Boyfriend in a Bottle Read online

  Be careful what you wish for. It might come with an expiration date…

  Josie’s well-meaning friends just don’t get it. It’s not that she’s overjoyed to be thirty-two and celibate since her boyfriend dumped her. She’d love to settle down, but she refuses to settle for just any man. After all, better single than a sucker. Nevertheless, she humors her friends and follows the instructions attached to the gift they’ve given her—a beautiful bottle from a new-age shop. Lick, and the perfect man will appear.

  It works. The naked man she finds tied to her bed is everything she’s ever wished for. Except Mr. Perfect comes with a time limit.

  Kede is tired of living life by the hourglass. Once, fulfilling the desires of the women who freed him was enough, but now it’s just another job. Josie is different, though. She sees him as a real man—a man she wants for all time.

  Kede wants more than a moment. He wants a chance at life outside the bottle, and he wants a life with Josie. But he belongs to the goddess Inanna, and his time is running out…

  Warning: This title contains a little magic and a lot of wish-fulfillment sex. It also contains a perfect man created by a goddess solely for a woman’s pleasure, and it may cause you to feel compelled to lick strange, random bottles in search of your own Inanu.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Boyfriend in a Bottle

  Copyright © 2010 by Shona Husk

  ISBN: 978-1-60928-052-9

  Edited by Jennifer Miller

  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2010

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Boyfriend in a Bottle

  Shona Husk

  Dedication

  For my sister Chantal who inspired this story with her vision board. I hope you get your Audi soon.

  Prologue

  The Goddess Inanna raged, but Her people turned their backs. The priest of the new religion called Her a she-demon. He blamed Her for the famine, the lack of rain and the wilted crops. He railed at the people—for worshipping Inanna, God was punishing them. Only the good would survive his wrath. So her once-proud people got on their knees and prayed to the new God.

  Her temples were destroyed. Reduced to rubble. Her priestesses, who had once celebrated life with their bodies, were defiled. Women were denounced as evil, and sex became a sin. Her worship was banned. And still Her people starved.

  They scratched a living in the dust and stones and prayed on their knees at night for the promise of wealth and eternal life. Women bowed to men, and men forgot that without women there would be no life. They forgot to value the life they had here and now. They forgot to value the physical.

  They forgot Inanna.

  Inanna wept for the loss Her people didn’t feel. Her tears fell in the barren dirt. Under the moonlight, men sprouted. Each one unique, perfect, desirable. She breathed life into her sons and placed each one into a bottle spun from starlight. She threw the bottles into the world where Her people would find them when they were most in need.

  Chapter One

  “Come on, Josie. Just for laughs.” Karen leaned on the kitchen counter, eyes bright, cheeks flushed from too much wine.

  Josie fingered the ruby red glass bottle.

  “Do the spell.” Emily turned over the paper tag that hung around the neck of the bottle. A lick-and-wish spell.

  Josie rolled her eyes. “It won’t work.”

  “So do it.” Karen said. “Lick. Lick. Lick.”

  Emily joined the chant.

  She could blame it on the wine, and that she’d been single for twelve months—ten if anyone asked. A full year without sex made her sound like she couldn’t get any. Her friends thought she needed help and had resorted to magic.

  “Okay! One lick. That’s all.” The only thing that was going to happen would be gastro from licking a bottle that had been handled by God only knew how many people in the Ye Olde New Age Shoppe.

  Josie let out a breath and stuck out her tongue, then swiped bottle over it before she could have second thoughts. Orange and spice clung to her taste buds.

  “Happy?” She set the bottle down and glared at her well-meaning but misguided friends. The bottle made a hollow thunk, spun once, but remained upright. She needed to brush her teeth and scrub her tongue for germs, but the lingering taste was so delicious she almost wanted to try again.

  “A hot lover was supposed to appear.” Karen looked around the lounge-room-kitchen area. There wasn’t anywhere for a man to hide in her one-bedroom flat.

  “Did you wish?” Emily peered under the dining table.

  Yep, it was her fault no man had appeared out of the bottle. It couldn’t possibly be her friends had been conned out of twenty dollars by the fake gypsy.

  Josie pointed. “Look! There he is, reclining on the sofa and he’s sooo hot.”

  Both women turned to the red sofa. “Very funny, Josie.”

  “I’ve managed this long without a man. I’ll be fine. Truly.” Josie put her hand on the kitchen counter to steady herself. What she needed was to lie down. The wine had rushed to her head, and the room was moving without her permission.

  “Madam Rae promised it would work.” The soon-to-be married Karen frowned. “I knew we should have got the bath Nessie instead.”

  A monster in her bath. That would really please her no-pets-allowed landlord. “Stop going to that shop.”

  “She predicted I’d get married.”

  “Karen, you’ve been with the same guy since high school. You have two kids with him. Anyone could’ve predicted you were going to get married, eventually.” The room was hot, too hot. Josie wiped her hand over her forehead. Her palm came away damp. Could she have gotten sick this fast, or was she really, really drunk?

