The Accidental Genie Read online

  She tweaked his chest playfully. “Oh, surely Nina would come, if only just to call you ass sniffer one last time.”

  He barked a laugh, his hard chest rising and falling beneath her cheek. “My brother would come, too, and Marty. My pack members would come, but they wouldn’t have come out of respect for me. They would have come out of respect for Keegan. There’s a difference.”

  “So you were sort of looking for a purpose?”

  “Yep. I had nothing deeper in my life than a bottle of Budweiser and a shallow blonde. I was restless and bored. It was time to change, make like a grown-up. So I eased off the booze, quit the blondes altogether, and focused on Pack. It was sort of a test to find out what I really wanted in life without my judgment so clouded by alcohol and partying.”

  “And you found what, Sloan Flaherty?”

  He pressed a kiss to her lips before saying, “I found, Jeannie Carlyle, that for the first time since I became an adult, which was a long, long time ago, that I wanted someone to come home to every night. I wanted to know where I was going to bed each evening, and where and with whom I’d wake up. I started participating more with my family, though if you listened to Nina, you’d never know it. And I got serious about my career. One that was handed to me, I might add. I didn’t have to scrape like Sable did to make ends meet. I got a paycheck whether I showed up or not. And that just wasn’t okay. I lived on Easy Street, but Sable fought for everything she wanted, and she died working her ass off to get it. She was killed when she fell asleep at the wheel after a double at the Pole. That’s what I found.”

  Her heart clenched and shuddered, her throat thick. “Wow, when you find, you really find.”

  “I’m nothing if not tenacious,” he said on a chuckle.

  Jeannie caught his hand in hers, her eyes moist with tears. “You helped me find something I never thought I’d find again, Sloan. But I want you to know, there are no strings attached here.” Even if some small part of her would now always be Sloan’s, it would be metaphorical, and she was finding out, she had begun to recognize the difference.

  “I like your strings, and I don’t mind them being attached to mine at all. You’ll learn to like them, too.”

  A strange shift occurred in her chest, one Jeannie imagined was more of her baggage yanking itself free from baggage claim. Sloan’s possessive tone turned her on rather than frightened her like it might have even just as little as a month ago. “So then, we’ll see, right?” The promise of anything else right now was too much to hope for. People said all kinds of things in dire situations. Men said all sorts of things in sexual situations . . .

  “Oh, you’ll see,” he teased, planting a sensuous kiss on her lips. “And don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking. Because I do. You think I’m spinning some bullshit because we’re in deep crap, and when two people are in deep crap together, they’ll say anything.”

  “Oh, how do you do it, great and powerful Sloan?”

  His laughter was deep and resonant, bouncing in her eardrum pressed to the wide span of his chest. “It’s my hair gel. It has mind-reading properties.”

  Jeannie giggled, luxuriating in being safe and warm.

  “Hey, look—the candles are still floating,” Sloan remarked on a smile, tucking her closer and letting his chin rest on the top of her head. “I think that’s a sign, Jeannie Carlyle.”

  “I’m sure it’s a sign I’ll be a huge hit at the next Bath and Body Works sale.”

  “More with the funny.”

  She shrugged, reluctant to look at him. “That’s just who I am.”

  Sloan tipped her chin up, running his thumb over her chin. “Is it? Or is it who you became because of what happened to you?”

  She shrugged, unsure how the wisecracking Jeannie had come to be. She just had. “It’s the me that developed over time. When you have to leave everything behind forever, and you can’t ever contact the people in your old life again, not even just to let them know you’re okay, you either laugh or cry. I did cry. I cried a lot. So much. Everything happened so fast. There was no time for good-byes or anything. One day you exist—the next, you don’t. But you can only cry for so long before you have to do something to survive. So I chose to stop crying—well, mostly—and find a way to come to terms with it. I started a new life here in New York, and I have Charlene, Betzi, and the twins, and it’s mostly good.”

