0449474001339292671 4 fighting faer (4 page)
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“By the Lucky Charms guy? Yes, although they described him as something a little closer to the guy from the Tolkien movies.”
Corinne made a face. “So I’ve heard. Did they file police reports or anything?”
“Hardly. That would have required brain power and clear thinking, for which neither of these girls has the capacity.”
“That doesn’t explain why the first person you decided to call about the whole situation was me.” Ava shook her head. “It wasn’t a matter of choosing between you and the police, darling. The police couldn’t do anything, since the girls had no evidence of any crime. I called you because I thought that if the situation extended outside of my clients’ empty heads, someone in your line of work would have heard of it.” She leveled a meaningful glance at her friend. “Clearly, I was correct.”
“Unfortunately.”
“So, what’s going on?”
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“I have no bloody idea.” Setting her notebook aside, Corinne let her head fall back onto the sofa cushions until she stared directly up at the plaster-detailed white ceiling. “First off, it’s just the weirdest damned thing I’ve ever heard of. I mean, people all over Manhattan reporting sightings of a leprechaun when it’s nowhere near the seventeenth or March and so far as I know, the city has not been pumping crack into the drinking water. All these witnesses tested as sober when they were questioned.”
“By the police?” Ava arched a slim, dark eyebrow.
Corinne snorted. “Hardly. Oh, a couple of them tried to file police reports, but they hadn’t seen any crimes being committed, and they were talking about fairies, for God’s sake, so the cops pretty much laughed them back out the door. No, the recorded statements we have are from a couple of tabloids and two fairly respectable PIs.”
“But there’s no evidence that any of these reports have any sort of credibility, is there?”
“Nope.” Corinne turned to look at her friend. “Have I mentioned I want to watch my boss be devoured by a pack of rabid gerbils?”
“Not yet. Gerbils?”
“They have small teeth. It would take longer than wolves or hyena.”
“Ah. Nonetheless, I have a feeling this story isn’t going away.” Unfolding her tall, elegant frame from her seat, Ava rose, collected the empty wine glasses and carried them back toward her kitchen. “I saw Mindy Daniels, from the TV station, at the Four Seasons this afternoon. She said even their program director is thinking of putting someone on it.”
Corinne groaned, loud enough to be sure Ava would hear her in the other room. “Shoot me. Just shoot me now.”
“Ha! Not if you’re going to bleed all over my carpet.”
“Remind me why we’re friends again?”
Ava reappeared in the living room holding the receiver from a cordless phone. “Because I just called a cab to take you home so you wouldn’t have to stand outside waiting in this heat, and I charged it to my account.”
“How is that a reason? Yeah, the cab is nice, but doesn’t that mean you’re kicking me out?”
“You said you wanted to leave by ten so you could get an early start in the morning with those, quote
‘loathsome interviews.’ End quote.”
Corinne sighed. “Right. So I suppose I can let this one slide. But I still don’t know what it says about me that I continue to hang out with you after the Fantasy Fix thing.”
“Let’s not start that again.” Ava picked up her friend’s backpack and held the straps while Corinne slipped into it. “I still say there’s nothing wrong with seizing the moment when a sexual fantasy just drops itself in your lap.”
“The only thing that’s dropped into my lap recently,” Corinne said, “is this damned story. And look how
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far that’s gotten me.”
As she led the way to the door, Ava looked back over her shoulder and arched her brow. “You never did have any patience, Corinne, darling, but I’m sure you’ll get yours one day.” Corinne snorted. “Knowing my luck, mine is the damned leprechaun.” Chapter Four
Luc waited outside the human’s apartment building for an hour before impatience got the better of him.
When he’d talked to Dmitri and Regina after leaving Rafe’s house, they had given him the woman’s address and informed him that while her schedule varied, she usually arrived home by nine or so during the week. According to Regina, weekends presented more of a challenge.
“Corinne likes to…stay active,” Dmitri’s bride had reported. “And she’s certainly not lacking for a social life. She just isn’t the sort of woman to sit at home and wait for Mr. Right to call. She’s too busy going out and killing time with Mr. You’ll Do.”
Regina sounded charmingly diplomatic when she said that, and Luc didn’t have the heart to tell her a woman who enjoyed sex was hardly likely to shock the Fae. Humans were the only creatures he could think of off the top of his head that actually got hung up on sex. Regina, for instance, had even blushed when she told him about her friend. Only the repressive look on Dmitri’s face had kept Luc from laughing. The vampire clearly doted on his new wife and would not take kindly to anyone embarrassing her by laughing at her modesty. Luc had been glad to leave them to their wedded bliss.
He had found Corinne’s building easily, but after an hour outside in the steamy August weather, his patience ran out. He slipped thought the front door behind another tenant, using a simple masking charm to remain unnoticed, then he took the stairs to the fourth floor and found apartment 405. Checking to be sure no one was around, he cupped her doorknob in one hand and placed the other over the deadbolt, trying to decide how badly he wanted the chance to look around before the owner returned.
“You know, when breaking and entering, I hear it’s customary to make sure no one is around before you begin.”
He turned at the sound of the voice to see a dark-haired, dark-eyed human woman striding down the hall to stop a couple of yards away from him. Judging by the photo Regina had showed him, the owner
had
returned, but he obviously hadn’t looked at that photo closely enough. The woman standing in front of him now did things to his libido that photo hadn’t even dreamed about. Damn, but she had caught him off guard.
He knew Rafe had said that Regina’s friends all seemed to be remarkably attractive for humans, but for Lady’s sake, Luc was Fae. He lived among the most beautiful females in creation, served as elite Guardsman to one who probably reigned as
the
most beautiful, so he certainly shouldn’t be feeling this
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surge of lust for a human.
