Annette Blair (3 page)

Kira and Bessie embraced like the friends they’d become in the past month, because it was Kira’s first day back after a week of canceled-wedding damage control. “I missed you, Bessie. How
are
you?”

“Glad to see you back. When you didn’t come home last night, I was worried. Everything okay? You okay?”

“I drove down from Boston this morning,” Kira said. “Everything is . . . as expected.”

“What do you mean, she didn’t come
home
last night?” the wolf asked with snapping eyes. “Gram?”

Gram?
Kira felt herself go cold. She wished a vanishing spell existed that she could perform lickety-split. But she remained visible, if the focused glint in Mr. Tall, Dark, and Incredible’s eyes was anything to go by.

No wonder she’d thought of him as a wolf; they called him an Ice Wolf in the news, for pity’s sakes. Now that she knew who he was, she saw that his stance, his demeanor, belonged to every arrogant jock she’d ever encountered.

Come to think of it, hadn’t her ex looked up to this guy as some kind of role model—less for his skill on the ice than for his money, women, and cars, it was true, but what could you expect from a penis?

Talk about your worst nightmare.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Bessie said, with such innocence, Kira became as suspicious as her grandson. “I couldn’t pay Kira as much as I wanted,” she said, “so I gave her an apartment at Cloud Kiss, rent free, as a job benefit. She’s been with me for a month, now.”

“No, you didn’t tell me, but I think you might have mentioned it before I sublet my condo and moved home.”

“Oh, no,” Kira said.

“Oh, yes,” Goddard said. “It appears, Miss Fitzgerald—”

“
Ms
. Fitzgerald.”

“
Mizz
Fitzgerald. It appears we’re neighbors, here and at home.”

Bessie gave them an “Isn’t this cozy?” smile, and Kira began to understand the wolf’s simmering anger.

“As a matter of fact,” Bessie said, “you’ll be sharing a kitchen.”

“Wait a minute,” the kitchen-sharers said as one, surprising Kira and making her stop and regard the jock, as he regarded her, with even greater mistrust, if that were possible.

Bessie waved away their concern. “Don’t worry. It’s not like you’ll be tripping over each other. Neither of you bothers to cook.” She patted Kira’s hand. “The kitchen separates the suite. You’ll hardly know he’s there.”

Oh, she’d know. They’d both know. After all, she’d insulted the hell out of him. Worse than that, ever since he’d opened his mouth, she’d had this hormone thing going on, like popcorn on high heat, which really pissed her off, because that made him right. She did have a hormone problem.

The fact was, if he caught her raiding the fridge at midnight—which she did in her sleep—she just might . . . pop.

Kira gave herself a mental shake. According to the Penis, her new boss was the best Wizards goalie in thirty years, a wolf on and off the ice. Just what she needed, another jock in her life. A player. A man who collected women like loose change.

And hadn’t Bessie said that this one had been named the best kisser in America or some such nonsense?

Air. She needed air. She should have realized that the slash across his brow and the bump in his otherwise perfect nose meant that he’d been kissed by sticks and pucks as well as starlets.

“Listen,” Kira said, raising her chin as she regarded him. “I didn’t know you were Bessie’s grandson.”

“The fact that I’m Bessie’s grandson has no bearing on my ability to do my job!”

Kira stepped back. “Okay.”

“And what’s with you? How could you not know? You don’t read the papers, watch TV?”

“Not for sports or reality shows, I don’t. I like the movie channel.”

“So you hate jocks
and
reality shows?”

Damn, he had been there for a while.

“Let’s get something straight,” he snapped, a miffed ice jockey in wolf mode, shooting hard sparks of silver her way. “Whoever I’m related to, whatever I used to be, or will be again, by God, I’m on board right now to get the Pickering Foundation back on its feet, and while I’m here, I plan to work myself, and everyone else,
to the bone
. Are we clear on that?”

“Sure. Of course. No problem.”

