Charm This! Read online

  But Rachel was already running out the door of the restaurant, her breath making clouds of mist in the snowy air.

  16

  Rachel

  Rachel was panting by the time she reached Sticks & Stones.

  She was in good enough shape, but the cold air was burning in her lungs and running on the snowy sandstone sidewalks in heels had her thighs trembling.

  She burst in, dashing past the glass cases and through the curtain into the old barbershop without bothering to close the front door of the shop.

  It was dark. The work lights were off.

  Jack was gone.

  And she didn’t even know where he lived. She remembered him saying something about renting a room in town, but she had been too busy trying not to throw herself into his arms to remember where.

  She briefly considered driving out to the farm to ask his Mom and then realized that was crazy.

  Instead, she sank to the dusty floor and buried her head in her hands.

  She tried to calm herself. She was fairly certain she could track him down in the morning, after all, his tools were still spread around the worksite.

  Oh, god.

  His tools.

  Jack was so meticulous about caring for them. He must have left in a hurry. Which only added credence to the bad feeling she’d had looking back at him as she got into Anderson’s car - a feeling that she’d torn things between them to a point that no tools could repair.

  And if Jack was that upset, things might not be the same in the morning. She might have lost her chance.

  He was a nice guy. Maybe he would agree to finish working on her shop. He might even be a friend to her. But the romance would be over.

  No, she had to find him. And it had to be tonight.

  She pulled herself up off the floor, brushed off the plaster dust and headed back through the curtain.

  The soft glow of the glass jewelry cases and the Christmas lights in the window illuminated the store just enough to make out the snow coming down outside through the front door she had carelessly left open.

  She took a few steps and noticed a flash of movement on the street outside.

  The shape was massive, but too low to the ground to be human. It hurtled itself across the sidewalk and into the shop.

  She thought briefly about grabbing one of the swords off the wall to defend herself, but the thing was moving too fast. She barely had enough time to take a step before it took a final leap and landed in the threshold, its gigantic claws skidding across the oak floor until it came to stop directly in front of her.

  A dog.

  No.

  A wolf.

  The beast gazed at her with yellow eyes that were too expressive for a wild animal. But she couldn’t meet its stare because she was too busy trying to take in the massive shoulders, glossy black coat and the wide stance of its muscular legs, paws splayed out on the oak as if for purchase.

  Her heart began to beat again and then she realized she was going to die.

  Oh sweet heaven, the irony. She had spent her life so reserved, and now, in the very moment that she was ready to risk it all, she was going to be eaten by a wolf like in some kind of fairy tale.

  Her hands went up involuntarily and she tried to back up but slipped and landed hard on her bottom.

  The wolf was on her in an instant.

  When she tried to get up, it stilled her with a massive paw to her chest.

  Rachel lay back down on the ground.

  Were you supposed to play dead when you were attacked by wolves? Or was that bears?

  Her addled mind refused to answer, so she lay still.

  The massive face of the beast appeared above her.

  He was definitely going to bite her face off.

  But somehow she couldn’t close her eyes.

  She watched as the shaggy face with the hypnotic citrine eyes came closer and closer. It opened its mouth wide…

  A massive, scratchy tongue swiped her face from chin to forehead.

  “Oh,” she said.

  The creature chuffed and licked her again.

  What the heck?

  “Whose pet are you?” she asked.

  It cocked its head as if it were about to answer her.

  Suddenly the weight on her chest eased a little.

  And she was looking into the hazel eyes of Jack Harkness.

  17

  Jack

  Jack suddenly noticed the cool wood under his skin.

  His bare skin.

  He wasn’t a wolf anymore.

  He was a man.

  A naked man.

  And Rachel was probably terrified.

  He hadn’t meant to run here as a wolf. In his excitement he had forgotten to shift.

  He studied her face in the moonlight.

  She didn’t look terrified.

  She looked… curious.

  “How long have you been able to do that?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t even shaking.

  Rachel DelGato was one cool customer.

  “Since I was a kid,” he replied. “Kind of.”

  “That seems like an all or nothing business to me,” she said dubiously.

  Jack began to laugh.

  She sat up and smoothed down her hair.

  “Sorry, Rachel,” he said. “I just… thought you would be more… freaked out.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m a little freaked out, but I can’t say I’m completely surprised. There was always something different about you.”

  “That’s because I’m lovable,” he teased.

  “I would have called it animal magnetism,” she said. “But whatever floats your boat. Listen, I have to talk to you about something.”

  “What?” he asked, incredulous.

  “I really need to get something off my chest.”

  “Besides a giant wolf?” he joked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Seriously, you don’t have one follow up question about this?” he asked, gesturing to himself.

  “We can talk about that later,” she told him crisply, eyes darting briefly down to take in his naked body.

