Magic Man Read online

  “I just thought... him being your friend and all,” she said quietly. “I thought you’d like him to perform it.”

  “He said he would, Renee, but we would both have to go for counseling sessions with him. And we’d have to push back the date of the wedding to make those sessions. I told him I’d get back to him.” He pulled the phone away from his ear, waiting for the explosion.

  It wasn’t long in coming. “Father Joseph can’t help out his best friend? After all we’ve done for him and his church,” Renee said, her voice growing strident.

  Brady’s head pounded. He could feel anger beginning to rise inside of him. Looking across the street, he saw the glass window in the clothing store start to vibrate. Deep breaths couldn’t control the power he felt pulsing inside of him and he did the only other thing that came to mind. “Renee, Father Joseph doesn’t need to marry us,” he said, his fingers going to his temple as he pushed the tingle out of him and into a car down the street, shattering the side windows and setting off the car alarm.

  “Well, baby, it was just a thought,” she said, her voice growing softer, less angry. “Are you coming home soon?”

  “Not for a couple of hours,” he said, relief singing through him. “I still have some work to do at the office. You might as well go home, sweetheart. I’ll give you a call later.”

  “Okay,” she sighed. “I love you, Brady bear.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said, hitting the button to turn the phone off with a sigh of relief. He didn’t know how much more he could take. Was Joseph right? Could he only be with Renee because of the status she brought?

  “No, I love her,” he said out loud.

  “Me, too,” a homeless man agreed, holding out his hand to ask for change.

  Brady dug out a ten dollar bill, leaving the man the thought that he should use it for a hot meal and not for the booze that he planned to buy with it. Then he waved his hand at a cab and headed back to his office.

  The idea for his detective agency had originally come from Joseph, strangely enough. Joe had figured that using his powers for good was a way to make up for the bad he’d done. Brady didn’t know if he agreed or not, but it was interesting work. And he actually had been able to make a difference, although he still wasn’t certain it absolved him of earlier misdeeds.

  His office was on the second floor of a building housing mostly lawyers. A stroke of genius on his part; half of them were divorce lawyers who needed to get the goods on their clients’ spouses. At first, he’d barely paid the rent and made enough to afford a secretary. Now he had a waiting list, took only the clients he wanted to take and could afford the newest in surveillance equipment. The cops even came to him when they had cases they couldn’t get a lead on.

  He’d gained fame by finding a ten year old girl who’d been kidnapped. Her parents had paid the ransom and the kidnappers had managed to get away, without giving up the girl. Brady had found her and the kidnappers. He’d gotten good at hiding the psychic part of his investigation, always covering up any vibes or pictures he’d gotten by using regular footwork and making connections.

  No one was the wiser. He liked it that way.

  “Hey, Hailey,” he said, pushing in through the double doors into the reception area of his office. “Any calls this afternoon?”

  Hailey Carlisle was in her late forties, plump and matronly with a shock of bright red hair that never managed to be in place and an eye for brightly colored Hawaiian shirts. She’d been with him since the beginning and he didn’t see any reason not to keep her after he’d started to make money.

  She held up a sheaf of pink telephone messages. “The usual,” she said, cheerily enough. “Don Barlow has been down here four times looking for you. He has a client he needs to talk about. You aren’t going to take that crook’s work, are you Brady?”

  “It pays the bills, Hailey,” Brady teased, knowing that Hailey and Don were like oil and milk, cats and dogs, sugar in a gas tank. Explosive.

  “If you’re that short on money, I’ll loan it to you,” she grouched, rising to pour him a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Picking up the pile of pink notes, she took them in to his office and set them on the middle of his ritzy leather blotter, a Christmas present from Renee. A picture of her in a sterling silver frame shared desk space with it. “I don’t know how you can work for someone like him. The man’s a shyster. He’s every lawyer joke ever told.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands out in defeat. “I won’t take his case. I’ll give you the pleasure of telling him,” he called out to her as she smiled, looking like the cat who ate the canary.

