Praise for Julie Leto’s STRIPPED, winner of the Romantic Times BOOKreviews Best Blaze of 2007 Award

“Fresh characters, perfect details, passionate relationships, humor and sizzling sex all make this novel a winner.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“I really loved the chemistry between the leads. I loved the magic, the secondary characters and the action, and I cannot wait for the next one!”

—New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter

“This was my first read by Julie Leto, and it won’t be my last. It satisfied on every level: good romance, good sex, good action.”

— The Good, The Bad and The Unread

“Sexy, sassy, and fun, Stripped by Julie Leto is one book designed to make your summer exciting and a whole lot hotter.”

— Cataromance

Dear Reader,

Anyone who’s been reading Harlequin Blaze for a while has probably noticed that the heroines in our line are…um, different from ordinary women. Okay, they’re different from me. But I believe a Blaze heroine is the woman I want to be, even when my career, my family, or my day-to-day responsibilities keep me from grabbing life by the lapels and saying, “I’ve done it your way long enough…it’s my turn now.”

I’ve built a career writing heroines who are one step to the left (or right!) of center and the delicious, confident, sexy men who love them. But once in a while a woman drifts into my imagination who is kind of ordinary…in an off-beat way. Such a woman is Josie Vargas, who first appeared as a secondary character in my August 2007 Blaze novel, Stripped. Josie proved to be a free-spirited anchor for Rick Fernandez, a once steady, by-the-book cop whose life has turned upside down. Now he’s hunting down the evilest of the evil, and without Josie’s intervention (and more important, her love) he might just go down a path from which there is no return.

Something Wicked is the final story in my St. Lyon witches series, which started with the novella “Under His Spell” in the Witchy Business anthology, then continued with Stripped. There are also appearances by characters featured in my novella “Driven to Distraction” from the A Fare To Remember collection. I love revisiting characters, and I hope you enjoy it, as well!

Happy reading,

Somthing Wicked
Julie Leto

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Leto has a reputation for writing ultrasexy, edgy stories, despite (or maybe because of) her previous profession as a Catholic high school teacher. Born and raised in sunny Florida, Julie lives in Tampa with her husband, daughter, a very spoiled dachshund and the world’s largest guinea pig. For more information on Julie’s books, check out www.julieleto.com or visit and chat with her at the popular blog site www.plotmonkeys.com.

This one is for my sister-in-law, Jeannette Leto, because even though she’s never really gotten a character named after her, my heroines keep staying in “her” apartment. One of these days, this jet-setter is going to show up in a book and I promise, “you” will be just as fictionally fabulous as you are for real.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

1

RICK PUNCHED Josie Vargas’s number into his cell phone. He’d only dialed the seven digits twice since he’d met her, but the sequence flowed from his memory, with a bit of a melody behind it, as if he’d memorized it with the music like the alphabet song. Their first real date, just last night, had been incredibly ordinary and ultimately fantastic. Dinner. A movie. Talking. Lots and lots of talking.

And then, the kissing.

Lots and lots of kissing.

He’d had to harness every ounce of his self-control not to try and seduce her out of her clothes the moment they’d stepped into her apartment. Not an easy task for either of them, but they’d managed to remain upright and fully dressed.

Damn it.

They weren’t teenagers. And clearly, both of them knew a good thing when they saw it. So they’d disentangled from each other with a promise to take things slowly.

Get to know each other.

Become friends first.

Good thing they lived in Chicago, where cold showers were cheap and easy to come by.

Rick hit the Talk button on his phone, then adjusted the crotch of his slacks as he walked away from the office building where he’d just engaged in an unauthorized and unwise operation with his former boss. He’d much rather think about Josie. Her silky hair. Her soulful eyes. Her curvy, sensitive breasts. Thinking about her got him hard as a rock, which made it so much easier to forget just how many rules he’d broken in the past twenty-four hours and how, in all likelihood, his career was about to nose-dive into a backed-up toilet.

Might not be so bad with Josie around. She certainly made all the other parts of his life a lot more interesting.

Rick hadn’t been the same since the moment she’d literally run into him at the precinct. She’d been searching for her best friend, Lilith St. Lyon, the department’s on-call psychic. Since Rick had been trained from birth by his Cuban-American mother and his equally old-school sisters to socialize only with women who would someday make a good wife, he might not have noticed her otherwise. Her blond, sun-streaked hair, hippy-dippy tunic, long skirt and lace-up sandals put her in the “do not touch” category. And yet, he’d been intrigued.

She broke every rule his familia had laid out.

Good, preferably Latino family?

Her last name was Vargas, so she had a Latin connection, but every member of her family came with a rap sheet.

Catholic?

Ha! Wiccan.

Loves children?

He hadn’t yet garnered her opinion on niños or niñas, but she’d hinted that her crazy childhood hadn’t left her unscarred.

Adores cooking and cleaning and tending to her man’s every need?

Again, Rick chuckled. He could certainly imagine Josie preferring to live her life barefoot, but pregnant and in the kitchen? Never in a million years.

Of course, his family wasn’t stuck entirely in the previous century. They also wanted Rick’s future wife (as any and all girlfriends were considered to be) to have an advanced degree from college so that she could, if necessary, support the family should Rick’s career in law enforcement come to a violent end. But as far as he knew, Josie had graduated exclusively from the school of hard knocks. And while her career as a shopkeeper seemed successful enough, her business selling custom aromatherapy candles and pagan paraphernalia was firmly entrenched in a coveted location on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. There would be no moving to Miami once the kidlets arrived, as was expected.

The perfect woman she was not.

And yet, Rick couldn’t get her out of his mind.

“In the mood for pizza?” he asked after she finally answered the phone with a breathless hello that made his skin dance with a shamefully electric thrill.

“Deep-dish?”

The relief in her voice was unmistakable and incredibly appealing. She knew he’d been on the job tonight. She’d been worried, too. And as much as he didn’t want to cause her any anxiety, he liked the idea that she cared.

Liked it a lot.

“Is there any other kind of pizza in this town?”

“Want to go out or order in?”

“In,” Rick said instantly, then caught the eagerness in his voice. After the make-out session they’d shared last night, he didn’t want Josie thinking he just wanted to get her into bed. Even if he did. Badly. “Unless you want to go out.”

Josie hummed shyly. “I’m okay with either. Let’s decide after you get here. How’d everything go? Are Mac and Lilith with you?”

Rick glanced back at the service door he’d used to exit the office building, expecting his former boss and his lover to appear at any moment. He hadn’t wanted to tell Josie about tonight’s operation. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to take part in the interrogation in the first place. He wasn’t a stickler for every single rule in the law enforcement handbook, but he did have limits. And tonight, nearly every single one had been pushed to the breaking point.

If Mac Mancusi hadn’t been the one asking for his help, Rick would have refused. Mac had been chief of detectives in the Chicago P.D. since Rick joined the unit. Though Mac had been suspended from the job a few days ago for pissing off the mayor, he was still Rick’s friend. Rick trusted him implicitly—even after he’d come to him with a story that might have made a great feature film. A mutually hated defense attorney had supposed ties to a massive drug shipment their sources reported was about to hit the streets. Believable enough. But then Mac had added in the possibility that the well-connected lawyer was also, possibly, a warlock.

Cue the creepy soundtrack.

And yet, Rick had still listened. Lilith St. Lyon had backed up Mac’s outlandish suspicions and though she was a little woo-woo herself, she’d never steered Rick wrong, even if she did scare the crap out of him. He’d grown up in Little Havana and while he had a healthy respect for the brujas and santeros, he certainly didn’t subscribe to their ways. The one and only time he’d met his maternal great-grandmother, a woman whose Sight had reportedly once caught the attention of Fidel Castro, Rick had been freaked out enough to never want to visit his parents’ homeland again. When Lilith, a psychic, had asked Rick to be a conduit through which she could listen in on his interrogation of Boothe Thompson, the defense attorney suspected in the murder of a low-level drug dealer, Rick had reluctantly agreed. The ends justified the means. And he wasn’t six years old and in a foreign country anymore.

But they’d learned nothing new. Before Rick had left the building and called Josie, Mac and Lilith had been right behind him.

“Maybe they came out in the front,” he said, more to himself than to Josie.

He started walking as he told her more than he should about their operation. He’d already fractured just about every department regulation tonight by conspiring with a suspended officer to interrogate a respected defense attorney. Telling Josie the outcome wasn’t going to get him any more fired.

