Black Magic Woman (22 page)

“And no one seemed to know where he’s gone. I tried to get the address of his home out of one of his minions, but she refused. I was unable to press her further because Graham interrupted to tell me you’d texted.”

The alpha snorted. “You were unable to press her further because you’d already pressed her so hard she passed out. When we left the shop, she was drooling on the linoleum.”

Asher shrugged. He didn’t much care about details.

“I admit, I am not surprised to hear that,” Rafe mused. “I suspected he might prove hard to find after I heard of what my acquaintance found at the Callahans’ apartment.”

Asher sharpened. “Why? What did he find?”

“He found this.” Rafe reached into the pocket of his trousers and came out with a string of large beads carved from a variety of different woods, ranging in color from the pale cream of maple to the violet of purpleheart and the dark brown of walnut.

“I recognize it. It’s D’Abo’s.” Asher frowned, an uneasy feeling needling him. “He wore it at the club the night he and Daphanie had their confrontation.”

Graham snorted. “It must have fallen off while he was ransacking the apartment, and he didn’t notice. Very clumsy of him.”

Rafe pursed his lips. “I suppose that is a possibility. A
slim
one. But I do not think that is what happened.”

Asher reached out and took the necklace from the Felix. He examined it closely, stretching the circle around his spread fingers. Still that sense of wrongness prodded at him.

“Where did he find it?” he asked, glancing up to meet Rafe’s sharp, golden eyes.

“On the living room floor, just to the left of the entrance. A sheet of paper lay half over it, but it wasn’t hard to spot. He found it just like that.” Rafe nodded to the piece significantly.

“Just like this…?” Asher repeated, rolling the words over in his mind while he stared at the unbroken circle of beads. It took only a few seconds, and he swore like a dockhand.

Rafe nodded. “This is what I said when he handed it to me.”

Graham just looked confused. “What? Have the two of you developed a secret language? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Rafe’s … acquaintance found it
just like this,
” Asher repeated, holding the necklace aloft. “Look at this part right there. There’s a clasp on it. The necklace isn’t big enough for D’Abo to pull on and off over his swollen head. He has to put it on by fastening and unfastening the clasp. And the clasp is fastened. There’s no way this necklace just fell off of anyone.”

The light dawned in the alpha’s face. “Holy shit. So that means someone left it in the apartment on purpose.”

“Planted it,” Rafe said firmly. “Someone deliberately planted the necklace so that we would assume D’Abo had been the one who was there, the one who ransacked the place.”

“Okay, that part I get, but why bother? Who else were we going to think did it? No one but D’Abo has any reason to want to harm Daphanie.” Graham looked at Asher.

“And yet D’Abo is missing.”

Rafe nodded, his eyes glinting. “Exactly. I think someone is deliberately trying to confuse us. Whether it is D’Abo or someone else, and I begin to lean toward the idea of someone else at least playing a role, our adversary wants to ensure that our little mystery remains a puzzle to us.”

“He can want whatever he damned well pleases.” Asher balled the necklace up in his fist and shoved it into the pocket of his coat. “I intend to find out what’s going on and put a stop to it. For Daphanie’s sake.”

Fourteen

If there is one generalization that can be applied to the Others in regards to the relations between the sexes, it is that Other men have never made the mistake of underestimating the power of a woman.

It is likely the reason they were not wiped out centuries ago.

—A Human Handbook to the Others,
Chapter Two

Daphanie took the news with surprising calm, more than Asher expected he had exhibited. She just curled her fingers around the cup of tea she had poured for herself and watched him with bruised eyes. She hadn’t slept as well as he’d hoped she would. In fact, she looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

“If it’s not D’Abo who laid this curse on me, who could it be?” she asked.

She looked like a child curling up on the bench at the table in his breakfast nook, her feet tucked beneath her and another pair of ill-fitting sweats clothing her. This time they were his and both shirt and pants bagged on her hopelessly, despite her having rolled up hem and cuffs half a dozen times each.

“I think I can safely say that I don’t make a habit of pissing off people with magical powers.” Her lips curved at her own humor, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes.

“Of course you don’t,” he said, reaching out to seize one of her hands, tangling her finger with his. They felt cold in spite of the warmth of the tea. “You’re not the one who caused this, and whoever is behind it, we’re going to find them, and we’re going to stop them. Understand?”

She nodded, and her smile this time was almost genuine. She lifted their joined hands to her mouth and kissed the back of his knuckles. By the time she lowered them back to the table, the smile was gone.

She was beginning to worry him. During this past week, he’d seen the shadows beneath her eyes begin to bloom and her skin grow a little paler, but he’d put it down to her not sleeping well. After all, it couldn’t be easy to rest when he knew she continued to have the dream of the ritual in the firelit tent. That was why he’d left her sleeping when he went out to seek D’Abo. He’d wanted her to regain a little of her energy, hoping it would make her feel more like herself.

It hadn’t worked.

He squeezed her hand. “You look tired. Do you want to take a nap?”

She eyed him over the rim of her cup. “I suppose that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether ‘nap’ is a euphemism.”

He chuckled. “And if it’s not?”

“Then I’m not interested.”

He scooped her up and settled her on his lap, tea and all, bending to press a kiss to her forehead.

She scowled up at him. “Cut it out.”

“Cut what out? Kissing you?”

“Kissing me like that. I’m not a child, and I’m not fragile. You can stop treating me like I’m going to break if you touch me the wrong way.”

He bit back the urge to tell her he feared exactly that. Had she looked at herself in the mirror today?

