Wish For Me (The Djinn Order #1) (2 page)

They were
amethyst,
the most beautiful shade of violet in the universe, making my blue ones appear dull and lifeless. The only other person I’d ever heard of having amethyst eyes was Elizabeth Taylor. But since I’d never met Miss Taylor, this man was one of a kind in my world and that confirmed that if there was ever a man I’d dreamed of hitting the sheets with, this was him.

“Why do you stare at me like that?” he said, raising one silky black eyebrow into a sexy arch.

Damn.
That voice. A deep baritone with a foreign accent attached. It shouldn’t have done what it did to me. How could a
voice
send a shiver all the way down my spine to the tips of my toes and make me gyrate my hips into the bed trying to keep my lust at bay?

“Must I ask twice, human?”

My look of admiration melted into a frown. “You’re standing in my room in the middle of the fucking night like some kind of psycho-stalker serial killer, asshole. That’s why I’m staring at you.”

And had this dude just called me a
human
? I snorted. He had. Probably because he thought he was a god. I snorted again.
He was.

“You are the one who summoned me, human. So reserve the flippant tongue for whichever pathetic human male you usually speak to in that manner.”

My frown morphed into a glare. “What the hell are you even talking about?
Summoned
you? And there is no man. But if there was, he wouldn’t be pathetic!” I could have left that last part off, but whatever.

The man didn’t seem to hear me anyway as he walked around my room, picking things up and studying them with a disgusted look on his face. I glanced at the window. Is that how he had gotten in? Or had he picked the lock to my bedroom door? I still couldn’t understand why I wasn’t screaming my head off or trying to kick his ass. I figured it was his lack of aggression. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, so I wasn’t freaking out. Or was he really just that damn sexy? My eyes ran the length of him and I shivered again.

“Oh, come on!” I exclaimed, cursing my stupid female hormones.

The man looked at me. “Come on to what?”

I waved him off. “I was talking to myself.”

With a shrug, he turned away again to start going through my underwear drawer. I honestly didn’t even mind. He was sexy and I had cute underwear. No granny panties for me.

“Has anyone ever told you that talking to yourself makes you appear to be less than sane?” He held up one of my purple bras adorned with pink lace.

“Nope,” I said. “My grandmother always told me that as long as you don’t answer yourself, you’re all good.”

The man didn’t respond and that annoyed me. That joke usually pulled a laugh out of most people. At the very least, a smile. This guy gave me nothing.

“What’s your name?” I asked.
Why
did I ask? It was another question I couldn’t answer. I should have been on the phone with the cops instead.

One of my favorite thongs dropped from his fingers back into the drawer. He closed it and turned to face me. “Irving.”

I waited. “That’s it? Just Irving?”

He rolled his amethyst eyes. “Irving Amir. At your service.”

At my service?

“And you are, human?” he said.

I frowned at him. “Why do you keep calling me human?”

“Are you not a human?”

“Yes, but—” I shook my head. I checked the digital clock on my side table and it read three in the morning. Yeah, it was too early for mind games. “Glory St. Pierre.”

“Glory St. Pierre,” he repeated. “Is that all? Humans usually have three names.”

I shook my head. “Not telling. My middle name is top secret. Very few people still living even know it.”

That seemed to interest Irving. “I will find out in due time.”

I smirked, totally secure in the knowledge that he never would. “So, why are you here?” I held up a hand. “If you’re here to kill me, at least let me put some make-up on so I can be a pretty corpse like the ones in the movies.”

I laughed. He didn’t. I wanted to punch him, but before I could even open my mouth, Irving stalked forward and snatched all of the blankets from my bed.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” I exclaimed.

“There it is,” he said.

“There what is?” I looked down and saw the gold mechanical vase. “Oh, the vase thing?”

He shot me a look. “It is
not
a vase.” He looked down again. “It’s a
Chronolier
.”

“A what?”

“A
Chronolier
. It means ‘golden exodus’.”

“Golden exodus?”

“Yes. But in simple, mortal terms even you could understand, it’s a lamp.”

I frowned. “Like a light lamp?”

“No.”

“A lava lamp?”

