All Bottled Up (26 page)

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How do you ditch your Fairy Godmother?

Wishful Thinking

© 2008 Evangeline Anderson

The Swann Sisters Chronicles
, Book 1

As her 25th birthday approaches, mild-mannered Philomena Swann lives in terror of her annual birthday wish. Sure, she has a disinterested fiancé and a misogynistic boss, but from experience she knows wishing both away could result in disaster. Why? Because she and her sisters are one-eighth fairy. Not enough to give them magical powers, but enough to qualify for a fairy godmother—from hell.

All Phil wants is, just once, to have the courage to speak her mind. She blurts out her wish…and suddenly finds she can’t stop. To her friends. Her boss. Her Nana. And her best friend, hot and hunky co-worker, Josh. Before she can do any more damage, she begs for the spell to be reversed. And it is—with a vengeance. Now everyone else is compelled to tell her the truth. Including Josh.

But the fairy godmother’s not done. One more wish could change Phil’s world forever—if it doesn’t ruin her life first.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Wishful Thinking:

“Phil, don’t you know nothing you could say would make me want to stop being your friend?” Josh stopped in front of her and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

There was amusement but also concern in his deep brown eyes. Phil could see herself reflected in their depths, looking like a frightened rabbit. “Okay,” he said, “Come on, hit me with your best shot.”

“What?” Phil was still trying to keep the nursery rhyme lodged in her brain but it was breaking up.
Mary had a little…a little…a tall, sexy coworker. No, that isn’t right!

“You heard me.” He had a serious look on his good-natured face now. “Give it to me with both barrels. I want you to say whatever comes to mind about me and I promise not to be offended. Nothing off limits, just go ahead and get it over with.”

“Josh, please don’t make me.” Phil felt like she was going to cry.
Mary had a little
lamb
was dissolving into a senseless blur of syllables. Soon her traitorous thoughts would begin leaking out.

“I can take it,” he said. “You want to tell me I’m a pig or that I need to shut up or—”

“You smell really good,” Phil heard herself say as the wish took over. “And I love your laugh—it’s all deep and rumbly and it makes me feel warm just to hear it. And when we talk, I always feel like you care about what I have to say.”

“I do.” He gave her that charming, lopsided grin that had drawn her to him from the start. “That’s all you got? Gotta tell you, Swann, so far I’m not impressed.”

“I like the way you touch me,” she went on, helpless. “You’re always so gentle and your hands are so big and warm…” Oh God, this was
so
inappropriate. She was probably making him horribly uncomfortable.

Josh had an odd look on his face, but all he said was, “Go on.”

“I…I think that’s all,” Phil said with relief. But then a little voice in the back of her brain spoke up.
The dream? What about the dream?
But that was
definitely
out of bounds—far past the invisible barriers Phil had always kept between herself and her friend.

“I had this dream about you once,” she heard herself say. “About us, actually.” He cleared his throat. “Do, uh, do you want to tell me about it?”

“
No
,” Phil moaned. “But…but I can’t help it. I…I…” She bit her lip, but it was no good. “I was sitting in a chair, in my dream, I mean. And you came up behind me and reached around and started stroking me…my…” She gestured helplessly to her chest. She could feel herself sweating beneath her white silk blouse.

“Okay, so I was uh, touching your breasts?” Josh raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat.

Phil nodded.
I’m embarrassing him, and humiliating myself. He doesn’t want to
cross the line either!
And yet she couldn’t stop. “And then we were suddenly in…in bed.

You know how that goes with dreams where suddenly you’re someplace different than you were a minute before?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So we were in bed, uh, naked and…and…And you were kissing me. We…were kissing each other.” Phil felt like her face might set fire to her blouse. What would Josh think of her when she was done? “We…you…were touching me again. All… all over.” Phil swallowed. “And your hands felt just like they do in real life—big and warm and gentle. And I was…I was…” She felt like she might strangle on the words. She was gripping her purse so tightly her knuckles were white. “There was…was more but mostly I remember that then you were…on top of me. And I was…I was saying, was begging you to…to…to…And you did and it felt so…so…”

“So we made love?” Josh asked gently, interrupting her halting words.

