The Third Wish Page 18

  “Ok, let’s say the furniture in my attic is the collection you say y’all lost. What do we do next?” I asked her, not having a single clue how museums operated.

  “Well, it is technically yours because it is on your property,” she said with an apparent decrease in enthusiasm. “You can keep it, you can donate it, or you can lend it and retain ownership.”

  “I most certainly don’t want to keep it at my house, so donating or lending would be best,” I told her. Her eyes lit up, knowing the collection would be in her possession. “What are the benefits of lending over donating?”

  “You make money when lending,” she answered simply.

  “What is the downside?” I asked, knowing there must be one or everyone would do it.

  “If a specific area decides not to pay for your display, we will store your items until the exhibits move on, during which time, you will not get paid,” she explained.

  I thought about the story of the diamond-owner Andi and Vila had just told me about a few minutes prior. His family had made money off the diamond for quite some time. The difference was, the furniture wasn’t mine, I didn’t want it, and I already had plenty of money.

  “I’ll donate it,” I told her.

  She immediately started clapping her hands and jumping up and down. I’d come to the realization that it was possible all females reacted to exciting news in such a manner.

  “That is so generous of you,” she gushed.

  “You should know something, though,” I started. “The thieves built it into the attic. It will take a lift and several people to get it out.”

  Caroline seemed unfazed. “The things we go through to procure artifacts would surprise you, Mr. Anders!” she replied casually.

  20

  Twenty minutes later, I shook Caroline’s hand and confirmed the arrangements for the museum to remove the hidden attic furniture from my house. Andi, Vila, Jack, and I walked out of the museum smiling. Caroline had been so happy, and her giddiness was practically contagious. She’d told us that not only did the museum cover the furniture because it was so old but also because they still needed to study them. It had gone down in a shipwreck, and when divers discovered it, it was perfectly intact. There was no water damage, no scratches, dings, nothing. The furniture was in perfect condition. While experts had proposed theory after theory to explain the perfect shape of the pieces, none had panned out yet.

  “Can you believe all that was in a shipwreck?” Andi pondered as we walked out into the sun. The heat was immense after standing in a cold museum for so long. I stood soaking up the sun’s rays, thinking about the shipwreck.

  “I find it quite the coincidence that strangely unscathed furniture turns up on an island with mag—”

  “Majestic history, I know what you mean,” Vila cut me off, loudly. I lowered a brow and looked at her. She shifted her eyes to her left, and I followed her gaze. Coming up the stairs was Tobin Keene, and he headed straight for us.

  “Oh, wonderful. What does this jackass want now?” I muttered. The four of us stood there, no way to escape, and waited for Tobin to reach the top of the stairs.

  “What was that about magic?” Tobin asked, rudely. He looked at me and grinned eerily. “Book missing yet?”

  “What do you want, Tobin?” I barked at him.

  “Oh, nothing much. The spellbook, and to chat with Ms. Caroline about some furniture,” he answered.

  “How do you know about the furniture,” Andi asked incredulously.

  “I’m a reporter, Miss… whatever your last name is,” Tobin sneered. “I know everything that goes on in this town.” I stepped over to Andi and put my arm around her to calm her down. Her face implied she was about to turn Tobin into some kind of slimy animal at any moment.

  “Move along, Tobin,” I laughed at him. “Nobody wants to talk to a joke like you.” I stepped around him and started leading Andi down the stairs. Vila moved in behind us, and Jack brought up the rear.

  Tobin had other ideas, however. He backed down a couple of stairs and stepped directly in front of me.

  “You know, Bennett,” he said in a low, nearly inaudible voice. “Do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time being surprised when the book is just suddenly gone one day. Good isn’t the only magic that can find similar magic. I can take that book from you at any time.”

  I was a split second away from letting go of Andi and pushing him down the stairs.

