As if he could read her, he pulled her into his arms and lifted her off her feet to swing her in a circle. “Speak psycho to me,” Morgan said.
Horace disappeared as quietly as he’d arrived.
“Psy
chic
.”
“Right, that,” Morgan said. “Impress me.”
“Okay. I sense a connection between you and the cassock. Put it on so I can paint your picture wearing it. You’re certainly stodgy enough to be a priest.”
He set her down like a hot potato.
She lost her balance and ended up polishing the floor with her ass. “Thanks a bunch.” She rose and rubbed her bruised bottom.
“I’m not stodgy, but I’m not putting on that cassock.”
“Hah! That
proves
you’re stodgy.”
“Hey, how do you know what it’s called?”
“Stodgy?”
‘No, smart-ass. How do you know it’s called a cassock? Witches don’t usually have cassocks in their vocabulary.”
“You have church books in your library. Tons of them. I looked it up after you took off the other night.”
“Ah. I didn’t count on the witch factor.”
Destiny got the cassock from the closet beneath the stairs. “Here, put it on.”
“I refuse.”
“If you put it on, it’ll be a first step in facing your past, which your sister Meggie sincerely wants you to do.”
“Let’s get this straight right now,” he said. “I’m doing this for Meggie, in the highly unlikely event that she could possibly be haunting this lighthouse. I’d do anything for Meggie. Are we clear on that?”
“Clear as a lighthouse fog bell.”
Morgan snatched the cassock off the hanger with such force, he bounced the hanger into a lampshade that fell off the lamp and rolled to his feet. He looked down at the shade and up at her. “Meggie would have loved that. We used to bounce things off each other to annoy our mother.”
“
That’s
why Meggie’s giggling right now.”
“Cut it out, Kismet.”
“She says to tell you that the coffee ice cream is on her. Do you get that?”
“Jesus!”
“Now she’s wagging a finger at you.”
“Slam, that’s exactly what she would do.”
“Try it on, Morgan. For her.”
He tugged the priestly garb over his head, so it fell on its own over his shirt and pants, then he took the white collar from the pocket and snapped it in place without looking or half trying.
“Are you happy now?” he asked, hands on hips.
Meggie seemed to be. She nodded and disappeared.
But her? No. Not happy at all. Her breath became short, and her legs turned to jelly, as if they couldn’t hold her anymore.
Good Goddess, he looked so out of place. It belonged on him, but it didn’t. She’d assumed, feared, the priestly garb would fit, but seeing it on him clogged her throat and blurred her vision.
Somewhere on his life’s journey, he’d taken a wrong path. A direction that possibly did more harm than good. She ached for him, but she didn’t know why.
It seemed inaccurate somehow, him wearing something so foreign. He looked beautiful but sad. Attractive but forbidden.
He knelt on the rug beside her.
She didn’t remember getting to her knees, but it didn’t matter, because Morgan’s arms came around her. He rubbed her back, kissed her cheek, her brow, her lips. Tender, his kisses. A rise to passion. She’d forgotten their power, the power of his desire. Now he held nothing back.
Suddenly, he acted free.
His kisses were for the long haul. Scary that, but her fear paled in comparison to the emergence of her desire. She stroked his brow and searched his expression. “Is it against some rule for me to admit that you look sexy in a cassock?”
He barked a self-mocking laugh. Her pulse raced from his touch, from his expression and her own arousal, and yet she needed his words to confirm the suspicion she preferred to scorn. “Why does it fit you so well? Why do you know how to wear it?”
“Shh. No more tears, and I’ll answer your questions.”
She buried her face in his neck and felt better.
He dried her tears with the cassock’s hem. “It is mine,” he said. “My parents put me in a seminary boarding school when I was thirteen, shortly after Meggie passed, though I didn’t begin studying for the priesthood until after I graduated from high school.”
She pulled away. “So you . . .
are
. . . a priest?”
“I did it to please my parents and pay for my sins. A big mistake.”
