Daddy Warlock Read online

  The Magician regarded her with surprise. “Yes, I sensed that when I saw you.”

  Before she could reply, his hands cupped her face. Beneath his gaze, Tara no longer felt knobby and coltish. Her muscles lengthened; her joints smoothed; from her shoulders to her fingertips, her bunglesome self fused into womanhood.

  The Magician lifted her as lightly as dandelion fluff. Again, Tara had the impression that their minds intertwined as he mounted the stairs. She was part of his muscles, reveling in the power to carry her, and she shared the elation of his spirit.

  A door swung open at their approach and they entered a round room. It must, she realized, be the tower. The chamber was empty, right down to its polished wooden floor.

  “Bedchamber!” The Magician spoke into the air.

  Velvet curtains whispered across the windows. From the rear wall descended a broad bed, while hidden portals slid aside to reveal an oak armoire.

  Tara had the impression that the sensual fabrics and sleek woods had been selected to suit her sensibilities. The room had been waiting for her.

  The Magician set her down, his eyes gentle behind the mask. She wished, fleetingly, that he would take it off, but then it didn’t matter. What she knew of him went far deeper than what could be seen in his face.

  The strangest part was that she knew he was experiencing both the same fire of longing and the same reluctance to yield to it. She knew he was afraid of hurting her, and uncertain of what she meant to him, and that he stood at a crossroads in his life.

  With a stab of insight, she saw that somehow she had been sent here to change him, and he to change her. But in what way? How could their thoughts be so intertwined at this moment, while they yet withheld so much of themselves, even their names?

  The Magician’s hand caressed her hip, burning through the fabric. Tara ran her finger along his jawline, and felt a shiver of response.

  She touched the faint stubble of new-grown beard. As if they were connected by electric wires, she experienced not only what lay on the surface but also his rush of hunger, his disbelief, his eagerness, his doubts.

  Then her eyes met his and, with a jolt, she saw that he was inside her mind, too.

  He was experiencing her smoky rush of longing, the tightening in her breasts, the melting in her marrow. The double awareness was overwhelming, for both of them.

  Tara’s only previous experience with lovemaking had been a few fumbling encounters with a college classmate whom she’d briefly imagined she loved. She had felt nothing like this soaring eagerness to arouse and share and merge.

  Her partner smoothed the blouse low over her shoulders, his thumbs caressing the exposed tops of her breasts. Tara wound her arms around his shoulders.

  She drew the man against her, mouth meeting mouth in explosive hunger. The moment they connected, all hesitation vanished.

  With a shrugging movement, his upper arm pushed the mask back and knocked off his hat. But with the curtains blocking the moonlight, she could see nothing except the outline of his face.

  The Magician. It seemed like name enough, just now.

  Memory and delight flowed together as they slipped from their clothes and tangled together on the bed. There was no order to their passion, just thigh wildly brushing. thigh, his lips against her nipple, her hands molding his shoulders, his body responding with hot abandon.

  She shared his wonder, and his torrent of need. She knew he must have penetrated her mental recesses, as well, finding the wall she’d flung up to protect herself from her father’s disapproval and from anyone else who might try to control her life, the barrier that had vanished for this one amazing night.

  Only one night? she wondered. But it wasn’t like that. All the nights they had known belonged to both of them. Past and future had no meaning.

  Strong hands angled her hips, preparing her to receive him. Tara could feel her moist readiness, and so could he.

  What’s happening? How can we read each other’s minds?

  For an instant, she drew back, afraid of what she was experiencing. Could this be a hallucination, or had they tapped into a subconscious river that flowed between them? But surely such things didn’t exist.

  The Magician paused, watching her. Sensing her confusion and allowing her to sort it out. He would withdraw if she wished. He had been swept away as much as she, Tara knew, still hearing the echo of his thoughts, but he would never pressure her.

