Dangerous Magic by Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz

of saying it, I suppose. A word of caution.” He repeated the phrase as if mulling it over for appropriateness. “But I think that comes off as too weak. A clear warning would be a better approximation of what I’m getting at.”
    “You expect me to steer clear of other men while you’re interested in me?” she clarified with great civility even as her blood pounded in response to the challenge. She watched him through her lashes as he examined her in return. There was a tightening of the electrical charge between them.
    “Most definitely,” he confirmed, taking a thoughtful sip of his wine, his eyes never leaving hers. “I told you on Friday that while I’m circling in your orbit I will be the only one in your inner circle.” His mouth twitched, as if a sudden thought had just struck him. “This is probably a new experience for you, isn’t it? Having a man tell you that you’re no longer free to exercise your spells on other males?”

    “I thought you weren’t interested in my previous relationships,” she countered.
    “I’m not, but it might have made things easier for me if you’d learned a healthy respect for the male of the species at some point in your life. Still, if some man had succeeded in teaching the lesson you probably wouldn’t be available now for me to instruct. He would have caught you in his own net and I would never have encountered you myself.” He smiled, appearing enormously pleased with the workings of fate.
    “Perhaps,” Elissa suggested with cool daring, “the reason no man has attempted to lay down the law to me before is that he knew he couldn’t enforce it.”
    “Are you now trying to warn me?” he asked gently.
    “I would hate to see that lovely ego of yours become unduly bruised,”
    she said just as gently.
    “You’ve already bruised it, honey,” he allowed wryly. “Each time during the past month when you ducked out of sight to avoid meeting me or refused one of my carefully held out lures, you inflicted untold damage on it. Damages for which I mean to collect, by the way!”
    Elissa said nothing, merely smiling her taunting response. He reached out and removed the glass from her hand, and then, maintaining a grasp on her wrist, he pulled her toward him with just enough unexpected force that she tumbled against his chest, her fingers splaying out to brace her fall.
    Before she could do more than summon a frown, he had wrapped his hands in the pelt of her hair and pulled her mouth down to his.
    “Umm, you taste good,” he growled, his lips moving warmly, tantalizingly, on hers.
    “I should,” she breathed between his sampling, devouring kisses. “You buy only the best wine.”
    “One doesn’t set about seducing a witch with inferior weapons,” he explained, nibbling his way to a point just behind her ear and back to the corner of her mouth. Tiny shocks followed in the wake of the questing kisses.
    Elissa felt the tremor which rippled through her body and wasn’t certain if it emanated from him or from her own roughened, heightened senses. She told herself first that she ought to put a stop to the slow, compelling embrace, and then came the consoling, rationalizing thought that the lovemaking was an important part of her plan. How could she hope to charm Wade into asking for marriage if she didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding to his kisses?
    “Aren’t you afraid,” she demanded a little breathlessly, “of being caught in your own net?”
    His hands tightened, and she felt the smooth, coordinated muscles of his body tense as he moved, pinning her carefully on her back and rolling over so that his chest covered hers.
    “Afraid of it!” he mocked, his gray eyes leaping alive with a lambent fire. “I’m looking forward to it with the greatest of pleasure!”
    The tasting exploration of her lips made way for a more demanding hunger which seemed to grow eagerly in him. His kisses ravaged the inside of her mouth, his tongue dueling for