Freeing the Beast: Taming the Beast, Book 1 (7 page)

It wasn’t, though it might be a start. No, that was nuts. He was nothing more than a client. Once he had his new personality down pat, he’d forget her in a moment. There were too many distractions in life…blondes, brunettes, other redheads.

Right now, he seemed to notice only her, his attention riveted.

Becca made a mental note to ask her mom if his current behavior was a result of the potion she’d created.

“I’ll pick you up at your place,” he said.

Sounded good. “No.”

Eric studied her for another long moment, then rested his forearm on his knee and leaned forward. “You’re refusing me?”

Uh-huh. And if Becca had any sense, she’d continue to do so. Not that acting reasonably had ever been her greatest strength when it came to men. Although she’d locked her heart away when she’d dated weres, vamps and warlocks, she’d still pined for more. Hopelessly. Endlessly.

“You can pick me up here—no, wait.” She didn’t want Heather, Constance, Zoe or the twins to know what was going on. It was bad enough when a guy dumped her. Suffering through her staff’s condolences only prolonged the agony. “I’ll meet you there. Wherever there is.”

A slow, sexy smile spread across his face. “We could forget the restaurant and eat at my place.”

Heat pooled in Becca’s groin, waking up her pussy, priming it for his cock.

“That way we won’t be disturbed,” he murmured. “Just you, me and the effects of the potion.”

Yeah, the potion. Magic. Not the real Eric. “No.”

He made a face. “Look, I’ll be a perfect gentleman.” He smiled once more. “Within reason.”

There wasn’t anything reasonable about this. “No. A restaurant or nothing.”

On an exasperated sigh, he sagged in his chair. “Italian? French? Cajun? Chinese? Japanese? Come on,” he said, interrupting his list. “Help me out here. Don’t make me go through every ethnic variation. You do eat food, right? I mean, witches don’t have a special menu I’m unaware of, like lizard’s legs and howlet’s wing.”

Shakespeare again. “Relax. I’ve been known to eat a Whopper every now and then.”

“You certainly did.”

Helplessly, she regarded the yummy bulge behind his fly. Bulking up by the second. No different from when she’d excited him with her mouth. “You better start measuring that.” She inclined her head in the direction of his cock. “Since you drank the potion, it seems to be getting bigger.”

“As long as it doesn’t trip me while I walk, I’m good.”

She ran her finger around the doodles she’d made of his lovely balls and rod. “But think of the poor women.”

“Oh yeah. There is that. Do well-endowed men bother you, Becca?”

Nothing about him disturbed her in the least, except whether this was his way of flirting or the potion was talking for him. Becca still wasn’t certain. If it were a result of magic, she’d be disappointed. If this was Eric letting loose, having fun, she’d probably fall in love.

What a bummer. “Italian.”

“Well-endowed Italian men bother you. Wow, that’s a surprise. In the treatment room, I could have sworn—”

“That’s my choice for food tonight,” she interrupted, not at all surprised her nipples were peaking again.

Eric’s attention dipped from her mouth to her throat to her breasts. “Italian, huh? That’s what you want?”

Yep. Both of them knew they weren’t talking about food.

Chapter Six

If it wouldn’t have made him look like a total loon, Eric would have boogied out of Becca’s building. Whether his exuberance was the result of the potion, her effect on him, or the promise of their night together, he didn’t know or care.

Intoxicated with something indescribable—not exactly hope or lust, but a delirious combination of the two, he smiled at the annoying tourists, their screeching kids and all the other crap that usually kept him away from the French Quarter. Even the soupy air embraced him as it had never done before.

Sweating worse than Mitt Romney during the presidential debates, Eric alternately wove his way through the crowd and brought up the address book on his iPhone.

His call connected on the second ring.

“Hey,” he said first. “That you, Uncle Desi?” Short for Desiderio. Italian for desire.

“Hey yourself. That you, Eros?”

Eric’s cheeks got hot enough to roast marshmallows.