  “Oh, yeah, Tobin? When is ‘any time’ going to be? You can take it whenever you’d like? How about now? I’d love to see you do it. Maybe you could teach me how, since you are an expert at long-distance thievery,” I taunted him. I scooted forward on the stair I was standing on, forcing him to back up on his. “Get the hell out of our way before you find the need to summon yourself an ambulance to take care of that nasty fall down the stairs you’re about to have.” I surprised myself at how seriously ominous I sounded while threatening him.

  “I’ll step aside, Bennett,” Tobin sniped back at me. “You aren’t worth the air it takes to talk to you, anyway.” He stepped to the side, and the four of us walked away without another word. Each of us took the opportunity to glare at him on our way past. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned and looked back, and Tobin left.

  “I’m just about done with that guy,” Vila hissed when I turned back around.

  “I agree with you on that,” Jack said. “I don’t even live here, and he’s a pain in my ass.”

  “We’ve accomplished what we’ve come to accomplish, let’s go home and check on the girls. Who wants to take bets on passed out, or still going strong?” I called out.

  “Passed out for ten dollars, right here!” Jack replied.

  We took turns placing our bets and changing them all the way home. When we walked through the front door of the house twenty minutes later, I became the winner.

  “Awake, still going strong, and finally noticed we were gone!” I called out. Lorraine and Lottie were standing in the foyer when we walked in, each with a hand on their hip. Both were slightly wobbly, and while they had obviously conspired to try to act upset about our leaving, they couldn’t keep themselves from giggling.

  “We can’t believe…” Lottie started, then looked at Lorraine.

  “You didn’t tell us where you were leaving for!” Lorraine finished with grammar that would make anyone’s ears bleed.

  “Oh, baby, I did tell you, remember?” Jack said softly, walking up to Lorraine and putting his arms around her.

  “Oh, yeah! You did! I remember now,” Lorraine remembered or convinced herself she remembered, one of the two.

  “Now I’m telling you that I am going upstairs. Want to go with me?” Jack coaxed slyly.

  “Yes, sir!” Lorraine yelled happily. The two of them headed upstairs, Jack tossing us a ‘this is going to be fun’ smile over his shoulder.

  “You didn’t tell me!” Lottie said to me, still giggling.

  “You are correct. I didn’t tell you,” I laughed. “Jack told you we were all leaving.” Lottie brushed her hair to the side and looked up at the ceiling as though trying to remember something.

  “Hmm, I don’t remember Jack,” she finally uttered. Vila and I walked to her sides and put one of her arms around each of us.

  “That’s okay, babe,” I whispered to her. “We are all back now! Why don’t we head for bed to take a nap?”

  “I don’t want to take a nap!” she argued loudly all of a sudden. I should’ve known better than to try to get a drunk person to want to stop drinking.

  “Okay, no nap. Not a problem,” I told her calmly. She instantly settled down and was all smiles again. I was enjoying seeing her drunk more than I probably should have. It was a side of her I’d never seen. She was unendingly smiley and didn’t have a care in the world. I looked around and saw the door to the beach yard.

  “Let’s go watch the ocean,” I told her. “Maybe we’ll see some whales.”

  “I want to see whales!
I wonder if they want to come to the wedding!” Lottie called out as we headed toward the kitchen.

  “I hope that they do!” I replied, which made her even happier. It wasn’t forty-five seconds after I got her settled in one of the loungers than she passed out with a smile on her face. Andi, Vila, and I stood over her, watching her sleep.

  “She is going to regret today in the morning,” Vila laughed.

  “Is there anything you can do about that?” I asked. It had been a while since I’d had a hangover, but I remembered I was absolutely miserable.

  “There is,” Andi said, “but hangovers are a necessary part of drinking.”

  I lowered a brow and scowled at her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, she’s serious,” Vila piped up, “but she isn’t the only genie here.” Vila raised her arm and snapped her fingers. “There, she’ll feel fine in the morning.”

  “What did you do that for?” Andi protested.

  “So, she doesn’t puke half the day and want to jump off a cliff to get rid of a headache, that is why!” Vila shot back.

  “But those are the things that keep people from drinking like that too often!” Andi argued.

