Under His Spell (3 page)

“Before you go back,” he was saying as he held her hand, “I’m going to count to three. When I reach three, you’re going to come back into yourself and remember everything you’ve done here with a happy glow.”

She laughed, really laughed, because what he said was so ridiculous. She was herself here. She had never been
more
herself than right now in this safe place that he had created.

“Are you ready, Nicky? After I count to three, you’ll be yourself and go back to your seat with a happy smile.”

She nodded, but she didn’t speak because she had a secret. She wasn’t going to listen to him count. She was going to do exactly as he said, except for one thing. When he reached three, she wasn’t going to leave this perfect place. She was safe here. If anything, by the time he reached three she was going to go deeper, submerge herself more completely, and become as wholly, perfectly herself as she could ever be!

“One,” he began to count. “Two.”

“Three!” she cried in concert with him, throwing up her arms in glee.

She saw his face flash with concern. Did he know? Did he guess that she was still in the wonderful place he had created?

“So, how do you feel, Nicky?” he asked.

She smiled. “I think I’ll go sit down now.” That was, after all, what he had said. After he counted to three, she would go back to her seat.

“Wonderful,” he said. “No hard feelings?”

She shook her head. “No hard feelings at all.” There was no room for anything that awful here.

“Great!” he said to the audience at large. Then he waggled his eyebrows. “And if you want to continue this later, just come by my house tonight. I’m listed in the phone book under Magic Man!”

The music hit her then with a crash of cymbals. The audience applauded and the lights flashed as Nicky made her way to her seat. Internally, she flinched away from all of that. It distracted her from her quiet island of pleasure. Better to find the darkness, and so she hurried to her seat where she could enjoy her freedom in quiet.

“I didn’t set this up,” whispered Tammy from the table. “I swear! But you were great!”

Nicky didn’t respond. She simply closed her eyes and breathed in. There was no restriction here—oxygen flowed in and out without restraint. She was never, ever going to leave this island he’d created.

“Aw, don’t sulk, Nicky. It was funny. In fact, it was great to see you let go like that. You need to do that more often.”

Nicky nodded. She would do that. After all, he had told her exactly what to do. She was going to see him tonight at his home. “Nicky?”
His
voice interrupted her thoughts. But of
course, he couldn’t interrupt anything. He was everything! “Nicky?”

She turned, smiling warmly as she looked into his sweet mocha eyes.

“I brought you back your cell phone. No hard feelings, right?”

“Of course not,” she said as she took her phone then started pulling up the Internet phone pages. There he was, Magic Man, complete with his phone number and home address.

“Nicky, you remember me, right? You remember who I am?”

She looked up just as the house lights dimmed for the next act. It didn’t matter. She knew the shape and color of his eyes, just as she knew the feel of his mouth on hers. He was her island god, and she was never leaving him.

“Nicky?”

“You’re the Magic Man,” she answered.

His expression faltered, and even without the full lights, she could see his face twist into a self-mocking grimace. “Of course. That’s exactly who I am,” he said as he straightened and looked toward the bar. “And I wanted to make your every fantasy come true.” That last was muttered beneath his breath, but she heard it. On this wonderful island, she was completely tuned in to his every whisper. After all, he said she’d feel safe as long as she could hear his voice.

She reached for him, but he was already moving away. She sighed. She wanted her every fantasy to come true, too. Fortunately, she had an answer. She delved into her purse for her car keys. She would go to his home. They could begin tonight.

J
AMES
R
AY, AKA
M
AGIC
M
AN,
didn’t feel so magical as he pushed open the passenger car door. He shouldn’t have drunk so much after the show. He shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but seeing Nicky again had hit him like a freight train. He couldn’t believe she was right there, just sitting in the audience like anybody else.

