Chapter Eleven

“You want me to give you half my flavors?” Seb repeated. “Why should I?”

Fen tried desperately to gauge his mood. She’d been so wary of this encounter, fearful that if she got close to him, she’d lose control again. Slip over the edge. Maybe do something stupid like throw herself in his arms and kiss him senseless.

She’d been right to be wary—the temptation to do just that was staggering. But this was about business—no, about her dream.

Now, for the first time, she caught a spark of anger in his dark eyes.

“Because they’re my flavors,” she declared.

“That has still to be established. The notes in the safety deposit box—”

“Are still languishing at the bank. Meanwhile, we’re dealing with our menus every day. I propose you give me half of your flavors—okay, the flavors—and I give you half.”

Seb shook his head.

“License to half, I mean. Look at the list. I’ve drawn a line down the middle.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll even let you choose, Column A or Column B. Henceforth, you produce only flavors from your column, and take my column off your menu. I’ll do the same.”

He squinted at the paper again. Fen waited, filled with anxiety. If he agreed to this, she might not have to deal with him again.

Might not have to see him again.

Her heart began to pound overtime.

He looked up from the list. “What about any new flavors we develop? I’ve got one or two ideas, apart from the one in the safety deposit box. Customers love new flavors.”

“Right.” Fen hadn’t thought of that. “We discuss them beforehand. If they’re too similar, we suspend production.”

He frowned. “Fenady, they’re bound to be similar. I still say there’s something going on—”

“We consult.” Which meant she would get to see him again. “Look, Seb, this is an opportunity for a truce. Usually, when negotiating a truce, both sides have to make concessions.”

“True.”

“I’m willing to suspend hostilities, even though I’m still not sure you didn’t somehow poach my flavors.” And even though he, personally, tasted better than any ice cream she’d ever put in her mouth.

He gave her a quizzical look, almost as if he heard the thoughts in her head. Goddess, she hoped not.

“All right, Miss Fenady, if this is what you want.”

“It is.”

“I’ll choose Column A.”

“Good.” To be fair, she’d divided their best and medium sellers. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

He leaned close. “Shall I tell you what I want?”

Fen’s eyes widened. She went breathless. “Uh—go ahead.”

“I want us to be able to coexist.”

“Oh, that. Yes.”

“And I want the two of us to have a relationship. Maybe be friends.”

“Friends? I’m not sure I can manage that. I mean, I would—” Like a woman stricken, she gazed into his eyes. Magic lay there, deep and dark as devil’s food, and a ripple of desire like an undertow. How could she resist?

Unable to, she leaned in and kissed him. Immediately, she knew it for a bad idea. He tasted even better than she’d remembered, and she’d been remembering him continually. Now she was falling so fast and so hard, she had to grab hold of him to stay on her feet.

“Oh, Fenady. Fenady.” He stopped kissing her long enough to breathe her name into her mouth. He dove back into her, giving her what she needed, what she’d craved. Her body began to tingle as if electrified.

You can’t, her brain screamed at her.

Shut up, she told it. I want, I want, I want.

Somehow, she stopped kissing Seb long enough to ask, “Did you get any more—er—protection?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“You did?”

“I’m the eternal optimist.”

“Where, where can we—?”

“Here. On the beach.”

The wildness of the idea leaped from the fire in his eyes directly to Fen’s veins. “Oh, yes. But someone will see.”

“No. Come on.”

He took her hand and, just like last time, they ran. The cat came after them, an oversized, fluffy shadow at their heels. The moon, dodging in and out of clouds, produced flashes of magical light.

Magic. Fen had been right from the first—Seb had magic. He was magic.

They never paused till they’d passed Wicked Good. Here the beach ended in a curve where rocks stretched out to meet the sea. Seb tugged her hand and they climbed among them to a sandy basin, screened from below.

“Oh,” Fen said involuntarily. She turned slowly to survey their location. Black ocean as far as the eye could see, and enclosing rock. It felt like being cupped in a sheltering hand.

“It’s per—”

Before she could finish, Seb kissed her again, so hungrily she forgot words. Her passion—her power—rose to meet his on equal terms. When witch encountered witch, it became elemental, like water striking stone and as inevitable as the tide.

Fen, caught in the intensity of it, could no longer think coherently. Instead, she surrendered to all she’d been feeling since last she’d been with him. Her mind reverted to a primitive state wherein need and sensation drove all. The most she managed was, Touch me there. Faster. Harder. Again.

Never, she thought after, when she lay in Seb’s arms staring up at the sky, had she committed an act so primal. They might have been the first male and female, mating beside the first stretch of ocean, beneath the first moon.

For the moon had watched it all. And after beholding their passion, how dared she show Fen such a serene face? She continued to sail through her rafts of clouds as if Fen’s whole world hadn’t changed.

As if Fen hadn’t changed.

Seb stirred from the place he’d come to rest when their passion crested, and his ruffled, dark head brushed her cheek.

“Fenady. Fenady.” He caught her face between his hands and showered her mouth with hot kisses. “Tell me this isn’t a one-off. I mean…I mean how can you deny this kind of attraction? I don’t want to give you up. Tell me we can work things out.”

“I don’t know.” A woman in shock, Fen struggled to think. Her body screamed at her, Work it out. Give up anything—anything to be with him. Her mind protested, Careful. Don’t commit yourself to something that might rob you of all you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Her heart—well, her heart ached with longing. Her heart wanted something it had never had.

“Fenady.” Seb went still suddenly, her face still captured between his palms. She couldn’t see what lay in his eyes. All the light shone from behind him. “Fenady, I think I might be falling in love with you.”

Everything froze. For an instant, it even seemed the sea ceased to shush against the shore. Or maybe Fen’s consciousness merely flickered, like the moonlight.

Seb huffed a breath. “Don’t leave me hanging, here. How do you feel?”

“Oh, Seb.” Did he expect her to return those words? Now, when all her senses remained blasted? Maybe not, but he hoped she would.

Her heart spoke to that hope, even as something softened within her. “I think I could fall in love with you.”

“Tell me I can see you again, be with you again—like this.”

Could a woman say no to an irresistible force? Maybe not, but oh, giving in to it felt scary, like surrendering her will.

And her instinct for self-protection… Yes, that was what made her run from him, not feeble excuses about ice-cream flavors and supposed pilfering.

She sat up in the sandy hollow, still naked. Seb sat up also, and she caught a look at what lay in his eyes. It took her breath away.

If she committed herself to a relationship with him, it would change everything. True, her world had already changed. Passion like this on a repeated basis might steal from her the desire for anything else.

She couldn’t lose herself, even to him. She couldn’t afford to lose anything at all. Yet she didn’t want to hurt him, and she couldn’t deny what lay between them.

She raised gentle fingers to his face. “Let’s play it by ear, okay? See where things go.”

“Does that mean you’ll agree to see me again?”

If by see me he meant travel back to that primal place of bottomless passion, well—sex that good might blind her to the goals toward which she’d been striving for so long.

She whispered, “We’ll see.”

“Yeah, Fenady Clark,” he agreed with just a slightly ironic edge, “we’ll see what the fates have in store for us.”