He crossed to the other side of the street, the obnoxious families there. “It’s Eric, please,” he muttered to his uncle.

“You young people.”

Eric pictured Desi raising his eyes to their version of heaven, Mount Olympus, and the family’s distant relatives—Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, deities their ancestors appropriated from the Greeks, then renamed Jupiter, Juno and Neptune. Godly plagiarism. “Can you reserve a table for me tonight?”

Desi’s Italian restaurant was the best in New Orleans. Unfortunately.

“Of course. You even have to ask?”

“One of the more private tables, if you can.”

“Ah, I see now. Another woman. Don’t you ever intend to settle down, start a family? Have you forgotten your heritage?”

He should be so lucky. Eric spoke softly so the passing tourists wouldn’t overhear his conversation, and call the mental health department to have him locked up.

“It’s not like I can shoot her with an arrow, Uncle Desi. That went out with Zeus catting around on Hera. Women don’t put up with that crap any longer. They want—hell, I don’t know what they want—but if I shot anything at a woman, she’d have me arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. And rightfully so.”

Desi muttered beneath his breath.

“It’s a different world,” Eric explained.

“Bullshit. It’s never changed. You young people have, and not for the best.”

“Sorry, but I have to do this my way.”

“You mean, like a mortal.”

Eric thought about the potions he’d sipped. His meltdown in Becca’s treatment room. Her cunt above his face. His cock in her mouth. Now that was pure magic. “Powers don’t always work the way we want.”

“Tell that to Jupiter. He’d be surprised.”

Having reached his Mercedes, Eric dropped into the front seat and turned the air conditioning on full blast. “Well hey, he’s the man, right?”

“He practices, keeps his talents up-to-date. When was the last time you tried to use your powers on a girl?”

In middle school, right after he’d changed his name to Eric and learned that didn’t exactly reel in the babes. Especially Paula Rizzuto, the foxiest blonde in seventh grade. The last Eric had heard, she’d been divorced twice and was in therapy. More than once he’d wondered if his bumbling attempts at romance had caused lingering effects. After Paula, Eric had sworn off his powers, preferring to struggle with dating like a stupid mortal. When that hadn’t worked, he finally caved and sought out Becca’s help, her makeover and potions. His last chance and a fairly reasonable alternative.

Insane, he knew.

“I appreciate your advice,” Eric said, “but I have to do this my way. Can I get that table or not?”

“I already said you could. Bring the girl here. I want to see what you’re doing wrong. I’ll take notes. Help you out.”

Great. This was going to be a fun night.

She should have kept her big mouth shut.

Constance, Heather and Zoe had followed Becca to her apartment to help her get ready for a date she kept insisting was a test run.

“Is that what he called it?” Constance smiled. “And what do you think it is?”

The beginning of a lot of pain if she didn’t keep her cool.

Becca finished spraying mist on her ferns. They filled her bedroom, along with wind chimes, beaded curtains on the windows and Mardi Gras masks on the walls. All of it colorful. Vibrant. Light-years away from her sex life. “He wants to make certain the potion is working properly before he unleashes his bad boy on the world.”

“My, my.” Constance tapped her tapered nail against her chin. “Isn’t he a cocky little bastard?”

Becca grinned, recalling his glorious shaft blooming right before her eyes, jutting brazen and proud, his pendulous balls, undeniably male. “He’s hardly little. Hung like a horse is more like it.”

“Gave him a blast of your charm, did you?”

That and a whole lot more. Becca leaned against the rocking chair near her brass bed, remembering what she shouldn’t. He was right about men not faking orgasms. They didn’t have to. Put any woman between their legs and their cocks jumped to attention, begging for more. “It’s unlikely I’ll ever have that much allure. However, I think the potion gave him a few more inches.”

“The gift that keeps giving.”

They both sniggered.

Heather came out of Becca’s walk-in closet, a dress in her right hand, a pants suit in her left. “These are nice.”

Constance sniffed. “If she’s going to her First Communion. You don’t want to wear white,” she advised Becca. “Sends a man the wrong message.”

