Nine

CHIARA

AS I watch the gorgeous man in front of me, I feel strange.

In a bit of a quandary.

Unbelievable.

But in my first glimpse of him, giddiness and pure lust slammed into me.

I’m a virgin, for pity’s sake. I’ve never felt anything like this for any man, even the sexually magnetic men I have encountered in my life as my father’s heiress. Or those beautiful men who modeled in shoots of some of the projects I undertook for my publisher.

Never.

I have dated but I never had a boyfriend.

I had lusted, but never felt the desire to jump to bed with the man who triggered the yearning like this. I need something more. I need to know the man, need more time.

Nothing like this.

This is pure, undiluted lust, for a stranger.

And it doesn’t make any sense.

So I know it is the magick that’s doing this.

And I know, without him saying, that he was Gideon Swan.

He is the awakened warlock.

And Jesus H. Christ… he is potent.

It is all I can do to stay calm.

I try to imagine what my mother will do in th