The real blow had come when he’d realized she didn’t remember him. He’d even brought her up on the stage, gave her the hint about her prom night, and nothing. Not the slightest flicker of recognition in those liquid brown eyes. And her face wasn’t quite the elfin pixie he remembered. She’d matured and looked more sophisticated than in high school. But still, how could she not remember him? While he, on the other hand, had picked her out of the crowd despite the glare of the footlights.

“You okay there, dude?”

He glanced back at Rick, his brother and the club owner. The man had taken one look at Jim’s flushed face and demanded his car keys. Now, an hour later, they were right outside his suburban house and Jim was about to manage the Herculean feat of walking up his
own driveway all by himself. He gave his brother a thumbs-up. “Yuppers, duuuude.” Then he pulled out his house keys and jingled them. “I’m set. Thanks.” He stepped out of the car, feeling better as the cool night air hit him in the face.

“So she didn’t remember you,” his brother said from inside the car. “That doesn’t mean you can’t get to know her again. It’s not a big deal. You weren’t that memorable back in high school.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jim muttered as he found his physical balance. His mental balance was still way off. The reality that he wasn’t even a blip on Nicky’s memory radar still had him reeling. Enough so that rather than pursue the woman, he’d dived face-first into a bottle of vodka.

Rick flashed him a smirk. “Plenty of fish in the sea, Jimmy. Don’t forget that. Plenty of fish…” His voice faded out as he pulled away from the curb.

“In the sea,” Jim returned, his buzz fading. He didn’t want a fish, he wanted Nicky. Nicky who was all woman. Who had long legs beneath her boring gray skirt. Who had once put strawberry gloss on her lips right before he kissed her. Nearly ten years later, he could still taste that gloss. And she didn’t even remember him.

“Don’t want a fish,” he muttered as he turned toward his house. It was almost too dark to see. He should have remembered to leave on the outside light. Fortunately, there was enough moonlight to see around the short, blocky hedges that edged his walkway. He’d only gone two steps when he stopped. He saw something there. A dark figure on his front steps. White flesh, dark clothing and a face tilted down into shadows. He rubbed his eyes. What he was seeing couldn’t possibly be there. But
when he pulled his hands away from his eyes, there she was.

He shuffled forward to see better. And miracle of miracles, she lifted her head.

“Nicky?” he rasped. It couldn’t be.

She smiled at him. God, she was beautiful. “I looked you up in the yellow pages,” she said. “Magic Man.”

“That’s me,” he returned, then winced at the really lame banter. He wanted to be witty, to impress Nicky, but then he’d never managed suave around her. The best he could manage right then was to walk up to the front step.

She slowly stood to meet him, her legs slipping beneath her, her black pumps making a soft click on the stone. And as she rose, he could see something else, something that made his eyes bulge.

Her blouse was undone. Her white silk blouse was open all the way down. It simply lay against her breasts, flapping loosely. He could even see the lace cups of her bra.

“You said you wanted to make my fantasies come true,” she said. “I have a fantasy.” She put her hands to the bra’s front clasp and popped it open. “I’ve dreamed of a man spending forever kissing my nipples until I come just from his mouth alone.”

Then right there—outside on his front steps—she pulled her bra apart. Her breasts fell forward, milky white in the moonlight except for the dark points of her nipples. They were full and heavy right there in front of him. Perfectly shaped—a bit more than a handful—and puckered such that he thought they were pointing to him.

“I’ve dreamed of it forever,” she said. “And you’re my island god. You can—”

“I can do that,” he rasped, unable to lift his eyes from her breasts.

“Would you?” she asked, and then she shrugged out of her blouse as if she meant him to do it right there on his porch!

“Inside!” he said. He grabbed her arm and managed to pull her up to his door. There was more fumbling as he tried to fit the key into his lock. And why the hell had he decided to get drunk tonight of all nights?

He shoved open the door and pulled her inside, kicking her purse in with one foot. She had stripped out of her blouse and dropped it on the railing outside. He stared at it with a frown. Something was definitely not right here. But when he turned around, he saw her pull off her bra and drop it on the floor. White lace lying on dark brown carpet.

