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It had worked, forcing the longtime friends to confront their intense feelings for each other, resulting in Charlotte with a wedding ring and a new house to live in, but Bree knew she never should have left that mistletoe just lying around. Last she remembered, she had tossed it on her dresser a solid twelve months earlier, which meant Akasha had probably dragged it off and under the bed or something. No wonder Bree had been plagued with sex dreams for months. She had a powerfully charged-hexensymbol hanging out under her bed.
And no man to satisfy her.
Ugh. She hated feeling discontent. And in a constant state of arousal.
"It's probably not a big deal," Charlotte said, carefully laying the loaded mistletoe on the kitchen table. "Will said it didn't work. He already was lusting for me way before we made this thing."
Bree had known that, which was why she had encouraged Charlotte to go for it with Will. "Yeah, but you can't just leave magick lying around."
Especially anywhere around her bed.
"The doorbell's ringing," Charlotte said. "Want me to get it?"
"No, I can get it." Bree stood up, noting that Akasha had already leaped up onto the fourth empty chair and snagged the mistletoe again. Bree was going to have to grab that thing and stuff it into a drawer until she could destroy it bit by bit.
Abby was two steps behind her.
"Why are you following me?" Bree asked her sister, darting a glance at her over her shoulder. "I can answer the door by myself."
"It's him," Abby said in an awed whisper. "The guy I saw."
"Sure. Or it's my mailman letting me know I have a package." Bree went down the hallway of the big Victorian house she had inherited from her grandmother. It was a lot of house for her now that Charlotte had moved out, but maybe Abby would want to move in after high school. Living with their parents was sometimes nausea-inducing since they were engaged in a perpetual lovefest. It was sweet and warming to see from a distance, but on a daily basis all the groping got old. Abby would probably appreciate some space.
Bree pulled open the front door and almost had a heart attack.
Have mercy, it was a man, about thirty years old, and very clearly wearing a pink dress shirt under his winter coat, the collar peeking out above the zipper. He was just standing there. On her front step. With snow on his shiny black shoes.
She knew this man. He was Amanda Delmar Tucker's lawyer, from Chicago.
Bree had only met him once, for a brief minute in the coffeeshop with Abby, the previous December, and he had clearly thought she had been sniffing her black nail polish given the look of disdain on his face at the time.
Now he was standing on her doorstep, with nary a smile in sight.
Abby was whispering loudly in her ear, "It's him. Told you so. Right on up the sidewalk to the front door. Ringing the bell. I'm so right."
Caught between wanting to muzzle her sister and slam the front door shut, Bree just stared at him. He stared back, his compelling chocolate brown eyes boring into her.
And suddenly she knew that her sister was right, as her empathic ability picked up on the feelings he was projecting, unaware that she could sense them. This man, this lawyer, wanted to have sex with her.
Yikes.
Ian Carrington was seriously annoyed with himself. He had told himself that seeing Bree Murphy again was the perfect opportunity to eradicate her from all of his thoughts. That the woman in the flesh, who he had only met once for such a short span of time, couldn't possibly live up to the sensual fantasies his sick mind had conjured over the past year. He had been wrong.
The minute she opened the door and stared out at him, her dark hair falling past her shoulders, her pale, smooth skin a sharp contrast to the crimson of her
bright lipstick, he had felt a gigantic kick of lust. He had an instant erection and wanted nothing more on earth than to have her naked in his bed, eyes glazed with passion, lips swollen from his kisses, voice begging him for more.
It was illogical. She was completely not his type in any way, shape, or form. He went for corporate women, not the kooky kind like Bree, who wore a witch pendant around her neck and did tarot readings for a living. He had never bought in to any of that sixth-sense crap, and he lived his life logically, with a plan. It was what he attributed his success to, despite his unusual and impoverished childhood. Living by logic and hard work had brought him to where he was.
But there was no denying that he was attracted to Bree in the most basic way, whether it made sense or not, and had been dreaming about her virtually nonstop from the second they had met. Both while awake and asleep.
Now she was staring at him like he was a bug she'd like to squish.
So even though this trip technically hadn't been necessary for the business he had to conduct, he had taken it with the intention of getting over his little lust crush on Bree Murphy and restoring his life to its former equilibrium. Only now that he had seen her again, in all her delicious flesh, he knew he wasn't over his crush, not by a mile. And he was going to stay in Cuttersville, Ohio, until he either had sex with Bree or regained his sanity, because he could not return to Chicago and face another twelve months of X-rated dreams that featured him and Bree Murphy rocking the house. He would spontaneously combust if he had to endure any more of the graphic dreams that were soaking him in sweat every other night.
"Hi, I'm Ian Carrington," he said, holding out his hand.
She took it for about a microsecond before she dropped it. "I've met you before. You're Amanda's lawyer."
