A Little Magic(16)

She barely felt the sheet slip to her waist. “I know what I look like.”

“You don’t know how I see you. But I’ll show you. Lie back for me. Relax.” Murmuring, he spread her hair over the pillows as he wanted it. “No, don’t cover yourself. Just look at me.” He shot straight down, then moved back. “Turn your head, just a little. I’m touching you. Imagine my hands on you, moving over you. There. And there.” He braced a knee on the foot of the bed, working quickly. “If I had a darkroom handy, I’d develop these tonight and you’d see what I see.”

“I have one.” Her voice was breathless, aroused.

“What?”

“I had one put in for you, off the kitchen.” Her smile was hesitant when he lowered the camera and stared at her. “I knew you would come, and I wanted you to have what you needed, what would make you comfortable.”

So you would stay with me, she thought, but didn’t say it.

“You put in a darkroom? Here?”

“Aye, I did.”

With a laugh, he shook his head. “Amazing. Absolutely amazing.” Rising, he set the camera down on the bureau. “I think you need to be a little more…mussed before I shoot the rest of that roll.” He climbed onto the bed. “The things I do for my art,” he murmured and covered her laughing mouth with his.





6




LATER, in the breezy evening when the sun gilded the sky and polished the air, he walked with her toward the cliffs. Both his mind and his body were relaxed, limber.

Logically he knew he should be racing to the nearest psychiatric ward for a full workup. But a lonely cliffside, a ruined castle, a beautiful woman who claimed to be a witch—visions and sex and legends. It was a time and place to set logic aside, at least for a while.

“It’s a beautiful country,” he commented. “I’m still trying to adjust that I’ve only been here since this morning. Barely twelve hours.”

“Your heart’s been here longer.” It was so simple to walk with him, fingers linked. So simple. So ordinary. So miraculous. “Tell me about New York. All the movies, the pictures I’ve seen have only made me wonder more. Is it like that, really? So fast and crowded and exciting?”

“It can be.” And at that moment it seemed a world away. A thousand years away.

“And your house?”

“It’s an apartment. It looks out over the park. I wanted a big space so I could have my studio right there. It’s got good light.”

“You like to stand on the balcony,” she began, then rolled her eyes when he shot her a quick look. “I’ve peeked now and then.”

“Peeked.” He caught her chin in his hand before she could turn away. “At what? Exactly?”

“I wanted to see how you lived, how you worked.”

She eased away and walked along the rocks, where the water spewed up, showered like diamonds in the sunlight. Then she turned her head, tilting it in an eerily feline movement.

“You’ve had a lot of women, Calin Farrell—coming and going at all hours in all manner of dress. And undress.”

He hunched his shoulders as if he had an itch he couldn’t scratch. “You watched me with other women?”

“I peeked,” she corrected primly. “And never watched for long in any case. But it seemed to me that you often chose women who were lacking in the area of intelligence.”

He ran his tongue around his teeth. “Did it?”

“Well…” A shrug, dismissing. “Well, so it seemed.” Bending, she plucked a wildflower that had forced its way through a split in the rock. Twirled it gaily under her nose. “Is it worrying you that I know of them?”

He hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “Not particularly.”

“That’s fine, then. Now, if I were the vindictive sort, I might turn you into an ass. Just for a short time.”

“An ass?”

“Just for a short time.”

“Can you do that sort of thing?” He realized when he asked it that he was ready to believe anything.

She laughed, the sound carrying rich music over wind and sea. “If I were the vindictive sort.” She walked to him, handed him the flower, then smiled when he tucked it into her hair. “But I think you’d look darling with long ears and a tail.”

“I’d just as soon keep my anatomy as it is. What else did you…peek at?”

“Oh, this and that, here and there.” She linked her fingers with his and walked again. “I watched you work in your darkroom—the little one in the house where you grew up. Your parents were so proud of you. Startled by your talent, but very proud. I saw your first exhibition, at that odd wee gallery where everyone wore black—like at a wake.”