“Glad to hear it.” The jock turned on his heel for a last-word exit, but he gasped, faltered, and grabbed his cane. So much for a spectacular retreat, Kira thought, wishing to hell she hadn’t witnessed it.

“Gram!” he shouted. “My office. Now!”

Bessie winked at Kira. “Yes, dear.”

“Jason!” he snapped from his office. “You will call me Jason! No, maybe you should call me Mr. Goddard when I’m on the job, and I’ll call you Mrs. Hazard.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Six months,” he said, with no less bite. “You have me for six months and not a day more.”

“Yes, dear,” Bessie said with a last grin for Kira before shutting herself into his office.

If Kira hadn’t been so shaken, she might’ve laughed—so sweet and innocent had Bessie looked before facing the snarling wolf in his den. Snarling and angry with the world.

But the closing click of that door had Kira covering her heart. Six months with eyes like his gazing down at her—as if in heated expectation . . . of . . .
not
what every other woman was willing to put out.

Would she be able to interact in a businesslike manner, in a sane manner, at least in the office, for six months on a daily basis with a man who looked like every girl’s fantasy? A man with the eyes of a predator, an irresponsible jock who’d been chased by, and slept with, every acclaimed beauty in the Free World?

Kira wasn’t certain, but no way could she bear the heat Goddard seemed to generate day
and
night. She didn’t know what his problem was: a personality clash, plain old dislike, the nepotism chip on his shoulder, or maybe it was her magic spell. Whatever. It didn’t matter, because they were stuck working together, and they’d both best get over it.

At least the electricity between them wasn’t sexual. She’d already failed that test. She didn’t have enough sex appeal to interest her own bridegroom, never mind a brazenly rich, sexy playboy jock.

She knew by Goddard’s reputation, and by her ex’s praise, that the hockey wolf was the kind of cocky jerk who needed no more than to snap his fingers, or flash his smile, to get a woman into his bed. “Well not me, buddy.”

The man was spoiled—that was a headline-making fact—spoiled and rich, and so well put together that women followed him as if they were pups and he had a bone in his pocket.

Kira clamped a hand over her mouth when she caught her pun. A pretty meaty bone, too, as far as she could tell. Made Charlie look like he kept a cocktail frank in his pants, which pretty much defined the sex.

Now Goddard, on the other hand, had a reputation as a world-class lover, a winning kisser, and . . . selling him to the highest bidder was beginning to sound brilliant.

Kira grinned, but she groaned inwardly. The thought of working with Bessie’s world-class hunk of a grandson spelled danger—a spell greater than any she could conjure—the kind with a heart-thrumming excitement attached,
heaven help her, which meant she needed to remain
in control
at all times.

She’d surround herself with a white light so no emotion could touch her, because the last time she let down her guard and relaxed around a jock, she got caught in a three-way face-off without a stick.

She might be a solitary white witch, who’d vowed to harm none, but she wasn’t stupid. She would not allow, or accept, or open
herself
to harm.

Now that she knew how faithless jocks could be, she wouldn’t trust any of the breed again.

Nevertheless, the anger in her, the need for a bit of revenge, made Kira want to call her two-timing ex and brag about working with his idol.

She might do it, too, if she could erase the picture of Charlie and her sister in bed together long enough to make the call. Regan, her slut of a sister, had tried to say that “it” had never happened before, though as Kira watched them writhe in naked harmony—like a deer in headlights, unable to take her gaze from the sight—she thought they looked like they’d rehearsed, and plenty. Charlie’s enthusiasm had been like nothing Kira had ever known . . . until he saw her and had the balls to be pissed by her interruption.

An eye-opener . . . in so many ways.

True, her sister had tried for months to talk her out of marrying Charlie, and ultimately Regan had not only saved Kira from a close call with a ball-fumbling jerk-off, her sister had kept her from having to explain what a loser she was to everyone they knew, because,
lucky for her,
she’d caught them
before
she mailed her wedding invitations.