“We got nothing,” he admitted. “The man is slippery. I didn’t think we’d get him to fess up to anything, and I was right.”

“And Lilith couldn’t sense anything?” she asked.

While Rick asked the questions, Mac and Lilith had been in a nearby room, listening in through a psychic connection Rick didn’t even try to understand. But Lilith hadn’t discovered anything they could use to connect Thompson to the murder of the dealer or the impending drug shipment.

“Nothing we could use,” he admitted, gulping down his frustration.

For as long as he could remember, Rick had wanted to be a cop. He’d finished high school a year early, studied criminal justice in college and joined the Miami-Dade department before he was twenty-one. Known for his efficient, cool and reasoned thinking, he’d moved up quickly to detective. After five years of an endless battle against the influx of drugs in Miami, he’d moved to Chicago, hoping to broaden his knowledge base. Deal with crimes that weren’t always about smack, crack and pot. But now, he was back where he didn’t want to be—in the middle of yet another drug war, one that was being influenced by someone very powerful and, as of yet, very unknown.

“And what did it feel like, having Lilith use you that way?” Josie asked. “Was it cool?”

The fascination in her voice made him chuckle and forget how the whole setup had initially unnerved him. As a cop, he was used to dealing with hunches, and he’d always guessed that Lilith just had better hunches than most. In Little Havana, however, he’d met a few brujas, like his great-grandmother in Cuba, whose insight had been downright scary. A witch in Miami had predicted his father’s heart attack only days before he’d been felled by a cardiac episode that should have killed him. But because of the witch, he’d put an aspirin in his pocket—and that little pill had saved his life.

“It was freaky,” he admitted. “I could sense that she was there, listening in. At one point, she even suggested that I ask a certain question and I just—”

Rick, help us.

What the hell?

He pulled the phone away from his ear. A few people strode beside him on the sidewalk with heads down and strides swift. At the curb, a driver leaned lazily against a stretch limousine, tapping into his iPhone. Rick peered into the office building’s lobby. No sign of Mac or Lilith, even though he could have sworn he just heard her voice.

“Rick? Rick, are you there?”

Tinny and distant, Josie’s voice echoed from the phone, which he lifted back to his ear.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I just—”

Rick, please. Hear me. He’s not a warlock. The mayor is. Thompson’s a witch. Black magic. He’ll kill us.

“Just what? Rick, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head, but the crowded feeling in his mind didn’t lessen. Lilith was invading his consciousness, but this time, she was calling for help.

He stopped walking and turned. He spied the plates on the limousine. City government issue. The mayor?

At that moment, the driver spared him a glance. Rick gave a nod, then turned and cursed. “It’s Lilith. She’s connected to me again. They’re in trouble. He’s going to kill them. He’s a witch, and he’s using black magic.”

Josie gasped. “Can you—”

“Yes,” Rick said, “I’ve got to go.”

“Be—”

He snapped the phone shut. He didn’t need Josie’s warning. For the benefit of the limo driver, he strode casually back down the sidewalk, but broke into a run and yanked out his firearm once he cleared the side of the building. If Lilith had called for help, she and Mac were in deep. Witches? Warlocks? Black magic? This was all too fucking weird, but he had to try and help. He couldn’t leave them to die.

He’d used a service door to exit the building, but it had locked automatically behind him. If he tried the front entrance and alerted security or the mayor’s driver, all hell could break loose. Demanding instant cooperation from his frazzled brain, Rick spotted a ratty cushion protruding from a nearby Dumpster. He grabbed it, placed it over the unyielding knob and fired his weapon into the lock, muffling the sound as best he could. For a split second, he considered calling for backup, but this had been an unauthorized operation from the start. Rick had helped Mac out of loyalty, out of trust. The backlash against both of them could ruin their careers forever. He’d trust Mac a little while longer. His suspension notwithstanding, Mac was a good cop. And a good friend.

As Rick dashed into the elevator, he closed his eyes and thought hard, trying to communicate to Lilith that he was on his way. He felt her screaming just before the elevator reached the floor he somehow knew she was on. As the doors slid open, he saw her standing across from the recently elected mayor of Chicago, whose hands sparked with electricity that swirled before his eyes and formed into a stunning lethal ball.

Rick couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. No one had noticed the elevator, but when the doors started to close, he instinctively stepped out and stood, motionless, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing. The defense attorney, Boothe Thompson lay motionless and empty-eyed at the mayor’s feet. When Mac drew his gun, the mayor shifted and waved his sparking hand. The gun flew across the hallway. Mac dove to retrieve the weapon and before Rick could act, Lilith plunged forward, the glint of her knife flashing only a split second before it disappeared inside the mayor’s chest.

Then, they both crumpled to the ground. The mayor, dead, and Lilith…? Rick shouted at Mac, who turned and saw Lilith on the floor. He screamed her name and flew to her side.

Rick stepped forward, but was stopped by a dark shadow that poured out of the mayor’s eye sockets and mouth, then surrounded Rick like a wool blanket in July. Itchy. Hot. Smothering.

Take me in, human.

The voice pounded hard against Rick’s skull, as if demanding entrance. The excruciating pain stole Rick’s eyesight and squeezed his trachea shut. The chain he wore around his neck tightened and the crucifix at the end burned. He dropped to his knees. His gun thumped to the ground beside him.

I am not through with this world, the voice continued, cutting into Rick’s ears, stabbing at his brain. So young. So powerful, it expressed lustily. Your rewards will be endless.

A million jumbled thoughts exploded in Rick’s mind. images of decadence, luxury, power and limitless freedom splayed before him, a grand temptation to someone who had not been forewarned.

But Rick had heard his great-grandmother, even if her prophecy when he was six had gifted him with a lifetime of nightmares.

You will fight a great evil who will offer you everything you’ve ever wanted, she’d said in Spanish. But only you can resist him, niño. Only you can destroy him.

Rick concentrated on the memory, holding on to it like a lifeline, fixing the image of his bisabuela’s rheumy blue eyes, kind toothless grin and the saint’s medal she’d clutched in her hand as she spoke. Fire exploded in his chest and a scream of anguish unlike any he’d ever heard burst through his eardrums. The pounding in his head intensified, nearly knocking him unconscious as the shadow tightened around him then, in a flash, dispersed. Behind him, the dark entity slid into the cracks of the elevator door and disappeared.

Rick gulped in the cool air as his eyes adjusted, allowing light to penetrate where moments before, there had been only darkness. As he struggled, he had the irresistible urge to throw himself into the nearest steaming hot shower to wash away the filth that seemed crusted, invisible, to his skin.

Grabbing blindly, he found his firearm and attempted to stand. He lifted his weapon, but just as Mac’s had, the gun shot out of his grip, landing in the hands of a regal, dark-haired woman dressed entirely in purple. She had materialized directly in his path.

“I mean you no harm,” she said calmly.

Rick threw himself back against the elevator doors. “What just happened to me? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Regina St. Lyon, Lilith’s sister and Guardian of Witches. Josie called me. I’m here to help.”

She spun away from Rick and immediately slid to the floor beside Lilith and Mac.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mac asked.

Regina passed her hand over Lilith’s face. “She’s unconscious. I believe she overloaded psychically when she touched the warlock. Take her out of here, Mac. Get her someplace safe.”

“But what about—” said Rick.

Regina stood. “I’ll take care of this situation, Detective, but the evil vibrations still linger here. She needs a healing place. Please.”

Mac scooped Lilith into his arms and dashed toward the elevator. Rick pushed the button. The doors swung immediately open.

“Help her,” Mac said, nodding his head toward Regina. “She’ll need you to fix this.”

The doors closed and Rick turned to see Regina surveying the two dead bodies, shattered glass and scorch marks in the hallway with all the calculated coolness of a well-trained crime-scene analyst. He gasped, suddenly realizing he hadn’t taken in enough oxygen. Stars shot through his vision, and he had to grasp the wall to keep from stumbling.

When he righted himself, he caught Regina staring at him with eyes the color of purple gemstones.

“Tell me what happened here,” she demanded.

Her superior tone snapped him out of his fugue, but he had no doubt that she was one of them. Not human. Not normal. “Two people died,” he answered curtly.

She arched a careless brow. “I observed as much. But I need you to point to the evidence that proves how they died.”

