Nicky Taylor's life is in the corporate world; her phone is
an essential part of keeping in touch with what is going on
with her job. She can multi-task like nobody's business,
though driving in traffic while talking and sending a text
will likely kill her. She is determined to be the best at
her job, giving up 60 plus hours a week leaving no time for
friends and family. But her pace is starting to take a toll
if panic attacks are anything to go by. Nicky's sister sets
up a meeting with a local professor to get some insight on
reports to find a way to keep employees at a local bar from
being laid off. Of course, she is late and he leaves, so
she has no choice but to sit and read her e-mails during
the amateur magic show. Then she is called up on stage and
her world tilts when she becomes part of the act.
Jim Ray can't believe his eyes; his high school crush is in
the audience with a phone six inches from her face not
paying attention to what is going on around her. It has
been years since he has seen Nicky and she is even more
gorgeous than he remembers. Jim feels himself fall into
geek mode again as a smart yet shy nobody wanting to be
noticed by the hot girl. He is unable to resist pulling
Nicky onstage to try some hypnosis to see if he can talk
her into letting go of her death grip on the phone. Though
his performance is perfect, Ryan is devastated that she has
no idea who he is, forcing him to drown his sorrow in
alcohol. What, or should he say who, he finds on his
doorstep because of something he suggested is a complete
surprise, especially when she begins to undress.
UNDER HIS SPELL is a quirky story of romance and
circumstance. A fun, short read.
Sex this good is no illusion!
Nicky Taylor is a driven executive. A total control freak.
And magician Jimmy Ray has loved her forever. When he spots
her in the audience, he realizes he finally has a chance to
fulfill his own lifelong fantasy. With a little help from
Dr. Mesner, that is...
Who'd have guessed that a little hypnotism would unleash
Nicky's wildly sexual nature? Or that Jimmy's powers of
persuasion would encourage her to burn up the bedsheets with
him that night...and the nights after. She's the perfect woman.
Unfortunately Jimmy's pretty sure Nicky's still under his
spell. And he has to change that. Because he's quickly
falling under hers...
Excerpt
Chapter 1
“Don’t forget, Nicky. Please, sis, you can’t forget.”
Nicky Taylor ground her teeth, then stopped, worried that
her older sister Susan would hear it over the Bluetooth
connection.
“What?” Susan asked. “What did you say?”
“Yaieee!” Nicky swerved her car, then slammed on the brakes
as she tried to avoid a motorcycle zipping too fast down the
on-coming lane. No less than three other cars had do
something similar, and their horns blared angrily all around
her.
“Damn cyclists!” she cursed even as she flushed in
embarrassment. Truthfully, that near-accident had been her
fault. She’d been trying to maneuver around a slow moving
bus. She was in a section of Chicago that had the triple
threat: narrow lanes, heavy traffic, and three streets
intersecting in a confusing mess.
“Nicky! Nicky are you all right?”
“Yes, yes,” she groused to cover her own guilt. “I’m
meeting Tammy at that club and I’m late.”
“You’re always late. What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing. Just a motorcyclist and a city bus.”
She glanced at the time and her chest tightened
exponentially. Damn, she hated being late. “Tammy is going
to have a fit. The first amateur act has probably already
started.”
“We’re used to you being late. I’ll text her that you’re on
your way. Just drive carefully, okay?”
Nicky winced, knowing that her reputation was well deserved.
But she was building a career, didn’t they understand that?
“I’m not always late. And I drive just fine.”
Susan’s inelegant snort blasted through the line. “You
drive fine when you’re concentrating on it. When was the
last time you tried to do one thing at a time?”
Nicky didn’t answer. She was too busy straightening out her
car behind the gawd-awful bus. At least with it going slow,
she’d be able to check her emails as soon as she got off the
phone. Her company manufactured plastic containers. It
wasn’t rocket science, but they made a lot of containers.
Unfortunately, the world was cutting back on its plastic
consumption which meant as regional head of five
distribution nodes, Nicky had to find a way to scale back
without firing hundreds of employees.
