Jingle Spells by Vicki Lewis Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

the risk he was taking by falling in with her plan. These few days could turn him into an emotional cripple, but he was willing to pay that price.
    Now that he realized no one else would do but Taryn, and Taryn was forbidden to him, he’d stay single forever. That might have sounded harsh to someone else, but to Cole, it made perfect sense. Marrying someone he loved less than Taryn would be unkind to them, and to himself.
    Taking off his shirt, he walked back into the room and paused. She’d always been speedy at undressing, but she must have set a world record this time. Gloriously naked, she crouched beside the fireplace with a lit match in her hand.
    The small flame illuminated her delicate features, and another pain sliced through his heart. So beautiful. She tossed the match into the fireplace and swore when it fell uselessly through the grate. Opening the box of matches, she struck another one.
    Silly as it was, he wanted her to succeed, but he didn’t give her method much chance. Focusing on the logs arranged in the fireplace, he timed his muttered incantation to her match-tossing. The logs caught.
    â€œYes!” She turned to him, her smile bright. “You were standing there thinking I wouldn’t get it started, weren’t you?”
    â€œActually, I thought you would.” He’d simply increased her odds.
    â€œLet’s make love here in front of the fire.”
    â€œWhy not?” He was touched that she’d ask, and that she’d used the phrase
make love
instead of
have sex.
They used to make love in front of the fire. His duplex had been a real find—a rental with a woodburning fireplace. He’d used magick to keep the blaze going while they were otherwise occupied.
    An unmagickal fire required constant tending, which meant having sex by the fire was romantic in theory but inconvenient in practice. She’d never questioned the consistency of their fires. He hoped that was because she’d been too busy enjoying herself.
    He wondered if she’d ever tried having hearthside sex with anyone else. If so, she would have discovered it didn’t work quite the way it had with him. Selfishly, he liked knowing that their experience would stand out in her mind.
    She rose from the hearth with an unselfconsciousness that showed she hadn’t really been worried about revealing her body. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was the same, yet different.
    The tiny mole positioned over her heart was still there, waiting for his kiss. But her breasts were more voluptuous now, and her hips flared a bit more, emphasizing her narrow waist. His gaze traveled the length of her slender legs. He had fond memories of those legs wrapped around his hips. She knew how to lock him in tight while giving him room to move. He didn’t need much, just enough to create the right kind of friction....
    She said something, but he was so lost in memories he missed it.
    â€œEarth to Cole.”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œYour clothes, Evergreen. Lose ’em. I’ll fix us a bed by the fire.”
    He grinned at her and snapped a quick salute. “Aye, aye, cap’n.”
    â€œSmart-ass.”
    â€œSweet-ass.” How quickly they’d become comfortable with each other again. Ten years had vanished, replaced with the easy relationship he remembered so well. Taryn got him. Well, not completely, because she didn’t know about the magick. That should have been a huge omission, but somehow, when they were together, it didn’t seem to matter. They made their own magick.
    By the time he’d shucked the rest of his clothes and located another condom, she’d spread a quilt on the floor and tossed a couple of pillows there, too. He walked toward her, his cock already standing at attention. “You made your bed. Now lie in it.”
    â€œI thought I would.” Dropping to her knees, she stretched out on the fluffy quilt with the lithe movements of a cat.