Birthday Shift Read online

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  Pink Petal Books

  Pink Petal Books, an imprint of Jupiter Gardens Press, publishes romance novels where the relationship is primary. It doesn’t matter if you want to read super erotic or sweet inspirational books. Pink Petal Books believes that love is a beautiful thing, no matter what form it takes. For more information about Pink Petal Books visit http://www.pinkpetalbooks.com/.

  Additional Titles by the Author

  Lucky Mr. M

  Stranded

  Uprooted

  Magic At Midnight

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Permission is granted to make ONE backup copy for archival purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BIRTHDAY SHIFT

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Copyright © JASMINE AHERNE, 2011

  Cover Art ® 2011 by WINTERHEART DESIGN

  Edited by MARY K. WILSON

  ISBN# 978-0-9832624-0-4

  Electronic Publication Date: January 2011

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Jupiter Gardens Press, Jupiter Gardens, LLC., PO Box 191, Grimes, IA 50111

  For more information to learn to more about this, or any other author’s work, please visit http://www.pinkpetalbooks.com/

  Birthday Shift

  Spellbound Treasure

  Jasmine Aherne

  PPB

  Spellbound Treasure

  What did you buy?

  http://spellboundtreasure.com

  An online auction house based out of Crossroads, a place that is nowhere, and yet is the nexus of several worlds. Etienne and her partner Robin sell magical artifacts from every world imaginable. With powers untold, these artifacts make their way into their buyer's hands. And sometimes, a few of them even bring love.

  Meet the people of Spellbound Treasure, discover the artifacts, and explore the worlds at our website.

  Chapter One

  “Happy Birthday! I hope this gift makes all your dreams come true,” Molly Jenkins read from the card on top of the large box that had been sitting outside her apartment door when she’d arrived home. “Who left this here?” she wondered aloud.

  She bent and hefted the box, noticing the air holes. Hmmm. The only kind of box with air holes has something alive inside.

  She leaned her face close to the box and peered in. Black fur.

  “Meow!”

  Now Molly grinned. A kitty!

  She loved cats. But who had dumped this mystery feline on her doorstep, and why hadn’t they left their name?

  Shelving the curiosity for now, she leaned the box against her hip and twisted her key into the door. She half-walked, half-nudged her way inside, toeing the door shut, and then set down the box.

  Unable to wait any longer, especially when the cat mewed again, Molly opened the lid and looked upon the most sleekly beautiful black cat she'd ever seen. Smooth obsidian fur covered his body, and when he looked at her, emerald green eyes held her own in an entrancing gaze.

  A shiny silver collar curled around his neck. When he shifted in the box, Molly noticed a little card under his foot. She reached for it, and the cat rubbed his nose against her wrist, flicking out his little pink tongue to lick her briefly.

  Molly giggled with pleasure. “Aren’t you a cutie?”

  She slid out the little pink envelope and opened it. The plain card inside read: From your best friend, because you need company sometimes!

  Now Molly’s giggle turned into a full blown laugh. Yes, as a freelance writer she did tend to get lonely, living on pasta dinners for one, and cereal for lunch. She walked to clear her head, sometimes only talking to herself or her notebook. But she preferred it that way, and besides, her forays into romance had never ended well – if they had begun properly or at all. She just didn’t do so well at getting along with people.

  Her best friend, Lil, whom she’d known since college and a constant in her life, had decided to take action.

  “And I’m glad she did, yes I am,” Molly chuckled, scooping the cat from the box and cuddling him close. She looked for a name tag on his collar, and spied a shiny metal disc that read simply Cade.

  “Then Cade you shall be.” She snuggled the cat close, and he purred his pleasure, the sound making Molly’s heart soar. Maybe Lil had been right. She did need company. And if Lil was determined to get her a friend, this had to be one of the best outcomes.

  As Molly stroked Cade’s fur something under the tissue paper in his box caught her eye, and when she saw it she smiled. Lil had thoughtfully included three sachets of cat food, and a small ceramic bowl, split into two for water and food, along with yummy treats.

  The ever-thoughtful best friend had even included – Molly laughed out loud – a hot pink litter tray and a small bag of cat litter. Lilac scented. Molly had to love her friend’s sense of humor.

  Unfortunately, presents and cuddles with the cat didn’t detract from the fact that Molly needed a shower. Being on the subway with lots of men who perhaps didn’t deodorize as much as they should had seriously taken its toll, and the hot spray of water would wake her up after the hours of researching in a stale-aired library. She set Cade down on the wooden floor of her poky, or cozy, as New Yorkers called a one bedroom apartment, and headed to her bedroom, where she stripped off her clothes, laying them on her double bed, then gratefully escaping into the shower, where hot water beat down on to her skin and cascaded through her long, strawberry-blonde hair. She let the heat wash away the stress and scents of the day, and a few minutes later, smelling sweetly of coconut and almond body wash, she wrapped a towel around herself.

  She’d totally forgotten that the door was ajar, and when Cade mewed as she passed him, Molly swallowed a shriek of surprise.

