“Wouldn’t anyone notice your absence and start investigating?” Grace asked. She was drawn to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into the walls, all crammed with books. Some were related to music, others magic. Paperback novels filled a couple of shelves—it looked like Emric was partial to military thrillers. She spotted some cookbooks and others about aromatherapy, a little bit of everything.
“I don’t know,” Emric said. “My family would have given me a shout if I’d been gone too long, but it was less than a month. None of my services have been cut off and I didn’t have any urgent emails when I checked my phone. I don’t think I was a cat long enough for anyone to get too worried.”
“Did she take any of your potions?”
Emric crossed the room and pushed an oil painting aside, revealing a safe.
“That’s so cool,” said Grace appreciatively as he spun the dial. He opened it and looked inside.
“No,” he said. “Everything’s here that should be. I don’t keep anything dangerous here since I don’t deal with it.” He closed the safe and replaced the painting.
“Who’s the artist?”
“My grandmother,” he said. “The German one.”
It was a snowy landscape. The subject reminded Grace of the work her night school students produced from when she taught courses at the local community college, although the technique was very good. “It’s lovely.”
“It was her favorite hobby.” He led her out of the office and opened the door to the room across the hall. “This is my bedroom.”
It hadn’t been destroyed, to the surprise of both. The walls were painted a deep-green, matching the gray and green bedcovers. Grace felt her face heat when she looked at the bed. It was huge and inviting. When she looked at Emric, she could tell he knew what she was thinking.
But there was interest in his eyes, too. Or at least she hoped that was what she saw. She would be mortified beyond belief if she was misreading this whole situation.
She’d kissed him before. She could do it again.
She summoned her courage and tilted her face up, but was surprised when Emric touched her face instead, fingers skimming over her features as if he wanted to memorize them. Her breath caught in her throat at the contact. She hadn’t known until that moment how much she wanted it.
“So, this has been kind of a weird day,” Emric said.
“Yeah, no shit.”
“I didn’t bring you in here to start something,” he said. “I mean that.”
“It’s okay,” Grace said. Heart pounding, she decided she may as well be honest. “But I was hoping you would.”
There was a playful sparkle in Emric’s eyes. “And if I hadn’t?”
“Then I would have.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and brought him closer to her, pressing her mouth to his. He responded immediately, tongue teasing her lips apart and demanding entry. The sensation left her a little lightheaded.
Oh, this was so much better than that kiss back at her condo.
She banished that memory from her mind, not wanting to think about what had prompted that. So instead, she let him lift her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, and carry her over to the bed. He set her down at the head of the bed, then followed.
He found the sensitive spot behind her ear and feathered small kisses over it and down her throat, fingers plucking at her black and gray-striped cardigan buttons. He slid it down her arms and tossed it aside, revealing her simple black tank top, then pressed his lips against her collarbones.
It was a small gesture, but one that sent Grace’s already sensitive nerves on high alert. She wanted this man, and had since he transformed from a black and white cat on her bedroom floor in the middle of the night. And when Emric’s green eyes met hers, she saw that same desire reflected there.
She tugged at his shirt, pulled it over his head, and threw it wherever her cardigan had landed. Her fingers worked the buttons on his jeans and she impatiently pushed some of the fabric away, wanting to feel his skin against hers.
He chuckled in her ear. “I guess you don’t want this to be romantic.”
“No,” said Grace, her voice a breathy whisper. “But next time can be.”
Emric’s hands pulled at the button on her black jeans and he shimmied them down her legs. She stripped off her tank top and shivered under Emric’s appreciative gaze. “Your turn,” she said.
“But you’re not naked yet.”
“Let’s get you as undressed as I am and then I’ll take off my bra, okay?”
“It’s a deal.” He peeled off his shirt and shucked off his jeans. He leaned over her, hands on either side of her head. “Okay, you promised.”
She gave an exaggerated sigh and unclasped her bra. His dark head bent down and he took one stiff nipple in his mouth, then the other, and she arched her back, a harsh gasp escaping her. Her legs fell open, cradling his hips, as he rocked his erection against her. She reached down between their bodies and stroked it through his underwear, eliciting a hiss from him.
“Oh, gods,” he said into her neck. “You weren’t kidding about this not being romantic.”
Grace moved her hands and framed his face in her hands. “Emric,” she said. “No more talking.”
Neither of them mentioned it, but the possibility of being tracked down by a lunatic witch later on was on her mind and probably his, as well. If she was going to be zapped by a crazy spellcaster and changed into a cat, or wherever Maisy wanted to do to them, she didn’t want to be relegated to feline status without having these moments with Emric first.
Emric moved away from her long enough to reach for the nightstand next to her. He opened the drawer and rifled through it, coming up with a condom, while Grace slipped off her panties. She pulled at the waistband of Emric’s underwear and he pushed them down his hips and away. She stroked the thick length of his cock, enjoying the shudder of pleasure that reverberated through his body at the contact.
He stilled her hand. “One minute, Grace.”
