Angie Fox: Gentlemen Prefer Voodoo

It was the craziest thing she’d ever done. He was a complete stranger and yet he made her want to do things that she hadn’t let herself think about in years.

He nipped at the sweet spot behind her ear, trailed scorching kisses down her neck. She gasped with pleasure. He must have just gotten up in the middle of the night and come straight to her. It was insane.

“What are we doing?” she asked on a moan.

His hands circled her waist as his lips touched her collarbone. “You are going to be the love of my life,” he said, his voice husky, his Spanish accent pronounced as he turned his impossibly blue eyes up to her.

How could he even presume to know that? Amie traced her fingers over the faint scar above his right eye, exactly where she’d envisioned it. Unbelievable.

His eyes darkened as he stood and pulled her close. Her heart sped up. It all felt so right.

“My one true love,” he murmured, drawing her in for a slow, sensual kiss.

Mmm…he could say what he wanted. She wouldn’t argue. Not now, at least. For once, she could pretend to be in love. She ground against him. Or perhaps in serious lust.

He was merciless. She melted a little with every hot, hungry kiss until she was positively aching for him. She wound her fingers through his short dark hair. She gripped his muscled shoulders. She slid her hands down his back, past the sweat-slicked skin at his waist, to where his pants should have been.

If he’d been wearing pants. Amie gasped as her hands closed around his bare butt.

By Kalfu’s gate! This Adonis of a man was as naked as the day he was born.

Amie broke the kiss, her eyes darting over his wide shoulders, down his well-built chest, past the narrow stretch of hair that began just below his belly button, to where she should not have been looking at all.

Heat shot through her. “I’m sorry,” Amie said. Great juju, the door was still open. She slammed it behind him, averting her eyes as he strolled past her into the storage room. The space suddenly seemed quite a bit smaller.

He didn’t seem to be bothered at all by his complete lack of clothing. As she watched his firm backside, Amie had to admit her mystery man had a lot to be proud of.

Amie shoved her hair out of her eyes and adjusted her glasses. He was going to turn around again. She had to get it together.

She scanned his handsome face, strong chest, flat abs—oh my! She wasn’t going there again.

“Forgive me,” he said, noticing where her eyes had gone. The man was impossibly tall. “I’ve never appeared naked at a woman’s door.” He ran a hand down his chest. “Or naked anywhere, for that matter.”

Amie tried to avert her eyes, but it didn’t work. She hadn’t seen anything like that in a long time. Ever, in fact.

She felt the color rise to her face. “How about we find you something to wear?” she said, reaching for the first thing she could get her hands around—a silk wall hanging of le grand zombie , a very powerful snake spirit.

He wrapped the green and gold cloth around his waist like a towel. Amie wished she could close her eyes. If anything, the fabric accented his hard, stiff…

“Much better,” he said, double-checking the knot.

If he only knew.

She’d asked for moonlight walks through the French Quarter, not this .

“Why on earth were you—”

“Naked?” he asked. “Not the best circumstances, I admit.” He drew her into his arms. Her heart fluttered as she leaned against the full length of him and let him brush his lips over hers. “Still, when you think about it logically, you cannot expect clothes to survive almost two hundred years.”

Amie’s gut dropped.

He frowned as she escaped his embrace. “Are you all right?”

She took two steps back, thought about it, and took two more. “By Ghede.” She wiped at the cold sweat on her brow. Her mouth felt dry. Amie took a deep breath and asked the question she really, really didn’t want the answer to. “Where did you come from?”

“You called me,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Dread slicked down her back. She’d asked for her perfect man. She didn’t call anyone from anywhere. In fact, she was hoping she’d meet a cute guy in church or maybe over a beignet at Café Du Monde.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. “Where did you come from?”

He took a step toward her. “St. Louis Cemetery Number One.”

She froze on the spot. “Oh no.” She blinked hard. “You’re,” she forced herself to say it, “dead.”

He stood inches away from her, dark, brooding, and sexy as hell. “Not anymore.”

Her heart sped up. By Papa Legba, what had she done?

This was unnatural. This was wrong. She’d misused her magic in the worst possible way. How could she be so irresponsible?

“Thank you,” he said, touching her cheek. “You do not know how long I have waited for a second chance.”

Amie knew she was gawking, but she couldn’t help it.

She’d spent her life promising herself she’d never repeat her mother’s mistakes. She’d never date men who gambled her money away, who lied, who cheated. No. Her man would be different.

And he was.

He was a zombie.

He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “It’s okay, Amie. It’s not every day you meet your ideal lover. This is overwhelming for me too.” He leaned down to kiss her.

“Stop it,” she croaked. He wasn’t her better half. He was a mistake. And how did he know her name? Of course, she’d called him. She’d asked for him. She’d practically given him her cosmic Social Security number. Think. I need to think.

He stepped back, giving her space. “I could use a bath.” He brushed at his muscled arms. “Grave dust.” He caught her gaze and held it. “Or once you calm down, perhaps we can take one together.”

“Oh no,” Amie stammered, “out of the question.” She wasn’t letting this man take one more step into her shop or her house, much less into her bathtub.

She already felt like he’d undressed her with his eyes.

“Do not worry. I will marry you first, if that is what you desire.”

Amie crossed her arms over her chest. He had to be kidding. This man wasn’t going to walk her down the aisle. He was going back to his grave.

Then she was going to take a long, cold shower and never date again.

While she was mentally reprogramming her life, he slipped past her into the shop.

“Stop,” she ordered as he clanged into the bowl she’d set down to catch Isoke’s drool.

Amie flipped on the lights to find her Spanish zombie inspecting her colorful display of gris-gris bags.

“Hands off,” Amie said.

“Of course.” He nodded, looking at her as if she was the one in the towel.

Amie wrinkled her nose at the smell of singed…floor. The Kongamato drool!

With one eye on the zombie, she rushed to the counter for a rag. She could feel his eyes on her.

“Can you wait in the storage room?” she asked, her rag smoking as she sopped up the mess he’d made.

“There’s no need. I’m much more comfortable in here,” he said, touching off a set of wind chimes. “I find your store utterly fascinating. Very well done, mi corazon . Beautiful and colorful, just like you.” His fingers closed around a glass bottle with a bejeweled skeleton label. “Florida water,” he said, turning the bottle sideways and watching the shaved orange rinds—her family’s special ingredient—float through the liquid.

“Give me that.” She dropped the rag and shoved the bottle under her arm. “And I’m not your love,” she said, retrieving the rag with two fingers and depositing it in the trash. Why had she ever thought she needed a man in her life? “This is a big mistake.”