The Djinn Page 3

  “Tempting,” he murmured, his head drifting closer until his lips were so near her own she thought she could feel them, just brushing hers. Her lips tingled, itched for more intimate contact.

  When he did nothing more, she found she couldn't bear the suspense, couldn't bear to allow him to pull away again without kissing her. She couldn't remember ever wanting anything nearly as badly. Allowing her eyelids to drift downward, she leaned closer, brushed her lips against those so tantalizingly close to her own, touched her tongue to the smooth, hard surface. A sound, like the rumbling growl of a bear escaped him. For a moment, she thought he would yield to her touch.

  Abruptly, he moved away, his eyes narrowed still, though something else flickered in them now. He looked at her a long moment. “Enchantress,” he murmured and vanished.

  Elise blinked as she landed on the couch with a gentle bounce, then looked around, but she knew he was gone, for all the warmth and excitement had died and gone as well.

  * * * *

  “You should wish for a palace."

  The words brought Elise wide awake. Blinking her eyes against the light streaming into her bedroom, she looked around in search of the speaker. Raheem, she saw, was pacing her room, his hands clasped behind his back, a look of contempt on his face as he examined her abode. Flopping back against the mattress, Elise pulled the covers over her head. “You again. Am I being punished or something?"

  He didn't respond and after a moment, Elise lowered the covers again to see what he was doing. He'd paused by the bed and picked up the framed picture of John. A shaft of anger went through her. She snatched the picture from him, clutching it against her chest.

  He lifted his brows at her. “Who is this man?"

  “My husband, John,” she said stiffly.

  His brows rose. “Where is this husband?"

  Elise looked away. “Gone,” she said flatly and scooted to the edge of the bed. Pulling the drawer of her bedside table open, she carefully placed the picture frame inside and closed the drawer. When she sat back and pushed her hair from her eyes, she saw Raheem had extended his hand. Without a whisper of sound, the drawer slid from the night stand and levitated, hovering before him. He examined the contents curiously while Elise gaped at him with a combination of surprise and irritation. Before she could demand that he put it back however, he reached inside and pulled a plastic packet out. “What is this?"

  Elise blushed to the roots of her hair. “Birth control,” she mumbled, trying to snatch it from him.

  He ignored her, opening the packet and tossing the wrapper aside, then held the condom up and looked at it. “How is this used?"

  Elise's lips tightened. She got up abruptly and headed for the bathroom. “You're so smart, you figure it out."

  She slammed the door behind her.

  Much good it did.

  He appeared before her, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Elise wasn't looking at his face, however.

  He was wearing the damned condom ... and absolutely nothing else.

  “Aren't you the clever one?” she muttered a little weakly, tearing her gaze from the unnerving member and moving past him to the shower. “Do you mind?” she asked, tossing a glance at his face.

  He waved a hand.

  “I want to take a shower now."

  He nodded.

  “Go away!"

  “Where?"

  “Mars might be far enough."

  He vanished and Elise relaxed fractionally, relieved herself, then tossed her night clothes aside and got into the shower. The hot water revived her but it did nothing to calm her jittery nerves or her aggravation. If she couldn't get rid of the damned genie, they were at least going to have to come to terms with the bathroom issue.

  When she wiped the water from her face, Raheem was standing directly in front of her, scowling. “It is a barren world."

  Elise gaped at him. “What are you doing in my damned shower!"

  “You are an ill tempered wench!"

  “You should talk!” Elise said, planting her hands on her hips.

  He stepped closer, until their bodies were nearly brushing. “You have not seen my wrath!” he growled.

  Elise's eyes widened. Abruptly, she remembered she was naked and covered herself. The washcloth was woefully inadequate, however.

  Distracted by her movements, he looked down, his eyes narrowing. “You cover yourself from my sight."

  “Don't look and I won't have to,” Elise said shortly. “I really, really prefer to be alone when I'm in here."

  A gleam entered his eyes, banishing his ill temper. As abruptly as he'd appeared, he disappeared. Elise felt more than a little uneasy about that gleam in his eyes, however.

  * * * *

  Elise told herself, at least a dozen times, that she was relieved. She hadn't seen Raheem in days. She didn't know what she'd said that had finally convinced him to remove himself from her life, but she was glad. She'd been surprised, but relieved, when she returned from work and found him absent. She'd almost overslept the following day because she'd more than half expected him to wake her and he hadn't. When two days passed with her expecting him to reappear at any moment and he didn't, she began to relax and fall back into her normal routine.

  The little stopper was still in the bottle, however.

  She was fairly certain he couldn't have gone back to his own world when the gateway was blocked to him.

  The third day after her final encounter with the difficult djinn, Raheem, Elise decided, for no particular reason, that it was time she collected John's possessions and packed them away. She'd left everything pretty much as it had been since they'd moved into the house. She hadn't wanted anything else in her life to change. The house, at least, must remain comfortingly familiar.

  Now, however, she felt a restlessness for change.

  She decided it was spring fever ... a little early, perhaps, with spring still weeks away, but undoubtedly that was it.

  She started by emptying his closet. Despite her resolve to pack away the memories with John's things, she found she couldn't resist sniffing his clothes for any telltale scent of him that might linger.