Clearly, she had no idea that he’d been attacked seconds before her arrival by a shadow that had emerged from the dead mayor’s body. And he wasn’t about to tell her. Had he imagined the whole episode? Had the connection with Lilith cost him his sanity? He’d have suspected Regina, too, was a figment of his imagination if Mac hadn’t just spoken with her seconds before.

“Why?” he asked, anticipating an answer he didn’t want to hear.

“Do you really need for me to tell you?”

He was a cop. He had to think like a cop. Assess the crime scene. Catalogue the evidence. Formulate a working theory that could be backed up by proof.

Her gaze flicked toward the elevator doors, where Mac and Lilith had just escaped. Mac and Lilith, who would, from the evidence he observed and what he’d seen with his own eyes, be charged if not convicted of a double murder.

Unless he told Regina what she needed to know.

Unless he ignored what had just happened and denied the moral path he’d followed since birth.

Something unexplainable had occurred here. Something evil. Something wicked. But mostly, something unjust. He couldn’t allow Mac and Lilith to pay the price. He did as she asked and told her all that he had seen and heard. Then, once she was satisfied that she understood the full breadth of the situation, Regina asked Rick one last question.

“So how do we ensure that neither my sister nor Mac is charged with murder?”

Rick eyed her with a loathing he had not felt in years. She was asking him to help her cover up a crime. It went against everything he’d ever believed in, even before he joined the police force. Justice wasn’t supposed to work this way. Was it?

“First,” he answered, his chest cracking open with each syllable he uttered, “we get rid of their fingerprints.”

2

Six months later…

THERE WAS A TIME when sneaking off to a hotel room with Rick Fernandez had been Josie’s ultimate fantasy. She’d spent hours in bed at night, mulling over every detail, imagining every moment. She’d fill the luxury suite of a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan with candles of her own design—candles that would enhance their senses. The strawberries and chocolate she’d order from room service would burst with sweet silkiness in their mouths, a prelude to the sugared flavor of slow, intense kisses. The music she’d tune on the suite’s high-definition stereo would block out any sounds of the city below. She had even gone to Victoria’s Secret at Water Tower Place and imagined exactly which silk panty or satin bra would drive Rick utterly mad with desire.

Staring up at the dive motel on the dark edge of East Harlem in New York City, she wondered how her sexual fantasy had turned into such a nightmare.

Behind her, men in tattered clothes and smelling strongly of unwashed skin, car exhaust and cheap whiskey, accosted a pair of prostitutes tottering past on acrylic heels. The women ignored the catcalls, but gave Josie a disapproving once-over as they sidled by. Josie glanced down at her own attire—snug but comfortable jeans, twin tank tops and a sleek leather jacket that worked fine to ward off the occasional chill in the unusually warm February air. She was here for seduction, yes, but she was not competing with the area’s working girls. She was here for one man and one man only.

Rick.

She’d staked out the hotel earlier. After months of following his ghostlike trail, she’d spotted him just before dawn and had followed him here. One bribe later and she’d acquired the number to his hotel room. She had to hope and pray that while she’d formulated her plan, he hadn’t left. Holding tight to a can of pepper spray in her pocket, she slipped into the alley and, once certain no one was around, jimmied the side door so she could enter without alerting anyone in the lobby. In the minutes just before nightfall, the place was fairly deserted. The hookers hadn’t yet shown up with their johns and the drug addicts weren’t yet sober enough to go out to find their next fix.

But Rick was here. He had to be. She’d been searching for months, ever since he’d disappeared the night Lilith and Mac had been attacked by the mayor. She’d heard from him only once, in a note she’d found hidden in the cash register at her shop, telling her goodbye.

The fact that he thought she’d leave matters alone on account of the contents of one scribbled note verified how little he knew her. Something had happened that night—something neither Mac nor Lilith nor Regina, the Guardian of Witches who had approved Josie’s search, knew about. Something that had sent Rick deep underground.

She’d encouraged him to help Mac and Lilith that night. She couldn’t help bearing some of the responsibility for the aftermath. But that wasn’t why she was here. The drive to find Rick after he’d gone missing stemmed from emotions she’d never felt before. She believed in Fate. She ascribed to the whims of Destiny. And yes, she even had faith in love at first sight.

Though it wasn’t sight that had drawn her to Rick. She wouldn’t deny that he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever encountered, but it took more than a hot guy to turn Josie’s head. Rick had a presence that struck her deep within her soul, in the part of her that longed for someone both normal and extraordinary at the same time.

She’d found that with Rick, she was sure. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel the same or he never would have gone.

Still, his disappearance left too many questions for her to ignore. On the most basic level, she needed to discover where he was and why he’d put himself into the dangerous, gray and bloody area between the magical and the mundane worlds. But more deeply, she had to know if maybe, under other circumstances, their relationship might have worked out. Too bad she had no idea which question she’d tackle first.

She approached his room cautiously. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to find on the other side of the pocked and peeling door, but she was about certain there wouldn’t be a single scented candle or soft, romantic music. Not in this joint.

“Don’t go in there.”

Josie yanked her shaking hand away from the doorknob and spun, startled. Unable to move—to even gasp in surprise—she watched Regina St. Lyon emerge from the shadows. Relieved, Josie allowed herself a split second to breathe.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“So you’ve found him,” Regina said.

“Nice to see you, too,” Josie said with a forced smile. She’d hadn’t exactly been avoiding contact with the Guardian of Witches, but she wasn’t thrilled to see her, either. For the past six months, Rick had been causing a disruption in the division between the mundane and magical worlds. As Guardian, it was Regina’s responsibility to find and stop him. Fortunately for Josie, even Regina’s considerable magical prowess did not include the ability to find a nonmagical human who did not want to be found—not and leave him alive. So she’d recruited Josie, giving her six months to accomplish her goal before she took matters into her own hands.

Josie’s time was nearly up.

Regina gave a polite bow and grinned. The effect relaxed the deep furrow on her forehead. “You look well.”

“I was going for sexy,” she answered, tugging her tank tops down a bit lower.

Regina arched a brow. “You plan to seduce him into stopping his rampage?”

“Sounds like a win-win-win for all involved,” Josie said with a smile.

While Regina had a tendency to blow up things that annoyed her, Josie believed in a quieter form of magic, particularly since she had no real powers. What could be more peaceful than motivating a man to stop wreaking havoc in the magical world by distracting him with sex?

Regina’s smile, however, disappeared. She turned her hand palm up. A ball of pure electricity materialized just above her flesh, then spun. The color, deep purple to match her eyes, was entrancing, but Josie knew the sphere was deadly. She’d never seen Regina use her most formidable weapon, but she’d heard enough to know she couldn’t allow Regina and Rick to meet. Not until she’d convinced Rick to give up his apparent quest to destroy all the evil magical beings he could get his hands on.

Not that destroying evil was bad. When Regina had first come to her to solicit her help, Josie had wondered what the problem was. She knew that the Guardian had entire teams of witches training to do exactly what Rick was doing on his own. But he was getting sloppy and if he wasn’t stopped, he was going to expose the magical world to the mundane one. And that wouldn’t be good. The Salem witch trials might have happened a few centuries ago, but they were still incredibly fresh in the minds of anyone who practiced Wicca.

Protecting the secrecy of witches was Regina’s primary duty. She’d vowed to do whatever she had to in order to keep the magical and mundane worlds from intersecting in a violent way. But about Rick, she was wrong. Josie knew that once she caught up with him, he’d listen to reason. And to present her arguments, first she had to go inside his hotel room.

“I will help him,” Josie insisted.

“It’s too late,” Regina said, her generous lips bowed in a tragic frown.

“You said I had six months. That leaves me one more week.”

“I’m not talking about time, Josie. Rick has been dealing with demons too long. He cannot possibly be the same man you knew.”

“You don’t know that,” she argued.

“I know what he has done. His choices—”

“Have served your ultimate purpose. He’s destroying your enemies,” Josie insisted, hoping to buy a bit more time.

Regina arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, her mouth still curved disapprovingly. “I cannot deny that Rick’s passion for killing demons has benefited the witching community, but increasingly—” she eyed the door Josie hoped Rick was still behind “—he’s becoming a danger to himself and the secrecy of our world. Look how long it has taken you to track him down. His crimes are coming to the attention of mundane law enforcement. Sooner or later, someone will connect him to us and I cannot allow Rick’s personal vendetta to expose my Wiccan sisters and brothers, magical or mundane. From this point, you should let us deal with him.”