  Tracing the scars on her chest, Jeannie watched his jaw harden. “You do know I’ll kill him, don’t you? If he comes anywhere near you ever again, I’ll kill the bastard.”

  Jeannie shivered, closing her eyes and praying Victor would be found before she had to reveal she knew she’d seen him. “He’s been watching me. He knew so much about my life, Sloan.”

  “Well, now I’m watching you. And I’m watching for him, too. He’ll never take anything from you again, Jeannie. Never.”

  Never was a long time. She’d once been condemned to never.

  But tonight, it didn’t seem so bad.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Jeannie woke to the sound of voices outside her door and Sloan gone from her bed. She ran a hand over the imprint he’d left on the pillow and smiled foolishly at the warmth that spread through her limbs before throwing her legs over the side of the bed, taking the sheet with her.

  The voices grew louder, angrier, making her rush to press her ear to the door, the warmth in her limbs turning cold.

  “You did the grown-up with her, didn’t you, ass sniffer? Jesus, Sloan, is everything fucking fair game to you? Is there a single fucking thing you can leave untouched by your dick? Why are you always spoogein’ all over anything that moves?” Nina yelled.

  Jeannie didn’t have to open the door to know Sloan’s jaw had gone hard. “That’s none of your business,” was his cold reply.

  Jeannie popped the door open to witness Wanda jam her finger in Nina’s ear. “It’s none of your business, Nina.”

  Nina gave her the finger with one hand and held Boris in the other. “The hell it’s not, Wanda. I told you this shit was gonna happen. Every case we work on, somebody’s always sexin’. It’s a GD cliché, for fuck’s sake. And we’re supposed to be protecting our fucking stupid clients, not feeding them to the werewolf.”

  Sloan rocked back on his heels, glaring at Nina. “It isn’t what you think, Nina.”

  She rolled her beautiful eyes. “Oh, it is, too, what the fuck I think, dicknuckle. And you made it my business by crankin’ so loud it was like an amusement park ride. All screams and your hands up in the air, catching the wind of the humpty-hump.” Nina poked Sloan in the chest. “I have vampire ears, Sloan. Kinda hard to avoid hearin’ your oversexed ass, yo.”

  Wanda shook her head in staunch disapproval. “You promised me, Sloan Flaherty! Promised me. I thought even if you were a dirty bird, your word was good.”

  They’d made him give them their word that he wouldn’t have sex with her? Okay, she’d give that she probably came off a little helpless, and, too, she probably oozed fragility, but Jeannie Carlyle was a big girl and she could make big-girl decisions.

  Jeannie popped the bedroom door open entirely. Her eyes blazing, sheet trailing, she flew across the room, startling Benito from his dog bed. “Hey! Guess what? Adult here. Sloan didn’t force me to do the ‘grown-up’ with him. I propped him to do the grown-up with me. So whaddya think about that?”

  Wanda and Nina were stunned into silence, their eyes glued to Jeannie and the sheet she held tight to her chest.

  Rolling her neck, she seethed, “That’s right. I said it. I did something for me. Something healthy. Something I wanted to do, and I did it without fear, and I sure did it without looking back. Is that okay with you two—or should I get written permission for the next time? Because there will be a next time! So lay off the werewolf!” Jeannie’s eyes widened. She�
��d just told anyone who would listen she’d had sex. Good sex.

  Outrageously awesometastic sex.

  And she’d clearly stated she wanted to do it again. Right in front of Sloan.

  Okay. Maybe this empowerment thing made you a little mouthy and presumptuous. It was, after all, the morning after. Maybe Sloan had changed his mind.

  Sloan dropped a light kiss on the top of her head and gave the girls a smug look. “What she said.”

  Nina’s stunned expression turned into a grin. “Look at you, all ownin’ yer lady parts again. Knuck it up with me, Slice.” She held her fist forward for Jeannie to bump. “Proud to know ya, midget. Now, here’s the paranormal crisis speech.” She cracked her knuckles in preparation, then looked at Jeannie.