  “Oh yes, my pleasure,” she breathed, closing Brady’s door quietly and heading towards her phone, rubbing her hands in glee at this unexpected fun.

  “Be nice,” he shouted to her, hearing her chuckle even through the heavy door. “Women,” he sighed. He sat behind his desk, running through the phone messages and placing them in two neat piles. One pile he would phone today; the other, well they might never hear from him.

  He got through two meetings with prospective clients and fielded a complaint from an irate Don Barlow, who was even angrier after hearing Hailey cackle at him. His phones calls were made. He’d just finished the last of them when Hailey knocked on his door.

  “Your last appointment is here,” she said quietly. “Do you mind if I get out of here, boss?”

  “No,” Brady said, standing and coming around his desk. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s just... there’s something about this one that’s kind of giving me the creeps. I’d just rather be gone before she leaves.” Hailey ducked her head, embarrassed.

  “Damn, does she have a third eye or something? I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she muttered before turning and waving in the client. She didn’t even stay to close the door behind her, snatching her purse off her desk and hurrying to the coat rack to grab her jacket.

  The outer door was closing behind her as the girl sauntered into his office. She closed the door herself and then turned to face Brady.

  “You!”

  Chapter Two

  “Who are you?” Brady Knight growled, getting up from his chair and stalking around the side of his desk. “What did you mean when you implied you knew me? I don’t know you. I’d remember.”

  “No,” the girl said softly, shaking her head almost sadly. “Considering the state you were in when I found you, you wouldn’t remember me.” She flinched when he grabbed her arms but her gaze remained steady, those eerie green eyes boring into him.

  “State? So you’re one of them, the ones that sucked off of my power.” He wanted to shake her but he refrained, feeling a startling sense of disappointment rip through him. “If you think you’re going to blackmail me into anything by threatening to tell what you know about me, think again. I’ve had better and smarter people than you try.”

  “I don’t know how you make this agency work.”

  “Huh?”

  “You keep jumping to conclusions. I thought you detective types were supposed to want facts and proof, not intuitive conclusions.” She shrugged, pulling out of his grasp easily. “May I sit?”

  Brady narrowed his eyes at the provocatively beautiful girl. She wore the same outfit she’d had on earlier, the vibrant red of the dress making her hair appear scarlet, the bodice cupping her breasts almost lovingly. Her eyes were piercing, strangely arousing and calming at the same time.

  “How about we start with your name?” he asked, waving his hand at one of the chairs in front of his desk. He cocked his hip on the corner of his desk, noticing a fine trail of freckles that scattered across her nose.

  “My name is Mollyne Wolfe. Most just call me Molly.”

  “What business do you have with me, Molly?” he asked, crossing his arms across his wide chest. She radiated an unidentified energy, one that had an undeniable sense of good. Not good as in pleasant. Good as in the opposite of evil. He h
ated that someone who looked like her and projected that aura would stoop to something as low as blackmail. “How do I know you?”

  “Which do you wish me to answer first, Mr. Knight.?” She looked up at him, giving him a gamine sort of grin that surprised him. “You want to know how I know you so that you can figure out what to do with me.”

  “Yes,” Brady nodded. “I do. Can you blame me?”

  “Not at all,” she said agreeably. “You also wish to know how I blocked your thoughts earlier today, on the street. That will take a bit of an explanation. I don’t know if I have time for that. I do need your help, Mr. Knight, despite what you might think of me. We need your help desperately.”

  “We?”

  “I’m getting ahead of myself.” She paused, folded her hands carefully over her lap and took a deep breath. “Do you remember your sophomore year in college?”

  Brady snorted. “I don’t remember much of the last half of my freshman year. Why do you ask?”

