Be Careful What You Wish For Read online

“Well, yes,” Cass admitted reluctantly. “I mean, I have this huge show coming up at the I.C.U. gallery and he knows how important it is to me but he can’t take time out of his busy band and bar schedule to come pose for a few hours. I mean sometimes I just feel like—”

  She broke off abruptly, realizing that she was doing it again. Talking to Jake O’Shea like he was one of her best girlfriends. Like he cared about what happened in her private life.

  He’s just your attorney, she reminded herself fiercely. So stop running off at the mouth!

  “Like what?” Jake was looking at her intently.

  “I’m sorry?” Cass frowned.

  “You were saying that sometimes the way your lover treats you makes you feel like…”

  “Oh. Uh, never mind.” Cass felt her face getting hot. “It’s stupid anyway. You don’t want to hear the minute details of my life.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” His expression was entirely serious. “You’re my client, Cassandra. Everything you think and feel concerns me.”

  “It…does?” She looked at him uncertainly. “I mean, uh, listening to me bitch about my love life seems to go above and beyond your, uh, lawyerly duties.”

  Jake took a step closer. Cass could feel the heat from his big body radiating against her skin and his wild, spicy scent enveloped her, making her feel almost dizzy.

  “I don’t think you understand,” he murmured. “How close…how intimate the relationship between an attorney and his client can be in the Realm. I am committed to your case, Cassandra—completely committed. Which means I am also committed to you. I will do anything in my power to protect you. Anything.”

  “Oh,” Cass whispered, feeling like all the breath had left her lungs. Her heart was suddenly pounding and her cheeks felt hot. “Oh, I…I see.”

  “I wish we had more time to discuss this.” He lifted a hand and brushed his knuckles lightly over her flushed cheek. “But we really mustn’t be late for court again. You need to change, Cassandra—unless you wish to go in your current outfit?”

  “Huh?” Cass dragged her eyes away from his and looked down at her tattered yoga pants. “Oh no—no way. Just give me a minute.”

  Quickly she dug through her closet again, looking desperately for anything remotely professional to wear. Unfortunately, the white blouse and black pencil skirt combo she’d worn to teach in earlier was the only such outfit she had and it was crumpled and wrinkled from her sleeping in it.

  Finally she had to settle on a pair of tight black skinny jeans and an off-the shoulder black blouse she’d bought for clubbing. Not that she had the time or the money to go out much but it was nice to look hot on the occasions when she went to see Brandon’s band play. Of course, “hot groupie girl” probably wasn’t the right look for fairy court but it certainly beat her tattered yoga pants or the faded nightshirt she’d had on the first time she went.

  Taking the clothes, she turned to go into the bathroom and change, only to be stopped by Jake’s voice.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Oh, well…I have to change.” Cass didn’t like the hesitant sound of her own voice. Why did he affect her so strongly?

  “And you’re ashamed to do so in front of me?” He raised one eyebrow at her, his leaf-green eyes challenging.

  “No, but…there is such a thing as privacy!” Cass sputtered. “And besides, this shirt is off the shoulder so I can’t wear a bra with it.” It was the major drawback of the outfit but there wasn’t much she could do about it—strapless bras didn’t work on her—her boobs were too big.

  “I have seen your breasts, Cassandra,” he murmured, his eyes going suddenly hooded with desire. “They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful. I would hate to think you were so ashamed of your lovely body you felt you had to hide it.”

  Cass’s chin shot up. “I’m not ashamed!” And I’ll show you I’m not! she mentally added.

  Defiantly, she began stripping away her old yoga clothes, trying not to notice his hot gaze on her as she bared her body. Let him look at her—she might be too big in the boobs and hips and ass areas but at least she had a nice curvy waist and though large, her boobs were still firm.

  She wished she had the nerve to sashay around completely nude but that was pushing it, even for her. Instead, she kept her underwear on and got dressed in her skin-tight jeans and off-the-shoulder black top and quickly as she could.

  When she was ready, she fluffed out her hair and finally managed to meet Jake’s eyes.

  “Satisfied?” she demanded, holding out her hands.

  “Not nearly,” he growled and the look on his face was positively hungry. “But you’re not ready to go, either. You need some shoes this time.”

  Cass remembered how she’d been barefoot after her favorite Bert and Ernie slippers had been lost and nodded. It was definitely better to wear shoes in the strange Realm of the Fae—who knew what weird thing she might encounter there next?

  “All right. I think I have a nice pair of black flats in here somewhere…”

  She began digging through her closet but suddenly Jake was right beside her. He spoke a low word of power that sounded a lot like the housekeeping charm he’d uttered earlier that had cleaned up the classroom after the soul-sucker monster had devastated it.

  Suddenly Cass’s entire closet seemed to have rearranged itself. Clothing that had been in piles on the floor was hanging neatly from hangers. Pants and jeans were folded and stacked and best of all the tangle of shoes that had taken up most of the closet floor were neatly organized and hanging in the shoe rack which Phil had given her for Christmas but which Cass had never used.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed involuntarily. “That’s amazing! I wouldn’t be nearly so messy if I could clean the house just by saying a word.”

  The big elf arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Perhaps I’ll try to teach you then. Most humans aren’t able to master elf magic but something tells me you’d be the exception to that particular rule, as you seem to be to so many others.”

  Cass wanted to ask him what he was talking about but he was already reaching for a pair of shoes and handing them to her.

  “These, I think.”

  “What—the hooker heels Rory got me as a joke?”

  Cass looked at the four-inch black stiletto sandals in apprehension. They really had been a joke—the punch line being that she wouldn’t be able to wear them anywhere without breaking her neck. She’d never been good in heels—preferring comfy ballet flats or just plain going barefoot when she was indoors.

  “They’re right for Court.” Jake nodded decisively.

  “But…I can barely walk in them,” Cass protested, trying to give them back to him.

  He took the shoes from her but the next minute he was kneeling at her feet, like a man about to propose. Before Cass could protest, he was slipping the shoes on her.

  “Hey!” Cass was forced to grab his broad shoulders to keep herself from falling over. “I told you—”

  “Don’t worry if you can’t walk, Cassandra—I’ll carry you if necessary,” he rumbled, standing again.

  Even wearing the four-inch heels Cass found she had to look up at him.

  “All right,” she said unwillingly, trying to stand without wobbling. “But I still don’t see why you want me to wear them.”

  “Think of how the full-blooded fairies you saw the last time we went to the Realm were dressed,” Jake said patiently. “This outfit you have on looks like something one of them would wear. Though you have no wings, having a fairy-like appearance may still sway the judge in your favor.”

  “What? But I don’t look anything like them,” Cass protested. “I don’t have wings for one thing. And I’m not nearly as skinny as those full-blooded fairy bitches.”

  “I know.” His eyes flicked over her approvingly, showing a flash of heat in their pale green depths. “You have curves—lovely ones.”

  The compliment made Cass blush against her will. Which in turn made her