0449474001339292671 4 fighting faer (12 page)

“Thanks. I think I will.” Predatory intent radiated from his big, beautiful body as he caught her hand in his and sidled right up next to her until she could feel every inch of his body pressing up against her.

Sweet Molly Malone, the man felt like heaven. All heavy, roped muscle and exotic scent, he gave off heat like a blast furnace, but Corinne already knew he was a hell of a lot nicer to curl up to during a cold snap. She watched his crystal green eyes go all lazy and seductive and fought back the urge to wrap her arms around his neck and scale him like a prison wall. Just the thought of wrapping her legs around his waist and feeling his hands cupping her ass to hold her steady made her pant. She could almost feel those enormous hands of his kneading her muscles again, easing the burning ache in her nipples. She remembered the width of his thighs holding her open, the length of his cock driving deep, so deep, inside her aching pussy…

The hiss of the spray can yanked her back to real life before she came just from her fantasy. If thinking about him drove her to the edge of climax, she’d hate to think what might happen the next time she got her hands on him.

He already had his on her. Eyes gleaming, he held her gaze captive while his fingers pulled the neckline of her tank top and the strap of her bra to one side, exposing the golden slope of her shoulder. The can hissed again as he pointed the nozzle at her bare skin and painted a line of thick, pale blue whipped cream from the side of her neck to the edge of her shirt. Then his head lowered and she felt his breath in hot contrast to the refrigerator cool of the cream.

“Chocolate pudding aside,” he whispered as her breath froze solid in her chest, “I’m really more of a raspberry fan myself.”

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His head dipped and his lips parted and her world spiraled out of control when his tongue slid hot and moist over her cream covered skin.

Her head fell backward as if her spine had melted, and that’s pretty much what Corinne felt like—a great big boneless pile of goo. Well, if goo could feel horny. She pressed her chest against his, the pressure offering a slight easing of the ache in her breasts. His tongue licked and stroked muscles and nerves and tendons as he ate the cream from her skin. His lips pressed and teeth scraped, and it felt like he touched each separate nerve ending and coaxed it to quivering alert. Her knees felt like jelly and her stomach had filled with hyperactive butterflies, while her head swam a leisurely backstroke, content to let him feast on her flesh as long as he wanted. If she was lucky, it would be a long, long time.

The click of the camera shutter barely penetrated her consciousness, but the loss of his kisses did. He pulled away and straightened to his full height. She whimpered and reached up to pull him back toward her, dying for more of his magic touch.

“Oh my God, you two are amazing!” Hibbish let his camera fall to his chest, dangling from the woven strap while he buried his hands in what was left of his hair and tugged in a gesture of mental overload.

“I’ve never seen anything like it! Tell me what you charge. I’ll pay anything! Anything you want, just so long as you sign a photo release so I can use that shot on the Kissy Kreme display. Name your price.” Corinne barely registered the shop owner’s babbling as English, her senses still reeling as she fought to keep from climbing Luc’s body like a rope wall. With her eyes still locked on Luc’s face, she saw his expression sharpen as he turned to the shop owner-cum-photographer.

“Anything?” he repeated.

Hibbish nodded. “Absolutely. That picture I took of you two is gonna sell a whole truckload of Kissy Kreme. It’s the least I can do.”

Luc squeezed Corinne’s hand, as if encouraging her to keep silent. He clearly didn’t understand the potency of his own kisses. Like she’d recovered the power of speech already. Ha! “We appreciate this, Mr. Hibbish. Can you start by...?”

“Whoa, wait a second there.” The man held his hands out in front of him and backing up a half step. His friendly expression closed down like a Popsicle stand in October, and he shook his head. “If you’re here lookin’ for Walt, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

That nearly managed to yank Corinne out of her lust-induced fog. She frowned. “What? I thought you were Walter Hibbish. I looked it up. The Pink Pillow is owned by Walter M. Hibbish.”

“And Harvey Weitzel. That’s me. We’re partners,” Weitzel explained. “But I haven’t seen Walt in nearly a week.”

