Annette Blair (33 page)

His goddess.

She twirled her wand above and around him.

“May you follow the stars,

Grasp your dreams,

Listen with your heart,

Open to adventure,

Strive for balance

And live in peace.”

Kira the goddess, suspended between the sea and the stars, replaced Jason’s vision of hockey in his mind.

“May your life be full,

Your fate accepted,

Your future blessed

With joy and passion.

This is my will.

So mote it be.”

She ended her spell with a flourish and a sigh, as if the spell had exhausted her.

“With a spell like that, I can’t lose,” Jason said. “I’ll be back on the ice in no time. I—”

Jason caught his breath. He had nearly said, “I love you,” though he would have meant, “I thank you” or “You’re a doll,” but Kira would not have understood. Neither did he.

Those words never came to his mind, much less his lips.

Kira gave him a tired smile. “I did my best,” she said. “I really did.”

“I know. The spell was beautiful; you’re beautiful. Come,” Jason said, and the moon goddess stepped into the sea, dissolved disquiet, and took him to heaven.

Late Sunday afternoon they went ice dancing at the rink, and at midnight they made love standing on the deck, outside the whirlpool, wrapped in her quilts, the snow falling about them.

She was a witch, all right, Jason thought, still hard inside her, magic from her copper curls to her peach-tipped toes.

KIRA
woke in Jason’s bed Monday morning, hating the thought of facing work after the intimacy of the weekend. Not sure what to say, she left his bed, and his side of the suite, in silence.

She hoped they hadn’t ruined their working relationship.

In the Hummer, talk was strained, but as the day progressed, they finalized plans for the Christmas Ball. She needed a costume for that, so she went looking for one in the vault, hoping to get away, and think straight, but Jason followed her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“As your date for the ball, I reserve the right to approve your choice,” he said, and she made a face at him, but he chuckled and sat to wait.

She came out modeling an emerald velvet twenties gown, and Jason locked the door. She knew what was coming and should stop him, but she let him peel it off her. And when he found the Victorian corset she’d worn beneath,
almost hoping he’d find it, he pulled her down and made love to her on the floor. Love. Yes. No. Maybe. For her. Not for him.

“Bessie would kill us, if she knew we were fooling around up here,” Kira said when Jason fell beside her and gathered her close.

He chuckled. “I told you, she’d raise a flag.”

Kira had to face facts. Their working relationship had taken a new turn, not a wholly bad turn, but probably not good in the long run.

They worked in comparative ease for the rest of the day, and settled details for the Christmas sleigh-ride tours of the mansions.

Determined to ease her need for Jason, Kira went to her own suite when they got home, leaving him silent and surprised in the hall. She shut the kitchen door, and didn’t go down to Bessie’s for supper.

Still awake at midnight, Jason wondered how Kira could have left him like that, after everything they’d shared. She’d hurt him, which was rare, and startling, and awakened him to a harsh reality.

Over the years he had left a good number of women expecting more.
He
was guilty of hurting dozens of women, in the same way Kira had hurt him tonight.

A hard lesson, Jason thought, vowing that in the future he would try to think of his dates’ feelings. Except that there was only one woman he cared to date, only one he cared to . . .

Kira came into his room, and stood beside his bed looking down at him, as if she’d sensed the change in him, or couldn’t stay away . . . or he’d conjured her by wanting her so badly.

“I missed you,” Jason said, pulling the quilt aside.

As she climbed into his bed, Jason realized that he needed Kira the way he needed air to breathe, which scared the hell out of him, but when he slipped inside her, pleasure blocked alarm.

In the morning he woke her, made love to her again, but the alarming thought amplified his pleasure as he spilled his seed inside of her. Air to breathe equals Kira.

Jason saw his doctor at eight, and called his agent at ten from the office. “Hey, Sam. This is the day. I’m ready to go back to hockey. Yep. How long do you think? Okay, see you then.”

Hockey would pull him from her spell. Hockey was all he needed.

She’d worn a turquoise suit today, sexy, inviting, and Harvey-hardening. Knowing what she wore beneath it, intimately knowing, nearly pushed Jason over the edge of sanity.

Sam arrived at three o’clock. Jason had never been so glad to see anyone. “Sam, this is Kira, my assistant. Kira, my agent, Sam Van Zandt. Whatcha got for me, Sam?” Jason rubbed his hands together, in anticipation, he supposed . . . or anxiety, because he couldn’t seem to stop.

“How about a contract offer?” Sam said.

“Yes!” Jason turned to Kira. “The Wizards want me back!” He lifted her off her feet, twirled her in a circle, and kept his kiss short and friendly. “That’s for your excellent magic.”

Kira watched Jason take Sam into his office, and shut her out—of his life.

If Jason’s dream came true, this place was headed for disaster. Jason Pickering Goddard made the Pickering Foundation a success, not her, with her planning, lists, and knowledge of special events, but him, with his wild ideas, star-quality charm, and smiles that enslaved their donors.

Jason made the difference. If he left, the Pickering Foundation would be finished.

She remembered him in his tux, slow-waltzing her, her heart pounding, her palms sweating just for being in his arms.

She remembered him coming inside her that first time,
making her feel complete and whole . . . and loved. Kira mocked herself for her foolishness.

Jason threw open the door between their offices, while Sam, his agent, exited Jason’s office at a run.

“We’re catching a plane to Minnesota,” Jason said. “I have to sign a new contract, then I’ll be back to settle things here. No worries. I just have to run upstairs and tell Gram.”

“Right.” No worries. “Congratulations.” Kira watched Jason go and couldn’t believe he was leaving for good.

She called St. Anthony’s to cancel hockey lessons for the rest of the week. Maybe she’d start taking the boys for free-style skating in a couple of weeks. Maybe. She’d see.