Josie’s heart lurched. “What? Now that I led you to New York? To him? Besides, I thought I was one of us?”

Regina’s smile was only partly reassuring. “Mundane witches are the backbone of our community.”

“Then why didn’t I know you and the others existed until six months ago?”

“Because the knowledge often does more harm than good,” Regina insisted, her gaze slashing toward the door. “Look at Rick. Look at what he’s become.”

“I can’t,” Josie said, “you’re blocking my way.”

After a long pause, Regina stepped aside.

Josie had learned about sacred witches like Regina—those who possessed real, active powers—around the same time Rick had, but the idea that such magic existed still boggled her mind. Regina could materialize from nowhere. She had the ability to produce deadly bursts of energy from the palm of her hand. It had been hard enough for Josie to swallow the fact that Lilith St. Lyon, Josie’s best friend and Regina’s younger sister, was a powerful psychic who’d recently mastered the ability to project her thoughts into the minds of others. And there were other witches out there who could conjure items from nothing, stop time, create doppelgängers and hold sway over the dead. Certainly made Josie’s skills with aromatherapy, candles and, to some degree, potions, pale in comparison.

But no matter their magic, none of the witches could find a human who did not want to be found, particularly a former cop with impressive street smarts. Luckily for her, Josie had been raised on those same streets. Her mother, a longtime con, and her various “uncles” of dubious blood relation had taught her a few tricks of her own. Together with finely honed computer skills and the ability to persuade just about anyone to talk to her and give her information they didn’t want to share, Josie had finally tracked Rick down. She wasn’t going to turn around and hand him over to Regina without giving herself a shot at bringing him home.

“Thank you,” Josie said, placing herself firmly in front of Rick’s door. “I won’t let you down. I won’t let Rick down. I promise.”

Regina’s amethyst eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about you, Josie. This is about Rick. You may care about him deeply, even think you love him, but he’s descended to a place you might not be able to rescue him from.”

Josie lifted her chin defiantly. “I won’t accept that.”

Regina seemed neither surprised nor dismayed. “Then accept this.”

From her pocket, Regina removed a necklace—a green stone flecked with red and set within a gold, heart-shaped charm. She handed it to Josie, who gasped at the instant warmth of the gem against her palm.

“What is this?” she asked, shifting so the dim glow from the single working hallway light washed over the pendant. “A Valentine’s Day present?”

Regina snorted. “Guess again.”

She pushed aside her impatience to reach Rick and looked down at the necklace a second time, running her finger over the reddish-green stone. “Heliotrope?”

“Very good,” Regina complimented.

Josie might not be a sacred witch, but her knowledge of magical herbs and stones was unsurpassed—when she could clear her mind of worry over Rick long enough to think.

“It’s also known as bloodstone,” Regina went on. “A stone of this quality is very rare and very powerful. We use them for protection.”

Josie eyed the Guardian witch warily. “You didn’t add a touch of something else, did you?”

“Well, it is nearly Valentine’s Day,” she replied, a twinkle lightening her unusual eyes.

It was Josie’s time to laugh derisively through her nose. “Last time I checked, the cherub and chocolate holiday was not on the official Wiccan calendar,” Josie charged.

Regina grinned. “Not the official one, no. But St. Valentine’s feast day is tied to pagan fertility celebrations. And since I now know exactly what you’re planning to do to entice Rick back to Chicago…”

“I’m not planning on getting pregnant,” Josie reassured her. Quite certain her mother had never intended to be saddled with a child and knowing the aftermath of such carelessness, Josie had been practicing safe sex since she’d lost her virginity. Without exception. She’d use every weapon in her feminine arsenal to entice Rick home to Chicago, but she would never resort to involving an innocent baby.

“Good to hear,” Regina said, patting her hand. “But I didn’t think you’d go that far. I just know that Wiccan holiday or not, romance is in the air this time of year. Use it to your advantage.”

Josie laughed. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

At one time, Josie had doubted she’d ever have even half the self-confidence of either Regina or Lilith. But since meeting Rick—and then losing him before they’d barely had a chance—Josie had tapped into a determination she hadn’t felt since she’d left her grifter mother and started her own life in Chicago. So far, the cockiness had served her well. It wasn’t magic that would save Rick. It was love.

She held out the necklace. “I don’t need amulets or charms. Rick will come back with me in spite of magic, not because of it.”

Regina crossed her arms, ignoring Josie’s offering. “You think so?”

Josie stepped closer and pushed out her words through a determined mouth. This wasn’t the time to show anything but strength. “I’m not your minion, Regina. I don’t have to do things your way.”

Regina eyed her keenly. “No, you don’t. I’m a Guardian, Josie, not a queen. It’s my job to protect and defend.”

Though Josie had practiced the craft as she’d been taught by her aunt and her grandmother—embracing the power of herbs, scents and stones because they connected her to the Goddess and to Mother Earth—she was just an ordinary woman. She had no real magic. No power beyond her own wits. And from the intense look in the Guardian’s eyes, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Josie swallowed thickly and placed the amulet around her neck.

“Rick is a mundane, like me. You’re part of the world I suspect he’s come to hate, for whatever reason.”

“You know the reason,” Regina insisted.

Josie shook her head. “Covering up for Mac and Lilith wasn’t enough to push him this far. There has to be something more. I’m going to find out what happened. And then, I’m going to bring him home.”

“What if you can’t?”

Josie sighed. She’d languished over this question every minute of every day since she’d set out to find Rick and stem the rampage he’d been on, hunting and killing the demons and warlocks better left to soldiers in Regina’s magical army.

“Lilith told me,” Josie admitted, hardly able to speak the psychic’s distressing premonition, “that I was the one who had to save him. Right after he disappeared, she tried using her psychic powers to find him and, instead, she saw me. She said if I didn’t succeed, he might kill someone who wasn’t supposed to die. And then he’d be lost. Forever. I can’t fail.”

Regina pursed her lips, clearly thinking over all Josie had said. “Lilith’s premonitions are terrifyingly accurate, but the future is never written in stone.”

She laid her hand on Josie’s shoulder, and then stepped back into the shadows. Her disembodied voice echoed through the dingy hallway and chased a shiver up Josie’s spine.

“You have one week. If you can’t stop him, we will.”

3

ONE WEEK.

One week?

Josie wrapped her arms tightly across her chest and leaned her forehead against the wall. She’d come so far. She wouldn’t stop now, not when Rick’s life was at stake. Any battle between the Guardian witch and the rogue cop would result in serious casualties. Stretching, she slid her hand, palm flat, against the door, hoping and praying he hadn’t escaped while she and Regina argued.

To find him, she’d tapped into skills she’d tried to deny since the day she’d been released from juvie for the last time. Once she was independent-minded enough to realize that her mother’s “games” deprived other people of their hard-earned cash and sense of self-worth, Josie had tried to stop the endless stream of cons and grift operations her mother had employed to keep them from living on the streets. But she’d never been strong enough or clever enough to change her mother’s chosen way of life. By the time she was a few months away from turning eighteen, Josie had known her chances of a normal childhood had run out.

Determined to at least keep her adult life cleansed of bad karma, Josie had celebrated her birthday by saying sayonara to her mother and moving back to Chicago. She took control of valuable real estate left to her by an aunt, opened her store and embraced the Wiccan religion of her grandmother. She’d completely reinvented herself, erasing a past fraught with illegal activity and devoid of hope. If she could accomplish such a transformation alone, then no matter what had happened to Rick to send him into this downward spiral, she knew he could come out of the darkness.

She’d make sure of it.

Revitalized, she tucked the necklace Regina had given her down into her T-shirt. Valentine’s Day. For others, it was the holiday of love. For Rick and her, it was D-day.

She knocked on the door, then pressed her ear to the scarred wood to hear if anyone moved inside.

Was that a groan?

She knocked again. “Rick?”

A grunt? Was he hurt?

“Rick!”

She tried the lock. It wouldn’t budge. She glanced down the hall, but nixed the option of running for help. The last time she’d hesitated for this long, Rick had eluded her, disappeared with nothing but a barely warm trail in his wake.

She backed up, aimed her foot at the area near the knob and kicked hard.

Pain shot from her heel to her thigh. She hobbled backward, cursing, when a crash sounded beyond the door. Instinct took over. She attacked again and this time, the lock surrendered, the door swung open and Josie toppled into the room.

