The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance

by Sonia Florens

  His arms held her steady as she trembled against him.

  “Are you OK?” he asked.

  OK? She had to laugh. She doubted she could stand, her heart was racing and she suspected her blood pressure was near stroke level. “No! I’m way far from OK but it was incredible!”

  He smiled at her, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “I agree,” he said and dropped a kiss on her forehead. His lips, or maybe it was her skin, were so warm the touch seemed to burn into her brain.

  Not that her brain responded very much. Thinking seemed too much effort, even speaking felt like forced labour, she just leaned into him and listened to the racing of his heart as he held her close.

  She shut her eyes, to better absorb the scent of his heated shin and the sheer and utter maleness of him.

  The bell rang.

  Shit!

  He looked as stunned as she felt. Shock hit her like a blow in the gut. “Oh, my God! We could get fired!” And that was just for starters.

  He shook his head. “We won’t.”

  Nuts to believe him but she did. And now she had a class to teach. “I have to go!” Not that she made any attempt to. “It’ll be chaos if I’m not there.” Even if her prime rabble-rousers were home growing back lost limbs.

  “Yes,” he said. “I find you incredible, Miss Carrack.”

  All very nice to get compliments on top of great sex but she had to go back to her classroom and, somehow, pretend this had never happened. And yesterday evening. Some hope.

  She had to. She’d forget all of this. Except the mark on her arm. “One thing.” She disentangled herself from his embrace to give enough distance to pull up her sleeve and hold out her arm. “What’s this mark?”

  His eyes widened. “You can see that?”

  “Of course I can. It’s not tender like a bruise. I don’t feel it at all but it won’t wash off.” She went to move, after all she didn’t have all morning. Just five minutes before the next bell.

  “You shouldn’t be able to see that.” He looked up at her “What are you?”

  “You know that. I’m the geometry and remedial maths teacher and what the heck is it?”

  Leigh ran his hand through his hair as he shook his head. “I marked you last night. Remember?” As if she was likely to forget. He held her arm. “Touch exactly where you see it?”

  His thumb covered part of it, so she nudged his hand lower and traced the mark. If anything he went even paler. “You really can see it but that’s not supposed to happen.”

  She didn’t have time to argue the point right now. “I have to go.” And start acting like a sane and rational professional.

  “Yes,” he agreed, sounding anything but happy. “I need to find out what you are. We have to talk. After school.”

  “Why?” Damn! She sounded like a petulant teenage.

  “This is why.” He stroked the mark on her arm. “This afternoon. Right after school.”

  No way was she walking out of the building with him, observed by half the population. “Make it later. I have a couple of errands to run.”

  “I’ll be at your house at six.”

  Maybe she’d stay at the mall until closing. “Have to go.”

  She ran.

  And, most surprisingly, made it through the day. She admitted, at least to herself, to being unnecessarily sharp with several students but they’d survive.

  She only hoped she would. At least time spent controlling, and attempting to instruct, obstreperous teenagers was time not spent horrified about her behaviour. In the past twenty-four hours she’d turned into a ravening sex maniac and she’d been stupid enough to agree to meet her partner in unbridled sex after school. And damn, double damn, she lusted after him.

  She was losing it. Big time.

  Four

  Ella hadn’t lied about errands but a trip to the library, the bank and the dry cleaner’s did nothing to cool her insane ardour.

  At ten minutes to six, Ella was sitting on her front steps waiting for him. Not from neediness but because she was dead scared if she actually let him in the house, she’d be ripping his clothes off, and didn’t think she could survive three sessions of wild Pixie sex in twenty-four hours.

  Damn!

  He was walking up the street, looking ten times sexier in blue jeans and a black turtleneck than even his cop uniform with all the creaking bits of leather.

  She stood and watched. Wild heat and need swirled in her mind and she took a deep, calming breath. That proved useless. Whatever was between them was definitely not normal man–woman sexual attraction.

