She gave a surprised little yelp, wondering if he’d seen something in her face that had indicated just where her thoughts had temporarily drifted: Near virgin plus hungry lust god equals lots of great sex for lonely Allie. “My addiction?”

  He pointed down to her side, where the huge, almost-forgotten bag of cotton candy hung limply between her fingers. “You obviously like cotton candy. A lot.” His voice remained soft, melodic almost. As if he was already hypnotizing her.

  Man, he was good. He’d be very good.

  She nodded. “Who doesn’t?” Some deep, impish impulse made her lick her lips and add, “It’s so delicate—pink and soft.”

  Ignoring the crowd, keeping her voice low, she focused only on the man who obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with. If he thought he was going to take control of this conversation and make a fool out of her in front of all these people, he was about to find out otherwise. Allie didn’t give up control easily, and she definitely wasn’t a complete ninny, despite doing a pretty good impersonation of one for the past few minutes.

  If the man wanted to play a few sexy word games, however, she would most certainly accommodate him. Innuendo was about as much sexual interaction as she was likely to get for the next twenty years or so, until Hank grew up. She wasn’t about to bring random guys around her little boy.

  Her voice now a throaty whisper, she added, “I just love taking tiny tastes of it, almost kissing it into my mouth until it melts into a warm pool of sweet liquid. Mmm.”

  There. Let him try to maintain that calm, in-charge tone when she’d thrown some pretty blatant sexual suggestion at him.

  His jaw tightened. His thick muscles—easily visible beneath the satiny shirt—tensed. And his breathing slowed, as if he were focusing on drawing each breath in and then expelling it out in a determined effort for control. “I like picking it apart, piece by piece, morsel by morsel. That way it gets all over my fingers and my lips,” he murmured.

  Oh. Wow. He was coming back at her. Verbally and—judging by the subtle shift of his body forward—physically. She reacted immediately to his words, her breath catching, her pulse skittering. A warm flow of awareness began to ooze through her body, already hot under the lights.

  “It’s sticky,” he added. He was close enough now that his chest brushed hers. “And I like to lick off every tasty bit.”

  Nearly unaware she was doing it, Allie lifted her hand to her mouth. She brushed the tips of her fingers against her lips, almost tasting the cotton candy she hadn’t even opened yet. Almost tasting what she suspected he was really talking about—the delectable flavors two bodies made when having hot, steamy, sultry sex. Not that she’d ever actually had that kind, but oh, she’d read about it. Fantasized about it.

  “And maybe bite it, very carefully.”

  She instantly remembered his comments in the shadows about biting and the lazy river of warmth flowed a little further, a little deeper. All the places on her body that wanted to be tasted by him as if they were sweet, spun sugar on a stick awakened and sang with anticipation.

  There were a lot of them. And the overwhelming theme of their chorus was “Yes, yes!” with a few “Hallelujahs” thrown in. She needed no hypnosis to desperately want this man. Yet she felt as if she were under a spell, anyway.

  “So, should I cure you of this need you have?” he asked. He spoke softly, intimately, for just the two of them.

  “What if I don’t want to be cured of it?”

  “You merely want it satisfied, is that it?”

  “Maybe.”

  He looked down to where their bodies touched, his chest to hers, their hips a whisper apart, his black pants against her jean capris. “I think there’s enough to satisfy you.”

  She followed his gaze, saw the tightness of his pants and suspected he could absolutely satisfy her. “Definitely.”

  “I was talking about the cotton candy.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  It was crazy. They were complete strangers. They were also in full view of a bunch of people—on stage, under the spotlights no less. Yet all she wanted was to throw herself into this man’s arms and see if his mouth was as magical for other things as it was for those sweet, sultry, seductive whispers.

  You can’t. No. She couldn’t. Unless…. “Are you wearing a microphone?” she asked, still remaining close—so close.

  He shook his head; not surprising since she’d seen him using a hand-held mic earlier.

