Seduced and Enchanted (4 page)

Now that was a little harder to explain. “He’s freelance, writes for several different, uh, publications.”

The truth was his brother wrote about sex. Fiction, non-fiction. Magazines, books, blogs, editorials. Teo wrote about it, but because of his situation, the guy very rarely got it. And that made for one cranky older brother.

“I love to read and I do a little writing myself.” There was that self-deprecating smile again, stoking his libido. “I rework fairy tales. For adults.”

His eyebrows lifted. “That sounds interesting.”

The blush that lit up her cheeks made him even more curious, but at least she didn’t drop her gaze. His cute little mouse was getting braver with each sip of wine. “They are actually. Sexy and dark and filled with magic.”

Her husky laugh spilled out, attracting the attention of one of the
versipelli
sitting at a table. The guy actually made a motion to get up but Rio warned him off with a glance.

No way was he going to share her.

When he caught Rosie’s gaze again, she was staring at him, brows lifted. “So, Rosie, do you believe in magic?”

26

Seduced and Enchanted

She looked him straight in the eyes. “Of course.”

Had she hit the jackpot or what?

Rio was gorgeous, funny…gorgeous, smart…gorgeous, sexy and… Oh, did she mention gorgeous?

That strong jaw, those warm brown eyes and that crooked smile made her blood flow like hot chocolate through her veins. When he spoke, her thighs clenched, trying to ease the wet ache between her legs.

He appeared to be totally interested in her every word and if she wasn’t mistaken, he’d just staked his claim on her to the cute guy sitting in the corner.

She should have been offended.

Yeah, right.
She loved all the attention. Her heart beat faster and harder, because he didn’t want to share her.

It really made no sense at all. Most men looked around her, over her, through her.

They never saw her. For most of her twenty-seven years, she’d been practically invisible to men.

But not to Rio. The little voice in the back of her head, the one she’d let dictate her actions in high school and college, the one that had always told her not to talk to strangers and never to make a spectacle of herself— She couldn’t hear that voice tonight. It was amazingly liberating.

They talked for what seemed like hours, the conversation ranging from family to work to politics to television shows and music. Lacey occasionally stopped to refill their drinks or make a comment when Rio or Rosie engaged her but, like a good bartender, didn’t intrude.

It was only when Rosie caught Lacey glancing at her watch that she did the same.

She gasped when she realized it was five after two in the morning.

27

Stephanie Julian

“Oh my God, I can’t believe how late it is.” She glanced around, noticing almost everyone but two guys in the corner had left. “Lacey, I’m so sorry. You must want to close up for the night.”

Lacey shrugged as she wiped down the opposite end of the bar. “I’m in no hurry.

Finish your drinks.”

She couldn’t believe she’d lost track of time.
No, that isn’t true
, she thought as she looked back at Rio. She could believe she’d lost track of time. This was the most fun she’d had with a man in…well, in forever. No other date had ever kept her so engrossed for so long. And she couldn’t even call this a date.

But what now? Rosie wasn’t ready for the night to end, but did she really have the guts to ask him back to her home? What if she was wrong about him being such a nice guy? What if he was a rapist? A murderer? And if he were any of those things, would he have spent the past four hours sitting here talking to her?

“Rosie, you okay?” Rio touched her arm with just his fingertips and her thighs clenched against the throbbing in her sex.

Looking into his eyes, she let her instincts guide her. “Would you walk me home, Rio?”

He didn’t smile in triumph, as if he were mentally congratulating himself on scoring. Instead, he just nodded, his eyes steady on hers. “Of course.”

When she tried to settle her tab, he took care of it.

Stepping out the front door, Rosie heard the thin blanket of fallen leaves on the street rustle in the cool breeze like a cat in a paper bag. The leaves still clinging to the branches across the street in City Park crackled and snapped. She shivered at the sound.

“Are you cold?”

