Three Wishes(20)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“The way I figure it is, I didn’t even know Laura and Victor when I arrived so that has to shave off at least a day, maybe two. So I’m passed my expiration date.” She gave him her quirky grin and he had to concentrate all his effort on not snatching her into his arms.

She was close, not unseemly close but close enough so that she filled his vision, so he could feel the warmth from her body, so that he could smell her subtle perfume.

He straightened from his lounge against the banister. This brought them only inches closer but enough so that the once decorous distance was now not.

“Stay another day,” he urged, his voice lower in timbre as well as coaxing.

Her body gave an almost imperceptible jerk and she had to tilt her head back further to look at him.

“Why?” she whispered, her eyes adorably bewildered.

He moved closer and her head tilted back more. This was how she would look before he kissed her, he knew, and the thought shot through him like a bullet.

She seemed frozen, rooted to the spot. He lifted the hand which was not carrying her litter-saving cigarette and captured a tendril of her hair that had escaped at her neck. He twisted it around his finger and felt its softness.

“So I can take you to dinner tomorrow night,” he replied quietly.

It was then Nate realised she wasn’t breathing.

There was something about her that made him understand he was in complete and total control of her. The way she was looking into his eyes, she was lost in him, she was, quite simply, his to do with as he pleased. She communicated this with only a look not uttering a single word.

And this knowledge shook him. That this perfect, pristine, untouchable creature could be lost in Nate McAllister, the boy from the wrong side of town, the son of a whore. He had the unspeakable but heady desire to shout his satisfaction and the equally strong desire to bury himself in her, bury his tongue in her mouth, bury himself deep inside her, claim her, possess her, do something violent and long-lasting that made her truly his.

“What about your fiancée?” she breathed.

“I don’t have a fiancée.”

“Your girlfriend then… what’s her name, Georgia?”

“Georgia and I are no longer together.”

After he spoke, without hesitation she said, “Okay.”

He released her hair, lifted his hand and ran his finger down the soft skin of her hairline, right in front of her ear, down to the spot where her jaw met her neck.

Her lips trembled.

“Okay, what?” he asked softly.

“I’ll stay another night,” she answered, her voice just as soft.

Nate smiled.

Lily sighed.

Chapter Eight

Lily

“Nathaniel’s here, Lily.”

Lily jumped. Victor had peeked his brown head around the door of the guest bedroom and after one look at her, he started smiling.

He opened the door fully and straightened in its frame. “You look lovely.”

“I do?” Her voice was uncertain and maybe a little frightened.

“Yes, Lily, you do.”

“I…” She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t consider herself lovely. She’d never been lovely. She had no idea that she was lovely.

In fact, she had no idea why Nate had asked her out in the first place. Temporary insanity, she decided. Or more likely thinking she was suffering from it and feeling sorry for her after she went off half-cocked at his innocent flicking of a cigarette butt. Thousands of people flicked thousands of cigarette butts a day. She acted like he’d just gone on a murder spree. The thought of it made her nearly expire from mortification.

But she was not going to look a gift horse, or in this case Fazire’s magical genie horse in the mouth as the whole reason Nate asked her out had to be Fazire’s magic.

The only thing she could think to say to Victor was, “Thank you.”

Victor inclined his head and she could swear he was laughing at her, not, however, unkindly.

This was the weirdest situation she’d ever been in, in her whole entire life.

Not that she had been in very many weird situations; she’d lived a pretty sheltered life.

That was, of course, if you didn’t count the fact that one of the “adults” participating in her upbringing was a real-life genie which she didn’t count because, as it was all she’d ever known, she found it the most natural thing in the world.

But there she was, staying with people she barely knew although she felt like she’d known them forever. She was taking advantage of their kindness although her mother and especially her father, who thought politeness and good manners were practically more important than oxygen, taught her not to take advantage of anyone. And she was going out on a date with their son although somehow it seemed that she was their daughter and they were unbelievably proud she was going out on a date with the tall, dark, handsome, popular captain of the football team.

Unsure of what to do, Lily just stood there.

She’d never been on a date in her life.

She’d dressed in one of the outfits she’d bought the day before while out shopping with Laura. She couldn’t afford it but she adored it so she charged it as well as everything else she bought yesterday. If her mother knew she was using her credit cards on anything but necessities, Becky would have a brain haemorrhage.

She wore a straight, pencil skirt in the palest pink that was boldly patterned around the hem in vermillion and orange. She topped it with a tight-fitting, pink cotton camisole and a lightweight cotton vermillion cardigan that she left open at the front. Laura had loaned her a pair of her shoes (what Lily didn’t know was that they were Danielle’s and if she had known she wouldn’t have worn them, she’d had the same reaction to Danielle as she’d had to Jeffrey), red, spike-heeled sling backs.

She looked straight from the fifties without the scarf. A Pink Lady with even more attitude.

She felt like an idiot.

She had absolutely no idea she looked stunningly chic.

She picked up the small, sleek, matching red bag Laura had loaned her.

“Is everything all right?” Victor was watching her closely.

“I…” She started again and stopped then she looked at him hopelessly. She didn’t know him as far as she could throw him but somehow she trusted him enough to tell him, “Victor, I don’t know what to do.”

Her voice was so quiet she was surprised he heard her. But he did and he walked into the room.

“What do you mean?” He looked slightly bewildered and his usually very controlled face showed it.