A Genie's Love (The Djinn Series) (4 page)

“Yeah.”

She took her time gathering her purse and unlocking her seatbelt. They’d reached that cringe inducing moment of ‘would he open her car door or not.’

Not. It was the first of many nots. She started ticking off all the other things he did not do.

He did not hold her hand.

He did not put his arm around her.

He did not speak on the short walk across the street.

He
did
hold the door to the bar open for her, but...

He did not help her out of her coat.

He did not hold her chair out.

And he did not ask for her wine choices.

He’s lucky she didn’t deck him. Wrong friggin’ chick. Whatever hang-ups he had were his own and she wasn’t going to let him put them on her. She struggled to be understanding here, but the rudeness came in freaking avalanches with this guy. And always after moments of awesomeness.

Whatever.

All she had to do was get through this dinner and she’d never have to see the weird, beautiful, rude, good kisser again. “What is your problem?”

“Come again?”

She hadn’t meant to stay it out loud, but it slipped when he
did not
offer to pass the rolls. “I asked what your problem was. You’re hot and cold. Look, if this is some set up by Tig and you’re not interested, that’s fine. We can leave now and never have to see each other again. But I’m not some girl that you can slap your lips on and—”

“Cassia—”

“I am not finished.”

“I know, but...I’ve uh...” He dropped his gaze and fiddled with his spoon, then leaned back into his chair. “I’m going through some things and I don’t want to drag you down with me. I care about you—”

“I don’t appreciate you lying.”

“How am I lying?”

“You just met me. I didn’t anticipate some undying declaration of love, just a little human decency.” She would have said more, but zipped it when a waiter approached with their appetizer. How had they gone from kissing to this?

“Put your head down.”

“Excuse me?”

She didn’t, of course. Faruq’s sudden interest in his shrimp creole had her eyes up and wandering around the room. “I don’t see anything.”

This was met with rolled eyes and pursed lips. “What part about keep your head down don’t you understand?”

“Oh, that’s real cute. You’re telling me what to do already? We’re not there, buddy. You’re the worst, fucking date and...oh...”

“Yeah, caught that, did ya?”

That
, was a very angry ghost. Hooded eyes glared around the room behind a long hooked nose and yellowed, snaggled teeth. The creature flittered from person to person, millimeters from their faces. They had no idea of the horror less than a breath away. No, that was no ghost, but a ‘geist.

Ghosts were sad, lonely creatures, but very much of the other realm. When they came over, they didn’t much interact with the living...not without help, anyway.

Poltergeists, on the other hand, had that terrifying ability to reach out and cruelly touch. They moved things, bumped things, touched and heard things, but they spoke very rarely and only if they knew,
you knew
and could get you to speak their name. Three times was all it took to set Bloody Mary free and look at what that bitch had done over the centuries.

She tried to turn away, but her neck locked in place.

Additional thought melted to goo as Faruq’s chair skidded over and his lips came down on hers. She reached through the years, searching for an appropriate spell to knock this guy on his behind...

...after she finished tasting him a little more.

Yep, still like cedar and almonds.

One hand pulled at her neck. The other drew blazing circles on her bare knee. She was aware that someone nearby cleared their throat, but she found it very hard to care. Faruq’s tongue darted at the corners of her mouth and his lips curled against hers. “Don’t get cocky. I ought to hex you for that.”

“I may have just saved you.”

“That’s pretty confident, genie.”

“Djinn and I did.  You’d attracted the ‘geist. It was new and felt power, but couldn’t trace it – even to a table with a witch and djinn. This was the most convenient way to distract you.”

“So you didn’t want to kiss me?”

“I didn’t hate it,” he said with a grin. Then, as she’d come to expect, his face tightened and the jerkface was back. “We’re not the only ones on a date. There’s a couple in here – over there – but she wishes he’d go away. I used her wish to take care of the poltergeist.”

“Are you suggesting you kissed me to protect me?”

The hand, still on her knee, tightened. “I won’t let anything hurt you. No matter what happens, I won’t.  Just a minute.”

