Jinxed!

1

“DID YOU KNOW I’m cursed?”

Seated shotgun in the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Erin Holland capped off the impetuous comment with a laugh and turned away from her date to peer out the window. Outside, the gray Pacific Ocean lengthened against a moody sky. The odd hot spell that’d consumed southern California last week had gone back into hiding, leaving behind the regular February grumble of weather.

After a beat passed, she glanced at her date again. She wasn’t sure why she’d even been talking to him about her psychic reading from last weekend. “Have you ever been to a fortune-teller?”

Wes Ryan steered with effortless grace. Heck, that’s how he did everything-effortlessly, but with an edge of deliberation and cockiness.

He grinned at her, slow, assured. “Nope, never.” Wes turned back to his driving. “How did she curse you?”

“She didn’t curse me. Not really. She just said I’d need to…” Erin paused, second-guessing the wisdom of telling him everything. Why had she even brought all this up? Instead, she was vague. “I doubted her prediction, and she said that my negativity would curse me unless I decided to go with the flow.” There. “That’s all.”

As Wes absorbed that, Erin took a second longer than she should’ve to linger over him.

The first time she’d seen him-Wes Ryan, the notorious player who ate women for breakfast, lunch and dinner-she’d been hooked. He’d been standing a few yards away at a party when she’d glanced over to find him leaning against a wall, beer bottle tilted in his hand as he watched her talking with her friends.

Maybe it was because he was the perfect man for her current situation: anticommitment, only interested in thrills and feel-good chills. Or maybe Erin had just been a one-man girl for so long that the notion of no-strings-attached sex excited her. Either way, she’d decided then and there to return his forthright interest, locking gazes with him until her skin heated.

It hadn’t been love at first sight or anything-God, she wouldn’t allow herself to fall for anyone again for at least another couple of years-but it was definitely lust. He had a primal way of holding himself, taut yet easy, his black hair kept long enough to get a little wild. He had olive skin, dark eyes that narrowed in cheetahlike hungriness, a nose that arrowed just above generous lips and a dimple in his chin.

Exotic. Suave. All male.

Her blood pounded, thickening until her limbs felt heavy. She started to ache between her thighs, so she turned back to the car’s window, instinctively removing herself from temptation even though she’d knowingly-and very willingly-put herself in its bull’s-eye this weekend.

A romantic getaway. A three-day cruise down to Ensenada, Mexico.

She shifted, suddenly nervous.

“So,” Wes said, “what exactly are you supposed to be flowing with? What’s this prediction you didn’t believe?”

Erin forced herself to relax. Enjoy. “Well, she said business is going to prosper. That was the first part.”

“What’s so hard to believe about that? The candy shop’s already doing really well.”

During their previous, very casual, very lighthearted dates these past couple of weeks, Erin had told him about her and her best friend’s plan to franchise Yes, Sweetie, the candy store they’d conceived long ago, while roommates in college. Their dream. But, now, just thinking about the business risk made her fidget, and that’s not what this weekend was about. She was supposed to be getting away from it all. To have the fun she’d been lacking up until this point.

“But, then-” Erin added, intending to tell him only this little bit more and that would be it “-there was Madame Karma’s prediction about my having a long, long life.”

“I’ll have to check out your palm to second that opinion, I suppose.”

Erin felt him inserting a finger into her hand, which she’d been resting in a loose fist on her lap. His touch tickled, and she laughed, opening for him. The contact was innocent yet sexual enough to heighten the ache between her legs.

“Shouldn’t you concentrate on driving?” she murmured, her pulse wavering.

“How can I?” True to his reputation, he moved his finger from her palm to her leg, sliding toward her inner thigh.

The ache turned sharp, damp. Her heartbeat picked up dangerous speed, warning her to slow down.

“Hey,” she said, casually directing his hand back to his own side of the car and pointing to a road sign announcing that the Long Beach cruise terminal was ahead. “We don’t want to miss our turnoff because you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

She could feel his gaze on her, heavy and enticing. But she knew better than to look at him. He could seduce with just one long, hot stare, and she’d already almost given in so many times, but…

Well, she guessed she’d be giving in soon enough, right? That’s why she was here-to indulge in good times with a man who had a reputation for guaranteeing that a woman came out of the bedroom happy. Heaven knew she needed some variety after being with the same man for so long.

