Bedspell. Jule McBride
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you wicked little witch,” he coached as he thrust deep inside her, feeling her open all the way. “Because the man you’ve beguiled is about to show you some midnight magic.”
WHAT HAD HAPPENED?
Signe slid a hand down her belly, as if she half expected to find that her own body parts had vanished in the night. Whew! That herbal-root punch had really packed a punch. C.C. hadn’t been lying! Nor Diane, who’d said it contained grain alcohol. Signe felt as if she’d been run over by a Mack truck. Which was just as well. She’d actually forgotten about the stolen statue and Detective Perez for a few blissful hours. Now she tried to slit her eyes open, but decided it was just too painful. Yes, she was going to have to spend all day pressing thin slices of frozen cucumber to her eyelids.
This was why she never drank. While the herbal-root beverage had been great going down, she now felt as if a heavy cement block had lodged in the space where her head used to be. Except that couldn’t really be the case, since her head was pounding. It felt as if an army of little men were inside it, trying to bash their way out with hammers.
Everything hurt. A big white hole seemed to exist where her memories once were. It was as if she’d become a cyborg from the movies, whose brain existed only on a CD-ROM. Now she was simply waiting for her memory element to reconnect….
Just opening her eyes hurt. Breathing hurt. Her skin hurt.
Everything.
Except the dream. If her lips didn’t hurt, too, Signe would have smiled. She’d actually dreamed that Gorgeous Garrity had been waiting for her in bed. She’d whispered the words to the spell she’d cast, and they’d made love. Not just the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of love, either. But no-holds-barred sex that had lasted all night long.
It seemed so real.
Astonishingly real, she decided with a frown. In fact, the more her memories came back in snatches, the more it seemed as if the event had happened. Was she going crazy? Or had Gorgeous taken her up on her offer and come to the Catskills?
She was still in too much pain to open her eyes.
She could remember his touch, though. Every kiss, every sexy smell. Big strong hands had stroked every inch of her. His hairy chest had teased her breasts in a way that actually made her…have an orgasm?
Yes, he’d barely touched her, and she’d gone off like a rocket. He’d lit her up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. She’d burned and sizzled.
“Whew!” she mouthed.
As he’d pushed inside her, she’d felt as if a thousand massaging fingers were probing her, driving her toward new, dizzying heights of ecstasy. But that was crazy! Sex was never that good! She was healthy, of course. But a long time ago, Signe Sargent had realized that men were human and had their pretty obvious limitations.
Last night, however…
Had the spell affected their bed play? They’d gotten so down and dirty that just thinking about it made her whole body flood with heat once more. She could almost hear his voice, saying, “I’m about to show you some midnight magic.” And boy, had he!
Maybe there was something to this wiccan stuff, she thought, her heart skipping a beat. If it improved sex to this degree, she would certainly become an adept. As soon as she got back to the city, she’d get her own spell book. The dream really did seem so sharp, vivid and full of detail…
She registered a musty smell. “Cats?” she mouthed.
She opened her eyes a fraction. Just enough to see that this wasn’t her cabin. Uh-oh. She ceased to breathe, and her aching body felt frozen in panic. Now she couldn’t shut her eyes if she wanted to. Where was she? The curtains were different from those in her cabin, she realized, and somebody lived here. Full-time. No…this was no part-time camper, and this somebody was messy.
Without even moving her head, she could tell that the place was a wreck. A closet door was open, and a man’s clothes were inside. Not the kind of man’s clothes that might have brought her comfort, either, such as Brooks Brothers suits and Hermès ties. This man’s shirts were made out of plaid flannel. Yards of it, indicating he was quite sizable.
Dirty jeans were on the floor. Canoe paddles were propped beside the door, near mud-caked steel-toed work boots. An open can of soda was perched on a sofa arm. Not very promising. Had she really walked into the wrong cabin? And slept with some strange man, thinking he was Gorgeous Garrity? And how could such a thing have happened…when her friends swore there were no men out here in the woods?
Her eyes slid to the bedside table, landing on a graduation certificate, and she made out the words: Wildcat Capture Team Certification. Whoever he was, he’d certainly captured her last night.
Feeling desperate for a drink, she took in a desk stacked with books and strewn with papers, and then she saw the disabled cats. Two of them. An orange tabby with its head bandaged and both front paws bound in gauze. The other was missing a leg. Telling herself to remain calm, she pressed a hand to the mattress and tried to roll over. As she did so, she pressed a hand to her head, also. She felt something that didn’t belong there and removed it.
“A leaf,” she mouthed. Great. More exploration turned up brambles and a twig. Glancing down, she realized her legs were mud-streaked from the swim in the lake. Yes. It was all coming back to her now….
Then he snored.
It was not delicate snoring, the kind C.C. and Diane could both be guilty of after they’d had too much to drink…the kind that would have assured Signe that she’d wound up in the other cabin with her girlfriends.
No.
This was chesty male snoring that said he was at least six feet tall and packed with muscles of the very type that she’d felt holding her tightly last night. Trying not to make a sound, she fought the pain as she craned her neck and glanced over her shoulder.
When she saw him, her heart hammered harder. Who was he? The sheet was pulled only to his thighs, and getting a gander at his physique, she couldn’t help but think of the fertility statue Detective Perez thought she’d stolen. No wonder sex had felt so good….
His skin was as smooth as glass and tanned the color of toasted walnuts. He was definitely gorgeous. Just not the Gorgeous…Gorgeous Garrity. Which meant she had to get out of here. Escape, while he was sleeping. She’d just run….
But her eyes lingered. He had great hair. Thick and medium-blond, it was decidedly too long; soft curls that had felt like heaven against the insides of her fingers were brushing the skin of his shoulders, gleaming like summer sun. Faint light, slipping through the closed curtains, was dancing in the strands, and for a brief moment, she watched as if spellbound.
She forced herself to blink rapidly.
Glancing around, she searched for her clothes, then remembered she’d lost them at the lake. She’d come here naked, thinking this was her cabin, and he must have thought…
She was someone else.
Yes. He’d seemed to be expecting her. Great. This was the sort of jam C.C. always got herself into. But nothing such as this had ever happened to Signe. What would C.C. do? The answer was just as clear as it had been a moment before: run. Trust your instincts, Sig.
Soundlessly, she edged her legs over the mattress, wincing when her feet hit the wood floorboards, making them creak. She glanced over her shoulder again in panic, but the man hadn’t moved. So far, so good. Standing, she stared covetously at the sheet on his legs, wishing she could risk taking it, to cover herself. How far was her own cabin from here?
She tiptoed toward the door, wincing as she took a silent step, then another. She was halfway across the room when she heard the groan of mattress springs, and then a gruff voice saying, “Going somewhere?”
She froze, uncomfortably balanced on the balls of her bare feet, her fisted hands at her sides, deeply conscious of the fact that she was naked, and that it was no longer dark in here. Her backside