And the yo-yo continued. She raised a pointed finger to call him on it, when a man stormed from the rear of the restaurant, stained napkin still around his neck. “That must be the
other
half of the bad date.”

“Yep. He got handsy with her and she wished he’d go off and screw himself.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. As for the young lady...” Faruq did a seated bow when a tanned man waltzed into the restaurant. “I believe he will answer her next wish.”

The man, correction, djinn, tipped an invisible hat in their direction, then slid into the stall with the woman. Cassia had little doubt what that wish had been. “Friend of yours?”

“Nope. Generally speaking, we don’t like to step in on one another’s wishes. Plus, I don’t care to be spanking other women tonight.”

She didn’t miss that ‘other’ part. If he meant to spank her, well...well...okay, she might let him, but after she’d figured out what his deal was. He confused her and that meant nothing tonight. If he even wanted it, he’d have to work for it.

That’s what tripped her up. A man didn’t kiss like that unless he felt something. This, whatever it was, could lead somewhere if he ever got his act together. “What happened to you? Do you even like being a djinn?”

“I...uh...”

“I hated being a witch. You know the movies.  All the good little witches are blonde and then there’s me. I never quite fit the mold.”

“Well, I’m not blue, am I? Nor do it have a triangle beard that I twirl between my fingers.”

“True, true, but it’s different for you. You’ve had an eternity to deal with this. My sister and I didn’t get close until adulthood. We were never in the same school at the same time. And I fell into the role of younger, dumber one. She took to magic better than I did too. I always had to fight for power and it left me totally drained. She’d get a headache after working up a new spell while I’d end up laid out for a week trying to boil water.”

“You have power. I can sense it hovering all around you. Can’t you tell?”

“I guess. Too much for my own good.” She shivered and opened her mouth to change the subject, but stopped herself. She’d only gone down this road for his sake, anyway. She was fine with her non-witchyness.  Mostly. “My dad says it’s like a car with a bad sparkplug. Sometimes it takes awhile to get going. Sometimes, it won’t go at all. That’s why I left here for college. No one knew me or what I was, or my sister.”

“No expectations.”

“Exactly.”

“But you wound up back home.”

“One of my great-grandmother’s estranged sisters died without an heir. The house went to my parents, but they travel all the time and they gave it to Dinah. Naturally. Anyway, rehabbing it became a way for us to reconnect. Never mind that I’d just finished grad school and this was a free place to stay. Then Tig showed up and Dinah moved out before we really moved in. Now it’s just me there. I stay busy, but for the first time, I get to study my magic at my own pace. If people just left me alone with it, I could like it. Maybe.  Your turn. What’s your anti-magic story?”

Whatever was on his parted lips must have hurt too much to share. He swerved around it by pouring another glass. When he opened his mouth again, she held up her hand, unable to stomach more dodging and weaving. “You know what? Forget it. You don’t have to share that with me.”

“I want you to know that I appreciate the gift of your story.”

“But?”

“I don’t deserve it, Cassia.”

“Do you want to deserve it?”

“I...”

“If you have to think about it—”

“Nothing would make me prouder than to have you at my side. But I’m not a whole man and you deserve that.”

“Because a terrible person held your lamp?”

His chuckle didn’t have a stitch of humor to it. Faruq’s wide thumb ran across the rim of his wineglass before he downed it and poured himself another. “Is that what they told you? No, the only fool in the story was me. I grew to hate what I was very early in life. Can you imagine how hard it is to hear every wish, every hope, every need? And yet be so miserable that you don’t want to help?”

“Tig doesn’t go around granting wishes.”

“He doesn’t care, either way. He has something else to live for now. He grants wishes as easily as getting dressed. Me? I wonder, why them. Selfish, isn’t it? So I tossed my lamp in the ocean.”

“You did what?”

“I know, but it didn’t help. I still felt the tug of wishes, but was too weak to grant them.”

“Back up to the part where you tossed your house and the source of your power in the ocean because you’re sad.”

“My melancholy—”

“It ain’t melancholy, it’s wallowing. C’mon, get up.”

