Under His Spell (13 page)

What would he give to have her like this all the time? To come home every night to her in his home, in his bed, on his car. What was it worth to him? Everything.

“Want to see more?” he asked, even though that was night and day from what he meant to say.

She grinned. “Oh yeah.”

N
ICKY LOOKED ABOUT HER,
feeling relaxed and intrigued by all of Jim’s toys. He was right. Tinkering did take a lot of equipment. She couldn’t keep track of all the gizmos that did stuff. Electronics, computers, gears and wires. She’d thought he’d made his millions on his brilliant idea, then kept himself occupied by consulting. That was certainly true, but in the downtime, Jim was either working on his next great idea or building illusions, some for himself, some for the people he called “real magicians.” Which meant that his garage housed his Corvette on one side and a whole magic playhouse on the other side.

She had been on his “water” table Friday night. He generally used it for water illusions, but had a different top and hood set up for fire effects. Hoses dangled from pipes—hot and cold taps—which had given her the sensations she’d so enjoyed. He also had a disappearing-assistant coffin, a large cage, plus drapes, chains and a large array of fake weapons.

“This just rocks!” she said.

He nodded, his eyes steady and his expression care
ful. Throughout the tour, he kept looking at her oddly, frowning as he studied her. She guessed he was wondering if she were still hypnotized or fully conscious. Good question. She wasn’t entirely sure herself. After all, she felt relaxed and happy as she hadn’t in so long. It was as if tonight’s date had brought back a slice of herself that she’d lost long ago.

Sure, the sex was part of it. Maybe a big part given how long it had been since she’d had a release, so to speak, but that wasn’t what she’d rediscovered tonight. Jimmy made her remember who she’d been. He’d reminded her of the confidence she’d once had, her joyous belief that the future held good things. How had she lost that? Sure, life wasn’t all kudos and roses, but it wasn’t endless hours of work with no reward either. Or it shouldn’t be. Being with Jim tonight had shown her so clearly how much she’d lost in the daily grind of her life.

And also that she’d clearly turned into a sex freak. Ideas were bursting in her brain. He certainly didn’t describe anything in kinky terms, but her mind easily turned everything into Nicky’s sexual playhouse. She saw potential toys in the most mundane things. And wow, did she want to try them all.

“I’ve become quite the sex kitten, haven’t I?” she murmured to herself.

She hadn’t meant for him to hear her, but he obviously did. So he leaned back against one of his worktables and folded his arms.

“That surprise you?” he asked.

“Totally,” she answered with complete honesty. “It’s been so long, I figured I’d regrown my virginity.”

“You don’t do things by halves, do you?”

“Apparently not.” She mimicked his pose, a casual
lean against a table with her arms folded beneath her breasts. He’d pulled on his pants, but was still bare chested. A look she very much appreciated. She’d zipped back on her dress, but hadn’t hooked anything. It would be the work of a moment to strip it right back off.

She could see he was thinking the same things she was. His eyes were alive with interest and her body was already wet and willing. But it was well past midnight. Even if Mr. Millionaire Consultant didn’t have to get up early tomorrow, she certainly did. Reports to compile, factory shipments to juggle, a thousand jobs to
not
lay off.

“I need to get back home,” she said reluctantly.

“Yeah, I figured.” He moved to where his shirt dangled from bicycle handlebars. No bike, just the handlebars propped on a table. “But I’d really like to see you again. Think we could manage a second date?”

He kept his voice casual, and she found herself responding to his light tone. “I think I could manage that.” A second, a third, and probably up to a fifty-ninth date, given all the possibilities she saw in his workshop. And that didn’t even include the things that could be done in his house.

“Gawd,” she drawled as she watched him pull on his shirt, “I want to be a millionaire so that I can hang out all day and play.”

“What would you do?”

“Besides have sex with you until my head explodes? Work out. Get a tan. I don’t know. Do stuff.”

He nodded, absently buttoning his shirt. He didn’t need to speak for her to know what he was thinking.

“You think I’d get bored. You think I can’t even take a vacation without going nuts.”

He arched a brow back at her. “Can you?”

