Jennifer Crusie - The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

‘What’s that doing there?’

‘I thought you might know. You didn’t have a tattoo when I was here earlier.’

She didn’t ask him how he knew that. She still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in the purple nightgown, and she preferred to think it was through magic, not his hands on her. ‘I just got it an hour ago. But I don’t understand why it showed up on you, as well.’

‘I do.’ He put his teacup down, moved the candle to one side, and before she realized what he was doing he’d picked her up and set her down on the workbench, her butt directly on top of the array.

It was like sitting on a hot burner, the power spiking through her body, turning her insides to molten lava.

‘Oh, hell,’ Elric muttered. He was standing in front of her, and he put his hand on her face, pushing her tangled hair back. ‘Your eyes are purple,’ he said, sounding impossibly gloomy.

‘My eyes are blue,’ she protested in a strangled voice. She didn’t want his hand to leave her skin – the feel of his long fingers gently stroking the side of her face was a sensation so astonishing that she wanted to cry. ‘Your eyes are purple.’

‘What?’ He sounded appalled, starting to pull away, but she reached up and covered his hand with hers, holding it against her face.

As if he couldn’t fight it anymore he leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. ‘Doomed,’ he said bleakly.

Horrible things ran through her mind – had his protection spell backfired, infecting them both with some deadly disease? Had Xan done something unspeakably terrible, poisoning them both?

‘Are we going to die?’ she whispered, not sure she minded as long as he was with her.

His breathless laugh was only a slight reassurance. ‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘Most people do. We’ll just be a lot older when it happens. A lot older than everybody.’

‘Then what’s wrong with our eyes?’

‘Disaster. A fate worse than death. I thought I’d done everything to keep this from happening, but my best efforts weren’t good enough. The universe will have its way.’

He lifted his head and looked down at her, and even in the murky candlelight the lavender glow of his eyes was unmistakable.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This,’ he said. And kissed her.

Had he only kissed her once before? Why did it feel so hot, so powerful, so right? There was nothing tentative about the kiss – his mouth covered hers as his hand cupped her face, and he kissed her fully, holding nothing back, and she felt a tremor dancing through her body, something she’d never felt before. Except in dreams.

He moved closer, between her legs, coming up against the workbench, and she slid her arms around his neck, opening her mouth for him, kissing him back, and between their bodies the amethyst hummed and pulsed.

He wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled her off the workbench, and she could feel him, hard and hot against her, and another quiver of reaction danced across her skin.

He left the candle burning, moving through the shadows back into her bedroom, setting her down on the rich, purple sheets.

‘Take off your clothes,’ he said, and the door to her room closed and locked, the clicking sound reverberating in her stomach.

But he was no longer touching her, and some unwanted but unavoidable doubt had reared its ugly head. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He was stripping off his loose white shirt, and even in the darkness she could see the perfect glow of his chest, the smooth golden skin, the taut musculature. A man shouldn’t be that beautiful – it was unfair.

‘Making a very big mistake. Take off your clothes or I’ll do it for you.’

She slid backward on the bed, out of reach, suddenly wary. ‘Don’t make any dire mistakes on my account.’ She couldn’t keep the stiffness from her voice, from her body. ‘I didn’t ask you to come back, I didn’t ask you to kiss me.’

That wasn’t exactly true. She’d held on to his hand as he’d tried to pull away, and then it had been too late.

The storm was picking up outside, and the sky was as dark as night, but even in the shadows she could see him quite clearly, the look of annoyance and resignation on his beautiful face. ‘Yes you did,’ he said. ‘Every time you look at me you’re asking me to kiss you, whether you know it or not. I should have gotten the hell out of here the first time I touched you. God knows I’ve been trying to avoid such a disaster for most of my life, and after all these years I thought I was safe.’

He was making no sense at all. ‘Safe from what? From me? I’m no threat to you.’

He moved so fast she doubted it was by human means. One moment he was across the room from her, the next his hands were gripping her shoulders as he shook her.

‘Are you that blind, Lizzie? Do you really have no idea what’s going on here? I know you’re not a virgin, even though you might as well be, considering how clueless you are.’

She wrenched herself away, moving farther back, to the very edge of the bed, against the wall. ‘Okay, I get it. I’m clueless and blind, life as we know it will cease to exist. Exactly what has caused this Armageddon?’

‘We fell in love.’

She couldn’t help it – she had to laugh. First, because he seemed so angry and resentful at the thought, and second because it was patently absurd. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘You’re incapable of it.’

‘That’s what I was counting on,’ he said, almost sounding sullen. ‘I happen to like my life very well, indeed. I have a castle in Spain, a house in Provence, a flat in London. I have friends, I have lovers, I have a rich full life and there’s no room for you in it.’

‘I don’t want to be in it.’

‘Liar.’

She’d been feeling hot, angry, ready to explode, but suddenly she felt cooler, as if a breeze had washed over her skin. She looked down and jumped. He’d somehow managed to change her sensible jeans and T-shirt into the clinging silk nightgown from the night before.

‘Hell, no,’ she said, furious, and a moment later she was wearing a nun’s habit, a puff of purple mist shimmering around her. She only had a moment to be pleased with herself, before he moved.

‘Don’t bother,’ he said, and the voluminous folds of cloth disappeared, leaving her in skimpy underwear that might have come from some cosmic Victoria’s Secret. Her slightly small breasts spilled out of the lace bra, and the thong was riding up, both arousing and uncomfortable.

She growled, and a moment later she was frozen, immovable, and something was pinching her butt a lot harder than the strip of lace. She tried to move, only to be rewarded with the sound of clanking metal.

‘Armor, Lizzie?’

She was totally immobilized. She threw her weight to one side and fell over, pinned to the bed by the weight of the metal.

It didn’t help that he was laughing. ‘Let me help you with that,’ he said in a kindly tone, and a moment later she was lying on the bed without any clothes at all.

She shrieked as she dove for the covers, wrapping the silk sheet around her.

He knelt on the bed, moving toward her as she huddled in the corner with the covers wrapped around her like a shroud, and he was lean, feral, and the hottest thing she’d ever seen. He was also clearly out of his mind, and even for the sake of great sex she wasn’t going to sleep with a crazy man.

And it would be great sex – she had little doubt of that. Bone-melting, soul-shattering sex, hot and wicked and everything she never thought existed.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, one more layer of defense. ‘Go away, Elric. You’ll get over this if you try. You think I’m a scatterbrained idiot, and I’d drive you crazy if you had to spend much time with me.’