Part of her just wanted to throw in her resignation along
with the lay-offs. Shipping plastic parts around the
country wasn’t exactly what she’d planned when she received
her MBA. She’d dreamt of making green products, saving the
planet while earning her money. Plastic was as far from
that as she could have gotten. But they’d offered her money
and a fast track to the executive boardroom. She hadn’t
counted on the 100 hour workweek or the fact that she’d
stall out in middle management while the economy took a
serious downturn.
Fortunately her little sister Tammy knew a guy who
specialized in shipping optimization. That’s who she was
really meeting at amateur night. Nicky just prayed that
Prof. Thompson could help her optimize without firing. But
he’d have to look at the reports first which had to be
compiled from data from each division head, and then...
“Nicky? Are you still there?”
“Hmm?” She forcibly pulled her attention back to her
sister. And the damn bus. And being late to see Prof.
Thompson at some stupid amateur night, all before she looked
at those figures from the east coast factory. Her chest
tightened further, and she had to force a deep breath. She
would not have a panic attack here. Not while driving. No,
no, no! She just needed a moment to breathe.
“Nicky?”
“Yeah, I’m still here,” she said, still willing her breath
to even out. “Still stuck. Stupid bus.”
There was a picture on the back of the bus of a tropical
resort. Nicky stared at it a moment, her thoughts wandering
to a sandy beach and a hot guy rubbing oil on her back.
Wouldn’t that be heaven? She held onto the image for a
moment, really savored it. It had been years since she’d
been with a man. She’d been too busy, too focused, and too
afraid of making another bad boyfriend choice. But in
fantasy land, she could pretend anything. She could be on a
hot, fantasy beach with the absolute perfect man caressing
her in the most intimate ways. It would be so good...
She held onto the thought, soaked it into her skin, and felt
her breath lengthen. Moments later, her body relaxed enough
for her to function. No panic attack. Life was good.
Except of course, life wasn’t good. She still was nearly an
hour late for her appointment, and even when she made it,
she didn’t have all the figures together. She didn’t even
see a time when she could take her island vacation. Not
until the economy took a better upswing. Not until...
“I’ve emailed you the dates...”
Nicky frowned. Dates for what? Oh yeah, her goddaughter’s
christening. There was a meeting with the priest and then
the actual event. She just couldn’t forget. “Thanks, Suz.”
“Five o’clock Thursday with the priest, okay?”
Nicky nodded, her thoughts still wandering toward the
tropical island and a hot guy with body oil. “Does it have
to be at five?” She couldn’t remember the last time she
left work that early. Sun, sand, a man...
“You already said you could make it at five!”
“Okay, okay! Five o’clock Thursday.”
“You just can’t–”
“Can’t forget, I know, I got it!” An ache cramped her belly
more painful than it had been in years. It was stress.
Duh. Her breath was getting short again, so she continued
ranting because it felt good. And because it staved off the
panic attacks that were getting more frequent with every
passing day. “I manage five nodes, supervise nearly two
thousand employees, and everyone thinks I can’t remember a
simple appointment with a priest!” She’d have to remember
to put it in her phone calendar. With warnings three days
in advance. But she couldn’t do that while driving and
talking on the phone.
“Nicky, honey, it’s not that I don’t think you’re capable–”
“I know, I know. I gotta go. This bus is driving me nuts.”
Then she clicked off before her sister could argue.
With a grunt of frustration, she swivelled around in her
seat, watching for a break in traffic and furious when she
didn’t see one. She knew she was over-reacting. She’d
already texted Tammy that she was on her way. But she was
already an hour late, she still had a ton of work to do
without a clue about when she’d get it in. Who put amateur
night on a Thursday, anyway? She should have said no, but
she needed to consult Prof. Thompson. And, oh no, she still
had to do her laundry. Did she have anything clean for
tomorrow? Did she have time to buy some underwear on the
way to the bar?