  “Ella?” He stopped a good six feet away and smiled.

  “Hi.”

  “Look,” he said, taking a couple of steps closer, “I found out something that rather explains things. Want to talk here or should we go out and get a bite to eat?”

  Out was the far, far better idea. “I’m not really hungry but a cup of coffee would be good.” And what the heck had he “found out”?

  Only one way to learn.

  Ella walked down the three steps to street level and got into step beside him. “What did you learn?”

  He smiled. Damn, it did wonderful things to his entire face. “You said you’d lived here as a small child and came back to take care of your grandfather. So, curious, I took the liberty of checking out your personal file.”

  “I thought they were confidential.”

  Seemed he ignored that. “I learned your first name.”

  Big deal. “Hardly a state secret. It’s Margot. After my mother and grandmother.”

  He nodded. “It made everything clear.”

  “Really?”

  Damn, even his chuckle was sexy. “If you give me a chance, I’ll explain. Tell me this: your grandparents, maybe great-grandparents came from France? North-west France to be precise: Brittany?”

  “Yes.” Whatever the heck that had to do with anything.

  He let out an exasperated sound and shook his head. “Didn’t your mother or grandmother teach you anything?”

  “My grandmother died before I was born. My mother when I was two. Dad remarried and we moved away. We didn’t have much contact with my grandfather, apart from phone calls and letters, until I came up here for college, by then Grandpa had a stroke and I used to come at weekends to help out. I got a job here and, when he died, he left me the house.” She could have sold the house or let it and moved away. But she hadn’t.

  He was silent for a good two minutes but the crease between his blue eyes suggested he was thinking hard. “You stayed. Drawn there. Feeling you belonged?”

  “Because this school system pays a bonus to maths and science grads.” And some of the rest. Maybe.

  “You were the eldest girl in your family, weren’t you?”

  “The only one, as it happens.” What the blazing Hades did that have to do with anything?

  Obviously it made sense to him. “You’re a true Margot.”

  “Yes, I was named after my maternal grandmother.”

  “That explains it. Sort of.” He let out an impatient “tsk”. “Youibert Margot. A type of Fairy.” He fisted his hand up in the air and grinned. “That’s it! We didn’t leave a gap in the magic last night. And you and I are not a pair of raving sex maniacs. But that’s beside the point now.” Not to her it wasn’t. “You got through the magic because you have Margot blood. The mark on your arm is invisible to Mundanes but any Other can see it and would know you were not to be harmed or bothered.”

  “That’s all cleared up then. So I’ll pop back home and get on with my grading.”

  His hand closed on hers. “Not so fast, Ella. We’ve a lot to talk about.”

  “If it’s just talking fine, but seems we don’t get around to talking that much.”

  “Yes, that had me worried too.”

  “Was it that bad?” Where the hell had that come from?

  “Not in the least, but the intensity of what happens to me when you’re around threw me for a loop. Now
I know it’s magic not an insane libido …”

  “Magic?”

  “Yes, magic, Ella. Don’t you come over all mathematical and logical and tell me you don’t believe in magic. You have Margot blood in you, stands to reason you have magic, just as surely as you saw Werewolves and Vampires last night.”

  “And a Pixie.”

  “Right. Don’t forget the Pixie.”

  As if she could.

  Damn.

  “Look,” he went on, “I can help you some, but what I know is Pixie magic.”

  “What’s Pixie magic for?” Was she really asking that?

  “Mostly for hiding in the woods or around street corners and spinning unobtrusive spells.” Unobtrusive? Him? “Comes in handy in police work.”

  “So you have Pixie magic. Lucky you. Doesn’t mean I have any.”

  He took hold of her arm and turned it so the grey mark was uppermost. “I told you, only magic users and some Others could see that. You’re not a Vamp or a Shifter. You’re a Margot and you have magic. Heck, I’ve seen it myself.”

  “You have? Give me a break.” This was getting all around too much.

