Awaken to Pleasure. Lauren Hawkeye

often that she was physically helpless with a man, any man, and the fact that she was now excited her a bit, even as it roused her anger.

      “Who are you?” she demanded, for the attractive face wasn’t one that she recognized.

      “I am Boone,” she was told, and the husky velvet of the deep voice sent a delicious shiver skating down her spine. “You called me.” And before she could argue, she was pressed flat into the ground again while her lips were attacked with a skill she’d never before experienced.

      It was a full minute before she could think. Her body responded instantly to the taste of wine and of man on the stranger’s tongue, and the burning heat of the sand at her back and of the aroused male body shifting on top of hers had every nerve in her body on fire. A moan slipped unwittingly from her throat as the man’s sapphire-blue eyes burned into her softer gray ones; when his tongue slipped between her lips to sample the wet inner cavern of her mouth, she felt an unbearable excitement begin to ball in the pit of her belly.

      Boone’s booted foot nudged Moira’s ankle. The resulting knife of pain brought her back to her senses. She shoved at his chest, hard, until he eventually rolled off her and they both lay on the ground, panting, shielding their eyes from the late-afternoon sun.

      “What the hell, buddy?” Moira knew that, after the apocalypse, most people had begun to indulge in the physical comfort of sex whenever, and wherever, they could. Hell, she’d been one of them, for the rioting sense of a blistering orgasm made her forget, for a moment, the horror of losing all that she had loved in the brilliant, horrifying fires of magic. But she had moved past that need now, or so she thought, and she was damned if she’d fuck some strange man in the sand right outside of Gale’s little store. The perverted little man would watch the whole thing through his window, no doubt. Yuck.

      She pulled herself to a sitting position and dusted sand from her cloak before turning accusing eyes to the slightly hurt face of the man who called himself Boone.

      “Is that not what you wished for?” he asked, scratching his head. “You rubbed the lamp and called me. You came through the door and pushed me to the ground; I thought that that was your wish.” He seemed to think that this was a genuinely sufficient explanation and blinked, startled, at Moira’s reaction.

      “You’re crazy,” she informed him briskly as she pulled herself to a standing position. “Absolutely certifiable. What lamp? I don’t have a lamp. And what’s all this wish nonsense?” She shook her head, disgruntled, as she heaved her rice sack back over her shoulder.

      “But you touched me. That communicates your wish to fornicate.” Boone seemed genuinely puzzled, and Moira wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to scream.

      “Look, buddy, I touched you because I was leaving, and you were in my way. I am not going to fornicate with you, as you so quaintly phrased it, because you stopped in for a sack of rice and thought that you might get a bit of a bonus from the female. So good riddance.” Muttering under her breath about idiotic, good-looking men, she stalked off.

      * * *

      Boone pressed his lips together as he watched her walk away. He hadn’t understood half of the words she’d hurled at him, but he knew from her tone that none of them had been complimentary.

      And he’d felt…strange…pressing up against her that way. He’d watched her since she was little, after all, and that was something to think on.

      But there were stirrings in the wind. When he’d heard them, he’d known that it was time for him to come to her again. He had seduced his last mistress into wishing him where Moira would find him.

      And to keep the girl safe, she had to think of him as nothing more than what he was—a genie who granted wishes.

      Not the banished witch destined to keep humanity’s only hope safe.

      Since most of the women who rubbed the sapphire on the lamp took one look at him and decided that their wish would be that he bring them physical pleasure, the safest disguise was for him to act as he had with the others.

      But damn it…despite his best intentions, she had grown into a damn fine woman. He had enjoyed himself as best he could in the arms of those with whom he had no choice but to obey, but here…

      Here was a woman he actually wanted. A woman he knew was strong and true, as well as fair of face.

      Shading his eyes, he watched her appealing figure grow smaller and smaller as she stalked off into the distance. She had a lovely figure—curvy hips, ample breasts. He sighed, then started after her. Since she hadn’t rubbed the lamp again, he was stuck outside of its cool interior—damn curse—out in the blistering heat, following around a woman whose touch would be tainted with the lie between them.

      “Some things are more important than your cock,” he muttered to himself as he stalked his way across the sand. This woman was the one who was prophesized to kill the queen of the witches…and like a multiheaded serpent, once that head was gone, the rest would slowly wither away.

      He didn’t know where, or how. But since he was the one who had had the vision, he had known that he was the one destined to keep her safe. Knowing he had only enough power to save one on the night that the witch fires raged, he had chosen to save her.

      And for it he had been cursed. Was condemned to live in a bottle, doing as his master or mistress demanded. And some of the things they’d demanded sickened him to the core.

      But none had hurt so much as the disgust he had seen on young Moira Connor’s face the night he’d saved her and let her parents die.

      As he followed behind Moira, he tried not to torture himself with the sway of her hips.

      The best way to keep her safe was to keep their relationship light and sexual, just as he always did. It was his skill—a woman once seduced into his bed would do anything to keep him.

      So Moira wouldn’t make a fuss when he stayed close. Close enough to make sure that Shiloh would never find out about her.

      And yet, as the winds that blew across the plains carried the whispers of magic to his ears, he sensed he was already too late.