Some Kind of Magic

by R. Cooper

  He was almost hard again at the memory of shifting Lex up beneath him and riding him until his come had splattered on the headboard and Lex holding back his small moans until the end. Something in the sound had been infuriating. It had made Ray taste him again, over and over again, going deeper, searching for something that wasn’t there, but Lex’s sweat, otherwise clean, had suddenly lacked flavor, his scent empty of anything but arousal.

  Not like now. Ray rubbed his nose and tried not to taste the needy scent of Cal Parker on his tongue, but he could. Right now. He could lick that patch of skin and more, not certain why he was fighting the urge when he could feel his cock swelling, and the fairy was offering. But his heart pounded again, with that same alarm, like something bigger than him was hovering just out of sight.

  Cal Parker, half-fairy, wouldn’t hold back his moans. His taste would be as rich as his scent, and though it would scare his precious little fairy ass right out of the house, Ray wanted to shift, shift just enough, to something bigger and rougher and stronger to handle that unknown threat. Something with teeth. He would pin Parker to the floor, the wall, and take what was his, what was right there for him, all but wrapped in a bow, and he would mark it, bruise so everyone knew. If they couldn’t detect his musk, his come all over Cal Parker, then they’d see his marks and know that this was his, this was his mate. Cal Parker was his mate and—

  Ray shut his mouth, stopped the low growl he was suddenly aware was coming from him, and looked, shocked, at the man across from him.

  Cal still smelled—would always smell, Ray knew—intoxicating. Ray backed up another step, though he wanted to reach out, hold him, soothe that look of concern from Cal’s face and lick any wounds, real or imagined, that he might have inflicted with his careless words. He wanted to lie at Cal Parker’s feet. He wanted… he wanted Cal Parker.

  Cal Parker was his mate.

  His—they had told him it was like this, but Ray hadn’t believed them. That it would be this sudden, this overwhelming.

  He’d only known the man three days for Pete’s sake. Three long, tense days of feeling on edge, wary and horny and stupid. Of looking into those eyes and breathing in and growing angry without wondering why, only knowing that he’d been furious in a way he’d never been to find a fairy smiling back at him. Leering, teasing, flirting.

  Because he was Fairy, and that’s what they did. Nothing else. One night stands and booty calls. But never anything longer, not that Ray had heard, unless he counted old stories, which he didn’t, because the old stories about werewolves were always wrong, and so the others were probably wrong too. The evidence in front of him, however, the street fairs and the nudity and nightclubs that said only too clearly that fairies didn’t settle down, didn’t bond, didn’t Mate. Fairies were… they weren’t… like Ray.

  “You okay? I didn’t think you were that shy, Branigan.” Parker was talking, hopping in place while Ray was trying not to howl. “Tough Being detective and all, with those fierce glares and that, really quite impressive, body. Sorry. Was that, uh, guy, special to you?”

  He actually pouted at the idea. Pouted. Probably at the idea of a serious relationship.

  Fucking fairies, Ray thought, but it lacked heat.

  “Why are you here?” It was squeezed from him. Parker just waved a hand.

  “The case. I know you didn’t want me around. You don’t. And I don’t either, well, I didn’t. No need to make my dad too happy here by admitting he was right, and I can be of use to the PD. But I had a thought earlier.”

  “And you came here?” Ray could follow that train of thought, if he tried. Just ignore his current stampeding emotions and focus on the case, on why Cal would come to him and not Penn or one of the other detectives. “How did you know where I lived?”

  “What I need usually makes itself known to me,” Cal hummed, ogling Ray before going back to bragging, or just talking, Ray couldn’t tell. Mate. This was his mate. He was numb, also, possibly on fire. Drowning. He inhaled and felt his world steady itself: his mate was near. “Also, I read your file—yes, I had to borrow it to do that. Oh, you aren’t snarling at me. Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe that Lex guy wore you out….” His tone said he doubted it.

  “I’m not worn out,” Ray snapped back into the conversation and gave Cal one of his so-called “fierce glares.” Parker wriggled, for all appearances, utterly delighted to hear that.

