Black Magic Woman by Christine Warren

who doesn’t know an apology from his own fat ass,” she shot back, beginning to resent this conversation. As attractive as she might find this man, she’d pretty much reached her nightly limit for being condescended to. “In fact, the two of you bear a remarkable resemblance. You related?”
    “Charles D’Abo,” he informed her with exaggerated patience, “is a witch doctor. He reeks of voodoo, hoodoo, and black magic. I could smell it on him. He was certainly more than you could handle. You’d be better off if you tried a little harder not to make a man like that hate you.”
    “I don’t care how that idiot feels about me one way or the other. I make it a practice not to spend time worrying about men with more arrogance than brainpower.”
    “Then you might want to change your practices. Men like D’Abo, men like any of those you would find here tonight, any Other you might ever find, are not the sorts you want as your enemies.”
    “Why? Because he might make a little doll in my image and stick pins in it? Let him. I’m not afraid of that megalomaniac.”
    He leaned in closer. “You should be.”
    The warm puff of his breath against her skin sent a jolt of electricity through her spine. Daphanie jerked her head back before she could stop herself. Damn him.
    “Why?” she demanded, forcing her chin higher. “What’s so dangerous about a charlatan with a god complex?”
    “What gave you the idea that he’s a charlatan?”
    She raised her eyebrows. “You mean he’s actually a witch doctor? Grass-skirt, bone-through-the-nose, boil-the-white-man-in-a-big-black-cauldron witch doctor?”
    “Just how often do you spend your time watching late-night B-movies on television?”
    More often than she cared to admit. Especially to him.
    “So he really is a witch doctor?”
    Asher shook his head. “Did you think I was making this whole thing up? That I had nothing better to do with my night than save the neck of an ignorant human who was too blind to notice when she’d gotten in over her head? Because I assure you, that’s not the case.”
    Okay, that stung. Daphanie knew perfectly well that she was ignorant when it came to the Others, but that was why she’d allowed Quigley to bring her here—so she could learn. Having someone throw her lack of knowledge in her face didn’t accomplish anything other than making her feel bad. Frankly, it pushed her right to her limit.
    Seeing him open his mouth to continue berating her pushed her over.
    Boosting herself onto her tiptoes, Daphanie raised her hand and clapped it over his mouth, ignoring the way her palm tingled where it touched his skin.
    She leaned in until their faces almost touched and spoke to him very softly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sweetheart, but I’ve had a bitch of a night so far. I ducked out of my sister’s wedding reception, I trusted an imp to introduce me to the wider Others community, I was verbally and very nearly physically assaulted by a jerk with magical powers, and now I’m being lectured by another jerk who apparently gets his kicks by taking a baseball bat to the carcasses of deceased equines.”
    Asher watched her through narrowed eyes of silver and gold, but he made no move to tug her hand away from his mouth. He simply stood, still and quiet, before her, his chest rising and falling with every breath. She had to devote a considerable amount of her concentration to ignoring the feel of that breath tickling the skin of her hand with humid warmth.
    “How about this?” she hurried to continue. “What if I admit that it’s true I don’t know very much about the Others, you admit that lecturing me is not going to change that, and we both agree to go our separate ways? Does that work for you?”
    Since it was a yes or no question, she didn’t bother to remove her hand. It had nothing to do with the fact that the idea of ceasing to touch him made her stomach clench in protest.
    To her surprise, Asher shook his