Witch Interrupted by Jody Wallace Page A

from around her. She was on a pull-down bed.
    Katie gasped for air. “Are you trying to smotherme?”
    When he tossed the blanket, her glasses clattered to the floor somewhere. Dammit. The needle concealed in the temple had been her best bet for the handcuffs. The specs were pricey for more than just the prescription.
    He loomed over her with an annoyed frown. His muscles rippled under his smooth, brown skin, and she tried to suppress lascivious thoughts.
    “No, I need you breathing.” He opened a drawer under the bed, and she scuttled into a sitting position. The cabinets above her had inset lights. Her wrist was cuffed to a fabric loop she presumed had something to do with the pull-down construction. Surely he hadn’t had it custom-installed for handcuffs.
    Censoring that part of her imagination, she assessed the area for makeshift weapons, lock picks, anything she could use.
    He shrugged into a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and opened another drawer. “You understand, of course, I’m going to have to make sure there are no more herbs.” He snapped on surgical gloves.
    Surgical gloves?
    If she went for the hidden lavender, he’d see. To put him off guard, she turned out her pockets with her free hand. The mint fell out of one, and a scrap of valerian fell out of the other. “This is all I’ve got.”
    “I’ll take that, if you please.” He watched her expectantly. “No magic.”
    She infused the herb anyway.
    He wriggled a gloved finger in his ear. “I said no magic.”
    “You say a lot of things.” She flipped the dried roots at him, gave him her meanest look and ate the mint. It wouldn’t do anything to either of them—there wasn’t enough of it—but she wanted to be defiant.
    “Is that all?” He slipped a green capsule into his pocket.
    He had to know he couldn’t harm her with magic. “What’s the pill for?”
    “Monkshood remedy.”
    “I don’t have any monkshood.” For starters, spell-grade monkshood was hard to come by. And if she had any, she wouldn’t have used it. She’d always— always —avoided killing when she could, and Marcus wasn’t a feral trying to rip her to pieces.
    “I’ll be the judge of that.” He lowered his hands to his belt and started unbuckling it.
    “What exactly are you doing?” As much as she’d like to see him naked, did he truly mean to…
    Marcus smiled and tucked his shirt into his pants. Despite her best efforts, she kept watching his hands. She imagined them on her body, without the latex coating… Hot and hard and demanding. She was handcuffed, trapped, unable to stop him. Her body reacted with a surge of lust.
    When he rebuckled his belt, she returned her gaze to his smirk.
    He knew what she was feeling. Of course. Goddess, he must think she was insane. He was right. She had to be insane to be turned on by this particular state of affairs.
    He reached across the thin mattress and drew her ankles down, trying to uncurl her defensive posture. Trying to position her for whatever he had in mind.
    “Are you ready?” His eyes, brown and unruffled, bored into her.
    Yes!
    But…no.
    She crooked her legs, knees toward her chest. He wasn’t expecting it. The movement knocked him off balance, and he stumbled against the edge of the bed. As soon as she had the right angle, she let him have it.
    He took the kick against his torso with an oof . Grimacing, he snagged her ankles again and hauled her body toward him until she was stretched flat. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
    “Neither.” She scissored her legs, twisted, threw pillows at him with her free arm. She jogged and swam to maintain her strength and dexterity, but she was no match for a wolf.
    Marcus, a neutral expression on his handsome face, let her kick and curse at him. She used every nasty insult thirty years of living around nasty people had taught her before she realized he was waiting for her to wear herself out. Like a child having a tantrum.
    Well, if that was what he