Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

Do You Believe in Magic? (41 page)

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?

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Remembering Clay’s nonchalance about her attempt on his deck, Francie looked at him with consternation. “A building? Clay, we could have set fire to your house.”

He just shrugged. “I have a fire extinguisher.”

“So, what should I do next?” Francie asked after rolling her eyes at him. “I’m not even sure I can cast it again. And the thought I have become a practitioner is throwing me for a loop.”

“I’m going to take her to the HeatherRidge here,” Clay told Daria and Bent. “Francie, that’s a center for practitioners where we study and there are master teachers who can test and train you. We have them all over the country.”

“Clay, we’ve got to tell Mother and Daddy,” Daria said. “You both are going to need them. Think of what will happen when you march into the HeatherRidge and announce that a nonpractitioner has become one of us with a First Mating.”

“What?” Francie asked. “What will happen?”

“Oh, holy hell,” Clay said. “It will be a three-ring circus.”

“
What?
” Francie said, her voice climbing.

“Don’t worry, Francie,” Daria said. “Practitioners all demand privacy. Mother will run interference with anybody who tries to invade yours. But I’d tell our parents soon.”

“Francie has the week off, so we’ll probably go see them in a couple of days.”

Francie opened her mouth to protest all these plans being decided for her, but Clay stopped her words with a kiss.

“It will be all right,” he murmured. Turning to the phone, he spoke into the microphone. “Listen, you two, thanks for the help. We’ll keep you apprised of events.”

“You’d better, big brother,” Daria said. “And Francie? We’re glad you’re Clay’s soul mate.”

“Thanks,” Francie said faintly. “I am, too.”

“Bye,” Clay said and punched the button to hang up the phone. He rose and held out his hand. “Let’s go to bed, darlin’. We can worry about all this in the morning.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Francie was probably exhausted, Clay thought as they walked into the bedroom. She looked a little shell-shocked, and he certainly couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t in the greatest shape himself.

He wondered if she accepted the fact that she had become a practitioner. Probably not, given her resistance to the whole idea of magic at first. She had, however, evidently accepted that they were soul mates. Thank God.

He took her into his arms. He wanted nothing more right this minute than to make love with her, renew their bond, cement their seal. He looked into her eyes and saw the smoke turn to flame. “Ah, Francie,” he murmured, “let’s set off some fireworks.” And he kissed her.

They undressed each other slowly, taking the time to linger with a touch, a rub, a slide of the hand or body. She lay down on the bed, and he joined her, propping himself up on an elbow and running his hand over her shoulder, around to cup a breast briefly, then down over her hip and thigh and back up to her breast again. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered as he flicked the nipple with his thumb and slid his top leg between hers.

“So are you.” She pressed one hand to his center and used the other to pull his head down for a kiss.

Lights began to play around them as he deepened the kiss and pressed into her magic center with his thumb while the rest of his hand held her breast. He could feel himself hardening, his muscles heating, his cock reaching for her. The desire, the need, the all-encompassing satisfaction running through him when she was in his arms made him want to shout with joy. His, she was his.

They still had to talk, settle some issues, like when she was going to move in, but it could wait. He knew his self-confidence drove her crazy, and he vowed to try to be a little more humble. How could he not in the face of their overwhelming feelings and need for each other? But that could wait also. He had another task at the moment: making love to his soul mate. He turned her to face him, pulled her top leg over his, and slid into her hot, wet, tight sheath—right where he was meant to be.

Francie let out the breath she had been holding when he thrust all the way in. Everything, the mess with Kevin, her own transformation into a practitioner, the need to talk with Clay about their future, every serious subject floated away as she filled with a rainbow of lights, overarching delight, a distinct easing in her heart—was it possible to have peace of heart as well as mind?—and him. He possessed her, all of her, as she possessed him. It was glorious, utterly glorious, and she gave herself over to him.

With arms wrapped tightly around each other and their centers touching, chest to chest, they made slow, enthralling love to each other.

She felt her body tightening as his thrusts reached her womb and he pressed tightly, further stimulating the nub of nerve endings at the entrance to her core. He wouldn’t be hurried, though, and he grasped her hips when she tried, holding her to an excruciatingly deliberate pace.

“Easy, darlin’,” he said against her lips, his voice deep and low. “We’ll get there.” And he resumed their kiss and his thrusts.

Just as Francie thought she’d burst from the internal pressure, her center seemed to catch fire. A corresponding blaze emanated from Clay’s chest, and it spread through their bodies, finally engulfing them in a dazzling incandescence echoed in the sparkling rainbow around them.

Minutes passed as they held each other afterward, waiting for their hearts and lungs to return to a normal pace. Eventually they were able to pull back enough to see each other’s eyes.

Francie couldn’t hold it in any longer. She looked in his eyes and said, “I love you, Clay.”

