Page 24 of Druid Cursed

Before she could call out to her friend, a large hand covered her mouth. A muscled arm snared her waist, pulling her back against the solid heat of a male body.

“Quiet.” Kellen’s immediate whisper in her ear and his familiar, lemon-licorice scent were the only things that prevented her from going into panic mode. She relaxed against him. He released her mouth and put a finger to his own.

Maggie nodded a confirmation.

“Watch.” He gestured toward Wendy.

She had freed her hair from its messy bun and had clearly chosen to ignore her flat iron.

Her hair curled into the natural waves that she normally hated with a passion.

A glimpse of her True Blood T-shirt peeked from beneath the witchy-looking cloak, proof she still hadn’t changed out of her pajamas.

It had been days now. But it was her shoes that made Maggie do a double take.

Wendy wasn’t wearing any of the four-inch stilettos she’d packed for the trip, but she wore boots. Muddy, laced-up crap-kickers.

First chanting in her sleep, and now a complete malfunction in the Wendy wardrobe selection?

Unease coiled in her gut, tight and tense.

Something was definitely wrong. If Wendy still rendezvoused with her gorgeous hunk of a businessman, she wouldn’t be caught dead looking anything less than perfect.

Wendy opened the book. Pages crackled softly as she flipped through them, searching for something. She paused, canted her head, and lifted her gaze. For a moment, she seemed to look straight at Maggie and Kellen, as if she could pierce the layers of darkness, wood, and books.

A bone-cold chill swept through Maggie. By a trick of candlelight and shadows, Wendy’s vibrant green eyes looked dark, too dark, and what gazed through them felt ancient, powerful, and malignant. This was Wendy, but she wasn’t herself.

She returned her attention to the book, and Maggie could suddenly breathe again.

From within the folds of her cloak, Wendy pulled out what looked like a sprig of some herb.

She fisted her hand, muttered a few words beneath her breath, and opened her fingers.

Fragments scattered over the pages like sand, and a flowery scent feathered the air.

An unnatural smile twisted her face. With a sweep of her cloak, she turned from the table and strode away. The library door opened and clanked shut like an old cemetery gate.

Maggie realized her fingers were digging into Kellen’s forearm around her waist. Neither one of them spoke.

She was grateful for his surrounding heat, the sturdiness of his frame steadying her.

He held her against his chest, so tight the pounding of his heart echoed in her bones.

It was as if he understood she needed a constant, balancing force in a world that slipped further and further off its axis with every passing day here.

The person who had crumbled herbs on the book had looked like a Girls Gone Wilderness version of Wendy, not the glamour queen she knew.

As much as she hated to acknowledge it, she couldn’t deny something was off.

Could it be that finally coming to the land of leprechauns and magic had driven Wendy to take the holiday to the extreme?

It had to be something like that. Any alternative was just too much, too off-the-rocker-wild, too frightening to consider.

“Should we help her?” she whispered.

“If ’tis help she seeks, she has but to ask for it. She has shown she knows her way around the estate, and Jeeves is at the ready for every guest.”

He had a point. Wendy wasn’t exactly shy about her wants or needs.

Kellen’s breath warmed the shell of her ear, and her stomach fluttered. The air seemed to shift and prickle, electric.

Maggie became instantly and fiercely aware of two things.

The first was that somewhere along the way, she’d relaxed fully back against him, as if he’d wrapped his arm around her for pleasure, not stealth, his big hand spread protectively over her abdomen and rib cage.

The second was that a decidedly firm male appendage dug into the small of her back.

He traced the side of her neck with his thumb, and she bit her lip to hold in a purr. Her body went languid, and she gripped his forearm harder, needing the contact. Never before had a simple touch awakened all her senses.

“Maggie,” he whispered.

No one had ever said her name in that way, like a desperate prayer, as if he needed her more than life.

All pledges of independence and no romance, to focus only on winning the money, getting her home back and boutique going, dissipated in a puff of smoke.

She pressed her cheek against his bicep and arched her neck in offering.

He kissed the same pathway he’d caressed, soft and silken, the whiskers of his goatee adding a tantalizing scrape over her skin. Heat flooded her veins and her body ached in all the best places. She turned in his arms, the need to align with him too powerful to resist.

Maggie slipped her arms beneath his jacket, around his lean waist, and lifted her face to his.

There was no teasing this time, no mention of elbows or tricks or wagers.

No talk of interludes with strangers or quests.

All she wanted this second was to feel his mouth on hers, to see if he tasted as good as he looked, to drown in him and worry about coming up for air later.

Kellen trailed his fingers up her neck, beneath her hair, and curled them around the base of her skull, the move both thrilling and possessive.

Anticipation throbbed in time with her heart.

His dark eyes searched hers, as if he could find in them answers only she could give, while his mouth remained maddeningly out of reach.

“Kellen…” She lifted herself up on tiptoes, still unable to touch his lips. He was too damn tall. “Why aren’t you kissing me?”