“I think he knows I’m not a virgin.”

“Becca.” Color stained Heather’s pale cheeks. “No need to talk like that.”

Constance leaned toward Becca and whispered, “We gotta get that girl laid.”

Becca’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

“What about this?” Zoe held up Becca’s black workout clothes, bought for the gym membership she never used.

“Put that back,” Constance ordered. “She’s going on a date, not a funeral at Anytime Fitness.”

“It’s a test run,” Becca corrected for the
n
th time. “And it could always turn out bad.”

The three women turned to her. Constance’s pursed lips warned,
Don’t you dare give me that defeatist shit
. Heather’s eyes filled with tears, her sympathetic nature agreeing with whatever Becca predicted, no matter how bad or humiliating.

Zoe looked as though she was ready to rumble. “Just say the word and I’ll take him out.” She clenched her small fists. “I’ll enjoy it.”

“Leave him alone,” Becca said. “He hasn’t done anything.”

Yet.

Pushing past them, Becca went into her closet. The hangers scraped over the wooden poles as she shoved one garment after the other out of her way, rejecting some of her clothes as being too funky or baggy, a few too innocent, a lot more beyond decadent.

Tonight, she wanted to be…what?

Becca wasn’t certain.

Damn. She ran her own business, supported herself better than most women her age, was smart enough to have gotten a perfect score on the SAT without magic or studying, yet she couldn’t figure out how to act with a man she liked.

When it came to life, she was hopelessly stupid.

“You’re overthinking this, just like everything else,” Constance muttered. She gestured Becca aside as she might an irritating gnat, then studied the outfits.

“Hey, what about what you’re wearing?” Becca said. “I like it.” Constance’s turban and loose-fitting gown were in candy cane stripes of red and white. “Want to lend your stuff to me?”

Constance made a dismissive noise. “You wouldn’t do it justice. Here.” She pulled out a halter dress with a flirty skirt that landed just below Becca’s knees. The wide black belt around the waist sported an ornate gold buckle, its color matching the soft, shimmering fabric.

Becca had bought the dress on a whim and never had a chance to wear it.

“This is you.” Constance shoved it at her. “That’s how you should behave tonight—like you.” She pointed to the bedroom window. Gauzy sun spilled past the brightly colored beads, reflecting splashes of blue, green, yellow and red on the walls. “There’s not one person out there exactly like Becca Salt. Is there?”

She joked, “I would hope not. One of me in this world is probably enough.”

Constance didn’t laugh. “Be you, sweetie. If he doesn’t like that, then he’s a fucking idiot.”

“Constance,” Heather scolded. “Please, your language.” She spoke to Becca. “I do agree though.”

“Me too,” Zoe said. She leaned around the closet’s jamb, the same as Heather. “You tell me if he doesn’t treat you right.”

Tears stung Becca’s eyes. She couldn’t have asked for better friends than these three. “He will. He’s a good guy.”

“Not since you gave him that potion.” Constance smacked Becca’s ass. “That man’s gonna be two handfuls tonight. Lord, I wish I could be there to see that.”

Eric regarded the table Desi had set up for him and Becca. Like the others, it had red velvet chairs, a spotless white tablecloth, fine china and silverware that glinted softly in the room’s subdued lighting, a centerpiece of red roses and baby’s breath, along with two silver holders complete with red candles, the wicks not yet lit.

Eric pressed his fingers to his forehead, his beginning migraine.

“What?” his uncle said. “You told me you wanted private.”

He’d moved the other tables several yards away, leaving this one in a circle of emptiness. “This looks like you’re quarantining us because we have a disease.”

“Love can get rough.”

Love? Eric dropped his hand. He and Becca hadn’t even slept together yet…at least all the way, with his cock inside her mouth again, then every other part of her. That is, if she liked to go the whole nine yards.

Eric prayed she did. He had an unsettling need to be inside her, burrowing as deep as he could, straight to her soul if possible.

He swallowed, wondering exactly what she’d put in that last potion.