“Did I treat you like I was afraid to break you last night?” he asked instead, his voice dropping to an intimate rumble.

The smile that bloomed across her face almost took his breath away. “No, you didn’t,” she purred, leaning against him. “And it was wonnnderful.”

He chuckled. He’d given himself a few tense moments last night, thinking he might have hurt her, in spite of the obvious pleasure she’d taken in their joining. It felt good to hear she’d enjoyed it.

“Now if
that
was what you meant by napping…” She leaned up to nip at the end of his chin, her quick tongue soothing the minor sting. “In that case, I would be very interested.”

Asher glanced down at her, seeing the light flush desire had brought to her cheeks and feeling a surge of mingled relief and tenderness. Gently, he plucked the mug from her grasp and set it aside.

“It wasn’t quite what I meant,” he murmured, gathering her closer and brushing his lips gently once, twice, across hers. “But I think I should be able to come up with something to interest you more than sleeping.”

She purred her agreement against his throat and let him lift and carry her through to the bedroom.

Last night, he had tripped Daphanie and beat her to the floor—literally. But tonight, he had something else in mind.

He set her gently on her feet beside his bed. The sheets were still rumpled from when she’d risen late that morning, but he had more interesting things to think about than her housekeeping habits. Like the warm, slumberous look in her dark eyes, or the pink flush of desire climbing up from the neck of her borrowed sweatshirt, heating her skin.

In silence, he stripped her of her clothes, leaving the garments crumpled on the floor as he lifted her and placed her gently in the center of his mattress. He pulled the tangle of bedding aside, shoving them down to the foot of the bed with the duvet to give himself an unobstructed view of her naked body.

Her dusky skin glowed, all coffee-and-cream silk, against the navy cotton of his sheets. His eyes slid over her, slowly, hungrily, from her delicate toes—the nails painted a glittering bronze—up her surprisingly long legs to the neat tangle of dark curls between, over the gentle curve of her belly and the lush flare of her hips to the sweet, soft weight of her breasts. Her nipples tightened under his gaze, hardening to rosy brown points and making his mouth water for the taste of them. One more item he’d rushed past last night, and he added it to the list of things he meant to savor this time.

Raising his gaze to hers, he saw her tongue dart out to moisten her lips and felt his own curve in response.

Oh, yes, this time he had a very, very long list. And he intended to accomplish every single item on it. Even if it took all night.

*   *   *

Daphanie shivered under her lover’s gaze. Whether it was from the chill of being naked in the cool dark of his bedroom, or from the anticipation, she couldn’t tell.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Judging by the look in his eyes, Asher would warm her up soon enough.

She watched as he straightened and began to shed his own clothes, his eyes never leaving hers as he dealt with buttons and zippers. Last night they’d each been in too much of a hurry to spend much time looking at each other, but tonight Asher moved slowly, deliberately, and she was grateful for the opportunity it gave her to feast her eyes on his masculine beauty.

She’d never seen a man like him, not in all her thirty-one years. He could have modeled for a Renaissance sculpture, all hard planes, graceful lines, and lean, powerful muscle. Except for his sex. She couldn’t imagine a fig leaf in the world that would serve to cover his impressive erection.

Free of confining fabrics, he joined her on the bed, crawling over her like some great jungle cat, straddling her thighs and settling back on his haunches so that she felt like nothing so much as a plate of delicacies spread out for his enjoyment. He certainly eyed her with an appropriate hunger.

“You’re not touching me,” she pointed out, her skin tingling in anticipation.

“Oh, but I’m making plans,” he purred, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “I don’t want to rush this. I want— No, I
need
to take my time.”

She forced out a nervous laugh. “Fine, but I’m not getting any younger here.”

Something dark and raw flickered behind his eyes, but it was gone before she could remark on it. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers and she couldn’t remark on anything at all.

He kissed her unhurriedly—a new experience between them—his mouth settling over hers in degrees, warm and inquisitive. His lips nudged hers, searching for the perfect angle, and when he found it, she could feel him sigh against her.

She recognized that sigh. It was a breath of utter contentment, of perfect peace, and her soul echoed it in secret tones.

She tried to part her lips, to draw him deeper, but every time she attempted it, he drew back until their mouths barely touched, making her whimper in frustration until she realized that if she didn’t press, if she let him set the pace, he would give her what she wanted.

What she needed.

Daphanie let herself sink back into the mattress and back into the kiss. Asher murmured his approval against her lips, his tongue darting out to trace the seam between them. She struggled not to hurry but to savor the teasing, ticklish caress. He repeated it a second time, a third, and then nudged her lips more firmly and invited them to part and allow him entrance.

He snuck in like a thief, soft and quiet and unexpected. She would have thought he would slide deep, let his tongue tangle with hers and steal the last coherent thoughts from her head; but instead, he dipped in only shallowly, exploring the inner surface of her lips, the tender skin just behind her upper teeth, the very tip of her tongue, all with a thoroughness that threatened to drive her mad. If he maintained this pace, morning would come and go and come again before she felt him inside her, and she knew her heart couldn’t take that kind of torture.

She needed him now.

He must have sensed the fraying of her nerves, because he gave her just enough to have her head spinning and her heart leaping and an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttering madly in her stomach. His tongue slid along hers in a slow, leisurely tangle just as he lowered his body to hers, pressing skin to skin all along the tense, shivering length of her.

She moaned aloud at the minute culmination. If she’d had the strength, she would have laughed at the idea that he could make such a simple, preliminary step in the act feel almost as intense as an orgasm. She recognized it as a talent, but when all this was over, she thought she would have to kill him for it.