Fairytale (Fairies of Rush)

by Maggie Shayne

  Brigit gave her head a shake.

  “And the guy who just went—”

  “No. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Okay. Point is, Brigit, they’re just people. Good and bad in all of them. Brains and money don’t make them any better than you.”

  He wouldn’t think that if he knew the truth. That she was a thief. A criminal. A woman out to steal, even from him. She lowered her chin to her chest in abject shame.

  His forefinger caught it, lifted it, and his eyes probed hers in that way that made her tingle all over. “You’re the most beautiful woman here tonight, Brigit. That’s why they’re all staring.”

  She shook her head in denial, felt her cheeks burn.

  “You are.”

  “Adam? Aren’t you going to introduce me?” The deep voice came from just behind her, and Brigit turned too fast, as if caught doing something she shouldn’t, when in fact, all she’d been doing was drowning in Adam’s eyes.

  “Hello, Mac,” Adam said, pumping the man’s hand, and turning to Brigit. “Brigit Malone, meet Mackenzie Cordair. Mac, for short. He’s an old friend of mine.”

  Brigit offered her hand and Mac took it. He smiled at her, but there was something in his eyes. Some questioning, searching kind of interest that made her uncomfortable. He wanted something. She could feel it.

  “Good to meet you, Brigit,” he said.

  “Likewise.” She narrowed her eyes, peering into his, seeing goodness and honor there. A strong sense of loyalty. No menace or evil. Then why this feeling? She felt he was a threat to her.

  “I’ve heard a bit about you,” Mac said, snatching a drink from a passing tray. “You’re Adam’s new boarder.”

  “Yes.” She took a sip of her own drink, and its sweetness made her grimace. “And what do you do, Mr. Cordair?”

  His brows went up as if the question had taken him by surprise. Adam cleared his throat, and Mac seemed to hesitate before he answered. “I’m a teacher, like Adam. Only, I teach over at the elementary school, instead of here at the university.”

  “How nice.”

  He was not being honest with her. She didn’t know what he was hiding, but there was something, and the knowledge scared her.

  So find out what he’s up to, the wild one inside whispered. You know you can.

  She shouldn’t, though. She shouldn’t. He was Adam’s friend.

  A friend who’s lying through his teeth. Check him out, for heaven’s sake. Don’t be such a wimp.

  Her fingers inched nearer to his pocket, while she distracted them by gesturing with her other hand, and commenting on the music and the food. Inside, she felt the old excitement welling up. It had always been a challenge to try and a thrill to succeed. And damn, but that wild thing inside was getting a charge out of this.

  The wallet practically fell into her hand, and she couldn’t restrain her satisfied smile. She’d just check his i.d., and then she’d know...

  Adam was staring down into her eyes when she looked his way. Staring at her with a hunger that frightened her, and something else that looked a little like trust.

  God, he couldn’t let himself trust her. Not when she was about to steal from him.

  Guilt swelled like a tidal wave, and overwhelmed her wariness of Mac Cordair and his motives. She bent over, straightened up again, and held out the wallet. “I think you dropped this.”

  Mac’s eyes widened in shock, then narrowed on her. As if he knew full well he hadn’t dropped the wallet.

  The place was stifling all of a sudden, and that knowing look in Mac Cordair’s eyes frightened her. She had to get out. “You two go ahead and catch up,” she managed. “I’m going to find the powder room.”

  And before either of them could say another word, she turned and lost herself in the crowd. She didn’t go to any powder room though. Instead she made her way to the nearest exit, and slipped outside, into the parking lot. The fresh, night air on her face revitalized her, gave her a little more sanity and strength.

  She leaned back against the cool wall of the building, staring up at the star-speckled sky and trying to shake the feeling of impending doom that had settled over her in there.

  And she heard the door open and swing slowly closed, and she knew it was Adam who’d come to join her.

  “Will you promise not to laugh if I tell you something?” She said it without turning to look at him.

