Witch's Awakening (16 page)

She laughed again and he smothered the sound with his kiss. He could claim reluctance all he wanted, but there was nothing tentative about the way his mouth claimed hers. From the heat of his body, she thought he had only one perspective on his mind at the moment.

She broke away, her laughter teasing. “If you think I'm trying to bribe a public official with sex, you can be assured that I don't expect any special treatment. Except maybe in bed. Unless you're still thinking this is a bad idea.”

She turned and he pulled her back, his touch not so gentle now. “Don't tease me, Brenna.” Another deep growl rumbled from him. This time he didn't pull away.

Brenna molded her body to his. “See. You can be yourself with me. I'm up for a little snarling and scratching.”

She planted her lips firmly on his. By the time her tongue slipped between his lips, she was pressed against his obvious arousal.

He pulled back and tried one more time. “Brenna, I think—”

“That's the problem.” She reached behind her and unzipped her sexy little red dress. “You're thinking way too much.”

As her dress slipped from her shoulders, his eyes widened. She thanked the goddess for the sheer red bra she had dug out of her still unpacked boxes. She laughed out loud at Jake's expression when the dress fell from her hips to reveal the matching red thong.

He actually swayed on his feet. His growl was full of blatant need, a demand for satisfaction. Instead of denying that part of him, Jake now seemed eager.

Brenna opened the front door and tossed her dress inside. Framed in Jake's doorway, she posed in her revealing underwear and black, strappy sandals. “Are you going to take me to bed or what?”

“Ah, geez” he moaned and pulled her to him. “I give up.”

Brenna laughed as he lifted her, his big hands closing on her soft behind. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “Can we get on with this, tiger?”

He kissed her all the way to the bedroom as he carried her effortlessly. At his bed, he dropped to his knees with Brenna's legs still wrapped around his waist. He kissed her as they eased down on the pillows.

When they finally broke apart, he looked at her with a touch of sadness in his eyes.

“I didn't mean for this to happen.”

“Oh, come on,” she murmured as she began pushing his T-shirt up. “You know you've been picturing this since that first night in the woods.”

He pulled the shirt over his head and threw it aside. “Are you psychic as well as a witch?”

She grinned, pleased she had been the object of his sexual fantasies.

Jake stood to strip off his jeans.

Brenna unhooked her bra and was rewarded by his sigh of appreciation as her generous breasts tumbled free. For a moment, his eyes gleamed as the tiger's had in the woods, when she stood skyclad for his study.

“You are amazing,” Jake told her.

He shed his underwear. This time Brenna sighed in appreciation. She kneeled on the bed and wrapped her hand around his length. He grew even more rigid at her touch and she grinned at his indrawn breath. She liked the power of arousing him.

With a growl, Jake kissed her until they were both breathless. His hands were on her breasts, a gentle stroke of fingertips against nipples that strained to his touch.

Brenna broke away to move her kisses down his neck to his chest. She kept going down until she took him in her mouth and he went still. With abandon and enthusiasm she pleasured him until he yanked her up and devoured her mouth.

He peeled her thong down her thighs, and then slipped a hand between them. She jerked in response to the easy pressure of his stroke, her release trembling just beyond her reach. She pushed the thong the rest of the way off. Jake slid his fingers inside her. Deeper. With more confidence. Her hands fell to her sides as she closed her eyes and gave in to the sensations his movements created.

“God,” she said on a gasp. “You'll have me purring in a minute.”

She melted against his hand, her breath stopping as her body bowed and an orgasm washed through her. Her hands fisted on his shoulders. Hands on her bottom, Jake lifted her again. He entered her and began moving in a steady rhythm.

She pulled him back on the bed and he filled her. She met his thrusts with eagerness. Warm, familiar magic began at her throat and traveled out to her fingers as she pulled his hips against hers. Her release was a blast of heat and color. Their cries filled the room as her magic rose up and sparkled above them.

