Rub

Chapter 7

seven

Jackson drives a Tesla. A big matte-black one with personalised numberplates that read BUTT3R.

When he opened the passenger door for me and waved me in like an exasperated parent dealing with a dawdling, recalcitrant child, I almost told him to forget it.

Sitting beside him now, listening to him go on and on and on about his Netflix show and YouTube channel and supermarket endorsement deals… Hmmm, maybe I should use my second wish to go back in time to before I made my first wish all about the famous chef?

Sighing, I keep my stare locked on the world on the other side of the passenger window. Good Food Australia . Focus now on Good Food Australia . Huge opportunity. Huge. One I can’t afford to throw away, no matter how narcissistic the man sitting beside me is.

My phone vibrates with an incoming text message from the hip pocket of my jeans, and I wriggle a little to my left, trying to tug it out. I should have grabbed my bag, not just my keys and phone.

And bring Kaami’s jar with you? Would that be wise?

Well, at least it wouldn’t be unprotected. Although Kaami is at home. Can he protect his own jar? Lamp? Is that a thing? I really need to learn more about the djinn I’ve fallen for, and the rules surrounding his kind. Especially if I’m going to…

What? Tell him that you love him?

Goddamn it, I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a situation. I mean, do magic beings even live normal lives? Can they? Maybe what I feel for him isn’t love? Maybe he’s?—

Jackson slides his hand over my thigh. High. Where no hand belonging to Jackson Maine should slide.

“What the —” Jerking my hand out of my pocket, I pull my leg away and frown at him. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry.” He laughs. “Thought I saw a spider on your leg.”

I gape at him. It’s that or slap the shit out of him. “Are you serious?”

“Come on, Aliana.” He snakes me a sideways glance. “With the opportunities I’m about hand to you on a platter, what’s a little feel up every now and again?”

My stomach knots. “Stop the car.”

A ragged sigh bursts from him, and he grips the steering wheel, knuckles white. “Sorry. Sorry. I was out of line. Sorry. I won’t do that again. I guess I’m so used to the hero-worship so many other young up-and-coming pastry chefs give me, I thought…” He peters off and lets out another ragged breath, head hanging. “Sorry.”

My phone vibrates with another message. Studying Jackson from the corner of my eye, I dig into my pocket again. I don’t even know what to say. I should though. I should say Fuck right off, arsehole. Touch me again and I’ll break your wrist , or something along those lines. I should at least tell him he’s a freaking jerk. But…

Good Food Magazine …

A third, and then fourth incoming text hits my phone just as I finally yank it free of my pocket. Who the hell is sending me?—

Arlo

Just thought you should know. Dick move, right?

I frown. What on earth is Arlo texting me about? And why does the knot in my stomach suddenly feel so…so…

“Who’s that?” Jackson asks, trying to see my phone.

Ignoring him, I swipe my thumb up its screen and open Arlo’s message thread.

And the knot in my gut turns into a ball of ice as I start reading the first text.

Arlo

Hey Al, Jackson Maine was in here a little while ago talking with the boss. I’m at work btw. He got a call from someone and they talked about you. Every time he said your name he licked his lips. Creepy AF

Hot tears burn my eyes, but I blink them away.

Arlo

He told whoever it was on the phone that he taught you everything you know, not your dad, which I’m sure is a complete load of shit, and then he laughed at something the other person said, and said no, her father was a drunken waste of space and the only talent he had was drinking

The ice in my stomach rolls.

Arlo

And I know that’s bullshit, because you told me your dad was one of the best pastry chefs in Perth. I googled him, and fuck me, he was really well-known and even won awards, so I think you should be careful of Jackson Maine. He seems like a real jerk

Arlo

Just thought you should know. Dick move, right?

“Who is it?” Jackson demands beside me as I finish reading Arlo’s texts.

Lifting my burning eyes from my phone, I look at the Prince of Pastry behind the wheel and see him, truly see him. He’s an arrogant, narcissistic creep. What was I thinking wanting his approval? If this is what I need to do to make it in Australia’s patisserie world, forget it.

“Aliana?” Irritation cuts Jackson’s voice. “Who is texting you? Is it that monkey-brained idiot, Arlo? I’m not a fan of you being distracted by other people. Your focus needs to be on me. Do you understand?”

Dick move, right? Oh, dick move is right. One hundred percent right.

“What did you say about my dad?” I ask. Who knew I could sound so calm.

Jackson grows still. Completely still. His jaw bunches. He doesn’t need to say a word. He’s already answered.