  She was disappointed. The clothing merely smelled of laundry detergent and dust, but she refused to allow her disappointment to get a firm grip on her, dismissing it, busying herself collecting everything except the picture in her night stand and packing it up to take to charity.

  As she was bending over to set the last of the boxes in the hallway, the sleeve of her T-shirt fell off. Elise stared at the wedge of cloth, and then down at herself in stunned surprise. The threads hadn't even seemed loose. How could it just fall off?

  Frowning, she picked the piece of fabric up and examined it. There was no sign of rot. Apparently, the thread in the seams had just given way.

  How very odd! “That'll teach me to shop at discount stores,” she muttered, clutching the fabric in her hand as she started to her room to find another shirt. She'd reached the door of the room when the side seam of the T-shirt gave way. The remains of the shirt slid down her arm, bringing her to an abrupt halt. “Thank God I didn't go out in this,” she said, leaning over to retrieve the scraps of fabric and wadding them into a ball. Crossing the room, she pulled a drawer out and found another shirt. As she turned, slipping her arms into the shirt, then lifting them over her head to pull the new shirt on, her shorts fell to her feet.

  Aborting the attempt to pull the shirt over her head, Elise gaped at her shorts on the floor uncomprehendingly.

  A deep chuckle brought her around with a jerk.

  Raheem was sprawled across the foot of her bed, his head propped in his hand. As she watched, he lifted his hand, pointing at her, then wiggled his forefinger.

  Her bra fell off.

  She gasped, covering her breasts with the shirt she still held in her hands.

  It was at that point that her panties dropped to her ankles.

  When she looked up again, Raheem had vanished.

  Chapt
er Four

  Elise did not delude herself into believing Raheem had vanished for good. Two days passed without him, with her jumping at every creak of the house, checking each room for him when she came in in the evenings—dressing, or changing with frantic haste.

  She'd made a serious mistake in making it so obvious that nudity unnerved her. She'd given Raheem the means to revenge himself upon her for sending him off to the north pole on a wild goose chase.

  The devil.

  She hadn't even had the chance to ‘wish’ that he would not intrude on her privacy in the bath. Not that she was at all certain that he would honor the wish, but she'd like to think she could brush her teeth, bathe and ... pee without an audience.

  She spent a good deal of time trying to think of a wish she could make that would permanently remove him from her life, that he couldn't twist into something unpleasant.

  Finally, after nearly a week of restless sleep, she came in from work and fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV.

  It was a chill breath of air that woke her. Disoriented, she sat up, rubbing her neck, glancing around sleepily to see if she could figure out where the draft was coming from. When she first saw the mound of clothing on the floor at her feet, she merely looked at it blankly, wondering when and why she'd left laundry on the floor by the couch.

  Her bare legs came into focus just about the time the clothing began to snake across the floor toward her bedroom as if they were alive. Reflexively, she jerked her feet off the floor, thinking, at first, that something was under the clothes. When her bare knees made contact with her bare breasts, however, everything fell into place.

  “Raheem!” she shouted, jumping to her feet.

  He didn't answer, but her clothing continued to slither in the direction of her bedroom. She darted for them, trying to catch them before they were completely beyond reach, but each time she reached to sweep them up, they jerked beyond her grasp.

  “This isn't funny!"

  The only answer was a splash from the direction of the bathroom.

  Stalking toward the door, Elise flung it open.

  Raheem was lounging back in her whirlpool, a wicked smile curling the corners of his lips.

  Elise plunked her hands on her hips, but, to her chagrin, she couldn't think of anything to say.

  Lifting a hand, he crooked a finger at her.

  Elise grabbed frantically for the door frame.

  She landed on his water slick chest and slid down it. Scrambling frantically for purchase, she finally managed to lever herself up, but before she could leap from the tub, Raheem grasped her firmly about the waist and settled her on his lap ... straddling him. A hard ridge of flesh rose to snuggle between her spread thighs, nudging against the crevice of her body.

  Wide eyed, she looked up at Raheem.

  He wasn't smiling anymore.

  Elise's heart was thundering in her chest until she could hardly catch her breath. It should have been fear. It wasn't.

  If she'd harbored any misapprehensions that the djinn was a dangerous ... entity ... she could no longer delude herself. She was certain that that was the main objective of the little demonstration he'd just given her, that he could be anywhere and she would not know it, do anything. She was fortunate he hadn't decided to do anything really unpleasant.

  The rational part of her mind knew all of that. The sensory part of her mind was flooding her body with the natural chemicals of pleasure, making her skin hypersensitive in anticipation of pleasurable stimulation. She didn't know whether to be glad, or further unnerved that Raheem was no more able to control his body's response to her than she to him.

  Djinn or not, she could see that Raheem had snared himself by snaring her. His erection was proof enough of that, but desire shown in his darkening eyes, as well, his pupils dilating with need at their proximity.

  Inwardly, she struggled against the compulsion to give in to her clamoring body, to throw caution to the wind and push him past self-control. To distract herself, she said the first thing that came to mind. “Why did you call me enchantress before?"

