Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (5 page)

Chapter 9

I woke up in his arms.

That's the only way I know how to say it, and for some reason it felt so natural, so damn
right
that I didn't go flying out of bed in panic-ridden attempt to get the hell out of the house.

He was asleep, for one thing. I didn't know a lot of burglars who broke into a place, took off their clothes and climbed into bed with their victim. Sure, there were some wacky people in the world, and I suppose I should be wary of stalkers, but...

Wait a minute. We were both covered up by the bed sheet. So how did I know he was undressed?

I peeked under the covers and had to cover my mouth with my hand to stifle a little squeal of surprise. The last thing I wanted to do was wake up the naked hunk in my bed before I worked out how he got here, but he was indeed here and he was indeed naked.

So was I, for that matter... The guy was on his back, and I had been sleeping on my side, facing him, my leg draped across his powerful, sexy, muscled thigh, the heat of his body pressed to my pussy-

Wow. Get yourself together, girl.
I didn't think I was losing my mind, but for the life of me I had no memory of who he was or how he'd gotten here. I looked over at the writing desk, certain I'd see a couple of empty wine bottles or an overturned bottle of vodka. Anything to explain his presence and my absence of any memories of him.

No such luck, though. The desk was empty, other than my laptop which I'd clearly forgotten to turn off last night after my marathon writing session. Even from here I could see that the screen was full of words, and that alone was such a good feeling that I let myself lie back for a moment and enjoy the feel of this man's hot body against my skin before I decided between waking him up and returning him to wherever he'd sleepwalked from or calling the police.

I turned to face him again, my breasts brushing his bicep, the feel of his flesh making my nipples ache with desire. I let myself 'accidentally' rub up against his thigh again as I removed my leg from his, and the momentary press of his hip bone against my clit made me gasp out loud.

Why wasn't I scared? No, more to the point, why wasn't I petrified?

I tried hard to be, but all I could feel toward the hunk slumbering beside me, aside from the obvious desire to feel his cock grow hard against me before I licked it or kissed it or sucked it or did whatever else he commanded before lying back and letting him fuck me the way I needed to be fucked was familiarity.

I
knew
him. I mean, I didn't, of course, but I did.

Somehow, I did.

Moving carefully so as not to wake him, I propped myself up on my elbow, a position that made the weight of my breast press against his shoulder. God, I was getting off just being near the guy. Imagine if he...

No, Beth, let's not
, I told myself, fighting to focus on the task at hand as I scanned the tables beside the bed, one on each side, for some sort of clue that would tell me who my mystery bunkmate was. I spotted a wallet over on his nightstand, and I slowly sat up and did my best to crawl across him without waking him, shuddering at the way my nipples dragged across his body. His breath tickled my neck, and I wanted so badly to say 'Screw you' to the wallet, let myself fall on his majestic body before saying 'Screw me' to him.

But I didn't. I grabbed the wallet and retreated once more to my side of the bed, sitting up against the headboard now as I opened it up to snoop.

The first thing I saw was money. Lots of money. My mouth fell open as I counted somewhere close to three thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills, just sitting there in the billfold, the same way I had seven dollars in mine.

The next compartment held credit cards. I didn't bother to pull them out. Some of them were black and some were platinum, whichever the issuer had decided would be the color to denote that the holder had more money than they knew what to do with and was invited to spend even more than their sizable bank account may allow.

I knew I could have at least found out his name if I looked at the credit cards more closely, but I ignored him when I saw his driver's license peeking out from the other part of his wallet. That would have his name on it, as well as his address. If he lived around here, I told myself, than this may well just be some odd fling that I'd gotten myself into.

The thought was almost enough to make me giggle. Me, Beth George, she of the bachelorette pad, the 'a man doesn't define me' rants and the drunken 'why am I so alone' moments of angst, having somehow fluked a night with a man that looked like this!

If he lived far away, than he was probably a nut, and I'd do my best to send him on his way without getting the police involved. After all, a guy who looked like this could have had his way with me
anyway
, he hardly needed to sneak in while I was asleep and crawl into my bed with me if he wanted the questionable pleasure of my company.

And yet... For some reason, I was still feeling like I knew him.

I pulled out his driver's license to solve the mystery. "Logan Mercado," I said, reading out loud due to the shock of his identity. "123 Fake Street."

That last bit was the clincher. I wrote up a little bio for all of my characters; height and weight and things I'd need to know for later. It saved me from having to work out what chapter it had been when I'd mentioned in passing someone's food allergy or where they'd gone to High School.

If I hadn't yet researched an address for someone or if I didn't care where they lived, I always wrote 123 Fake Street. It had never failed to amuse me, imaging the mail the real people at that address would get, if it ever existed. I imagine just about anyone who had ever promised World Vision a donation lived on Fake Street, or at least claimed to.

My heart banged in my chest and my blood roared in my ears as my brain stopped letting me ramble and forced me to come to terms with what I'd just discovered.

Logan Mercado was real. I'd written him last night, and this morning I'd woken up with him naked in my bed beside me. He was flesh and blood, and I knew when he opened his eyes that they'd be blue and when he opened his mouth that his teeth would be white and perfect, and that his voice would have the subtle drawl of a man who'd grown up in the South but hadn't wanted the world to think of him as a hick, so he'd worked hard to overcome the accent.

"Emma," he said from beside me, his blue eyes and perfect teeth shining, "I think you and I have some unfinished business to attend to."

Chapter 10

Emma. He'd called me Emma, which of course was the name of the love interest I'd written for him last night. I cast my mind back, trying hard to remember where I'd stopped writing.

