Accidental Magic (23 page)

“Admitted that you like a woman’s touch?” she asked softly.

His gaze trapped hers. “Admitted that I
need
a woman’s
touch,” he said. “But I shouldn’t be surprised. You affect me oddly, Summer.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” she asked.

“For me, it is a very good thing,” he said.

They stared at each other until Summer became uncomfortable under the heat of his scrutiny. “Thank you for returning my purse to me,” she said, trying to temper the electricity that was building between them with words. “And I absolutely love the Romeo and Juliet painting. Thank you for it.”

“I’m glad you like it. I wanted to give you something that might make you remember what happened yesterday.”

“It’s been kinda hard for me to forget,” Summer said.

“For me, too.” Colin moved closer to her. “Yesterday meant a lot to me. I haven’t felt the sun on my skin in many decades. It’s not something I want to forget.”

“You know I didn’t do it on purpose. I can’t bring you the sun again.” Summer was finding it hard to think rationally with him so close, but her mind was working enough that she wanted to make it perfectly clear to him that she couldn’t just zap them back into the picture; she couldn’t make the sun shine for him.

Colin touched the side of her face. “You’re wrong about that.”

Summer shivered. His touch was cool, but her skin beneath his fingers came alive with heat.

You are my sunshine.

Summer jumped when his voice sounded inside her head.

“You heard that, didn’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I also heard you call to me from across the room yesterday.”

That dark intensity was back in his eyes, and he spoke with such emotion, such passion, that Summer’s heartbeat quickened, and she felt her breathing deepen.

“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but there is something between us that I’ve not experienced until I touched you yesterday. You say you can’t bring me sunshine again, yet to me your skin, your breath, your hair, even the summer-sky color of your eyes—all of you is light and shining to me. It is as if, somehow, magically, you are literally
my
summer,
my
sunlight.”

“I—I don’t know how that could be. I’m just me.” Summer couldn’t help leaning her cheek into his hand. His scent and touch were intoxicating, and she wanted nothing more at that instant than to get closer to him.

“I don’t know how it could be either, but you are an unexpected gift that I plan to cherish. If you’ll let me. Will you give me a chance, Summer?” Colin lifted her chin. “I realize I’m not what you’re used to—not the kind of man you would consider a
boyfriend
.” He ground the word out. “And yesterday you said you were already seeing someone.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“Not?”

“Not seeing anyone.” She stared up into his dark eyes, utterly mesmerized by his closeness.

“But last night…”

“Was nothing. There’s nothing between us. Ken isn’t my boyfriend.”

“I saw—” he began.

“You saw him kissing me. It was just, well, basically a test. I wanted to see if he could make me feel what you made me feel.”

“And did he?”

“No,” Summer said, staring into the vampire’s eyes. “Not even maybe. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I had to see if it was still there,” she said softly.

“It?”

“The sizzle between us.”

Colin smiled. “It’s still there. Let me taste you, sunshine, and I’ll prove it to you.”

“Yes,” she whispered, already leaning into him.

Colin didn’t claim her mouth right away. Instead, he drank in her scent and touch, mingling breath with breath. “I want you more than you can know.” He spoke the words against her skin. “When I touch you I’m alive again. I can feel the sunlight on my face.” He nuzzled her neck and then buried his hand in her thick blonde hair and breathed in the scent of sunlight and honey that clung to her.

“Kiss me, Colin,” she murmured.

With a strangled sound, his mouth finally met hers, easily erasing any lingering memory of Ken’s soft, sweet, boring kisses. His skin didn’t have the heat it had the day before, but it didn’t matter. It was still
him
, and Summer craved his taste and touch like she’d never wanted anyone or anything before in her life.

When they finally broke apart, it was only to stare dazedly at each other. “What is it between us?” Summer said. “It’s crazy. It’s like you’re my human version of catnip.”

His smile took away what was left of her breath. “I’m your catnip; you’re my sunshine. I think we make an excellent pair.”

“But I don’t even know you. You’re practically a stranger.”

Colin took her hand, threading his cool fingers through her warm ones. “Can you say we’re strangers when we’re touching?”

Summer looked down at their linked hands. His was so pale and large and strong, and hers was tan from working in her sister’s flower beds. They seemed direct opposites. He was the opposite of everything she’d believed she wanted for so many years. Yet he was right; when they touched, something was there, and it was something that hadn’t been there with any man before him.

“Colin, we have to slow down. I have to think about—”

The buzzer that signaled the opening of the front door of the gallery made both of them jump. Colin threw a dark look over his shoulder. “I’ll get rid of them and close the gallery; then we can talk.” Like an amazing old-time gentleman, he
kissed her hand before he started out of the room, but he stopped in the doorway, glancing back at her. “You were right, Summer. You don’t really know me, and I don’t know you. But what I do know is there is something special between us. I’ve walked this earth longer than you—a couple hundred and some odd years longer.” She gaped at him. Was everyone a zillion years older than her? Colin’s smile was sad and his eyes haunted with loneliness as he continued. “I can promise you that in all the long years of my life I haven’t ever felt what I do when I so much as breathe in the scent of your skin. If you feel even a fraction of what I feel, how can you not give us a chance?”