“Is that why you never made a proactive pass at me? That’s what was wrong then, the night of Harmony and King’s wedding when I dragged you home, got you drunk, and gave you a lap dance, so you’d kiss me. And, oh dear, us in bed, and yesterday at the hot springs.”
He smiled and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’ve wanted you more than I’ve wanted to breathe—before, after, during, and since each of those occasions.”
“But you’re a priest.”
“An
ex
-priest. I left the priesthood nearly a year ago, came here, took off the cassock, and hung it beneath the stairs.”
She couldn’t hide her relief. “Are you happy with your decision?”
“Very.”
“So, we can have sex?”
“Destiny, sweetheart.” He planted small feathery kisses on her face, tender and meaningful, because each came from his heart. Not a mating dance, but an expression of affection. With his lips, he nibbled and kissed his way down her throat, but when he came to the place where her V-neck met her cleavage, her butterfly necklace resting there, he stopped and looked up at her. “I’m as experienced and horny as a twelve-year-old,” he said, regarding her pointedly. “Except that I’m a thirty-year-old. Do you understand what I’m saying, Kismet? I’ve never been witched.”
“Are you plucking kidding me? You’ve
never
had sex?”
“Not with another person, except for our recent experiments.”
Destiny bit the inside of her cheek. This was serious, and she wouldn’t want him to misunderstand, but his virtue made her utterly hot. “Morgan, your body already knows what to do. You’ve been reading all those lovely how-to books—and thanks by the way for paying such close attention to your partner’s pleasure. Those pages are positively dog-eared. But if there’s anything I can teach you, it’s how to make love.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, “how two people can make love, if they don’t love each other? Not that I don’t care about you. And not that I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“See, that’s your cassock mentality speaking. People get the words
love
and
sex
confused, like I just did. This, between us, will be sex, plain and simple. Really, it’s independence all the way for me. I mean, I care about you, but I’m not in love with you, though I want very much to have sex with you. Do you want to have sex with me?”
“Am I human? Hell yes. I mean, swell yes!”
Chapter Twenty
“GIVE me a minute to get ready,” she said, going first to the clotheslines at the bottom of the tower then into the bathroom. She wanted him to find her wearing quality, sexy, stud-hardening lingerie and the proper statement shirt.
She wore his shirt over her outfit so she could surprise him.
“Let’s start by getting you out of that cassock,” she said, returning to the living room, “because your aura has gone from bad to worse since you’ve been wearing it. It’s getting dark and muddy. You really shouldn’t be wearing it.”
“Who insisted that I put it on?”
“Meggie?”
He kissed her and she fell into the kiss even as she undid all hundred and three buttons.
“Can you hear me purring?” she asked, as he stepped free of it. “Oh, no, that’s Caramello. She won’t like me taking you away from her. We’ll have to leave her some treats in the kitchen as a diversion and run up to the bedroom. Are you game?”
“Wait,” Morgan said. “You say you’ve seen Meggie. Not that I believe you, but you’ve said some . . . insightful things about her, and, in the unlikely event you’re right, and she’s here, I wouldn’t want her to
see
us having sex. I mean she’s only twelve, or she was when she died. Bargeboard,” he said pulling out of her arms and running a hand through his shaggy-stud hair. “I don’t know what I mean or what I believe.”
“Okay, now we’re losing the mood,” Destiny said. “First lesson: losing the mood—
bad
. Enhancing the mood—good.”
“The mood is intact.” He caught her up in his arms again. “I’ve never had sex. I’ve been in the mood since puberty. Nothing could kill it, except worrying about destroying Meggie’s innocence by indulging.”
She cupped his cheek. “You don’t believe that Meggie’s here, but you want to protect her, in the event you’re wrong, which you are. I understand and respect that. Would you like me to protect us from prying eyes? Something simple, no voodoo or slaughtered chickens.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“No, well, maybe a bit, but mostly I’m trying to cheer you. Let’s get all our distractions in a row.”
To divert Caramello, they put shredded sliced turkey, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, in her food dish and set it beside the kitchen door.
