“Yes, definitely. No worries here,” Summer said.
Jenny met her eyes before she left the room and blinked a couple times in surprise before her face practically exploded in a smile. “You like him!”
Summer felt her cheeks warm. “I don’t like him. I don’t even know him,” she whispered.
“Okay, maybe I should have said you’re hot for him. Well, go ahead, girlfriend. He’s clearly more interested in you than me.” She winked at Summer and disappeared out the front door.
Summer sighed and turned back to the room of sullenly writing students. Thankfully, Colin was on the far side of the room standing close to the painting. She could see that he was busy answering questions about it for some of the students. Good. That should keep him occupied. It also gave her an opportunity to study him. Goddess, he was handsome, but not in a typical fashion. What was he like? He reminded her of someone, and she couldn’t quite—
Then, with a little jolt she did remember who he brought to mind. Her favorite fictional hero, Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. Yes, that dark, powerfully masculine look of Colin’s would definitely fit in as master of Thornfield. You know you think Rochester is the sexiest of all fictional heroes, as well as your favorite, her mind whispered. No, she told herself sternly, Ken is really my type—all blond and sweet and gentle. He’s what I planned for my future. The Rochester type needs to stay where he belongs—in the pages of fiction.
But she was still staring when Colin looked up from the student he’d been helping and met her eyes.
Come to me . . . The words filled her—mind, body, and soul. Before she realized what she was doing, she was making her way around the group of students and heading for the vampire.
Summer was only a few feet from him when she stopped and shook her head, breaking the stare that had locked their eyes together and getting control of herself. Oh, hell no! What was she doing? Imagining his voice in her head and then obeying that imagining? Had she lost it? Had the stress of trying to teach teenagers cracked her already?
And then, not far behind her, she felt a too-familiar prickle up her spine. She knew even before she heard the whispered singsong words of the quickly uttered spell that one of the asshole teenage sorcerers-to-be had thought he’d be clever and whip up a little magic to see if he and his girlfriend could skip out of the assignment. Summer whirled around in time to hear the last stanza of the incantation. She opened her mouth to yell, No! Stop! Backing as quickly as she could away from the kids—and right into an impossibly hard, cold body she knew had to be Colin. She wanted to warn him. She wanted to do something—anything. But instead, the magic was already grabbing her, robbing her of speech.
Me and my bitch get in the picture, yo!
Somewhere our teacher can’t go!
Where school and stupid essays ain’t no mo’!
And it’s cool to get with your ho!
Completely helpless, she did the only thing she could do. Summer closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around the pillar of strength that was Colin, and held her breath as she felt their bodies being wrenched, lifted, and tossed.
When everything was still again and the nauseating sensation of wobbly, opposite magic lifted, Summer slowly opened her eyes.
And looked straight into Colin’s dark gaze.
“What the—” he began, and then his eyes widened in sudden fear. “The sunlight! I have to get out of . . .” The vampire’s words trailed off as he realized he wasn’t bursting into flame. Completely confused, Colin gazed down at Summer. “What’s happened to us? It’s day. I’m outside in the sunlight, and my skin is not burning.”
“It’s, well, because of my magic and that kid casting a spell. If I’m close enough to magic, it always messes up, and—” she began, and then her words broke off as what her eyes were seeing caught up with her mind. They were, indeed, outside. Actually, it wasn’t full daylight, just a lovely morning dawning in the east. They were on a balcony, surrounded by a perfumed profusion of flowering rose vines. Colin was there with her, but he wasn’t dressed in his jeans, black shirt, and cowboy boots. Here he was wearing an amazing crimson-colored outfit, rich as a king, or maybe even a god. She glanced down at her own clothes and gasped. She had changed, too, and was wearing only a soft, transparent chemise, which was cut low to expose her breasts to the nipples. She could feel Colin’s eyes on those nipples as she looked up at him. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think we’re inside the Romeo and Juliet painting,”
Five
“By the Goddess, I think you’re right! How could this have happened?” Colin said, gazing around them while he shook his head in disbelief.
“It’s me,” Summer said miserably. “It’s because of me that we’re here.”
His dark eyes rested on her. “How could this possibly be because of you?”
“It’s my magic. Or maybe my nonmagic would be a better way to explain it.” Summer sighed. “One of the students cast a spell in the gallery—something about getting inside the Romeo and Juliet painting so that he and his ho,” she wrinkled her nose in distaste at the word, “could get out of the essay assignment.”
“But what does that have to do with you? Other than it being your assignment?”
“I was close enough to the stupid teenager when he cast the spell to have my own magic work on it. And my own magic is opposite magic—kind of. Actually, it’s more like sideways, opposite, totally screwed-up magic. The bottom line is that my magic messes up all other magic around me. So here”—she made a sweeping gesture, taking in the balcony and the pearly morning—“we are.”
“In the Romeo and Juliet painting.”
She nodded. “In the Romeo and Juliet painting.” Summer smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Colin shook his head in amazement and lifted his hand so that the red velvet sleeve slid back to reveal his muscular arm all the way to mid-bicep. The morning light gilded his skin so that for that moment he looked tan and unexpectedly young.
“Incredible!” he said. Then he bared his other arm to the morning light, threw back his head, and laughed. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt the sun on my skin?”
Summer couldn’t answer him. She could only watch as he transformed from intense and brooding to vibrant and amazing. He laughed again and, with one swift motion, ripped open the buttons on his linen undershirt. Colin faced the rising sun, arms spread, face open. He’d been handsome before—all Rochester-like and mysterious. But here he’d transformed into a man whose beauty went beyond his height and hair and bone structure. This new Colin was so incredibly full of life that he seemed to vibrate with it.
“You did this?”
He turned the force of his full smile on her, and Summer thought that the heat he radiated would melt her. She nodded a little weakly and managed a “Yes.”
With another laugh, he lifted her in his arms and spun her around the balcony. “I knew you were special from the moment I touched you.”
“It’s just my weird magic. I’ve been wishing I could figure out how to get rid of it or control it for years,” Summer said a little breathlessly as he finally released her.
“Get rid of it? No way! And, take it from me, control is overrated. No! You’re perfect just as you are—and so is your magic.” He took her hand in his and, with dark eyes sparkling mischievously, he bent gallantly over it. “Thank you, my lady, for granting me a reprieve from unrelenting night and bringing me sunshine again.”