A Genie's Love (The Djinn Series) Read Free Page A

polite when he talked of her looks. Like a twelve year old, she’d imagined something not there. Fair enough.
    A chime indicated a finished pot and she brought the carafe over to the table. She filled Dinah’s cup first, then Tig’s and even Faruq’s. Her arm brushed against his shoulder when she leaned in and...well...all kinds of hell broke loose.

Chapter Three
    B linding pain, blinking stars and a million ringing bells assaulted his senses. “What happened? Why am I on the floor?”
    Dinah’s hand brushed at his forehead while Faruq tried to get the world to stop twisting. A quick check to the back of his throbbing skull produced blood coated fingers. What the hell?
    “It’s alright, Faruq. Tig told her you passed out from exhaustion. Too much magic, we said. She already started jogging back to her house.”
    “Her who...oh...oh... her .”
    Cassia. Strong, amazing, Cassia. Now he really was grateful to have the floor at his back. He should have known it the moment he saw her. All those years avoiding a woman’s touch, only to have a pot of coffee ruin everything. A new shadow fell across his face. He didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Shut up.”
    “I haven’t said anything. Nothing. I could have mentioned my older brother fainting, but I didn’t.”
    “Shut up, Tig.”
    “...like a little girl at the sight of blood.”
    “Tiglathpileser, shut your mouth.”
    His brother did shut up then...for a second. “Back before you were passing out, my name on your lips would have had me pissing my pants.”
    “It’s her.”
    “Figured.” He opened one eye to a hairy thigh. His brother squatted beside him with a towel in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “Ah, well. You could do worse than an Authement woman.”
    “He’s right. We’re not so bad,” Dinah said from his other side.
    A mate. A life’s partner. He’d been down this road before and it’d led him to the gates of hell.
    Yes, it had happened before... and those sorts of things only occurred once in an existence. She wasn’t his hamdullah . That woman died ages ago. “It can’t be Cassia. You know that, Tig.”
    “I know she laid you the hell out. I also know that what I have with Dinah, I wouldn’t trade. What you had before, that couldn’t have been this. You got caught up. That’s different than this.”
    “Don’t.” Faruq sat up, waving away unwanted hands of assistance.
    “I remember her , Faruq. You didn’t pass out. You also didn’t love her.”
    “Stop it.”
    “Who are you trying to convince here?”
    What was the alternative? That he’d cared for a woman and had his life nearly ruined by her for no good reason? He laid right back down on the floor and threw his arm over his eyes. “This isn’t happening.”
    “It is.”
    “This can’t be happening.”
    “It is.”
    “You are not helping.”
    “I am, but I don’t need to tell you that. Do I?”
    No. He’d been lonely in those days. Sad and jealous. Too eager to find a partner. And now he possibly faced the real thing and didn’t know what to do with it.
    “Take her out for a drink,” Tig suggested, as if reading his thoughts.
    “My husband’s right. Maybe you had a super reaction. With all this magic running around, some supernatural wires might have crossed. But you deserve to find out for sure and my sister deserves to know if she is.”
    He’d been alone for so long that maybe his imagination had taken hold in sheer desperation. Hell, he could have just been horny. Or could the blame rest on the overstimulating mixture of a beautiful woman, a house with four Magicals and having his lamp back? It could have been anything. Or everything. Or nothing at all.  “No. There’s no point.”
    Tig gave him a right and proper Algerian knock to the chest. “Sure.  As long as you’re fine with another man touching her. Can you handle that?  She’s got a lunch date tomorrow, so either you fix this tonight or let it go. But let me say this, she’s