Closing her eyes, Brenna clung to Jake as her body bloomed with desire and her skin vibrated with each touch. He kissed her tenderly, going deeper with each thrust. A soft pink light swirled around them.

Brenna was startled. She'd had her share of lovers, but her magic never had anything to do with them. What was it about this shifter? Before she could think further, her body took over and she lost herself in Jake's caresses. She rose to climax once more, and he called her name as she shuddered and the glow around them became bright red. When Brenna closed herself tighter around him, he pulled her against him and had his own release.

They lay on the bed with chests heaving for several moments. Brenna ran a hand down Jake's arm and grinned at him. “Any regrets?” she teased.

He moved like lightning, pushing her back on the bed with an ease that was all cat. His weight covered her from head to toe with a pleasant, male heaviness. He growled against the base of her throat. “No. How about you?”

“No regrets,” she murmured as she pulled a hand through his damp, dark hair. “No complaints, either.”

“So you don't think we just ruined a nice friendship?”

“Sex doesn't have to spoil a friendship. It can make it better.”

“Although I've known sex to ruin a good thing before, I'm not in any position to argue that right now,” he said and kissed her.

She smiled up at him. “We do share a similar jaded view of the world.”

“You don't seem all that jaded to me.”

“But I am. I'm usually thinking about how a relationship will end, even at the beginning.”

He eased to her side, his expression thoughtful. “Yeah, I do that, for sure.”

She cuddled against him, feeling content, an emotion she wasn't used to. At this point with most men in her past, she was wondering when she could leave. Right now, she wanted to spend the night right where she was. She wasn't sure that was such a good thing.

Jake said, “I get you, too, Brenna. You're used to living in the moment because of the curse.”

“And my parents.” When he looked puzzled, she explained, “I dated a psychology graduate student while I was in college. He said my inability to commit was clearly a result of being abandoned by my parents. He called me a textbook study in abandonment issues.”

“I imagine he'd have said the same thing about me.” Jake's brow furrowed and his eyes darkened.

Brenna felt guilty, remembering his parents died when he was young. He had no family at all, while she had more than enough despite the absence of her parents. This discussion was getting too heavy, so she tried to lighten the mood. “I broke up with that guy, of course. I didn't want to be a case study for him.”

“And by breaking up you proved his theory right.”

She agreed with a laugh. “He was also pretty boring.”

“I imagine it's not easy to keep a witch entertained. You can do magic, after all.”

“He never knew that. In fact, I've not shared my talents with many outsiders.”

“Neither have I,” Jake agreed. “That's why being here in New Mourne has been so freeing.”

She sighed. “We have to find a way to break the curse, so the town will stay that way.”

His phone rang. “Damn,” Jake muttered. “I want to ignore that, but I can't.” He got up and scrambled through the pile of clothes to get the phone out of the pocket of his jeans.

She curled onto her side and admired his taut buttocks and strong torso.

“Tyler,” he said into the phone, his gaze traveling in equal appreciation over her.

As Brenna smiled at him, his face grew serious. “We'll be right there.”

She sat up. “What is it?”

“There's been a break-in at Eva Grace's shop,” he said, pulling on his jeans. “Brian said it's bad. He found it during routine patrol. The alarm didn't go off, but he said somebody really messed up the place.”

Brenna got up and retrieved her underwear from the side of the bed. “This is terrible. Eva Grace doesn't need more trouble right now.”

“Well, there's going to be a lot more,” Jake said.

His grim tone startled Brenna. “What do you mean?”

“Brian says there's a body in the shop. Somebody else is dead.”

Chapter Fifteen

The parking lot at Siren's Call was bright with the flashing lights of two patrol cars. By the time Jake pulled his cruiser to a halt in front of the renovated old house, the police were already hard at work. Brenna was out of the car and racing toward the shop before he could stop her.

“Dammit, Brenna, wait a minute,” he yelled as he wrenched open his door. Thankfully, Brian stopped her at the shop's entrance.