Besides which, humans were just so…human. They had nothing special, not compared to an Other or a Fae or any of the other legions of creatures living in the worlds. No powers, no gifts, not even any real talent to speak of. Like a lot of others in Faerie, Luc had always thought of them as being a bit primitive and undeveloped. So why the hell did the sight of Corinne D’Alessandro to go directly to his groin?
She didn’t so much surpass the normal notions of human female beauty as expand them. She had rich, olive skin and thick, dark hair the color of the onyx Mab wove into her crown every Samhain. She was taller than the average human, too, though still a good head or more shorter than he, and she had the sort of solid, human figure many Fae thought of as coarse and common. Luc found it tempting. Her curves made his hands itch to trace them, and her very substantiality seemed to call to him, made him ache to feel her press against him, heavy and warm and real. He wanted to hold her, to taste the curves and angles of her clear, classical features, to learn the earthy truth of her scent and the richness of her flavor.
What in the Lady’s name was wrong with him?
“I did check,” he said, shaking some sense back into himself and stepping away from the door. “You weren’t there a second ago.”
“Well, I’m here now. So if you plan on robbing someone, I suggest it not be me, since I can give the police a really good description at this point.” Her gaze swept over him, maybe a little slower than necessary and that pleased him, before her chin jerked up and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“And if you were actually here to try and sell me something, I’m already not interested.”
“Not guilty, on either count. I was just looking for the woman who lives in 405.” He pretended ignorance and waited for her response.
“Do you know her?”
“No, but I know friends of hers who gave me her address and suggested I look her up.” He waited for her to identify herself, but she just raised her eyebrows. “Really. What friends? And what’s your name, while we’re at it?”
He felt his mouth quirk. “The friends are Dmitri and Regina Vidâme, and if I admit to being Luc Macanaw, will that make you Corinne D’Alessandro?”
“That depends on how you know Reggie and Misha and whether or not you can show me some form of ID.”
Ah, New Yorkers. Luc hadn’t spent all that much time in Ithir, but it didn’t take long to recognize a native of this mortal island. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet full of the little details humans found so important. He kept it at Rafe’s house for his occasional visits. “Driver’s license?”
“It’s a start.”
She didn’t approach, so he tossed the wallet to her and watched as she flipped it open and examined the small, plastic card that bore his photo. Her eyebrows shot up. “Lucifer?” she read. “No wonder you introduced yourself as Luc.”
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She spent a minute looking from the photo to Luc and back again before she closed the wallet with a snap and tossed it back to him. He assumed that he passed inspection, because this time when she met his gaze, hers looked warm and playful and assessing. He watched her hips sway gently as she crossed the short distance between them and fitted her key into the door.
“It’s too bad Regina sent you over here,” she said over her shoulder as she opened the lock. “I was hoping you were a present from Ava. You’re just the sort of Fantasy Fix I could learn to enjoy.”
* * * * *
When she had turned down the hallway to her apartment, her thoughts still centered on the story of her nightmares and the ridiculous interviews she would have to conduct tomorrow if she ever hoped to get it off her desk and onto Hank’s. So the last thing she expected to see in front of her doorway was a man fully engaged in breaking and entering her apartment. The fact that he turned out to be waiting for her was as unexpected as it was exciting, because this guy rated off the charts on her own personal drool-o-meter. Maybe she had been such a good girl that Santa was sending her present early. Either that, or she was hallucinating.
Okay, so a burglar wasn’t most people’s idea of an appropriate Christmas gift or heavenly reward, but Corinne had had a hard day and it had been weeks since her last date. She could be forgiven for a little bit of drooling over a man that gorgeous, even if he did have a larcenous streak. So her relief when they sorted out who he was and what he wanted turned into something very profound. It made her feel better knowing she hadn’t been lusting after a thug.
At least six-five or six-sex—er, six-
six
—the man towered over not only her, but over every other man she’d ever dated, including the six-foot-two construction worker she’d drooled over for most of last summer. This guy wasn’t just tall, though; he had brawn to back up his height, with the kind of muscle definition most men would kill for.
His skin had a coppery-bronze hue, and his eyelashes were thicker and darker than any man’s had a right to be. They made his crystal-green eyes stand out and emphasized the dark, rich coffee color of his hair, which was at least long enough to be clubbed back into a ponytail. She couldn’t see how long it was, but her fingers already itched to run through it.
Long hair on a man pushed all her buttons, especially when it was just that particular shade, that brown so dark it looked black until the light hit it just right and pulled out those rich, chocolate highlights. She wanted to feel that hair wrapped around her while she climbed on top and rode him straight on ‘til morning.
Dear Lord!
Fighting hard to gain control of her hormones and her drooling, she flipped the light switch and led her unexpected visitor into her web—er, her living room.
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She liked her apartment, which was probably why she intended to renew her lease when it came up next month. After a couple of years in the place, she thought she’d succeeded in making it cozy with large, overstuffed furnishings in warm, earthy shades and golden wood floors sparsely covered by colorful area rugs. She had been aiming for comfort and durability, but now fluffy pillows and ScotchGuard were the last things on her mind. All she could think about was how the sofa cushions would sink beneath her knees if she pushed him down, opened his faded black jeans and impaled herself on what she suspected had to be a truly impressive cock. Judging by the fit of those jeans, it looked like a pretty good bet.
Clearing her throat, Corinne shut the door behind them and shoved her hands into her pockets, instead of down his pants. What had gotten into her?
“So,” she said, mostly to distract herself from the subject of his pants, and what waited inside, “you were lurking outside of my apartment for a reason, huh?”