He grinned and gave her a small kiss. “Of course, you do. We’re soul mates.”

“Well?” she raised her eyebrows at him. He was still an overconfident, arrogant male, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time.

“Well, what?” He was still grinning.

“Do
you
love
me
?” She poked him in the ribs with a finger to emphasize the
you
.

“Of course, I love you. We’re soul mates.” He kept grinning. “We just proved it. I know,” he said in the face of her frown, “I need to say it more often. Daria gave me hell for not saying the words when I told you about practitioners.”

“At least one of the Morgans has good sense,” she stated, punctuating the comment with another poke to his rib cage.

He started laughing and captured her hand before she could do any more damage. “Francie, I promise I’ll say it to you every day of our lives. At least once. Probably more. I love you.” He kissed her tenderly.

“I love you, too,” she responded and kissed him back. “And if you don’t fulfill your promise, I’ll set your nose on fire.”

“Oh, darlin’, didn’t I tell you? Soul mates can’t affect each other with spells, except for healing and defense.”

“Your sisters said something about that, but I’d forgotten. How disappointing,” she pouted, then slitted her eyes at him in warning. “But I’ll think of something.”

“I’m sure you will. That you can cast
flamma
reminds me of something else. What do you think about being a practitioner?”

She looked at him blankly for a moment as she tried to force her mind around the concept. “I don’t know. It’s not real to me yet. I don’t know how I put a spark on the end of Kevin’s nose. I don’t know if I can do it again. Whatever I did could have been caused by the stress of the moment. I do feel different from the way I felt before I came over here yesterday, but my being somewhat ‘unsettled’ could all be caused by our being soul mates.”

“That’s my Francie, still needing to experience the proof with your own eyes. We’ll have you tested. I think you did become one of us, and I’m really looking forward to telling my parents. They’d love you anyway, but this will be the star on the top of the wizard’s hat.” He gave her a big grin and a hug.

Then he grew serious. “Now, the way I see it, we have some decisions to make. First, when you’re moving in here with me. Second, when we’re getting married. And third . . .” He was silent for a few seconds, “ . . . I can’t think of a third.”

She contemplated the earnest expression on his face. He’d made statements, not asked questions. He was going to have to realize she’d only put up with so much of that, and now was a good time to convince him of it. “Wait just a minute, Clay. First, I haven’t been
asked
to do either. Second, you shouldn’t assume you can always have your way.”

His face had fallen with her words, but he rallied quickly. “Francie, will you marry me?”

“Yes, I will.”

“When?”

“After I meet your parents and you meet mine and I take these tests you mentioned.”

“But that’ll take several weeks,” he complained.

“It will also give us time to plan the wedding. I know Tamara will want to help with my gown, and she’ll be my maid of honor, and we have to find a place, and send out invitations, and . . .”

“Enough! I give in! We’ll do all of it, and I’ll be patient—somehow—and stop making assumptions. Just do one thing for me, will you? Move in with me now. Or I’ll move in with you. Whatever, as long as we’re not apart.”

“I want us together, too,” she agreed.

He relaxed with a sigh. “Answer just one more question for me. Do you believe in magic?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “And love is the best kind.”

Don’t miss Ann Macela’s next “Magic” book:

YOUR MAGIC OB MINE?

A BATTLE OVER THE “CORRECT” WAY TO CAST SPELLS IS brewing in the magic practitioner community. Theoretical mathematician Marcus Forscher has created an equation, a formula to bring the science of casting into the twenty-first century. Botanist Gloriana Morgan, however, maintains spell casting is an art, as individual as each caster, and warns against throwing out old casting methods and forcing use of the new. A series of heated debates across the country ensues.

Enter the soulmate phenomenon, an ancient compulsion that brings practitioners together and has persuasive techniques and powers—the soulmate imperative—to convince the selected couple they belong together. Marcus and Gloriana, prospective soulmates, want nothing to do with each other, however. To make matters worse, their factions have turned to violence. One adherent in particular, blaming Marcus and Gloriana for the mess, wants to destroy the soulmates.

Something’s got to give, or there will be dire consequences. The magic will work for them . . . or against them. But with two powerful practitioners bent on having their own way, which will it be—Your Magic Or Mine?—and if they don’t unite, will either survive?

ISBN#9 781933 83 632 4
US $7.95 / CDN $9.95
Mass Market Paperback / Paranormal Romance
OCTOBER 2008
www.annmacela. com

1
Also available by Ann Macela:

THE OLDEST KIND Of MAGIC

PROLOGUE

Black. Windless. Soundless. Odorless. Empty.

Not cold, not hot. Not hard, not soft.

Definitely not “just right.”

Where was she?

In a cave? A huge building without any windows? Another plane of existence?

Apprehension stiffened her backbone as a wave of malevolence swept over her.

Someone or something threatened. Was she in danger? Was someone else?

Who threatened? Where was it?