Fiona's van pulled in with a screech of tires. She flew out of the vehicle in a flash, but Jake caught her as she started after Brenna. “Slow down. You're going to hurt yourself or someone else.”

Fiona pulled away. “Is Eva Grace okay? Brian called me and told me what happened.”

Jake followed her to the door where Brian was holding Brenna back. The younger deputy looked shaken. “I couldn't stop Eva Grace,” he told Jake. “She did something magic to me, made me let her in.”

“Smart witch,” Brenna said as she snapped her fingers in front of her cousin's eyes. Brian released her and stumbled backward.

“Hold it.” Jake reached for the sisters, but they were in the shop faster than he could react. “This is a crime scene,” he called after them. He traded frustrated glances with Brian and trailed after them.

Glittering sparkles topped everything in the store's front room. Every crystal and piece of glass and pottery appeared to be in shards covering the floor and all of the merchandise. The devastation was thorough. The work of countless local artisans was in pieces. Dozens of candles were no more than colorful blobs. Ritual athames were embedded in the walls and the ceiling.

Jake pointed to the knives and told Brian, “None of those were sharp enough to stick like that in the plaster. What happened here?”

Herbs dumped from bins and baskets crunched underfoot as Jake and the younger man made their way deeper into the shop. Oils leaked from broken glass vessels. The combination of aromas was pungent.

In the corner where Eva Grace kept a display of local Native American art and totems, Jake saw only splintered wood and stone with shredded feathers on top.
Like a pile of broken dreams
, he thought.

He could apply the same description to Eva Grace. With Fiona and Brenna on either side of her, she knelt beside a body near the shop's counter.

As Brian said when he called Jake, the dead person was Sandy Murphy, one of Eva Grace's shop assistants. The corpse's unblinking eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her arms and legs were outstretched. Her long, dark hair spread under her head. Blood spotted her arms and face from countless small nicks. No doubt caused by flying glass. Jake couldn't see any other obvious wounds or any other blood, but she was unmoving, pale and very clearly dead.

Eyes glassy with shock, Eva Grace looked up at Jake. “She was only twenty,” she whispered. “She was working here to learn more about Wicca. She was helping her parents pay for her college. Since we stay open until nine during the tourist season, I made her the night manager.”

Eva Grace drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “I relied on Sandy more than anyone. More than Lauren or Maggie, even. She had an eye for display and a way of upselling that was natural. She's been working so much since Garth died, picking up the slack for me.”

Fiona took Eva Grace's hand in her own. Brenna's arm went around her shoulders.

“I killed her,” Eva Grace said as tears slid down her cheeks.

“You did not,” Fiona said.

“You couldn't have known this was going to happen,” Brenna added. “The only person at fault is the one who killed her.”

“No, it's me who put her here,” Eva Grace said. “I put Sandy in the path of death. Everyone around me dies.”

Eva Grace crumpled between her cousins. Jake stepped forward and caught her. He pulled her gently to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “Stop it, now,” he said. “This isn't your fault. This had nothing to do with you.”

The redhead pushed him away. “Of course it does. It had to do with all of us. We saw today in our family book how people have died in this town for over two centuries because of us, because of something our ancestor did. If the Woman wasn't coming for me, why would she come here and destroy my shop? Sandy died in my place.”

“We don't know if this was the Woman in White.” Brenna put her arm around Eva Grace again. She looked at Jake, as if asking him to show them that this couldn't have been their family's enemy in action.

He couldn't do that, of course. The inside of the shop looked like a bomb had detonated. If that had happened, Sandy's body should have had more damage. An explosion like that would've been felt by half the town. The windows would have been shattered, the roof possibly blown off. Instead, the alarm in the shop hadn't even activated. If Brian hadn't driven by and seen lights on where there should have been none, no one would have discovered this until morning.

“There's been evil here.” Fiona's gaze traveled around the shop. “It's black. Can't you feel it, Brenna?”

Brenna nodded. “There's heat, too. And a distinct charred odor. Like there's been a fire.”