  “She predicted my pregnancy.” Emily patted her slightly rounded tummy.

  “If you have sex, you get pregnant.” As she spoke her tongue became heavy. She shook her head to clear the low hum now residing in her ears. “I think I had one too many glasses with dinner.”

  “We’re going.” Karen held her hands up. “I promised I’d be home by one anyway.” She kissed Josie’s cheek. “Happy birthday.”

  “Thank you for dinner. It was just what I needed.” Josie hugged Karen. She meant it—the girls’ night out had been perfect. She was tired of only seeing her friends with their partners. As happy as she was for them, it reminded her of what she’d failed to find.

  “I’ll see you on Monday.” Emily hugged her. A few more months and Emily wouldn’t be at work. Maybe it was time to take a chance and find a new job. Re-invent herself.

  “Only if I’m not sick from licking strange bottles.” Josie opened the front door. A cold breeze swept over her skin, her clothes too thick for it to slip beneath and cool her down.

  There was another round of hugs and kisses before Karen and Emily left. She watched Emily pull away, driving Karen home in her fancy black Mercedes, then locked the door. She didn’t let envy unsheathe its claws. Instead she made herself
open the pantry door, where she stared at her vision board like she had done every night before bed for the past twelve months. She fanned her face and closed her eyes, but the images and words stuck to the door were engraved on her eyelids. She’d pasted the pictures together after Grant had left her for a woman he worked with. The longer hours at work had been extra hours with the girl from filing. All those work dinners and functions he had insisted on attending alone—because they would “bore” her—had really been dates with his new girlfriend.

  Her muscles tightened as the old anger resurfaced. Grant had used her, kept her until the new girl was a sure thing. She was always “Plan B” Josie.

  It had been long enough that nausea no longer surged in her stomach when she thought of him. Not long enough for her to forgive and forget. Josie rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers. Her vision board wasn’t working.

  No house. No Audi TT. No boyfriend.

  Better single than a sucker.

  “Think positive Josie, positive.” She glanced around the board, looking for something that had worked. The fake cheque made out to her, signed “The Universe”. She nodded to herself. She’d got the pay raise she’d asked for; that was something to be grateful for.

  Obviously right now The Universe was busy answering the needs of other people. She had a car and somewhere to live. Her life wasn’t bad…it just wasn’t brilliant. She wasn’t where she’d wanted to be at thirty-two. She huffed out a breath, closed her eyes and tried again. The buzzing in her ears intensified. She ignored it and focused on her fantasy life.

  Josie imagined driving the car, parking it in the double garage of her beautiful house, her hot husband greeting her at the door. Her daydream spun, a glittering whirl of colour. Exotic wood smoke filled the air. She reached out a hand to stop herself from falling over.

  “Lay off the red wine.” She must have drunk Emily’s share as well as her own.

  Using the back of her sofa for support, she toed off her heels, not trusting herself to balance on one leg. Her bed beckoned, the pull irresistible. She walked around the flat, flicking off lights. Beneath her bedroom door light pooled. Josie frowned—she didn’t remember turning the light on after coming home. Maybe she’d left it on when she went out, but it had been still been daylight then. She padded over and opened the door.

  Her mouth fell open. She stepped back and slammed the door closed, breathing hard.

  There was a naked man tied to her bed.

  Chapter Two

  Her hand was locked around the door handle. Her fingers wouldn’t open. She had never been so drunk she’d hallucinated. Josie cracked the door open, then closed it just as fast.

  There was definitely a man on her bed.

  How had he got in there? Who had tied him up?

  She turned. Her dark flat teemed with the shadows of unseen conspirators. She turned on every light, checked every cupboard. After a few minutes she realized the only other person in her flat was in her bedroom.

  What if he was dead and she was being set up?

  She straightened her back and braced herself to check on the naked man. He was still tied to her bed, which was reassuring. And he was definitely not dead. He raised his head and smiled. White teeth against skin like honey that begged to be tasted to make sure he was real. Josie swallowed. He was gorgeous, and that wasn’t the wine thinking for her. Dark hair and dark lashes a super model would kill for and a face to match. Sharp cheek bones, full lips and dark, endless eyes. Her gaze tracked lower, skimming the planes of his chest, following the line that carved between his abs and became a narrow trail of dark hair…

  Josie jerked her gaze away. She couldn’t perv on a man who was tied to her bed. She was going to kill Karen and Emily. Slowly. There would be embarrassing payback to be had for this invasion of…her eyes wandered back to the perfect piece of man stretched on her sheets. The wine tangled her tongue and her brain forgot what words were. Her mind was on a one-way track and heading downhill. And he was obviously on the same path because one part of him wasn’t lying still.