“Listen,” he begins, stare locked on the street ahead. “I’m only thinking of?—”

“Pull over, please,” I say.

Jackson glares at me. “What? Look, I said I’m sorry.” He brings the Tesla to a jolting halt. Not because I asked him to, I realise, but because we’re at a red traffic light. He throws his hands up, exasperated parent-mode dialled up to eleven. “God, if I’d known you were going to be so fucking uptight and unappreciative, I never would have?—”

I unbuckle my seatbelt, fling open the passenger door, and climb out of his car. “Bye,” I call, swinging the door shut.

The traffic light turns green, and the car behind Jackson’s blasts their horn.

Jackson stares at me from behind the wheel as the passenger window starts to lower.

“Aliana!” he shouts. “Get back in the car.”

In answer, I wave, grin, and—as more than one car behind him starts beeping their horns—pivot on my heel and begin walking home.

Jackson Maine, thank God, doesn’t try to come after me. I don’t know what he thought he was going to get from me—fame? He already has that. Sex? Nope. Not a hope in hell now—but something tells me he’s realised it isn’t happening. And despite the fact I’ve pretty much destroyed any hope of a serious, legitimate career in the Australian culinary world, I feel…free.

Released.

I am me. My father’s daughter. And I don’t need some handsy, narcissistic jerk to validate me and my talent. And honestly, I don’t want the fame. All I want is a kitchen and for someone to enjoy what I bake.

Right now, that someone is Kaami.

Maybe that someone could be Kaami for a while. If he’s open to the idea.

I know exactly what my next wish is going to be.

Smiling, I quicken my step. Kaami is waiting for me at home. What the hell am I doing keeping him waiting?

By the time I round the corner onto the street where my unit sits above the tattoo parlour, I’m close to running. I’ll have to shower when I get inside before I get back to the baklava. Maybe Kaami will join me? What better way to get clean than to get dirty in the sho?—

I stumble to a halt and squint down the street.

Someone tall and skinny is standing in front of the tattoo parlour. No, not the tattoo parlour, the door to the stairwell leading up to my unit. Someone…

I squint harder. Japher?

The ice ball smashes back into my stomach. What the hell is Elon Japher doing at my place? I don’t want to see him. I never want to see him a?—

Japher steps off the street and into the stairwell.

What? Goddamn it.

Kaami. Kaami’s alone.

The memory of how Japher looked at Kaami at the launch Jackson held for me, the open lust and craving on the man’s face, slams into me, and I bolt for home.

Why the hell is this street so freaking long?

I have a stinging stitch by the time I make it to the tattoo parlour and up the stairs. My muscles are on fire, my legs jelly. My lungs feel like they’re full of burning sandpaper.

None of that matters though.

My door is open. Wide open. As if someone kicked it in.

Ice runs through my veins.

I stagger through it into my tiny living room. “Kaami?” I gasp, bending over and planting my hands on my shaking knees. Okay, I seriously need to work on my cardio. “Kaam?—”

Japher steps out of my kitchen with a snide smirk on his face and a distinct purple glass jar in his hands.

The ice in my veins turns colder. Oh no. This is not good. This is not good at all.

“Hey.” I shove my hands on my hips and glare at him, trying to act indignant rather than terrified. The last thing I want Elon Japher to do is think Kaami’s jar is valuable.

Don’t be stupid, Al. He already knows. Out of everything in your home, that’s what he’s holding. It’s why he’s here.

Shit. What do I do? And where the hell is Kaami?

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I ask, still trying to stay as calm as I can.

Japher studies me for a long second, and then he returns his attention to the jar and caresses it with one fingertip. “This was meant to be delivered to me,” he says.

No. No, no, no. I flick a quick and frantic glance around my living room. Where’s Kaami? Surely not back in the jar? He wouldn’t go in there voluntarily, right? Not after calling it a prison? Unless it was the only place he felt safe when I left with Jackson? Or when Japher kicked his way in?

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

What do I do? I have to protect Kaami. I have to.

“Why on earth do you think it’s yours?” I put as much disdain in the question as I can, given how freaked out I am. Maybe if I can get to my knife block…

Japher’s top lip curls. “I paid for it, quite a lot of money, in fact. I had to fire my last qualified pastry chef and employ a nobody like you to hide the expense, so I’m curious where you got it?” He traces the intricate pattern of the lid with his finger, his focus still locked on me. “Did you steal it? Are you a thief as well as a liar?”

“Fuck you,” I snarl.

He laughs, and my skin crawls at the cold, smug sound.

“Get the fuck out.” I toss my head towards my door. “Before I call the cops.”

