Never Been Witched (7 page)

“Of course I don’t
think
. I
know
you will. You already have. I hardly expect to sleep for the discomfort, but at least my back won’t be broken, too.”

“Try to scale our ‘wall of Jericho,’ and your cock might be.”

“Warning taken. Cock shrinking in complete understanding.”

He wished she didn’t have such a hopeful glint in her eyes. “Is there any rope left in the house after our giant spiderweb clothesline?” she asked.

“Let’s go see. After you,” he said, him down to his last pair of sweats, and her in her skivvies. Why were they never both in their skivvies at the same time? He flipped on the light at the bottom of the stairs simply to improve the view of her going down.

Already, he’d had enough of being a gentleman.

Gentlemen slept on floors. Gentlemen never got laid.

In the closet beneath the stairs, he found more rope.

“Holy monkshood,” she said. “I guess you have been here a lot, if you can find anything in that black hole.”

“Monkshood?” he asked, stopping, so she plowed into him. He turned to steady her. “What does that mean?”

“It’s an herb that witches used years ago to make flying ointments, in the way that marijuana makes you fly. I hear that spilling blood on monkshood flowers makes war magick, but I’d never do that.”

“More than I needed to know,” he said, but the unvarnished reminder of her witchy delusions helped him recover his equilibrium. He didn’t know which was more disturbing, the truth about the magickal herb, or his fear that she might suspect his past. Not that he’d been a monk . . . precisely.

After they fastened the rope to the bed’s footboard and headboard, taut and straight, she helped him throw one of her blankets over it to form a wall between them.

She stood on the bed and looked over it at him. “It happened one witch,” she said.

“Is that an invitation or a promise?”

“It was an observation. The walls of Jericho stay up, thank you very much.”

A few minutes later, Morgan settled in the bed like a stiff in a casket,
stiff
being the operative word. Soon enough, he discovered that bed-sharing involved heat, hundreds of degrees higher than normal. Since said heat was not about to be translated into sex—when had it ever?—he got up to shed the rest of his clothes, down to his navy boxers. He also opened the second window.

Destiny’s giggle at the sound of his actions turned him hot with embarrassment, until she began to chant.

 

Morgan raised himself on an elbow, confused yet captivated. She needed luck? For what? Resisting him? She would call that a spell, he knew from past experience with her and her sisters, but it hadn’t sounded so much magical as practical.

With her words, the seductress had given nothing—or everything—away. He couldn’t believe she
hadn’t
caught him drooling or staring. And though he’d made a couple of cocky admissions, she must have taken them as jokes.

Pluck him; he could
still
hide his feelings like a pro. The ability to hide his struggle between his faith and his humanity probably stemmed from growing up with a mother who made Hitler look like a wuss.

He wished there was something he could say right now, but Destiny would be better off assuming that he didn’t want to pin her to the bed and pluck her senseless.

Despite the size of Celibate Charlie, and after all the books he’d read about pleasing a woman, he didn’t think he was ready for a hands-on—scratch that, he’d mastered the hands on. It was the man-on-woman type exercise that he wasn’t ready for. Ah, who was he kidding? He was so ready, the imagery alone had Charlie doing stretches to prepare for the big event.

Morgan lay carefully back against his pillows and didn’t move a muscle . . . that he could control.

An hour later, the bed hadn’t creaked once. Destiny had either fallen asleep, or she lay as wide-awake as him. Un-moving.

Despite her final words, he felt the need to find some common ground between them. He cleared his throat. “I did know a little girl named Meggie once.”

The bed creaked, a sign of interest, because she’d probably turned his way. “Was Meggie a relative?”

Her words had been so charming, he’d forgotten she was psychic. Damn. “What makes you think that?”

“Her smile,” Destiny said, “reminds me of yours.”

“I don’t smile.” Morgan turned to face away from her, despite the walls of Jericho. “I suppose you think you know?”

A big creak, a full-body shift. Deep interest. “What am I supposed to know?” she all but whispered.

