Do You Believe in Magic? (27 page)

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Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
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She brought the ball in from center court, dribbling easily. He met her at the top of the foul line circle with arms spread high and wide. He came close, looming over her, blocking her way, windmilling his arms to deflect any shot. He set himself to take her charge, not that it would matter if she did run into him. Nobody was calling fouls.
Instead of continuing straight at him, she went to her left and he followed, but her move turned out to be a fake, and she reversed, darting right, ducking under his arm. Three steps and two dribbles took her to the net, where she jumped up and laid the ball in, just caressing the backboard.
Her six, his five.
He walked across the half-court line, bouncing the ball slowly as he worked out his next approach. Francie looked ready for anything. She also looked gorgeous, with her blond hair beginning to come down and her smoky brown eyes flashing with determination. She was veering sideways to his left. He should have an easy path to the right. Just as he decided to move, she suddenly launched herself at him, grabbed the ball on its upward bounce right out from under his hand, pivoted into a jump, and nailed the shot. He stood there flat-footed, feeling like a fool.
Her seven, his five.
He growled to himself. He had to admire—grudgingly—her speed and daring, and he swore at himself for his lapse. Two could play at the fast game, but he preferred power. This time he drove straight for the basket, shouldered her aside, leaped up, stuffed it. As he threw the ball back to her, he thought he heard some cheers in the background, but paid them no attention. He blocked everything extraneous from his mind: the noise from other games, the sound of the bouncing ball, the squeak of his shoes on the court. Hunching over slightly, he concentrated totally on his blond nemesis.
Her seven, his six.
She evidently decided to try his tactic, because she took off from the center circle straight for the key. He took two steps right into her body. They crashed into each other, momentarily plastered together from chest to knee.
“Holy hell!” He staggered back two steps. He felt like he had just run into a lightning storm. A huge bolt had smacked him right on the top of his head, blazed down his body, bounced off the rubber in his shoes, and departed the same way it came in. A double whammy. His nerve endings sizzled. He was certain that his hair stood on end. He inhaled deeply to see if he could still breathe.
He blinked to focus his muddled eyesight. Francie was just standing there, evidently as stunned as he was. The ball was bouncing toward the sideline. He shook himself, ran down the ball, loped to the basket, and scored.
Seven to seven.
He watched Francie recover enough to retrieve the ball and walk back to the center line. She looked like she was back in control, although her game face gave him no clue as to what she was thinking. Well, he’d see about
her
control. That zap had to be from the soul-mate imperative, a reminder they hadn’t been together for a while. Maybe he could put it to good use.
She dribbled forward, turned, and backed toward him, keeping the ball in front of her, working her way to his left. He crowded her closely, very closely, extremely closely, until he was leaning over her, practically draped across her. Touching her from butt to shoulder. The contact made his blood bubble hotly, but he forced himself to maintain control.
He felt her shiver, falter, miss a bounce. He took over the dribble, grabbed the ball, whirled, shot.
Her seven. His eight.
Only three more points to go, he congratulated himself as he moved to the foul line. This was the answer. The soul-mate imperative reduced her to putty. All he had to do was let the old SMI work for him. He smiled in anticipation.
What had just happened? Francie asked herself. She stood in the center circle bouncing the ball, using the ball-change time to calm down. Think, woman, she ordered. Forget about the noise, the movement on the sidelines. Concentrate.
She’d been proud of the way she had reacted when he walked up behind her, and feeling as unconquerable as she had, she couldn’t resist his challenge. She’d been doing fine, leading in points—until they’d run into each other. Then, wham! A thunderbolt struck, and a wave of longing crashed through her, stole her breath, blackened her sight, and left her too weak to move. She’d stood there like a post while he scored.
And double
wham
with that sneaky, underhanded tactic, laying his body, his scorching, outrageously sexy body, right on top of hers, forcing her to feel him against every inch of her back, forcing her to breathe in his overheated, thoroughly alluring scent. No wonder she had lost the ball.
Two things were clear. First, touching him had the same effect it always did, shutting down her mind and turning her body to goo. And second, he knew it. Just look at him standing on the foul line with a smirk on his handsome face, a twinkle in those silver eyes, a light sheen of sweat glistening on his muscular body. He thought he had her beat.
Well, not this time, buster.
She started forward, sidling around to the right, her left side toward him. Sure enough, he moved to block, just like last time, intentionally bringing his body into contact with hers. She felt the zing spread to her fingertips.
He must have, too, because he breathed into her ear, his voice an insidious purr that vibrated her diaphragm, “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Can’t you take it?”
She turned her back completely to him and bent over, keeping the ball bouncing as far away from him as she could. He repeated his previous maneuver, enveloping her body with his. When his crotch hit her butt, she wiggled. Once. Twice, for good measure.
He froze and she heard his sharp intake of air.
She slid out from under him, drove to the basket, and laid in a goal.
Eight even.
His ball, his turn at center court. He was scowling as he rolled his shoulders. She could see him gathering his control about him like protective armor. She had to act fast, not let him regroup.
He stood holding the ball between his right hip and his right elbow, clearly contemplating his next move. She stormed him, flattened her body against him, pressed herself right into him, rubbed her front across his. Pumped her hips once, straight into his groin.
He stiffened, turned to stone.
She seized the ball, ran right up the key, and tipped in the point.
Her nine, his eight.
She threw the ball back to him, standing on the free throw line, and she couldn’t resist the smug grin, the taunt. “I can take it,
sweetheart
. Can you?”
He caught the ball, lowered his head like a bull, and used his weight to blast by her and slam-dunk the ball. The hoop and backboard rattled.
Nine all.
Looking, in her view, entirely too confident, he tossed the ball to her. The wolfish smile on his face made her insides flutter and she frowned. She had to concentrate harder. This was no time to be distracted, not by his effect on her or by all the noise reverberating around the gym. Another team’s game didn’t matter. Her contest did.
She tried her reverse assault again, but this time, he ran his hands from her shoulders, down her back, and around to and over her breasts. At his touch on her nipples, she jerked back into him and lost the ball. He recovered it before it bounced out of bounds, and drove the basket, pushing her out of the way when she tried to block.
Her nine, his ten.
Her ball. He rushed her at the center circle, wrenched the ball away from her, and held it in one hand high above her. Arrogantly, insolently, he grinned down at her. Until she ran her hands down his chest and then lower. And lower still. His face lost its grin, and his arms fell to his sides.
Hah! She snatched the ball and took off for the basket.
Ten all.
They stared at each other for a long moment, he at center court, she on the foul line. Last point. Winner take all. She knew what she had to do.
She charged. He crouched slightly, held the ball in his right hand high and to the rear. His left arm was stretched out toward her to fend her off. She grabbed that arm, pushed it to the side, slid under it, and plastered herself against him. Her free hand in his hair, she hauled his head down and planted her mouth on his.
Think, Francie, she ordered herself. Don’t let him take over.
It was hard going.
She heard him groan, an agonized, tortured sound that her own throat repeated. He dropped the ball, clamped her in his arms, and plundered her mouth. He tasted better than Cherry Garcia, and his arms felt like heaven. Her heart almost burst with longing. Her body rejoiced, threatened to melt around his.
No! She couldn’t let him come to his senses first; she had to keep her brain working. Overruling her traitorous heart, her spineless body, she broke the kiss and pushed back away from him.
With a dazed, unfocused look in his eyes, he let her go.
The ball was at her feet. She scooped it up, sprinted to the basket, leaped high, higher, higher still, and—hot damn!—stuffed it in the net. Her first ever slam dunk. Eleven points. She’d won!
When she landed, she spun around to face him. A desolate look on his face, a dejected slump to his body, he stood where she had left him. They stared at each other for what felt like eons.
Finally he moved, walked slowly to her, stopped three feet away, and spoke with a raspy voice, “You win, Francie. I won’t bother you anymore.”
She’d won, but
what
had she won? The question reverberated in her head.
The answer almost buckled her knees. She abruptly felt terribly, completely alone, and her mood plummeted from exhilaration to despair as the idea, the reality, of losing him washed over her.
Before she could say anything, before she could begin to comprehend the horrible hollow emptiness that suddenly opened in the middle of her chest, they were engulfed by a laughing, yelling crowd.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
 