Rio stopped beside her, not touching but close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. She took a deep breath and drew in his scent—a little spicy, a little woodsy and a whole lot of hot male. The scent settled into her lungs, where it created an ache that 28

Seduced and Enchanted

spread south into her belly and lower still, into her already pulsing sex. There, it gathered heat and moisture, making her panties wet.

“No, not cold. Just…”
Horny.
Yeah, as if she could say that. She smiled up at him.

“Just a chill.”

“I’d offer you my coat but…” He shrugged, broad shoulders shifting under his black t-shirt, hands stuck in the pockets of his worn jeans.

The man was pure hottie material. His smile invited her to drop all her inhibitions and while she was at it, get rid of her clothes too. She wanted to lick the smooth skin of his neck then tear off the shirt and let her tongue glide down to his flat stomach.

Did he have a line of dark hair pointing down from his bellybutton to his cock? She really wanted to find out.

When he stuck out his elbow, the motion was charming and completely natural, as if he did it all the time. She slid her arm through it and let her hand rest on his biceps as they started walking up the street.

Rio definitely worked out. Firm muscles bunched and shifted beneath her fingers.

That show of strength gave her a sense of security. Her part of town was safer than most but drug deals, robberies and rapes had been reported elsewhere in the neighborhood. But that violence had never touched her house.

Maybe the six-foot-high rose hedge protecting the front garden from the street and the eight-foot holly hedge at the back were deterrents. Her godmothers swore by them, tending to them as if they were their babies.

As they walked in silence, the only sounds she heard were their shoes scuffing on the pavement and the faint hum of music. Something with a throbbing beat that caught in her blood.

She’d already made up her mind to invite him inside when they reached her home.

What she didn’t expect was for him to stop at the hedge that hid the house from the street and stare at it as if it was a puzzle he needed to work out.

29

Stephanie Julian

“Rio? Are you okay?”

Her voice seemed to knock him out of his thoughts and he turned to give her a distracted smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just never seen roses like this before. It’s amazing they’re still blooming in October.”

“It
is
pretty amazing, isn’t it?” She turned to look at the blood-red flowers in the thick hedge. There weren’t as many blooms now as there would be in late spring and early summer but Rosie had a flower in the vase by her bed from early spring through mid-November. “My godmothers have lived here most of their lives and they say the hedge has always been here. I don’t know what kind of roses these are but the thorns are as big as my thumb and they sting when they prick you. You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where the gate is.”

Rio nodded, his gaze slipping back to the hedge. “Yeah, I can imagine.”

Sticking her hand through the disguised opening to flip the latch, she pushed the gate wide then turned and waited for Rio.

He just stood there, staring at her. Had she read him wrong? Was he going to leave?

Or maybe… “Would you like to come in?” she asked quickly before reason could interfere.

There was that smile again, the one that made her heart thump madly.

“Yes, I would.”

30

Seduced and Enchanted

Rio braced himself to be knocked back by a protection spell as he walked through the gate.

He’d seen a couple of enchanted hedges in his life, had actually helped Cam install one a few years ago. This definitely had the look of one. Holding his breath, he whispered a quick spell and was shocked when it didn’t hit a counter spell of any kind.

Reading was an old city and it sat over an ancient vein of earth power. That power had drawn the Etruscan
Fata
and
Enu
to settle here centuries ago. Many of the houses still held residual magic from their former residents.

Rio would’ve bet that this place had been built by
Fata
. It just had that look. And if the hedge hadn’t sealed the deal, the house it hid from the street certainly did.

It was a fricking castle, scaled down to fit on a city lot.

Unlike most of the other houses on the block, this one was unattached and sat several yards behind the hedge, leaving room for a small landscaped courtyard worthy of a European villa.

The house was constructed of light-colored stone, had three stories and boasted two rounded towers on either side. Intricate wrought iron scrollwork covered the four large windows while iron straps and studs held the arched door.

“Nice place.”

Rosie walked up the stone path and opened the front door. Warm yellow light spilled out. She slid a smile over her shoulder. “Yeah, it’s definitely unusual. Come on in, it gets better. But I have to warn you. My godmothers are a bit…eccentric.”

