Three fairies, two boys and a girl, were gathered around her computer ogling an X-rated Web site while they drank tequila shots from three souvenir shot gla.s.ses she'd picked up on vacation. They dressed like teenagers everywhere, with the boys in logo T-shirts and baggy pants belted around their hips and the girl in low-riding, skintight jeans and a knit top that hugged her rib-cage and stopped short of covering her ruby-enhanced navel.

She looked like a surfer girl with her golden tan and long blond hair. The boys' hair was gelled within an inch of its life and stood up in angry brown spikes. Anica thought the two might be brothers.

Tattoos covered all three, although the kids could make those disappear in an instant if necessary. Likewise their faux piercings. Fairies couldn't tolerate metal, so all the jewels were magically attached and could be removed in no time.

That was one big difference between these three and nonmagical teenagers. If nonmagical teenagers got a tattoo or a nose ring, they were stuck with it. Fairies could choose to add or eliminate body art whenever they wanted.

There was no point in trying to turn on the overhead light. The fairies had surely made the light switch inoperable. Anica tried to catch a glimpse of the cats, and finally found Orion in a far corner, tail twitching, fur sticking out.

He crouched as if awaiting his opportunity to leap on the intruders and scratch their eyes out. His belligerent body posture said quite plainly that he was p.i.s.sed. His home had been invaded once again and he was plotting his next move.

Anica would rather that he didn't get involved. Ordinarily fairies didn't harm animals, but if these three had consumed enough tequila, all bets were off. Jasper was nowhere around. Maybe he'd freaked at the sight of the fairies and was hiding in a cupboard.

If so she could hardly blame him. The guy hadn't believed in witches until yesterday, and tonight he'd been confronted with hormone-drenched teenage fairies. His sense of reality had been seriously damaged recently.

So she had to put a stop to the fairy mayhem, and she had to accomplish that with a bluff. She wished that she had on the red salsa dress and s.e.xy heels instead of her blue plaid flannel pajamas and bare feet. Too late to do anything about that now.

Raising her wand with as much authority as she could muster, she cleared her throat and waited for them to abandon the computer screen and turn in her direction.

They did that slowly, as if they had no fear. Safety in numbers, maybe, but if she'd had her magic working, their confidence would have been proven foolish. Three wet-behind-the-ears fairies couldn't stand up to a witch in full command of her powers.

Too bad that wasn't her at the moment. She counted on their ignorance of that fact. "You should all be ashamed of yourselves," she said in the sternest voice she could muster. "Put everything back the way you found it, or suffer the consequences."

Both of the boys looked a little worried, but the girl stood and thrust out her tight little b.o.o.bs. "I'm not afraid of you. We got in here so easy, just like we got in your shop last night. Your magic needs a serious tune-up, witch."

Mouthy kid. Anica longed for the power that she'd had so recently, so she could teach the girl the proper way to speak to someone who had been practicing magic before she was born. She gave the girl her best witch stare. "You might want to reconsider that position."

"Ooooh, I'm so scared."

Anica itched to take the girl down, magic or no magic. "Remove your illusions from this apartment and remove them now."

The girl stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and lifted her chin. "What if we don't feel like it?"

The boys must have drawn courage from her defiance, because they both stood and glared at Anica. "Yeah, what if we don't feel like it?"

Anica adopted her most ominous tone. "You will regret it. I promise you, you will regret disobeying me."

"Prove it." The look in the girl's silver eyes said that she'd sensed Anica's lack of magic the way a predator senses the fear of its prey.

Physically Anica was no match for them. The boys were taller than she was, and the odds were three against one, even without figuring in their magical abilities. Their command of magic, immature though it was, made the odds even worse.

She'd failed to intimidate them. Now what? "Your parents would be so disappointed if they could see you now." Even as she said it she knew it was a lame statement. It might have worked for her at that age. It worked for her now, in fact. But these three weren't like her, and that was the scary part.

One of the boys, the taller one, stepped forward. "What our parents don't know can't hurt them, can it?"

The girl tossed her golden hair. "And you can't tell them because you don't know who we are."

"I know you're three fairies with no respect for magic," Anica said. "Anyone who can treat magic books that way is-"

"Your books are stupid," the shorter boy said.

"Yeah, totally." His brother picked up the tequila bottle. "Here's what I think of this one." He tilted the bottle slowly, enjoying his power as he prepared to pour tequila on the open pages of her favorite book.

"Put that bottle down, and put it down now!" The male voice rang with authority.

Anica spun around to find the source of that commanding voice and almost dropped her wand. Jasper stood in the kitchen doorway wearing two small towels tied together at each hip to make a kind of loincloth front and back. Other than that, he was magnificently naked.

And no longer a cat-no sir, not even a little bit. Very much a man. A broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped man. The dark hair sprinkled over his glorious chest was exactly enough. Ditto the hair on his muscled calves.