  Vila didn’t say another word. She raised her arm and snapped her fingers again. Andi doubled over, puked, and started holding her head and moaning.

  “What did you do to her?” I yelled at Vila. Andi looked like she was dying.

  “Gave her the hangover she wanted Lottie to have,” Vila said, sounding satisfied.

  “Stop it!” I told her. “I don’t want anyone to have a hangover! Make that a thing!” Vila didn’t bother arguing. She’d only been trying to prove a point to Andi. She snapped her fingers one last time, and Andi stopped moaning.

  “I can’t believe you would even…”

  I tuned the girls out as they walked bickering with each other into the kitchen. I took Lottie’s hand in mine and laid down on a lounger beside her. Less than ten minutes later, I was napping right alongside her.

  21

  At some point, late the prior evening, I’d woken up and gotten Lottie and me to bed. The two of us woke up in our room, rested and feeling fantastic. Lottie looked around as though she wasn’t sure where she was, though. I sat up and watched her, offering no information. It rather amused me that she was so disoriented even after waking up without a hangover.

  “How did we get up here?” she asked me, scratching her head. Her black hair was going this way, and that, and it made her even cuter than normal.

  “I walked us up here last night,” I told her. She looked around again.

  “Wow, I don’t remember that at all!” she laughed. “How am I not sick? I must’ve drunk three bottles of wine by myself yesterday.”

  I pulled her by the arm until she was laying back on me. “Vila is why you aren’t sick, and why Lorraine will feel just fine as well,” I told her. Lottie leaned her head backward and looked out of the top of her eyelids to see me.

  “Really? That’s awful nice of her. Does she realize she could be a millionaire if she figured out how to bottle the cure to a hangover?” she joked.

  “I don’t think Andi would let her. She thinks hangovers are necessary to keep people from drinking too much,” I laughed.

  “Andi is wrong. Hangovers just get people to say they won’t drink as much,” Lottie chuckled. She rolled herself over and sat up, straddled me. “They also make people horny as hell the next day.” She ran her hands down my bare chest to my waistband, and I was instantly hard. “Where did you get off to yesterday while I was getting hammered?”

  “The four of us…” I trailed off as she slipped her hand inside the waistband of my boxers and pulled my cock out without warning, and a shock of pleasure jolted through me at her touch.

  “Hmm?” She looked at me with wanting eyes, and my focus vanished. “Where did you go?”

  “We went to the museum,” I finally was able to say. Lottie slid herself back, and I pulled her slinky little top off, exposing her full breasts. She leaned over, rubbing them on me, causing my erection to grow even harder. I tipped my head back and let a breath out, enjoying the warm sensation of her skin.

  “What did you do at the museum?” she asked, running her tongue up my stomach, tucking me between her breasts, and holding them together while she began to move up and down methodically. My body immediately reacted to the warm friction of her skin rubbing up and down my shaft. My sac tightened up as I ran my hands along the smooth, soft skin of her back and down the sides of her tits.

  “I gave them back something they were missing,” I breathed out. She lifted herself up and let my hands fall around her breasts as she scooted back a little further. She leaned forward but paused and looked up at me.

  “What did you give them back?” she asked and, without hesitation, deep-throated my cock in her warm, wet mouth.

  “Holy fuck, woman,” I called out involuntarily as electricity raced through my loins. I raised up into her mouth as she sucked up and down on me.

  The lack of foreplay made me more sensitive than normal, and I felt myself building quickly. Normally, I would’ve fought to last as long as possible, but it was obvious Lottie wanted to pleasure me, so I decided to let her. I wrapped my hands in her hair and pushed down on her head as her mouth bobbed up and down. Her lips tightened around me, and she pressed her tongue on the underside of my shaft. I jolted with pleasure and pushed my cock up into her mouth again. It pleasantly surprised me when she moved one of her hands to massage herself between her legs. The wet sound of her fingers rubbing her soft folds, and the small moans of satisfaction she made had the pressure in my loins growing even faster.