Her phone beeped with a text just as she was finally
shifting to the next lane. The pressure built in her mind
and body as she stopped her instinctive jerk to answer the
phone. She was driving, damn it. Any text could wait!
She steadied the car and pushed through a light, but the
cramp in her stomach returned as she ignored the message on
her phone. What if it was her boss? What if it one of the
offices had trouble sending the report? It was well after
seven, but she knew at least three of her immediate
subordinates worked the same crazy hours she did. If it was
one of them, then she needed to get on the problem right
away. Jobs were on the line, hers included. She knew there
was a way to save most of them, but she had a lot of work to
do to find it.
With a grunt of disgust, she grabbed her phone and hit the
appropriate button. It was awkward reading and driving at
the same time, but she’d mastered it a long time ago. With
a sigh of relief, she saw it was from her sister Tammy and
not a work disaster.
Where r u???
She stopped at a light and whipped off a response. Almost
there! she texted. It was a lie, but if there were no more
busses between her and the bar, she’d make it before the end
of the second act. Unless another disaster hit. She tried
not to think of that. She tried not to think of tropical
islands either or the way her entire body clenched with
frustration. If she could just get through the immediate
crisis, she would deal with the rest later. But God, what
she wouldn’t give to be on that tropical island now...
#
Jimmy Ray did a double take, jerking the curtain slightly as
he peered out at the crowd. It couldn’t be her. That
absolutely could not be Nicky Taylor, his high school
fantasy walking into the bar. She’d been a volleyball star,
class president, and the girl voted most likely to run the
country in twenty years. And he’d wanted her forever. What
was she doing here at amateur night?
He leaned forward, peering into the dimly lit crowd. He
couldn’t be sure it was her. Lots of women had long legs,
gray business suits, and that look of anxious harassment in
their eyes. But only Nicky walked that way, with her hips
shifting in a lilting cadence while her pointy chin dared a
man to try for her. Could that really be her? The blonde
hair was right, but this woman had a tight lift to her
shoulders that high school Nicky never had. She was also
walking and trying to read on her Blackberry while taking
off her coat and greeting another woman at the same time.
That was vintage Nicky, even in high school. He bet she’d
mastered multi-tasking by the time she was six.
He frowned as he watched the woman-who-might-be-Nicky reach
her destination. There was another woman there nursing a
margarita. He had to wait for a shift in the lights,
but...yes! That was Tammy, Nicky’s younger sister. He was
sure of it. After all, he’d lived down the block from the
Taylor family for years. He knew all of Nicky’s family, had
trick-or-treated at their house, and even shared a yearly
Christmas potluck. He knew them like he knew how to
construct a saw-the-lady-in-half illusion. The woman at the
table was Tammy, which meant the other woman–the blonde with
the overstuffed briefcase–was Nicky Taylor. Here at amateur
night. Of all the dumb luck!
Anticipation tightened his gut. Or was that fear? He
closed his eyes, clenching his jaw in disgust. He’d gotten
past the nausea that came with painful shyness the day he’d
received his first six-figure check. He’d even forced
himself up on stage at his brother’s bar just to make sure
he could overcome his fear of public speaking. But one look
at Nicky’s long legs in killer black pumps, and he was right
back in high school complete with gut-churning panic. Back
then he’d resorted to the fantasy of being a magician, of
mesmerizing all in his path with his suave charm. Now he was
a man and a millionaire. He did not need to hide in fantasy
to talk to a woman. Even if that woman was Nicky Taylor,
the girl who’d owned his heart since he was twelve.
He had to find a way to talk to her, to have that shot he’d
missed in high school. But how? A dozen scenarios spun
through his brain, each growing more far-fetched. In the
end, he cut off his over-active reasoning. That had been
his problem in high school: too much thinking and too little
action. By the time he’d worked up the perfect plan to
seduce Nicky Taylor, they’d already graduated and gone on to
college. Tonight he would keep it simple.
He would magic her into his arms.
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