He laughs again and walks towards me. I take a step back before I can stop myself. He was always a creep at work, but now… Now he’s a scary creep. A scary creep in my home. And he’s holding Kaami’s jar.

Where the hell is Kaami? I hope he’s okay. Safe and far, far away from whatever the fuck Japher is planning.

Maybe he just thinks the jar is a collector’s item? Maybe he doesn’t know anything about ? —

“The djinn is mine,” Japher states.

Well, fuck. Seriously, fuck.

He steps closer to me, pressing his palm to the side of the jar. “Ready?”

I throw myself at him.

I’ve never crash-tackled anyone before, and the second I slam into Japher’s body, I know I’ve done a shit job of it. My shoulder screams out in pain as it smacks into Japher’s chest, and my spine bends in a bow not even a yogi could accomplish. It’s like ramming into a freaking steel bar covered in squishy stinky mush. Does the creep not know what deodorant is? My arms flail around his torso, and my feet slip and slide on the floor as my woeful momentum and Japher’s refusal to budge rob them of any traction. How is he this strong? Or am I really that weak?

Laughing, he grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back.

Holy shit, my neck!

I cry out, and he shoves his face down to mine. His breath is hot and sour. “And just so you know, Al , my first wish will be to make you my subservient, submissive bitch to use any way I?—”

A thick fist of ink-black smoke smashes into Japher’s chin, flinging him off me. He hits the wall so hard I think the entire building rattles.

“Wh-what…” He slumps to the floor, and his glazed eyes bounce around. “How did you—” His focus snaps to the space behind my right shoulder, and his eyes bulge. “It is you,” he snarls. “I knew you were here. You’re mine, djinn! I bought you.”

Twisting, I see Kaami towering up behind me, purple smoke swirling around him like furious thunderclouds. His eyes glow, and there’s a darkness cracking the very air he inhabits. He’s the stuff of ancient nightmares, terrifying and powerful and beyond human.

“You will suffer, Elon Japher,” his voice booms around my living room as threatening as the angry broiling smoke, “for what you’ve dared to do to my master.”

Japher scrambles into a wobbly crouch. “You’re mine, djinn,” he rasps, flailing his arms around at his side.

What the hell is he doing? It’s like he’s searching for a weapon or a?—

Triumph twists his face into a smug sneer, and he jolts to his feet with Kaami’s jar in his hand. His lips glisten with spit, and his teeth are bared as he rubs the side of the jar. “Time to obey your true master, djinn. Me.”

“ No !” I scream.

Japher throws back his shoulders and levels a grotesque sneer at me. “Djinn, I wish for Aliana Barker to fall to her knees at my feet.”

I…don’t.

Instead, I feel a gentle hand brush the side of my neck over my pulse. I know that touch. I love that touch.

Behind me, Kaami chuckles, and a warmth rushes through me. I know that chuckle as well. That chuckle already lives in my heart.

“What… I don’t understand.” Japher scowls, rubbing the side of the jar once more, hand almost a blur. “My first wish is for Aliana Barker to?—”

“Shush,” Kaami orders, resting one arm across the back of my shoulders, the firm heat of his body pressing to my back. “Did you not hear what I said, Japher?” he asks, returning to his still-towering human size. There’s a dangerous mirth in his voice I know I shouldn’t find sexy, but I do. Oh my God, I do.

“ Obey me, djinn! ” Japher screeches, rubbing the side of the jar. “ I am your master. Obey me! ” His eyes bulge even more, and yep, there it is—fear. He’s petrified. Incensed, sure, but also petrified.

Good. He should be.

“Nope.” Kaami chuckles again, and I want to spin on my heel and kiss the hell out of him. “Rub it all you want, human. It won’t work.”

Japher chokes back a whimper. Or maybe a sob. “Why?” he wails.

Moving like smoke, Kaami steps from behind me and plucks the jar from Japher’s trembling fingers.

“No,” Japher protests, a whiny rasp of air. He doesn’t try to snatch the jar back, however. Probably because Kaami looms over him, muscles coiled, calm confidence radiating from him like a tangible force.

Kaami holds up the jar—his lamp, his prison. He studies it in my living room’s light and then turns and tosses it to me.

“No,” Japher whimpers as I catch it.

It’s cool in my hands. And yet it feels like it’s thrumming with an energy beyond understanding.

“Why?” Japher croaks, arms falling limply at his side as Kaami turns back to him. “How?”

A stillness falls over Kaami, and he tilts his head a fraction, casting me a quick smile over his shoulder. “Aliana’s second wish.”

