a red filter of rage over his vision. Conflict would bloom around him like the pots of flowers and herbs mobbing every surface if he didn’t quit this place, and soon.
Moira swung by a table and leaned in just enough to flash the crescent shadow below one shapely ass cheek. His cock twitched at the sight.
In less than a minute, he could dismember every person in this place and have Moira on the counter, legs spread, his face up that excuse for a skirt.
He would taste her through her panties first. Force her to endure the maddening sensation of his tongue working through the thin layer of cloth. Though she didn’t wear a bra, she would be wearing a thong. He knew it as surely as he knew she would fight the pleasure. He might slide the fabric aside for her second orgasm so he could shove his tongue inside her when she came. By the third, he would have torn the scrap of silk away with his teeth for better access while he learned the curvature of the wet, wanting ache inside her with his fingers.
He would fuck her raw, exploiting every angle to create the frenzied, frenetic state he needed.
And then he would own her.
Make her beg for—
“Jesus Christ on a Ferris wheel. What the hell are you doin’ here?”
Nick spun around to find Moira not only in close proximity, but behind him. His back had been to the corner. He had known it. Made certain of it. When had he moved? How had she seen him?
“Moira Jo Malveaux,” Nick said, tweaking her name into a twangy rhyme. “Imagine running into you here of all places.”
She propped her tray of used mugs against the curve of her hip. “Well, if it ain’t Mister Slicker’n Owl Shit Hisself. Why do I get the feeling that you don’t run into anyone?”
“Because you know as well as I do that there’s really no such thing as chance,” Nick answered.
“That,” Moira snorted, “or you didn’t get your fill yesterday and decided to follow me home like a hang-dog.”
“I’m afraid I’m here on business.” The edges of Nick’s vision bled a deeper shade of crimson. “Can you fetch your boss for me?”
Moira’s dark head rose an inch in his vision as her spine straightened. “My boss is back in Louisiana. You plannin’ on hopping back on a plane?”
“Forgive the error,” Nick said. “I just saw that tray and apron and reasoned that you might work here.”
“Probably you oughta spend less time reasoning,” Moira suggested. “You’re not all that good at it.”
Nick worked against the muscles in his jaw threatening to grind his teeth to powder. “So you stop into random establishments and volunteer your services, then?”
“Naw,” Moira said. “I’m just helpin’ out my sister.”
“Ahh. Your sister wouldn’t happen to be Tierra de Moray, would she?”
He guessed by the stricken look on Moira’s face that he had hit his mark.
“Thanks for your help.” Nick clunked his empty coffee cup down on Moira’s tray with more force than was necessary and brushed past her on the way to the counter where a tattooed minx with a bird’s nest of pink dreadlocks on her head coaxed coffee and steamed milk from a hissing copper behemoth.
He knew Moira would be at his elbow before he could so much as catch the barista’s attention.
“What do you want with my sister?” she demanded.
“None of your concern, as you don’t work here. Excuse me,” Nick said, flagging down the barista.
“What else can I get for you? Another double espresso?” the petite woman asked. Koi fish jumped and slithered down her toned biceps as she tamped espresso into a filter with a stainless steel press.
“Tierra de Moray, to begin with,” Nick answered.
Pain rolled through Nick’s head like the shockwaves of a nuclear explosion as the familiar face leaned into the doorway.
Moira. But not Moira.
The features were the same. The expression they wore was not. Wide-set eyes, high, smooth cheekbones, pillowed lips and a halo of that strange red-black hair. In Moira, the combination was a feral as cloudburst, the kind of intense, accidental beauty that sent people running for safer ground.
In Tierra, they were the unfolding of a season—relentless in their loveliness and supremely confident of their right to exist. “Who wants me?” she asked.
Twins. Julian’s mocking, lyrical voice looped through Nick’s mind. By blood moon’s light… Nick shoved the thoughts away, drawing his focus back to the task at hand.