“In a way,” Destiny said, “I no longer feel the need to defend myself and my beliefs. I mean, you were a priest. No wonder you don’t believe in magick.”
Morgan zipped the bag of turkey and put it back in the fridge. “I know I’ve sounded judgmental. I frankly worry that judgment is in my genes, but I’m trying to change.”
“Caramello’s taking the bait,” Destiny said. “Run.”
They barely made it to the bedroom hand in hand and out of breath, before Caramello was scratching and yowling at the closed door.
Morgan applauded their success, winked, and cupped his hands around his mouth. He trumpeted appropriately, and together they tugged the blanket so the walls of Jericho would come tumbling down.
They dove into the bed from either side, met in the middle, and their kisses got hot fast, until Morgan pulled away. “You were going to insure us some privacy from the curious gaze of an innocent? Please, Des.”
Her every fiber humming, nerve endings standing on end, Destiny tried not to be frustrated as she sought control of her body and emotions, which she needed to do to cast a spell properly.
She sat up but looked at Morgan lying in bed in his open shirt and skintight jeans, waiting to make love to her. Given the sight, she couldn’t come up with one nonsexual word. “You’re a distraction,” she snapped.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She sighed and stood with her back to him, so she could concentrate, which would also help her keep her hands off him long enough to cast a proper spell.
She took her amethyst-tipped wand from the nightstand drawer and grounded herself with thoughts of Meggie’s innocence, her smiles, and giggles. Then she waved the wand to encompass the room:
“A curtain displaced
Two lovers embrace.
Sphere of white light,
Shelter from sight
The pleasure we share
In this bed we dare.
I give this man my vow,
Be it here, be it now,
To protect from strange fears,
She of tender heart and years.
Stay innocent; stay sweet
While two hearts meet.”
Destiny turned to Morgan, who was watching her, gratitude in his gaze, touched by her words. “Thank you,” he whispered, almost as if he believed.
“I should be thanking you,” she countered, one knee on the bed as she unbuttoned his shirt to reveal her Orgasm Donor T-shirt. “You just took a big step toward understanding my gifts. Have you had a personality transplant?”
He took her hand from the mattress, knocking her off balance so she fell forward and landed on top of him. “I’d embrace any belief to keep Meggie safe,” he said, settling Destiny over him like his own personal blanket. “I can’t say that I know what to believe anymore, but I do know that I’m happy for the first time in years. Nice shirt.”
He took her lips in a kiss that spoke of yearning, deep and long denied, not only for sex but for the touch of another. His hands were all over her in a celebration of freedom. “I want more than sex,” he whispered, proving her right. “I want you. I ache for you, Destiny.”
“And I ache for you.” She loved the feel of his body beneath hers, the thrust of his ready hips, the strength of his erection encumbered by his jeans. She loved his roaming lips exploring her eyelids, her brows and nose, as if learning the shape of her face, her ears, the arch of her neck, then he went back to her mouth and drank like a man parched.
He ran his hands down her spine, cupped a butt cheek in each, and sighed in contentment. “This is where you belong, in my arms.”
“I’ve often thought so.”
They stayed like that for minutes or hours. Who cared? Front to front, like two peas in a tight pod, touching also with hands and lips. She learned that arousal filled his amber eyes with flecks of green and brown.
Outside the door, Caramello’s cries quieted.
They kissed until their hearts pounded and their sex pulsed, until rocking against each other with their clothes between them wasn’t enough.
“This is the most wonderful experience of my life, and I know there’s more,” Morgan said near her ear before kissing it. “My body is crying for more. But what exactly is next? How do I move? What do I say? Because right now: ‘Pluck me please, or I’ll come without you,’ is all I can think of, and that can’t be right. I mean, I want to kiss you forever. I’ve dreamed of it for months, but my body has other plans.”
She laid her head on his chest and sighed. “I’m so comfortable as your blanket, I could go to sleep.”
His torso stiffened beneath her.
“Guess you don’t like that idea,” she said with a chuckle. “Want me to move, do you?” She raised her head and rested it on her hands, her elbows on his chest. “What would you do if I refused to move?”