To Wrangle A Witch (Southern Sanctuary Book 3) (25 page)

“Okay.” 
He removed his hand entirely, she almost whimpered at the loss of his
touch.  He reminded her he was still holding her around the waist by
splaying his other hand over her ribcage and caressing her absently with his
thumb through the thin fabric of her dress.  “You were saying about the
perfect circumstances?”

“Yes…
um circumstances, so give and take… um… growth… a safe haven, energy is
imparted and exchanged and sometimes well it just… locks a witch in
place.”  She finished in a rush.

“Liar.” 
He whispered the word into her ear.  “Though I did like the bit about
‘locks’ a witch in place.”

“I
am not a liar.”
 
She kept her back rigid,
determinedly leaning away from him.

“Okay
maybe not all of it but there’s definitely some bull shine going on in your
explanation somewhere, I can hear it in your voice.”

She
studied a nearby ginger plant, looking anywhere but at Locke.

“Serena.” 
His voice was deep and coaxing in her ear.  “I was going to ask you to
stay.”

“You
were not.”  She reared back, glaring at him, forgetting her promise not to
stare into his gorgeous dark blue eyes.

“
I
was, I swear
.”

“Why? 
Why, would you ask me to stay?”

“You
want the list?  Of course you’re a woman you want the entire list. 
Because you make me laugh.  You challenge me and my OCD ways, you push…
just enough, you compromise when you know that it matters more to me.
 Because I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you dancing skyclad
under the moonlight and I want to see that every night for the rest of my
life.  No one… and I mean this with all my dirt loathing heart, no one
could make me contemplate the thought of bringing babies… children into this
world, into my home but you.  I want them to have your pansy coloured
eyes, your smile, your adorable toes and of course it goes without saying my
fashion sense.  I want to make you happy and I want you to keep surprising
me every day for the rest of our lives. 
Serena Chastain… I love you
.”

“Oh
Locke.”  Tears shimmered in her eyes as she melted into him. 
Pressing her soft lips against his for a sweet hot kiss.  The fire between
them igniting instantly as she opened her mouth pressing harder, devouring him.

It
took all of Locke’s willpower to break the kiss, gripping Serena by the
shoulders to gently push her away.  “Your turn.”

Bee
stung lips in a pout she stared at him heavy lidded.  “You’re a guy, you
don’t need words… you need actions.”

“Serena.” 
He gave her a soft shake.

“Oh
fine.  So needy.” She smiled, leaning forward to give him a swift peck on
the lips.  “I was a goner pretty much the moment you walked through the
door back at that horrendous prison.  You picked me up in your arms and I
just knew…”

“You
looked like you were going to hurl if I remember correctly.”

“And
you didn’t drop me?”  She giggled.  “You knew in that moment too
didn’t you?”

“We’ve
done my turn… it’s still your go.”

“Even
though I wasn’t conscious of it I was putting down roots that first night I
spent here.  What I did to the courtyard, it takes a tremendous amount of
will power… desire… to transform something that dramatically in just a few
hours even with the help of the Sanctuary grid boosting my magic. 
 And what I did out here, all the changes I made, it speaks towards
ownership, essentially…”  She eyed him with mischievous blue-purple
eyes.  “I was marking my territory… staking my claim on you, I just wasn’t
ready to consciously acknowledge that until today.  I suppose I was a
little hesitant… anyone looking at us, they’d think we were poles apart. 
Kind of like the look that snooty Kirsten was giving me when she found out I
was mere actress.”

“Tangent…” 
Locke brushed a thumb over her petal soft lower lip.  “Back to us.”

“You
make me laugh and you piss me off… frequently, but then you invariably make me
laugh again.  Earth I love your wit, your honesty, your
fearlessness.  I like that you’re a warrior in a three piece suit,
fighting for the little guys of the world, doing so in your own unique,
obsessive compulsive… okay and yes, stylish way, determined to make the world a
better place. I love you Locke Valhalla, from the Earth to the Moon… I love
you.”  She leant into him, letting her lips hover just over his.
“Satisfied?”

“Yes.” 
He leant in to close the distance between them.

Her
lips moving just out of reach at the last second.  “Hold on a
moment.  I have just one question.  What have you done with all my
shoes?”

“What
does it matter now?  You’re never leaving.”

“Locke.” 
She tried to sound stern but it was hard when the man was smiling at her like
that.  Suddenly he stood up, lifting her with him, twirling them about so
her hair flung out wide.

“Dance
with me witch.”  Slowly he lowered her feet to the ground, appreciating
the way she clung to him.

“Forever
and ever Lawyer man, we can talk about the shoes later… when we further explore
what it means to be bound… after all, you have an entire closet full of Italian
ties just begging to be put to good use. ” 

Locke
didn’t know whether to wince or laugh.  “Not my silk ties!”

She
moulded herself to him even closer, staring up at him wondering how she’d
gotten to be so lucky?  “Well… if not the silk ties, maybe there’s
something from the garden we could use instead… some vines maybe.”  She
caressed her thumb over the sensitive skin just below his ear.

Locke
shuddered partly in awareness of what her touch was doing to him, partly
because the thought of letting a vine wrap itself around any of his body parts
was kind of chilling.  “The ties… we definitely go with the ties.” 

This
woman was going to create havoc in his life every single day for the rest of
his life, not to mention the impact she was going to have on his
wardrobe.  Leaning down he captured her lips, a prayer of thanks to the
Goddess above in his head as he did so for all his good fortune.  She
might not have been who he was looking for but Serena was the perfect one for
him.  Life wasn’t going to be easy… or restful or necessarily as pristine
as he’d imagined it but he was damn sure every day he spent wrangling with his
witch would prove to be challenging, joyful and delightfully provocative.