  “That’s when we met. I had come to the school, your school, to visit a friend from outside my clan, something that is forbidden with my people. You were standing outside the freshman girl’s dorms. You were doing petty magic, spinning books and pens in the air.” She glanced up at him. “You don’t remember this?”

  “Not a bit,” Brady said, feeling a familiar angst building in his gut. He always felt it when someone reminded him of that time.

  “May I?” She stood and held out her hand.

  “May you what?” he asked warily, leaning away from her touch.

  “I’ve caused you distress. I just want to alleviate it.” Molly laughed, her husky voice sending a thrill through him. “You have nothing to fear, Mr. Knight. Your magicks are much stronger than mine ever could be.”

  Brady stared into her eyes, growing lost in the emerald stare. He nodded, sitting forward so that she could reach him better. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and muttering something before she clapped her hands together, rubbing her palms. Then she reached up to touch his face.

  Heat! It was the first thing he felt as her fingertips stroked over his wide forehead, pushing aside the shock of hair that defied his brush. It soaked into his skin, warm and pleasurable, soothing his doubts and fears.

  The scent of her filled his nose and he inhaled deeply, a spicy combination of cinnamon and vanilla with a hint of her own musk underneath. It was a heady mix; getting enough of it to satisfy seemed unlikely. He closed his eyes to enjoy it better, feeling the palm of her hand skim over his forehead and then down, her fingertips tracing his features.

  “Hmm,” he moaned. “You’re good at this.”

  “Shh,” she ordered softly. “Don’t speak, just feel. Feel and remember.”

  He inhaled again, hearing the rustle of her skirts as she stepped closer. The heat of her body teased his; close but not touching, making him wonder what she would feel like in his arms, how she would taste under his lips. He knew her body was soft but with a lean strength that belayed that softness. Would she cry out or would she bite her lip when she came?

  “I’d scream your name,” she whispered, her voice husky as if she could feel what he was thinking, feel it as if it were happening.

  His eyes started to flutter open and she laid her fingertips over them, keeping them closed. “No, please don’t look, let me do this. Let me help you remember me. Open yourself.”

  “How?” he whispered.

  “Let down those walls that surround you, Brady. Just feel.”

  He took a deep breath, her scent swirling around him, drawing him in. A picture formed in his mind, one that had his breath clogging in his throat. She twirled around him, her skirts lifting, showing off those trim ankles and shapely calves, rising higher to tease with glimpses of pretty thighs and the pelt of red fur that covered her sex.

  She moved against him, dancing for him, her body twining about until he reached for her in his mind, yanking her close, her breasts crushing against his chest. His lips found hers, devouring in a kiss meant to inflame.

  Molly gasped, the sound lost in his mouth, his tongue plunging inside of hers to taste and explore. Her passion held the flavor of honeyed wine, dark and rich, a bewitching brew.

  Her hands were on his shirt buttons, slowly unfastening them before sliding her palms up the taut, defined muscles of his stomach and chest. She didn’t stop there, pushing his shirt over his shoulders, following the sleeves down his arms to rid him of the hampering cloth. She tore her mouth from his, her lips finding the skin of his throat, her tongue coming out to tease his already aroused flesh.

  “Stand there,” she ordered, going on tip toe to press a quick kiss to his lips. Then she fell to her knees before him, her skirts flaring out around his feet as her fingers made fast work of his belt and jeans, pushing them down his thighs. She reached out, tracing the tented bulge in his boxers, squeezing gently at the base.

  Brady couldn’t move even if he wanted. It was as if he’d been frozen to the floor, trapped in the spell of her touch, in the aura of the pleasure surrounding him. He could feel her hands, stroking upward over his chest, the tips of her fingers trembling across his flat male nipples, making them pucker. A moan left his lips, his hands clenching at his sides even though he wanted to draw her up against him again.

  Her hands dragged down, catching in the band of his boxers, pulling them and tugging on his jeans until both fell to the floor. Her green eyes caressed him as they moved over his body, settling for a long minute upon his erection, filled with admiration at what she saw.