  “I feel like I can almost see you baying at the moon when you do that. Have you ever taken a lover as the wolf? You know, I’ve never seen a Were in action.” He was not so innocently curious. Ray’s chest tightened.

  “You don’t know what you’re—haven’t you ever heard of sexual harassment?” He tossed out anything that would make Cal stop, let Ray have a moment to consider this. Mate. It couldn’t be real.

  “I don’t work for the department officially, remember? I’m just doing my dad a favor by helping you with this one case. Does the wolf make you rough or is that all you?” Cal’s voice was rough too, suddenly. His mouth possibly dry as well, since he licked his lips, once, twice. Ray wondered what rosewater would taste like on Cal Parker. He’d never liked it, too sweet, too strong, but he thirsted for some now. “I know you don’t like me, but we could make like a moonlight sonata if you want. You’re so….”

  He couldn’t help wanting to hear everything Cal Parker had to say.

  “You aren’t answering.” Cal pointed out, which perhaps to a fairy was the same as not saying no. Ray wasn’t saying no, he couldn’t even argue. “Tell me.”

  “This is….” Inappropriate. But exactly what Ray was thinking, wondering if a fairy could even handle half of his Were nature. “I’m not telling you anything.” But I could show you….

  He didn’t say it, but the growl was building again, slowly, like the hunger in his stomach, the sizzling heat under his skin, the itch to get naked. His mate was in front of him, this beautiful creature. The air was full of him, just as beautiful, but nothing to the scents they could create together.

  Ray made himself look at the door and think of Lex, who hadn’t seemed so confused anymore after meeting Parker, after seeing Ray push himself between them. It was all so obvious now.

  Cal hadn’t liked being kicked off the case, or quitting, or whatever exactly had happened that afternoon. Ray’s memory was suddenly fuzzy with the image of Cal fluttering into his face, pouting in a fairy version of unhappiness, his full, savory, bitable bottom lip out to let Ray know he was displeased, deliberately pushing past Ray as he’d flounced off.

  An unhappy fairy shouldn’t have come back. And never to Ray’s doorstep, even if they didn’t have any sense of boundaries.

  “The case can wait.” He was breathing hard, but whatever, it had been a long few days, a long few moments. A half-fairy. He’d never even heard of that. “Since you found your way here, you can find your way out. I’m going to take a shower.” He didn’t look at Parker, but he got it out, and then he moved too quickly down the hall to his bedroom, nearly gasping at the heavy, lingering smell of sex by the bed, the wet stains still visible.

  He wanted to cover them with Cal’s, make it clear that this was their bed, their lair, and Lex would never come back. He wanted Cal to know that, and bit down, hard, to stop himself from shouting it out.

  He shed his pants as he hurried into the bathroom, and as the air hit his skin, knew he was close to shifting. With Cal still too near, in his neighborhood, within reach, he didn’t dare.

  He turned on the water without caring what temperature it was and stepped in. It was hot, steam rising instantly around him as he closed the door. He bent his head to let water into his hair and because he was shaking like he’d run a marathon and had to shut his eyes to focus on just heat and water. He inhaled to let steam clear his senses. That was it, all he wanted for the present as he tried to wrap his mind around this.

  He’d never really expected a mate, some wolves never found theirs, after all, and he was alone in the city. He�
��d certainly never expected it would be—

  “By the way, was that ending as I got here, or did I interrupt you?” Cal’s voice made Ray lift his head to track the sound, the presence. He imagined that goddamn little fairy sitting on his toilet and shook his head.

  “Because you could have invited me to join you. He wasn’t bad looking, and you look like you’d show us both a very good time. No aftershave for you? At all? Is it the smell? I read somewhere that werewolves have a highly developed sense of—”

  “Cal—Parker.” He couldn’t quite recover from the shock of Cal being there with him, and how much his mind and body and heart seemed to welcome him, and from the idea that this half-fairy knew anything at all about his kind.

  Most were content with the lies in the movies. Calvin—Cal’s father—had said Ray wouldn’t believe the things tucked away in his son’s brain, but Ray hadn’t expected glimmers of Were lore.