“Don’t worry.” Desi slapped Eric on his back. “You’ll live through it.”

He turned to his uncle, a squat man with a head the size and shape of a bowling ball. Given Desi’s huge bald spot, coupled with the hair growing out of his ears and nostrils, he looked like the “after” picture for Becca’s first potion. Thankfully, his palms were smooth. “Don’t even think about using any of your powers on her.”

Desi tensed his doughy shoulders, a clear sign he wanted to argue. “Why not? You won’t use yours.”

“If any woman keeps me around for the long haul, I want it to be because of me, not anything else.”

Desi lifted his face to the beveled ceiling, the frescos of chubby winged babies. A mortal’s version of Cupid. “Young people,” he muttered.

“Yeah, we’re the worst. Come on, I’ll help you put these tables back the way they should be, then I have to go home and get ready.”

“Now? You got hours to prepare. You don’t even have to shave.” Desi pushed to his toes, which made him about five-five, and squinted. “You do finally shave, don’t you?”

Eric arched one eyebrow. “Since I hit puberty nearly two decades ago.”

“Hey, don’t blame me if your beard isn’t what you want it to be.”

Since when? Eric rubbed his cheeks and chin then let out a relieved sigh. They were bristly, as they should be at this hour. Becca’s potion hadn’t changed that. He glanced down. From what he could see, his bulge was the same size it had been earlier in the day when she’d commented on it.

Eric smiled, liking how she’d teased, making him feel important, special.

“Hey.” Desi backhanded Eric’s belly. “Quit admiring your stuff. There’s ladies present.”

Eric waved to his aunt and cousins. The ladies were huddled together at the maître d’s station. He mumbled to Desi, “They don’t know anything about this, do they?”

The girls slapped their hands over their mouths to stifle their giggles. His aunt looked at Eric indulgently, her way of giving him a high-five.

“Not at all,” Desi said, not even trying to hide the fact that he was lying. “Let’s move these tables.”

Generally, Eric was the kind of man who shaved, brushed his teeth, showered, then threw on his clothes. Boxers—from now on, the stretchy kind—a fresh shirt, pants or khakis, socks and shoes. Being clean and neat was the sum total of his love affair with his appearance.

Tonight, he couldn’t decide what the fuck to wear. He kept holding up his shirts in a range of browns, blues, beiges or whites, and stared at himself in the mirror. Trying to see what Becca would.

A stud or a dud.

He wondered if the potion had caused his indecision, unless it had made him vain. One of the few problems he’d never had before and didn’t want now.

He decided to wear his beige shirt with his brown pants.

He pulled them off the hangers, then slipped them right back on, staring at his blue shirt, then the white, then the—

For shit’s sake, make up your mind. You’re not a girl.

In record speed, he forced himself to dress then checked the time. If all went well and Becca actually showed up, he’d see her in forty-five minutes.

That is, unless he arrived late. That’s what studs did. They kept a woman waiting, guessing, hoping. The ladies seemed to love that.

Did Becca? Or would it piss her off and make her leave?

Crap. He sank to the edge of his bed, reduced to the indecision of a pimply teen. All he’d have to do now was worry whether Becca would kiss him goodnight or not, and he’d be twelve all over again.

Or the same as he’d been before the potion.

He arrived thirty minutes early and stayed in his car, staring at Desiderio’s spumoni-colored façade, figuring he looked as sick as its pale green shutters. The potion wasn’t working any longer. Eric knew it for certain now. He ached to see Becca, his desire mounting by the second. He wanted to please her so badly it frightened him. With other women, he’d been interested and eager, though not to this degree.

Eric pulled out his iPhone, wondering if he should call her office and ask Heather, or even Zoe, to make a run to this parking lot with a jug of the potion. It sure as hell had made him behave like a beast in the treatment room.

When he’d told Becca to undress, it was as though someone else was talking, a person Eric didn’t know but liked. He’d had no problem ordering her around, expecting her to obey, not even considering that she might kick him in the balls and tell him to leave.