Miranda Writes
Author Miranda Franklin has a deadline and a dilemma: if she doesn’t turn in the last book of her three book deal in thirty days, her publisher will cast her back into the waters of obscurity. A felicitous run-in with a psychic cures her nasty case of writer’s block when Miranda accepts a job at the paranormal shop-around-the-corner. Special Agent Matt Archer has spent his life proving his worth to his father by following in his FBI footsteps. He hopes to nail one of the shops providing false fronts for a counterfeiting ring getting away with millions. They’ve eluded the Bureau for months, but if Archer can take them down, he’ll finally get a promotion and win his father’s approval.
When Agent Archer poses as a client for Farra’s Fortunes, an immediate attraction sparks between him and the lovely little liar keeping up appearances for the shop. After finding all the proof needed, he reads Miranda her rights, booking her for conspiracy to counterfeit unless she agrees to go back to Farra’s Fortunes to nail the rest of the ring. If Miranda busts the ring for Archer, will she finish her book by deadline… or wind up just plain dead?
Excerpt From Miranda Writes
…Their eyes met over the sparkling sphere and Miranda saw that he had been as affected by their touch as she. His lips parted and she couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to press her mouth to his, moan as his tongue slipped between her lips, pant when he began to touch her body. Maybe he would pull her onto his lap, work his hand up from her knee to her thigh, hike her Gypsy skirts around her waist.
She would beg him if she had to. Beg him to touch her breast, cup the curls of her mound, slip his long, thick fingers between the lips of her pussy and—
“Mmm, I see,” she began again, running her index finger over his palm and ignoring the moisture between her legs. “You have long fingers and…” She took another glimpse of the cheat-sheet. “Large, square hands. You’re obviously intelligent, Archer. You have no problem thinking clearly in a difficult situation. As for your girlfriend…”
“Fiancée,” he corrected.
“Right.” Miranda blushed. “Relationships are important to you, but your unfailing logic sometimes gets in the way of your feelings. You’re very reliable and a bit of a perfectionist.” She studied the long dark lashes that swept his cheek whenever he blinked. “You’re a… stimulating companion.” This reading was getting her more excited by the moment.
“And I can’t think of why she would leave you,” Miranda muttered beneath her breath.
“What was that?”
“Oh, just a spell for good luck in love,” she covered. “Where was I?”
He smirked, heating her core yet again. “I think you left off at stimulating.”
She could tell he wanted her. The comment said so. But, why then the unrequited love story? What was he hiding? She decided to give as good as she had gotten.
Might as well have some fun.
“You are a stimulating companion,” Miranda continued, inspiration striking her. “And yet I sense the problem with your fiancée was a sexual one. You are both under a powerful curse, a dark spirit that hovers over your shoulders. You will need a spell for…sex magick.”
It was one of the more costly psychic solutions Edith had taught her. She would have earned her extrasensory salt if she could get him to buy it. He deserved it for lying to her.
“Take off your shirt,” she commanded. She selected an incense stick of the aphrodisiac variety. Lighting it, Miranda returned her attentions to Archer.
Surprisingly, he complied with her command, and the effect left her breathless. A scattering of dark, crisp hair covered the expanse of his solid chest, the rippling muscles of his arms and abdomen indicating he took care of himself, but wasn’t vain. His facial tan continued down his neck and torso.
Miranda gulped, but continued on. “Generally, a sex magick spell requires both of you here, but in this case, I will be her stand-in spirit.” She noticed her accent had slipped a bit and strived to regain it. “If you feel desire during the spell, do not attempt to crush it. It is what will reunite you and your lost lover.”
She waved the incense around his partially nude body. When its ash had fallen into the holder, Miranda dipped her finger into it and gathered her courage. “You must be surrounded by sex magick in order to bring her back.” She began to lightly dust his body with the ash on her index finger, swirling it in light patterns over his skin.
His nipples tightened and she pretended not to notice, dipping her fingers dangerously close to his belt buckle. She wished her tongue could replace her fingers, minus the ash, and not stop at the line of his pants.
Why did this man drive her to fantasy like no other had before?
Archer adjusted his weight and Miranda thought perhaps she had lingered too long. She grabbed a candle from a nearby shelf and began waving it around his body in circles. “This is the hot breath of your lover, destined to remind both of you of the heat you once shared.”
Apparently, that one seemed to have worked, for his even breathing became heavier and more erratic as her movements increased. Miranda had just circled his body for the last time when the flame came a hair too close to his ribs. Archer seized her by the arm, startling her into dropping the candle.
Hot wax sprayed across his abdomen and he gasped, his face a contorted mixture of pleasure and pain. His eyes opened and Miranda saw the fiery desire in their depths. She backed away but he followed until she lay upon the velvet tablecloth with his body covering hers.
“This is me, not crushing my desire.” He blew out the candle, leaving them in near-darkness. She realized he looked just as surprised by his actions as she was, as if he wasn’t in control of his own mind and body. The evidence of his words pressed into the hollow between her thighs and she jerked away, shocked by the insistent throb of his cock. Her elbow connected with the crystal ball and sent it flying. It crashed into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floors.
“Oh, shit!” Miranda covered her mouth. She realized that she sounded more like a naughty teenager whose parents were out of town than a Gypsy fortune-teller out to seduce a client out of his money, but all she could think of was what Edith would say…or do.
“Um, okay, just…just wait here a minute.” She slid out from beneath him and laughed awkwardly. “I guess I’m a real ball-breaker, huh?”
Edith had told her never to go into the private meditation room behind the curtain, but desperate times called for desperate measures and she had to find a replacement sphere…