Dangerous Magic by Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online Page A

Elissa could have sworn an ingredient very close to humor stirred for an instant in the gray eyes. It was gone almost at once, but not before it had managed to catch her attention. She didn’t tell herself she’d been mistaken. Elissa Sheldon knew people too well to think herself mistaken in a matter like that.

    “You’re hurting my wrists,” she pointed out grittingly. “Would you mind letting me go? I’m not going to run anywhere. In case you weren’t aware of the fact, this is my apartment!” She tossed her head in a small gesture of infuriated disdain. The dark red-highlighted hair moved gracefully, like the rippling coat of an animal.
    “You’re not accustomed to being hurt, are you?” Wade observed laconically, glancing down at the slender wrists he was holding prisoner.
    “I most certainly am not!” she agreed fervently, wriggling her fingers suggestively. But he didn’t release them. Instead he seemed to lose interest in the cause of her protest, continuing to chain her in front of him with idle ease as his gleaming eyes moved back to her taut face.
    “Think of it as a new and educational experience,” he advised dryly. “Or perhaps as an object lesson, such as the one you tried to give me tonight!”
    “You don’t seem to have learned much from what I was trying to teach you!” she snapped, beginning to plot various ways of scratching out his eyes as soon as she had the use of her hands.
    “I wouldn’t say that,” he disagreed mildly. “I learned, for example, just how incredibly charming you really can be. How many women, I wonder, go out of their way to give parties for their lover’s wife?”
    “Martin Randolph is not my lover! How many times do I have to tell you?”
    “He won’t be any longer, I’ll grant you that.” Wade smiled with dangerous promise. “As I told you yesterday, while I’m in your inner circle I won’t tolerate any other man sharing it with me. But even if I hadn’t decided to find out for myself what’s behind the bewitching facade you present to the world, I still think poor Randolph would have been shown the door. He had, after all, outlived his usefulness, hadn’t he? He failed to get you that promotion.”
    “What a ghastly thing to say!” Elissa hissed. “Martin is a friend of mine, and he will continue to stay a friend!”
    “That’s the amazing thing, isn’t it?” Wade nodded thoughtfully. “He probably will continue to be your friend. In fact, he’ll probably come up with the notion that it was all his idea to break off the more intimate relationship and go back to being just friends. I could see from the way he acted with his wife tonight that already he’s thinking about his marriage again. You’re a very clever woman, my dear.”
    “He never stopped thinking about it!” Elissa shut her eyes in brief despair and disgust: “What’s the point of arguing? You’ve made up your mind, and all the proof in the world won’t change it, will it?”
    “Who was going to be next on your list?” Wade persisted, and Elissa felt his fingers tighten further around her bruised wrists. “The stockbroker you had a little trouble getting rid of tonight? Norwood?”
    And then a very strange thing happened in Elissa’s mind. She allowed the raw frustration and rage seething inside to take control for a few short seconds, long enough to grate a scathing response to his demand.
    “Yes,” she heard herself say. “As a matter of fact, Dean is next on the list. Very good-looking, don’t you think? Also quite successful. I might do more than charm him into bed—I might charm him into marriage!”
    “I don’t doubt for one minute that, left to your own devices, you could do exactly that,” Wade growled. “But, as of tonight, you are no longer your own boss, free to glide through the world like some sort of sorceress, causing any man to whom you take a fancy to roll over and play dead or leap to do your bidding. You have power, Elissa Sheldon, but,