He was puzzled, but he rose. She did, too, going closer to the fire and bending to pick up a large shell with some dried leaves inside. She took a flaming stick from the fire and touched it to the leaves. They blazed a little. She blew gently until the flames died, and smoke billowed. Then she moved toward him, knelt in front of him, and blew the smoke at his legs and feet.
Alex closed his eyes in a mingling chaos of anguish and desire. God, she was killing him.
She moved behind him, still blowing. Then higher, her breaths pushing smoke toward his thighs and buttocks. She came around to the front of him again, blowing gently at his groin.
"Jesus," he muttered, and his hands twitched, wanting to bury themselves in her hair. He fought the urge and hoped she didn't notice how hard he was getting, but hell, he was only human, and there was an earthy wild woman kneeling in front of him blowing on his crotch.
She stood, still moving around him, still blowing gently, wafting smoke over his belly and chest, his back and sides, his arms and shoulders, his neck, face, and head.
When she finished, she blew a little smoke at his chair and the area where he'd been sitting. "Better?" she asked.
He looked down at himself, frowning. When he managed to look past the fact that he was more turned on than he'd been in a decade, he realized he felt... different. As if he'd just stepped out of the shower. And the dull ache that had been knotting his lower back all day was gone. "Yeah," he said. "I do feel better."
"You should. You were practically reeking with negative energy."
"Yeah?" He sniffed his shirtsleeve. "And now I'm reeking of... ?"
"Sage." She smiled at him, sitting down in her chair, nodding for him to do the same. "Who have you been hanging around with lately, anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged. "Well, I'd hate to think all that darkness in your aura was coming from you. It couldn't, or I wouldn't be so - " She bit her lip, stopped herself. "You must be picking it up somewhere else."
"You wouldn't be so... ?" He searched her eyes and wondered which one of them was going to be the first to admit that they were each sitting here thinking about ripping the other's clothes off.
She averted her gaze. "Nothing. I just... nothing."
He licked his lips. No, he wouldn't bring it up. Not just yet, he decided. "Could it be the actresses?"
"They're nasty, self-centered, and vain, but I don't think they're malicious. This feels... dark."
He shrugged, averting his eyes, ignoring the warning bells going off in his mind. He'd been feeling the same way himself for weeks now. As if there was some dark shadow clinging to him like a parasite. He was tired, moody, didn't feel well. He kept thinking it might be the house. But damn, he didn't want it to be the house.
Time to change the subject. "So what were you doing when I arrived? Magic?"
"Not really."
It was not the specific answer he would have liked. "Listen, you have the job. This isn't a test. But I want to know more."
"About what I was doing when you arrived?"
He held her eyes. "For starters." She just looked at him, waiting, as if she knew he wasn't being honest.
"All right," he admitted. "What I really want is the truth. What really goes on?"
Her brows rose. He decided he liked them. You couldn't tell what a woman was thinking when her eyebrows had been reduced to a pair of plucked, waxed, colored, and extremely thin arches. Hers were expressive. Now they were expressing - what? Surprise?
"What really goes on?" she repeated.
"Not the kinds of things you would normally reveal to an outsider. I want the truth. I want to know what it's really like. Ritual magic. Covens. Spells. Curses. All of it."
She lowered her eyes. "I'm not sure you have the stomach for it, Alex."
His stomach knotted up when her lips formed his name and her voice spoke it. He tried to shake off the feeling. What he was asking her was important. More important than she could know. "I have the stomach for anything you can dish out."
She tipped her head to one side, meeting his eyes once again. Hers glittered with something close to anger. "Are you sure? We're talking about some pretty heavy stuff here. Bloodletting. Ritual orgies. Animal sacrifice. The Scourge."