  “You scared me, baby,” she murmured, leaning down to pet him. He rubbed his soft, silky forehead into her palm and purred his little feline heart out. Molly melted. She scooped him up into her arms, cuddling him against the towel. “Hope you don’t mind that I’m a little damp,” she whispered into the back of his neck. Cade snuggled, his purring vibrating his long, warm body.

  “Time to call Lil and thank her,” Molly said, more to herself as she padded bare-footed into her bedroom.

  The bedroom was small, but in New York, Molly knew lady luck had smiled on her to be able to afford a separate bedroom at all. Most of her friends made do with a studio apartment where a standing Chinese screen separated the bed from the living area, or a fold-away bed that became a couch in the day time.

  She set Cade down and he curled up, green eyes fixed on her.

  Retreating briefly to the living area to grab her cell phone, Molly padded back into her bedroom and flopped down on the bed as she dialed. Cade came to lay next to her, wiggling his warm body in beside her own.

  “Hello?” Lil answered, on the third ring.

  Molly idly stroked Cade’s soft as silk fur as she spoke. “Hello stranger! Thank you for my new friend.”

  “You’re welcome!” The smile came through in Lil’s voice as she replied. “I’ve always said I’d get you a man, didn’t I?”

  Molly smiled wryly. “I suppose Cade’s going to prove more reliable than any man I’ve ever met.”


  “Well.” Lil’s tone turned sympathetic. “I sort of wanted you to have someone who’d always be there when you came home.”

  Molly’s heart squeezed.

  “So!” Cheerful again, Lil asked, “Are we going for birthday drinks this week? You should celebrate. You only get a birthday once a year, you know.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Let me know. You can’t be a hermit all the time, much as you seem to enjoy it. God! My animals are driving me insane,” Lil continued, talking about the menagerie of pets she kept in her sprawling, inherited house in Queens. “I’d better go. It’s feeding time.”

  Laughing, Molly hung up. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Lil had given Cade to her from Lil’s own mini-zoo.

  She put the cell phone down and, sensing the opportunity, Cade crawled on to her stomach and began to play with some loose threads on her towel. Molly giggled. “You are so much fun.”

  As she lay back and relaxed, thoughts of the day running through her head, Lil’s words came back to her. A man who’ll be there when you come home.

  It was certainly true that Molly’s luck with men seemed to have run out even before she'd started dating. Peter, her first love, wanted to play the field before settling into a serious relationship – but told her this only after she found him in an interesting position with someone else. Tom, a workaholic, had had a more meaningful relationship with his blackberry than with Molly, but two weeks after they broke up he promptly got engaged to someone else. Anton, a gorgeous Albanian, doted on her, but had forbidden her to have any male friends.

  And on it went. Molly felt sure she could fill an entire book with her disastrous romantic entanglements.

  So, she’d decided it was so much easier just not to bother. She relied on herself, and she got along just fine. No one to break her heart. No one to stand her up. No one who ranked her second.

  But today, Cade had made her too happy to dwell on her atrocious romantic history. “Time for dinner and then a book in bed,” she told the cat, untangling him from her towel threads. “Mommy needs to get dressed and eat some dinner – and you need feeding, too, don’t you, baby?”

  Cade sat up on the bed as Molly hung up her towel and slipped into her favorite at-home clothes, a pair of satin pajamas which had been last year’s birthday gift to herself. They’d been worth every cent, although her purse had rolled over and cried shortly afterwards.

  Feeling freshened up, Molly headed into the small kitchen area adjoined to her living space to make dinner. Much to her delight, Cade hopped off the end of the bed to follow her. She laughed. “Applying for the job of my shadow, are you?”

  Cade meowed his agreement.

  She fed him first, filling his water bowl and opening one lamb flavored pouch of food. He dug in hungrily. As he ate, Molly looked in her freezer for food. A few pitiful microwave meals stared back at her, along with some breaded chicken. She opted for the chicken with a generous handful of frozen vegetables.

  Later, after she’d washed the dishes, Molly curled up in bed with her laptop to write a few articles for submission to New York journals and magazines. Freelance writing was by no means easy, but she made do with editing on the side for a non-fiction publisher, and she did okay.

  She’d always been ambitious, though. Perhaps that was why men lost interest in her, she thought sadly, chewing on her bottom lip as she wrote. For a long time, trying to get her name known, all she’d done was work. Lil had chided her for it many times, now she seemed to have given in, and that was probably how Cade had come about.

  Somehow knowing she had thought about him, Cade jumped up on the bed, circled a few times, then curled up by Molly’s feet. Cute snores emanated from his body within seconds.

  His sleepy state made Molly yawn. “I’ll be right behind you, sweet stuff,” she murmured, stretching.

  She managed four hundred more words, then, eyes drooping, she saved her work. A trip to the kitchen rewarded her with a mug of hot cocoa, and then she reached for the racy bestseller on her bedside table. Her writing might be cool and professional, but recreationally, she loved nothing more than old-fashioned, toe-curling romance.

  Four pages into a steamy sex scene, Molly’s body tingled with longing. A serial monogamist at heart, she couldn’t remember the last time she had done the delicious horizontal tango with a man, and the description of the hero’s varied and insistent ministrations on the heroine had heat and dampness gathering rapidly between Molly’s thighs.