“Of course I can!” she said. But then she thought back to her last few vacations. Sure they’d started out great. But two days into a weeklong break and…well, she’d started getting twitchy. “Okay, so I like working,” she finally confessed. “So do you, apparently. You could be relaxing on your millions, but here you are, contracting out to the guy who bought your design, working up your next brilliant discovery, and tooling illusions in your spare time. Hardly—umph!”

He picked her up—physically lifted her right off the floor—then spun her around until she landed,
plop,
right down on a table draped in black velvet.

“You seem to think I want you to change. We’ve barely had our first date, and yet I’m supposedly thinking all this stuff about how you need to be different.” He planted a hot kiss on her lips. “Really, Nicky, I think you’re great just as you are.”

She was flushed and hot, an all too common state for her these days, and was completely speechless. Fortunately, he didn’t give her a chance to stutter something awkward, something that made no sense. He caressed her cheek and then pinched her chin when her eyes started drifting closed.

“I’m not judging you, Nicky. I never have.”

She let her head drop forward onto his. He met it and held, his breath a hot caress against her lips. It was a strangely intimate position. There was no posturing in the moment. She wasn’t trying to be a badass boss or a brain-dead submissive. It was just her without pretense touching him without expectations. And in this place, she finally voiced the truth. “
I
think I need to change. I just don’t know how to do it yet.”

He nodded, and because they were forehead to
forehead, her head moved as well. “I’d like to help you work it out,” he said softly.

“Well, endless orgasms do seem to be helping,” she drawled.

He heaved an overly dramatic sigh. “Well, if that’s what it takes, I suppose I can offer myself up as stud…”

She chuckled at his dry tone, but then slowly sobered. She wanted so much more from him than stud services. But how much? And would she end up being disappointed? And…

“Your body’s tightening up again.”

“Want to hypnotize me again?”

He pulled back, his eyes serious. “I want to know what happened, Nicky. Why are you running so scared all the time?”

She huffed. “You seem to think it was one event. It wasn’t. I got to college and it was hard, so I worked harder. I got into the job market, and it was really hard. I connected up with two…no three different guys, each time thinking they were the man for me. They weren’t—”

“Why?”

She huffed. “Same reason the wrestler in high school was such a bad prom date choice. He had credentials, Jimmy. He was captain of the wrestling team, looked hot in those little shorts, and was a big man in high school.”

“I remember.”

“But in private, he was an ass. At prom, he was a drunken ass.”

“Which is why I found you walking home alone with a ripped dress.”

She smiled at the memory. “He didn’t hurt me. None
of them did. They were just bad choices.” And the last one had been the absolute worst.

“And they shook your confidence.”

Understatement of the year. “Then I borrowed money to go to graduate school.”

“But you did it. You got your degree.”

She nodded, but he didn’t know how hard she’d worked for just mediocre grades. She wasn’t the top of her class, she was barely in the middle. “There was so much debt, Jimmy. I borrowed from the bank, from my parents, from Susan and her husband, too.” Then the asshole boyfriend had wiped out her accounts. “I just…I had to get a good job.”

“You got one.”

She nodded. She got one, she’d paid everyone off, but she’d never loved what she did. She was only paying back debts. And once they were paid off, she wanted to get a good cushion in her bank account so she’d never have to face that kind of financial terror again. “I’m so afraid I’m going to end up back on the street.”

He stiffened. “Back?”

She nodded. “I was homeless for a couple weeks. Not long. I was the only one in the shelter going to graduate school.” She tried for a laugh, but it didn’t sound very convincing. “My last bad choice got access to my bank account. He cleaned me out, then skipped.”

“Oh my god, Nicky.” His hands stroked her arms, his fingers clenching reflexively.

“I had already borrowed so much from my family, I couldn’t go back to them. Plus, I was embarrassed. They still don’t know. Anyway, he’d been pocketing the rent money. By the time I found out, I was months behind.”

“Evicted?”

“Oh yeah. Stuff on the curb and all. I sold everything I owned to finish school and eventually imposed on an old friend from college to sleep on her couch. But for a while there I didn’t have a place to live.”