  “So, they haven’t heard much of what we’ve said?

  “No.”

  Allie could have backed away. Grabbed some sanity while she was still able. But that glint in his eyes—a glint that asked just what she was up to—wouldn’t let her.

  “Well, then,” she finally said, leaning closer, until her body was pressed hard against his, no suggestive whisper about it. “For all they know, you’ve been hypnotizing me into doing…all sorts of things.”

  Then, giving him no chance to evade her, she slid her arms around his neck, tangled her fingers in his thick, dark hair and tugged his face to hers. She saw his eyes widen the tiniest bit in surprise just before she pressed her mouth to his.

  But she was soon too busy kissing him to care.

  AS IF THE place were truly under some Roma spell, the audience slowly began to fade away. So did the lights…all other sound, all other sensation. Damon could see, hear, feel nothing except her.

  When Allie wrapped her arms around his neck and made it clear she was coming in for a landing on his lips, he didn’t hesitate for one second. He merely opened his mouth on hers and took what she was offering. Gave what she was demanding. Indulged in both.

  After all, kissing her—putting his hands on her—was what he’d wanted to do from the moment he’d seen those big blue eyes and that magnificently sultry mouth in the shadowy recesses of his tent.

  With her tempting whispers and sexy playfulness, he would have expected nothing less than a mouth as addictive as sin. That’s what he got. Delicious, irresistible sin. Her pouty lips welcomed him, and her warm tongue invited him home. She tasted not like cotton candy but like something warmer, spicier. Much more delicious. Yes, she was a stranger, but her kiss seemed familiar all the same, the way anything really good always felt.

  And it was really good. The kind of kiss that wasn’t particularly going anywhere but was a destination in and of itself. Deep. Hungry. But not desperate. They tasted and explored, gave and took, completely oblivious to everything except the ever deepening well in which they were drowning.

  Damon groaned in the back of his throat at the feel of her soft thigh slipping between his legs. Her hands tightening in his hair, she arched against him, crushing her full breasts against his silky shirt until he burned. His hands rose, as if of their own volition, desperate with the need to cup her, to toy with the pouty nipples he could feel burrowing into his chest.

  A shocked gasp pierced the cloud in his brain, stopping him. Everything quickly snapped back into place as the audience returned. Reality returned. And with it, some measure of sanity.

  Slowly—gradually—he ended the kiss, drawing back from her with crushing regret.

  She stared at him, her big blue eyes enormous, the pupils merely a pinpoint beneath the bright spotlights. Her lips remained parted, and he watched the pulse in her throat flutter, then finally slow.

  They both began to breathe.

  And the audience began to clap. Slowly at first. Then louder. Someone yelled, “Hypnotize me next!” That was followed by a male voice shouting, “Introduce me before you wake her up.”

  At which point Damon realized that the entire audience truly believed the most impressive kiss he’d ever experienced had only occurred because he’d hypnotized his way into it. He stiffened, a little offended that anyone would believe him capable of preying on a woman that way. He was about to deny it, and would have, if not for the wide-eyed, nearly desperate look on the face of the woman whose mouth he wanted to dive into again.

  Her lips trembling and her cheeks flushed, she whispered something under her breath.

  “Clap your hands or something.”

  “Wha…”

  “Quick.”

  Not thinking about it, he did as she asked. Then the sexy siren turned into an adorably disconcerted young woman. She lifted a hand to her face, shook her head once, and turned to look out at the audience, appearing entirely bemused. “Oh, my goodness. What happened?”

  She was talking to them. Not to him. And the crowd ate it up. The woman was playing the innocent, hypnotized bystander at his expense. She was absolving herself of all responsibility for their wildly sexual, very public, kiss.

  “You’ve just made your Oscar nomination tape, that’s what happened,” he muttered with a frown.

  “Did I win?” she murmured back, her voice low but still loud enough to be heard over the clapping crowd.