“What if this is all just because of my messed-up magic?” she asked.

“What if it isn’t?” Colin said.

Then he turned and left the room.

Summer’s knees felt wobbly, and she dropped down into the closest gilded chair. What was going on with them? One thing was sure; the attraction between them was still there, in spades! She wiped a shaky hand over her brow. He was right. She’d never felt anything like what Colin made her feel just with the touch of his hand on her face, let alone his lips against hers. What would happen if their naked bodies pressed together? A thrill of anticipation sang through her. Could she handle such passion, and if she couldn’t, what happened then? Was it worth taking a chance on? What was it the ancient Greek playwright,
Euripides, said about too much passion…something about a lion loose in a cattle pen?

Plus, she really didn’t want to be in love with a vampire. Besides the whole vegetarian/carnivore issue there was the day/night issue. She loved daylight and sunshine and all that went with it. Wouldn’t she have to give that up to be with Colin?

Her head was starting to ache when the voices that had been drifting to her from the outer gallery began to register.

“Yeah, man, we didn’t mean for nothin’ bad to happen,” said one male voice.

“For real. We were gonna come by today and say sorry, even if Ms. Sullivan hadn’t made us,” added another.

Summer snorted a little laugh. That had to be Purdom and one of his partners in crime. Jenny had been right. There was more power behind that spell than one kid could have conjured.

“That Ms. Sullivan is one mean woman,” said the first voice.

Summer smiled. Yep, Jenny had definitely known it.

“Yeah, but she’s so fiiine,” said the second, she now recognized as her student and Purdom’s bud, Blake McArter.

She heard Colin’s deep voice answering them but couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She attempted to sit still for a minute more, then curiosity killed discretion, and she walked quietly to the doorway of the office.

“We thought we’d make up a little thang for ya,” said Purdom.

“Like, to make up for what we did,” said McArter. “Okay with you if we bust out with it?”

“Sounds fine with me,” Colin said.

This time she could hear Colin’s voice more clearly, and the good humor in his tone made her smile. Her feet seemed to move of their own accord as she continued walking soundlessly down the hall. After all, she’d been a victim of Purdom’s magical stunt. He should apologize to her, too. Well, again, that is. Naturally, Jenny had made him grovel appropriately at school earlier that day. But still, more groveling never hurt, plus the other kid was here, too, this time. She crept slowly into the gallery until she came to the room that held the Romeo and Juliet painting, aka the scene of the crime. The two boys were standing in front of the painting with their backs to her. Colin was facing them, so he could have spotted her, but his attention was focused, with an amused lift of one of his dark brows, on the boys as they started making the ridiculous rap noises that always reminded Summer of a mixture of farts and messed-up engine sounds. As McArter did the sound effects, Purdon rapped their song.

Those brats! They did know Colin and I had been in the painting!
At that point there was a “musical” interlude in the rap, and both boys mouth farted and popped around looking silly and semicharming at the same time. Summer had just decided she’d been entertained enough and had started forward again when her eyes went to Colin, and she froze in place. He was watching the boys and laughing with the youthful joy of a man filled with light and promise. And Summer once again saw the happy, open man who had shared the painting, and his passion, with her.

He was completely and utterly captivating.

It was then that the question of whether she should risk getting entangled in a life of passion and darkness became moot. She
was
entangled with him already. Somehow within this dark, brooding vampire there lay the man she’d fantasized about and longed for all these years. It wasn’t a question of fitting him into her future. Colin was her future.

Summer must have made an involuntary sound, because Colin’s gaze instantly went from the boys to her. The smile didn’t leave his face; on the contrary, when their eyes met, his joy seemed to blaze from him to her.

“So we be here to make yestaday okay,” rapped Purdom.

“Yea, we got to give you somethin’ ’cause Sullivan says we got to pay,” intoned McArter.

“And she’s scary—even though I’d like to tap that play.”

The fart noises came to a crescendo, then Purdom went into the closing lines of the rap.

“We thought ’bout what we could do that would stay.

“And come up with a magic spell to melt our dissin’ ya away.”

Magic spell? Those words broke through the smoldering look she was sharing with Colin at the same time she noticed that the little shivers going up and down her spine weren’t just because she was hot for the vampire.
The rap was really a spell the boys were casting!
Then four things happened simultaneously.

Summer opened her mouth to scream at the kids to stop.

Colin moved toward her with an inhuman speed that blurred his body.

Purdom finished the rap/spell with the line, “Dude, we give you a future bright as the sun’s ray!”

And as the vampire’s body slammed into Summer, she realized the magic catastrophe was unavoidable, so she closed her eyes and braced herself, sending out one concentrated desire:
This will not mess up Colin and me.
Then the area around her exploded with light.

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