Accidental Magic (18 page)

4

“All right! Move away from the nude, and no one gets hurt!” Jenny snapped, and the group of gawking teenage boys shuffled reluctantly away from the full frontal nudity of George Wilson’s
The Spring Witch
.

Colin waited until the three of them were alone before saying, “Wilson was a big fan of Dante and William Blake, so he liked the poetic and romantic subject here.”

Summer blinked in surprise up at Colin. The tall vampire actually seemed to know something about art.

“Huh!” Jenny snorted a little testily. “I don’t see anything
terribly romantic about witches. Sexy—maybe. Wanton—for sure. Romantic? Nah.”

“The subject isn’t a witch as we know them in Mysteria,” Colin explained, his eyes on the nude painting. “It’s actually Persephone as she emerges from the underworld. See the pomegranate in her hand?”

“Oh, well, that makes more sense. Goddesses are definitely romantic,” Jenny admitted.

“What do you think of her, Miss Smith?”

Colin’s question, as well as the intense gaze he shifted from the painting to her, caught Summer unaware, and she automatically said what was foremost in her mind. “I think I like her body better than most of the other women in the exhibit. They look too manly.”

Colin’s brows lifted. “I agree with you, Miss Smith. The Pre-Raphaelites tended to give their female models masculine characteristics. I like my woman to look like a woman, and not like a man in drag.”

“As if that matters to the germs and hormones,” Jenny said, eyes lighting on a group of laughing, jostling teenage boys clustered around the huge, colorful, and seminude painting of
Toilette of a Roman Lady.
“Excuse me for a sec. I’m going to kick some boy butt.”

As she hurried toward the students, Summer called, “Herd them back into the main gallery in front of the Romeo and
Juliet painting. I’m going to give them their topic for the essay assignment.”

Jenny’s teeth flashed white as she grinned over her shoulder. “Oh, good. They’ll hate that.”

And, just like that, Summer and Colin were left completely alone for the first time.

She didn’t have to look up at him to know his eyes were on her. Again. She could feel his gaze—against her skin, inside her blood. It heated her body, arousing her nipples and making her inner thighs tingle, and her woman’s core became hot and wet and needy…needy for his touch, which wouldn’t be sweet and gentle and loving, as she’d fantasized about Ken’s touch being. Colin’s touch would be like his body: hard and strong and sexy. No, Colin was nothing like Ken.

“What are you thinking about?”

His deep voice came from very close to her.
When had he stepped into her personal space?
She looked up at him.
Those eyes! They’re so intense—so sexy.
He was close enough that his scent came to her, and it, too, was a surprise. Instead of smelling like the grave or worse, like a carnivorous, bloodsucking monster, Colin smelled as sexy as he looked. His scent was man mixed with something spicy, like cinnamon or even more exotic, like cloves and darkness and cool nighttime breezes sifting over love-dampened skin.

She stared at him and breathed the unique scent that was
Colin distilled by his own skin.
Nothing like Ken, who smells like lemons and laughter, and who I’m supposed to be having a dream date with tonight!
“My date tonight,” Summer finally managed to answer.

Colin’s dark eyes narrowed dangerously. “You shouldn’t lie to me. You know vampires can smell lies.”

Summer took a step back and put up her chin. She was damn sure not going to let this overbearing, way-too-masculine creature intimidate her, no matter how yummy he smelled. She was a college graduate and a professional teacher!

“Then you should sniff again. I was definitely thinking about Ken,” Summer said with finality.

“Ken?” his dark-chocolate voice was heavy with amusement. “As in Barbie’s boyfriend?”

“No. Ken, as in
my
boyfriend.”

With a movement too fast to follow with her eyes, Colin grabbed both of her arms and lifted her so that he only had to bend a little to fit his face into the soft slope of her neck. He inhaled deeply and then let his breath out slowly, caressingly, so that it brushed against her sensitive skin and caused her to shiver.

“You may have been thinking,
briefly
, of him. But you do not have a boyfriend.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked breathlessly.

“If you belonged to a man, I could scent him on you, and you smell only of yourself: sunlight and honey and woman.”

He let her go as abruptly as he had grabbed her, and Summer stumbled back a couple of steps.

Her head was spinning, and her breath was coming short and hard. It was like he’d filled her mind with the white noise of the inside of seashells. All she could think to say was, “I smell like sunlight and honey?”

“Yes.” Colin ran one cool finger down her heated cheek and the side of her neck. “Warm honey on a golden summer’s day. You draw me to you like a field of lavender draws bees. Will you let me taste you?”

“Hey, Miss Smith! Miss Sullivan says we’re all waiting for you, and we need you now. Uh, you better come, ’cause she seems kinda pissed.”

Colin’s hand fell away from her face, and Summer turned to see the little blonde cheerleader standing in the doorway to the main gallery.

“Y-yes. Okay. I’m coming. Now.” Without looking back at Colin, Summer hurried from the room.

