Witches of Three_Seraphina (3 page)

“I’m sure you do,” he said with a big grin. “But I’m not an Incubus. Do you know what they are?”

“Demon lovers,” she crowed and swayed against him. She liked his smell and the warmth of his touch. Why not succumb? She was a virgin, but what good was it doing her anyway? She’d never once met a man worth going to bed with. Maybe she was too picky. This seemed a good enough specimen to start.

“You’ll do,” she said then paused. “You won’t suck away my breath, will you?” She glared at him. He was a very good specimen. “Never mind, I’m a witch, and you can’t harm me anyway.” Taking hold of his shirt, she half dragged him toward her bedroom.

“Whoa,” he said, not really resisting, but not leading the way as she’d thought he would.

She led him into her bedroom and pushed him with both hands so he fell backwards on her bed.

“Wait a minute, ma’am, Miss Spencer, you’ve got me wrong. I’m not one of those plumbers. Besides, you’ve had a lot to drink and I would never take advantage of a woman in these circumstances.” He sat up.

“Why not? Don’t you find me attractive?” She straddled him.

He went still, and she took advantage and lowered her head to his. Her lips closed over his, and she probed with her tongue, the way she’d read about in romance books.

“Yeah,” she purred. “You taste so good.” She went in for another kiss, and it took her a moment to realize he was returning her kiss with a greater fervor than she’d experienced before. Suddenly, he released her mouth.

“No, no, even an Incubus wouldn’t take advantage of a woman when she’s drunk on her ass,” he said and, taking hold of her arms, turned her on the bed so he was on top.

Her body erupted with a singing sensation, and she reached for him just before a warm, fuzzy blackness rose up and claimed her. The last thing she remembered was the feel of his hard body against hers and the brush of his lips against her own. She sank into the darkness without resistance, a smile on her face.

“Holy Mother of God,” Jack swore, trying to gain the will to push himself off the soft body beneath him.

If ever a man was being tested, this was it. He’d never tasted such sweet kisses or been so blatantly, innocently enticed. Now the woman that had him throbbing with need lay passed out beneath him, her breath hot against his throat. Who would have thought a simple stakeout could present this kind of temptation. Sighing, he pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the sleeping female.

He hadn’t expected to encounter anyone. His investigation had shown she was supposed to be at her sister’s wedding and reception. He figured he could slip in, plant his bugs and get out. He already had a setup for listening in to her conversations in a nearby rental. Simple, right, yet suddenly, it had gotten very complicated.

He’d traced Mannie Somner here to this phone number and assumed she was his girlfriend or something, and though a knockout, she wasn’t exactly Mannie’s type. So how did she fit into all this?

Somner was a con artist who’d bilked thousands of people out of millions and gotten away just a hair’s breath ahead of the feds. Jack and his team had spent long months tracking him down. The unexpected lead had come from the trace on Mannie’s mother’s phone. Hard to believe a slime ball like him had a mother, but there it was. She’d had heart surgery, and like a good son, Mannie had called. They had him! Or did they?

Jack glanced at the woman on the bed. Beautiful, blonde, sloppy drunk and totally uninhibited with her sexuality. Maybe she was Mannie’s doll after all. How else to explain her phone number showing up on Mama Somner’s line? Jack sighed. This couldn’t be another dead end. Don’t think like that, he admonished himself and swiped a hand through his hair, thinking back over what had just happened.

When he’d heard her returning, he’d had to improvise, pretending to be a plumber, since that was his cover story. He didn’t know a damned thing about plumbing, but it hadn’t mattered. She was blind drunk. Had to be to explain her ranting about Incubi and such. He shook his head.

“Wrong move, Trent,” he muttered. He should have come on a weekday when she was safely at work, but he’d been too anxious to find Somner.

She made a soft snoring sound and lapsed back into silence. Her legs dangled off the bed, and he imagined what her back would feel like in the morning if she remained in that position. Okay, it was up to him. Maybe he could win her confidence, and she’d give up her lover.