“Have you reported him missing?” Damn, that news threw Corinne for a loop, but her instincts were kicking in now. Maybe this story could turn into a real
story
now. “Do you know where he was last seen?”

“Yeah, I reported it, since he hasn’t returned any of my calls, but I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police.” Weitzel turned away to begin breaking down his equipment from the shoot. “I know nothing about where he might be. Walt and I never lived in each other’s pockets, and when one of us wanted to take a little break, we never felt the need to explain it. He could be anywhere. Chances are he’ll turn up
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in a week or two. You can try back then.”

“I won’t need to try back then. I’m working on a story, and I need to talk to him now.”

“Then I hope you got a nose like a bloodhound, cause I can’t think of any other way for you to find him.” Weitzel gave a regretful shake of his head and zipped his lens into a protective case. “Sorry I can’t tell you more. But if you wanna do an article on the store instead of just on Walt, I’d love to help you out. The publicity would be great.”

Corinne blew out a frustrated breath and shoved her notebook back into her bag. “Sorry, but I have to run that by my editor first.”

Weitzel looked disappointed for a minute before he shrugged it off and offered her a smile. “Oh, well.

That’s how it goes I guess.” He picked up a can of Kissy Kreme and handed it to Luc. “Here. Take a freebie. Just for making a wasted trip. Tell your friends about it, too. We’ll be all stocked up by Wednesday.”

By Wednesday, Corinne sincerely hoped she could forget the Pink Pillow had ever existed, but she just nodded and left the thank yous to Luc. He seemed to be good at them.

“Look, I’m sorry you went through all this trouble for nothing,” the shopkeeper said. “Even if the photos turned out good for me, it’s like you wasted a trip. Why don’t I walk you out and tell my girl out front to give you a special discount. Anything you want, twenty percent off.”

“Thanks, Harvey, that’s very generous of you,” Luc said, taking Corinne by the elbow and guiding her forward. “We appreciate all your help.”

Weitzel shrugged as he set aside a soft-sided camera case and led the way toward the doorway they had entered through. “No problem. I wish you luck on your story. Sorry I couldn’t give you more information.”

“Yeah, me too,” Corinne muttered under her breath, stepping back out into the shop with Luc right behind her. They exchanged pleasantries with Weitzel, but when the curtain fell closed behind them, she crossed her arms over her chest and immediately dropped them back to her sides. She gave a frustrated sigh. “Fabulous. Just what I needed. Now I’ve got a great big blank of information on a great big nothing of a story. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

She supposed she could head back to the office and dig up the list of witnesses Hank had given her, just on the off chance she could scare up another interview today. It just seemed like a lot of work for a story she’d rather see die a slow and undignified death on page 41. Below the crease.

“You could help me pick out a few things that would…console us until we decide what to do next.” Luc’s suggestion almost startled her. She’d been so caught up in her disappointed musings she’d forgotten he was standing right next to her, which made her feel totally ridiculous. After all, what woman in her right mind could forget a six-foot-six-inch tall hunk with gorgeous hair, a killer smile and a can of minty fresh whipped cream?

Her eyes dropped to the can and she felt a renewed surge of lust. “I could, couldn’t I?”
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Luc ‘s mind filled with two primary thoughts as he bustled Corinne away from the shop and down the street. On one hand, they needed to figure out what it meant that one of the last mortals to make contact with Seoc had disappeared without a trace; and on the other, he needed to understand why the taste of Corinne D’Alessandro went to his head faster than Faerie wine.

The one little taste of her in the back of the sex shop had nearly snapped his control, and he hadn’t touched anything more intimate than her shoulder. It made no sense. For a man who’d learned the finer points of sex from nymphs and dryads, a man known as one of the most desirable warriors in Faerie, he couldn’t fathom why this little human should make his blood heat and his cock harden. For Goddess’s sake, he’d spent the entirety of last night having her as many times as he could manage. He should be sated with her. Even knowing she was his heartmate couldn’t really make him understand. But it did give him some interesting ideas for the Kissy Kreme, the chocolate tattoos and the sheer, silk scarves they’d picked up with their discount.