She nodded, grateful to him for summing it up so neatly. “Yes! God, I’m so sorry, Josh. I can only imagine what…what you must think of me now.” She put a hand over her eyes, her purse still gripped tightly in the other. Tears of humiliation were wetting her hot cheeks and she was actually shaking with shame. Could this stupid wish get any worse?

“Hey, come on, now, Phil. It was just a dream.” Josh pried her hand away from her eyes and lifted her chin. “Seriously, don’t cry,” he said softly.

“I can’t… I can’t believe I told you that.”

“Hey.” He tried to smile. “Did it upset you that much to have one X-rated dream about me?”

“No.” Phil bit her bottom lip, anxious to make him understand. “It didn’t upset me to have it. But…but…you’re my best friend, Josh, but there are some things we just…we don’t talk about. You know what I mean.”

He nodded and rubbed his chin, making a faint sandpapery sound as his fingers brushed over his five o’clock shadow. “Yeah, I know, Swann.” He took a step forward and looked at her intently. “There’s a lot that’s unsaid between us,” he said, his deep voice dangerously soft.

“There is,” Phil agreed. She could feel a current of barely grounded electricity flowing between them. “I mean…I never…I would never want to make you feel uncomfortable. I don’t want you to feel around me the way I feel around Dickson when he starts talking nasty and trying to cop a feel.”

The tension abruptly lessened as Josh let out a surprised snort of laughter. “Is that what you think? Listen, Phil, believe me, you don’t have to worry that you make me feel the way you feel about Dickhead. I promise you that.” Phil swiped at her eyes with a shaking hand. She was relieved that they had kept the invisible barriers between them intact—barely. “So you don’t think I’m some kind of pervert?”

Josh laughed again. “Hardly. You can’t help what you dream. I’ve had some pretty, uh, interesting dreams myself from time to time.”

“About me? I mean, us?” Phil asked before she could stop herself. “No, wait, forget I asked that. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Josh said with a grin. “Now, come on, get yourself together and let me take you out to lunch.”

Phil took stock of herself. She was sweating and trembling and she still had tears on her cheeks and a lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Josh. But I’m not in any shape to be seen in public. I don’t want to go out to a restaurant right now.”

“Who said anything about a restaurant?” He took her hand, twining her fingers through his, and led her through the parking lot to where his car, a blue Toyota Hybrid, was parked. “I’m talking about a picnic
al fresco
.” He held up the other bag he had been carrying and Phil saw it was his lunch bag. “I was just going to lunch when I heard the office scuttlebutt and came out to give you your purse.” Phil tried to smile. “Are you sure you want to have lunch with a mouthy bitch like me?”

He grinned. “Absolutely. So what do you say, Swann? I’m inviting you to lunch at Chez Bowman. It doesn’t have much atmosphere but I promise you the ham and cheese sandwich is divine. Five star cuisine all the way.”

“I say…yes.” Phil grinned at him, feeling a deep relief flood through her. She had said the worst, most embarrassing things her mind could come up with and Josh hadn’t been offended. He still wanted to be around her. After the way everyone else had reacted to her birthday wish, it was wonderful to know that at least one person in her life didn’t want to ditch her for speaking her mind.

“Great.” Josh opened the passenger side door and helped her into the car with a smile. “Let’s go to lunch.”

What’s a nice girl like me doing with a demon like you?

I Married a Demon

© 2008 Beverly Rae

Jennifer Randall ignored her instincts and rushed into a vacation-fueled romance and quickie marriage to devilishly handsome Blake Barrington. But as a Level 10 Protector with the super-secret Society, how’s she supposed to keep the man she adores happy while hunting down gargoyles, zombies and other evildoers of the Otherworld?