The smell caught her instantly—the potent sweetness of leather, gun oil and shampoo. And…sage? She bent down to find wilted leaves strewn liberally across the threshold, then followed a trail to another collection beneath the window. Sage protected against evil. That together with the crisp smell of aftershave, the unexpected scent of a man she’d chased through Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston and now, New York City, brightened her outlook. Maybe he wasn’t so lost after all. She clung desperately to her impressions of Rick Fernandez—salt of the earth. Even tempered. Open-minded. And at this moment—passed out.

The grimy windows, shaded by blinds with broken and bent slats, blocked out most of the neon glow from the signs outside. But in the center of the room, on a bed devoid of any covering except for crisp, surprisingly white sheets, lay Rick, facedown and fast asleep.

A clock radio, blinking the midnight hour for likely the last few years, had been knocked to the floor. Appropriate, since time stood still the minute she spotted him on the bed, covered only by a towel. His skin damp, his hair spiked from a shower and an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s clutched in his hand, he was breathtaking.

His dark skin and muscles, which looked hard as stone even in alcohol-induced sleep, made her mouth water. A gold chain cut a contrasting line across his neck, and she imagined that the cross he always wore was tangled somewhere behind his head. They’d only had one real date six months ago and, despite their instant attraction, they’d opted to take things slowly. Now that she’d seen him nearly naked, Josie wondered what kind of a fool of a woman agreed to such a Puritanical condition.

Truth was, from the moment she’d met him, she’d fantasized about Rick naked in bed.

Just not exactly like this.

She shut the door. When she turned back, she gasped. He was sitting up, a gun leveled at her heart, his eyes glazed by a mixture of exhaustion and alarm.

“Rick!”

“Josie?”

She stepped into the dim light streaking in from the window. He scrambled across the bed and snapped on the table lamp.

“Josie.”

For a second, she thought she might have heard relief in his voice, but looking at the deep frown on his face, she figured the sound was simply wishful thinking.

With all the will she possessed, she remained rooted to the spot. She had to be smart. Keep her head. Think coolly. Logically. Just like Rick would have. Before.

“Yes, Rick. It’s me.”

He laid the gun on the mattress but didn’t take his hand off the grip. “What are you doing here?”

She pressed her lips together tightly, unsure at first what words would come out of her mouth. Why was she here? Really?

“I came to find you.”

He snorted. “Congratulations.”

Rick leaned over to the nightstand, exchanged the gun for a package of cigarettes and, finding it empty, threw it, disgusted, onto the floor. Glancing around, Josie doubted this hotel had smoking or nonsmoking designations. She was certain this dump had no maid service, much less the room service she needed to order up a pot of coffee to counteract the slight slur in Rick’s speech and the thick red rims around his once bright and shining dark eyes. Only six months ago, he’d been a cop. A detective. Decorated. Respected. Likely well acquainted with man’s inhumanity to man and yet, when she’d literally run into him at the police station on the day of her first and only paranormal premonition, his gaze had held a smart optimism that had instantly grabbed Josie’s attention.

Now, she saw none of that inner glow. She saw shadows. Anger. A deep, ravaging sadness. Hadn’t she expected this? She’d prepared herself for the jaded darkness that had to come with a man who’d just learned that the evil he’d been fighting all his career was a drop in the bucket compared to the evil that existed in secret. So why was a lump forming in her throat, which was so tight she was scared to breathe?

“Mac wants to meet with you,” she said, having practiced this speech to so many hotel mirrors since she began her search that she had it down pat. Mac Mancusi had been the Chief of Detectives when Rick had disappeared. He’d also been the only other Chicago cop to have witnessed the murders that had sent the city into a tizzy. The mayor dead. The lifeless body of one of the most powerful defense attorneys right beside him. Obviously, a murder-suicide. Obviously—only because Regina had manipulated the scene, with Rick’s reluctant help, to reflect just that scenario.

In reality, the mayor, a murderous warlock, had tried to kill Mac and Lilith so they couldn’t stop him from using the city’s criminals to do his bidding, and the attorney, a rogue witch, had been his right-hand man. Mac and Lilith had stopped the evil plot, but at great cost. Particularly to Rick.

“Mac, huh?” he asked coolly. “I figured he was the one who was two steps behind me this whole time.”

She eyed him quizzically. “No, that was just me.”

“I had no idea you had bloodhounds in your Latina genes,” he snarled, emphasizing the Cuban-American accent he’d long ago learned to play down.

She, on the other hand, suppressed the instinct to tell him off in rapid-fire Spanish.

“Our ancestors did find the new world,” she snapped back. “What’s one rogue cop to a whole continent?” She cursed. Now was not the time for petty exchanges. She did not have a lot of time. “Mac nearly died that night, Rick. Took two months before Lilith recovered completely. If not for them, a lot of people would have fallen under the influence of a very evil man.”

“He wasn’t a man,” Rick corrected, his frown revealing new lines on his once smooth and youthful face. He’d aged in six months. Physically and spiritually.

“He nearly killed your best friend,” she insisted, her heart cracking for the degeneration of the man she’d known, the man she knew he could become again, if only he could see she was here to help.

“Why do you think I left Chicago?”

“To play vigilante?”

His eyes widened at the snap in her tone.

“You think that’s what this is?”

“I think covering up the crime cut at your soul,” she admitted. “I think the magical world bursting into your ordered, ordinary life set you on a difficult path you don’t know how to get off of.”

For an instant, she thought she might have hit a nerve. But a split second later, the flash of surprise in his eyes disappeared.

“Go home, Josie. This is no place for a sweet kid like you.”

Okay, that crack made her fingers itch. By nature, she was a pacifist. But every woman had her limits. And one was being called a kid by a guy who’d had to take a very cold shower after the last time they were alone together.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, incredulous. “Who do you think you are, Humphrey Bogart? John Wayne? More like John Wayne Gacy, if you ask me.”

“I’m not a killer,” he spit.

“According to whose reality? I’ve seen the bodies, Rick. I’ve smelled the stench.”

“It’s not killing when the monsters aren’t human.”

“I don’t give a damn about them, you idiot,” she said, marching across the room until she stood at the edge of the bed. One glance into his liquid ebony eyes and her anger abated. He wasn’t doing a bad thing. Destroying evil was something he should be proud of. But he wasn’t proud— he was desperate. And that desperation was going to get him killed.

Even after all he’d been through, Rick still managed to look gorgeous. His chest, so naturally tan and sculpted, glistened against his towel and the white sheets beneath him. Josie’s body stirred, reacting to his as it had before. As if no time had elapsed. As if nothing had changed, when honestly, everything had.

Good Goddess, she ached to launch herself onto him, press her body tight against his, kiss him soundly and erase all the dark ugliness haunting his eyes and the sardonic lines framing his former devil-may-care mouth. This wasn’t Rick. Not the Rick she remembered. Not the Rick she’d fallen for so hard. Not the Rick she could have loved, if they’d only had the chance.

Still, his newly hardened edges made her belly flutter. Not to mention the effects of his naked chest and that oh-so-loose, oh-so-easy-to-remove towel. She had to contain a little sigh and fight the impulse to touch him and see how her pale flesh contrasted against his natural darkness, to tangle her fingers in the hair that spiked across his chest, then grew into a narrow line that led to areas she’d once felt pressed tight against her but had never had the chance to take into her hands.

He looked askance, but when he finally allowed his gaze to linger on hers for more than a split second, she saw a shadow of regret flit through his eyes.

After taking a deep breath, she sat down on the bed beside him.

“Tell me what happened. Tell me why you left.”

He shook his head. “I can’t look back, Josie. And you need to leave. I’m not the same guy you met six months ago.”

“Tell me about it.”

He cursed.

“No,” she said, laying her hand on his, trying to ignore the way his bare flesh glistened in the dim light. “Really. Tell me about it.”

He moved to get off the bed, but Josie held his hand so he couldn’t escape. He tugged and turned, revealing a gash across his arm. The skin was pink and puffy. Healing, but with jagged edges that told her he hadn’t sought the best—if any—medical help.

He chuckled when he spied the horrified look on her face. “Just a scratch.”

“That’s what the black knight said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur chopped his arm off.”

Surprisingly, Rick laughed. Not a hearty guffaw by any means, but more than a snigger, which had to mean something. Like he wasn’t totally lost.

“I haven’t thought about that in—”

“Six months?” she questioned.