  “Can I at least get some clothes, in case someone wanders by the shop?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, sure, come upstairs,” she said, standing and brushing herself off.

  He watched her close and lock the shop door, then he followed her up the spiral staircase again, thunderstruck at the aplomb with which she turned her back to him and climbed the narrow stairs, after having seen him as a wolf the size of a small horse.

  She flicked the switch at the top of the stairs, and once again her little apartment was aglow with fairy lights.

  She slipped out of her shoes, then went straight to her sleeping area. She grabbed a silk bathrobe from a hook by the bed and threw it to him.

  He caught it and put it on.

  Then she climbed onto the bed, curled her legs up, and patted the spot across from her.

  Jack climbed into the spot obediently.

  “I owe you an apology,” Rachel said.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he told her immediately.

  “No,” she said. “Let me finish. I talked with someone tonight who helped me recognize how stupid I’ve been.”

  “Was it that charm guy?” Jack heard the jealousy in his own voice and felt a little ashamed.

  “Yes, it was Anderson,” Rachel said with a small smile.

  Damn it. Was she amused by his jealousy?

  “Anyway,” she continued. “It’s not fair for me to assume you won’t like something about me without telling you. It wasn’t right for me to try to run you off without giving you the opportunity to decide for yourself if there is a future for us.”

  “Do you want a future with me?” he hoped she couldn’t hear the pleading note he was trying to keep out of his voice.

  “Yes,” she said. “Very much.”

  “Then you have one,” he said simply. “I don’t care what else there is. Whatever you’ve
done you can keep it to yourself.”

  “What I’ve done?” she echoed.

  “Well, it sounds like maybe you did something you’re ashamed of,” he ventured.

  She shook her head and bit her lip.

  “I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said. “If it will ease your mind to tell me, then please tell me. But it won’t matter.”

  “I can’t have children,” she said, looking down at her hands.

  Oh.

  “Rachel, I know that,” he said softly, taking her hands in his.

  “You- you do?” she looked up at him in wonder.

  “It’s a small town,” he said. “I knew it was none of my business and, I was never sure if it was true until you said it just now. But my sister is friends with your pal, Belinda. It’s not that they were gossiping. But that’s the kind of sadness that gets shared around because no one can bear to hold the secret alone.”

  Rachel nodded. She looked like she was going to cry.

  “It hurts you, I can see that,” he told her. “And if you don’t ever want to adopt children we don’t have to. I love my nieces and nephews, I’ll spoil them to death and if you feel like it, you’ll help.”

  She sucked in a breath and he stopped talking, hoping she might start.

  “No, it’s not me,” she said. “I mean it was, but I made my peace with it when I was in high school. It’s you, Jack.”

  “Me?” He was stupefied.

  “With your background,” she said. “I thought it would be important to you to make a family you had a biological connection with.”

  “Do you think I feel bad about being a Harkness kid?”

  Her face went serious immediately.

  “No, Jack, no, that’s not at all what I’m saying.”

  Oh shit.

  She probably thought he was talking about the stigma of being poor. It was true, the Harkness kids were always wearing each other’s hand-me-downs and they never bought school-made lunches or got new cars when they were sixteen.

  “No, Rachel, honey. I know you weren’t talking about money,” he said. “I can see that it’s about the fact that I was a foster kid.”

  She nodded, her eyes were wet with tears but they didn’t fall.

  “Don’t you see how much I love my family?” he asked her. “Can’t you understand how proud I am to be part of their lives? That bond runs deeper than blood. It’s who I am.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hands back.

  “I always hoped I could do the same for another child, like what Kate did for me,” Jack said, his voice growing gruff as he fought the tears of emotion. He had never shared this secret wish until now. “I had a crush on you from the first time I saw you, Rachel. When I heard that you couldn’t have kids, I sort of felt like maybe we were fated - like we were meant to be together, to make a family for that child who needed one.”

  The next thing he knew, her arms were around his neck and she was weeping and crushing herself to his chest as if she would never let him go.

  18

  Rachel

  Rachel clung to Jack. She was drowning in a sea of emotions, some of them sad, some sweet, and he was her anchor.

  It only seemed natural that one moment he was holding her and the next he was kissing her, trailing a finger up her cheek to catch her tears.

  Then there was a desperate wrangling of clothing and the satisfying moment of feeling him against her with nothing in between. The heat of his body warmed hers, warmed her heart.

  “I love you, Rachel,” he whispered to her, his hazel eyes burning into hers.

  She could feel his chest pressing her breasts, the rigid length of him pulsing between them.

  Her own body responded with a flood of desire.

  “I love you,” she told him, cupping her hands around his cheeks.

  He kissed her again, slowly and sweetly.

  But Rachel was frantic for him to posses her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, lifted her hips to show him.

