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“You have a good heart, Harry Dresden,” Michael said, a fierce grin stretching his mouth. He stepped closer to my side. “God will smile on this choice.” “Yeah. Ask Him not to Sodom and Gomorrah my apartment, and we’ll be even.”
Just inside the door is a table, covered with pamphlets with titles like: Magic and You, and Why Witches Don’t Sink Any Faster Than Anyone Else—a Wizard’s Perspective. I wrote most of them. I think it’s important for we practitioners of the Art to keep up a good public image. Anything to avoid another Inquisition.
“Mr. Dresden. I don’t want to threaten you. But you must understand that I am well acquainted with a certain young lady of your company—and that I could see to it that things became very awkward between you.” “I see. But if I shared the story with you—” “Gave me an exclusive, Mr. Dresden.” “An exclusive,” I amended, “then you might see your way clear to avoiding causing problems for me?” “I’d even put in a good word with her,” Susan said, her voice cheerful, then dropping into a lower, smokier register. “Who knows. You might get lucky.”
I drew out a seat in front of my desk for the young woman. She blinked at me in confusion for a second before she said, “Oh,” and sat. I walked around the desk, leaving my duster on, and sat down. “All right,” I said. “If you want my protection, I want a few things from you first.” She pushed back her asphalt-colored hair with one hand and gave me a look of pure calculation. Then she simply crossed her legs, so that the cut of her dress left one pale leg bare to midthigh. A subtle motion of her back thrust out her young, firm breasts, so that their tips pressed visibly against the fabric. “Of
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I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant.” Her sex-kitten look faltered. “It . . . it isn’t?” She frowned at me, eyes scanning me again, reassessing me. “Is it . . . are you . . . ?” “No,” I said. “I’m not gay. But I’m not buying what you’re selling. You haven’t even told me your name, but you’re willing to spread your legs for me? No, thanks. Hell’s bells, haven’t you ever heard of AIDS? Herpes?” Her face went white, and she pressed her lips together until they were white, too. “All right, then,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
I sighed, and rubbed at one eyebrow with my thumb. My first rampant instincts were to give her a cup of hot chocolate, put a blanket around her shoulders, tell her everything would be all right and strap my talisman onto her wrist. I tried to rein those in, though. Down, Quixote.
I closed my eyes to think about this. Again, my instincts told me to help the girl, smash the bad ghost or whatever, and walk off into the sunset.
A very tall, slender, inhumanly beautiful woman stepped out of the smoke. Reddish hair curled down past her hips in a riotous cascade, complementing her flawless skin, high cheekbones, and lush, full, bloodred lips. Her face was ageless, and her golden eyes had vertical slits instead of pupils, like a cat. Her gown was a flowing affair of deep green. “Hello, my son,” Lea purred,
Lea laughed, a sound like bells just a shade out of tune. “Always in such a rush, you mortals. But we haven’t seen each other in ages, Harry.” She walked closer, her body moving with a lithe, sensuous grace that might have been mesmerizing in other circumstances. The hounds spread out silently behind her. “We should spend some time together.”
“Come, Harry,” Lea purred, her voice gone, pardon the pun, smoky again.
I saw Lea’s mouth, her soft, lovely mouth, curl upward in a triumphant smirk.
“It is. Did you ask for an invitation before you went into the Malone’s house?” “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did. It’s polite, and—” “And it’s harder for you to work magic in a home you haven’t been invited into. You cross the threshold without an invitation, and you leave a big chunk of your power at the door. It doesn’t affect you as much because you’re a mortal, Harry, but it still gets you in smaller ways.”
Her golden cat-eyes studied me with their old, familiar warmth, her hair spilling around her in a mane that seemed unaffected by the rain. She didn’t seem to mind it soaking her dress, though. It clung to the curves of her body, showed the perfection of her breasts, their tips clearly showing through the silken fabric as she knelt down beside me.
She let out a low groan. “The baby,” she said. “Oh, I think . . . I think my water broke earlier. When I fell.” Her face twisted up, flushing bright red, and she groaned again. “Oh,” I said. “Oh. Oh, no. No, this is not happening.” I put the heel of my hand to my forehead. “This is just wrong.” I shot an accusing glance skywards. “Someone up there has a sick sense of humor.” “Nnngggrhhh!” Charity groaned. “Oh, Lord preserve. Mr. Dresden, I don’t have much time.” “No.” I sighed. “Naturally not.”
A pair of gorgeous legs in pink high heels slid out of the car, followed by a slender and scrumptious girl barely covered in flower petals. She had a short, tight skirt made out of them, and more petals cupped her breasts like delicate hands. Other than that, and the baby’s breath woven into the tumbled mass of her black hair, she wore nothing. And she wore it well. In heels, she might have been five-seven, and she had a face that made me think that she was both lovely and sweet. Her cheeks were flushed in a delicate pink blush, vibrant and alive, her lips parted, and she had a look to her
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The curve of her smile promised things that were probably illegal, and bad for you, and would carry warnings from the Surgeon General, but that you’d still want to do over and over again. I wasn’t interested.
No, definitely not, it's not like he just got done describing how hot she is for more than half a page lol
“What?” I asked. “Look, you didn’t have to do what you did, but we can work on getting it taken care of. Let’s just get out of here. Okay?” “Okay,” she said. Then her frown deepened and she peered at me. “This is going to sound odd, but—do I know you?”
“I don’t want it to be like that. But if we don’t do something to protect ourselves, she’ll kill him. And make me into one of her pet whores.” “I wouldn’t let that happen to you,” I said. The words poured out of my mouth before I’d had time to run them past the thinking part of my brain, but they had that solid, certain ring of truth. Oh, hell. She looked up at me, uncertain again, catching one of those soft lips between her teeth. “Really?” she whispered. “You really mean that, don’t you.” I grimaced. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Dammit,” I swore, earning a glare from Michael. “Dammit, dammit, dammit, woman. All women, for that matter.”
I hate it when a woman asks me for help and I witlessly decide to go ahead and give it, regardless of dozens of perfectly good reasons not to. I hate it when I get threatened and strong-armed into doing something stupid and risky. And I hate it when someone takes the moral high ground on me and wins. Justine had just done all three, but I couldn’t hold it against her. She just looked too sweet and helpless.
She let out a little shudder that ran through her most attractively, and then she pressed herself against me. “Thank you,” she murmured, nuzzling her face into the hollow of my throat so that little lightning-streaks of sensation flickered down my spine. “Thank you, Mister Dresden.” I coughed, uncomfortably, and firmly shoved back any ideas of extracting a more thorough thanks from her later, despite the clamoring of my sex drive. Probably the vampire venom, I reasoned, making me notice things like that even more. Sure.
He's with his gf that doesn't remember him bc she gave up her memories to save him bc he keeps making and breaking oaths. Just putting that out there...