When she finally made it home, Francie dropped her gym bag and collapsed on the sofa. She should be extremely embarrassed, she thought, as all the shouts from the spectators rattled around in her brain. “Wooooeeeee! Sexxxxy!” had been one. “I’ll play the winner,” came from a number of male throats, while the women yelled, “Dibs on the loser.” “Grrrrrreat moves!” “Let’s hear it for co-ed basketball!” “You can guard me anytime.” And those were the mild ones.
Somehow, she’d broken through the crowd and run for the locker room. Her teammates followed. From what they’d said, she’d gathered they had returned to the court to try again to persuade her to come with them. They had been caught up in the match and stayed to support her. Their presence had attracted the attention of several men, and before long, a sizable number of people were laughing, cheering, and generally whooping it up.
They had all watched her rub herself all over Clay, kiss him like a slut, and behave like a complete idiot. The Y would probably expel her, rescind her membership, toss her out on her ear. Which might be for the best. She didn’t know how she could ever show her face there again.
But, damn it, she’d won. He had been cheating as much as she was.
Sweetheart, who couldn’t take it in the end?
She’d won. She’d made her first ever slam dunk, to boot. She should be swinging from the chandelier in triumph. She should have asked the Y to give her the net. She should be happy, gleeful, rejoicing.
But instead, she felt like she’d been trampled right into the court’s hardwood floor.
What about Clay? She hadn’t seen him after the swarm of onlookers parted them. He’d looked so shocked, so dejected, so disheartened. What would she have said to him? Crowed in victory? Told him her winning didn’t matter, she’d talk to him anyway?
No! It did matter. How could she talk to him about magic that didn’t exist? Even theoretically.
But, what if it did? What if, contrary to everything she had ever learned in science classes, contrary to her own view of the world, Clay really could put spells on computers and cause them to do his bidding?
She hadn’t given him the chance to prove his claims. Instead she’d gotten scared, but frightened of what? Going to bed with him? Having sex? Somehow, given the effect they had on each other, “having sex” seemed like an extremely puny description of what might happen.
So, what had caused this reaction? Memories of Walt? Fear Clay would do to her what Walt had? Looking at the situation as dispassionately—what a word—as she could, she had to admit fear was probably at the center of her reaction.
And what about the electric, searing attraction with Clay? He claimed that soul-mate-imperative “force” was causing it, or bringing them together, or causing her pain. She still couldn’t accept its existence or influence. Hormones, it was all hormones, and pheromones, and chemical changes in the brain caused by infatuation. Not some ancient magical compulsion—simply a legend whose power was imaginary.
And now? She had “won.” He said he would leave her alone. She hadn’t understood when he said his bothering her would be
only in her head
, but she did now. That’s exactly where he was, embedded in her brain cells.

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