  Win? Oh, she had definitely won something with that kiss. Something that looked a whole hell of a lot like desire.

  By all rights, he should out her right here and now. But he hesitated. “You have a lot of nerve; I’ll give you that.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind,” she muttered back from behind a fake smile.

  “You made me look like a sleazy guy who has to hypnotize his way into a woman’s bed.”

  Sucking in an audible gasp, she swung her head to look at him. “Bed?!”

  He shrugged. “Into a kiss, then.”

  Her eyes rolled so hard it was a miracle the pretty blue irises didn’t disappear. “As if you’d have to.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh puh-lease. Look at you! You could have any woman here flat on her back with a snap of her fingers.”

  Damon’s brow went up and a slow, deliberate smile crossed his lips. Before he could even think about it, his hand lifted of its own volition. His middle finger and thumb came together and then loudly snapped apart.

  “You did not just snap your fingers at me!”

  “Oh, but I did.”

  Her cheeks flushed with color. “Well, I’m not interested.”

  Yeah, he was going to have to call bullshit on that one. “You said any woman.”

  “Not this one.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  The applause continued. The crowd whistled and clapped. The curly-haired brunette’s face went from pink to red.

  “That’s some ego you have.”

  “If you’re not interested, why did you grab me and kiss me?”

  “Just a lark, that’s all,” she said.

  She tried to keep that smile on her face. Damon wasn’t buying it. Stepping a little closer, until they stood hip-to-hip facing the audience, he moved his hand to the small of her back and lightly stroked.

  She flinched.

  Damon almost laughed. The audience was quieting, but still watching very closely.

  He moved his fingers down her spine in a touch as soft as cotton candy.

  She gulped. “Don’t do that!”

  “I’ll stop but only if you agree to meet with me after the show. I’ll be finished in a few minutes.”

  “No.”

  His hand dropped lower. Her eyes bugged out. But knowing she couldn’t very well slap him and stalk off the stage without making it obvious she wasn’t simply a confused woman who’d just been hypnotized, she stayed in place. “Stop it,” she muttered.

  “Say you’ll meet me after the show. I’ll let you pretend to be hypnotized so you can do any outrageous thing you want to me.”

  He had just propositioned a near stranger on a stage in front of dozens of people. But he didn’t care. Not even when she kicked his ankle. She had a hard foot, but for some reason, Damon found himself smiling…like he hadn’t in a very long time.

  He didn’t smile for long, though. Because ten minutes later, when he’d taken his last bow and looked over in the shadows, certain he’d see her waiting there for him, he discovered his mystery woman was gone.

  Chapter 3

  “HOW MANY WOMEN named Allie can there be in this tiny town?”

  Damon thrust a frustrated hand through his hair. It had been five days—five—since a sexy siren named Allie had turned him inside out and then disappeared. And with every day that passed, the intrigue ratcheted up…as did his desire for her.

  With just one kiss and some sexy innuendo, she’d practically had him ready to tear off their clothes and take every bit of wicked, delicious pleasure she’d whispered about. If the audience hadn’t been there, he might have done it then and there. If she hadn’t run away, he might have done it every single night since.

  “Still no luck, huh?” Paulie asked from the other side of the trailer where he’d been digging into Damon’s tiny fridge. Paulie was trying to avoid the diet food Bella was forcing on him. “What I wouldn’t give for a sausage sandwich with peppers.”

  “I’ll sneak you ten of them if you find her for me.”

  Paulie looked up, amusement making his angular face appear elf-like. “Guess that betting pool’s about to pay off.”

  “Not if I can’t find her before we leave here.”

  “You kissed her, and she ran. Priceless.” His cousin snickered as he gave up and slammed the refrigerator door.

  “She kissed me,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

  Paulie’s laughter got a little louder.

  “What?”

  “Some hot babe kisses you and you mope about it for a week.”

  “Only because she disappeared right afterward.”

  “That’s what’s so great about it. One kiss and she went into the witness protection program. You losing your touch?”