The End

About the Author

Jane Cousins is a
not so mild mannered IT Project Manager by day.
 
Her greatest working achievement has been to perfect ‘the silent glare
of promised retribution’ that encourages her team to meet their promised
deadlines.
 
Over the years her job has
taken her all around the world, requiring she live in the UK, China and
Singapore.
 
Now settled in Melbourne,
Australia, she has adopted the night time persona of author.
 
Which generally involves donning a silk mask,
hunching over a computer and fighting in the name of alpha males and their more
than a match female counterparts everywhere.
 

A huge fan of witty
banter and smoking hot instant attraction Jane has never let the facts or
inconvenient reality
interfere with the telling of a great
story.
    
Currently she is hard at work
on book 4 of the Southern Sanctuary Series - To Sin with a Siren – Maat warrior
and full time flirt, Nate’s story.

Books
by Jane Cousins;

Southern
Sanctuary series:

To
Woo a Warrior

To
Trap a Temptress

To
Wrangle a Witch

To
Sin with a Siren
 
(Coming mid 2014)

By
the Numbers series:

One
For The Wedding

Two
For The Show (Coming March 2014)

To Woo a Warrior

(Book One –
Southern Sanctuary)

It was common
knowledge that Hadleigh Valhalla was a complete failure when it came to
men.
  
Too blood thirsty.
 
Too tall at 6.6ft and without a coy bone in
her too voluptuous body.
 
If there had
been a ‘fun, flirty and feminine’ test she would have failed it hands
down.
 

Thankfully she
was much more suited to her role as an Enforcer, protecting her magically
enhanced eccentric extended family on a daily basis from all kinds of
nasties.
 
It was a job she loved, much
preferring to be out there beheading the baddies than dating any day of the
week … much less stressful.

Except now
there’s a new threat in town.
 
Great Aunt
Alma, the family match maker has returned to the fold and set her sights
squarely on all the singletons.
 
Hadleigh
will do anything she has to in order to avoid Alma’s matchmaking manoeuvres,
even if that means signing on as the newest member of the hit reality TV show
‘Paranormal Exterminators.’

Vaughn, Captain
of the Goddess Maat’s elite warriors has a mission, to find and annihilate any
and all magical beings that threaten to tilt the scales of justice into
chaos.
  

A paranormal
reality TV show provides the perfect cover.
 
But there’s trouble on set.
 
Their
only female cast member has gone missing and they need a replacement fast.
 
Enter Hadleigh Valhalla, the most luscious
thing on two legs he’s seen in a century.
 
From the moment he sets eyes on her he’s determined to make her his.

There’s only one
problem, Hadleigh insists she has a strict no dating policy.
 
Claiming she’d rather be fighting than
flirting.

 
A series of mishaps means it’s a race against
time for Vaughn and Hadleigh to discover just who is targeting the show and
stop them before someone gets seriously hurt or dead.
 
While doing so Vaughn intends to teach
Hadleigh to break all the rules and prove to her she is just as much woman as
she is warrior.
 

His
warrior.
 
His woman.

To Trap
a Temptress

(Book Two - Southern Sanctuary)

What
Nell needs is a man - a completely shocking, ridiculously inappropriate,
insanely unsuitable, ludicrously improper man.

Considered too vanilla in a world full of flavours Doctor Nell
Montgomery’s dating life is a barren waste land with few prospects on the
horizon. Tired of being labelled
the nice
girl,
s
he’s
decided she needs a life make-over stat.  With that in mind she instigates
a bold plan to shatter her nice girl image irretrievably. All she needs is
one shockingly inappropriate man.
 
When
she does find him she intends to seduce the heck out of him and bury her goody
two shoes reputation once and for all.

There’s only one seven foot tall problem standing in her way.
 
His name is Drum, an elite warrior in the
Goddess Maat’s guard.
 
He’s spent over a
hundred years killing magical nasties in the most vile, bloodiest manner
possible – and quite frankly enjoying the hell out of himself.
 
With a reputation as the big bad, Drum is
used to dangerous women throwing themselves at him.
 
What he isn’t prepared for is one gorgeous
Doctor who challenges and tempts him at every turn.

When the baddest of the bad and the sweetest of the sweet are thrown
together on a tropical island with a nameless, faceless danger stalking Nell,
it’s up to Drum to protect her and at the same time prove to his little
temptress that she’s the perfect
not so
nice
woman for him.

One
For the Wedding

(Book One – By the Numbers)

It was the society wedding of the year.
 
A four day party extravaganza during which steel heiress Jami Creswell would
wed nut and bolt heir Damian Olsen.
 
Event organiser Ryan Callan thought she’d planned for every possible
contingency.

But never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that she’d bump
into the magnetic Chase McNeil whilst she was wearing nothing but a smile.
 
What happened next between them really wasn’t
her fault.
  
He was the one who flirted
with her …. she only flirted back in self-defence.
 
The bridesmaids have completely
misinterpreted the whole thing and forming a posse to wreck vengeance on her
life is just going way too far.
 

Then the bride goes missing!
 
What
else could possibly go wrong at this wedding?
 
Only a murder, that’s what.
 

When an unidentified body turns up on the big day everything is
threatening to come down around Ryan’s ears.
 
With her business reputation on the line it’s up to Ryan to solve the
mystery of the dead body, find the bride and work out just exactly what is
going on between her and Chase McNeil.

Solve murder –
check

Find bride –
check

Stop flirting
with Chase McNeil – urm ….let me get back to you on that one.