He quickly rolled on the condom, then settled over her. She sighed in pleasure and locked her fingers around his neck. It was her turn to shudder when the head of his cock probed her entrance and she relaxed, wrapping one leg around him as he pushed inside her.
His thrusts were urgent and she was already on the verge of combusting. All too soon, she felt herself light up like a firework, Emric’s name on her lips as a full-body orgasm tore through her.
Emric’s eyes met hers, his movements picking up speed, and she knew he was close, too. He came with a roar muffled by his face against her hair, finally sagging against her. She was happy to stay there, could stay like that forever, feeling his heart beat in a rapid tattoo against her.
He spoke first. “Grace,” he said. “You were right before. We have to do this again.”
Chapter Five
It would have been so easy to doze off, but Emric didn’t. Instead, he nuzzled Grace’s shoulder. “Hungry?”
“After that workout I am,” said Grace. She sat up in bed and stretched. “Should we get started on that swordfish?”
“Definitely.”
It was already dark, and even though he was looking forward to dinner, any distractions had to be placed at the wayside. Maisy was going to show up, sooner or later, and while he was on familiar territory, he had to think of Grace’s safety.
Grace helped herself to one of his T-shirts and his bathrobe. “Now it’s my turn to wear your stuff,” she said.
He stepped into a pair of track pants. “Yeah, but your robe smelled good. Like your body wash.”
They went downstairs and Emric checked the wards guarding his home. He couldn’t sense anything other than the local wildlife when he cast that spell, but it didn’t set his mind at ease.
He was pleased to see a text from Claudia James, the leader of the local coven.
Got your voicemail! I hope all is well with you, I’ll drop by later tonight after I’ve put the kids to bed.<
br />
That was what he got for being vague with voicemails. He should have just said outright that Maisy was nuts and turned him into a cat, any government eavesdroppers be damned. He sighed and reread the text message. “Do you mind if I make a call?” he asked Grace.
“Of course not. I’ll get started on the potatoes.”
He kept the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder as he rinsed the broccoli and set it aside. Grace looked incredibly happy and content as she worked, even though there was a madwoman after them.
With the exception of the madwoman, he could get used to that picture.
He reached Claudia’s voicemail again. “Damn,” he said under his breath at the sound of her canned greeting. “Claudia, it’s Emric again,” he said at the beep. “I got your text. I didn’t go into a lot of detail with my last voicemail, but this is important and you need to hear it. Your coven member Maisy … altered me.” He winced and Grace giggled. He was thinking of the way Grace was going to have him “altered” prior to shifting back to human. “I’m not sure how to go describe it over the phone, but she changed me and kept me in that state for nearly a month and I only just now broke her curse and arrived home. It’s very important that I see you at my house as soon as possible. I’m not usually one to tell people how to do their jobs, but Maisy needs to be dealt with for this. Thanks.” He ended the call and stuck the phone in his pants pocket.
“Do you have any rosemary?” Grace asked.
“Sure.” Emric opened a cupboard door and handed her a small bottle. She sprinkled it over the cubed potatoes she had spread out on a baking sheet. He pulled out a large pot and colander to steam the broccoli, then a saucepan for the swordfish.
He liked this, working side-by-side with her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d clicked with someone like this, and he knew it wasn’t just because she picked him out at the animal shelter. It was insanity, and completely out-of-character for him, but he knew they had something special between them. And judging from the knowing, almost-shy looks she kept sending his way, he knew she felt the same.
They’d had a hell of a day and still liked each other. Curses breaking and running into meddling exes hadn’t dampened the spark that sizzled between them.
Still, it was nice to sit down at the kitchen table with their meal. Emric found an unopened bottle of white wine in the fridge that he’d been saving for a special occasion and poured them both glasses.
Grace’s eyes sparkled from across the table. “I know this has been said a million times, but I don’t usually do this.”
“Eat dinner?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t usually jump into bed with someone I just met, let alone someone who was a cat the day before.”
“That’s okay,” Emric said. “Neither do I.”
“I think the threat of violence is something of an aphrodisiac. Do you experience that a lot?”
“Violent witches? Nah,” he said. “Most magic folk are pretty peaceful and just want to live their lives. Maisy’s an exception. And I agree with you about the threat of violence being an aphrodisiac. But mostly it’s you.”
She blushed fiercely. “I guess I’m not that boring after all.”
“Grace,” he said, urgency in his voice. “You aren’t boring at all, and I’m going to keep telling you that as long as I have to.”
Before he could expand on that, he felt something push at the wards he’d erected around his home, and he immediately rose to his feet. “Shit,” he said quietly and quickly strode through the house to the living room window. From there, he could see the headlights of a familiar car. “Maisy’s here,” he said and jumped when Grace touched his shoulder.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I have the house warded so she won’t be able to break in here too easily.”
“Can you cast a freezing spell again?”