“So you went to a shelter? Nicky—”

“Don’t pity me, Jimmy!” she said sharply. “I worked my way out of it. I’ve paid back every cent. I’ve earned—”

He silenced her with a swift, deep kiss. And when he was done, he pulled back to look deep into her eyes. “I don’t pity you, Nicky. I’m impressed as hell. I knew you were strong, but damn, most people would have broken under that kind of pressure. You’ve come out tougher, better, more capable than ever.”

She release a soft laugh, feeling years of stress slide away. He understood. “I’m doing okay now,” she said. “My bank account is solid, my résumé is good.”

“But you’re still afraid,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He knew she was.

She lifted her chin. “Except with you. Except when—”

“You’re hypnotized.”

She laughed. “I was going to say multi-orgasmic, but okay. We’ll go with hypnotized.”

He touched her cheek. “You can’t spend your entire life under hypnosis, Nicky. When are you going to let go of the fear and let yourself live?”

She didn’t answer because she didn’t know. All she could think was that she wasn’t afraid when she was with him. When he looked at her as he was now, she remembered the girl she’d been. She remembered to believe in herself and that life could be good. But she couldn’t manage to say that aloud just then. It was too revealing, and she’d just told him so very much more
than anyone else knew. So she just looked at him, and he at her.

And after a minute like this, the moment became too intense. The sexual tension was nothing compared to the quiet need to be in his arms, to be held and nurtured and just touched gently. The yearning built and built inside her head until she had to jerk backward or rush headlong into his arms forever.

“I gotta go,” she said, rushing her words. “Work. Reports. Career. You know—”

“I know,” he said, and there was acceptance in his expression. “I know,” he repeated softly. And for a frozen moment, she realized he truly did know. He understood her fears and her need for space. He realized that she needed to become comfortable with their new intimacy before she allowed them anything more between them. So he shuttered his expression and gestured to his car.

“I…uh…I’ll drive you home.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said as she leaped off the velvet. “Thanks.” She got into his car as he hit the garage door button. Then he climbed into the driver’s side, accidentally revving the car before backing out.

They drove in silence, making it to her condo in what had to be record time. She turned her face to stare at the patterns of light and shadow that made up the Chicago skyline. Had she just ruined a perfect night with her own insecurities? Had her confessions turned him sour on her? She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t shake the nagging fear that dogged her every thought. If it wasn’t the terror of being homeless, it was the fear that she’d made yet another disastrous choice in men. Sure, he felt like the best thing to happen to her in ages, but was he really? Was he going to empty her bank accounts, too?

She knew her fears were ridiculous, but she couldn’t make them go away. And she couldn’t bring back the hypnosis either. Truthfully, the line between consciousness and hypnotized was getting more blurry every time she saw him. Was she hypnotized when he smiled at her and made her fears go away? Or was she simply reacting to him? To how wonderful he made her feel? She closed her eyes and felt stupid. This was case and point why she never dated.

“I had a great time tonight, Nicky. Even before the…you know, Corvette thing.”

She smiled as his voice filled the dark interior. He was soft spoken, his low tones slipping beneath her skin almost on the same level as the growl of the engine. It was his hypnotist voice—or maybe it was just his quiet voice. Either way, she felt her fears ease as she rolled her head back to look at him.

“I like you a lot, Jimmy. Er, Jim.”

He grinned. “I’ve become fond of the name Jimmy again. Feel free to use it. You can even scream it.”

She smiled back, remembering exactly when and how she had screamed that name. She wasn’t sure how she could handle intimacy with him, a real relationship with give and take and intimate confessions. But sex? Fantasy playland? She could handle that. She
wanted
that. “So, was I good enough that I get a second date?”

“I can take you out to someplace fancy. We’ve done the nostalgia thing. How about downtown? Something classy?”

“How about pizza and your magic room?”

He arched a brow. “Magic room?”

“You prefer I call it your sexual playhouse?”

He choked. “No, magic room works great. Whatever you want, Nicky. I—”

“Tomorrow night. I’ll be done at work by six. Er…six-thirty.” She huffed. “Hell. Better make that seven.”

“Seven,” he said as he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “But not a minute later.”

The kiss goodbye wasn’t hot, or rather it didn’t start out that way. He simply touched her mouth, stroked it a bit with his tongue while his fingers burrowed into her hair. Not demanding. Not a prelude to hot and heavy. But it was nice, and it continued to be nice. And then nicer.