Sinful Magic by Jennifer Lyon Page B

didn’t want to be—a witch controlled by her hormones. She’d lose everything she was working for—a chance to be loved without fear of her magic destroying it. A chance for a family. Her thoughts gave her strength and she caught his arms, jerked his hands off her face and said, “No!” Her heart hammered, her blood thundered, and adrenaline blew her anger into an inferno. “Last time I tried to have sex, that creep took a picture of my schema. That’s what happens when I let passion and hormones control me. So I don’t have sex.”
    “I won’t hurt you.” He ground his jaw in anger. “I sure as hell wouldn’t take a picture of you and put it on the Internet.”
    “No, you just draw naked, mutilated pictures on the wall of your hotel room. That’s so much better.” Remembering that, she said, “Is it still there?” What if housekeeping saw it or—
    “It’s gone.” He snapped the words. “And that was different. If you don’t want sex, fine, but you need protection.”
    From him! She ripped her gaze away and stormed into the bathroom, gathered up her stuff, and dropped it all into her travel bags. Then she went out and shoved those into her suitcase. She zipped it up, yanked it off the bed and dumped it on the floor. Her hands were shaking, the mark on her thigh burned, and her life was spiraling out of control. So she told him the blunt truth. “My schema is trying to make me have sex to find my Awakening.”
    Kieran’s face softened. “Roxy—”
    “No. I’m not going to Awaken. Not now or ever. I want my chakras to die off, and I will become fully, completely mortal.”
    His mouth dropped.
    Finally she was getting through. “Kieran, I appreciate the warning about Mack and Liam. I’ll be careful. You’ve done your job, now leave me alone.” She pulled out the handle, rolled the suitcase toward the door, and left.
    The multiauthor signing was scheduled for two hours.
    He’d made it an hour and twenty minutes so far. The noise in the large room was thunderous. The scent of sweat, perfume, latex, and marker was cloying. Many of the fans were dressed in costumes; Star Trek and Star Wars were always popular. So were X-Men and Transformers, a few even dressed as Dyfyr. Some stayed true to the comic books, keeping the dragon charcoal or black with only bloodred accents. A few added their own color.
    Key’s line for autographs still snaked around the room. Impatience pounded in his head and tightened the muscles of his neck. His hand cramped and his bloodlust was starting to burn and swell his veins. He needed sex.
    Automatically, he searched the room, his gaze passing over the authors and fans until he saw Roxy. She stood with a large man sporting a cop haircut and wearing a lightweight jacket over his gun.
    Bodyguard.
    But a mortal one, and that wasn’t good enough. Liam or any witch hunter could shift his memory and get him to do whatever they wanted. Hell, they didn’t even need to do that; Key could pick up Roxy and run, and he’d be out the hotel and partway down the street before the bodyguard reacted.
    A darker emotion slithered through him. What if she let that man touch her? Ease her? He clamped down on that thought. But damn, she looked hot. She wore a black skirt, a blue green, sleeveless, button-down top, and had her red hair pulled back into a clip. Fresh, yet so curvaceous and enticing.
    He was attracted to a fertility witch. That gave him pause. He wasn’t dumb enough to assume all fertility witches were willing to pervert their magic as the one who helped his mother had done. Still, he wasn’t a fan. But Roxy was latent, she didn’t have her magic, so what did he care?
    She must have felt his gaze, turned, and looked at him. Her fair skin darkened. They were hyperaware of each other. She turned away, resuming her conversation.
    He felt the loss, a return to the emptiness. Weird shit. He drew to pour out his rage and violence to be empty and clearheaded. But Roxy, when he drew her, saw her, or touched her, reversed the flow