Free Sex and the Psychic Witch by Annette Blair Page A

the first time they’ve ever agreed on anything , thank you very much.” King tested his five o’clock shadow and examined the wildcat’s flawless features. Full lips, pouty, kissable—eminently kissable, he now knew. Hair of spun gold, eyes as big as saucers, aquamarine, and deceptively innocent. “Call me crazy,” he said, “but I’m determined to complete castle restorations, despite Paxton generational failures to do so . . . and despite the fact that you think I’m being hampered by a ghost.”
    “I think ? Have you sat on your punctured butt in the last hour?”
    “All right, so maybe I’m beginning to suspect you’re right. So what? I still have to finish the job I started.”
    “Which is?”
    “To get this hellish place off my hands and sell it to the highest bidder.”
    The familiar wail came from so close beside them, he jumped almost as high as the sexpot, which hurt like the devil. Pissed by his startled surprise, and by the pain in his ass, he took Harmony’s hand to lead her from harm’s way.
    In Gussie’s room, she pulled him up short. “Wha’d’ya know, there’s a gentleman hiding behind those invisible fatigues, but I hardly need protecting.”
    “You’re slipping, oh mighty mediator. That wail just now sounded more like a war cry than a peace offering, and did you already forget the toy room? Peacemaker, my . . . ass.”
    “Now you’re just being mean.” Her full lips at rest fell into a natural pout, but when she all-out tried, like now, he wanted to make a meal of her, starting with her mouth, and ending with her mouth, but stopping at some amazing places in between.
    “Unkind, perhaps,” he said, pulling himself from his fantasies, “but honest and practical, too. I have no choice. Getting this place off my hands is serious business.”
    “More serious than you know. You heard Gussie’s wail of protest. She wants you to keep the castle in the family, and I think she has some serious persuasion in mind.”
    “What do you care?”
    “I . . . it’s complicated,” Harmony said, sounding to him like she was hiding something, then she bit her lip for a pensive, and seductive, minute. “I thought I heard in Salem that the castle can’t leave your family,” she added.
    “Legally, it can, and local gossip never gave my family anything but grief, so your sources are as suspect as your motive for being here.” King took down the empty picture frame with the cracked glass and waved it under the hellcat’s nose. “Off-loading this albatross, lock, stock, and bad luck, is good business. Excellent business.”
    “For who?”
    “Me. My heirs—the next generation of Paxtons, and the generations who come after them.”
    “Since you told me you stopped thinking with your man brain—which, if you ask me, is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts—I didn’t expect you to produce any heirs.”
    “You know nothing about me.”
    “You did mention celibacy.”
    “In the present tense, and nearly so.”
    “So the future’s up for grabs? Pardon the pun.”
    “No, damn it.”
    Her eyes got so big and deep, he could fall in and die happy. “You already have an heir!” She spoke with such certainty, the hair at his nape stood and saluted.

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Chapter Eleven
    “YOU’RE fishing,” King said, a weak defense at best. Who was she to say he had heirs?
    “No, I’m using the sense I was born with, and it says there’s no reason for you to sell this place, because you have heirs who’d want it.”
    “Your intuition is faulty. This is hardly a profit-making proposition.”
    “You’re avoiding the subject of heirs, but that aside, homes are for living in not for making a profit.”
    “There you go. My point exactly. Generations have tried and failed to live here. They worked to make this castle a home, part of Paxton family life and legacy, but misfortune dogged them the way it dogs me. Spending time here caused my ancestors physical and emotional harm. Husbands and