“We’re leaving?”

“We’re dancing. You, me and your freaking melancholy. Before you bring up the marked absence of music, do I need to remind you that I don’t need a jukebox if I have a djinn?”

The wish didn’t even have to pass her lips. Slow melodies filled the room when her chair scraped across the floor. Waitstaff scrambled around with confused looks on their faces, but her hand on Faruq’s chin brought his attention back where she wanted it. She tried to lead, but the second his hand made contact to her waist, something took hold. Faruq’s eyes latched onto hers and his mouth hinted at a smile.
This is your one last shot, boy. Don’t screw it up.

“Sir?  Ma’am? There’s no dancing allowed.”

“I wish...”

The music crescendoed at his wink and he pulled her closer. She might tell herself that he had to in the cramped space, but one wish and all the tables would have disappeared. No, he wanted this. So did she.

Soon, an older couple, wrinkled and bent, stood to take each other in their arms.  She might have happily watched them for an hour, if not for the djinn in front of her.

“When I hold you, I forget that we’ve only just met. That’s dangerous, so you must remember for the both of us,” he said.

“I remember a kiss. For a while I’ll think you’re interested, then I wonder if you can’t stand to look at me.”

“Cassia, I could stare at your body for an eternity. I’m only hesitant because of what it may cost us in the end and that’s something I can’t share right now. But you never have to wonder if I want you. You never have to wonder that I care.”

“I don’t want—”

People who asked her to be quiet got an earful. Faruq’s way of shutting her up left her giggling against his mouth. They made more than a scene and although other couples danced, she could feel eyes all centered on them. She drew back when they stopped for air. “We’re about to cause a stir.”

“I believe we did that when we started kissing.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“To be plainly honest, Cassia, I don’t know.”

*****

T
he food proved a necessary, if incomplete, distraction.  Watching food pass her lips led to thoughts of other things on her lips.

Other parts of him...

More than once during the evening, he’d had to readjust his pants or recite ancient verses to calm himself. He’d counted himself lucky until dessert. While he thought the chocolate bourbon pecan delicious, Cassia found it rapturous. Her eyes rolled to the heavens and her tongue flicked out to catch wayward crumbs. Had they been alone, he’d have helped her out. As it stood, the option was still on the table.

On the table...

Yes, he’d thought of having her there too. His face heated at the idea of having her anywhere. Everywhere. Here. A bed. Against a wall. His lamp.

That had him gripping the chair. He hadn’t been able to shake Cassia’s words from the car. Up until a month ago, the thought of anyone in his lamp, himself included, turned his heart to granite. Now, the image of her in it, made
other
parts of him equally hard. If she was the one, his
hamdullah
, he’d make love to her there every day for the rest of their lives.

His mate.

His lamp.

His forever.

But he had to be sure. Damn his idiocy. If he’d had a normal life, he’d have known by now. Tig knew the moment he’d met Dinah. He’d rolled fresh out of bed with another woman and literally bumped into his life’s partner. Wasn’t that the story?

Him? No, he’d been so long without a woman’s touch that he couldn’t tell the difference between lust and love. Now his rod was as thick as his head and he didn’t know which one spoke the loudest. Across from him was a woman he couldn’t let go, but didn’t know if he ought to keep.

Or if she’d keep him.

Not if he let this foolishness consume him. He worked out the things he knew for sure, as she moaned and shoved another slice of pie into her mouth.

He knew he cared.

He knew he lusted.

He knew his inner self clawed with an urge to protect and calm and...

Ah, hell if she wasn’t the one, he’d
make
her the one. Surely, some djinn in the past had chosen a love outside the bond of mating. One must have.

Yeah, him.
And look how that turned out.

While Cassia ate, he fought against his past and the emotions that had once seemed so real. That was his problem. He’d forced it several years ago and it’d landed him right here.  And yet he knew that it didn’t hold a candle to what he felt now.

He guzzled down some water, head reeling at the shock of so many wasted years. And now he faced the specter that he could be able to do it all over again.

Another glass of water and he used the napkin to dab away the sweat of remorse.