“I have to be closer to her than I am now to do that, so I’d rather not.” He reached for his phone and punched in Claudia James’s number again. “Claudia,” he said when her voicemail message picked up. “It’s Emric again. Maisy just showed up and … aw, damn it.” The porch light revealed Maisy was out of the car, wand in hand. “She’s casting spells to try to get in. Claudia, I really need your help right now.” He ended the call and turned to Grace. “We’re destroying that grimoire right now.” He wistfully thought of the meal that was still waiting for them in the kitchen, but the grimoire issue needed to be dealt with. The circumstances weren’t exactly ideal—Emric would have preferred to barbecue the damn thing under the light of a full moon—but he could still effectively destroy it, even though it meant making more of a mess than he wanted.
“Come on upstairs,” he said. “We’ll burn it in the bathtub.” It was going to be a massive pain in the ass to clean up the old-fashioned claw-foot tub’s finish, but he didn’t have a choice at this point. Maisy wasn’t afraid to use dark magic to get her way.
Grace followed Emric up the stairs to the bathroom. He retrieved the grimoire and a box of matches from his office. Then he dug through his medicine cabinet, looking for something flammable to help move things along. “Aha!” he said and held up a bottle of isopropyl alcohol.
“Won’t that make everything here explode in a fireball?”
“It’s a controlled burn,” he said. He tossed the ancient book in the bathtub and generously poured some of the alcohol over it. His grandmother would be appalled to see such a thing, although he didn’t know if she would be angrier over the grimoire’s destruction or the damage to the bathtub. “And I didn’t want to waste the wine.”
“I’m going to have to trust you on that,” Grace said.
Emric lit a match and tossed it on the grimoire. Orange flames soared from the bathtub and both he and Grace stepped back, nearly getting stuck in the bathroom doorway. The flames quickly settled down but shifted in hue to an eerie green color as the grimoire burned.
He ventured back into the bathroom to peer into the tub. The grimoire was burning, but slowly. The stupid thing was enchanted. It was going to take longer than it would for a normal book to disintegrate into ash.
He heard pounding at the front door. Had Maisy given up, or was she now just trying to break it down? It was warded, so they had some time, but Emric had underestimated her power. She’d been able to get through the wards he erected around his property with little resistance.
The grimoire’s cover curled in the green flames, then the pages. He let go of a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. It was finally starting to really burn.
He felt something tear through the house, as tangible as a gust of freezing cold air. He glanced back at Grace, still in the bathroom doorway, and knew she felt it, too. Her eyes were wide with fright, and he thought she might actually be able to hear the thud of his heart. Where had Maisy picked up that kind of spell?
Something rattled and shook the house. Emric thought it might actually affect its foundation. “Shit,” he said.
Part of him wanted to go downstairs and open the door, launch one of his own spells at Maisy. Consequences be damned, this had to end. He hoped more than anything that Claudia or one of the other coven members would get in touch, or just show up, because he needed more help than he’d originally thought.
The grimoire started to disintegrate, chunks of it collapsing into ash at the bottom of the tub. He mentally willed it to burn faster. “Come on,” he said at the fire.
“Emric?” said Grace. “I think the door’s opening.”
“Fuck!” He whirled around and moved past her to his office. He retrieved his favorite wand. “Stay here,” he said. “When the flames have gone out, turn on the taps and wash them down the drain. Do not touch them,” he said.
She nodded, eyes huge on her face. He quickly kissed her, hoping both of them were going to be okay through all of this.
He nearly tripped in his haste down the stairs and he waited at the front door. He could already feel his
wards weakening and he chanted a spell to keep them functional just a little longer. He checked his phone for a reply from Claudia, and his spirits were lifted a little at the text message on the screen.
On my way.
The timestamp was ten minutes ago. He hadn’t even felt the phone vibrate in the hurry to destroy the grimoire.
“Emric?” Maisy’s voice was as angry as he expected through the front door. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Open up!”
“Fuck you!” he shouted.
He could hear chanting on the other side of the door, and he countered it with a spell of his own to maintain the wards. He tried casting a spell to freeze her in place as he’d done at Grace’s condo, but it fell flat.
How the hell had Maisy done that?
A chill slithered over his skin at his realization that he’d truly underestimated her, as had the local coven. Maisy wasn’t a run-of-the-mill witch. He wasn’t sure what she was, but as he racked his brain for all of the protection spells he knew, he couldn’t think of a way to keep her at bay much longer.
The door burst open so hard it left a dent in the wall. Emric heard Grace scream upstairs.
Maisy’s eyes blazed, and she seemed to fill the entire doorway despite her smaller size. Emric raised his wand and said a quick spell to keep her from walking any further into the house, at least for a few minutes, and it worked. He breathed a small sigh of relief, but he knew the effect was temporary.
“What the hell are you?” he asked. The sound of water running upstairs granted him another small measure of relief.
The grimoire was destroyed. Maisy had no reason to continue her campaign of threats and violence.
At least, he hoped she would give up.
Maisy’s features shifted a little, but she didn’t reply. But that was all it took to answer Emric’s question.
Dear gods, she’s some kind of minor demon.
He’d been hoodwinked by a demon. The entire coven had been. “Fuck!” he said.
“The grimoire,” Maisy said. Her voice had changed, taking on a slithery feature. “Where it is?”
Her Purrfect Match (Romance on the Go Book 0) Page 4