Now he was definitely intrigued. But, honestly, he would have followed her anywhere at the moment.

31

Stephanie Julian

Stepping over the threshold, he felt the pull of a spell against his
arus
, the magic inherent in his blood. He didn’t sense any malicious intent clinging to the spell, it was more like it was checking him out. For what, he didn’t know, but he guessed he passed when he wasn’t zapped.

Then he looked around. In shock, his mouth dropped open for a brief second before he caught himself and closed it. Holy shit, she hadn’t been kidding about the place being eccentric. The word didn’t even begin to cover what he saw in front of him.

The front room was part art gallery, part French royal crypt and part dungeon. He actually had to take a second look at the rack in the far corner of the room. And he did mean
far
corner. The house was deeper than it looked from the street and the entire first floor had no interior walls. Load-bearing columns held up the second floor.

A circular iron staircase wound up in the center of the room and revolving around it were statues. Erotic statues, some life-size, some not. All completely detailed. Men and women in every sexual position he could think of—and some he wouldn’t have.

Most depicted a man and a woman but there were a few male-male and female-female statues.

“My godmother Lora likes to sculpt.” Rosie’s voice drew his attention away from the spectacle for a few seconds before he let his gaze roam to the walls. The paintings hanging there were in direct opposition to the erotic poses of the statues. They were gruesome enough to give horror-movie meister George Romero nightmares.

Someone with a decent amount of talent and a wicked imagination had re-created the murderous shower scene from the movie
Psycho
, the zombie cemetery scene from
Night of the Living Dead
and… He had to move closer to be sure but, yeah, that was the rape scene from
Evil Dead
.

“And Fanny loves to paint. Unfortunately she also has a thing for horror movies.”

“Can’t fault her taste in those. But,” he pointed to the collection of framed velvet pictures on the opposite wall, “I’ve never been much of an Elvis fan myself.”

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Seduced and Enchanted

Rosie stopped beside him, close enough for him to smell the vanilla scent of her shampoo. It made him think of ice cream and how much he liked it doused in hot fudge. Did Rosie like hot fudge? What girl didn’t, right?

He turned to find her staring up at him, undiluted desire in her eyes. There was no fear, no hesitation. And that was all he needed.

He met her halfway, her lips soft and warm beneath his, her breasts barely touching his chest. She kissed like she smiled, slow and sweet, in no rush.

He told himself that he could handle slow and sweet. If the only thing she wanted to do was kiss, he’d deal with it. But, damn, the girl could kiss.

Her lips molded to his, clinging. She tasted of the wine she’d had at the bar and a spicy enticing heat. Almost like a drug, her taste seeped into his body. Made his pulse pound and his breathing quicken.

His hands clenched and he felt soft cotton. Her skirt. He’d grabbed her hips without realizing, eager to pull her against him.
No, too soon for that.
He didn’t want to rush her, didn’t want to scare his little mouse away. He wanted to let her set the pace, let her taste him. Then coax her into taking more.

His cock was so hard already that if she moved just a few centimeters closer, she’d be able to feel how much he desired her. But he didn’t want her to think he couldn’t control himself.

Releasing her skirt, he rested his hands on her waist and took control of the kiss. He let his mouth move over hers with a stronger purpose then eased her lips apart until he could flick his tongue into her mouth. Just a little at a time. Teasing, tempting.

Hopefully making her want more because, Christ, what he really wanted to do was toss her on the purple velvet chaise in front of a sculpture of a couple who looked as if they were going for a gold medal in the sexual Olympics.

Oh yeah, he could picture that. He wouldn’t lie down right away. He’d stand there and look at her, just for a few seconds, to let her see how much he wanted her, to let his eyes roam over her. Let
her
look at
him
.

33

Stephanie Julian

Rio opened his mouth wider and let his tongue slide into her mouth. Not deep, just farther. He licked at her teeth then flicked at her tongue, encouraging her to play. He liked to play, considered it an important part of sex. Hell, he considered it an important part of life.