  Paulie’s comment rankled. It did seem as though Allie, the brown-haired beauty, had disappeared. If not for the way he smiled when he pictured her “snapping out” of her hypnotic spell, and the way he had to shift in his pants at the memory of that amazing kiss, he’d wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing.

  “I better go.” Paulie’s sigh could have been heard from the next town. “Bella’s making meatless hamburgers. Why not just call it a hockey puck on a bun and be done with it?”

  Damon barely paid attention as his cousin left. He still couldn’t get over how clever the stranger had been—how quick to take what she’d wanted. A hot kiss that he could still taste. In public. With absolutely no repercussions. At least not for her.

  Oh, he felt pretty certain some of the townspeople had been whispering about him. He suspected he’d been cast as a manipulative carny, hypnotizing an innocent young woman from their town into carrying on like that.

  They were protecting her from him. Even though he’d been the innocent party. Well, pretty much. He hadn’t remained a bystander once her arms had encircled his neck and her curvy body had melted into his. Oh, no. He’d participated in that kiss big-time.

  He didn’t suppose the townspeople would feel any better hearing that, however, since nobody would tell him one thing about his mystery woman. All his queries had been met with blank stares, innocent shrugs and some type of frown.

  The frowns told him he was being had. The pursed lips and disapproving scowls on the faces of the older ladies told him why: the wagons had circled around one of their own.

  Carny prejudice wasn’t unusual. His own grandparents had been accused of any number of crimes when they’d been on the circuit, simply by virtue of their professions. Stranger equaled criminal in a lot of places. Including, apparently, Trouble, Pennsylvania.

  Finally, unable to stand staring at the walls of his trailer anymore, he decided to get out for a while. The run ended tomorrow night. By this time Sunday, the caravan would be setting up at another fairground, in the next state, and he could move on.

  The carnival grounds were right by a small park. Grabbing a paperback from his camper, he headed out. He’d kill an hour or two in the bright June sunshine and be back in plenty of time for tonight’s first show.

  But the moment he reached it, he realized he’d chosen a lousy place to relax. “Bad idea,” he muttered. The park was busy, crowded with mothers pushing their children on swings. Normal. Happy. Unbearable.

  The sound of children’s laughter stinging his ears, his body tensed. When one boy with white-blond hair ran past with a cheery grin, a stab of regret cut through Damon with the power of a blade. Closing his eyes, he immediately saw another face—the face of the child who’d trusted him to keep him safe, even from his own parents. The child he’d failed. “God, Tyler, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  He almost left but stopped himself. Because he slowly realized that the laughter of the children did hurt but not as much as it had a few months ago. Maybe this road trip actually was doing what his grandmother had assured him it would do—help him heal.

  No, he wasn’t ready to work with children again—nor, even, spend time with them. And he never wanted to be responsible for one again as long as he lived. The guilt over his one brutal failure was all he could handle during this lifetime. But at least he’d gotten used to the sounds of laughter and childish voices at the carnival, so hearing them elsewhere didn’t instantly send him walking the other way.

  Slowly lowering himself to the bench, he forced himself to stay. It wasn’t as if he could hide from the world forever. And frankly, he’d realized it wasn’t the world he was trying to hide from, anyway. It was his own helplessness. His own guilt.

  At first, nobody seemed to notice him. But he’d only been reading for five minutes when he realized everything had gotten quiet. Too quiet. When he looked up, he realized why.

  She was there. Just a few feet away, watching him from the sidewalk. And everyone else was watching her watch him.

  Damon didn’t care. For a second, he just stared back, wanting to make sure she wasn’t some phantom rising out of his heated imagination.

  “Hi,” she said, offering him a tiny smile. The twinkle in her eyes and the way she nibbled the corner of her mouth told him she was still embarrassed about their last meeting. The way she licked those lips told him even more…like maybe she wanted to repeat what had happened at that last meeting.