  “You can quell a class of reprobates with a look. Don’t tell me that’s not magic; you instinctively channel it when needed. Like getting through our spell last night. We hired the most expensive wizard in the city and you penetrated his barrier.”

  Something coiled inside her fear? Uncertainty? The sort of panic you feel watching a car running downhill without a driver. Her life was changing at full tilt and she had no idea how to stop it. “OK, maybe I do have magic, but what now? I get to go and start grading papers?”

  “Later. You need to learn about your powers and how to control them. But first there’s someone you need to meet.”

  “And where are we going?

  “Concetta’s.”

  “Concetta’s!” It was a sleazy dive a few blocks from her house. Sleazy was too polite. It was a den for the local thugs. “You really know how to impress a girl.”

  “It’s where we, the Others, meet. We use magic to keep the Mundanes away.”

  “It works!”

  She never went near Concetta’s dive. Always took the roundabout route by the main road if she wanted to go that way, and now she was heading for it and walking in the freaking door as Leigh held it open.

  It was pretty much what she’d expected. Dark in the corners, rows of booths around two walls and a few Formica-topped tables in the middle of the room and a bar in one corner.

  A tall, dark-haired woman came towards them. She was wearing red leather pants and a black sequined top. Stunning was one word for it. Cheap and nasty were others.

  “Leigh,” the woman said nodpap Ella, “what’s this?”

  “This is a friend of mine, Miss Carrack, from the school.”

  “I know who she is,” the woman replied. “I asked what she was.”

  “She’s a Margot.”

  “Really?” Sounded more interested that sceptical. “Can it talk?”

  “I most certainly can,” Ella replied.

  “So, you’re a Margot? We used to have bunch of them around here, fifty, sixty years back. Where did you come from?”

  “I’ve lived here for years.” How could this woman remember that far back? She didn’t look that old. Cheap and tarty, yes, but she couldn’t be much older than Ella was.

  “Kept under that radar, did you? Interesting.”

  “We came in to see Mère Aurelia,” Leigh said.

  The woman laughed. “Of course you did.”

  Leigh nodded to the teenager behind the bar – could that child possibly be old enough to even be in a bar?) – and, with a hand in the small of her back, steered Ella to one of the booths, already occupied by an old woman. Correction: a very, very, old woman.

  Ella eased into the seat and Leigh slipped in beside her. Took all she had not to stare at the wrinkled creature sitting across the table.

  “This is she?” the old woman asked, looking at Leigh.

  “Yes,” he replied and Ella was stared at so hard the hair rose on the back of her neck. It wasn’t so much that the old woman was looking at her or even through her, it felt as if she were taking the layers off to see into Ella’s bones. “This is Margot Eleanor Carrack. Ella, this is Mère Aurelia.”

  Shaking hands didn’t seem to part of the introduction here so Ella nodded. “Good to meet you.” At least she hoped she was.

  “Where did you find her?”

  It would be nice to be treated as more than an interesting specimen, but that didn’t seem about to happen so Ella sat and watched Mère Aurelia size her up. Then the young creature from behind the bar walked up. At close quarters it was easier to see the tattoos on her neck and shoulders. The purple leather bustier showed them off to advantage. “She’s not been here before. What is she?” she asked Leigh.

  “She’s with me,” he replied.

  “I can see that! I asked what she was.”

  “Don’t be cheeky, Charlotte,” the old one said, or rather snapped. “She’s at my table, that’s all you need to know. Bring them both a Calvados!”

  Calvados was what her grandfather used to drink, ordering a couple of bottles from France each Christmas. “A glass of ice water would be good too,” Ella added. Dry was not the word for how her mouth felt, under all this scrutiny.

  Charlotte (incredible name for the creature) walked away without a word and returned in moments with three shot glasses of golden liquid and a glass of ice water.

  Mère Aurelia raised her glass. “Santé,” she said and downed the lot.

  Ella stared at her. No doubt gaped, but managed to lift her glass and sip. She knew enough not to down it in one gulp. The old woman must have a throat made of cast iron to chug it down like that.