  He came closer, stood beside her, one arm sliding around her waist to draw her tight to his side. “I can’t imagine I’d laugh at anything you had to tell me, Brigit. But yeah, I promise.”

  Biting her lower lip, she worked up her nerve. “I...I hate crowds. Mainly because...because I know things about people. When I look into their eyes, I can see...” She closed her eyes and simply blurted it. “I can see inside them. What they’re feeling. Who they really are.”

  “You see inside them?”

  She expected ridicule, but there was only confusion.

  “Your friend, Mac, he wasn’t being honest. I don’t know why, because he seems like an honest man. but he was keeping something from us...or at least, from me.”

  She dared a peek up into Adam’s eyes. He was looking at her as if she’d told him that pigs could fly. And she lowered her face. “It’s always been that way. I’m weird, Adam. I’m not like normal people. Never have been. I don’t—”

  “What do you see when you look into my eyes?”

  Her head snapped up sharply. The question startled her.

  “Tell me.”

  Oh, God, why had she confided in him like that? He couldn’t possibly believe her. Never would. He was playing along now, because it amused him. Nothing more.

  “Tell me,” he said again, and she made the mistake of looking at him. Right into those dark sapphire eyes, with the occasional fleck of turquoise. So changeable.

  Mesmerizing and so very sharp.

  “I see goodness,” she heard herself whisper, as if she couldn’t help but answer him. “Under a mountain of anger and rage. A mountain built on pain. That’s what I see most of in your eyes, Adam. A pain that never dies.”

  He blinked as if she’d slapped him.

  “I want to make it better,” she whispered. Her hand drifted upward, and her fingertips stroked his corded neck. And then she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud, and her eyes widened. She started to turn away, mortified, but he caught her shoulder, stopping her.

  “I have a feeling,” he whispered, “that you’re only going to make it worse.”

  She closed her eyes, shook her head in denial, but knew he was right. And how on earth could he know that she’d hurt him in the end?

  “Problem is, I don’t have brains enough to let that bother me.”

  She hadn’t noticed the change in the music, the way it had got suddenly louder as someone opened a window. But Adam had. And before she’d given her consent, his arm crept around her waist, and he drew her close to him. His fingers twined with hers, and he turned in a circle.

  She put her hand on his shoulder, lifted her head, eyes widening in surprise. He drew a breath, expelled it as a sigh, and shook his head. “What the hell am I gonna do with you, Brigit Malone?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t, because being in his arms this way was too potent an experience not to rob her of her powers of speech. She clung to him, and they danced. And it seemed to Brigit that he held her a little closer, and then a little closer still.

  The music wove a spell around her as magic as anything Akasha had to offer. And by the time the song ended, her head was resting against Adam’s chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart beating in perfect time. Her arms had curled around his neck, and his clasped her waist tightly, so their bodies were pressed together from hip to head. She felt him bend a little, felt his face pressing into her hair. She was in a dream, floating amid an ocean of stars. And no one existed, no crowd filled the room on the other side of the nearby door. She was alone in a glittering galaxy, wrapped in
Adam’s arms, and she’d be content to stay right there forever.

  Someone cleared a throat, very loudly, and she felt Adam stiffen. He stopped moving. But she clung tighter, keeping her eyes closed and having no desire to leave his arms.

  “Angel, the song’s over.” He spoke near her ear, one hand stroking her hair. “From the way everyone seems to be emerging from the building and staring, I’d say the party is, too.”

  “Mmm.” Then his words sank in, and her eyes flew open. She stepped away, whipping her head around, seeing several pairs of eyes glued to the two of them, and her face burned. People made their way to their cars, gawking at the couple who’d still been dancing to music only they could hear.

  “Can we leave now, Adam?” she whispered, head lowering.

  “Damn right we can.” His voice was coarse and a little choked.