  “I’m going to cum in your mouth,” I growled as I felt myself begin to let go.

  She went wild with wanting and started sucking me off harder and pleasuring herself faster. Feeling how much she wanted me, I relaxed and released myself into the back of her throat. The sensation of her pulling the cum out of me, as I spewed it into her hot mouth, was magnificently electric. Her soft lips slid up and down, and her tongue danced over my cock in rhythm with each jolt as I emptied my load.

  When she’d swallowed the last drop of me, I slowly pulled her mouth off my cock and threw her on her stomach, on the bed beside me. I straddled her legs, and I spread her just far enough to see her soft, pink petals. She raised her hips up, moaning for me to enter her. She’d massaged herself to the edge of orgasm, and I wanted to feel her body shake with it.

  I slowly slid my cock inside her, stretching her and filling her. She was so tight I felt my loins stir again. She grabbed my thighs and pulled me into the rest of the way into her, screaming with delight. She wasn’t looking for slow and romantic, and I was going to give her what she wanted.

  I shoved myself deep inside her and reveled in the way her round ass bounced. I pulled out and shoved again. I started pounding her harder and faster. Each time I plunged into her, she screamed out louder. My own pleasure built again, much faster than I expected. Her walls tightened around me, and I felt the first contraction of her orgasm press around my cock as she arched back and yelled out. Her pleasure sent me over the edge.

  I looped my arm under her hips, pulled her up, and rammed myself into her over and over as I exploded a second load into her. Our bliss seemed to go on forever as we came together. When I was finally drained, and she was resting with little aftershocks of delight, I laid down on top of her, still inside her.

  “You are a fucking goddess,” I whispered in her ear. She squirmed in happiness underneath me.

  “I have a god fucking me,” she whispered back, turning her head so I could hear her. I pushed into her gently to emphasize her point. “Mmm,” she moaned softly.

  “I like you not-hungover, and horny as hell,” I joked with her, pushing in again.

  She lifted her ass against my weight and moaned again. She squeezed down on me, and I knew she had more pleasure to experience. I ran my hands up her sides and thrust into her suddenly, p
ulling back on her shoulders. She buried her head in the bed and screamed. I slowly pulled out just enough to release the pressure against her cervix and thrust again.

  Her screams were magical. She was so soft and delicate but loved for me to fuck her hard. Sex with her was like the best of both worlds. I moved faster as I reached between her legs and massaged her nub gently with my fingers. She gripped hard onto the blankets as she orgasmed again, shocks of energy rocking through her body as I made her cum even more powerfully than the first time. Her face was buried in the mattress, muffling her screams throughout. When I felt her body go slack beneath mine, I knew I’d spent her. A wave of satisfaction ran through me as I collapsed onto her.

  We slept another two hours before finally deciding to get out of bed. We showered together and wandered down to the kitchen in our robes. The entire rest of the house had the same idea. Jack, Lorraine, Andi, and Vila were all wearing their robes. Andi was cooking breakfast, and the other three sat at the dining table, enjoying coffee.

  “Good morning,” I greeted them as we entered. “Aren’t we a house full of bums!” Lorraine and Jack laughed, and Vila almost spat out her coffee.

  “How are you feeling, Lottie?” Lorraine asked.

  “I feel absolutely amazing, thanks to that one,” Lottie said, nodding at Vila. “Thank you, by the way.”

  “You’re welcome, both of you,” Vila said as she looked at us. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered her. “Anyone want to take their coffee by the water?”

  “Sounds good,” Jack replied, standing up. I met Vila on the way outside, and she handed Lottie and me our coffees.

  “Andi, are you ready to go out?” Lottie asked her. “I can wait with you if not.”

  “I’m good in here. It will just be a few minutes. You go ahead,” Andi replied. Jack, Lorraine, Vila, Lottie, and I headed outside, and each relaxed back in one of the loungers around the fire pit. The noise of the waves rolling in was immediately sedative, and all of us let out a deep breath.