She could feel him following her. She thought it was like having a dangerous but darkly beautiful panther stalking her. He wanted to taste her! Summer shivered and crossed her arms concealingly over her breasts. Again.

“There you are, Miss Smith. The students are ready for their essay assignment.” Jenny told her, then her eyes snapped over the group of milling students. “I said get your notebooks out. Now.”

Book bags exploded as kids hurried to do her bidding. Summer could only watch in awe. How the hell did Jenny do that? She hadn’t even raised her voice. Soon the entire room (which included one dark and brooding vampire) was looking expectantly up at her.

Summer cleared her throat. “The topic of your essay is this: a Pre-Raphaelite art critic wrote that this painting of Romeo and Juliet by Ford Madox Brown was ‘splendid in expression and fullness of tone, and the whole picture is gorgeous in color.’ I want you to be a modern art critic and tell me in your essay what you learned about Romeo and Juliet from Mr. Brown’s painting.” Summer paused, narrowed her eyes, and did what she hoped was a believable impression of Jenny’s firmness, then added, “No, that does
not
mean that I want you to tell me Romeo is wearing a gay-looking red outfit, and Juliet’s boobs are showing. What I want you to tell me is what this painting says about them as a couple. Questions?” She didn’t give them time to ask any but hurried on. “Good. I’ll let you have about fifteen more minutes here in front of the painting to take notes and start getting your ideas on paper.”

A hand went up. It was one of Jenny’s students, so she said, “What is it, Mr. Purdom?”

“Does your class have to write the essay, too?”

“Yes. I suggest you get busy,” Jenny said smoothly.

There were a few muffled groans, but most of the kids settled down to studying the painting and taking notes.

“I’m going to go tell Moxie to bring the bus around. Do you think you can handle
it
by yourself?” Jenny’s tone made the pronoun semi-suggestive. The sultry glance she sent Colin made it fully suggestive.

“Yes, definitely. No worries here,” Summer said.

Jenny met her eyes before she left the room and blinked a couple times in surprise before her face practically exploded in a smile. “You like him!”

Summer felt her cheeks warm. “I don’t like him. I don’t even know him,” she whispered.

“Okay, maybe I should have said you’re hot for him. Well, go ahead, girlfriend. He’s clearly more interested in you than me.” She winked at Summer and disappeared out the front door.

Summer sighed and turned back to the room of sullenly writing students. Thankfully, Colin was on the far side of the room standing close to the painting. She could see that he was busy answering questions about it for some of the students. Good. That should keep him occupied. It also gave her an opportunity to study him. Goddess, he was handsome, but not in a typical fashion. What was he like? He reminded her of someone, and she couldn’t quite—

Then, with a little jolt she did remember who he brought to mind. Her favorite fictional hero, Mr. Rochester from
Jane Eyre
. Yes, that dark, powerfully masculine look of Colin’s would definitely fit in as master of Thornfield.
You know you
think Rochester is the sexiest of all fictional heroes, as well as your favorite,
her mind whispered.
No,
she told herself sternly,
Ken is
really
my type—all blond and sweet and gentle. He’s what I planned for my future. The Rochester type needs to stay where he belongs—in the pages of fiction.

But she was still staring when Colin looked up from the student he’d been helping and met her eyes.

Come to me…
The words filled her—mind, body, and soul. Before she realized what she was doing, she was making her way around the group of students and heading for the vampire.

Summer was only a few feet from him when she stopped and shook her head, breaking the stare that had locked their eyes together and getting control of herself. Oh, hell no! What was she doing? Imagining his voice in her head and then obeying that imagining? Had she lost it? Had the stress of trying to teach teenagers cracked her already?

And then, not far behind her, she felt a too-familiar prickle up her spine. She knew even before she heard the whispered singsong words of the quickly uttered spell that one of the asshole teenage sorcerers-to-be had thought he’d be clever and whip up a little magic to see if he and his girlfriend could skip out of the assignment. Summer whirled around in time to hear the last stanza of the incantation. She opened her mouth to yell,
No! Stop!
Backing as quickly as she could away from the kids—and right into an impossibly hard, cold body she knew had to
be Colin. She wanted to warn him. She wanted to do something—anything. But instead, the magic was already grabbing her, robbing her of speech.

Completely helpless, she did the only thing she could do. Summer closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around the pillar of strength that was Colin, and held her breath as she felt their bodies being wrenched, lifted, and tossed.

When everything was still again and the nauseating sensation of wobbly, opposite magic lifted, Summer slowly opened her eyes.

And looked straight into Colin’s dark gaze.

“What the—” he began, and then his eyes widened in sudden fear. “The sunlight! I have to get out of…” The vampire’s words trailed off as he realized he wasn’t bursting into flame. Completely confused, Colin gazed down at Summer. “What’s happened to us? It’s day. I’m outside in the sunlight, and my skin is not burning.”