“What in the hell…
no
.”

I thought about it some more. Then laughed. “You can’t mean what I think you mean.”

He cocked his head at me. “What is it you
think
I mean?”

I pointed. “You think that’s a lamp. Like a
genie
lamp.”

“
Djinn
is the correct term and I don’t think anything. I
know
.”

“
How
do you know?”

“Because,” he said, “I’m the Djinn it belongs to.”

He didn’t even give me a chance to process that.

“Where is the key?” he asked.

“The key?” I remembered it had fallen off my bed and landed somewhere…

“There.” Irving knelt down and retrieved the key from under my bed.

“So it is,” I mumbled, trying to blink away the approaching dizzy spell.

“Thank Sultan,” he said, examining the key as he stood. He held it up. “This key is quite valuable, Glory St. Pierre. You should try not to be so careless with it.”

“Excuse you? I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

Irving rolled his eyes like I was slow and should have caught on already. “You found my Chronolier and you turned
this
key, at least three times, correct? Which means, I’m yours for three wishes.”

I blinked. “Are you saying—”

“Yes, Glory. I’m a Djinn.” He blew out an impatient breath. “Or a genie. But if you call me that, I will make your life as unpleasant as possible at every opportunity.”

I stared at him. “Okay.” I reached down and dragged my covers off the floor and over my head. “I’m ready to wake up now.” This
had
to be a dream. I pointed toward the sky. “I blame you for this!” Old Addie would know who I was talking to.

“You are not dreaming, Glory,” Irving said.

The hell I wasn’t. Dude had just told me he was a fucking
genie
. I better be dreaming.

“Glory. Look at me.”

I didn’t. I turned my back on
Irving Amir
and closed my eyes. How did one wake oneself from a dream they no longer wanted to dream?

“Honestly, Glory. There are terms to discuss and I’m bound by Djinn law to disclose them to you at the first meeting.”

I plugged my ears and started humming. But when I stopped, all I heard was Irving still running his mouth.

“Please,” I said, “shut up. Just stop talking. I’m trying to wake up here.”

I heard Irving grunt. “You test my patience, human. And I promise you, I do not have much of it.”

I ripped the covers from over my head to glare at him. “Who gives a mighty fu—”

There was a knock on my bedroom door.

“Glory? Who are you talking to in there?”

It was Ashlyn, or Ash, as I called her. What was she doing in my dream? Should I answer her?

I didn’t.

“Why do you not answer?” Irving whispered.

I put a finger to my lips to shush him.

“You wish to keep me all to yourself then, do you?”

I ignored him. Maybe if I didn’t say anything she’d go away. Maybe he would, too.

“I know you’re awake in there,” Ash said. She jiggled my doorknob but it was locked, like it always was. In real life,
not
in a dream.

“Seriously, Glory. Is everything okay?” She started to sound panicked and a freaked-out Ash was not something I wanted to deal with right then. Her voice had already shot up a few octaves. Soon, it would hit dog whistle range and then she’d be uncontrollable.

I sighed and pretended I wasn’t fully awake. “I’m fine, Ash. Must’ve been talking in my sleep or something.”

“Oh.” There was a brief silence. “Okay! Night!” I heard Ash pad off to her room. I didn’t move until I heard her door close.

Flipping back the covers, I swung my legs over side of the bed and leaned forward to stop my head from spinning. I looked up to find Irving watching me with a critical eye. But he was still
there
, and that was my problem.

“I have to be fucking dreaming,” I said. My voice wavered with my building skepticism.

“For the last time, Glory. You are
not
.”

I had to be insane to believe him, but I did. Sort of. My toe still throbbed from kicking the damn vase. I pinched myself and cursed the sharp pain I felt. Dammit, I was awake.

I rubbed the sore spot with my fingers. “Genies are real,” I mumbled.

“And you insist on taunting me.”

I stared up at Irving. The fucking
genie
. “Huh?”

“I am a
Djinn.
Not a genie. I mean it, Glory St. Pierre. Do not call me a genie again.”

“Don’t threaten me, asshole,” I growled.