Right about here, most likely. I could remember getting them into bed together for the first time, but I'd been too tired to try and pen a sex scene.

Which meant Logan would be looking for one now, since I didn't write my male leads to be patient, understanding mountains of 'whatever you say, dear's...

"Let's just hold off on that for a second," I said, probably very un-Emma like but so what? I wasn't her, and Logan didn't really exist.

Right?

That was what I was going to keep telling myself at least, until I finally started to believe it enough for it to sink in.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

Good question. Excellent question, actually. "No..." I tried to get a coherent thought out of the jumble racing through my head. "I just need to have a shower, that's all."

He smiled, as if this was a small request for so powerful a man to grant. I suppose it was, really. "By all means," he said, graciously waving his hand in the direction of my bathroom like a prince allowing a pauper to view a part of the kingdom previously off limits to those of such lowly status as I.

"Gee, thanks," I said, sliding out of bed and scampering off, yelping in equal parts pain and pleasure as his palm lashed out and reddened my ass with a loud
crack
as he spanked me with enough force to speed my retreat.

Ouch,
I thought to myself, turning around and standing on my tiptoes so that I could see my ass in the bathroom mirror, once I'd closed the door behind me. I could already see his hand print on my skin, and I angrily cranked the water in the shower on to full.

Who the hell did he think he was, giving me permission to use my own bathroom and smacking my ass on the way past? I shook my head and stepped beneath the water, letting the heat of the spray drive as much of the panic and surprise from my body as it could.

Somehow, I'd dreamed or written or conjured Logan Mercado into real life. That, or I was crazy.

I crossed my fingers, praying it was the latter.

After all, it happened. I knew I'd been putting myself under a lot of pressure, especially with all of the expenses I'd been piling up. Now that I'd decided to rush the next book, the amount of stress I'd put myself under was easily doubled, and I knew that my drinking wasn't helping matters...

"Please be crazy, please be crazy," I said out loud, begging whoever was in charge of things for a touch of mercy. "I'll never touch another drop of booze or swipe a credit card again if I can just climb out of this shower and find my bedroom empty of imaginary love interests. I've got enough going on in my life right now, and I'll gladly take a nervous breakdown over whatever the alternative is."

Then, both to kill time and since I was already here, I washed my hair. Never hurts, you know. Might as well be clean when coming to terms with either the edge of your own sanity or the possibility that your protagonists want to sleep with you. I soaped up and scrubbed down and even used the loofah a little.

Anything to avoid the reality of what may very well be waiting for me once I went back into the bedroom.

I guess it was time to let myself think about that, actually. If he was there and I
wasn't
crazy, then...

What? Just go with it?

Yeah, why not?
I shrugged. After all, what harm would I be doing?

Probably none.

Still, I supposed I better get out there and see what there was to see. I turned off the water and got out, toweling off and throwing on a robe. Sure, he'd already seen me naked, but that didn't mean I was just going to go parading around in front of him like some trollop romance writer who thought she'd slipped into some parallel universe.

I sucked in a deep breath and then threw the bathroom door open, only to find the bedroom beyond as empty as it always was.

"Hello?" I asked, somehow feeling even more of a fool. For some reason I'd already started to accept the fact that he was real, and now that he wasn't there I didn't know what to do.

Get back to writing and stop all of this nonsense, I supposed...

I looked at the bed and saw quite clearly that the other side of the bed, 'his' side, I guess you could call it, had clearly been slept in.

Maybe I'd done that when I got up and had my hallucination, though. A few rumpled sheets and a comforter hanging off the side of the bed was hardly proof of anything.

The laptop was still on, so I decided to sit back down in front of it and see if I couldn't get a few more words down. I was already awake, and my characters were clearly haunting me, so I figured that was as good a reason as any to start for the day.

I stared at the monitor for a few seconds, reading what I'd written the night before. There was more than I remembered, and the words met more now than ever.

He was possessed of a sort of ownership, Emma thought. No matter what Logan Mercado looked at, he did it with an air of a man that had just bought controlling interest in it.

He cast an appraising eye over everything in the room, and Emma was frightened to see that his gaze didn't change when it swept over her.

Because he owned her.

He didn't, of course. But the simple fact that he could buy and sell her a million, possibly a hundred million times over in a split second.

She felt naked in his presence, and for the first time in a long time she wished she could be exactly that.

Naked.

Emma imagined his hands on her flesh. Hands that knew what they wanted and weren't afraid to take it. Knowing hands. Hands that held her just so as he guided his length into her, holding her hands above her head as she arched her back beneath him.

I pushed myself away from the laptop on the wheels of my rolling chair, fanning at my face with my hand.

The words were good, I had to give myself credit. They didn't need much editing, either.

Knock, knock, knock
. The banging on the front door made me jump out of my chair, and I hurried into the living room, gathering my robe even closer around my body.

When I got to the door I used the peephole. There was a thin man in a suit out there on my doorstep, and when I looked past him I couldn't help but see what looked for all the world like a big, white stretch limo parked I the street outside my house.

He reached up to knock on the door again, and I opened the door before he could.

"Can I help you?"

He nodded curtly. "Mr. Mercado asked me to let you know that he is ready for you."

I looked past him at the limousine. "Yeah?"

"Yes."

I shrugged. What the hell, right? "Okay. Tell him I'll just get dressed and be right out, if you don't mind."

The chauffeur shook his head. "He's asked you to join him now. We're off to do some shopping, he says, and they won't care if you walk in wearing a Chanel dress or a robe or nothing at all if you walk in on his arm."

"Okay," I said, grabbing my purse on the way out the door. "But I'm going to call this research."