  “Parker. I told you to leave.” He wasn’t picturing Cal in his bed, though it wouldn’t have been a threesome. Cal was where Ray would narrow his attention. No one would belong there between them, no matter how nice.

  “No, you didn’t actually.” Cal hummed again. “Not explicitly.” Ray grunted and put his hands up high to the smooth tile by the specially installed showerhead. He was too… naked… for this.

  “Then I’ll be explicit—” Fairies made no sense, or they made too much.

  “Please. Be as explicit as you want, Branigan,” Cal whispered back, and Ray turned, trying to make out his form through the frosted and steamy glass. But whatever had compelled Parker to follow him into the bathroom had stopped him before he’d come into the shower too.

  If he had…. Ray swallowed. He couldn’t speak as he saw himself lifting Cal up and fucking him in the corner of the shower, Cal’s hand grabbed for the showerhead, his body wet, bare, the floor swirling with sparkles as his cries echoed off the tile.

  “Oh fine, ignore me. I’ll talk about the case then.” Cal was pouting; Ray knew it without looking. That lip. He wondered if Cal was really upset, and then what he could do to make him feel better. He had a feeling he already knew. Fairies weren’t subtle.

  He’d never wanted to hide behind anything more in his life than the glass walls of his shower.

  “Have you ever met a goblin, Branigan? They’re kind of like gremlins, only nearly as cranky to outsiders as you were when I interrupted your little tryst. I’ve never seen anything as hot as you, barely in your pants, sweaty and breathing hard, staring down at little old me. Can you blame me for following you in here? And you leaving all those marks on that poor human….” Cal was back to that again, and Ray didn’t think he was dreaming the longing in Cal’s voice. “I bet the sounds he made scandalized the neighbors… not that I remember hearing anything as I walked up.”

  Ray was losing his mind. He couldn’t argue, or summon up the strength of will to ask Cal to stop talking. “Tsk, Branigan. You know, if you did that to me, it wouldn’t hurt much… or at least… not for long. You could bruise me as much as you want.”

  “It wasn’t a tryst.” Ray was biting out words, but he was speaking again at least. “Lex and I aren’t like that.”

  “Really?” Pure pleasure drifted over the steam from the shower, mingled with it. “Not romantic at all? Just filthy, dirty Ray Branigan sex?” Pleasure and pulsing want. Too much want for such a short acquaintance when Ray had been nothing but rude to him. It must be in his head. Wishful thinking.

  “The case?” he rasped.

  “In other words, they can be nasty buggers. Especially when they feel you’ve wronged them somehow. They’d probably be serial bombers if they had the patience for the mechanics. Well, I’ve never met one who did, but I’m sure it’s possible. Not exactly relevant to this, though.” Cal switched back to the other topic with enviable ease.

  Ray abruptly felt an overwhelming desire to ask what else Cal knew about serial bombers, and why, and if his name was Calvin, too, like his father. And if it was true, about the bruises not hurting much.

  He realized he was just standing there, listening.

  “At that scene before you kicked me out—”

  “You left. I didn’t kick you out. And you don’t listen to me anyway. You haven’t, not once in three days.”

  “Aw, is that why you’re mad? I’m listening now, Detective Ray Branigan. Detective. Not much else I can do until you come out of there and let me get a good look at you.” Cal paused, and Ray shuddered at the thought. “Detective…. That wasn’t easy for you, was it? Earning that rank? Earning that respect, and there I was, up in your face in front of everyone….”

  “I don’t care about that.” Because he didn’t, anymore, though now that Cal said it, he could hear himself barking for Cal to take this seriously, to take him seriously, when that was stupid because Cal was Fairy. They couldn’t take anything seriously, or didn’t like to. But just the same, Ray hesitated. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

  Cal ignored him.

  “No, I’m sorry, Branigan. I shouldn’t….” Ray imagined Cal biting that lip and slid a hand over to the wet glass of the door. “I know what it is to need to be taken seriously. God knows when I was a kid my dad was always careful with me at the department picnics, you know, only half-human and all. Sparkly, wings, no one expecting me to have an interest in football.”

  “It….” Ray did know, and it had been beyond difficult for him, at first. He still had bad days. He hadn’t expected Cal to understand that. He wondered if Cal did have an interest in football, but couldn’t ask, too aware that the answer would probably be, “I have an interest in football players.”