“Longer.”

He sat back on the bed and Josie couldn’t help but notice that the edge where he’d tucked his towel had begun to loosen. Her heartbeat accelerated. The idea of seducing Rick in order to lure him back to Chicago had come to her as naturally as breathing. The possibility of finally confronting the sexual tension that had first drawn them together made her nipples tight and her inner thighs ache. She’d wanted him for so long—the man he was and the man he’d become, even if she wasn’t entirely certain yet who that man was.

With shaking hands, Josie slid out of her leather jacket, revealing the snug tank tops beneath.

He eyed her suspiciously.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hot.”

“Then leave,” he said, jerking his head toward the door even as his eyes begged her to stay. Or was that her imagination?

Did it matter?

She smiled. “It’s hotter outside. Unseasonably hot for New York City in February. Or haven’t you left this hotel room lately?”

“I’ve left,” he muttered.

She stretched, lifting her hair off her back, then arching her shoulders so that her breasts curved enticingly. Cheap trick? Oh, yeah. “Really? When? Because in Philadelphia, you didn’t even take a hotel room. You slept in that junker you bought from that all-night car dealer.”

“You were in Philly?”

She stood and, with one quick flick, undid the top button on her low-slung jeans. She would have kicked off her boots, but she had some serious misgivings about the stained carpet.

“And in Detroit and in Boston,” she replied.

She walked closer to the window and hoped that her silhouette against the neon slats of the blinds pushed the right button. They’d been apart for so long and even then, she hadn’t known him that well. But if she could just connect with him, get under his skin, she might be able to lure him back to Chicago. To his friends. To his old life. Out of danger from both the supernatural world and his own self-destruction.

Grabbing the hem of her layered tank tops, she lifted them over her head. She was wearing nothing now but a lacy black bra and unfastened jeans with the edges of her panties peeking out from between the teeth of the zipper.

“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice more pleading than commanding.

She slipped her hands between her jeans and her hips, tugging the fabric down a few inches, making sure he had a good look at the black lace she wore underneath. “Don’t do what?”

Though she hardly trusted her normally clumsy self to step forward when her nerves were jangling like wind chimes in a thunderstorm, she made the attempt and succeeded. She was still three feet away from him, but a warring mixture of desire and restraint clouded his eyes. His jaw was set so tight she thought the bone might crack.

“Don’t…” Rick whispered, “try and seduce me.”

His tone faltered. The words came out half as an admonishment and half as request. And she knew very well which half she was going to listen to.

She licked her lips and closed the rest of the distance between them in three purposeful steps.

“I’m not only going to try, Rick. I’m going to succeed.”

4

RICK CLOSED HIS EYES, but Josie, who smelled of musk and sandalwood and had turned on the full force of her inner seductress, was impossible to shut out. And why should he try so hard? Hadn’t he spent the past six months dreaming about her, fantasizing about her, casting her as the star in hot, wet dreams that had left him to take sexual matters into his own hands more times than he had since he’d been a teenager?

Why attempt to resist her? With all the darkness in his life, she was a beacon of light. God knows he needed the light. Maybe a kiss, a taste, would satisfy him enough so he could send her away before she got hurt.

He grabbed her by the arms and swung her onto the bed. She squealed in surprise, but he squelched the sound with a hard kiss. Without hesitation, her angel-soft lips opened to him and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, reveling in the sweet flavors of mint and spring water.

Was it enough to cleanse him?

His mind flew back to the first time he’d kissed her in the kitchen of her apartment, where she’d struggled to find matching wineglasses and a bottle of merlot. The space had been tight, and the contraction of his insides had been tighter. He’d wanted her so badly, but he’d resisted. Josie was a mystery to him—a free-spirited woman who contradicted everything in his ordered and ordinary world.

That, at least, hadn’t changed.

And neither had the intensity of their kiss. He loved how her tongue sparred with his, how her moans grew louder when he pressed harder against her. Kissed deeper. With each slip of control, his pleasure intensified, as if she’d come here specifically to wash the darkness from his soul.

He pulled away, but she hooked her hands around his neck and drove her fingers tight into his hair.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I’m trying to stop,” he said, his voice thick and raspy from the past twenty-four hours of trying to forget. He’d smoked, drunk, showered, then drunk some more. He’d worked out, using the hotel mattress as a punching bag, working himself into a sweat that had required another shower and another round with the bottle. And still, the memory of the shadow that had tried to invade his body would not recede. How could he let that filth anywhere near Josie?

She shook her head emphatically. “No, I mean…don’t stop.”

Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t resist inhaling deeply, filling himself with her scent. So spicy. So clean. So devoid of the stench of supernatural evil.

“I can’t do this, Josie. It’s not fair to—”

“I wouldn’t have made it this far if I couldn’t take care of myself,” she insisted, her blue eyes bright with resolve. “I know what I want. I know what you want. Take it, Rick. Nothing is stopping you, least of all me.”

Her smile, so sweet yet so seductive, injected a joy into his soul he hadn’t realized until now he desperately craved. God, he wanted her. Had wanted her. From the first minute she’d stumbled into him at the police station to the charged evening he’d spent in her apartment, he’d fought against the instinct to seduce this woman he barely knew. Unable to resist a second time, he kissed her again, nearly delirious with the clean flavors of her mouth and the sweet silkiness of her tongue. Her pleasured moans goaded him while the lace of her bra chafed against his bare chest, driving him mad with wanting.

Her mouth was soft, but her tongue was demanding. In seconds, they established a wild rhythm that pumped his blood with lust. She tore at his hair, then dragged her nails down his back, raking his flesh and awakening needs he’d suppressed for months. The lamplight in the cheap hotel wasn’t the best, but when he finally managed to pull away from Josie, he saw her with surprisingly clear eyes, his vision focused solely on her instead of what might be coming at him from behind.

“You’re just as beautiful as I remember,” he said, stroking his fingers from her chin to the hollow between her breasts, then lower, lingering at the laced edge of her panties.

This time when she speared her fingers into his hair, the tug was gentle, teasing. Before she spoke, she swallowed thickly, drawing his attention to the necklace she wore around her neck.

Bloodstone. Smart girl. Six months ago, he might have thought himself capable of protecting her with just a badge and a service revolver. Now, he knew differently.

“I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten me,” she said.

He kissed her longer this time, slower, allowing the enchantment of her pure, feminine need to push the fear and anger that had driven him all these months further away. Just for a few hours. Minutes. Seconds.

“For the life of me,” he said, “I can’t remember why we waited before.”

“Neither can I, but don’t wait now.”

He did as she commanded, tugging her jeans off her body and allowing his towel to fall to the ground. Against the stiff white sheets he’d lifted from a nearby discount store to replace the ratty rags he’d found covering the lumpy mattress, her skin looked deliciously pink. Her lingerie, while evocative and sensual, hampered her sweet beauty more than it enhanced it. Josie did not belong in black. In every fantasy he’d entertained since the night he left Chicago, she’d worn crisp, clean white or sensuous, calming blue to match her incredibly expressive eyes.

He removed her inky bra, strap by strap, then hook by hook, until her pale breasts were free for him to touch and taste.

He did both, flicking his tongue over her nipples and then watching with keen fascination as the skin swelled and hardened. He flicked again, this time eliciting a tremulous coo from her lips.

Humming his appreciation, he took her right breast fully into his mouth and, with his hand, pleasured the other until she writhed beside him, her thighs tight. He smoothed his palms over her tense flesh until she relaxed and her legs drifted apart to make room for his wandering touch.

Figuring he wanted too much too soon, he lifted his hand, but she grabbed his fingers and guided him toward his original destination—the warm crevice at the base of her thighs. He laved his tongue in tight circles over her nipple as he dipped his fingers beneath her panties. The warm wetness struck him instantly and he couldn’t resist slipping his fingers inside her until she bucked in response.

Sliding upward, he kissed a path from her neck to her lips.

“I want you so badly,” he said, his sex tight against her thigh.

She grabbed him hard and stroked even harder. “Then…what…are you…waiting for?”

“I don’t have—” he started, but her rhythmic massage of his cock knocked his thoughts of protection into a haphazard jangle of words.

“You don’t need,” she said, her words clipped. “I’m clean and on the Pill. You?”

“Last time I checked, I was fine. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone,” he admitted.

She smiled shyly. “Choosy?”