  Her wrinkled eyes fixed on Ella. “You look like your grandmother.”

  Good thing she’d only taken a sip. Calvados down the nose had to sting like blazes. Ella swallowed. “You knew her?”

  Mère Aurelia nodded. “Oh, yes, I well remember when she married your grandfather. A good enough man for a Mundane but it wasn’t to her benefit.”

  Having loved her grandfather intensely, that last comment caught Ella on the raw. “Oh? And how was that? My grandfather was a very kind and loving man. He loved Grdma and missed her until the day he died.” Let her put that in her pipe and smoke it.

  Seemed Mère Aurelia wasn’t used to being snapped at. She raised a grey eyebrow and pursed her mouth. Leigh tensed; Ella could feel his anxiety. So, she’d contravened some local taboo. Tough titties.

  “You’ve found a sharp one here, young Leigh,” Mère Aurelia said after a long, pregnant silence. She didn’t sound too put out as she went on, talking directly to Ella. “If one of the fey marries and lives with a human it reduces power and shortens life to mortal span. In Marie’s case, her lifespan was less even than most humans.”

  “She was run over by a drunk driver.”

  Mère Aurelia nodded. “So I heard.”

  Ella wanted to ask what else she’d heard or knew about the family but Mère Aurelia reached across the table, her hand open palm uppermost holding a disc of dark metal. “Touch my hand,” she said. “Let me judge your power.”

  None to sure she had any power, other than the ability to quell a roomful of potential reprobates at a glare, Ella was on the verge of pooh-poohing the whole thing, but she glanced at Leigh and his clear blue eyes and half-smile to say nothing of his encouraging nod, had her obeying.

  She rested her palm on Mère Aurelia’s.

  Sensing the younger woman’s reluctance, Aurelia waited, noted the glance that passed between her and young Leigh and as Ella’s palm brushed hers, closed her eyes.

  Unused to being called, the power came slowly, then burst in a rush. Dear mother, the chit had no notion of her strength. Her grandmother, Marie, had been strong, before she took a human as consort, but this girl … Aurelia met her eyes and smiled.

  Ella di
dn’t smile back. Just stared, eyes wide with anxiety. Tasting power for the first time was frightening, particularly when you’d spent thirty-odd years unaware of what coiled inside. Aurelia shook her head. What a tragedy that Marie died before she had a chance to train Ella’s powers. Still wasn’t too late. Seemed young Leigh Willard was prepared to do his bit for the cause. He’d do. Even if he was a Pixie.

  Aurelia drew her hand back, slipping the now heated disc inside her skirt pocket.

  Yes, the girl would be worth a bit of trouble. A teacher, Leigh had said. Well, that wasn’t her fault and one more up at the school when needed was a blessing.

  “Yes!” Aurelia said aloud. “You’re Marie Curnow’s offspring. No doubt about it.” She looked at Leigh and smiled. “You know what you need to do.” She stood. “Pixies don’t hang back.”

  Crossing to the door she turned to Charlotte behind the bar. “Feed them. They both need it.” And opened the door and walked out into the cool of the night.

  Ella couldn’t help staring. “What was all that about and who was she?” She had about a dozen questions but that was enough to start. She rather suspected even that was more than she could process right now and whatever that metal thing had been in Mère Aurelia’s hand, it was worse than the joke handshake gizmos so beloved by certain students. Her arm still tingled like a massive case of pins and needles.

  “Mère Aurelia,” Leigh replied. “We call her the Unan, the one. She’s the oldest creature around here. A Margot like you and now she’s recognized you, we can pretty much go ahead.”

  “Ahead with what?”

  He was delayed in replying as Charlotte brought two bowls of soup. Looked like a rich tomato and smelled fantastic but it wasn’t enough to make Ella forget her question.

  “Ahead with what?” she repeated, onc Charlotte of the purple bustier was beyond earshot.