Witch Fire (6 page)

“N
O, NO, NO,
”
SHE CHANTED, FLIPPING THROUGH
the pages. All of them were of her, shots taken while she'd been on her way to work or coming home. When she'd been on break or at the grocery store…

She put her hand to her mouth. She'd never known Jack had been watching her so closely. He must've practically been her shadow for a good two weeks. He'd told her he'd been watching her, but taking pictures?

That was kind of creepy.

Except…

She started from the beginning of the album once more. The first pictures were like a photo record of her day, unconcerned with lighting or her facial expression, just documentation of her daily activities. Midway through the pictures took on a personal quality.

Mira stopped at one showing her about to get into her car. She'd drawn her coat around her against the frigid day, the cold, bright sun shining high above her head. Her car was in the middle of the badly plowed street in front of the diner. There was not one other vehicle on the entire stretch of road, not one other person. She didn't know how she'd never noticed someone watching her. The road itself was shot so that it looked as though it stretched into infinity.

And she was on it alone, wearing a forlorn expression on her face.

Another showed her at a coffee shop down the street where she went sometimes for her lunch to get a change of scenery. He'd been in the crowded restaurant that day with her, sitting in the corner, judging by the angle of the shot. The place had been filled, but she'd been alone in her booth, staring out the window. He'd focused in on her, blurring the people around her. Her reflection in the window appeared bleak.

Did she really wear that expression on her face so often?

Mira closed the album, swallowed hard, and stepped away from it. The first shots were businesslike, but toward the end Jack had used her as a subject for his art. He'd seemed to capture things about her that no one else saw. Feelings and emotions she'd never shared with anyone. He'd captured her intimate moments without ever having spoken to her.

She turned, flipped off the light, and locked the door.

Her mind a jumble of confused thoughts, Mira headed back downstairs.

She understood why he'd originally begun taking the photos. Those were for surveillance purposes. She
should
feel creeped out, since he'd followed her around snapping photos of her like some stalker. That fact pissed her off, but the other, later photos muffled that response. Why had his focus shifted to such an intimate angle toward the end? What had made him view her through a more personal lens?

For now she wouldn't tell Jack that she'd seen the photos. She had enough on her plate dealing with everything else. Not to mention she'd have to admit she broke into a locked room in his residence. Although in light of things, that seemed hardly to compare as far as intrusions went.

Still distracted, she wandered over to the bookshelves, which seemed to house every classic title ever written, along with a few political thrillers and a mishmash of horror novels.

On a lower shelf, she spied a leather-bound copy of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein
. She grabbed it, knocking a small wooden box off the shelf and onto the floor in the process. A silver ring rolled out onto the floor.

Holding the book in one hand, she knelt and examined the piece of jewelry. It was a man's ring, heavy and well crafted. A
C
marked the flat of it in fancy script and arcane symbols ringed the edges. She frowned.
C
for what?
The Coven
, maybe? Maybe it was some nifty secret decoder ring that she might eventually also receive. She deposited the ring back into the box and replaced it on the shelf.

After fetching a glass of water from the kitchen and tidying up from breakfast, she curled up on the couch with the book. It engaged her for a while, until weariness took over. Nodding off, she set the book aside and lay down for a nap, her head on one of the fancy throw pillows.

The sound of the door opening woke her. She looked up drowsily at Jack as he dropped a bunch of shopping bags on the coffee table in front of her. He wouldn't even meet her eyes.

Maybe the kiss really had repulsed him and he couldn't bear to look at her now.

Her body still felt the press of him against her. The memory of his warmth, the feeling of his body, had clung to her all afternoon. A lazy, honeyed heat seeped between her thighs when she thought about his mouth on hers. It eclipsed everything, even finding the strangely intimate photos he'd taken of her on the sly.

She was so pathetic.

She sat up and peered into one of the bags, seeing fabric folded in tissue and a tangle of sales tags. “You bought everything new? That must have cost a fortune! I just meant you should go to my apartment and grab some of my stuff!”

“Couldn't do that. Crane is most likely watching your place. He probably doesn't know where you are, and it's better it stays that way.”

Oh.
“
Probably
doesn't know where I am? That's not very comforting. So what did you get?”

Self-consciously, she ran her fingers through her sleep-tangled hair, remembering she wore his clothes and probably looked ridiculous in them. He wasn't answering her, so she glanced up and found him staring down at her. The memory of their kiss seemed to linger in his eyes. Mira saw a flash of sexual heat there, need laid bare, before he looked away.

Her stomach fluttering, and wondering if she'd imagined it, she stopped fussing with her hair and forced herself to lower her gaze and stare at the bags.

He ran a hand over his chin. “I got everything on your list. Your soap and shampoo, some clothes that will probably fit you better, new underwear. Got you a few other things I thought you might appreciate, too, some perfume. I noticed you wear rose-scented stuff.” He cleared his throat. “Got you some gunk for your hair, junk like that. I hope you don't mind.”

That was awfully thoughtful. How had it occurred to him to do that? She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Thank you. Do you have a sister or something?”

“No, but I've had my share of—”

“Girlfriends.” She gave him a thumbs-up. “Gotcha.”

She reached into a bag, pulled out a sexy black thong, and let it dangle from her index finger. Mira looked up at him with a raised brow. Why did Jack buying her lingerie seem more intimate than having him go through her underwear drawer?