She gulped. "Jasper, you're-"

"Going to take these three apart, I think." He advanced toward them, his fingers flexing. "I could use magic to do it, of course, but I prefer the satisfaction of ripping their limbs from the sockets with my bare hands."

In a daze of admiration and grat.i.tude, she watched him move. He had a certain catlike grace, but otherwise nothing about him reminded her of Jasper the cat. Everything about him reminded her of why she'd craved him from the moment they'd met.

He'd decided to try his own bluff, obviously, and convince the fairies that he was a wizard. They'd have no reason to think otherwise if he was standing naked in her apartment. Witches traditionally had wizards for lovers. She was the rebel who had bucked the system.

All three teenagers' eyes grew wide as they watched Jasper approach. The tall boy holding the bottle of tequila smacked it down on the coffee table. "Insane wizard approaching! Abort, abort!"

In a flash, all three fairies reverted to their smaller, action-figure size. They sprouted wings and began to glow.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Jasper stared at the fairies as they flew toward the door.

"They're leaving!" Anica cried. "We can't let them leave until they've changed everything back!"

From a corner of the room an orange streak hurled itself at the last fairy in the flock. With a leap that was astounding considering his bulk, Orion snagged the fluttering creature and landed with it clutched in his paws.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned." Jasper walked over to the cat and crouched down. "Good work, buddy. You got one."

Anica did her best to concentrate on the situation they were in, which was dicey to say the least. But when Jasper crouched down the kitchen towels shifted tantalizingly. She had to use all her self-control not to try to glimpse what was behind those kitchen towels.

This is not the time, girl. It might never be the time. Even though Jasper had stepped in to save the day, that didn't mean that he was particularly fond of her.

Orion pinned down his trophy with both paws while the fairy protested in a high-pitched voice. Orion glanced over at Anica as if asking permission to eat it.

"You can't munch on the fairy," Anica said. She looked around for the other two, but they were nowhere in sight. They'd probably taken advantage of the distraction when Orion caught their friend and miniaturized themselves to the size of a gnat. Then they could slip out the way they'd come in, through the old-fashioned keyhole in her apartment door.

She gazed at her cat. "Let me amend that, Orion. If the fairy you captured removes the illusion placed on my apartment, he can go free. Otherwise munch away." She guessed that the captured fairy was one of the boys, because the girl was way too savvy to allow herself to be caught.

The remaining fairy continued to squeak, and with some difficulty, Anica made out the words. He begged to be allowed to remove the illusion so he could go home.

"All right." Anica knelt next to Orion. "That's a good kitty. Let me have the fairy."

Orion seemed reluctant to let it go, but eventually Anica held the struggling boy in both hands. "I'm handing you over to the wizard," she said, "and I warn you not to cross him or you'll end up dragon chow for sure."

The fairy squeaked some more as Anica stood and gave him to Jasper. Her breath caught as her hand touched his. He was so d.a.m.ned warm. So deliciously naked.

At this juncture she should have been reminding herself why she'd turned him into a cat in the first place. He'd lied to her. More than that, he hadn't thought doing so was such a bad thing. He'd been unrepentant.

Then she remembered what Sheila had said in the restaurant bathroom. He's just that good. She'd always criticized women who had s.e.x with bad boys, men they didn't particularly approve of, just for the promise of sensational o.r.g.a.s.ms. Criticizing had been easy for Anica because she'd never been tempted by such a man.

But she was sorely tempted now.

It might not matter, though. Chances were he wouldn't want anything to do with her, and that would solve her moral dilemma, now, wouldn't it? Still, she knew that if he'd been willing, she would have abandoned her principles. Quite a comedown for Goody Two-shoes.

Jasper raised the fairy in the air. "Put this room back exactly the way you found it. And make it snappy."

Anica almost giggled. He sounded like a father reprimanding his kid, which was probably the right tone to take with this little delinquent.

With a few high-pitched commands from the tiny fairy, the nude paintings were replaced by the landscapes Anica had chosen for the walls. The upholstery went back to a muted floral pattern, and the red bawdy-house glow changed to normal lamplight.

Orion watched in total fascination. He was especially intrigued when the bottle of Jose Cuervo rose from the coffee table and wobbled through the air on its way back to the kitchen. Like baby ducks, all three shot gla.s.ses followed. The computer winked off, and the room was back to normal.

Jasper glanced at Anica. "Should I let him go now?"

"Yes. Thank you."

Jasper opened his hand. The fairy fluttered his wings a moment, as if testing to see if they still worked before he launched himself into the air. In two seconds he was airborne, and then, with a little pop, he disappeared.

Jasper looked startled. "Did he vaporize or something?"