“That I had a sister named Meggie.”

“Oh, Morgan. I didn’t know. Honestly. She died so young. I’m sorry.”

Morgan shifted, uncomfortable in his own skin, never mind the bed. “My family fell apart,” he said.

“If it’s any consolation, Meggie looked at you with a great deal of love.”

He cleared his throat again. “I almost wish I believed you saw her.”

“Meggie looks about twelve years old,” Destiny said. “Her long, burnished blonde hair is the same streaked shade as yours. She’s wearing a red plaid jumper that looks like it might have been a school uniform. The bows on her braids are the same plaid as her jumper.”

Grief rushed Morgan, hit him in the solar plexus. She had described Meggie’s last school picture to the hair ribbons. He fisted his hands, swallowed, and rubbed his chest. “Get the hell out of my head.”

Chapter Nine

HIM telling her to get the hell out of his head wasn’t exactly a positive statement, but Destiny didn’t think this was the time to say so. Somewhat heartsore as a result of his abrupt dismissal, Destiny allowed that if she lost one of her sisters, she might not be half as nice.

“I’m not in your head,” she said, softening her tone, “but Meggie’s
here
for a reason, or she wouldn’t have shown herself to me.

“She said she needs her brother to remember, and at first, I thought she was talking about Horace.”

“Horace?” Morgan asked, grasping at the subject change like a lifeline, though she couldn’t see him beyond the curtain. “Another ghost? Is he as young as Meggie?”

“No, he’s about my age, handsome, with a sense of humor, and a thick head of dark hair. Virile,” she added, to tick Morgan off and replace sorrow with ire, sure she could hear him gritting his teeth. Jealousy. Good sign.

“What the Hades is this Horace guy doing here?”

“He was the last lighthouse keeper, and he looks yummers in that uniform, I’ll tell you, but he doesn’t know why he’s here.”

The bed creaking and Morgan mumbling about plucking lighthouse keepers were the last sounds Destiny remembered. She woke to find Morgan doing push-ups on the floor, on her side of the bed, Caramello riding his back, kitty paws around his neck. She wished she’d brought a camera.

Destiny bit the inside of her lip, she was so charmed. “Good morning,” she said. “You’re working up quite a sweat.”

“You snore,” he snapped. “So does your cat. And what’s with the noises you make while you sleep?”

“What noises? My—no man has ever complained about the noises I make in my sleep.” She’d nearly said her sisters didn’t, but in a perverse way, she liked baiting him.

He stopped flexing his muscles and gave her a nasty look. So he did care where she slept and with whom? An interesting sign from a man she’d been sparring with and lusting after from day one. A man who’d been running since day one.

“You whimper and you sigh,” he said, “like you’re having great sex—and your cat slept on my chest, braying like a drunk donkey.”

Destiny sat up, shook her head, and ran her hands through her hair, sure she had a bad case of bed head. “I see you’re a morning person.” She got up and found one of his pajama tops to use in lieu of a robe.

“Your hair’s a mess,” he said, “but it’s never looked so beautiful.” He stood wiping the perspiration off his face and chest with a towel he’d thrown over the foot of the bed. She wished she had the balls to push him back on the bed and make him sweat some more.

She stretched, because she liked the way he watched her, as if he was interested, exactly where she wanted him. “I noticed that the downstairs bathroom has a gorgeous old tub but no shower. Is there a shower up here?”

“If you want a shower, there’s one out back. I built two additions in the spring. One for the shower. One for the hot water heater. But I haven’t connected the heater to any of the inside plumbing, yet.”

“So,
outside
, out back?”

The twinkle in his eyes turned her knees to jelly. “Yes outside. It’s in that wooden cubicle between the back door and the tower.”

“Well, then, I guess I’m off to the shower.”

“Don’t use
all
the hot water. I’m next.”

It was the most luxurious shower she’d ever taken, given its huge, wide showerhead with thick pellets of hot, soft water sluicing over her chilled body. The last time she’d felt this decadent outside, she’d been walking naked into the sea—sky clad—as she and her sisters prepped for a ritual cleansing with King, Aiden, and Morgan looking on.

