Masked Attraction (8 page)

But the other wizard might not be so cautious. If he was evil enough, he might even consider killing a few witnesses as merely collateral damage.

No props to call on here, although Daniel could possibly burst all the lights—darkness would hide his magic from the mortal couple. But no, that wouldn’t do much to hide any of them from a fire wizard.

“Zoe,” Daniel said. “We need to hide.”

“Right. This way.”

She lunged to her right and ducked out a heavy metal door. He dived through after her. Fresh air blew sweet and cool in his face. He was surprised to see they were in a private outdoor garden in the middle of the villa.

The courtyard was empty except for another couple making out. Hells bells, why couldn’t people get their romance on
inside
the ballroom? Daniel swept a quick reconnaissance. The foliage was mostly climbing vines and teacup bushes, useless for hiding. They were still vulnerable.

“No good.” He urged her to keep moving. “We have to find somewhere completely hidden. Preferably with a locked door.”

“Back inside?” She tugged him forward.

He kept tight hold of her hand as she ran along the colonnade portico, head swiveling, looking for entrances. Her wolf must’ve been to the fore, because she was almost too fast for him, his heart pounding to keep up. She’d wheeled through a corner and his breath was starting to rasp when the door clanged open behind them.

Zeus shouted, “Give me that woman!”

Power shot past Daniel’s head and crashed into the stucco of the wall next to them.

“Damn it.” Zoe growled the words as she whipped around, one hand up as if she’d claw the daylights out of anyone who approached. “What the hell was that?”

“Hey,” the guy in the kissing couple yelled. “Keep it down. You’re spoiling the mood.”

“There.” She tugged him toward an arched door flush with the wall, directly opposite the ballroom.

Footsteps thudded through the garden, Zeus cutting a direct path. Daniel was in good shape, but he was breathing hard because of adrenaline. He admired Zoe’s steady lope, especially considering she was running in high heels.

They zipped through the door, into a hallway.

He automatically looked right for a hiding place. The corridor stretched for seeming miles. Nothing but windows. Nowhere to hide. No doors to lock. Muscles tightening, nerves singing, he swung his head left…and nearly missed the exit door directly across from him.

Zoe saw it at the same time, pointing. She grinned at him and despite the danger, it felt like the sun rose inside his heart. Renewing his grip on her hand, he dashed them through.

The festively lit, upper lakeside terrace was empty of people, Lake Michigan a slash of gray-blue on the horizon. Free to use his power, Daniel had a chance now. He didn’t know how much Zoe knew about magic—wolves knew about witches, but the two sets didn’t exactly mingle—so he opened his mouth to prepare her for the mages’ battle. “Zoe, I’m—” Catching sight of a set of security cameras scanning the patio, he groaned, “—screwed.”

Behind them came the slap of a door and Zeus’ muffled roar.

“Lower terrace?” she asked.

“Lead the way.”

She flew across the patio, with him drafting in her wake. It buoyed him, energized him—the feel of the wind in his face, her slim hand in his, running easily in perfect synch. He hadn’t been this alive, this happy, since high school.

Then magic zinged past his ear, so close his hair singed.

“Stop, you bastard,” Zeus bellowed. More power zinged at them.

Daniel threw up a quick shield, covering it for the cameras as a swipe to his forehead. He was surprised when the sleeve of his tux actually came away damp. It was the first he realized in all the excitement that his mask clung to his face, shirt to his torso, cloth damp as well.

“Damn. He’s persistent.” Zoe started down the south set of elbow-bracket stairs.

The moment they turned onto the return flight, Daniel could see the lower terrace wasn’t any better for hiding, either themselves or his use of magic.

“We have to get away…” The words struck him.
Getaway
. “My car. It’s parked on Lincoln Memorial. Right in front.” He’d definitely have to do something nice for that police officer.

“Great. Which one?” Her voice hiccupped as she bumped down the stairs. “
Which car is yours?
”

To his shock, she’d almost shouted. “
Shh.
If he knows—”

“
Is it that red Ferrari?
”

“Damn it, Zoe—”

“Quiet.” She yanked him to a stop on the lower terrace and faced him. “Not a peep, or I’ll have your balls for my personal chewtoys, hear?”

He opened his mouth to ask a pointed question or two, realized she had a plan and shut it with a snap—then actually heard her words.
Her lush mouth on my balls…?
He swallowed, hard.

She nodded, satisfied, toed off her high heels, snatched them up, and led him cat-footed across the lower terrace.
Across,
not toward the razorback stairs down the bluff. Toward the mirror staircase on the other side.

Zeus appeared at the top of the south stairs, his back to them as he started down. Arrogant or in a hurry, he didn’t check to see where they were, or where they were headed.

While his back was turned, Zoe and Daniel slunk up the north staircase. Zoe monitored the cowled wizard with continuous glances cast over her shoulder, her shifter body-awareness no doubt keeping her from tripping.

Just as the evil mage turned the stairs’ bend, she dropped, pulling Daniel down next to her. He crouched beside her in the shadows of the thick concrete spindles and held his breath to keep from being discovered.

Zeus plunged onto the terrace. Daniel’s lungs began to ache. The bastard stopped mid-terrace, head whirling like a hunter seeking prey. Burning to breathe, Daniel clenched his Zoe’s hand. She gripped hard in return, reassuring him.

Finally,
finally,
the black fire mage shouted, “The key and the woman are mine,” dashed to where the long switchback descended the bluff, and started down.

Daniel released his held breath in relief.

“Come on.” Zoe tugged him to a crouching stand. “The minute he looks up from his feet, he’ll see we’re not on those stairs.”

