“Can’t do what?” he asked, leaning over to take in the fragrance of her hair.
“I can’t pretend—it’s not right.”
Flynn froze for a moment, thought he was going to hear some sort of confession. He slowly moved back, so that he could see her face.
“Can’t pretend? Are you pretending?”
“I mean . . . I should really tell you that you are here with me now under false pretense,” she said, releasing her breath in a rush.
“How can that be?” he asked, his finger caressing the inside of her wrist. “I believe I asked you here.”
“I know you did, but that’s because . . .” She paused, looked surreptitiously about, and Flynn’s heart began to beat a little faster.
“Because?”
She turned her gaze to him again, winced a little. “Because I . . . I put a spell on you,” she said quite low, just as someone took the stage and the crowd began to applaud.
Flynn’s hand stilled on her wrist, and in the midst of that applause, he looked deep into her lovely eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
Rachel glanced around again, leaned a little closer. “When you said I was a sorceress, I thought you knew. I’m not really one, I just tried it, and I . . . I put a spell on you,” she said in a horrified whisper.
Flynn waited a moment or two for the punch line before asking, “You aren’t joking, are you?”
“Unfortunately, no.” She sighed sadly. “I mean, think about it. The two times we’ve seen each other, I was really a mess, and normally, guys like you wouldn’t ask girls like me for coffee.”
He’d been with her up until that statement, willing to play along, but that didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, truly confused. “Because I’m British?”
“British?” she echoed incredulously and suddenly laughed.
“And what makes you think I’ve only seen you twice?” he asked, moving his hand a little higher, to the crook of her elbow. “How do you know that I haven’t seen you a million times and wished for just this moment?”
Rachel blinked. Her mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. “You saw me before that day by the phone?”
“Actually, I’d seen you on campus. Which, incidentally, is how I discovered your weaving class.”
“Campus,” she repeated weakly, her gaze falling to his mouth again and stirring something deep inside him.
“I’ve been doing a bit of work there, and I saw you one day. Several times, actually. Enough that I wanted to meet you. Granted, the day I met you at the phone was a coincidence, but it seemed like every time I found you after that, you were rushing off and away from me. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.”
“No,” Rachel murmured. “No way. It wasn’t the spell.”
He was suddenly struck with the image of her doing that strange little dance in her living room, and felt his blood start to rush hot. The whole notion was terribly seductive somehow, and he couldn’t quite suppress his grin. “But it must be, for I am completely under your spell,” he said as he leaned into her again, his nostrils filling with the curious scent of vanilla and cinnamon buns, his lips just a hairsbreadth from her lips.
“Ahem . . . If I could have everyone’s attention,” the man on stage said dispassionately. “Our first poet tonight is Marianne Breck.”
Flynn touched his lips to Rachel’s, felt a spark ignite.
Marianne cleared her throat. “What is love? It is red, red, red. What is hate? It is white, white, white.”
Rachel made a little sound deep in her throat, a soft laugh, and the spark in Flynn was instantly fanned into a flame. As Marianne droned on about how red and white she was, Flynn could feel the red of his own body, red desire, spreading through him with the quickness of light. He moved his hand from Rachel’s wrist to her neck, felt the earring she wore bouncing against his knuckles, felt the rapid beat of her pulse, the warmth of her skin. His other hand found her waist and then the small of her back and he held her there, so that he could explore lips that were full and succulent, softly delectable.
He drew her bottom lip between his teeth, gingerly tested the soft pliability of it, then slipped his tongue into her sweet mouth. She opened up beneath him like a bloody flower, tilting her head to accommodate him.
Frankly, that kiss surprised Flynn. He’d not intended this to happen, had not intended to do much of anything but talk, but the memory of her strange little pagan dance and of her wrapped in that towel, along with the oddly invigorating scent of vanilla and her assertion that she had cast a spell on him spurred him into territory he’d not intended to enter.
At the moment, it hardly seemed to matter, as his body was too interested in her mouth, the baby softness of the skin at her neck, and the velvet lobe of her ear, and Flynn imagined that mane of hair tumbling down around them as they made wild, pagan love.