Still, this felt more so, because she was here at the lighthouse
alone
with Morgan. She didn’t dare look toward the upstairs window, in case he was there, because she wouldn’t want him to step back too soon.

She shivered at the erotic image of what she wished watching her might do to him.

With water this soft, her hair would fall into its naturally curly pageboy, but who cared? Nobody would see her except Morgan, and the truth was, he probably wouldn’t care if she wore a bag over her head.

She finally looked up, but Morgan wasn’t watching, more’s the pity. Sometimes. She used to wonder if he had a sexual bone in his body, but he’d actually referred to the possibility yesterday, which gave her hope.

Well, actually, she knew he had one sexual bone in his body. She’d noticed it when she woke up, before he stopped doing push-ups and turned away from her to reveal his gorgeous back, almost as amazing as his golden chest and perfect pecs. But every man got a morning boner. She’d like to see him with an afternoon boner. Or one that popped up just because
she
walked into the room.

When she went back upstairs, Morgan went down to the shower, and as soon as she heard the kitchen door slam, she went looking for the window that overlooked the shower.

She stood as far back as she could to watch him without him seeing her. Naughty thing. Oh my. She’d slept, literally—un-freaking-fortunately—with a hunky god with a bod to die for. Small waist with a line of golden hair arrowing from his belly button to one mighty fine specimen of bone hood. She put her hand over her mouth. His balls
were
black and blue. She’d think they must hurt, except that he washed his boner with vigor, which made her doubt his suffering, though he looked as if he suffered.

Destiny fanned herself, she got so hot, but he stopped, damn it, slam it, before fulfilling her fantasy, and when he turned his back on her, both arms on the wall, head beneath the shower, and she saw his tight butt, she squeaked.

He turned around and looked up.

She took a quick step back.

She’d never seen such a perfectly beautiful man butt. She hadn’t expected to see a butt cheek tattoo, either. Hidden depths there. Slam it, he moved. Whoa, a tattoo on his thigh as well, a larger one, more colorful, though Destiny couldn’t make out either design.

He turned off the water.

What? He was done? Sweet shivering man flesh, that was fast. She hadn’t started to dress yet. “Yikes!” Destiny sprinted to the bedroom and threw on her clothes so fast, she got whiplash from setting a new record.

Of course, skipping her underwear helped.

By the time she pulled down her red In Your Dreams tee, her face was so warm, she opened the bedroom window and stuck her head out to cool off, so he wouldn’t see the evidence of her peeping tomfoolery coloring her cheeks.

“What the Hades are you doing?” he asked.

“Drying my hair,” she called back, tossing her hair in the fresh sea breeze.

“Nice view,” he said.

“You’re right. Great view of the ocean from here.”

“I meant the view from here.”

“Huh?” She pulled her head back in so fast, she smacked it on the window sash. “Ouch.” She rubbed her sore head. “My backside?
You
admired my backside?”

“You’re pleased, though you’re trying not to show it,” he said. “You don’t mind if I ogle you? Scratch that. You
like
that I ogle you.” His perception caught her unaware and radiated through her in a series of ripples that turned to delicious shivers in sensitive and unexpected places.

“Nice shirt,” he said. “And it’s correct. You did make an appearance in my dreams last night.”

They stood staring, eating each other up with their gazes, until Morgan grabbed his sneakers. “I dreamed that you were trying to drown me. I’m going for a run. Don’t wait up.”

“Wait up? It’s six in the morning, three freaking hours after we went to bed. I should go back to sleep is what I should do.”

“Go for it.”

She’d rather have him in the bed beside her, but he wasn’t ready to hear that. What was with him? One minute he’s interested, the next, not?

When she got downstairs, Horace, the lighthouse keeper, stood leaning against the front door, arms crossed, as if waiting for her.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said. “Do you want to join me? I’d love to ask you some questions.”

“Your wish is my command.”