hatred as a shifter, a Lycan, for a hell of a long time. This is simple shock. I don’t think we’ve gone through all the same issues. Your type of spellcasters don’t make themselves known. This is a revelation on several levels, doll.”
“Then you know why I don’t go around and blare this out to everyone. You’ve lived with prejudice. I also understand firsthand hatred. It’s the reason we’re under the radar. People talk of magic. Hocus pocus. Sorcery. Let’s not forget the quacks. That’s what’s sold down on Market Street. In those sordid shops where fakes read tarot cards to predict the future. Casters manifest energy. Short and simple. This isn’t a rabbit coming out of a hat. Only the knowledge of the physical world coupled with ancient incantations and my spiritual faith.”