“Unless the lake creates an optical illusion.” Daniel touched the wand in his pocket pointed at Zeus and said, “He’s following a
phantasm
.” On the word, a shadowy double blob appeared on the switchback, vaguely couple-shaped.

When the cowled wizard looked up from his feet, Zoe clutched Daniel’s hand tight. He liked that, liked the feel of her relying on him, too.

Zeus waved his fist—at the blob. “Give me back that key.”

A spray of magic shot from his fist.

“What was
that?
” Zoe’s eyes were wide. “Did he just shoot electricity from his bare hand?”

Daniel could have explained, but if she wasn’t thinking magic, now wasn’t the time to tell her an evil mage was after them and potentially scare the crap out of her.

Daniel reviewed and discarded the Witches’ Council’s usual cover stories: gas leak, fireworks, government drone. “Um…he has some sort of freehand stunner?”

“That shoots electricity?”

“Um, yes?”

“Cool.” Hunched, she led him up the rest of the stairs.

On the upper terrace, he said, “We won’t have long. When he finds my car empty, he’ll return.”

“Hide, right.”

Or at least get someplace where he could grab a breath, explain things to her, then go out to fight this fire mage alone.

But when she hauled him into the house, she zipped along from one hallway into the next until it seemed as if they’d run all the way back to the ballroom, twice, and he had no breath to explain once she finally tugged him into the janitor’s closet.

She whirled him inside and flipped on the light. Daniel bent over and sucked oxygen. His image, opposite him in a mirror over a shallow floor basin, mimicked him. To his right was a rack of equipment, to his left a set of shelves. He turned as Zoe shut and bolted the door.

She fell with her back against it, her chest pumping hard with sobbing noises.

She‘s crying.
Explanations and heroically going off to fight the villain flew out of his head. He reached out to comfort her. She raised her head, eyes brimming with tears behind her mask—cheeks and lips plumped with…a smile.

She was
laughing
.

“I can’t believe that worked.” She shook her head, thick lustrous hair swishing against the mounds of her breasts. Under the dress, the October chill had tightened her nipples into points. Zoe adopted Zeus’ heavy growl. “Gimme the key and the woman!” She fell to laughing again.

Beautiful Zoe, laughing. It was magnetic, impossible to resist, and he joined in, feeling light.

“Classic villain, right?” He twirled imaginary mustache ends. “You must give me what I want—or else!”

“But I can’t.” Touching wrist to forehead, she affected a fainting heroine pose. “I can’t pay the rent.”

“But you must pay the rent. One way
or another
.” He waggled eyebrows, the mask tugging at his face, and gave her a lecherous grin.

Her own smile dissolved into something much more serious, much warmer. She tossed aside her shoes.

Gazing into her eyes, the moment bubbled inside him with infinite possibility. Anticipation lit his veins, his muscles, fueling his reaching for her. To his shocked delight, her arms lifted at the same moment, hands eagerly reaching for him.

She met him in an explosion of lips and tongues and groping hands. He was surprised their magic didn’t ignite. More than a kiss, he devoured her and she him, merging mouths like mixing essences. He ran ardent hands over her curves. She was so soft, yet sleekly muscled.

Twining her arms around his neck, she pulled him into her, kissing him as if trying to crawl down his throat, so enthusiastically he laughed.

“Wait.”

“No more waiting.” She peeled the jacket off his shoulders, continuing to dive into his mouth with abandon.

Daniel helped her get his jacket off then yanked open his bow tie and threw it away—before it occurred to the hazed portion of his brain he could have done some interesting things with it.

She’d already flipped off his cufflinks and was busy popping the studs of his shirt, kissing and licking the corner of his mouth as she worked the small pearl-and-onyx fasteners free. Her tongue was hotter than a flame.

“How’d you get the key from him? I never saw it. You’re amazing.”

His chest swelled. “It wasn’t hard. While he was busy with his posturing, I picked his pocket.” His lips, on her tender earlobe, buzzed as he reached behind her to unzip her dress.

“Sneaky. Smart.”

She undid the last of his studs and yanked the tail of his shirt from his pants, nearly ripping cotton. He was glad he wasn’t wearing a cummerbund. When she frantically pushed apart his shirt and revealed his T-shirt, she released a groan.

“Will these clothes never end?”

In answer, he tore both open shirt and T-shirt off over his head. His mask nearly came with it. He couldn’t quite care, tugging it quickly back into place, ending up with one eyehole off-center.

Her eyes roved over his naked chest. “You’ve bulked up since high school. It hasn’t changed you.”

The frank appreciation in her gaze made him hot, but her words didn’t. “What do you mean, I haven’t changed?”

Zoe stripped off her dress. Her breasts sprang free, and her navel was a perfect dent in her creamy belly. She stood before him in lacy panties, thigh highs, and nothing else. He gaped, stunned motionless except for his roving gaze.

“You’re still a dork.” She grabbed him and kissed him so deep she was mating his mouth.

“Not anymore,” he managed around her tongue, wrapping arms around her slim, nearly naked body, groaning because she felt and tasted so sweet.

“Not any less.”

She petted his ribs and chest until he was broiling and eager to be naked, too. Naked with her in a janitor’s closet. Not very romantic at all. Somehow, he couldn’t quite care. Because, naked. With her. It was romantic enough for him.

“Is dork a good thing?” he asked hopefully.

“Are you still thinking?” she countered.

“Not much.”

“Which means some.” She glanced at his mask. “You’re crooked.”

“I know. I’m thinking, but only how to best please you.”

She smiled at him as she adjusted the mask. “Then you have your answer.”

“I do?”

“Yes.” Zoe plastered both hands against his chest, pushing her bountiful breasts together like a harvest cornucopia. “Non-dorks would turn their brains off, and the only thing they’d care about was how best to please
themselves.
”