Somner had to be at least fifteen years older than her, florid, balding, he couldn’t be a hot young babe’s anything, could he? She was a little bit weird. Maybe she went for the older man? Maybe she had daddy issues? She wasn’t his problem except that she could lead him to Mannie.

He got to his feet and swung her legs up on the bed, entangling himself in the chiffon layers of her skirt. The dress was so damned tight, he wondered how she could breathe, which brought on an unaccustomed wave of bad conscience. Turning back her cover, he found a pair of cotton pajamas neatly folded beneath the pillow and accepted the fact that he must put her to bed.

No big deal. He’d undressed many women, well, not that many, but enough to know how to get them out of a dress. Finding the zipper was the big problem, the rest came easy, and soon, she lay encased in a pair of sensible cotton underpants and an equally sensible bra. He’d never really dealt with those before. Skimpy silk and lace undies? Sure! Who wore cotton underwear, he wondered, grappling with the hooks on her bra. He removed it and turned his attention to her panties, when his gaze fell on the soft, full breasts with their rosy nipples. He paused and just stared.

He’d never seen such perfect breasts before, and he’d seen a few. His hands itched to cup them. His mouth watered to taste. She drew in a breath and turned her head in sleep. Suddenly, he felt ashamed for his voyeurism. Grabbing up the pajama top, he shoved her limp arms through the sleeves and buttoned the front.

He tried not to look, not to notice soft, white thighs or the blonde curly mound as he got her into her bottoms. He rolled her under the covers, took one last glance at her face, innocent in sleep and walked out of the room, turning off the light behind him. He knew he’d be cursed by the image of her lush body far too long into the night.

Get your mind on your job, he admonished himself. He’d have to rethink how he was going to handle this and the beautiful, over-sexed blonde passed out in her bed. He left the house, closing the door behind him. Only after he heard the lock click did he remember he’d left his gun and his makeshift toolbox sitting on her kitchen floor.

Careless! What was happening to him?

He could always break back in. A helpful neighbor had opened the door for him the first time, but he was not without his skills. Her locks would be a cinch. He decided not to go that route. It gave him a chance to come round again, and maybe he’d find out something about Somner.

He shook his head in disgust. He’d never before been diverted from his job by a beautiful woman. What made her different from any of the others? He wasn’t sure about the answer to that and thrust it from his mind. His job was to get a line on Mannie Somner, and arrest the bastard before he bilked some more people out of their life’s savings. Trent meant to get him and the stolen money. It had to be somewhere, and it was his job to find it.

He shivered. A chill had come with the evening, and he’d left his jacket inside as well. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Three

She was on her bed, flat on her back and someone was on top of her. Part of her wanted to tell whoever or whatever to get off her, but the contact was so arousing. She opened her mouth and sighed, and lips captured her own, a tongue hot and moist slid between her teeth, making every nuance of her body crumple with desire. She moaned and returned the kiss. It was delicious as was the warmth that filled her body with such completeness that she couldn’t keep herself from moving in rhythm with each stroke that filled her with molten pleasure.

So this was what her sisters were talking about. They were right. This was better than a vibrator. The measured thrusts continued, surrounding her in a blue haze that awakened every nerve ending. A cry rose up inside her, and she fought against it, but her body was arching with anticipation of a building culmination. Her moan turned wild and uninhibited. She opened her eyes and looked into the face of Jack Trent, Incubus Extraordinaire. She’d known it was him. Her climax claimed her, she felt her muscles contracting and didn’t…couldn’t fight it.

She was hurtling through space, an immeasurable place and time where life was suspended and only pleasure so intense as to be almost painful filled her awareness. Part of her wanted to deny it, to hold it at bay, to make it last until eternity, but part of her feared she might die from the intensity of her need to ride this whirlwind to the end. The peacefulness of her existence was destroyed by the clamoring of her need. Bells rang in her head, discordant and yet part of the finale. She was dying, and one last part of her thought to shout out as if the very sound would keep her anchored to earth. The sound of a shout awoke her, or maybe it was a ringing of the bell again.

