Seduced by Magic (7 page)

Tucking her head under his chin, he couldn’t stop his body’s reaction to her nudity.

His cock throbbed to unwanted attention.
Must be the adrenaline
, he thought.

“Sure, no problem.” Or it wouldn’t be, as soon as he caught his breath. Damn, he needed to pick up his running, get more miles in. Just working with the free weights wasn’t cutting it. Especially when he had to run for his life. “Whatever you need.”

He wasn’t prepared for her to slide her hand into his pants and grab his already thickening erection.

“I only need this,” she whispered into his ear as his shorts fell to the ground. “Lie down, Justin. On your back.”

His eyes flew wide-open at her words and he froze. “Not that I don’t want you, babe, but aren’t we kinda in a hurry at the moment?”

She smiled and his blood began a steady pounding in his veins. “Have you never heard of sex magic, Justin?” She gave him a slight nudge and he found himself sprawled on a soft bed of moss beneath an old oak. “In all the years you’ve researched, have you never discovered the power created when two bodies join?”

Their gazes locked as Scarlata fell to her knees beside him then straddled his waist.

It took him a moment to realize she was whispering something beneath her breath, something that sounded faintly like Latin, but wasn’t.

Then she slid down onto his stiff cock in one smooth motion. It took away his breath and sent a shaft of pure sensation straight from his cock into his balls then up his spine. The sweet, wet heat of her surrounded him and he grabbed her hips and thrust 52

Seduced by Magic

without thinking. The men, the guns…everything faded. Everything except Scarlata and the way she made him feel.

Her hands spread flat on his chest on either side of his heart and heat flooded his body at those two distinct points. The sexy hum of her voice as she continued her incantation, the fast pace she set as she pumped up and down on his shaft and the look of pure bliss on her face sent him over a precipice that was harder and sharper than any he’d ever experienced before.

It took him a moment to realize the afterglow he felt was power, a pure energy that radiated from their bodies. He wanted to take that power and use it to run but as soon as he began to sit up, she pressed down on his chest with a strength he couldn’t counter.

“Don’t move, Justin.” She stared down at him with a limpid smile, her green eyes half-closed. “The spell requires your energy as well as mine. Don’t siphon it.”

He understood her meaning even though he really didn’t listen to her words.

Instead, he let himself drift in a state of pure satisfaction.

Scarlata found it hard to concentrate on the spell when she could still feel Justin’s cock twitching inside her. It very nearly jeopardized the glamour she was trying to draw around them.

Forcing herself to focus on the spell, she dug her fingers into his rock-hard chest, drew on his energy and the energy they’d produced through their joining. It took an enormous amount of concentration not to be led astray by his scent and the feel of him beneath her.

But this had to work.

The men tracking them had magic, dark magic that tainted the air around them.

Magic they used to track her.

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Stephanie Julian

She muttered the last words of the spell and felt it close around them, encompassing them in a warm embrace. As she blinked to focus her eyes, the first thing she saw was Justin’s gorgeous blue gaze locked onto hers.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

She nodded then realized he’d hardened again inside her. Sometimes this spell had unexpected side effects.

“Good,” he rasped, “because this time I’m gonna make
you
come.”

He lifted her off him, set her beside him on all fours then rose to his knees behind her. His first thrust seated him to the hilt and they both groaned.

“Justin, we shouldn’t waste any more time—”

“Believe me, baby, this won’t take long.” To prove his point, he pumped back into her while his fingers threaded through her curls and found her clit. He tweaked the little nub hard enough to be painful, yet pleasurable enough to make her writhe.

Her hands dug into the ground as Justin moved behind her, dried leaves rustling as he adjusted his knees to get even closer.

She moaned, forgetting for a brief second that they were still being chased, and lost herself in the feel of Justin’s cock shuttling in and out, the friction stoking an intense orgasm.

Not yet. She didn’t want to come yet.

