Night of the Magician by Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online

your hand.“
    At once Ariana did as instructed. Her frustration was growing by leaps and bounds. With her decidedly practical and intellectual approach to most matters she found it infinitely disturbing not to be able to detect the secrets involved in Lucian’s magic. She was determined to catch him in the middle of a piece of sleight-of-hand and find out exactly how he did his tricks.
    Carefully Lucian counted out five coins into her palm. Ariana watched with total concentration.
    “Now count them back into my hand,“ he instructed in that gentle, come-hither voice. He held out his hand.
    Carefully, never so much as blinking, Ariana counted back the five coins.
    “We agree there are five coins?“ Lucian questioned, watching her avidly alert face with a veiled expression that Ariana ignored. She only wanted to discover how the trick was going to work.
    “Agreed.“
    “Good. Hold out your hand again,“ he told her and promptly dumped the coins back into her palm, closing her fingers tightly around them. His own hand was clearly empty. “Now watch,“ he smiled, “while I make one of the coins you’re holding so tightly leave your hand and come to mine.“
    Almost at once he produced a coin from between the fingers of his right hand. Hastily Ariana opened her own closed fist and discovered that she was now holding only four coins. Her patience snapped.
    “Damn it, Lucian! Tell me how it’s done!“
    He smiled tantalizingly, topaz eyes clearly mocking. “I’ll give you one more chance to see if you can figure it out.“
    Once again he began counting coins into her palm. Ariana followed each movement carefully. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, why his magic was annoying her so thoroughly. Somehow it had become a matter of paramount importance to expose his secrets. It was as if she wanted to prove to both of them that he was no faster or cleverer than she was.
    Deliberately she counted the five coins back into his hand. Whatever he did had to be done at the point where he dropped the coins into her palm and then closed her hand into a fist around them. That must be the moment when the sleight-of-hand took place. She waited, poised to strike.
    Lucian saw the tension in her slender body as she sat waiting to pounce. The cool determination in her appealed to him, prompting a sense of amusement and challenge. She was so grimly set on finding out how the magic worked.
    But he had been deliberately luring her closer and closer on the plush papaya carpet, because ever since last night he had been wondering what made Ariana War-field work.
    The woman was a mystery to him, and Lucian knew an overwhelming urge to discover what lay behind her cool exterior. What were the secrets hinted at by that unexpectedly soft and vulnerable mouth?
    So she wasn’t sleeping with Dearborn, the man in the three-hundred-dollar trenchcoat…
    He held his hand above hers, ready to back-palm one of the coins so that only four of them would fall into her hand. Ariana waited expectantly, her eyes focused on his palm full of coins. She was going to grab for his hand just as he was concealing one of the coins, Lucian realized with a flash of humor. She was very, very close and when she moved to trap his hand she would be off balance. Which was just the way he wanted her.
    Deliberately he started to drop the coins back into her hand.
    “Oh, no you don’t!“ Ariana cried, reaching for his hand with her free fingers.
    Lucian didn’t argue. He simply encircled her wrist and yanked her gently off balance and onto her back. An instant later she was lying partially trapped under him. He felt her go unnaturally still as she stared up at him wide-eyed.
    Very calmly he removed her eyeglasses and then his own. For a timeless moment topaz eyes burned into unreadable smoky blue depths and then Lucian said huskily, “It’s dangerous to interrupt a magician at work.“ Slowly, savoring the heightened awareness of all his senses as his body responded