Mistress of Magic by Heather Graham Page A

his.
    Hot, living, pulsing, naked length …
    Hazel-gold eyes blazed into her, amused … intense.
    “Dumb, my hind side!” he exclaimed harshly. “Reggie, damn you, I’m not trying to come off as G.I. Joe here. It’s just that you are in danger. And you have to think, all right?”
    She was watching his mouth move. The movement came first to her mind.
    Then the words.
    “Reggie!” He gave her a little shake.
    She nodded. “No lights. No screams.” She was trembling. She didn’t know if she was frightened of having to walk away from him and go to her room alone. Or if she was frightened of staying.
    “Good,” he said softly. He released her arms. “Are you afraid?”
    “No,” she said. “Yes. I don’t know.” She took a step away. “Good night, again.” She forced herself to walk down the hallway without turning back, even though she knew he watched her. Watched her the entire distance, standing outside the doorway of the guest room.
    She stepped into her room. She started to close the door. Then she left it open.
    He could say what he wanted to say. She wanted him within screaming distance.
    No, she wasn’t afraid.…
    She forced herself to lie down. Her heart seemed to be pounding at a thousand beats a minute again. But he was just down the hall. He would never let anything happen to her; if nothing else, she felt secure about that.
    She hardly knew him.
    But she felt that she knew him very well.
    Oh, dear Lord! She was so tempted to get up and walk down the hall. He would understand. He was angry when she risked things, but he would understand that she just didn’t want to stay here. He might be sleeping. That would be fine. She could take her pillow and curl up in the armchair and she might get some sleep that way.
    But she knew damned well that she didn’t want to sleep in an armchair.
    She suspected that she would want far more than security if she were to walk down the hallway.
    Caleb! she thought desperately, trying to draw upon some sanity.
    But evoking his name did not help. She had begun to let his memory, to let the good and the bad, the laughter, the love and the pain, come to rest. She had never, in any way, betrayed him in life or in death. Max was right. She needed more than the park. Needed more than dreams.
    She had never wanted more.…
    Until tonight.
    Her heartbeat should be slowing by now.
    The fear was fading. The sound of the explosion had died away on the night air.
    Her heartbeat continued to pound. Pulsing. Sending the blood cascading through her body. Waking every nerve and fiber of her.
    Indeed. She had never felt quite so wide awake in the middle of the night before.
    She had never felt quite so …
    Wanting?
    Yes, she wanted … something.
    Wes.
    Damn those kids with that car! He’d almost been asleep. Almost.
    Well, all right, not really.
    But he might have been able to go to sleep if the fool car hadn’t backfired, if Reggie hadn’t come racing down the hallway and into his arms.
    If he hadn’t touched her.
    Now, he was staring at the ceiling in the muted darkness, seeing nothing but the pale sheen of the paint. No, seeing everything there, as if the white paint that caught a dim glow of moonlight were a canvas and he could play images there, as if he were a projector and the ceiling were a screen.
    He still wondered how someone who resembled Max, a man, could be so beautiful. So completely feminine. So alluring. In no matter what manner of dress he conjured her. She had so much dignity in her red business suit. She’d been sleek, sharp, determined. A worthy adversary to any man, he was certain, he thought, a curl forming in the corner of his lip. But he couldn’t stay focused on that red suit.
    Her clothing seemed to slip away.
    He was thinking next of the brilliant red dance-hall costume, and how she had looked across the table from him at the restaurant.
    Lobster shells flying.
    But even that image wouldn’t remain.
    The one that came again and again was of