His stomach flipped with unease. “When the only women you’re around are hanging out in shit-hole bars and could turn out to be demons in disguise, yeah. You get real picky real fast.”

Still clutching his sex, she ran the tip of her finger over the head, dispersing the pictures in his mind of any woman other than her. “If it makes you feel better, I’m all human.”

“Honey, I couldn’t feel any better than I do right now. Besides, I know what you are, Josie. An angel. One hundred percent angel.”

He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, wanting to learn her rhythms but becoming instantly caught up in the pleasure of her tongue against his. When Josie pressed the head of his penis against her sex, the explosion of sensation overrode all rational thought. He concentrated entirely on pressing slowly into her tightness, his ears trained to hear and appreciate every note of her pleasure, which she sang in one amazingly glorious sigh.

She grabbed his buttocks and spread her legs wide. The hunger of her tongue clashing with his pulled him closer and drove him deeper. Wild urges warred against his instinct to be slow and gentle, if for no other reason than to make the sensations last as long as possible. But in seconds, he was pumping hard. She took his thrusts, lifting her knees, tilting her hips until he hit the sweetest spot in her body and her insides tightened and spasmed and she wept.

One more drive and he tumbled after her. Heat flooded through him and into her. She grabbed him even tighter on his ass, pressing him as deep as her body would allow and then kissed him until the tidal wave of sensation ebbed away.

A lifetime later, his brain cleared and, despite the tiny smile tilting Josie’s lips, Rick couldn’t believe what he’d done. And yet, he couldn’t seem to resist when she kissed the tip of his nose and whispered, “Again.”

He cleared his throat, covering a snicker. “Excuse me?”

She shifted beneath him. Though he’d softened inside her, he could feel the tiny quiver that told him she could climax again—and soon—if he only made the right moves.

“Not enough,” she answered.

He stared at her quizzically. “Didn’t you?”

“Come?” she asked, shifting again so that her nipples rasped against his chest. “Oh, yeah. But I’ve been waiting for you a long time. You didn’t think once would be enough, did you? Or am I messing up the whole angel thing you’ve got going for me?”

For a moment, Rick stared at Josie as if another woman had assumed her form or slipped into her body. But in her fathomless blue eyes, he saw Josie’s unmistakable glitter and shine. His body felt lighter, his heart larger, than they had in half a year.

Josie had come looking for him. Josie had found him. Josie had just made love to him with the wild abandon he’d fantasized about for months, and now she wanted more.

“I’m not—” he started, but with a girlish laugh, she pushed him over onto his back.

Grabbing the damp towel from his shower, she proceeded to undo all signs of their previous lovemaking so they, apparently, could try again.

When she was finished, she placed a chaste but charged kiss on his lips. Then his chin. Then in the center of his chest. When she reached his belly button, he felt a stirring in his groin that had him clutching the loose sheets.

“You will be,” she promised, swiping her tongue over the tip of his sex. “Trust me, you will be.”

THE FLAVOR OF HIS SEX in her mouth was elemental and arousing beyond anything Josie had ever imagined. Musky and hot and with a bite that reminded her of whiskey drunk straight from the bottle, she couldn’t resist plying her tongue and teeth and lips until he lengthened and hardened. She caressed his sacs, slipping her fingers far between his legs, knowing she was driving him crazy. And loving every minute.

“Josie,” he rasped. “Josie.”

She hummed her acknowledgment of her name, loving the sound on his lips, reveling in how she’d zapped his energy or, at the least, changed the course of his energy from the dark aura she’d sensed when she’d first found him into the pure, white-hot need that surrounded him now.

Wrapping her fingers around him, she allowed the full length of his flesh to play against her palms.

“Stop,” he commanded.

With a grin, she looked up at him, asking why with her eyes.

He dug his hands into her hair and, though she could tell it wasn’t easy, he pulled her up over him.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

His sex was hot and hard against her stomach. She wiggled involuntarily, hissing with pleasure at the feel of him so close, yet not nearly close enough.

“To bring you home,” she answered honestly.

“And you thought sleeping with me would convince me to come along quietly?”

She kissed him, trying to ignore the quiver of her aroused clit and how desperately she wanted him to touch it, touch her.

“I’d never want you to come quietly,” she replied, the innuendo punctuated by the way she slid on his body. She pressed her pelvis against his, but with a groan, he braced her hips with his hands and pushed her off. But he didn’t push her far. He stretched long against her, and dragged his hand lazily up and down her side, pausing to cup her breast until she arched her back.

“I can’t go back, Josie. I can’t make love to you again if you think—”

She tossed her head from side to side. “I don’t want to think, Rick. Do you? Really?”

His reply was a kiss. Long and soft and sensual so that she nearly forgot the other body parts screaming for his attention. His attendance to her lips and mouth and tongue enraptured her so completely she thought she might climax from this alone.

Then he moved to kiss along her chin and down her neck, suckling on the pulse point she was certain was fluttering at a rapid pace.

“I can’t believe you found me.” His breath was hot against her flesh.

“You weren’t easy to find.”

“That was on purpose. Not everyone looking for me wants to make love.”

“Then I guess I’m special,” she replied.

“Good God, yes. But it’s also why I have to stop. Why you have to leave.”

He flew off the bed, off of her and grabbed a second towel from behind the bathroom door. His absence instantly tore at her and she slid the top sheet over her, though she made no move to get up or get dressed.

“Don’t send me away,” she said. “I can help you.”

“You think I’m the hunter, don’t you?”

“You’re a cop, Rick. The evidence proves—”

“Evidence can be misread and manipulated,” he spit. “Did you want Mac and Lilith to be tried for the mayor’s murder?”

“No, of course not. But that’s not the worst thing that happened that night.”

Her chest tightened. “What, then?”

He shook his head. “I’m not dragging you into this.”

“I’m not delicate, Rick,” she said. “I came here willingly. Because I wanted you. And because I want to help you. But those are two entirely different things.”

She gasped when he slid onto the ground, kneeling beside the bed. “I can only satisfy one of your needs then. Don’t have delusions about the other.”

Josie felt a little crack near her heart, but she ignored the pain and focused only on the here and now. Did he think she’d give up only after one roll in the hay? Having him inside her, connected to her in the most intimate way possible, had only strengthened her resolve. She’d do whatever was necessary to get him back. And that certainly included more than making love, which she considered more a gift to herself than to him.

“I don’t have any delusions,” she replied, taking his hands and pulling him back onto the mattress. “And I’ll put my expectations aside if that will make you come inside me again.”

She tore away the towel, draped her leg over his hip, then moved so that his sex was once again aimed at the precise spot where she wanted him. Instantly, her body reacted, sending a trickle of moisture to kiss the tip of his hard, curved head.

“That’s all you want?” he said, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

She laughed and rubbed her breasts against him, igniting a flame in her nipples she knew only he could douse. “Oh, no. That’s not all I want at all.”

His eyes half-closed, she finally felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. Not much, but enough for her to work with. Enough to give her hope beyond the morning. “Tell me.”

“Why don’t I show you instead?”

5

WARMTH, CENTERED DIRECTLY between her breasts, woke Josie with a lazy smile. Was it Rick’s breath causing the sweet sensation radiating on her skin? She fluttered her eyes open at the same time she reached across the bed.

Cold.

Empty.

Gone?

She shot upright. An instant chill sent her scrambling for the sheet.

“You’re awake.”

It took a few moments for her to banish the last vestiges of sleepiness and realize that, while gone from the bed, Rick hadn’t abandoned her. Had she dreamed him leaving? Sneaking away in the dead of night? Leaving her to plunge back into search mode, only this time, she wouldn’t find him.

“You okay?” he asked.

He was sipping a caffeine drink from a slim aluminum can.

She blinked rapidly to force the moisture from her eyes, then cleared her throat. “Sorry. I had a bad dream, I guess.”

Only she didn’t remember a dream. Just running.

Rick turned back to the window. Sunlight, tinged gray from a convergence of clouds outside, testified to morning. After plopping two pillows behind her, Josie sat back and watched him, wondering. From his perspective, she’d gotten what she’d come for—the night of lovemaking he’d promised her after their first date, which had never come to pass. She knew without asking that he intended to leave her soon, to part company so she could go home to her ordinary life while he continued his quest for…what? Revenge? Justice? She really didn’t understand why he’d taken this fight against magical evil so personally. Though afraid that asking might send him running sooner rather than later, she simply had to know.