“Nicky…” he began, doing his best to make his brain work. “Is this really your fantasy?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered as she lifted her breasts in her own hands. “Your mouth on my nipples.” Then she flicked herself with her thumbs, her eyes drifting shut in delight.

He couldn’t have stopped if his life depended on it. He had to touch her breasts. She was offering them to him, holding them out. He had to touch. But before he could connect with her flesh, his mind made one last valiant attempt at reason. He jerked his eyes up to her face, searching her eyes for the truth.

“Do you remember me, Nicky?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Of course I do.”

“Have you wanted this as long as I have?”

She smiled and arched her back, simultaneously lifting her chest closer to him. “Forever.”

It was all his brain needed to surrender. Nicky, his
high school dream girl, was finally here offering him her breasts. No way in hell was he going to say no to that! His gaze was back on her chest, but her hands were in the way.

“Let go,” he instructed. He didn’t want anything between himself and those luscious mounds.

She let her arms drop to her sides.

He reached out, his tan fingers a dark contrast to her nearly luminescent flesh. He paused. “Do you want to go to my bedroom?”

She arched her back, lifting her hands above her head. “In my fantasy, I am stretched tall.”

“Standing?”

“Yes.”

Good thing he had a two-story. He walked her backward to the side of his staircase. Then he took her hands and wrapped her fingers around the posts. She obeyed without resistance, and her soft pants told him she was as excited as he.

“Don’t let go,” he said as his gaze slid down her long arms, past her wet lips, down to the lifted expanse of her breasts. At last! He took her breasts in his hands and began to play.

N
ICKY CLOSED HER EYES
and smiled into the darkness. At last she would feel his hands like hot oil on her skin. Finally, she would know his mouth on her breasts. She remembered intensity, she recalled gentle, tentative caresses, but she had no idea from where that memory came. She only knew it was true. It was him. And now she could feel more.

Somewhere off in the distance, she felt a nagging shock, an overwhelming pressure just waiting to crush
her. But she didn’t have to be crushed if she didn’t want to be. She could stay right here on her island of pleasure. She was safe here because her island god decreed it so, and the ugly weight would never strike.

Besides, he was here with her now. And he was tonguing her breasts just as she’d fantasized so long ago. She didn’t need to remember when. She just needed to be here, now, with him.

He began as men always do—too fast and too hard. Odd, but she found she liked it. He lifted her breasts in both hands, squeezing them just short of pain before rolling his hands forward to tweak her nipples. Since her arms were stretched over her head, her breasts were thrust forward to give him total access, total control. She couldn’t even move backward away from him, which meant he could do whatever he wanted to her breasts, and she had absolutely no say in the matter.

She took a deep breath, feeling her lungs expand. His hands moved with her as he kneaded her flesh. He had gentled his touch now, so there wasn’t even the threat of pain until he abruptly bit her nipple. She gasped in surprise, but her legs trembled in delight.

“Is this part of your fantasy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered without thought, because he was right. This was exactly what she wanted. “Both breasts,” she said. “Whatever and however until I come.” It had been a part of her fantasy landscape since she first began dreaming of men.

He narrowed his hands until he had hold of just her nipples, tugging them both. Then he put his mouth to one breast and sucked her in, rolling her nipple around and around with his tongue. She squirmed but couldn’t go far with her hands gripping the posts.

He released one nipple to work on the other. The
abandoned one felt cold and wet, but soon she felt his fingers on it, rubbing the liquid in and twisting the nub. Meanwhile, his mouth went to work on the right breast, nibbling the skin around and underneath her nipple. Her breast felt full and achy, but his every abrasion heated a fire in her belly. Her knees went weak, and her legs separated of their own accord.

Part of her wanted to stop this madness. Part of her thought her behavior was very odd, but she squelched it. Those thoughts belonged to the part of her that stumbled under the weight of her world. She would not go there. She would not think those things. She would not even acknowledge the oppressive burden that waited just at the edge of her consciousness.