  * * *

  He didn’t know what the hell was happening. It was...it was almost like magic. While he’d been dancing with Brigit, he’d lost track of where he was...of who he was, for Christ’s sake. The music had died away. The ground beneath his feet had dissolved. He’d closed his eyes, but he’d still been able to see. He and Brigit had been floating, dancing and floating, in a midnight-blue sky that sparkled with diamond-like stars.

  Not a feeling. Not a daydream. No way in hell, this had been as freaking real as...

  As his trip to the forest of Rush when he’d been seven years old.

  He didn’t know what kind of spell she was weaving around him. He didn’t know much of anything right now. Except that he wanted Brigit. He wanted her so much he was shaking with it. And it didn’t matter that he had no idea who, or for that matter what, she really was or what the hell she was up to or why she’d wormed her way into his life. He wanted her. She could be an ax murderer and he’d still want her.

  And he’d tell her so, too. The second he got her home.

  * * *

  He was silent in the car, and that was okay. She was, too. And she supposed he might be lost in the impossible task of making sense of their momentary lapse back there at the university. Or maybe he hadn’t lapsed at all. Maybe it was only her, and maybe he’d just been humoring her.

  She’d always been able to tune out the world. To lose herself utterly in her own place. A magical place of twinkling stars and rainbow glimmers flashing sporadically. A place without gravity or sound or thought.

  Usually, though, it was up to her to make it happen. To close her eyes and focus on tranquility and peace, and to find that place. This time it had been spontaneous. It had happened as if on its own, without warning. Like...like magic.

  Why?

  God, for those few moments she hadn’t even thought of Raze.

  Adam twisted the key and the car’s engine died. Only then did she realize they were back at the house. And fear made her throat narrow to the size of a piece of straw. It made her stomach into a small, hard chunk of ice. That dance had altered things. She’d revealed her innermost fantasies...her secret desires. She was sure she had.

  Without a word, she shoved her door open and got out, heading for the front door more quickly than she should. Ashamed of running from him without explaining herself. But too afraid to do anything about it.

  Her sandaled feet made little tapping sounds on the steps, and she gripped the latch, only to yank in vain.

  She let her head fall down until her eyes focused only on her own bare toes, and didn’t even turn when he came up behind her, reached past her to insert his key in the lock. He twisted the key, then hesitated. His warm breath fanning her neck was almost more than she could bear.

  She nearly collapsed in relief when he finally opened the door and stepped back. But instead she managed to remain standing. Even to walk into the house. And he stepped in behind her, closed the door, and said, “Are you really magic, Brigit? Is that what it is?”

  His hands closed on her shoulders from behind, turning her slightly, and then he pointed. She looked up. The chandelier’s crystal prisms were on fire, bathed in moonlight that slanted In through the wall of windows. They sparkled, throwing beams of gem-colored light like the storm god hurling lightning bolts. Flashes of red and green and gold bounced from the walls, danced on the floors, caught and blazed in the mirrors.

  “It’s never looked like this before,” Adam whispered. And the tone of his voice was like a child’s...filled with wonder. So she turned to see him, and a blaze of green painted his eyes. Both eyes, making them flash unnaturally. “A lot of things are like they’ve never been before, Brigit. Since you came through that door.”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s true.” His hands came up to cup her head, fingers spreading tingles of awareness over her nape and down her spine. “What is it about you that has my dying plants looking as if they could grow into an entire rain forest?” He searched her face, iris eyes still glowing, sparkling, catching and holding hers until she couldn’t look away. “What is it about you Brigit...that makes me feel...”

  She caught her breath as he drew her, gently, inexorably closer. Until he held her the way he’d been holding her when they’d danced.

  “...makes me feel I’ll wither and die unless I kiss you...right now.”

  He kept his eyes opened, kept her captive in their depths. One hand continued to cradle her head, but the other slid down, curled around her waist, and pulled her tighter. So tight she felt every ripple of muscle in his chest. And then his head came down and he kissed her.