  “Goblins,” he said instead, drawing Cal back to the case.

  “So. I was out, drowning my thwarted desires and sense of pique at being so rejected at a bar when I remembered that letter you showed me. The latest one sent to Prescott Industries. The language in it, the rejection reminded me and—you’re taking a long shower. Can’t get the smell off or do you need a hand in there?”

  “Thwarted….” Ray exhaled heavily. He was so hot he shivered. “This could have waited. Even you know that.” He put his mouth to the water, lapping it up before turning away. Fairies, he reminded himself. No impulse control, even if Cal was understanding and apparently, slightly, temperamental. Cal would probably quit the case again tomorrow, then vanish forever.

  “I know, but I wanted to tell you. Because I might have to ask my friend Benny in on this. He knows more about them as part of his wizard training. Anyway, I wanted to see your lair.”

  Ah, generic curiosity about Weres. Ray had encountered that before. It had never made him want to get wasted and tear something to pieces before, however. “Now you’ve seen it. You can go.”

  “But I haven’t seen everything. You wouldn’t deny me the floorshow, would you? Or are you going to stay in there until you’re wrinkly like a bulldog?”

  Ray turned off the water with a vicious jerk. He didn’t let himself think about it before he opened the door and stepped out with the growl thick in his throat.

  He was hard and naked and dripping onto the floor, but he was in his own bathroom and no half-fairy, mate or not, was going to scare him anymore. If anything, Ray wanted it. He wanted to see Cal Parker’s face.

  He felt hot, burning to his ears, the urge to shift a lot like the urge to come, sudden and strong. He thought he might do both, right then, with Cal Parker’s eyes traveling all over him, up and down and back again. His mouth open. His expression starving.

  “Whoa,” he said, and didn’t seem to notice that he got to his feet. “What a good puppy you are,” he breathed, and Ray met his gaze. Want/want/want the air said, as bright and clear as a solar flare.

  The scent was Ray’s, needy and obvious, calling, reaching.

  Cal Parker couldn’t seem to decide where to look. He licked his lips for everything, humming for Ray’s cock, his hips, his chest, even his face, and Ray was impossibly hot now, embarrassed, smu
g, aroused. This was what it should be to have his mate look at him. It was how he would look to behold Cal naked. Everything he’d ever want right there, everything that was good in the world displayed for him.

  His. He took another step forward, aware on some level that he wasn’t that attractive to have this fairy looking so spellbound, but standing straight just the same, letting him look. Sounds escaped him, dark and pleased, and Cal lifted his head to look into his face. His mouth moved again, but his eyes remained spun and shining, hypnotized.

  “Goblins… aren’t. Benny knows… human spells. I… Brani… Ray. Ray Ray. Look at you. Look at you. You can… just drag me… anywhere. Anywhere you want to take me, and I’m there. There you are, and here I am. Just take me.” With a fairy lack of shame, Cal finally blinked, and then put up one hand, stopping just short of touching Ray’s chest. The other he put down to the front of his jeans over his hard on, the hard on Ray could smell, and pushed down with his palm. He gave one loud, hungry gasp, and the want spiked brighter, sharper.

  Ray opened his mouth, sticky with the heat, soaked to the skin, and watched Cal’s eyes swirl with need.

  He was breathing rapidly, and Ray licked at the air, heard Cal groan.

  “What are you waiting for, Rover?” he demanded quietly but without moving, either, and right before he frowned, Ray had the passing thought that he’d never imagined Cal would hesitate. Then he was just trembling at the brief all-over ache of shifting, of not quite enough, so close, so close, as he partially changed to a form that allowed him to bare his teeth, flash his claws.

  He felt larger, heavier, massive for every shocked second of Cal’s silence, and then just nervous all over again when Cal backed up and put his head to the wall. He thought it was fear, fear like he’d expected, because this was all implied strength and violence and fairies lived to seek out happiness and pleasure, but then Cal gave a body-long shudder and leaned back. He couldn’t know what it meant to expose his throat like that. He couldn’t.