Jack McAllister closed the car Door behind him and focused past the falling snowflakes and the plate glass window of the diner to watch Mira Hoskins consider the tip he'd left her. She glanced out the window, stuffed the twenty and his bill into her apron pocket, and then leaned over the table to take his empty coffee cup and discarded newspaper. Her skirt rode up in the back, revealing the sweet curve of her calf, a little of the creamy skin of her thigh, the tender back of her knee. It was such a sensitive place on most women.

He groaned. The woman had a nice pair of legs, legs he'd imagined wrapped around his waist more than once since he'd been tasked with watching over her. Her hair was long and thick, a rich chocolate brown. Jack had imagined it spilling over the side of his mattress while he sank his cock inside her. He'd imagined fisting it in his hands while he spread her facedown on his bed and took her from behind with long, driving strokes into her wet heat. Jack would make her claw the sheets, make her go slack-jawed and helpless with lust, make her forget everything but the way he possessed her body.

He bet she made the sweetest sounds when she came.

Jack cursed and looked away. He'd known when he accepted the assignment that fire and air had a natural attraction, but he'd underestimated the strength of the magickal affinity. Jack had a huge sexual appetite; however, he'd thought he could resist this woman. She wasn't for him, not on any level. Consciously, he knew that. His cock seemed to have different ideas, however.

He couldn't help thinking about her lush, soft curves and how she'd feel under his hands. Wanting her was powerful, primal—an instinctive response of his magick to hers. Nothing more. All the same, he was lusting hard after the one woman he knew he shouldn't want.

On every other level but the magickal one, she wasn't his type. Mira Hoskins wasn't a woman you fucked and left. This was a woman you kept. One you loved. One you tucked into your life forever.

He watched her gather up the cup and his discarded napkin and head back to the kitchen. She seemed utterly unaware of her beauty. Men noticed her constantly, but she seemed oblivious. She kept her hair natural, long and straight. She never wore much makeup. That unconsciousness about her appearance made her even more attractive.

Jack swore again and started the engine.

Mira was a nice woman, and that meant she wasn't his kind of woman. He usually bedded women who were married and wanting short affairs on the side, or unattached women who were in it for a no-strings-attached good time. Jack stayed away from women like Mira Hoskins.

Especially Mira Hoskins.

He'd taken this job to discharge the debt he owed her. It had to stay professional.