Simon tapped his chin as he perused the bar’s selection. “The guy with the polka-dot bandana at the pool table.”
“A spell for better fashion choices, easy,” she shot out. “The bandana, he can give to me. It’s cute.”
Simon laughed. “The big, burly, hairy biker by the fireplace.”
“A spell for better hair growth.”
“He needsmore?”
“The beard is fake.”
Simon squinted, trying not to look too obvious by staring at the man’s long, luscious dark beard. For fuck’s sake, he couldn’t tell if Shanna was messing with him because they were playing a game within a game, or if she’d really somehow deduced the fake beard … and that made it only funnier.
“Okay, what about the brunette at the table over there?” he said. “The one whispering to her blonde friend?”
“Oh, I can tell you what they’re saying.” Shanna leaned in and, in a semi-successful effort of a changed pitch, said, “That guy at the bar is so hot. He’s looking at me even more intently than that stuffed deer head is.”
They both snickered at that, but Shanna tried her best to continue in her mock tone, “Maybe I should go talk to him and ask him out on a date.”
“Maybe he’s already on a date.”
Her lips quirked.
“A love spell, then?” he asked, quieter. “Do those exist?”
Turning toward the bar, she ran her fingers along the rim of her glass. “They do.” She gave him a hooded glance. “For those seeking new relationships or the enhancement of existing ones.”
Simon followed her cue, also rotating on his barstool. “Have you ever done one?”
“Not for myself.” She lifted her chin. “Although, as a very capable and in no way cursed witch, I certainly could, if I wanted to.”
He scooted closer and leaned in, whispering a few inches away from her cheek, “Then cast a spell on me, witch.”
Her chest lifted as her breath hitched. “Now?”
“Well, from your finely tuned witchy intuition, there might be several interested women here tonight. Unfortunately for them, I’m only interested in one.”
She parted her lips, a little panting breath she exhaled only loud enough for him to hear. To tease him. He couldn’t help but imagine that breath on his neck instead. Against skin, with nothing else between them.
She’d cast no spells, he was sure, but she was doing something to him … fanning his desire, awakening a lust more intense than he’d ever felt before. A need to have her, to feel her, to get lost in her.
“If you wish … I have a room upstairs.” He tried to search her veiled eyes.Hisintuition told him Shanna wasn’t immune to this energy between them, either, but a very quiet, distant bell still rang in his head—that it was all a play, that they knew what they needed to do.
The only trouble was, he didn’t only need it. Hewantedit. And if Shanna didn’t … he’d have to let it go.
But whatever her answer would be, he needed it now. He could no longer hang in limbo.
Shanna bit her lip, sending a jolt straight to his groin. Her hand dropped to his thigh.
“I have a room upstairs, too,” she said. “And if you want to be enchanted, I think you should enter the witch’s lair.”
***
Shanna wasn’t sure how she even made it to the room with Simon; she’d had nothing but half a glass of a non-alcoholic beer, and yet, she still shook like a tightrope walker as she took his hand and led him upstairs, into the darkened space of her proclaimed witch’s lair.
“It might not be the witchiest-looking room,” she said, inviting him in. “But for us travelers, it’ll have to do.” She stepped to the console table, where she’d spread her kit.
Simon stopped a foot behind her, his heat radiating into her. “What do we do?”