Clamping her internal muscles around him, she dropped lower, onto her elbows, lifting her ass a little higher, sending him deeper. His finger still on her clit, he worked her harder, faster until she came in a rush of heat that, combined with the residual traces of magic from the spell she’d just performed, very nearly made her faint.

She bit her tongue in an effort not to scream and give away their location. His cock was still hard, wanting more. She squeezed her internal muscles once more, making him moan. He lost his rhythm for a few seconds, his thrusts coming faster, until finally 54

Seduced by Magic

he groaned, rammed his cock into her and held it there as he pulsed deep inside her, suffusing her with warmth.

When he’d finished, he pulled free but didn’t let her fall to the ground. Picking her up, he turned her around and wrapped his arms around her so she could rest against him.

“Holy hell, girl. You’re going to be the death of me,” he panted into her ear.

Her stomach flipped as she realized that was exactly what she didn’t want to happen. She would make sure no harm came to him.

Disentangling themselves, they got to their feet, Justin pulling up his shorts as he stood. He didn’t say anything more and she didn’t know what to say either. Confusion made it hard for her to put her emotions into words.

Instead, she caught the sound of men approaching. They were closer than they’d been before she’d lost herself during the last few minutes.

“The spell should shield us for several hours but we need to keep moving and keep quiet,” she whispered. She felt his wetness between her legs and mourned the fact that they couldn’t spend more time in this pleasurable state. She began to run away from the sound of the men, holding her breath until Justin followed. “I will take you to the end of the forest and then I must leave you. They don’t want you, Justin. You were just a pawn.”

“Yeah, a pawn that led them directly to you.”

His fierce tone lit sparks in her heart. He blamed himself for what had happened, and it was not his fault. “It was my own fault. If I’d only stayed away, they never would have found me there. But I could not help myself.”

“Well, now that’s nice to know.” His drawl exaggerated, he smiled when she looked his way. Then his expression sobered. “I don’t want to lose you, Red. Not now.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Even though it was exactly what she was thinking. They couldn’t have a life together. It wouldn’t work…and that frightened her 55

Stephanie Julian

more than anything. She took off, not so fast that he couldn’t catch her but fast enough that he had to work at it.

Justin didn’t know how long they ran. By the time they reached the thinning line of trees that signaled the edge of the forest, not only his lungs burned but his thighs screamed in pain, his calves ached, he had a blistering headache and his feet felt like they’d gained a few hundred blisters.

And his brain was working overtime.

She was going to ditch him. He knew it in his heart. He’d seen it in her eyes in the last glance she’d slid his way.

And damn, that pissed him off. He wanted to stay with her. Wanted to take care of her and make right what he’d had a hand in screwing up.

He couldn’t allow her to get away from him. And he only had a few minutes to make a plan.

So when she stopped behind a large oak at the edge of the tree line, he knocked her out with a chop to the back of her neck.

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Seduced by Magic

It was a good thing he was a genius, because he sure wouldn’t have been able to make his living as a car thief.

In theory, Justin knew how to hot-wire a car but in practice, it was a lot harder than it looked. He knew he had to take off the cover on the base of the steering wheel and attach two wires together to spark the ignition. But it didn’t always work the first time.

After he’d knocked out his gorgeous fairy—
folletta
, he had to remember that—he’d picked her up and ran down the two-lane road that led to the environmental center of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.

Two cars sat in the lot—a thirty-year-old green Dodge Dart and a newer white Ford pickup. He chose the Dart, figuring it would have less computer hardware to contend with and its dark color would make them less of a target.

And it was open.

“Guess they’re not worried about anybody stealing you,” he muttered as he laid Scarlata across the huge leather backseat then opened the driver’s door and slid in.

It took him five minutes to get the damn car hot-wired. Every time the engine failed to catch, he thought he heard movement in the forest. Sweat beaded on his forehead—more from fear than exertion.

He couldn’t allow them to take Scarlata. If she were captured, it’d be his fault. She would have gotten away from them if he hadn’t been such a selfish bastard and knocked her out to keep her with him.