  One thing a failed love life didn’t get her was regular sex.

  Sighing, she slid her bookmark between the pages and set the book on her night stand. Molly teased her nipples to hardness, gasping as she pinched them through the thin silk of her satiny pajamas. Before long, the keen arousal could be ignored no longer, and Molly slid her hand underneath the waistband of her pajamas and stroked herself slowly at first, rubbing herself in small circles, her hips lifting off the bed in time to her ministrations. As she got more excited, panting, breathless, she increased her strokes, until an orgasm exploded through her, white lights flashing behind her closed lids.

  Heart beating erratically, Molly gently stroked herself as her climax subsided, replaced by a soothing tiredness that relaxed all her muscles. With a sleepy moan of pleasure, she switched off her bedside lamp and fell into a deep sleep.

  ~ * * * ~

  She had the most wonderful dream.

  Molly dreamt she awakened to feel a long, heavy presence lying beside her. When she opened her eyes, a naked man shared her bed. Her heart jumped with the twin emotions of panic and pleasure. A fine specimen, his pale golden skin emphasized his coal black hair and sparkling green eyes. He smiled at her, a slow-burn smile that made her heart slow down, but other parts of her quickened considerably.

  She started to open her mouth to speak, but her dream lover gently pressed a finger to her lips. “No need to talk now,” he whispered in a liqueur smooth, English-accented voice.

  When he moved to cup her face, then stroked her neck and finally cup her now aching breast, she didn’t see the need to say anything at all.

  She arched forward into his palm as he gently tugged on her nipple, stroking it to hardness and squeezing it gently between finger and thumb until she moaned with intense pleasure.

  “Touch me, too,” the man bade her.

  Molly responded eagerly, her hand reaching out until she connected with his firm, bare chest. Her fingers curled into the crisp sprinkling of dark hair on his upper body, then she slid her palm down, down, over his hard stomach, reveling in the slide of his skin against hers. Finally the head of his erection brushed against her, and she cupped him, drawing a sharp breath at the pleasure she experienced just by touching him. He groaned in kind, thrusting his hips into her hand.

  “Mmmm,” Molly murmured as he leaned forward, his lips inches from hers. How she wanted to taste his kiss, to feel the press of his mouth on hers. “Kiss me.”

  “Next time,” he whispered, his breath fluttering warmly on her skin.

  Then she woke, disorientated, her body thrumming with need, alone in the complete darkness of her room.

  Chapter Two

  “I had the most incredible dream a few nights ago,” Molly began as soon as Lil sat down next to her in the bar they’d chosen in Queens. They frequented the little place because of its quirky atmosphere and mismatched furniture; Victorian style lamps leaned against white-washed walls covered in modern art, and a telephone shaped like a pair of lips adorned the bar. Lazy blues music played in the background, just loud enough to be heard under conversation.

  “Really?” Lil grinned into her cocktail, twirling the straw between her fingers. “Was it sexy? Did you win the lottery? Was it both?”

  Sipping her cocktail, a glorious and very sugary combination of rum, cream liqueur and fruit juice, Molly laughed. “It was almost better than winning a boatload of cash. I had the most amazing dream that I woke up and a gorgeous man lay next to me. He started,
well, touching me, I touched him – I’ve never been so turned on. But then, I woke up, without anything being resolved.”

  Lil pouted. “No sex?”

  “Nope. None. Zip. Just me and the cat.”

  “Perhaps I should have put a man in that box instead,” Lil laughed, stirring her drink idly with her straw.

  “No, of course not. I love Cade. He’s so affectionate, and so far – even though it’s only been a few days - more loyal than any man I’ve ever known,” Molly replied immediately. She gestured as she spoke and the silver bracelet on her wrist sparkled under the bar’s bright lighting. “He’s the best birthday gift I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m glad.” Lil squeezed Molly’s hand. “You deserve it. I love your dress.”

  “Thanks!” Molly stroked a hand down the skirt of the burgundy satin shift she wore. “I got it on sale.”

  And so they passed the rest of the evening chatting about men, or the lack of them, Lil’s job as a domestic animal groomer and dog walker, and the latest fashions to grace the stores in New York. After making a date to go shopping, they said goodbye, and, tired after a day of writing followed by a few hours of drinking and talking, Molly rode the subway for three stops before wearily climbing the stairs to her apartment. When she turned the key in the door and found Cade sitting patiently, waiting for her, her heart flopped over in her chest. She closed the door, dropped her handbag and opened her arms to him. Behaving more like a dog than a cat, he hopped in and snuggled up.

  As she Molly pressed her face into Cade’s fur, her nostrils caught the faintest woodsy scent. Just like in my dream. As she carried Cade to the couch, she shook off the feeling. Probably just her imagination, making her smell what she wanted!

  Cade jumped neatly from her arms on to the couch, and Molly flopped down with him. “So tired, baby,” she told him as she leaned her head back. She would just close her eyes for a moment, and then get up, undress and go to bed.