“Can I ask you a question?”

The sound of her voice surprised him. He’d been so caught up in thinking about her, he’d almost forgotten about her. She stared up at him with those wide, earth-colored eyes, and he felt his blood head back south. “Sure.”

“What do you think it means that Hibbish has gone missing? I saw that look on your face. You have some sort of theory.”

He weighed his words for a moment before he answered. “Not so much a theory as a whole lot of questions that I’d really like to have answered.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t think there’s anything weird about Hibbish disappearing?”

“I think weird is written all over this story, but then, I think it’s weird that this story revolves around the nephew of the Queen of Faerie, so I’m hardly a proper judge. I’m more interested in what
you
think is weird.”

He sighed. “I think it’s weird that Hibbish has disappeared.”

“Weird how?”

It must have been the lunch hour, because the sidewalk had begun to fill up with pedestrians, and Luc had to pull Corinne out of the way of a small gaggle of young people who seemed oblivious to the fact that they were expected to share the world with anyone else. He grimaced. “Come on. We can’t stand here and chat all day. I saw a coffee shop down on the corner. Let’s grab a table, and we’ll swap
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theories. And maybe some more of that foul brew you love will put you in a better mood.”

“My mood is just fine.” She scowled, but let him guide her down the block and toward the table the waiter assigned to them inside thecafé.

“Right. That’s why we had to fight it out in the middle of that store.” She had the grace to look abashed. “Okay, so it’s greatly improved.”

“And think of how much further it will improve after a cup of coffee.” Personally, he didn’t see what humans liked so much about the dark, bitter brew, but if it made Corinne happy, he’d be happy to provide it. He thought he heard her murmur something about torture, revenge and Altoids, but when he glanced up at her, she just smiled sweetly. The expression gave him the willies. Talk about unnatural. He gave her order to their waiter, along with a request for a pot of Darjeeling with lemon and turned back to her.

“So what’s your theory about the weirdness?” she asked, as soon as they were alone again.

He paused, taking a moment to weigh his answer. It wasn’t so much a matter of deciding how much of the truth to tell her as deciding how to tell her so she would understand without getting freaked out.

“Have you ever heard of a changeling?

Her eyes widened. “Isn’t Hibbish a little old to be a victim of Fae kidnapping?” He ignored her question. “Okay, so you’ve heard enough to know that in the past, some of the more…unethical among the Fae used to exchange their own, sickly offspring for healthy human babies that they then raised as their children in Faerie.”

“Yeah, which is why I pointed out that Hibbish doesn’t sound like anyone’s golden-haired cherub.”

“I’m not saying he is. Let me finish, okay?” She nodded and he took a deep breath. “Well, that hasn’t happened in a long, long time. Not since the very beginning of our time out of Ithir. Eventually, the term changeling came to mean the offspring of mixed parents. One Fae parent, and one human.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“I’m still leading up to the point. As magical as the Fae are, one of the magics that is forbidden to us is the one that allows us to travel freely between our world and Ithir. That’s one of the reasons why taking human babies back to Faerie stopped, because in order to make the trip, the Fae would have to not only find the right baby and make the switch, they’d also have to find the nearest door between the worlds and get the baby through before getting caught. It just got too tough. And since the Queen could hardly afford to seem like she approved of the whole practice, she didn’t exactly make those doors easy to find.”

He closed his mouth as their waiter approached and waited until they’d been served before leaning forward to continue his tale. “But some Fae continued to find them, and worse than that, some humans found them, too, and a few came into Faerie looking for the lost children. Once, a human man managed to convince some of his neighbors that the Fae were responsible for the death of their crops and their cattle and they formed a small army to attack us. That was an extreme example, but it made an impression on the Queen. Eventually, she decided to close almost all the doors between the worlds so she could control the passage of anyone into and out of Faerie.”
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