She started and opened her eyes, taking in the muted shadows of her bedroom. It had been a dream, or had it? Everything had seemed so real, with an intensity she couldn’t have imagined. Her body still pulsed with its climax. It couldn’t have been a dream. The Incubus had claimed her in the night just as her sisters had arranged. Perhaps they had been right, she thought, remembering the depth of her responses.

Beyond the windows, streaks of sunlight tried to penetrate the heavy curtains. She snuffled in some air and wiped her hand across her mouth. Ugh! Dried drool! Somewhere in the distance the bell rang again, not just once but several times in a staccato of sound that demanded attention. Woozily, she threw back the covers and sat up, looking down at herself. She was wearing pajamas. She didn’t remember putting them on. The doorbell rang again, several times in a row.

She would simply murder who stood outside on her porch, she decided. She was a witch, she could cover up the deed by zapping the body to some foreign country, and if she did get caught, she’d simply explain how the bell kept ringing and the judge would understand and put the culprit in jail where he belonged, if he weren’t already dead!

By this time, she’d found one shoe, which would have to do because if she heard that bell ring one more time, she’d go mad. She made her way down the hallway to the door, threw it open and growled at the dark shape that was even now aiming his finger at the door bell.

“Don’t touch that bell again, or I’ll turn you into a toad,” she growled with a ferocity she hadn’t known she possessed, but to let go of some of her animosity at this ungodly hour of the morning felt good. She might do more of it.

She swiped a hand through her tumbled hair, removing it from her eyes and glared at the man standing before her. The Incubus had returned! He stood relaxed, an expectant look on his face.

Had she really forgotten how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were? About the bulge in his trouser and what he could do with what lay there? His amused grin and the dark-brown eyes sparkling with laughter showed not one whit of remorse. He was a demon, indeed, and he’d had his way with her.

“Good, you’re not dead,” he said.

“Go away!” she said shrilly. “Go away and never come back here. I don’t care what my sisters tell you.”

“I’m here to fix your sink,” he said.

“Of course you are,” she said sarcastically.

“I’m sorry I came so early and woke you up. I’ll just complete the job and be out of your hair.”

“Haven’t you done enough? You’ve had your way with me so go back to wherever devil demons like you go.”

“Hey, don’t be mad at me. I was just doing my job.”

“Don’t even talk to me about it,” Sera said, pushing her way out on the porch. “I know what you did. Go tell my sisters that you were successful. I’m no longer a virgin, so now they can leave me alone.”

“I…don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, looking at her oddly.

Sera made a skeptical face. “Your job here is done. Isn’t that plain enough? You’ve done what you were supposed to do, deflower the virgin, give her a taste of what she’s been missing. Mission accomplished.”

She paused and stared at the older woman standing on the sidewalk listening. Gwen Shepherd was the neighborhood gossip and a thoroughly disagreeable woman. God alone knew what kind of interpretation she was putting on this scene. Even Sera’s next-door neighbor Jane Prescott had paused in watering her flowerbed and stood with the hose hanging limply in her hand like a spent cock while she stared with outright curiosity at Sera and her caller.

“Get in here,” Sera said, taking hold of Jack’s shirtfront and yanking him inside. He stumbled but managed to catch himself by throwing his arms around her.

“Let go of me,” she snapped, shaking herself loose from his clutch.

“Sorry,” he said, righting himself. “It’s just I lost my balance.”

“Right!” She drawled out the word the way the teen kids did to show she didn’t believe him.

“It’s true,” he said defensively. “One minute you’re telling me to go, and the next you’re yanking me inside. Miss Spencer, excuse me for saying so, but I think you’re nuts.”

“I’m nuts?” she nearly shouted at him. “I come home to find a complete stranger in my kitchen, then you take me to bed and make love to me—no, I take that back, you fucked me as per my sisters’ instructions, and then you have the nerve to come back this morning.”

“Whoa, back up, lady,” he said, holding out one hand. “You’ve got this wrong. I didn’t make love to you. I didn’t even fuck you, although you made it pretty clear you wanted me to.”

“I never!”

“Yeah, you practically begged me.” His eyes were snapping with anger and something more.

“First of all, if I were inclined to make love with you or any other man, I wouldn’t beg. I wouldn’t have to.”