  As she pulled herself achingly from his mind, she became more aware of him as a man. Muscular, taut, graceful even in the slightest movement. An herbal fragrance mingled with the faint scent of his exertion. Most remarkable were his eyes, gleaming in the shadowed planes of his face, alive with speculation.

  Like a sleek wild hunter he crouched over her, withholding his power. They were separate, but entwined so intimately that with one stroke his body would enter hers.

  The self-protective screens that Tara had built around her heart vaporized. They must be united. They belonged together, as one being. Tonight was the only moment that existed, or ever would.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  His shaft entered her slowly. As the rightness of their joining reverberated through her, Tara felt every centimeter of the man growing with excitement. Something beyond magic was about to happen.

  He plunged deep into her. A cry issued from his throat and his back arched.

  Pleasure shot through Tara. His rhythmic thrusting lifted her into another sphere, where time passed in tiny flicks of sensation. They were made not of flesh but of light, glimmering and flowing. All the colors of ecstasy merged as he drove into her.

  Her breasts registered the demanding pressure of his chest. Her mouth met his again, and then something new rose from the depths of her soul like a great shout of joy.

  THE MOON WAS FADING as Chance Powers walked back up the driveway to his house. He stared at the castle facade with distaste. Like his odd name, tonight’s set decorations had been bestowed upon him by his father, who had an ulterior motive.

  At the door, he ordered the computer to turn off the hologram guardians on the porch. Inside, the house lay silent, the guests gone from the courtyard and the tables bare. The mess could wait until his cleaning staff arrived in the morning.

  There was a new sense of emptiness now, without his lady. She had fallen into a deep sleep, a side effect of the intensity of their experience. Her girlfriend, puzzled but good-humored, had hung around until Chance carried his lady downstairs and laid her gently in the back of the car.

  By now, they must have reached the street. He doubted they would be able to find their way back here again; people rarely could, unless he summoned them.

  Already, he missed her mobile face, alive with an intriguing mixture of naiveté and cynicism. And her rumpled, spiky hair, and the way her lips quirked with emotion. He even missed the sometimes abrupt movements as if she had grown six inches overnight and hadn’t yet adjusted to her body.

  He yearned to run after the car and bring her back. But it would be a terrible mistake.

  It had been his father’s idea to throw this Halloween party. Raymond Powers wanted his son to become a partner in the family’s multimillion-dollar special-effects business, in which Chance had worked part-time while earning his MBA.

  This lavish display, in the house Chance had purchased with his more than generous salary, had been an attempt to seduce him into the good life. If only his father valued his business acumen, instead of the hidden talents that could make them unimaginably rich and powerful.

  Their eccentric family had always possessed unusual talents, including the ability to levitate small objects. Raymond also had a touch of ESP with which he tried to second-guess business rivals. Fortunately, from Chance’s point of view, it had not proved very reliable.

  Raymond had deliberately married a distant cousin in the hope of concentrating their abilities in a child. However, when his abilities began to develop during his teen years, Chance had recognized that it
would be wrong to use them for personal gain. For years, he had kept his gifts a secret, even from his parents.

  Sometimes he had wondered if he were being selfish. The ability to touch people’s minds offered great potential for helping others. Once, by taking some of a friend’s pain on himself, he had helped the man recover from the trauma of a motorcycle accident.

  He was able not only to read others’ thoughts but to influence them. That was the dangerous part. If such powers were misused, they could result in great evil.

  Chance might have gone on keeping his father in the dark had it not been for an incident the previous month. He and Raymond had been driving back to their office from a studio where they were consulting on a film. As a traffic light changed, a tiny girl waiting on the sidewalk had pulled away from her mother and run into the path of a truck.

  Seeing her danger, the child froze. There was no time for anyone to reach her, and the truck couldn’t stop in time.

  With a wrenching groan, Chance had flung himself into the girl’s mind. With little practice in exercising his talents, he hadn’t been sure it would work, but it had. Propelled by his internal command, she’d thrown herself aside just as the truck roared past with brakes squealing.