“What else about this prediction?” he asked, eyes on the road now, obeying like a good boy. “It doesn’t sound hard to buy into so far, especially for a girl who was open-minded enough to visit this Madame Karma in the first place.”

“Actually, she came to the Fairfax building complex, where my shop is. She had a table set up at the combination Valentine’s Day party and renovation celebration last weekend. It drew a nice crowd and we did great business.”

“But you still went to her. Am I right?”

Erin clasped her fingers into her palm, reliving his touch. “Cheryl, that wench, basically forced me to the Madame’s table. Getting our palms read would be hilarious, she said.” At Wes’s blank look, Erin added, “Cheryl. You met her at the shop last Tuesday when you picked me up for dinner?”

“Sorry, it took a minute to click. Cheryl. Long blond hair, freckles, big smile. Best friend. Partner in crime and business. Yeah, I remember.”

Erin paused. Cheryl was such a big part of her life, and Wes’s unfamiliarity with her drove home just how new they really were to each other.

And I’m taking a weekend trip with him, she thought, heart stuttering.

Wes was speaking again. “So wasn’t there anything more colorful to this prediction, like a passion-filled adventure on the seas-”

“You wish she’d predicted that.” Erin managed a laugh, but she really didn’t want to talk about it.

Because, before the storm had descended on the complex in Baxter Hills that day, Madame Karma had made a prediction about more than just business or a long, long life…

The older woman had patted Erin’s palm, the lines around her eyes deepening with the “good” news. “Love must be in the air today because I feel like I’ve said this so many times, but you can stop looking for the man of your dreams. You’ve already found ‘the one.’”

In the next chair, Cheryl had clapped Erin on the shoulder, beaming with her patented big smile. “Congratulations. Hopefully ‘the one’ will actually find his way to the altar before six years go by.” Mischievously, Cheryl had turned to Madame Karma. “The last one took his sweet time.”

Erin had addressed Madame Karma, too. “William and I never even sent out wedding invitations, and that’s why we broke up. Our engagement was, like, an endless trek across the desert of all relationships.” But why had she even explained? “Listen, I know everyone wants to hear that kind of great news about a love life, so you feel compelled to say it, but…”

“Oh, no,” the elderly fortune-teller had said. “I’m not wrong.”

Erin had shaken her head. “You don’t understand. I’m not in the market for ‘the one.’ Not for a couple more years at least.” When she’d gotten over the disappointment of William, her college sweetheart. The man who’d taken her so completely for granted that he’d thought marriage would come when he was ready. Which had turned out to be never.

But that was okay. Five months ago, she’d realized William wasn’t the guy for her and had called it off, yet that didn’t mean she was looking to settle down with the next candidate. She’d made herself a promise to experience life as a single woman for the first time since…ever. She’d been shackled to William for so long that she’d missed out on dating and doing all those mysterious things available women did, and now she just wanted to enjoy all the Cosmo girl fun she’d lost out on over the years.

Yet there was more to it than even that, she knew. She also wanted to avoid the profound emotions that would only lead to getting hurt again, and Wes could give her that. Someone so temporary would allow her breathing room from the anguish she’d just about recovered from with William.

But there Madame Karma was, telling Erin that Wes was “the one.” God, it was the last thing she wanted to hear.

Cheryl, who had her own long-term boyfriend, was a big supporter of Erin’s new crusade. “See, Madame Karma,” she’d said, leaning over the fortune-teller’s table, “Erin here is in transition.”

Erin had smiled and nodded.

“What can I tell you, then,” the fortune-teller had said. “Your transition man is the one you’re meant to be with.”

At that, Erin had made a sound that smacked somewhere between disbelief and panic. Didn’t Madame Karma know how much she needed Wes to be insignificant?

The psychic had sighed and risen from her chair, her gypsy skirt swishing around her legs as she began moving away from the table. “I guess you’re going to give fate a hard time, too.”