Maybe someday she
would
thank her sister, as Regan had brazenly predicted. She might even be able to forgive her. Maybe. But Kira knew that she would never be able to trust her own judgment again, not where cocky jocks were concerned, and especially not in regards to a certain infamous silver-eyed jock of the wolf variety.

“
Mizz
Fitzgerald!” Goddard’s growl crackled through the ancient intercom, as if to confirm his predatory nature. “Staff meeting in five minutes,” he snapped. “The boardroom.”

Kira rose and saluted . . . and Goddard opened the door.

JASON
stopped dead at the sight of the copper-haired witch mocking him. “At ease,” he said, tongue in cheek, more charmed than annoyed by her salute, though, truth to tell, he had been a bit of both since he’d caught her casting a man-withering spell on foundation time.

A witch. His grandmother had hired “an honest-to-goddess witch,” to quote Gram. Kira Fitzgerald, it seemed, had raised a great deal of money at the Museum of Witchcraft, and Gram expected her to do the same here, under
his
directorship—if he, and all his man-parts, survived, that was.

She stood there in an edgy black dress that raced his blood and turned it south, sliding notebooks, files, a day planner, pens, and highlighters into her briefcase, like any normal businesswoman . . . radiating pure sex.

Jason shifted his stance to ease the weight on his bad knee, not sure if he was grateful, or sorry, that he’d sworn off women, especially since this one made fiery magic, only one of the reasons he found her fascinating . . . and dangerous.

Damn it, he always did like to play with fire.

He’d come in for a pre-meeting briefing, but his focus had changed in the face of the paradox, or to put it more bluntly, in the face of his need to keep the paradox from noting his interest.

She slipped her wand into her briefcase and brought him crashing to earth. “Wait! You’re not taking that man-drooper into
my
meeting.”

“What?”

He crooked his fingers. “Give me the wand.”

“This?” She dangled the smooth sensually carved staff by its lavender-faceted tip, as if it were a prize. Her sable lashes lowered over her gleaming emerald eyes, daring him to come closer.

Damned if she wasn’t taking a fiendish delight in making him work for it, or in finding a reason to “stick it to him.” She wasn’t even waving the wand, and she was working a brand of sorcery.

Worse, he was exhilarated by her challenge. “Yes, that,” Jason said on a scowl—or he hoped he’d scowled, because the sparkle in her eyes made it difficult to be stern.

“Why shouldn’t I bring it to the meeting?” she asked with deceptive innocence. “I like to keep my wand handy.”

“So you can take a shot at my . . . hockey stick? That would be a
no
. I wouldn’t be able to think straight.”

“Hah! I knew it! Men
do
think with their . . . sticks.”

Jason frowned and remembered how much she annoyed him despite the attraction, so he presented his open palm with firm finality, to remind her who was boss. “Give it here, Mizz Fitzgerald.”

He stepped toward her and she stepped back.

“No!” She brought the wand to her heart as he reached for it, and he came away with nothing but the heat of one fine firm breast scorching his hand.

Jason reared back, stung . . . and ready, and closed his fingers into his fist to retain her heat. Lush breasts, tiny waist, a bottom to fill his hands, and sink into. An hourglass
figure that the women who’d once run this house would envy. Or . . . as the guys in the locker room would say: excellent butt, great rack.

They both chose to ignore the unexpected body check, though it was all Jason could do not to reach for more.

He didn’t need to wonder whether she’d felt the shock of it. He could tell by the slow-rising soft russet stain washing the freckles from her pale Irish complexion.

Mesmerized, Jason watched each speckle blend with the blush and wondered how many freckles dotted the landscape where the blush began. He’d like to explore that uncharted territory at his leisure.

The way her tube dress was slipping, and her full alabaster breasts were emerging, it looked like fate was setting up his shot.

Their eyes met and held. Could she read him? Did he want her to?

She whisked her wand behind her back. “Hey,” she said, as if challenged by that hot bit of eye contact. “It’s my wand and it’s important to me.” She brought the slender wooden rod forward, stroked and regarded it with the kind of affection usually reserved for a lover.