Bound to Seduction Read Free Page A

pulled the
steaming cup out, dropped the tea bag inside. Looked back at the
necklace on the table and tried to think logically.
    What consequences? What kind of magic did it
really have…if any? Mira had a degree. For a while in school, she’d
been pre-med. She knew all about the placebo effect. About sugar
pills tricking patients into thinking they were receiving
medications that were helping them. In her head she didn’t doubt
this necklace was the same sort of mirage. If someone who wore it
believed it had power, it gave them a confidence they wouldn’t
otherwise have.
    She blew
on her tea. Winced when her subconscious said, Okay, then why did you go all
the way down to that shop ? And
why do you now have the gemstone ?
    She brought the tea back to the table.
Didn’t sit but stared down at the necklace as she debated her
choices. Just because she was aware of something didn’t mean she
wasn’t open to trying it. After all, she was also “aware” that the
power of persuasion was a big one. And she wanted Devin. Had wanted
him for a while now. She’d finally just reached a point where she
was tired of waiting for him to realize she was his perfect match.
If wearing this silly necklace somehow gave her the confidence to
take things with him beyond friendship, then she was willing to
give it a try—whether it had real power or not.
    She set
her tea on the table, lifted the necklace. And told herself to stop
being such a pansy. As she slipped the chain around her throat and
closed the clasp, then brushed her fingers across the opal nestled
just above her cleavage, she reminded herself that she was a smart
woman. A successful architect. She wasn’t desperate. She didn’t
need a man to complete her, but she wanted one. And if this didn’t
work, well, it wasn’t the end of her world. Nothing bad was going to happen, as that
shopkeeper had cryptically led her to believe.
    “Your wish, my command.”
    Mira whipped around at the sound of the deep
voice and stared through the archway at the man standing in the
middle of her living room. Fear raced through her chest. She took
one step back toward the kitchen counter behind her and the knife
block she knew was there. “Wh-who are you, and how did you get into
my apartment?”
    A slow, mesmerizing smile slinked across his
deeply tanned face. “My name is Tariq. And you wished for me. That
is how I came to be.”
    Mira’s
heart pounded so hard beneath her ribs, she was sure he had to hear
it. She bumped into the counter, inched her hand backward until her
fingers knocked into the knife block. “I—I didn’t call for anyone.
Leave. Now. Or I will call the
cops.”
    His gaze
dropped from her face to her chest. “Did you not put on the
necklace?” He stepped into the kitchen, and Mira’s eyes widened
when she took a good look at him in the light streaming through her
kitchen window. Shoulder-length dark hair, ebony eyes, a strong,
square jaw covered in a dusting of scruff, and a body sporting
jeans and a light blue T-shirt that didn’t hide the fact it looked
as if it were carved from marble. “ Azizity , I am from the opal.”
    Holy hell, the guy was psycho. Mira stared
at him with wide eyes. He didn’t make another move toward her, only
stared back with a knowing and heated expression, one that, for
reasons she couldn’t explain, shot warmth straight to her
center.
    No way this was real. She glanced past him
to the door, which was still locked, the chain exactly where she’d
left it when she’d come home, then to the windows that didn’t show
any evidence of having been opened.
    “What…? How…?”
    “Have you ever heard of a race known as
djinn?”
    Mira’s eyes grew even wider as they swept
back to him. “As in Arabic folklore? Are you saying you’re a
genie?”
    Correction, not just psycho. This guy was off the flippin’
charts insane .
    “Folklore to humans,” he said with only the
slightest narrowing of his fathomless eyes. “And genie is such