Cheryl and Erin had exchanged puzzled glances.

Madame Karma had gestured toward the sexy coffee shop, Constant Cravings, where Erin and Cheryl got their daily doses of caffeine. A creamy latte called Goes Down Easy was Erin’s current addiction.

“That woman in there…” the fortune-teller had begun.

“Lacey?” Cheryl asked.

The fortune-teller nodded. “She and her boyfriend were the first to scoff.”

Erin and Cheryl mouthed, “Boyfriend?” to each other. Lacey Perkins was as single as they came. Sure, Evan Sawyer, the building manager, seemed to enjoy harassing Lacey about her window displays a little too much, but…

“And,” Madame Karma had added, “then came the next nonbeliever, the accountant.”

Accountant, accountant…

“Oh,” Erin said, gesturing toward the fourth floor. “You must mean Chloe Cooper-”

Madame Karma was on a roll. “Let me tell you something, just so you can avoid the trouble they’ll be having…” Here, the fortune-teller leaned forward. “If you don’t go with what’s supposed to be, each and every one of you will jinx your own fate. You reject what love has in store for you, and you twist karma around until it comes right back at you with negative energy.”

Cheryl, always up for a lively discussion, had raised a finger to offer her own point of view on the matter, but Madame Karma left in a rush of patchouli before Miss Debate Team could say anything.

That hadn’t stopped Erin, though. “But Wes is just a transition man,” she’d repeated to no one in particular, staring at the fountain burbling in the courtyard, yet not really seeing it.

Now, as Erin watched the harbor come into focus outside the car’s window, she knew she really shouldn’t tell Wes any of this. Truthfully, there was no reason to bring it up since their future was limited anyway. Those were the established parameters of this fling; she’d been absolutely honest about it with him. Sure, they laughed a lot and even enjoyed a few heated makeout sessions in which she’d always needed to put on the brakes. Yet it was all good: he was giving her the confidence to build up to a relationship again someday and, in return, she provided him with…well, she guessed companionship. She didn’t think he minded though, because he wasn’t built for the long-term.

As he guided the car into a parking structure, easing it along the curb where porters waited to collect luggage, Erin told herself that all she knew about him were superficial details anyway: at thirty, he was a successful day trader who’d branched out into real estate these past few years. That made him a slightly older man with the kind of experienced joie de vivre she craved. And he’d proven it with surprises like a picnic at the Hollywood Bowl one night-not your average date. He lived well and played hard, and she lapped that up, enthralled by this new way of experiencing life. This wonderfully carefree way.

After Wes cut the engine, they got out of the car and unloaded. He handed their baggage over to a porter. As Erin watched him move-boy, she really liked to do that-she shivered, and it wasn’t just because the weather was sullen.

No, not at all. It was because the porter had piled their bags on top of each other, just as if they belonged together. That luggage would be going to the same room, where Erin and Wes would finally be sleeping in the same bed.

She closed her cashmere sweater around her. What was she doing here again? To her, sex had always been entwined with what she thought was love. Sex was revealing yourself to someone else, lying next to them with your skin bare. Vulnerable. Open and offered to them. But she was working on changing that, too-serious philosophy. It only led to heartbreak, and she didn’t need any more of that.

As Wes parked the car nearby, Erin waited, the wind chuffing at her.

But, minutes later, when she saw him sauntering toward her-all tall, muscled, athletic grace-that ache between her legs swelled, twisted, throbbed.

She wanted him, period. And, really, there was nothing wrong with giving in to what her body needed, just as long as it didn’t include anything like a commitment. She’d save all that serious stuff for “the one” when he actually came along.

Wes grinned, and she held out her hand to take his.

“Ready?” he asked.

No.

Erin wanted to smack herself. Fun. Enjoy. Come on.

“Yup, let’s get on board,” she said instead, brushing against his leather jacket and taking in the musky, rugged scent.

As they left to embark, the wind seemed to carry the fortune-teller’s words of warning: You reject what love has in store for you, and you twist karma around until it comes right back at you with negative energy…