CHAPTER TWENTY

 

 

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“No pouncing!” Emily hissed as she turned her steely, accusing gaze on him and snapped her magic off.

“Newsflash,” Jai said as he held up a handful of clothes and waved them at her. “I don’t tend to bring dry clothes when I pounce.”

“Oh.” Emily pushed out her bottom lip and looked slightly sheepish. “Well, would a little warning and a knock on the door with you on the outside be too much for your brain to handle?”

“Noooo, and I did, but I guess you couldn’t hear me over that …” he narrowed his eyes and thought about his choice of words. “Singing,” he settled for a mistruth. It had sounded more like a cat in a mangle, or really bad bagpipe playing was going on in his guest bathroom, but who was he to judge?

Emily pressed her lips together, but the smile tugged them wide. She could tell that he was being diplomatic about her singing.

She knew it sounded off key by a country mile, and yet, she couldn’t help herself. The water hit her body, and suddenly she was on stage in front of twenty gazillion fans, and she could sing like the best of them.

“You could have left the clothes outside the door…”

“And have you venture outside … naked?” He gasped in mock shock, and she chuckled that time.

“So much better to have you come in here and ogle me,” she tossed back, but there was no real malice behind her words, and he couldn’t help but give her a seriously devilish grin.

“You uncovered my secret – I have a thing for fluffy towels,” he tossed back.

“Well, I’d chuck it at you, but that would leave me at quite a disadvantage,” she teased back, maybe a little too much because the hungry look on his face told her that it wasn’t blood he was thinking about.

“And we wouldn’t want that.” His grin wasn’t just as sexy as hell; it was also disarming and inviting her mind to go to x-rated thoughts. “Unless…”

“Quit while you’re ahead and you still have your … pride,” she warned him, but even that felt half-hearted to him.

“Let’s not and say I did…”

“Or do, and we’ll never speak of it again…”

Jai took a long step towards her, just the one to see if she would protest or carry out her devilish plan, and she eyed him for a long moment but didn’t act. “But, we have to speak of it if nothing else.”

“Nothing else?” She repeated his words because her mind was otherwise occupied when a rush of excitement had hit her from nowhere and played a sideshow of x-rated thoughts in her mind.

“You know?” Jai noted how distracted she was and he would have loved to have known what she was thinking. He could imagine, but that was more to do with her breathing and the look on her face, but what if he was wrong? He took another step.

“I do, and…” The hell she did. She couldn’t remember her own name, let alone what they’d been talking about. He was getting closer, she knew that much, and somewhere in her fuddled, dirty mind, there was a little white flag waving her surrender.

Emily snapped to attention and eyed him with surprise. “How did you use your vampire magic on me and how dare you?” she bit out, but he was right there in front of her in a heartbeat, and her heart kicked her ribs as she swallowed down on another rush of excitement while her stomach took the rollercoaster ride of its life.

“That was all you,” Jai said on a devilish grin that hit home in much the same way as his words had.

The mating pull? Her overactive dirty mind playing tricks on her? Attraction, lust, curiosity?

The instant she felt his arm go around her body and the palm of his hand flattened against the small of her back, shooting stars of excitement went through her. She’d never much cared for fairground rides that gave you sensual waves of weird pleasure inside, but it felt like she couldn’t get off one now.

Her body was a traitor – her mind wasn’t much better – but, she did have her pride.

“I’m warning you,” she said, even if everything else was waving a white flag and practically baying him on, she could still use her magic.

  “Noted,” he said, and leaned in for the kill, or the kiss, she wasn’t sure which and reacted without thinking.

She zapped him a good one – too good. His body locked up and before she could even try to disentangle herself from him – they were going down.

“Because this – is sooo much better,” she bit out from beneath his hard body as she lay on the floor.