Bessie came into Kira’s office looking like she’d lost her best friend.

Kira’s empathy rose when their eyes met, and they both broke down. How weird was that? But they consoled each other with a hug, cried a bit more, dried their eyes, and chuckled at their foolishness.

“Hockey makes him happy,” Gram said, accepting a tissue.

“And that’s what we want for him, right?”

“Right,” Gram said, looking at her in a new way.

“What?” Kira asked.

Gram shrugged. “I’m willing to let him go, for his sake, but you’re surprising me.”

“I knew from day one that he was going back to hockey, and he must have reminded me a dozen times this weekend,” Kira said, seeing Gram’s surprise through a blur of tears, not bothering to be embarrassed at what she’d basically revealed.

“I thought
you
might change his mind,” Gram said.

“I hate to admit this, but I might have helped him achieve his goal. Who knows? He asked for a spell to go back to hockey, and I gave him a spell that I put everything into.”

“Because you care about him.”

“Guess so.” Kira shrugged. “If he’s happy, I’m happy.” So why was she miserable? “I . . . can I have the rest of the week off, Bessie? Christmas events are set. I’ll check my E-mail from home, and you can call me if you need me?”

Kira went to Cloud Kiss to pack. She would go home for a couple of days to get her bearings and catch her breath. She didn’t even care if Regan was there. It was time to stop running, from ghosts, and jocks. Life was full of both. Better she should face them and move on.

That was the deal she and Jason had made, wasn’t it? A weekend out of time, the ultimate rabbit hole, sex before they moved on.

She just hadn’t expected him to move on so fast.

She had a good case of whiplash from his speedy exit. So much for no strings, no pain.

She left the quilt she’d made him for Christmas, wrapped and tied with a big red bow, in his living room beside her Argyle boots. He might not find them till spring, but what difference did that make? It was a matter of principal.

The boots pretty much represented their relationship, and she didn’t have the heart to keep them.

Driving home, Kira decided she was definitely
not
in love with Jason, but she
would
miss him, a great deal. After all, the sex had been great.

Crap, she forgot her bunny. Ah hell, she didn’t have the heart for that, either.

At home she and Regan avoided conversation, and each other, for three days. Kira took a lot of solitary walks, and came to terms with her future at the foundation, accepting the gift her time with Jason had been.

She cared for him. She wanted him to be happy. End of story.

He would come to visit Gram. She’d see him on occasion. So why was she crying?

Friday night her father woke her from a sound sleep. “Daddy?” Kira said, sitting up. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, Kitten, nothing’s wrong, but you have company downstairs.” Kira looked at her clock. Midnight. “Who?”

Her father grinned. “He insisted I wake you, but I’m going back to bed. He can have Aiden’s old room. Tell him we’re looking forward to seeing him in the morning. Night.”

“Daddy, who is it?” But her father didn’t answer, and why was he so pleased?

“Crap,” Kira mattered, slipping her ancient red plaid robe over her faded red plaid pajamas. “Must be Charlie.” Her parents had really wanted her to marry the Penis, so of course her dad would be pleased if he showed. Shit.

“I do not need this right now!” Kira snapped as she entered her parents’ living room, the sight of her visitor tripping her heart and stopping her cold.

JASON
dwarfed her parents’ living room, standing there dripping snow, carrying her Argyle boots, looking as if he’d lost his best friend.

Kira squealed and ran.

Her boots hit the floor as Jason caught and lifted her in his arms and opened his mouth over hers.

The kiss was like their first, glorious and unending, voracious and demanding, made of emotions, not skill, though that was a given.

This kiss, however, conveyed a great deal more . . . affection and yearning . . . on both sides.

For her part, Kira stopped trying to hide her feelings and let herself go. She didn’t care to be logical right now. She wanted Jason inside her.

“I want you,” Jason said, his voice gruff with need. “I want inside of you.”

“Upstairs,” Kira said between nibbles and slow sweet kisses.

“Your bed,” he said. “I want you in your private rabbit hole.”

“My brother’s bed,” she said.

Jason chuckled and teased her lips, tugged the curl on her brow. “Kinky.”

Kira giggled. “My father said you should sleep in my brother’s bed, so let’s go mess it up to make it look like you did, before I crawl back into the womb and take you with me?”

Two hours later, sex hazed but ready for more, Kira let Jason carry her to her own bedroom.

“Wow,” he said when he saw it. “I really need to fuck you here, you know, break you out and make you fly and splinter into a riot of color.”

“Yes,” Kira said as Jason dropped her on her old twin bed. “Make me fly, Ice Boy.” And she opened her arms and took him to her heart. This time was different, she thought afterward. This time they had made love.

The following morning around ten, hand in hand, Kira led Jason toward her parents’ crowded kitchen, for the usual Saturday morning gathering of the Fitzgerald clan.

She knew the Ice Wolf’s presence would raise her brothers’ eyebrows, as his best-kisser status was bound to raise some envy from her sisters, but she didn’t expect to come face to face with the promise of sweet revenge.

Regan stared, shocked, at the celebrity her loser sister dragged into their kitchen, but that was nothing compared to Charlie Freaking Penis’s slack jaw. He looked like a beached fish sucking air. Kira bit off a giggle.

Charlie extended a hand to his idol, but Jason placed his arm around Kira’s waist, instead, and nuzzled her neck and ear until another giggle escaped her. Then he pretended to see Charlie’s extended hand, and shook it. “Tough year in the minors,” Jason said, tormenting Charlie, and abetting Kira’s revenge.

Kira loved Jason for that. Well, not that she actually
loved . . . Shit, she did. She loved him. Honestly, terminally loved him.

Hell of a time to figure
that
out.

Regan sipped her juice and cleared her throat. “You might as well know, sis, Charlie has asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”