He couldn’t live with that. Besides, they’d have to kill him before they got to her.

Finally the engine turned over, sounding like a tank roaring to life.

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Stephanie Julian

“Yes,” he hissed through tightly clenched teeth as he jammed the gearshift into drive and spewed gravel out of the parking lot.

Speeding down the mountain, he pointed the car in the direction of his mother’s house in Leesport before he realized that would be one of the first places Bonnini would send men to search for him. Bonnini would know from Justin’s emergency contact sheet at work where his mom lived. He might already have the place under surveillance.

Shit, they couldn’t go there. And they couldn’t go to his apartment in Pottsville either.

And if he didn’t slow down, some cop was going to pull him over and discover an unconscious, naked
folletta
on his backseat.

Taking a deep breath, he eased his foot off the gas pedal, lowering his speed.

Where the hell were they going to hide?

“
You
are one stupid male.”

His hands jerked on the wheel, sending the car onto the shoulder before he straightened out. “Damn, woman. You nearly made me crash.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a very beautiful redhead glaring at him.

“Believe me,” she snapped, “after what I do to you, you will wish you had crashed.”

“Come on now, babe.” The grin he flashed her was cocky. “Is that any way to talk to the man who saved your life?”

Her mouth parted but apparently he’d made her speechless. Well, at least she couldn’t turn him into a frog.

Then again…she let loose a stream of what he figured was Italian. From the bite in her tone and the way her hands were going, he was pretty sure she was ripping into his hide.

He listened to the beauty of the language with half an ear while he tried to figure out where they could go that’d be safe.

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Seduced by Magic

After about five minutes, she finally stopped to take a breath and he had to admit he missed the sound of her sexy voice yelling at him. He actually had a hard-on.

She said something to him again in Italian and he released his grip on the steering wheel to raise one hand.

“English, hon. You gotta speak English if you want me to understand what the hell you’re saying.”

“Ooh.” She slapped him on the back of the head. Hell, even that turned him on.

“Idiot! Where are we going?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure about that yet. Got any ideas?”

She snorted. “Actually, yes, if you had given me a chance to speak before you knocked me unconscious, I would have told you.”

“I thought you were going to ditch me.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her grimace in a purely feminine pout.

“I believe that would have been a mistake. Those men would have harmed you no matter that you did not know where I was. And I would not have been able to live with that.”

At her words, his heart actually felt like it flipped over in his chest. Her tone was offhand but the look she shot him from beneath her lowered lids was anything but.

And he could think of nothing but getting her back to bed.

“Then lead on, Red. Where are we going?”

She didn’t answer as she slid over the front seat, nearly making him crash the car at the sight. Finally, when she’d settled next to him, she said, “Into the city.”

He frowned. “Which one?”

“The closest.”

“Do you mean Reading?”

He felt her gaze fall on him. “That is the closest, is it not?”

“Do you go to the city a lot?”

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“I’ve not been to the city in at least fifty years, maybe longer.”

He frowned again. “Then how do you know where we’re going?”

“Trust me, Justin. I know a safe place for us to hide.”

Funny, but he
did
trust her. Completely. She could’ve very easily left him behind in the woods. Hell, she could’ve flown away if she’d wanted to but she’d stuck with him.

That had to count for something. “All right, but we still have to stop for gas before we get there. And I guess we better get you some clothes while we’re at it.”

She shook her head, her hair shifting to play peekaboo with her nipples, hardening his erection to painful. “No one will see me if I don’t wish them to. Clothes are unnecessary. And I don’t like them.”

He smiled even as he continued to check in the rearview mirror for any pursuers.

“You don’t have to tell me twice, Red. But we still need the gas.”

Good thing he always kept money in his various pants pockets. He tended to leave the house and forget his wallet so he’d taken to leaving bills in all of his pants. Digging into the side pocket of his shorts, he pulled out a wad of almost fifty bucks. Paydirt.