The band struck up a vibrant opening chord. Barbie took a deep breath and lifted the microphone close to her mouth so she could purr into it.
‘Ha … ppy birth … day …’ another big breath ‘… dear … Nick …’
A ripple of amusement ran around the marquee. It was pure over-the-top candied honey. Nick tilted his head back in delight, a low chuckle emerging from his throat … music to Barbie’s ears. He was captivated all right.
She repeated the line, putting a huskier edge on her voice. The band paused for her until the appreciative laughter died down, picking up again as she started the third ‘Happy Birthday’, soaring with her as she poured more volume into the high note, then dropping softly to the ‘Dear Ni … ick,’ into which she pumped a load of seductive come-on.
He was not the least bit embarrassed by it. His head was cocked slightly to one side, as though bewitched and bemused, wanting more.
Barbie gave it to him, drawing out the last line and loading it with sensual innuendo as she sang ‘… to … you-ou-ou,’ her lips rounded in a suggestive oval, sending a long, long, visual kiss.
The crowd in the marquee erupted then, guys standing up on chairs, clapping and hooting and whistling, the women laughing and cheering. Leon Webster jumped to his feet, arms up in the air, drinking in the credit of being a magnificent impresario to have brought this off.
But Nick didn’t even glance at his friend. Or at his rollicking guests. His gaze was burning up a line that linked him straight to his fairy princess, and Barbie didn’t feel her face ache at all as she smiled some sizzling heat right back at him. She replaced the microphone on its stand and stepped down from the podium, all primed for the final part of her act.
‘Everybody join in singing now,’ Leon shouted, swinging around and waving up more enthusiasm.
The band broke into a more jolly rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ and everyone who wasn’t already standing, rose to give loud voice in accolade to the one man who remained seated. Hands slid over his shoulders as Barbie walked towards him, her wand benevolently raised—hands with long red nails, claiming jealous possession.
If Nick felt them he showed no sign of it. No appeasing smile was flashed at the woman behind him. His gaze remained fixed on the princess approaching him, feasting on every physical facet of the illusion.
Barbie feasted on the sense of power this gave her. It was more exhilarating than any applause she had ever received for entertaining people. This was real woman-power and she was holding it over the one man in the world she most wanted to hold it over … Nick Armstrong.
Her stomach was contracting in spasms of delight. Her breasts seemed to thrust themselves out more, peaking and tingling. Her hips rolled in voluptuous provocation, her thighs sliding sensuously against each other with every step she took towards him. She was intensely conscious of every part of her femininity, as though it had not only been awakened to a new level of awareness, but aroused to fever-pitch and highly primitive immediacy.
Nick was facing her, still seated, but with his face upturned when she stopped in front of him, barely a step away. It was a miracle she remembered what had to be done with the wand. His eyes were locked on hers, transmitting a blazing quest for more knowledge of her, intimate knowledge of her, and the desire to get it.
‘Make a wish,’ she invited huskily, smiling as she lifted the wand over his head and pressed the button on the silver rod, opening the star at the end of it to release a shower of silver glitter. It speckled his hair, his nose, his cheeks, and the brilliant blue of his eyes suddenly seemed to become more piercing, magnetic in its intensity.
She bent to bestow a fairy kiss on his cheek. Her heart was drumming in her ears, driving the noise around them off to some far distance. She saw his lips part slightly and temptation seized her. Instead of planting her mouth where it should have been planted to seal the wish-spell, an irresistible force dragged it down to meet his.
The moment the first tantalising contact was made was the last Barbie had any control over. Nick surged to his feet, a thumb hooked under her chin, fingers thrusting into her hair, taking a firm grip, tilting her head back, his mouth dominating hers as his other arm burrowed under her wings and scooped her in to a full body blast of his highly energised masculinity.
It was like no other kiss Barbie had experienced in her whole life—a wild, storming kiss that electrified every nerve, a stampeding kiss that reduced her mind to a whirlpool of fantastic sensation, an ecstatically passionate kiss that taught her that lust had an intoxicating excitement that could not be denied. Enthralled by these overwhelming factors, she was unaware of the removal of the wand from her grasp. Indeed, she didn’t even realise where her hands were.
With shocking abruptness, the mouth that had wrought such intense rapture was wrenched from hers. The harsh words, ‘What the hell!’ rang in her ears. Her eyes flew open just as the star at the end of her wand was slammed down on Nick’s head as though it were a flyswatter being wielded with deadly intent. Glitter sprayed from the impact.
‘I’ll give you magic!’ a woman’s voice screeched, and the wand lifted, ready to crash down again.
Nick’s hand hastily disengaged itself from Barbie’s hair and he threw up an arm to ward off its descent. ‘Quit it, Tanya!’ he grated.
‘You quit it!’ came the fierce retort.
Tanya, the black-haired witch! Dazedly, Barbie stared at the furious attacker, feeling oddly detached from the emotional violence playing across the other woman’s face.
‘How dare you kiss her, in front of me!’ she snarled as Nick swivelled to grab the damaging wand from her.
Tanya whipped it out of his reach and advanced on Barbie who was now hugged to Nick’s side but open to frontal assault. The red mouth was stretched into an ugly jeer as her arm swung back to deliver another forcible blow, this time aimed at Barbie’s head.
‘And you … you fairy cow … can milk someone else for sex! Nick is mine!’
It was Leon Webster who caught the wand in mid-swing, tore it out of her grasp and tossed it onto the dance floor. ‘Cool it, Tanya!’ he commanded.
Being de-weaponed, however, did nothing to lower the raging fury. With arms raised and fingers curled like talons, Tanya lunged at Barbie, hissing like a snake.
Nick threw in a shoulder-block. Leon knocked her arms down and pinned them to her sides in a smothering hug from behind. Everything had moved so fast, Barbie was still in a shocked daze, though her body was quivering in reaction to the chaos without and within.
‘Let me go!’ Tanya seethed.
‘Not until you’re ready to behave,’ Leon tersely retorted.
‘Right!’ another voice cracked into the maelstrom.
Sue!
‘No indignities you said, Mr. Webster!’ she reminded him in high dudgeon. Her hands were planted on her hips in aggressive mode as she subjected Nick and Leon—still holding the struggling Tanya—to a look of arch scorn. ‘The crème of young Sydney society?’ she drawled with biting acid.
‘Miss Olsen … Sue …’ Leon started ingratiatingly.
‘My fairy princess gets grabbed and ravished in plain view of a hundred people …’
‘I didn’t anticipate she’d be so …’
Sue cut him off. ‘We delivered precisely what you ordered, sir. Sexy, you said. Indeed, you insisted.’
‘I know. I know. But …’