As if balancing work and newlywed nookie sessions wasn’t hard enough, now she’s been assigned to find the Bracelet of Invincibility before a high demon lord can claim it.

And Blake seems hell-bent on distracting her at every turn.

Blake Barrington will do anything to regain his mortality and live happily ever after with the woman he loves. Including delivering to his demon lord the one object that could be his salvation—the Bracelet. Too bad part of the contract includes killing his wife.

Getting around this small glitch might be doable…if his ghoul-cursed brother wasn’t after the prize, too.

Jenn’s suspicions mount, and finally the evidence is undeniable. Her sexy spouse is a demon.

Great. Now what? Shag her husband? Or shoot him
Warning: Okay, so there’s graphic sexual language. So what? Trust me, if chopping
off a few demons’ heads doesn’t bother you, why would the sex? Either way, it’s all good.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
I Married a Demon: At the exact moment I noticed him, he was only a few feet from me. Mr. Ta-DaH—

my nickname for Mr. Tall and Dark and Handsome—lay sprawled like the King of the World basking in the sun, surveying his kingdom and the lowly subjects he allowed to share his beach. He held a drink in one hand and scrutinized me through dark sunglasses, his chiseled face a mask of controlled passivity except for the slight lift at the corners of his mouth.

I’m good at playing cool. I have to know how to play it cool in my line of work—

both of my lines of work. But this guy’s intense scrutiny was almost more than I could handle. With my sunglasses resting on the bridge of my nose, I nonchalantly spied on him, trying to appear unaware that he studied me. I tried to suck in my ass, hoping to make the dimples disappear, but knew the battle was lost before it began. How do you suck in a bottom, anyway? Is it the same as a butt clench? I sighed and hoped he liked women with junk in their trunks.

The man was perfect. At least physically, but physical was all I had to go on. His wet hair, silky and shiny black, slicked away from his forehead and curled around his earlobes. Just the right amount of matching chest hair glistened with drops of perspiration, drawing my gaze to all the right places. Notice I said perspiration, not sweat.

No one this good-looking ever sweats.

I’m talking the perfect model of a man. The kind of man I’d buy if I could call in my order and have him delivered to my doorstep in thirty minutes or less. Remember how moviegoers went gaga over Matthew McConaughey when he started taking off his shirt?

Yup, me, too. I was one of the hundreds, probably thousands of women, who sat through his movies, not caring about the plot. Instead we sat glued to our seats and waited for him to strip off his shirt and take the heroine to bed. Take M’s sex appeal and multiply it by a zillion times more heat and that’s what oozed from this guy.

His shoulders, wider than the beach chair he leaned against, mesmerized me and I couldn’t keep from imagining the way they’d feel. I’d have donated my whole stack of traveler’s checks to charity just to feather my fingers over them. I could see the strength in his muscular arms and sense the power he could unleash at any moment. He pressed his mouth to the highball glass, moving his square jaw, and I had to fight to keep from dashing over and licking off the tiny drop of whiskey left on his upper lip.

His eight-pack abs called to me. Come, Jenn. Come and run your hands over me. I let my gaze glide down his rock-hard abdomen. Can you blame me when my heart started pounding and my mouth went dry? Can you understand why the place between my legs overflowed with wetness?

I pondered what to do. Should I say something? Why didn’t he say something? How long could we lie here and stare at each other? What would I do if he got up and walked away? Or even more frightening, what would I do if he came over?

Then he smiled at me.

My mouth dropped open. I lifted my head from my beach towel, forgetting to play it nonchalant. Instead I gaped like a schoolgirl with her first crush. He stood and started toward me, making me oh-so-aware of his height and brawn. My examination of this spectacular specimen started at the top and moved slowly downward.

I’d never found men’s legs attractive before—I’m an upper torso kind of gal—but the black hairs on his legs, the firm tanned skin stretched over his runner’s tendons, converted me to a leg gal right then and there. My membership in the leg lovers fan club was sealed the minute he squatted next to my blanket and gave me a front row seat to the hard bulge in his swimsuit.