  She blushed the moment the words were out. It sounded as if she was fishing for compliments. She knew, though, that he hadn't meant the comment as a compliment. She thought for several moments he wouldn't answer.

  “You are not?"

  “Something like a witch?” She shook her head. “Why would you think that?"

  Instead of answering, he frowned, looked down at her, studying her body in a leisurely fashion that threatened her self-control. “It is written that evil will befall those who yield to the temptation of the flesh. I have not ... been tempted before."

  Biblical, and yet she didn't believe he meant it quite that way. “If the djinn should yield to the temptation to ... lie with a mortal, you mean?"

  His gaze returned to her face. After a moment, he nodded ever so slightly.

  She should not have been so pleased that he had admitted he found her as tempting as she did him. He'd left her in no doubt of how very dangerous he was ... and he was not of her world ... and she was not the sort of woman to whom casual sex appealed, which meant that, even if the curse of the djinn did not touch her, she was still in danger of having ‘evil’ befall her if she yielded to temptation.

  “It's emotional as much as physical...."

  A scowl descended over his features. “The djinn does not suffer the weakness of emotion. We are far too superior to be vulnerable to human weaknesses."

  Elise's lips tightened with anger, but she knew very well that it wasn't his superior attitude so much as the fear that he spoke the truth, that he was immune to those emotions that could so easily devastate her. “You suffer from temper and conceit!” she snapped. “If that's not emotion, I'm damned if I know what is!"

  “You are only human. You can not be expected to comprehend."

  “No?"

  “No,” he said coolly.

  Elise studied him a long moment and leaned toward him. A wary look came into his eyes, but he did not move away. She brushed her lips lightly across his, then gently kissed the corner of his mouth. “I think I understand far more than you do,” she whispered.

  She felt a tremor run through him. For a moment she thought that she had pushed him too far. His hands slipped upward from her waist to just below her breasts, his fingers tightening as if he fought a round with himself as to whether to push her away or pull her closer.

  Abruptly, he vanished. Elise, who'd been leaning toward him, nearly lost her balance and landed in the tub face first. “Coward!” she growled at the empty air.

  He didn't respond, but she didn't believe he'd gone far. “Fine! You don't want to be tempted—I wish that you will never come into this room again when I'm in here! You hear me? Or take off my clothes!"

  “That is two wishes. I will only grant one."

  The voice came from no where and everywhere at once. Elise's head whipped around, but he had not materialized again. “Fine! The first one, then. But if you're so damned worried about temptation you should seriously consider NOT taking my clothes off or touching me! It's a damned sight easier to resist temptations of the flesh when you're not rubbing naked body parts!"

  The encounter spawned such vivid erotic dreams that Elise would have wondered if they had actually happened except for one crucial detail. When she awoke, her body was on fire with unfulfilled desire. Exhausted as she was from such troubled sleep, she realized almost immediately that the nightclothes she'd gone to bed in had disappeared. Struggling up on one elbow, she looked over the side of the bed. Sure enough, her gown and panties lay in a heap beside the bed.

  In her dreams, she'd taken them off and tossed them onto the floor, but she didn't believe for one moment that she'd done it in reality. Sure enough, even as she reached for the gown, it slithered across the floor. She stared at the creeping bit of lingerie dully and finally flopped back onto the bed, arms spread wide. “Have it your way!"

  Despite her irritation, exhaustion almost
got the best of her. She was drifting to sleep once more when she became aware of a presence. Opening her eyes, she saw without much surprise that Raheem was watching her.

  She glared at him. “What did I do to deserve having you worry the hell out of me?"

  “You breached the gateway."

  Elise sat up abruptly and looked at him. He was lying on his side, his head propped on his hand, but he hovered above the bed by more than a foot. “The bottle's a gateway?"

  “You had surmised as much."

  “So you're the djinn of the gateway? Not the bottle?"

  “Guardian."

  Elise studied him a long moment and finally got out of bed and went into the bathroom. To her relief, he didn't follow her. She supposed that meant that she'd used up another wish and wondered how many more she would have to use up before he would leave forever and allow her life to return to normal.

  The thought brought a lump to her throat. Normal. Boring, lonely—

  She shook those thoughts off. It was her own fault that her life was boring and lonely. She'd chosen to avoid relationships since John's death. She could choose not to avoid them and sooner or later, surely, she would meet someone who would make her happy.

  No one could replace John, but she neither wanted nor needed a replacement. She needed someone else.

  As far as that went, she was an adult. She could seek the entertainment available to adults. She could make new friends, reacquaint herself with old friends, go out and do things. She didn't have to confine herself to the day-to-day drudge of work then home then work again.

  It was dangerous even to consider how much she would've liked to have Raheem around indefinitely, when he couldn't stay indefinitely even if he wanted to. Sooner or later, once he'd done what he came to do, performed whatever ritual it was that he had to perform to seal the gateway once more, he would return to his own world and his own concerns.

  She decided she must have a streak of masochism. Raheem aggravated her endlessly. Why would she want to have someone around who went out of his way to tease and torment her? He was handsome in a purely male way, exotic even. He had a gorgeous body—any red blooded female would lust after a man than looked like Raheem.