“Why are you doing this?”

He finished the drink, crushed the can and tossed it into a wastebasket beside the bathroom door, all without moving from his spot by the window.

“Someone has to,” he answered.

She frowned. “Someone is. Quite a few someones. You left before anyone had a chance to explain how things work in the magical world.”

“Anyone, as in Lilith’s sister? The one who manipulated a crime scene?”

Josie swallowed deeply, wishing she had some of the stimulating drink to kick her brain into gear. She was so not a morning person.

“Mac and Lilith are your friends. Did you want them to go to prison, maybe even get the death penalty with such high-profile victims, for doing precisely what you’re doing now? Or were you planning to testify for them in court? Tell a judge and jury that witches and warlocks exist and were attempting to take over the city?”

He snorted and turned back to the window, his stare lost between the grimy slats. Josie dragged the sheet around her naked body and scooted to the edge of the bed. “No one would believe the truth and you know it.”

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he admitted.

“Who would?” she asked. “So you left and started, what, tracking down other supernatural bad guys to make sure the whole thing didn’t happen again? How did you learn how to kill a demon anyway? It’s not exactly common knowledge and, from what I’ve been told, they’re impervious to mundane methods of execution.”

Rick’s stare remained frozen out the window, as still and unmoving as his lips.

With a frustrated huff, Josie slipped into the bathroom, hoping a splash of water would clear her fuddled brain. Notwithstanding what had happened last night, she didn’t want to alienate Rick. He wouldn’t be as easy to track now that he knew she was on his trail.

And besides, she’d miss him. Even before they’d spent all night making love, she’d felt a connection to him she couldn’t quite understand. Yes, she felt partially responsible for him. He had, after all, helped in Mac and Lilith’s operation to interrogate the defense attorney at her encouragement. But it was more than that. From the time they’d met, Rick had accepted Josie for who she was. He didn’t judge her by her chosen religion or by her less-than-legal past—two secrets he’d used his finely honed cop skills to discover even before he’d asked her out. Despite her weird background, he still liked her. He enjoyed her company. He valued her in ways no man ever had before.

Even last night, he’d said she was an angel. Other women might have found the comparison condescending, but Josie couldn’t help relishing the idea that she’d been sent to save him. After their one conversation, however, the rest of the night had been spent communicating with their bodies. She’d been no angel, that was for sure. And he hadn’t seemed to mind.

She’d just finished borrowing Rick’s toothbrush—hey, they’d swapped more than spit the night before—when he knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” she said.

The door opened, but the only thing that came into view was a hand offering her an energy drink. She took it and placed it on the sink.

“It’s warm,” she mock-complained.

He pushed in a plastic tumbler filled with ice before she’d even finished the brief sentence.

With a grin he couldn’t see, she took the cup and said thanks. But before his hand disappeared, she snatched his fingers.

“Don’t leave,” she asked.

Even from around the door, he managed to caress her face before he left her to her privacy. She knew he wouldn’t go. At least, he wouldn’t sneak away while she took a shower.

One look at the condition of the tub, however, changed her mind. Instead, she threw a towel on the floor and washed up as best she could from the sink. As she was fiddling with her hair and wondering if the dark circles underneath her eyes made her look like a raccoon, the warm sensation between her breasts started again, precisely where the Valentine’s charm was touching her skin.

Was it warning her?

When she went back into the bedroom, Rick was dressed. The sheets had been stripped and folded and her clothes were piled neatly on top. He was no longer by the window, but sitting on his bed, carefully rearranging the innards of the duffel bag he’d kept near the door. She dressed without saying a word, then sat beside him, not surprised to find the bag stuffed with more dark clothes like the jeans and black T-shirt he wore now, as well as various weaponry. A gun. A Taser. Two knives, one she recognized as a ceremonial athame, not unlike the kind she sold at her shop.

“Mac and Lilith did what they had to,” he said finally.

“But you didn’t have to leave Chicago. Mac joined up with Regina. He’s fighting with her, not against her.”

He shot her a confused look.

She wasn’t sure how much to tell him. She didn’t want to encourage him to continue to fight in any way, but he needed to hear the whole truth. She supposed she couldn’t complain if he joined her friends to battle the uglies from the underworld. At least he wouldn’t be alone.

“In the witching world,” she explained, “there are groups. Protection squads, they’re called. They’re highly trained witches who fight evil. From what Regina told me, the squads have become, well, rare, but she’s working to build them back up after decades of complacency.”

“That’s why they didn’t help back in Chicago?”

She shook her head. “Lilith guessed—and she was right—that the defense attorney who killed that snitch of yours was actually a witch. A black witch. Black magic. He was under the control of the warlock who tried to kill Lilith.”

“You mean the guy I voted for as mayor?”

Josie nodded. The newly elected mayor had tried to secretly merge his magical world with the mundane, with him as head of all. But Lilith and Mac had stopped the plan dead. Literally.

She turned and faced him straight on. “The mayor wanted to use Lilith to get to Regina, so Lilith never called for help. When she finally wanted to, there weren’t any protection squads to come to the rescue. Lilith and Mac improvised and managed to kick warlock ass, but now, they’re both working with the squads, training and increasing their number.”

“Mac is training and fighting with witches?”

“It’s hard, since he’s a mundane, but—”

“But it’s not impossible,” Rick supplied with a humorless chuckle. “I’ve done my fair share of damage without any magical intervention.”

“Mac has Lilith. He’s a part of the magical world now. You’re not.”

“And I don’t want to be!”

He spun off the bed, causing his duffel to tumble to the floor. Josie flinched, half-expecting the gun to go off and kill them both. Closing her eyes, she willed her heart to slow down, but all she felt was the increasing heat of the amulet on her chest.

“Then don’t,” she said finally. “Come back to Chicago with me. You’ve killed how many supernatural beings?”

His eyes widened, then narrowed with determination. “Not enough. And not the one I’m looking for.”

Josie swallowed thickly. She’d known Rick had been trolling the supernatural underworld, hunting for demons and warlocks. She hadn’t known he was searching for a particular one. “Whose trail are you on now?”

He ran his hand over his smooth jaw. “You don’t want to know.”

“No, I don’t. But whether or not I want to know isn’t a consideration anymore. Ignorance is no longer an option. All that changed for me last year, same as you, when we were dragged into a world we didn’t know existed. Frankly, I wish we still didn’t know. Life was so much simpler.”

“Ignorance is bliss.”

She didn’t miss the yearning in his voice. Holding out her hand to him, she lured him back to the bed. He slipped his palm in hers but didn’t sit. His fingers were stiff, his muscles twitching, as if he was ready to tug away at a second’s notice. She pulled him forward and flattened his hand over the amulet.

“It’s too late for ignorance,” she said, loving how his dark skin looked against her fair flesh, remembering how much pleasure he’d wrought with those fingers just last night. She couldn’t help but wonder if she possessed enough feminine power to keep him close, lure him back, save his life. And perhaps, his soul. It was a lot to take on. She was, after all, just a semi-successful Wiccan shopkeeper with a sordid past and a penchant for choosing men who couldn’t possibly love her in return.

“It’s not too late for you,” he said.

“I may not know everything that happened to you, Rick, but I know enough to believe this isn’t your fight.”

“You’re wrong. It’s mine more than anyone’s. You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“What it feels like to fight off some sort of dark entity that is trying to take over your body—probably even your soul.”

RICK CURSED. He hadn’t intended to tell her. By giving her too much information, he was dragging her more deeply into his fucked-up life.

“What do you mean?” she asked, shock evident in the breathiness of her voice.

“Do you know how warlocks are made?”

She had to close her gaping mouth for a moment before she replied. “They’re born. The mother is a witch and the father is human, though he has to be particularly nasty to spawn an evil entity like a warlock. Criminal or psychopath. That sort. Warlocks don’t receive their powers until late in life.”

“So you have read those books in your back room,” he said.

“How did you know—”

He cut her off with a hand. “Do you know how they die?”

“They’re half human. They die the same way humans do.”

“The body does, yes. Like the mayor. But not, necessarily, the spirit. That one Lilith killed was an old soul. An evil one. He died physically that night, but his essence, the blackest shadow I’ve ever seen, tried to invade my body.”

Her eyes were as wide as her open mouth, which she covered with a shaking hand. He hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth, but maybe this was best. Maybe he’d frighten her enough to send her running back to Chicago without a backward glance.

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