He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “I didn't know what kind you normally wear. I bought a few different styles.”

“I'm kind of a bikini-cut girl. I don't enjoy the dental floss look. Nice thought, though.” She dropped the lacy bit of nothing into her lap and sighed. “How much was all this? Right now I can't afford a lot.”

“Don't worry about it. Like I said, the Coven has agreed to cover your expenses in order to keep you away from Crane.”

“Well…thank you.” She'd still pay them back every penny when she could.

“Not a problem.” His mouth twitched a little. “What are you wearing?”

Mira felt herself flush. “Sorry. I went through your drawers.” She bit off the end of the sentence and winced at the double meaning.

“They're huge on you. You look like you're drowning.” A note of amusement tinged his voice.

“I needed to find something more comfortable. I hope you don't mind.”

“No, I don't mind.” Jack walked toward his bedroom.

“Jack?”

He turned.

“When you said that our magick had a kind of…attraction. What did you mean?”

“Air and fire have a natural affinity, as do water and earth. They always have a magickal attraction. But sometimes there's an intensification of physical attraction too, if both parties are so inclined.”

“So inclined?”

“If they would've been sexually attracted to each other without the magick being present, there is an intensification. It's what's happening between you and me.”

Mira's mind fumbled for a moment. Her draw to him was because of their magick. Just the magick. Only the magick. That made sense. Everything fell into place.

She stood and walked toward him, with the panties still in her hand. Mira licked her lips and twisted the silk, forcing herself to not look anywhere but at him. “I just wanted you to know that, uh, about what happened in the kitchen.” She glanced away. “You proved things to me by doing…that.”

Jack took a step forward, grasped the undergarment, and used it to pull her toward him a step. She almost stumbled against his chest. Suddenly she found herself enveloped in all that seductive, heady maleness.

“When I did…
that
?” he drawled with silky menace. “Don't you mean when I kissed you, Mira? You do remember that part, don't you?”

Her stomach dropped to her toes. His gaze had centered completely on her mouth. Like her lips were food and he was starving. “Yes, of course.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to stop kissing you?”

“Really?” she asked in genuine surprise before she could stop herself.

His voice lowered. “I want you in a powerful way. I want to do things to you that your joke of an ex-husband never dreamed of doing. That's what happens when fire and air meet. Understand? Do you feel it? That intense attraction between us?”

“It's incredibly powerful.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “Damn near irresistible.”

She watched, fascinated, as a muscle in his jaw worked. It seemed like he endeavored to hold himself back from her.

“You're a sensual woman. It's like you have all this dry tinder piled up inside you, waiting for a spark. I could be that spark, but—”

“My husband always said I was frigid,” she blurted. She put a hand to her mouth, wishing she could call back that intimate secret.

“What?”

She forced her hand down to her side and drew a steadying breath.
Too late to turn back now.
“You tell me I'm sensual, talk about tinder waiting to be lit. Ben had a hard time giving me an orgasm. He said it was my fault, that I was incapable of it during intercourse.”

Jack gritted his teeth. The muscle in his jaw worked again. This time he didn't look like he was holding himself back from her; he just looked pissed. “Frigid, hmm? That's what he told you?”

She opened her mouth to give a better explanation, but then his lips were on it. His fingers threaded through her hair, and his tongue met hers in a possessive sweep that made her whimper.

Yesterday, in the diner when she'd fantasized about kissing Jack, she'd known it would be sexy as hell. However, the tenderness he displayed was a surprise. Jack didn't just kiss. He made slow, easy love to her mouth, making her body respond in kind as sure as if he stroked her. Her nipples grew hard and she became hot and achy between her thighs.

He wrenched the panties from her hands and threw them to the floor. Mira slid her arms around him, kissing him back, spearing her tongue into his mouth with abandon. She wanted to taste him, know him, feel the heat of his body against her. He walked her backward a little, until she felt the nearby wall against her back. He bracketed her there, pinning her with his big body.

Lord and Lady help her, she didn't want to get away.

Her magick unfurled from her chest lazily, looking for Jack's. She let it go, let her power free itself to seek his, to twine and dance and merge. It intensified the pleasure she felt at being in his arms, and Mira gave into it with a little sigh.

Jack found the hem of the sweatshirt and pushed his hand past it to caress the small of her back. His thumb rubbed back and forth, ranging lower, until he'd slipped down past the waistband of the sweatpants and let his hand come to a rest on her hip. She gripped him for support for her suddenly shaky legs.

Mira wanted this, wanted his touch more than anything right now. Was it just the magick making her desire him? At the moment, she didn't care about the reason behind it. All she cared about were his hands on her body.

He stilled abruptly and pulled away from the kiss. Turning his head to the side, he closed his eyes and swore under his breath.

“J-Jack? What's wrong?”

“Fuck it,” he murmured, then his mouth closed over hers again and he eased his fingers further down past the waistband of the voluminous sweatpants in the back…and found out she wasn't wearing any underwear.

“Hell, Mira,” he growled as he cupped her bare behind, delving his fingers between her cheeks and making Mira squirm against him and gasp. “You trying to kill me?” He slid his hand over her hip and threaded his fingers through her pubic hair. Mira gasped into his mouth and jerked in surprise at the intimate contact.

Jack stilled, his hand warm against her mound. “Let me touch you,” he murmured. “Just once. Just a little.”