"No. He's right there." Anica pointed to something that looked like a tiny insect heading for the door. "He'll leave the way he came, through the keyhole."

"You might want to stick some gum in that keyhole from now on."

Anica looked at him and smiled. "They'd just find another way. The only thing that works is a magical protection spell. I had one . . . before."

"Before you turned me into a cat."

Her chest tightened as she realized the mood of cooperation had left along with the fairies. They'd faced down a common enemy, and she was grateful for his help. But now he'd leave, and maybe he'd tell her how he planned to pay her back for this, and maybe he'd just let her find out the hard way.

"When did it happen?" she asked. "You changing back, I mean."

"Sometime after those jokers showed up. Orion and I came out to investigate. I was watching them changing everything and I was getting really angry, but then I started feeling weird. Somehow I knew what was about to happen to me, and so I ducked into the kitchen so I wouldn't transform right in the middle of the living room floor."

"Did it . . . hurt?"

"Fortunately no." He flexed his shoulders. "I'm a little sore, but otherwise I seem to be fine."

"I guess that potion took longer than we expected for some reason."

"Right. Thank G.o.d it worked eventually."

She gazed at him, unsure what to say. "Does it matter that I'm horribly, terribly sorry for what I did?"

He sighed. "I don't know, Anica. Being sorry doesn't quite cut it when you consider what I've been through."

"I know. I know it doesn't."

"Where are my clothes?"

"Hanging in my closet. I'll get them for you."

"That's okay." He started down the hall. "Give me five minutes and I'll be out of your hair."

She watched him walk away and tried to think of what she could do or say that would make a difference. "Can I make you coffee? Put together a sandwich?"

"No, thanks," he called over his shoulder. "I just want to get home. I want my life back."

That was plain enough. He wouldn't be hanging around for coffee or anything else, for that matter. She couldn't blame him. He'd had a life, and she'd temporarily stolen it.

"I'll phone for a cab." She could at least do that much. She glanced at the clock for the first time and noticed it was a little after midnight.

She put down her wand to dial the phone. Once Jasper was gone, she'd test to see if her wand worked again. She expected that it would, which meant she could re-create the protection spell for her apartment.

She would be happy to have her magic back. She tried to focus on that and forget about the man who was about to exit her life. He wasn't the right guy for her, had never been the right guy. She'd allowed s.e.xual attraction to override her good judgment.

The cab company agreed to have a driver outside her building in twenty minutes. Unless Jasper chose to wait down by the curb, which he certainly might if he was angry enough, twenty minutes was the outer limits of her remaining time with him. She might never see him again in person. If he had anything more to do with her, it might come in the form of revenge, blackmail, or something equally ugly.

His cry of alarm startled her out of her morbid thoughts. She raced down the hall, terrified that something had gone wrong with the transformation after all.

Something had. In a frightening replay of the previous night, Anica first saw a pile of Jasper's clothes on the floor. Then she watched in horror as a black cat crawled out from under the clothes. Jasper was a cat . . . again.

Chapter 10.

f.u.c.kin' A! Jasper hissed in fury when Anica burst into the room. If he didn't need her, or rather her witchy sister, he'd give in to the urge to scratch the living daylights out of her. He'd been a man again! Why hadn't it lasted?

"Oh, Jasper." Anica's eyes filled with tears.

As if her tears would do him any good. It gave him little satisfaction to know that she was so upset. Her upset was nothing compared to his upset. He was ready to chew the carpet.

Although the worst part was that he'd found when he was a man, he was still attracted to Anica, even in those dopey flannel pajamas she was wearing. Her blond hair had been mussed and her cheeks pink, giving him a preview of what she might look like after a brisk round of s.e.x. He did not want to want her. For one thing, she was a witch, not exactly his dream girl choice. And for another thing, she was a witch who'd turned him into a cat.

What kind of romance would that be? He'd be afraid to cross her for fear she'd zap him with her wand again. Talk about a total imbalance of power. And yet knowing all that, he hadn't been able to stop the flow of s.e.xual chemistry between them.

Looking around for some way to vent the frustration he felt on more than one level, he spied the delicate posts of her antique bed. Yes. Walking over to the nearest one, he stretched his front claws as far as they'd go and began to systematically mark up the wood. Let her try to stop him. Just let her try.

She didn't, and eventually the thrill of ruining a precious piece of furniture faded. He wasn't naturally a destructive person. In fact, he was a little ashamed of himself, even if she did deserve the memento of what she'd done to him.

Tearing up furniture wasn't getting him anywhere, though. He bounded into the living room, hopped up on Anica's desk chair, and turned on the computer. While he waited for the program to boot up, he considered sinking his claws into her desk, as well.

But his heart wasn't in it. If he was ever part of an invading army, he would be lousy at sacking the city. Mindless destruction wasn't his thing, even when he was furious.