  Beneath her black dress her nipples peaked in response to his unspoken invitation. She dragged her gaze back up to his face His dark eyes watched her, heavy lidded with intent. Incense thickened the air, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. She focused on the floral-print pillow next to the mystery man’s head and tried to ignore the heat throbbing in her blood. Maybe a year was too long, but it wasn’t like she’d avoided men on purpose. It was just that nothing suitable had come her way. This man wasn’t just suitable, he was perfect.

  “Who did this?” The words purred out of her throat. She coughed and tried to find her normal, no-nonsense voice. “How did you get here?” Damn, no better. Must be the incense.

  “You brought me here.” He answered with an accent that shimmied all the way to her toes.

  “I did not.” She licked her lips, suddenly parched.

  The curve of muscle beneath smooth, unmarked skin, the stretch of his limbs in restraints was perfect, straight out of the fantasies women never share. She blinked. Snap out of it.

  His frown didn’t mar his beauty. “You did not lick my bottle?”

  She sealed her lips and nodded. “Very funny. So you’re in on it too. How much did they pay you?”

  How did they sneak him inside her flat while they were at dinner?

  “Pay me?” He had the gall to look offended. It was cute how well he was acting.

  “You’re an escort.” And she had to get rid of him or she couldn’t go to bed, and going to bed seemed like a really good idea. Unfortunately, her body got the wrong impression and thought going to bed with him would be a good idea. Her knickers dampened in expectation.

  He shook his head. Dark curls tickled his shoulders. “I’m an Inanu.”

  Josie couldn’t repeat what he’d said; it wasn’t a word, not any word she knew, anyway. “A what-u?”

  “Inanu. I was created for pleasure. You licked my bottle, so I’m here for your pleasure. Thus the—” he tugged on the rope that bound his hands, “—rope.”

  Rope had never featured in any of her wildest dreams—well, none she remembered. She wasn’t about to complain though. As ideas went it wasn’t a bad one, tying a man up so he was helpless beneath her. But not this man. He was paid to act like he was into whatever she wanted.

  She had to get out of her bedroom before she did something unthinkable, like jump him. Oops, she’d thought about it again. Her skin warmed and she felt the flush creep over her as the temperature in the room went up to somewhere near boiling. She had to get him out of her bed. “I’ll get the scissors.”

  “Wait.”

  Josie glanced over her shoulder.

  “The timer has almost run out.” He turned his head to the sand timer on her bedside table.

  “You can quit playing along. I’m not that desperate.” Sleeping with an escort was low, even if someone else had paid.

  “You have to complete the spell. When the last grain falls, I’ll be gone.”

  Good. Then she could sleep off the bottle of wine she’d drunk and contemplate the hangover. She paused in the doorway, torn between scissors and the ancient-looking one-foot-tall hourglass taking up the centre of her bedside table. How had she not noticed that? Because she was distracted by the naked man. “Gone where?”

  “Back into the bottle.”

  Of course, because that was where he’d come from. Men popped out of bottles like sexy genies all the time. Happened to her every other day of the week.

  Determined to prove he was a paid liar, she marched up to the wood-and-glass sand timer. Unintelligible symbols were carved around the top and bottom. She grabbed it one-handed with the intention of flipping it over. It wasn’t heavy. It just didn’t move. Josie tried with two hands, her muscles bunching. She couldn’t even slide it over the table. It was fixed, as if glued to the wood.

  The white sand fell at a steady rate. Only a few tablespoons remained in the top. She turned her attention
to the red rope. Her fingers touched the knots. Soft and silky. The man watched. His eyes followed the movement of her fingers. With her nails she worked a loop free. When it seemed she was making progress the rope snaked back on itself and became more secure than before. She blinked and tried again to be sure she didn’t imagine it. The same thing happened. She would never get the knot undone.

  “Damn. Who did these knots?” The timer was getting low. She couldn’t think right. The wine, the incense, her body’s racing lust. If he was back in the bottle, she could sleep. “How about you go back into the bottle, and we’ll talk in the morning?”

  “You only get one lick.” The way he said lick made it dirtier than it should’ve been, and held a wealth of unexplored potential. The tip of his pink tongue showed between his teeth.

  “One lick?” she repeated, not sure whether she was disappointed or relieved. Did she want to sleep with the man on her bed or sleep in her bed?

  “Once I am gone, that is it. I am here for your pleasure.” The R rolled off his tongue and over her skin.

  Would he really vanish? What if he was telling the truth about the lick and the bottle, and this was her only chance? Her gaze flicked between the man and the hourglass, the sand running too fast for her to think. Josie shook her head. This was crazy. She shouldn’t be encouraging him, yet it was almost fun. A game the sensible, sober Josie would refuse to play. She was tired of being reliable and stable. What had happened to wild?

  Grant had happened.

  Her mouth moved without permission from her brain. “How do I…complete the spell?”

  “A kiss.” A hint of a smile graced his lips.

  As lips went, they were close to perfect. Wide and sensual.

  “And then what?”

  “Whatever you desire.” He said, and the look in his eyes made her believe. There was no lie hidden in the shadows. He would give her everything she’d ever dreamed of from a man.