Suddenly, Irving was stretched out over me. I hadn’t even seen him move. I was lying down now. Had I fallen back or had he forced me down? I didn’t know.

“Or you will do what, human?”

“Get off of me,” I snarled. “
Now.
”

I felt his muscles relax, weighing me down even more. He scowled. “Why do you smell so good? What do you call that perfume?”

“
Soap
,” I snapped, pushing up with my hips. He pushed back and tightened his grip on my wrists. I tried to knee him in the groin, but he blocked my attempt by forcing one of his legs between mine. I was trapped, so I did the only thing there was left to do.

I slammed my forehead into his beautiful face.

With a curse, he grabbed his head and rolled away. The second he was off me, I leapt from the bed and grabbed a textbook from the nightstand, ready to knock his ass silly if he wanted it that way. But all Irving did was groan and hold his throbbing temples.

His growl was deep and low. “Were you born with that head, or was it conjured by some evil sorcerer?”

I laughed breathlessly. “My mom always did say I had a hard head.”

“Oh yes, I know this saying.
And hard heads make for…soft asses
.” His gaze drifted downward. I followed it and realized all I had on was a pair of panties with my tank. I would have covered myself, but I thought, why? Irving had already seen everything.

“Stop gawking, Irving,
damn.
”

Irving snorted and cringed as though it hurt. “The women of my kind sleep naked, so you are nothing special. Except for your…” He gestured with his hands, turning his palms inward and pulling them apart.

“Are you calling me
fat
?”

Irving’s expression softened. “Not at all. You are…” His brow creased as he searched for the right word. I waited impatiently, dying to know what he would come up with. He must have realized that because a minute later his expression hardened and he said, “Never mind.”

Infuriating bastard.

“Where did you find my Chronolier?”

The lie just rolled off of my tongue. “A pawn shop. Cost me, like, fifty bucks.”

He snorted. “Humans obviously do not know a treasure when they encounter one.
A pawn shop.
And for so little of your currency? My Chronolier is priceless. And what the hell was it even doing in a pawn shop?”

I rolled my eyes, but I was surprised that he bought my lie so easily. I wasn’t sure why, but I guessed I didn’t want him to know more about me than was necessary. I didn’t want him to know about my dead grandmother and that I’d actually found the vase in her basement. Then he would have more questions that I couldn’t answer. Like, how did Old Addie acquire the Chronolier? I was sure it wasn’t from a pawn shop. She
had
traveled the world twice over during her life so maybe she had collected it during one of her trips. I didn’t know and probably never would. Addie was dead and gone now, and I was going to stick with my lie until I had no choice but to come clean.

Seeming to have forgotten something all of a sudden, Irving started patting down the pockets of his duster. He pulled a gold pocket watch from the second pocket on his left side. He clicked a button on the side of the watch and it popped open.

Irving examined it for a moment, then snapped it shut. “Time is running out, human. You wasted much of it trying to wrestle me.”

“You jumped on
me
!” I exclaimed. With a frustrated grunt, I slammed the textbook back down on my nightstand. “Time is running out for what, Djinn boy? Tell me without any smart-ass commentary, thank you.”

Irving rubbed his temples once more before rising. “It is Djinn law, Glory. I have to deliver the terms and you have to accept them before the next sun rises.”

“The terms for
what
?”

“Are you hard of hearing? Your three wishes.”

“Wishes?”

“Yes. I am a Djinn. You are the master of my Chronolier.” Irving turned his face up as though he couldn’t believe he was about to say what he was. “And the master of
me
.”

“I
am
?”

“Yes.” He glared at me, but I could do nothing but smile. I was this sexy douchebag’s
master
? Oh, the possibilities…

“What does that mean exactly?”

Irving circled me and I let him. “It means I must grant you three wishes, anything your petty human heart desires. Only the granting of your third wish can free me from your service, and until then, you may summon me at will and I must remain in your company until you release me.”

“Really?” This sounded way too good to be true.

“Yes, really, Glory.” Irving’s tone betrayed his annoyance with my questions.

“Okay, so how does this work? When can I make my first wi—”

He held up his hand. “There are rules to this that you must know first.”