Read Spellbound for Free Online Page B

I…”
    “I’m joking, lassie.”
    “Oh.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Of course.”
    She apparently didn’t think he was very funny.
    “Though we will be putting in a driving range, and there are a few other family requirements. I’m warning ya, we can be a demanding lot.”
    “It’s your home. You have every right to make it the way you want it.”
    “The key is to come to me if the others start making annoying demands. I’ll handle them for ya.” Iain gave her a charming smile and waited for a reaction.
    Blush? Smile? Anything?
    Jane merely nodded. “All right.”
    “When can ya start?” Iain found himself mesmerized by the gentle slope of her neck where it met her shoulder. Her shirt collar pulled just enough to the side to give him a peek. He’d bet the warmth of her skin would cause his lips to tingle if he kissed her there. The closer she came to stand by him, the more aware he was of his attraction to her. He felt her pulling him in like a magnet, drawing the magick from the tips of his nerve endings. Unlike Charlotte, who had painfully ripped his powers from him, Jane sweetly beckoned them.
    As the invisible threads forced him closer, he could barely breathe. Their bodies had not touched, but it didn’t matter. Magick revealed the press of her form to his, the stirring of her breath in an imagined kiss, the awkward hesitation of new lovers. His arousal thickened beneath his kilt. There was something familiar to his impressions of her, of her mouth, her eyes, as if they’d done this dance before, in another life, another time. After over hundreds of years, he was bound to forget many things, many people, but surely he would remember her, this ?
    “Perhaps it would be easier if you give me an idea of where you’d like to begin.” Her breathing deepened. She had to feel the attraction sparking between them. How could she not? “That way I can draw up proposals and we can go from there.”
    “Ya smell like honey,” he said.
    “I’m allergic to bees,” she whispered.
    “I’ll do my best not to sting ya, love.” Iain leaned in for the kiss. Doing so felt natural and right. She didn’t pull away as he lifted his hand to touch her cheek. The tips of his fingers brushed her warm skin the same moment his lips met hers.
    Jane gasped loudly and tossed her head back. Confused, he jerked his mouth away in time to see her eyes rolling back in her head. On instinct, he caught her and lifted her into his arms. Her body jerked violently a couple of times before going limp.
    “Jane? Jane, wake up. Please, wake up.” Iain gave her a little shake. She didn’t rouse. “ Ma ’se ur toil e, Jane . ”

Chapter 7
    J ane bit her lip and tried not to cry. Why was this happening to her? The delusions were becoming too real. First, she hallucinated the handsome Iain leaning to kiss her, and now she was on her back in a forest unable to sit up. A nearby stream trickled, punctuated by a rhythmic scrubbing on metal— wroosh, wroosh, wroosh —in a steady tempo.
    This delusion was new.
    Wroosh. Wroosh.
    Jane weakly turned her head to the side and found an old woman in a tattered dress by the stream. Thin arms worked feverishly, scrubbing clothes against an old washboard. Another ghost locked in a moment?
    “You can’t hide, you can’t seek, you can’t find the will to speak.” The children’s singsong voices chanted from behind the trees. Jane tried to sit up but couldn’t. Giggling sounded. The scrubbing became louder. The children’s song continued, “You don’t belong anymore. You should not be in that form.”
    If she just waited it out, the voices would stop. The delusions always stopped. The creepy giggling became louder, the sound carrying from several directions at once, echoing off the trees. Jane glanced at the washerwoman. The old lady continued to work as if her entire existence hinged on scrubbing that one cloth. Gray hair flew about her shoulders in the breeze, freed from the falling bun