  Exhausted, Chance had returned to himself in time to see the gleam of recognition on his father’s face. Now Raymond was full of plans.

  The sky was the limit, he declared. Once Chance put to work his skills at mind control, they could dominate their industry, expand into other businesses and even influence legislation. The world would be theirs.

  Wearily, Chance gazed around the courtyard. He loved this house, and he knew it would be difficult to afford the payments through honest work.

  But tonight something unexpected had happened. He still wasn’t quite sure how it had come about.

  He hadn’t meant to manipulate that delightful sprite into his bed. Entering her mind had been unintentional. In fact, he had the peculiar sense that she had entered his first, but how could that be?

  The responsibility lay on his shoulders. Without meaning to, he had taken advantage of a very special lady. He must learn to rein in his powers; already, they had become dangerously strong. Tonight, they had overwhelmed him.

  Until now, Chance had weighed the possibility of indulging his father a little without going beyond the bounds of fair play. But this ability to enter others’ minds was more potent than he had expected.

  He must cut his ties to his family and find his own way in the world. While earning a masters’ degree in business, he had discovered an affinity for the financial markets. He must develop his talents in that direction— without using magic.

  At the memory of the woman’s heightened sensitivity, Chance’s body stiffened. He wanted her again, physically and mentally. He wanted to probe what had happened between them, and make sure she hadn’t been harmed by it

  But if he’d lost control once around her, it might happen again. At this point in his life, with his abilities coming into full strength while he yet lacked the skill to control them, he might injure her.

  At least she shouldn’t suffer any great distress from tonight’s encounter. What had occurred had been at so deep a level of consciousness that he doubted she would remember it.

  But, to be on the safe side, Chance had instinctively acted to protect his privacy by leaving a kind of posthypnotic suggestion. As far as his lady was concerned, he would be less than a phantom, scarcely a shadow of a memory.

  She would go on with her life, only vaguely aware of a sensual experience that would seem more dreamlike than real. She would forget him, and perhaps that was for the best.

  But he would never forget her. And he doubted he would ever stop wanting her, either.

  Chapter One

  Being in the first grade was mostly fun, especially in Mrs. Wilson’s classroom, because she kept a chinchilla and two hamsters in cages. Also she read funny stories aloud and let you watch Winnie the Pooh cartoons during recess when it rained.

  But Harry Blayne hated lunch. He didn’t actually hate his lunch, because Mommy put good things in it, like granola bars, and celery sticks stuffed with peanut butter, and blue-colored juice. But he hated lunch because John Abernathy the Third always sat at his table.

  John Abernathy made fun of the fact that Harry didn’t have a daddy. John had two daddies, one for weekends and one during the week.

  Also, John was a lot bigger because he had repeated kindergarten, and he could make a peashooter out of his straw and whap Harry with it so Harry nearly choked on his granola bar. The teachers never saw John do it, either.

  Today was even worse, because it was Friday and the cafeteria was serving pizza. Harry was stuck with his usual lunch because Mommy didn’t earn much as an office manager, so he always had to brown-bag it.

  John had bullied an extra piece from the little girl next to him. Now, while the lunch monitor was on the other side of the room, he leaned across the table to pester Harry.

  “Well, look at Scary Harry!” teased the bully. “Don’t you like pizza? I’ve got two pieces. Bet you wish you had one!”

  “Choke on it,” muttered Harry.

  “Would you like one?” taunted John, holding out a slice of pizza with two tempting circles of pepperoni on it. “Come and get it, Mr. Stupid!” Some of the other kids laughed nervously.

  “I don’t like pizza,” said Harry, even though he wasn’t supposed to lie.

  John waved the slice so the smell made Harry’s stomach rumble. “Well, that’s good. I love pizza. Did I tell you my daddy buys me a whole pizza anytime I want?”