  “Why are you doing this?” he hissed through clenched teeth as her small hand moved to his cock, wrapping around his girth.

  “Because I want to,” she said simply, smiling up at him before licking her full, red lips in obvious invitation. “Because I have to.”

  “You have to?” he groaned as her lips slid over the tip of his cock. “I don’t understand.”

  She pulled her lips off him, her hand stroking his wet shaft. “You don’t need to, just let me do this.” Her eyes sparkled up at him, mischief apparent in the green depths.

  His hips were jerking against his will, his heart racing in his chest. He felt her lips, the heat of her mouth as she sucked him in, the sweetness of the friction she created. His head fell back as need unlike any he’d felt before took him, causing him to tremble under her touch. Low moans were torn from his throat and he couldn’t help but move under her mouth.

  His hands slid over her head, burying themselves in bright red curls that felt like satin in his fingers. She pushed against them, rubbing her head in his palms even as she sucked him, her tongue like a flame against the underside of his cock. He felt it tease the ridge surrounding his glans, flicking the sensitive skin, igniting nerve endings with slippery softness.

  It was more than he could take and he felt the pressure grow and grow until he could hold out no longer. “I’m going to come,” he growled, trying to pull away from her sweet mouth.

  She held on tighter, drawing him in until the tip of his cock touched the back of her throat. Her eyes met his, the look in them showing her own pleasure at what she was doing. With a small hum of enjoyment, she managed to swallow the last of him, her nose brushing in the short shock of crinkly hair that surrounded his cock.

  It was all he could take. With a shout of bliss, he emptied himself into her, feeling her swallowing him, draining him. “Oh, God,” he groaned, hanging on to the desk as the feelings swamped him.

  It ended even as her lips left one last kiss upon the head of his cock. He heard the rustle of her dress as she rose gracefully to her feet.

  Guilt assailed him even as the last of the spasms she’d created with her lips echoed through his limbs. Renee; he’d cheated on her. Cheated with a woman he’d never met before today, or at least as far as he could remember.

  “Stop,” she whispered, her voice close to him though he was sure he’d heard her footsteps walking away from him. “Open your eyes.”

  Bra
dy did, blinking unsteadily as he saw her mere inches from him. “What...” he began.

  “You didn’t cheat. You stayed true to your woman, Brady. What happened was only a mixture of our auras. I took nothing from you and gave you ease.” She turned, smiling over her shoulder at him before going back to the chair she’d been in before and sinking down into it.

  “Who are you?” he asked as he glanced down, shocked to see he was fully dressed. “What are you?”

  “I’ve told you my name, Brady. I’m Molly Wolfe. What I am will take a bit more of an explanation. I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it yet.” She flipped her long curls over her shoulder with a toss of her head. “Suffice it to say, I have powers of my own. Nothing compared to what you have, of course.”

  “I think you should try now,” he said, staring at her warily. He watched as she crossed her legs, her skirt slipping up and exposing shapely calves.

  “My father is Callan Wolfe. He is the head of the Clan of the Wolfe.”

  He could feel her watching him as if expecting some kind of reaction. “That means nothing to me,” he said with a shrug.

  “Then perhaps I should go back to that day on the campus when we first met,” she said. “Perhaps you’d understand more.”

  Brady got up from the desk, his body still shaking from whatever she’d done to him. He went and sat in his chair, feeling better with the wide expanse of polished wood between them. “You said I was doing some magic tricks, probably trying to mystify some girl and get into her pants,” he said crudely.

  “Yes.” She smiled serenely, the expression at total odds to the wildness of her hair. “You didn’t seem to realize that you were exposing yourself to danger, showing off that way. Then, when I tried to stop you, you laughed at me.”

  The disgust in her voice made him smile. Back then, when he was drunk on alcohol, power and women, he probably would have laughed and then tried to get her into bed. Did he try? Is that what happened?