  “So, you’ve known Sloan like three days. Intense time spent together in a major life crisis means huge adrenaline rush of out-of-control bullshit emotions. That means, you ain’t readin’ your personal shiz with a clear head. In a nutshell, let me repeat, emotions are running high. Common sense is at an all-time low. If he fucks you up, it’s on you, ’cus we warned yer ass. In fact, I think we should have, like, an OOPS disclaimer for this kind of shit. Anyway, just don’t think you’re gonna fulfill your white-knight wishes and fucking happily-ever-after dreams with this numbnuts. But for now, ain’t nuthin’ wrong with takin’ care a some girlie business. End speech.”

  “Nina should know,” Marty crowed with a dry snort, twirling the end of a royal blue scarf tied fashionably around her neck. “Before Greg, she had more business than a pretzel stand in Central Park. Oh, and good on you, honey!” She gave Jeannie a hug, enveloping her in the scent of lilacs. “Way to own.” She leaned in closer to Jeannie and whispered, “But what Nina said about Sloan . . .”

  “Fuck you, blondie. Swear to Christ, you always got some shit to say, don’t you, Virgin Marty?” Nina yelled at her friend, jabbing her finger under Marty’s pert nose.

  “Ladies!” Sloan yelled with a scowl, putting his body between Nina and Marty. “This is between me and Jeannie, and it isn’t what you women think. I’d be happy to explain it to you—”

  A loud whizzing noise stopped their arguing cold. Just as Jeannie’s head swerved around to see where it was coming from, she was flattened to the floor by Mat. “Invisible!” he spat in an intense whisper as if just saying it made it so.

  Jeannie groaned at his suction cup–like grip on her. “God, Mat. Could I get a little warning next time? These sneak attacks are going to leave me with a broken skull.”

  “Sorry, doll. I heard all the yellin’, figured there was more trouble. I’m doin’ my guardian bit.”

  She tucked a hand around him and gave him an affectionate stroke. “Sooo, still practicing?”

  Mat coughed, his fringe blowing in Jeannie’s face. “Whatever it takes to protect ya.”

  “Mat?” Sloan said, kneeling down on the floor near Jeannie.

  “Eyeball candy?” he groused.

  “Not invisible.”

  Mat moaned, his cigarette-smoky voice rippling through the room. “Jesus. Whaddo I gotta do? I read your damn genie book until my eyeballs rolled around in my head while you two were in there swappin’ uglies. And still, I ain’t gettin’ it right. I don’t think I was cut out for this guardian thing, dollface. I can hardly keep my eyes open long enough to read the damn directions anyway.”

  Jeannie patted him on his matted threads in sympathy. “It’s okay. Guardians are crazy overrated any ol’ way.”

  Sloan chuckled, peeling Mat off Jeannie and helping her up. He pulled her tight to his side, making her cheeks flush and her heart pound with the possessiveness of his embrace.

  Jeannie looked at the three women and avoided Wanda’s critical eye. “So, any news on Victor?” She was more hopeful this morning than she’d been last night. If anyone could find Victor, it was these three women.

  Wanda’s lips thinned and she sighed. “No. But I’ve been on the phone all morning with Sam, and I promise you, it won’t be long until we find him. We’ve got a tentative list of the people the FBI suspects he’d go after, and we have plenty of backup watching from a safe distance from the werewolf-vampire community. We’re not going anywhere until we catch the pig.”

  Nina crossed her arms over a T-shirt that read, OFF IS THE GENERAL DIRECTION IN WHICH I WISH YOU WOULD FUCK, and nodded. “You know thass right, midget.”

  Jeannie warmed from her toes to the top of her head. It felt so good to have someone on her side. Four someones, to be precise. Yet she couldn’t help but experience some small sense of defeat—they really weren’t any closer to finding solutions than they had been when this began. “So we’re still on square one.”

