Don't Hex and Drive (Stay a Spell #2) - Juliette Cross Page 0,37
he said right to her face.”
“Wow. And what did Aunt Beryl say to that?” I asked, leaning against one of the columns by the front door.
Tia grinned coquettishly, her hazel-brown eyes glittering with dangerous glee. “She said he was fine for a white man, and since he handled himself like a class act, I was allowed to go out with him.”
“Aunt Beryl-approved dating material? He must be impressive.”
She winked as she reached for the doorknob, but then I wrapped my hand on top of hers, preventing her from getting away.
“So you’re really dating him now?”
I was a little shocked. I couldn’t remember the last time Tia had dated anyone. Like me. She and I had been united in solidarity against the opposite sex. Well, not against them really. But maybe we enjoyed a joke or two at their expense. And had been bound together in our attachment to singlehood for a long time.
She sobered, looking over her shoulder at me. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I am.” Her little smile told me this was more than a passing fling. She hadn’t said anything, but I could read Tia as well as my sisters.
She twisted the door and shoved it open. I fell in behind her, hearing familiar music coming from the living room television. The same Bollywood music I’d been hearing coming from next door this past week.
“I guess it’s convenient he’s your neighbor,” I continued, walking beside her down the hallway. “Easy access to your Italian stallion, right?” I nudged her playfully.
“Oh, Isadora. You have no idea.” She stopped and squished my cheeks between her hands then whispered, “You should try sleeping with your neighbor. You might like it.”
I pulled away and marched ahead of her. “As if.” I’d spent the afternoon complaining about the nuisance vampire neighbor. Rather than sympathize, she said it sounded more like sexual frustration, which I should use him to get rid of. I wasn’t about to admit that the very same thought had crossed my mind earlier that day. But I’d always found men never lived up to my expectations. I’d rather avoid the hassle and just use my toys. I liked keeping things simple.
“And you hit the nail on the head with that stallion part,” Tia added on a laugh. “Damn does he know how to use that body.”
“Stop it! Now you’re just trying to make me feel bad about my lack of a sex life.” We stepped into the living room. “What in the fresh hell is this?” I murmured to Tia.
Violet and Livvy were sprawled on the giant living room sofa, popcorn bowls in hand, while Clara was facing the television with a pink scarf wrapped around her waist and shimmying her hips to the music coming from the blaring TV. None of them bothered to look up.
“I can’t make my hips do that,” complained Clara, swaying her pelvis in figure-eights. Sort of.
Then my gaze landed on the giant plasma screen that Evie insisted we needed for all of her sci-fi and Avenger movies she loved. I gulped, immediately breaking out into a sweat.
Devraj stared out, his lips moving, his velvet-dark voice resonating through the soundbar and filling the room. The camera panned out, revealing his white button-down billowing open. He stood at the center of a gang of seven other fine-looking men who danced and sang in unison, clapping hands and stomping feet to a heavy drumbeat, hips moving, chests heaving. And Devraj, his long hair blowing in the wind, his come-hither eyes fixed on the camera, on the viewer, on me, felt like an electric zap that pierced my chest and sizzled much farther down. I tried to swallow, but my throat was Sahara Desert dry.
“What is this?” I was barely able to whisper.
My three sisters’ heads swiveled to face me. Violet grinned with far too much glee. “It’s the movie you tossed in your trash in your bedroom. Dilwala Deewana.”
“Are you kidding me?” I snapped. “Why would you rummage through my trash?”
Violet reached over to the coffee table and snatched my all-too-familiar weekly chores list that I’d posted on the fridge and waved it in the air like a flag.
“Just following your orders. And you tossed it out. Finders, keepers.”
“Oh, my,” said Livvy, leaning forward toward the television.
Devraj was now circling a beautiful woman, the music having dimmed to nothing but percussion, his body an artful machine of rhythm and seduction. The woman knelt on a blanket, heaving deep breaths as he circled, trailing his