Angie Fox: Gentlemen Prefer Voodoo

The air was thick and warm. She inhaled deeply, letting peace wash over her. To anyone else, this might have looked like a highly organized, if unusual, storage room, but to her, it was a special place. Here, she was surrounded by the things she loved.

The crickets had begun to chirp outside. Paired with the earthy bubbling of Isoke’s hot tub swamp, Amie almost felt like she was back in her grandmother’s old stilted house on the bayou.

Amie focused on the affection she felt for her mother, her grandmother, and all her ancestors. These women had passed along their power, their strength, their passion—their love.

Love.

Amie lit the fat red altar candles.

She relaxed, letting her mind take her where she needed to be. She saw her perfect man—cultured and refined. He was lean yet strong. He was passionate, determined. He wouldn’t drink to excess, like her mother’s men had. He wouldn’t lie, cheat, steal. He wouldn’t leave. No, he would wrap his strong arms around her and keep her safe. She could almost see him in her mind. Almost. It was as though he was barely out of reach.

Amie cracked open one eye. The spell would work better if she were naked. Amie wasn’t particularly fond of stripping in her storage room. But if she was serious about finding the right kind of love—and she was…

She adjusted the altar candles, tested the weight of her crystals, her stomach twisting with indecision. She was stalling and she knew it.

Slowly, her fingers trailed down her sides and found the edge of her cami top. Her breath hitched as she drew it over her head. The bra soon followed, along with her flowing yellow skirt and her hot pink panties.

Amie ignored the cool breeze along her back as she ripped the paper, shredding it into two rough hearts. She placed them together and, her voice hoarse, chanted, “I call on Erzulie, loa of the heart; Papa Ghede, loa of passion; my ancestors, women whose blood boiled strong with the love of their men.”

She now saw her ideal man clearly in her mind’s eye. He had a small scar above one arched brow, dark brown hair clipped short and tight, and the most arresting blue eyes. Sharp recognition wound through Amie.

He seemed to be looking right at her.

She drew the crystal against her bare chest, the roughened stone teasing her smooth skin, sending shivers down the length of her body. Her nipples tightened. She could feel the vibrations in the gemstone as she lowered it over the paper hearts.

“Send to me…” She paused. The man I just saw . In her haste, she hadn’t quite decided how to word her request.

She knew the more specific the better, but really, it wasn’t about six-pack abs or a body that sent her pulse skittering.

She wanted someone she could love.

How hard was that?

Amie swallowed. “Send to me,” she said, her voice husky, “the perfect man for me.” She didn’t care if he had that square jaw or that rugged look about him. She needed someone kind, loving, hers .

A man she could give her love magic to without being afraid.

Her stomach tingled at the thought.

Slowly, she wove the black and red threads into a homemade ring. All the while, she filled her mind with thoughts of love in its purest form—passion, giving, acceptance.

“The perfect man for me,” she repeated, tying off the ring and slipping it onto her right ring finger. She was careful to blow out the candle in a single breath before gathering up the hearts.

The room was nearly dark, which meant the sun had almost slipped under the horizon. Good. Because Amie was naked and she still had to bury the torn hearts.

She hesitated at the back door. This was the French Quarter, but still, what would the neighbors think?

Do it fast.

Amie double-checked the key in the pocket of her skirt before throwing the whole thing over her shoulder. She slipped out into the back alley, squinching her nose at the smell of old beer and garbage.

Never mind. The spell was complete. The burial only sealed it.

Luckily she kept a flowerpot filled with consecrated earth for that very purpose. Now if she could only keep Mrs. Fontane down the way from filling it with geraniums. Amie reached past the roots of the plant and buried the torn hearts deep.

“Earth to earth. Dust to dust.”

Now all she had to do was wait.

Amie took a long, hot shower and changed into a simple white nightgown. She traded her contacts for glasses and eased onto the edge of her wide four-poster bed to comb out her hair. Amie loved her bedroom, with its gauzy white drapes and comfortable furnishings. Everything in here was well-used and loved.

She’d chosen the smallest of the three upstairs rooms as hers because it was the only one that faced the back of the house. She liked to forget she lived smack dab in the middle of Royale Street, in the heart of party central.

The old bordello’s main boudoir had become Amie’s living room—or given the bookshelves that lined every wall, her library. She’d converted the rest of the space into an efficient kitchen and eating area.

Amie smiled to herself as she slipped into bed. Perhaps before long, she’d have to set another place at her bright yellow kitchen table.

She’d just about drifted off to sleep with the latest Charlaine Harris novel when three distinct knocks echoed through the house.

“What the—?” She scrambled upright and managed to bump her glasses off the end of her nose and onto the floor.

The knocks sounded again.

“Isoke?” Amie slipped out of bed, using her toes to locate her glasses on the hardwood. Leave it to the dragon to be dramatic. It’s not like she hadn’t taught him how to disable the alarm.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

“Coming!” She shoved on her glasses and hurried for the back stairs. No telling what mythical monster fists could do to her back door.

Isoke claimed Kongamatos were bad with numbers. Well, if he couldn’t memorize a simple alarm code, she had a good mind to install a perch outside.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

“Hold your tail,” she said, flicking on the lights and punching the alarm code on the back door. “If you can’t remember how to let yourself in the house or to stop leaving muddy Kongamato tracks on my floor or dead mice in my shoes or—”

Amie flung open the door and gasped.

A man stood on the slab of concrete that was her back porch. Not just any man, either. Broad shoulders, tousled dark hair, a strong jaw—the man from her vision.

His lips quirked in a smile and he gave her a heated look that would have melted her into a puddle on the floor, if she’d been susceptible to that sort of thing—which she was not.

He strode straight for her, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her. The rush of sensation shocked her, poured through her. His mouth was hot and demanding.

So this was what sheer desire felt like.

His touch stirred something deep inside her, an urge she hadn’t even known was there.

She couldn’t talk, could barely think as he wound his fingers through her hair and urged her closer. Her body collided flush with his. Her skin tingled. She’d never felt anyone so strong and hard and good .

He groaned deep, his hands sliding down the exposed skin of her arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake. He smelled earthy and elemental. Real. And she was a powerful, sexy voodoo mambo. Wild pleasure shot through her as she wound her arms around his shoulders.

She wanted to feel him, connect with him. No man had ever affected her in such an intense and immediate way. She’d never let one get close enough.

But now here he was, the man from her vision, and he was just as mind-blowingly perfect as she’d imagined. He slid his hands down to the small of her back, urging her closer, until she could feel him—every rock hard inch of him—against her.