Read Do You Believe in Magic? Online

Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

Do You Believe in Magic? (5 page)

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
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“The last time Kevin dialed in to Brazos, a program uploaded to this machine.” He showed her how to find and start the little application. The screen immediately filled with characters and symbols.
“Why, these are the keystrokes and mouse clicks he used, aren’t they?” Francie exclaimed after reading the code for a moment. “This shows exactly how he went about logging on and where he tried to go. Oh, I see what you mean,” she said, scrolling the display down. “He really doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, does he?”
“Not that we can tell. Do you see anything to help us?” He sat back to better enjoy her enthusiasm. Finally, someone who understood and appreciated his work.
“Give me a minute here. There’s something in his keystrokes . . .” She leaned closer to the screen and studied the displayed data.
“You know,” she said with a hint of victory in her voice, “I’ll bet he’s trying to find sales and order information. Look here and here.” She pointed at three lines on the screen, scrolled it down, and pointed at two more. “If he’s working for Brazos’s competitor and could learn what we charged our customers, he could undercut our prices and steal them right out from under us. I think he hasn’t found the right database or application yet, although he’s come close.”
“Damn,” Clay said. “Herb and I didn’t talk to someone like you who knows the applications from the user’s point of view. Are you sure?”
“Yes, one of my areas is Order Entry. See, here and here,” she pointed at the screen again. “It looks like he’s trying to open the sales-order program. If you know how to display orders, you can see exactly what sort of deals the salespeople have made with each customer—volume discounts, rush orders, special shipping, all the rest.”
“If I remember correctly from a conversation with one of their IT people at a conference, NatChem uses a different software package from Brazos. It’s obvious Brenner doesn’t know how to navigate in yours or where the data resides. Let’s go over this with Herb on Monday. There should be a way to set a trap for our hacker. Scroll back to the beginning.”
He pointed to the display. “Each time Brenner tries to access Brazos, the program will create another file and put it in this folder. See, here’s the name, number, and date of the file. All you have to do is come to the file and open it to see what he’s been up to. Here’s the time of his access. If you’ll send me a copy by e-mail, I’ll study it for trapping possibilities.”
“I’ll do it right now. How do you think he gained entry into our system?” she asked as she called up her e-mail program.
“Offhand, it looks like he used a hacking program he found on the Internet. God knows they’re out there. Herb is going to upgrade his security and firewall as soon as we’re done.” He gave her his e-mail address, then rose and looked over her library while she sent the message.
“About tomorrow,” he began, but stopped as he spied a title he knew.
“Yes?” She turned to him.
“Do you like this guy?” he asked, pointing to one of her favorite sci-fi authors. “So do I.”
For some reason pleased by his approval, she watched him peruse her shelves for a minute before she shut down the computer. She was surprised to realize that he seemed to fit here in her office, as though it was a natural place for him to be. “Tomorrow? What about it?”
“Yes, it’s Saturday.” He shot a glance her way. “Do you have any plans for the evening?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” She managed to keep her tone even, but she couldn’t help dropping her eyes. Her seemingly nonchalant answer didn’t fool him one bit, she knew, because of the way he smiled. He could probably read her like one of those books, see the emotions she was trying to hide: consternation that she had answered him truthfully and wariness about what he would say next. She tried to project a distant coolness to portray disinterest, but deep down lay an underlying excitement she couldn’t deny.
“The musical
Wicked
is playing downtown. Let’s see it and have a late dinner afterward.”
“I don’t know,” Francie said, sounding even to herself like a wimpy coward.
“I’m supposed to be sweeping you off your feet, remember? We have to make our relationship look good. What will Tamara think if I don’t follow up on tonight?”
“Oh, heavens, Tamara.” Francie’s shoulders slumped. Every time she turned around, she ran into the problem of deceiving her best friend. She knew exactly what Tamara would think: Francie had driven away the perfect man. She cast about for a valid reason to refuse him, but could come up with nothing. She had agreed to this scheme, after all. She gave a great sigh and took a step back. “All right, we’ll go to the play.”
“Good, I’ll pick you up at seven.”
They went back into the living room, where Clay shrugged into his coat and turned to her. He pulled one of his business cards out of his jacket pocket and laid it on the table by her purse. “Here’s my address and phone numbers if you need them.”
“You must show me how you managed the upload and the programming on your capture application,” she said, trying to think of anything but the man in front of her, trying not to stand too close, but attracted to him just the same.
As he looked into her eyes, Clay suddenly wanted to tell her everything—exactly how he had used his spells to create those programs and place them on the computers, how wizardry was an integral part of him, how he could show her the great magic between the two of them.
Wait a minute. Great magic? Explain himself? What was going on in his head? He certainly never told anyone about practitioners or their talents. No practitioner did. So, he gave her an honest, if misleading, answer.
“Magic,” he murmured as he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her closer. He dipped his head and kissed her.
He meant it to be a small, first-date kind of kiss, but her eyes closed just as he glimpsed a flame in the smoky brown. Then her mouth opened, and he was lost. She tasted of chocolate and herself as he explored her mouth, delving deeper. He couldn’t help it, his kiss became possessive, and he claimed her as gently as he could, while his body demanded full satisfaction, the relief to be found inside her. It was all he could do to keep his hands on her shoulders and not wrap his arms around her and pull her closer.
