“Not yet,” she said. “Almost.”
“Not good enough.” He tossed her onto her bed and she landed with a bounce. Half the bed was pillows. Big fluffy white comforter, lacy white blanket overtop, and then pillows, pillows, pillows. What the hell was it with women and pillows?
“Go to sleep,” he said.
“You know me getting ready for bed is a ten-step process. And if you don’t know it yet, you will the first night we’re married.”
“What? Ten steps? What do you do at night? Paint the house?”
Paulina scrambled to the head of the bed and lay back on her mountain of pillows. She held up both hands and started ticking off steps on her fingers.
“Step one—pajamas. Step two—wash my face. Step three—exfoliate.”
“What happens if you skip step three?”
“You don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. Step four—moisturize. Step five—brush teeth. Step six—take my hair down. Step seven—put my hair up.”
“I think I figured out where you can skip a step.”
“Step eight—clean up the mess I just made in the bathroom.”
“Another step I’d skip.”
“Step nine—pee.”
“That’s fair. I take that step myself.”
“Step ten—say my prayers. Then I go to sleep.”
“You forgot step eleven.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Kiss your fiancé goodnight.”
Paulina turned her head, looked at him, batted her eyelashes. Cyrus dove onto the bed and before she could wriggle away, he had Paulina pinned under him. He kissed her forehead, kissed her cheeks, kissed her neck and ears.
“You keep missing home plate,” she said.
“I probably taste like beer.”
“I won’t mind your beer breath if you don’t mind my coffee breath.”
Cyrus didn’t mind at all. He kissed her mouth, long and deep. He pressed his tongue gently into her mouth and she let him. Not only did she let him, she touched his tongue with hers and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to pull him closer and deepen the kiss.
It took more willpower than he had that night to stop himself from lying down on her. Mistake, he knew, because once she felt how hard he was, she would send him packing. But there was no hope for it. He rested his full weight on her, and she made a little happy murmuring sound.
“Aren’t you supposed to kick me out?” he asked, between kisses.
“Give me a minute.” She kissed him again and Cyrus let her. Another minute or two of deep kissing passed. They kissed long enough and hard enough, Cyrus started to think she’d forgotten her job.
“Now?” he asked.
“I know I should,” she said, “But I’m having too much fun.” She wrapped her legs around his lower back and grinned up at him.
“I don’t have to go,” he said. “I could stay.”
“I know you could.”
“You know I won’t.”
“I know you won’t,” she said. “But I know you want to. And you know I want you to.”
“You do?”
“You think you’re the only one turned on in this room?”
“You want it?” he asked. “Really?”
She nodded slowly, her dark eyes hooded by her thick black lashes. She’d never looked sexier to him. His groin tightened. Cyrus would have happily spent the entire night tucked on top of Paulina, kissing her and digging his fingers into her curling soft hair, tasting coffee with every touch of his tongue against hers.
But.
He put each hand beside her shoulders and pushed himself up.
Paulina, however, would not let go. She whispered, playfully, but kept her feet firmly wrapped around his back.
“Ahem.”
“Do I have to?” she asked.
“You don’t have to. But you probably should. You got prayers to say. I need to say a few myself, I think.”
With a put-upon sigh, Paulina—with obvious reluctance—removed her feet from his back and placed them on the bed.
“I knew we should have had a June wedding,” she said.
Cyrus laughed as he dragged himself—with obvious reluctance—off the bed.
“One month,” he said. “And a half.”
“Fifty-three days,” she said. “I’ll survive.”
“I better go before I change my mind about a few things.”
“You better do that, Daddy.”
Cyrus knew he should, but he couldn’t quite leave yet. He sat down next to her on the bed, stroked his hand through her hair, stroked her cheek with one curl.
“You ever gonna tell me if you ever done this before?” Cyrus asked her.
“No, I am not.”
“I’m not being nosy,” he said. “I just don’t want to hurt you.”
“We been together over a year, Cyrus Tremont. You really think a woman can go a year without having sex and it won’t hurt when she has it again? Whether I’ve done it before or not won’t matter, and you know it.”
“I just want you to enjoy it. I just…I want to get it right for you.”
“Will you be there?”
“Planning on it.”
“Then I’ll enjoy it.”
“I love you, baby.”
“You better,” she said.
He kissed her again, quick, on the cheek.