  It wasn’t fair. Harry could smell the rich sauce and almost taste the thick cheese. The worst part was that any minute John was going to stick that delicious thing in his mouth.

  Then Harry got an idea. It was something he’d been playing with in their apartment, but it upset Mommy, so he only did it in his room now.

  He stared at the slice. It quivered, just a tad. John was grinning. “Boy, you really want it, don’t you? Maybe you could trade me something for it. How about that new watch you got for your birth—”

  With a faint whoosh, the pizza flew through the air, right into Harry’s hand. He stuffed it in his mouth before John could grab it back.

  A flurry of childish voices could be heard. “Wow!” “Did you see that?” “What happened?” “Harry made the pizza fly!”

  “You stole my pizza!” roared John.

  “It likes me better than you,” said Harry, or that’s what he tried to say, but with his mouth full, it came out a mumble.

  “Thief!” John picked up a fork and, to the collective gasp of the watching students, flung it at Harry.

  There wasn’t time to think or duck. Harry could feel his mind reaching out, very calmly, as if everything had slowed down, and this invisible hand grabbed the fork and heaved it back the way it had come.

  John’s shriek silenced the cafeteria. A red mark on his forehead showed where the fork had hit.

  A fifth-grade teacher stood in the aisle staring at Harry. With a gulp, he realized that she’d seen him make the fork turn around in midair.

  Mommy was going to be really, really mad.

  TARA PUSHED OPEN the door to her apartment and staggered inside. She hadn’t realized there was so much personal stuff in her desk at work until she had to clean it out.

  The bright light of midday washed across the living room, picking out every ugly detail of the stained carpet and the threadbare couch. This wasn’t the kind of place where she’d imagined herself living and raising a child. Now she was unsure she would even be able to keep this.

  Downsizing. Rightsizing. No matter what they called it, the result was that after six years as an office manager, Tara Blayne, single mother, was out of a job.

  She dumped the armful of notebooks and desk accessories onto the scarred coffee table. She couldn’t turn to her father, who had refused to accept her phone calls or respond to her letters all these years since
she decided not to put Harry up for adoption.

  Tears threatened to wreck Tara’s composure, but she rubbed her eyes fiercely. This wasn’t the end of the world. It was just one more setback. At least she had her son, the most precious part of her life.

  Maybe she should have listened to Denise and tried to find the father after she discovered she was pregnant. He’d been rich, Denise had pointed out. He ought to help support his own child.

  But Tara couldn’t bring herself to do it. For one thing, after they discovered they’d misread the street sign and landed at the wrong party, she’d been overwhelmed by a sense of shame at her behavior.

  Plus she had such a vague recollection of the man that sometimes she wondered if she’d been drugged. Of course, there was no way of proving that now. But he must have been a terrible person to take advantage of her that way.

  And if he was rich, that meant he could afford the best lawyers. These days, plenty of men sought custody and got it.

  The sharp buzz of the phone startled her. Who would be calling in the middle of the day, when no one was supposed to be home?

  “Mrs. Blayne?” came the voice of the school secretary. “I tried your office but they said you’d left. The principal has requested that you come to his office right away. I’m afraid there’s been a discipline problem with Harry.”

  When she related, with apologies for the implausibility, what had happened in the lunchroom, Tara felt a jolt of dismay. She’d tried to tell herself that what she’d seen Harry do with his toys had been a misperception. But now a teacher had witnessed the same thing.

  Either the world was going crazy, or Harry’s father had been a lot stranger than Tara imagined.

  IT WAS NEARLY EIGHT o’clock by the time Chance got home from the office, and he still needed to put in a couple of hours on the computer.

  As he crossed the driveway from the garage, his steps crushed some alyssum that had infiltrated the cracks, filling the spring air with the flowers’ honeyed essence. Involuntarily, he imagined his lady beside him and how she would relish the gentle fragrance. But she was only a ghost of a memory, elusive as a moonbeam.