Magic, indeed
, echoed in Francie’s mind before desire took over and the heat from his lips shot through her body. She had the distinct impression multicolored lights were sparkling on the backs of her eyelids.
Where had her resistance to him gone? She hadn’t meant to let this kiss happen, had forgotten the possibility in the computer demonstration and talk of their next date. But once his mouth touched hers, all her intentions, all her resolve, flew from her body. She raised a hand to his face and felt him shudder when she touched him. When he thrust deep, tasting all of her, she dueled with his tongue and heard him groan.
He kissed like the man he was—confident, expert, decisive, and at the same time charming, seductive, spell-binding. A kiss had never been like this before; she had never even
imagined
a kiss like this, one that caused her breasts to swell, her womb to ache, her whole being to demand more. It was . . . truly magical.
No
, the last vestiges of her rational mind asserted themselves. It couldn’t be magical; it shouldn’t be this arousing. She shouldn’t be here like this. She couldn’t be succumbing again to the charms of a handsome man.
From deep in her mind she grasped for the power to resist. Forcing her body to go along wasn’t easy, but she managed to pull her hand from his face to his chest and push, a slight nudge, hardly any pressure, but all she could bring to bear.
He raised his mouth from hers immediately but kept his hands on her shoulders until she took a deep breath and stepped back. Separation helped her gain control again. When she looked him in the face, he seemed more stunned than angry or frustrated at her action.
“This isn’t part of the deal, Clay,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. “We’re only pretending to be involved. There’s enough deception and complication in this scheme as it is. Please don’t do that again.”
He took his own deep breath before nodding. “I’ll make you a deal, Francie.”
“What kind of deal?” she asked, telling herself to be ready for anything.
He drew her glasses from his coat pocket and held them out to her. As she took them, he looked her straight in the eyes. His voice was low and slightly hoarse. “When we’re alone together, no glasses, no camouflage, no artificial barriers. Only the truth. Deal?”
“What do I get in return?”
“The same, no camouflage, the truth.”
The glasses she didn’t care about, the camouflage must mean her usual clothing, but the truth? Yes, that was important. He had to understand she was not interested in anything except catching Kevin and protecting Tamara—and certainly not in a relationship with him. “Honesty is what I’m after, too. Deal.”
She would have said more, clarified the agreement, but before she could open her mouth, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. About seven? Francie, I really had a good time, too.”
And he let himself out, giving her a wave as he walked down the stairs.
She shut the door, leaned against it for a minute until she was sure her suddenly wobbly legs would hold her, and, turning off the lights, stumbled into her bedroom. She went through her nighttime routine and fell into bed, exhausted.
What was the matter with her? Why had she let him kiss her? Why had she returned his kiss?
Replaying the kiss, she mumbled, “Magic, it’s got to be magic,” but she felt the anticipation—no, the
yearning
to see him again. The need—no, the
craving
to experience one of those kisses again.
She wondered where her resistance to him had gone, for it had vanished in his embrace as swiftly as a rabbit disappeared in a magician’s top hat.
She’d had to pull the determination to protest—even so feebly—from deep in her brain. To simply push on his chest, she’d had to do battle with an interior force she didn’t even know was in her.
What was the matter with her? She almost felt as if that force had taken control of her brain and her body.
Business
, she kept repeating to herself, until her resolve was firmly back in place. It was strictly business. Clay was too much like Walt, too good-looking, too experienced, too charming. She was not going to be hurt by a man like that again, no matter how enchanting he was. She would not allow him to repeat that kiss. No more caresses, either. She had to be strong.
She was strong. She was twenty-eight-years-old strong, not nineteen. She had to think of him as an opponent on the basketball court. Play the game, watch out for the other guy’s sneaky moves, come out the victor, no matter what the score. She could, she
would
do that.
They had an agreement of sorts, which needed clarification, but they’d have the chance for that tomorrow night. Then she realized that he hadn’t agreed with her first statement about only pretending they were in a relationship and not kissing her again. She’d have to bring that up also.
Definitely the part about no more kisses.
All that stuff about magic? Sheer piffle. It simply did not compute.
She rubbed the itching spot beneath her breasts again—it had developed a slight prickle—and her last thought before she slipped into sleep was wondering what had bit her.
 
“Magic,” Clay said to himself as he lay in bed after the cold shower hadn’t worked worth a damn. “What’s between a man and a woman. That’s the true magic. All the rest is just dabbling.”
And the attraction between him and Francie was strong, stronger than he’d experienced with any other woman. The voice in his head at the restaurant had been right; this was no charade. He would be Francie’s lover.
The kiss had rocked him to his foundation, and he thought she had been likewise affected. But then she’d shaken her head at him and asked him not to do it again. He’d never had a woman respond like that, even after a kiss only half so potent. What was going on?
She was more wary than he’d expected. That was all right; it only made the challenge to have her greater. More fun. He just needed to take things slower. Damn, he’d like to get his hands on the bastard who drove her into those formless clothes, caused her to deny her beauty, made her distrust all other men. That had to be the explanation. She was no shrinking violet.
BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
10.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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