  His lips touched her mouth, tasted, testing, she thought. And she surrendered with a small sigh. Her entire body melted in his arms as she opened her mouth in gentle invitation. Sweet surrender.

  And she knew she’d never be the same.

  Chapter Nine

  He was drowning. And the same sensation overcame him as before, when they’d danced. That almost out-of-body experience that she seemed to instigate. He wasn’t here. There was no floor beneath his feet, no ceiling. The glimmering lights from the chandelier’s prisms became palpable. Warm, pulsing as they painted his face. The focal point of his entire existence became Brigit. Her lips beneath his, her body in his arms. The soft sounds of surrender she made.

  Every whisper-soft touch of her fingers in his hair was as powerful as a 220-volt shock. Every breath passing from her parted lips into his, carried the very essence of the woman he held. Every touch of his tongue as it pressed through the moist barrier brought a taste so sweet it was beyond description. Drugging. Addictive. So that he pressed deeper, seeking more. The very heat of her body was a song...music he could hear only in his soul. Blending and mingling with his own. He wanted to devour her!

  When her knees seemed no longer able to support her, Adam bent and scooped her into his arms, never taking his mouth from hers. And somehow he moved through the glittering night that surrounded them, swimming through space thick with rainbow flashes that he could now hear as well as touch. And then he was lowering her to the floor he couldn’t feel. Like a cloud under her back, and he was lying there with her, on top of her, kissing her because he couldn’t seem to stop.

  And she was kissing him back just as eagerly. Her arms twined around his neck and her hands threaded in his hair, and her body moved beneath his, rubbing against him, pressing closer. But still not close enough.

  His hands slid beneath her hips, pulling her tighter to him, and he ground his hips hard against her softness.

  And all at once she twisted her face to the side, and their lips came apart. She was gasping for air, and her words came out desperate and hoarse.

  “No more, Adam. We can’t...”

  Like ice water, those word.

  Adam blinked rapidly, and as if the spell had suddenly been broken, the room came into focus. They were in the study, on the Oriental rug near the barren hearth. There was no music. And part of him thought that was because the music had been her...or the two of them, together. But that was foolishness. Fantasy. The flashing prisms had lost the supernatural glow...the
one they’d never really had in the first place.

  And he was lying on top of Brigit with one knee wedged between her legs, holding her so tight he was surprised she could breathe. She had to feel how hard he was. How could she not feel him pressing into her? Or his heart hammering like a runaway train? Or his ragged breathing?

  What the hell had happened to his brain? His mind? He’d never lost himself like this. It was only sex for Christ’s sake. He’d always thought about it ahead of time, planned a time when he wouldn’t be interrupted or rushed, made sure he had a condom or two nearby.

  It had never been desperate and mindless and crazed! On a floor for Christ’s sake! A floor. She must think he was some kind of animal.

  He rolled off her, glanced at her face, expecting to see revulsion in her eyes. Maybe even fear.

  But she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring up at the painting that hung above the mantel. And she was crying.

  “Brigit? What’s...Jesus, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

  She brought her gaze to his, levering herself up onto her elbows. “You didn’t hurt me. I was as carried away as you were,” she whispered, and there was pain in her voice that belied the words. He had hurt her. Maybe not physically, though.

  “Then why—”

  She only shook her head, and he didn’t have a clue what the hell to say to her. She got to her feet, turned toward the stairs. “You don’t want to get tangled up with a woman like me, Adam. You really don’t.”

  She was right. He knew she was right. He didn’t want to get tangled up with her. It just didn’t seem to Adam that he had much of a choice in the matter. He shook his head, pushing his hands through his hair in frustration. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” He rolled to his feet, came up behind her, and settled his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know what the hell this is, Brigit, but it’s powerful.”

  “It’s madness.”

  He lowered his head, intent on kissing the crook of her neck, but she danced away before his lips could taste her skin again.