Sweaty pleasure was all she wanted. He was sucking her breast rhythmically now, tonguing her nipple as he worked. Heat built from inside her belly. It rushed like a wave outward, like flash fire on her skin. Her hands tightened on the railing as she gasped in reaction. Not an orgasm, but thrilling nonetheless.

She moaned and thrust her belly against his groin. He was thick and hard, a hot brand even through his clothes. Why was he wearing clothes? She wanted to lift her skirt and wrap her legs around him—naked him—but she couldn’t manage it without letting go of the posts. So she just stood there and whimpered.

He must have heard the sound because he pulled back. His hair was mussed, his mouth wet, but it was his eyes that she saw the most. Dark brown like molten gold mixed with chocolate. In this place, the analogy made sense and she willingly submerged herself in his power.

“Do you want more?” he rasped.

“Yes,” she answered.

He grinned, but didn’t speak. Without moving his eyes, he reached down and pulled her narrow skirt up to her waist.

Finally! She spread her legs to ease the heat. It didn’t help, especially as his hands roved over her thighs.

“Thigh-high panty hose,” he murmured. Then his hands stroked higher. “And a thong!” He smiled at her even as he hooked his thumbs under the strings and pushed them down. Then his grin widened as he bent his knees, kissing his way down her chest and belly.

He had to stop where her skirt was bunched at her stomach. His mouth left her skin with a swirling tongue motion that could only be described as a flourish. Then he glanced up at her.

“I’m going take this off,” he said as he tugged at her thong. “But the thigh-highs stay on.” Then he glanced down. “And those heels. Love the heels. They’re so very corporate.”

He peeled the thong down and she felt the slow pull as the wet fabric separated from her skin. He used his fingers to maneuver the strings, but his thumbs slid in and around her mound. Then he groaned in delight.

“God, Nicky, you are a fantasy come true!”

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. He was looking at her again, and she was lost in the swirling colors of his eyes. Or at least her mind was; the rest of her was absorbed in the sensation of her thong dropping down past her knees to be caught around her ankles.

She wanted to reach down and unhook it from the straps of her black pumps, but her hands would not release. He had told her not to let go, so she didn’t. She couldn’t, not without switching her brain on, and that was something she never intended to do again. Then he relieved her discomfort by lifting her left knee.
The fabric stretched. His fingers caressed her calf and popped the cotton off. He returned her leg to the ground and shifted to her right knee. He lifted it up and she felt the thong hang in the air. She tried maneuvering her foot to shake it loose, but it was caught. How impossible that she couldn’t even release the stupid thong. But then her thoughts were distracted as he kept raising her knee up. Higher and higher as he fell to the ground before her.

She stared mutely at him as he guided her knee to his shoulder, his hand still stroking the silk of her thigh-highs with a kind of reverence.

“God, I love this,” he murmured against the fine hose. Then he leaned down, nipping through the silk as he roved higher on her thigh. Soon he was at the edge, murmuring something she couldn’t hear against her skin.

The moment his lips touched her unprotected flesh, another flash fire of heat erupted. A split-second burst of sensation that made her hiss. He started to pull back but she didn’t want that, so she tightened her leg and kept him right where he was. She even lifted her other leg and dropped it on his shoulder.

He helped her, his hands bracing on the wall behind her so that she rested on his forearms. She hung there, her core open to the cold air, her moisture making her feel wet and exposed. If she’d had the use of her hands, she would have stopped him. It was too much for her, too vulnerable.

But he had said she couldn’t let go and so she tightened her thighs. The idea was to ease some of the weight off her arms, but it ended up bringing his mouth right to her center. This wasn’t part of her fantasy, but it was fabulous nonetheless. Besides, she wasn’t in control here. He was, and she trusted him absolutely. In this
place, he was the god who made everything safe and wonderful.