Do You Believe in Magic? Read Online Free Page A

back, gave Francie a once-over, straightened her necklace, opened the door, and whispered, “Go get him, tiger.”
    Clay had grinned to himself as he watched a flustered Tamara disappear down the hall. He was obviously not what she had been expecting, but then other women had had similar responses to him before. False modesty aside, he knew what he looked like, and after all, females had been drawn to him ever since puberty. It made for a certain amount of self-confidence even his two sisters had not been able to bedevil out of him. He wondered what Francie’s reaction to him would be when they were alone. She had certainly run through a gamut of emotions during their meeting that morning.
    He knew what his reaction had been to her. Attraction, pure and simple. Daria had even noticed. Worse, she had teased him when he took her home after the meeting, suggesting Francie might even be his soul mate.
    Yeah, right. Just because she had found hers among nonpractitioners, she was on the lookout for his with every woman she met. She was correct about one thing and one thing only: Francie wasn’t a practitioner. They had both looked her up in the Registry before the meeting.
    Lightning in the form of another nonpractitioner soul mate wouldn’t strike the Morgan family twice, Clay calculated. Since warlocks could be the lovers of non-witch women without incurring the soul-mate bond, he had clear sailing where Francie Stevens was concerned. And he intended to be her lover before this hacker mess was over. He put out of his mind Daria’s malicious little-sister grin and her taunt—”Just you wait, big brother, your soul mate will knock you right off your high horse.”
    He looked around and idly rubbed the end of his itching breastbone as he waited for his date. Her apartment, full of light, color, and plants, displayed the real Francie, he decided. The pictures and paintings on her walls were brightly impressionistic, and their hues were picked up in the throw pillows on the pale green couch. An overstuffed dark green chair had a book on its seat, and a Tiffany-style lamp sat on the end table next to it. An oak coffee table contained some larger books and a vase with golden mums. No dull, drab colors here. No petite, spindly furniture, either, but that wouldn’t fit her size—or his. He immediately felt comfortable.
    Francie walked into the room, and he turned to greet her.
    He almost gasped. He’d been correct, those clothes were camouflage, he thought as his eyes roamed over her. This was more like it, with a dress outlining her body. And what a body, he realized, feeling his own responding to her high full breasts, trim waist, flaring hips, and long, long legs. Lord, have mercy, she was gorgeous.
    “You look very nice, Francie. Shall we go?” he managed to get past his vocal cords as his eyes came up to meet hers, and he noticed hers grow smokier.
    Francie felt tension crackle like lightning between them. His eyes had flared silver and darkened when she appeared. He had affected her senses in Herb’s office, but it was nothing compared to seeing him in her own living room. Suddenly the room was much smaller, and the pull toward him, the urge to touch, much greater.
    Just looking at him made her blood course faster through her veins, heated her all the way through, scrambled her brain. She repeated to herself her vow to keep her feet on the ground around this dangerous man. And dangerous was the correct word, she decided—dangerous to her equilibrium, dangerous to her friendship with Tamara, dangerous to her determination not to let a man hurt her again. She had to swallow to say, “I’m ready.”
    Tamara preceded them out the door. “Bye, y’all have fun,” the redhead said at the bottom of the stairs, as she turned the other way toward her apartment.
    “Thanks, we will,” Clay answered, ushering Francie toward the parking spaces at the front of the building. “So, that was Tamara,” he commented as they