Jennifer Crusie - The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

She stared at him, unmoving. ‘Decades? You and Xan? Ew.’

‘Not me and Xan. I’ve never been interested. She likes men – surely you know that much. She likes men with power even more. The problem is, I see her a lot more clearly than she likes. I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.’

She glanced down at him. ‘That might be a bit of an exaggeration,’ she murmured, and then clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified, and the satin sheet began to slip.

‘That’s the spell, you saucy creature. It relaxes inhibitions, and puts one’s libido into overdrive. But don’t worry – we can ignore it.’

‘We can?’

‘Of course. Singly we’re more than a match for Xantippe’s waning power. Together she doesn’t stand a chance. Though I think I like the idea of you being just the slightest bit raunchy.’

‘Let me build up to it,’ she said faintly. ‘So what do we do?’

‘Talk?’ he said, and laughed when he saw the expression on her face. ‘We can talk about how powerful you’ve become.’

‘I know,’ she said, curling closer to him. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’

She smiled to herself. ‘Maybe it’s because you’re such a good teacher.’

He shook his head. ‘It was you, Lizzie. You had that power all the time. I don’t know why you weren’t using it.’

‘We had to be so careful,’ she said, relaxing into the sheet as it slipped farther down. ‘Always looking over our shoulders, making sure that nobody thought there was anything wrong with us, never calling attention to ourselves.’ She pushed her hair out of her face as she looked at him. ‘No smoldering purple smoke coming out the windows, no green fog seeping out the doorway, no blue sparks shooting out the chimney. We just sat on ourselves all the time. I practically buried myself in that workroom.’

‘Buried yourself?’ Elric said, grinning. ‘How tragic.’

‘We were good little girls,’ Lizzie said primly, letting the sheet slip a little more. And I was the best. And then you showed up.’

‘The big bad wolf

‘The big bad sorcerer,’ Lizzie said. And now I feel… unleashed!’ She threw her arms open and the sheet dropped to her waist and Elric laughed and reached for her and she grabbed for the sheet again as he pulled her to him.

‘Xan’s spell must have made me do that,’ she whispered, and he kissed her.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

And he let her go and said, ‘Then eat something.’ He saw the expression on her face, and laughed. ‘Not that, Lizzie! We’ll find something for dinner, and I’ll tell you about Spain, and just to prove how weak Xantippe is, I won’t even touch you.’

‘Okay,’ she said, not necessarily pleased at the notion. ‘I’ll just take a shower. Alone,’ she added, catching his eye. ‘If we’re going to circumvent Xan we need to avoid temptation. How long do these things usually last?’

‘It should be gone by dawn.’

‘We have to wait that long?’ Lizzie wailed.

‘We don’t have to do anything…’

‘Never mind. I’ll take a shower and then cook us dinner’

‘So will I,’ Elric said. A cold one. And I’m going to cook for you. Oysters. And strawberries, and champagne…’

‘Saltpeter,’ she said firmly, clutching the sheet more tightly around her. If she jumped his bones, as she wanted to so desperately, then Xan would win. And she couldn’t let that happen.

Her own shower didn’t do much good. The feel of the hot water beating down against her skin was an erotic stimulus, and she couldn’t wipe lascivious thoughts from her brain. She hadn’t had a chance to really use her mouth on him, and she was getting obsessed with the idea, fantasizing about it, her hands soaping between her legs-

‘No!’ she said out loud, turning the water to icy cold. But even that was arousing, and she turned off the water with a curse, wrapping herself in a towel, rubbing her skin briskly, then more slowly, languorously…

‘Goddammit,’ she muttered. She was standing stark naked in the middle of the bathroom, wearing nothing but red patent hooker stiletto heels, and she yanked on her clothes with shaking hands. The fresh tattoo on her ankle glowed with an almost malevolent sensuality, and she shoved open the door with a little moan.

She headed down the stairs, careful in her hooker shoes, to find Elric in the kitchen, shirtless, a helpless expression on his face. ‘I can cook,’ he said. ‘I promise you, I could cook you an absolute feast out of nothing. But right now…’

‘Right now we’ve got better things to do,’ she said. ‘You have any problems giving in to Xan’s spell?’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’ And he picked her up, tossed her over his bare shoulder, and headed back into the bedroom.

The moon shone after all. It wasn’t perfectly full. Beltane wouldn’t officially start for a few more hours. If anybody felt compelled to light bonfires, they’d have to do it the next night. Which was just fine. Dee had an idea she was going to create enough of a conflagration as it was.

They approached the stone circle at dusk. Danny brought the whiskey and truffles. Dee brought the feather boa and pop beads. She even wore what she considered to be her ritual garments. She’d ridden up the hill covered in her long raincoat, her hair caught in a pony tail to keep it out of the way. She carried two blankets and a couple of green pillows she’d pulled from her studio.

When they reached the stone circle, though, she revealed her true colors. Laying her burdens across the grass at the foot of the Great Big Rock, she set her boa and beads alongside. Danny pulled whiskey glasses from his jacket pockets and set them up alongside the bottle of Midleton he’d managed to unearth in town. He was just turning when Dee slid out of her coat.

‘Holy Mother of God,’ he breathed in awe.

For the first time in her life, Dee O’Brien appeared outside her house wearing nothing but the long white silk slip dress she wore to paint. She pulled the band from her hair and shook it out so that it caught the breeze and whispered into lazy motion, her Irish witch’s banner flowing well past her shoulders. She slid off her sandals and stood on the sacred ground in bare feet.

‘I decided not to hide in the attic,’ she said, and hated the fact that her voice sounded uncertain.

For the first time since she’d known him, Danny James was struck dumb. He just stared, hands out, breathing hard, face frozen in a stunned kind of yearning.

‘What?’ she asked, his amazement bolstering her. ‘You don’t think the virgin-on-the-way-to-a-sacrifice look is good for me?’

‘I think it’s about to make my eyes melt.’ He unfroze, walking up to her and lifting a trembling hand to her hair. ‘My sweet God, Dee. You’re an earth goddess.’

She smiled. ‘That’s actually what I was hoping for. Something in the Persephone line. Innocent but brazen.’

‘I couldn’t have said it better,’ He kept fingering her curls. ‘Great dress, by the way. Do you wear it for any other guys?’

‘I wear it to paint.’

He nodded, still looking stunned. ‘I bet you do. It goes great with your butterfly.’

Dee felt the fizz of his arousal along every nerve ending. ‘An added bonus, just for you.’

He nodded. Swallowed. ‘Um, would you like a drink? I sure think I’m gonna need one.’

Dee wanted to laugh. She’d never felt so strong before, for once in her relationship life not the supplicant. He needed a drink. And not because he was disgusted. Okay, that might come later, but for now she was damn well going to enjoy the feverish light in his eyes.