  “Yep,” Marty said on a smile, fluffing Jeannie’s couch pillows, her multitude of bracelets jangling. “You’re still stuck to Sloan. Your magic is still all kinds of haywire, and we still have to find that sleazy mothereffin’, woman-beating, child killer, Victor. On the bright side, it’s a beautiful crisp, sunny day. So while we wait for news on Victor, we’ve decided to let Nina get her vampire sleep, because she’s long past due. Wanda and I are going to catch a sale at Macy’s and grab some lunch. You should be safe with Sloan. And Darnell’s always on call if you need backup. In the meantime, let’s hope Nekaar shows up with some news on what’s happened to the president of Djinn-ville.”

  Before she’d gone to bed last night, Jeannie had checked the Bottle Babes Facebook page again. There was now what amounted to the human Amber Alert out for the leader of the genie pack, and her hopes of figuring this out any time soon were dashed.

  She’d offered to help Nekaar, but with Sloan tethered to her, Nekaar claimed she couldn’t cross into the veil due to the fact that he wasn’t djinn. Which was probably one of the weirdest things she’d ever heard.

  Well, almost. To know there was another world somewhere but where she was standing awed and frightened her. It was just too much to take in right now. She could live with being tethered to Sloan. She couldn’t live with the idea Victor was on the loose with a vengeance for blood.

  Marty and Wanda gathered their coats and scarves while Nina scooped up the twins and told her friends to watch their backs before stomping off to the guest bedroom. For a moment, Jeannie envied their friendship. It was so easy and fluid, if at times noisy.

  Marty brushed Jeannie’s hair from her face with a gloved hand. “Go relax for a little while. And hey,” she said on a smile, thumbing a finger at Sloan, “when we can get rid of your excess baggage, you really should shop with us. I can think of a million colors other than gray and black that are suited to your pretty complexion.”

  Wanda nodded her agreement, scooping up her purse and letting it slide to her elbow. “That’ll be our reward when this is all over with. We’ll shop, because I know deep down inside, our little Jeannie’s a shopper,” she teased.

  Yeah, Jeannie, er, Charlie, had been a shopper. Once. “Deal,” she chirped, touched by their offer.

  Marty and Wanda swept out her door in a wave of perfume and laughter, leaving just her and Sloan.

  He eyed her from across the room—dark and sultry.

  “I Dream Of?” Nina howled from the guest bedroom.

  “MWA?”

  “I’ve been up all damn night, trying to find that fucker Victor. Swear to fucking God, if you two make a bunch of horny racket in there while I’m tryin’ to sleep, I’ll come and take you both out at once—and it’ll be bloody. Big and bloody.”

  Jeannie put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “Aye-aye, captain.”

  Nina slammed the door, making the walls shake.

  Sloan held out his hand to her. “Coffee?” he asked in a whisper, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “I’m sure we should waste this precious alone time drinking coffee,” she teased, suddenly uninhibited and wanton
.

  Sloan dragged her to him, kissing the tip of her nose while he molded her body to his. “Is there something else you had in mind, Ms. Carlyle?”

  Her cheeks flushed at the rigid press of his cock to her thigh. Yet, today she felt flirty and sexy, emotions she’d forgotten existed in her. “There was.”

  “Like?”

  “The toilet could use a good scrubbing. Oh, and I need to do laundry. How are you with delicates?”

  Parting the sheet, he drove his hand between her legs and spread the delicate flesh of her sex, teasing her clit. “Oh, I’m magical when it comes to delicates.”

  Her head fell back on her shoulders, and Sloan took the opportunity to run his tongue along the column of her neck. “So, delicates, is it?” she gasped the question.

  Sloan lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist, his breath coming in harsh puffs as he walked back to her bedroom and kicked the door shut.

  Her need for Sloan was instant, so intense she had to mentally war with her fingers to keep from tearing his clothes off. He’d paid such attention to detail with her last night, it was time she returned the favor.

  With her eyes closed, she dropped the sheet.