I blink. My second wish? I haven’t made a second wish. I?—

Can you be my second wish?

The words I’d uttered before taking off with Jackson Maine whisper through my memory, and a rush of relief fills me. Technically not a wish, but yeah, I wished for Kaami.

“I am hers,” he said, white glowing gaze locked on me. “Until she wishes otherwise.”

And just like that, my breath turns to ice in my throat.

Until I wish otherwise? Oh…oh no. I’ve bound him to me. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan to, but I’ve done exactly what I promised I wouldn’t.

“Kaami,” I whisper. “That’s not…”

He turns back to Japher and raises his hand up beside his head, fingers poised. “Now…fuck off. Before I make you.”

Japher runs from my living room, through my open door and out into the stairwell.

A stunned laugh bursts from me, and I slap my hand to my mouth.

Expression unreadable, Kaami regards me with glowing eyes. “Do you want me to deal with him, master?”

The ice in my throat sinks into my heart. Master. Not Al, not my Aliana. Master. Because he thinks I’m just as selfish as every other master he’s had before me.

“Kaami…” I take a tentative step towards him. Unsure. “I didn’t…” God, how do I say this?

He grows still and then slowly turns… His eyes burn bright white, and then with a blink, he looks at me with his storm-cloud-grey human eyes. “Did I fuck up again?” he asks, the words barely a breath.

My heart twists, and I shake my head, closing the distance between us in two hurried steps. “No, Kaami. I did. I didn’t mean to…to trap you to me.”

A frown creases his forehead. “Trap me? How did you trap me?”

“My second wish.” Gently placing my palm on his chest, I shake my head again and bite my bottom lip. “I didn’t know it was a wish. I was trying to flirt with you. I was trying to be playful and sexy, and I didn’t know. But now I’m going to fix it.”

He frowns. “I don’t under?—”

“I wish for you to be free, Kaami,” I say. Not a whisper, not a murmur. A declaration. I can’t keep him forever, even if my heart is going to be broken when he’s gone. “It’s not right for you to be a slave to anyone, even someone who doesn’t want to abuse your phenomenal cosmic power. It’s not fair.” I let out a choppy sigh and take a step back, my smile soft. “And it’s not me. I wish for you to never be bound to a master again.”

He stares at me motionless.

My chest tightens. It’s ridiculous to feel like this, to love someone like this when they’ve only been in my life for a heartbeat. Ridiculous, but the way it is.

His eyes shimmer, growing brighter until they are glowing completely white. He closes those glowing eyes and pulls in a deep, slow breath. And clicks.

My heart breaks even as it soars. I may have lost him, but I’ve freed him as well, and that’s the most amazing…

He opens his eyes, his human eyes, and begins to chuckle.

Now it’s my turn to frown. “Wait, why are you laughing?” I take a step backwards and narrow my eyes at him. “What’s so funny?”

“A djinn is never meant to fall for their master, my Aliana.” Dimples creasing his cheeks, he reaches for my fingers, tugs me back to him, and cups my cheek with his other hand. “But you make it impossible.”

“I do?” I whisper. My Aliana? Does this mean ? —

“You do,” he murmurs.

I want to smile, but… “But aren’t you… Weren’t you… What about the power of my second wish?”

“I cannot grant love, remember?” He traces the line of my bottom lip with his thumb. “Even with rule bending, a human cannot wish a djinn to love them. You wished for me not to belong to anyone else, but you didn’t wish for me to love you. Your wish protected me from Japher’s control, but that was all. It’s not your wish that makes me feel the way I do for you, Al. It’s my heart. And my heart and my love I give to you, my Aliana. Irrevocably and completely.”

I gaze up at him, searching his eyes, not daring to dream, to hope, to wish. “Really? Really really?”

His dimple creases his cheek. “Really really. Want to pick out curtains with me?”

I laugh. I actually throw my head back and laugh. “I love you, Kaami. It’s ridiculous and impossible, but I do.”

His eyes glow, and his chest seems to swell as he dips his head and nudges his forehead to mine. “Ask me to make love to you, my Aliana. Say you want me to make love to you.”

“Make love to me,” I say, although the words are little more than a scratchy breath as I stare at him. “I want you to make love to me.”

His lips curl. “Thought you’d never ask,” he murmurs. “Your bed or mine?”

Burying my hands in his hair, I pull his head down to mine. “I am going to bake you the best baklava ever.”

He grins. “And I am going to give you the best life ever. As well as the best orgasms. Starting—” he lifts his hand up beside his face, eyes glowing “—now.”

And he clicks.