  He pulled away and studied her face with mischief in his eyes.

  “Someone is eager,” he said.

  “Yes,” she smiled.

  “Patience,” he said and began to kiss her neck.

  Rachel groaned with frustration and she swore she heard him chuckle as he kissed his way lower to nuzzle her breasts and then lick her nipples into his mouth one and then the other until she nearly screamed.

  At last he was between her legs. She could feel his warm breath and the roughness of his jaw against the tender flesh of her thighs.

  She held her breath.

  Jack slid his tongue along her opening, then spread her wide with his fingers and licked her again.

  Rachel lost track of her own sounds as he pleasured her just to the brink.

  Just as she was about to shatter, he nuzzled her thigh and then crawled up to cage her head in his arms.

  “Rachel,” he said. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Now?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Won’t take long. But it’s important. You need to know what you’re getting into.”

  “Okay,” she said tentatively.

  “The whole wolf thing,” he explained. “I wasn’t able to shift for three hundred moons because of a magic spell.”

  “What magic spell?” she asked. “Why?”

  “I’ll explain all that later, baby,” he said. “Long and the short of it is that I don’t know what is going to happen when I claim you.”

  “Does claim mean…”

  He nodded.

  “So you might shift into a wolf and kill me?”

  “Good lord, no,” he said. “But it might awaken some latent ability in you.”

  “What latent ability?”

  “My brother’s new mate became sort of… intuitive,” he said.

  “I’m already intuitive,” she said, losing patience in the wake of his big strong body which was still pressed to hers.

  “I mean like, really, intuitive,” he said. “Anyway, are you okay with that?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m okay with that. I’m okay with anything, as long as it’s with you.”

  “Oh, good,” he said, leaning down to kiss her again in that infuriatingly slow and passionate way that made her toes curl.

  “Please,” she whispered when he stopped for a breath.

  “For me this means forever,” he whispered to her.

  “Forever,” she said, smiling up at him.

  He reached a hand between them to guide himself against her.

  She held her breath. He was huge and so eager.

  But when he pressed inside her, the feeling was only ecstasy.

  “Rachel,” he groaned into her hair.

  She sank her nails into his shoulders and he thrust again, sending waves of pleasure through her.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  He responded with another thrust and then another.

  Rachel moaned and the sound seemed to break down Jack’s restraint.

  At last he gave her the pace she wanted.

  Rachel felt the pleasure winding her up tighter and tighter.

  Just when she thought she would break, he slid a hand between them and massaged her just as he bit down on the place where her shoulder met her neck.

  The acute pleasure and slight pain combined to send her into waves of ecstasy. She cried out his name.

  Then he was saying her name too, as if it were a prayer, as he swelled impossibly larger inside her and she felt him fill her with the essence of his climax.

  She closed her eyes as her skin began to shiver with electricity. It was painless, as if she were touching her hand to the Van de Graff generator in middle school science class to make her hair lift up. For a moment the air hummed with… something.

  Then it stopped.

  “Did you feel that?” Jack whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you feel different?”

  She thought about it, closed her eyes, tried to see if her
intuition was any stronger.

  Nope, the only thing it told her was the obvious.

  If she kept lying here in Jack’s warm arms she was going to fall asleep immediately.

  “I feel… sleepy,” she admitted.

  He rolled them over, pulled her onto his chest.

  “Love you, baby,” he whispered as he trailed his fingers up and down her back.

  She was asleep in moments, dreaming of happiness and warm sunlight.

  19

  Jack

  Jack awoke an hour later with a sneeze. Something was tickling his nose.

  And Rachel was gone.

  He opened his eyes, panicking.

  Then he saw that there was a cat on his chest, flicking her tail vexedly in her sleep. That was what had tickled his nose.

  That was odd - he didn’t think Rachel had a pet. How could he not have smelled it, with his senses as amped up as they had been? Though truth be told, she did seem like a cat person.

  Mate, said his wolf, who was snuffling around near the surface of his consciousness.

  What?

  No, it’s a cat, he told the wolf.

  Mate, said the wolf.

  Suddenly something dawned on Jack.

  As carefully as he could, he leaned back from the cat to examine it.

  She was small and black, the exact same shade Rachel’s hair had been back in high school.

  There was something so familiar about this cat.

  Scent, the wolf said.

  And sure enough, she did smell like Rachel.

  Mate, said the wolf again in a sleepy way, and then Jack felt the wolf flop down in his mind, satisfied enough in his assessment that he planned to cement it with a nap.

  Incredible.

  So he had awoken a latent ability in her.

  But it wasn’t magic.

  It was a shifter strain that must have been somewhere in her genes, watered down and washed out, but strengthened by the magic released at the end of his spell.

  She stretched to reach him and banged her silken head against his rib cage in her sleep.