And though it hurt, he stood up and walked to the door. Before he left, he turned around and looked at her one more time. She lay on her side on the bed, looking pretty as Christmas in her gray skirt and white lacy blouse.
“Pray for me,” he said.
“I do, every night.”
“What do you pray for about me?”
She tucked the pillow under her head.
“Oh, the usual things. That you’ll be safe, that you’ll do good work, that you’ll help the people who need helping. I always pray you’ll remember God loves you. And I always pray you’ll remember I love you.”
“You ever pray that I behave myself?”
She shrugged. “I try not to,” she said, “But sometimes I slip and one comes out. I don’t want you to think deep down I don’t trust you. I wouldn’t be marrying you if I didn’t trust you. Sometimes, though, I don’t trust everybody else out there.”
“I don’t want you to worry. If hanging out with Nora’s shown me anything, I’m done with that part of my life.”
“She sexy?”
Cyrus laughed. “Baby, she is sex on two legs and both those legs are sexy legs. She is sex in a box wrapped in a bow with ‘sex’ written on the bow. If she were a song, she’d be ‘Little Red Corvette.’”
“That’s sexy right there,” Paulina said.
“But when I’m with her…nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He shook his head, almost apologetically. “Nothing. Hanging with her is like hanging with one of the guys. Except it’s easier to talk to her sometimes. That make any sense?”
“Like she’s maybe…a friend?”
“Now I wouldn’t go that far. The woman is ten kinds of crazy.”
Laughing, she said, “Maybe she is. You’d have to be crazy to help a man you barely know solve a case for no pay when she’s got better things she could be doing.”
“Guess I’m crazy, too.”
“Maybe you should pray for her,” Paulina said. “That’ll help you both.”
“Pray for what? That she doesn’t get us both killed?”
Paulina pursed her lips, shook her head. Times like this, he remembered he was marrying an almost-nun.
“Pray for her the things I pray for you. That she’s safe, that she’s happy, that she knows God loves her.”
“I’ll do that,” he said. “If anybody needs prayer, it’s her. If she’s having tea with the devil right now, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Selling her soul to him?”
“Nah. If anything, he’s trying to buy his back from her.”
Chapter Twen
ty-One
Mercedes stepped in through Nora’s front door and immediately slipped out of her shoes. With a graceful slide of her foot, she tucked the shoes—plain rope sandals—next to the door beside the brass umbrella stand. A large and slouchy crochet handbag was slung across her body.
She stepped away from the door and waited for Nora to lock up the house after her.
“I guess a certain vampire told you someone was looking for you,” Nora said.
Mercedes nodded. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Nora replied. “A little surprised. Very confused. How did you know where I live?”
“If I said it was witchcraft, would you believe me?”
“Probably not,” Nora said.
Mercedes held her hand out low, palm open. Gmork lifted his head and pressed it into her palm. She stroked his ears, tentatively at first, but when Gmork whimpered happily, she squatted down to his level and put her face near his face. She let him lick her cheek as she scratched and stroked Gmork’s ears and head.
“Does she have a name?” Mercedes asked.
“He,” Nora said. “Gmork. It’s from The Never-ending Story.”
“He’s sweet.”
“He’s supposed to be a trained killer. Turns out, he’s just a lady-killer.”
“Loves the ladies?”
“And hates men.”
Mercedes laughed softly. “I like you, Gmork.” She patted Gmork one more time on the head before standing up straight again.
Gmork trotted back over to Nora, pressing his warm body to her legs. It comforted her. Nico had bought her the dog for protection, which she never thought she would need. Now she was grateful.
“I apologize for coming so late,” she said. “If you were looking for me, I assumed it was important.”
“My friend and I were going to stop by your shop tomorrow morning to see you.”
“Your friend, the man you were with tonight?”
“Yes, he’s a private detective.”
“I would rather speak to you alone than with a man. If that’s all right. I saw your porch light was on, but I’m happy to go, if you like. Would you like that?”
Her voice was low and soothing. Nora was too curious to turn the woman away, but she kept her guard up.
“No, you can stay. It’s fine. Let’s go into my office.”
Nora had converted the house’s formal dining room into her office. She led Mercedes there through the kitchen. Nora switched on the brass floor lamp. Six oak bookcases lined the walls. Nora’s big boat of a desk sat in the middle of the room, facing the French doors that looked out onto her jungle of a patio garden.
“Can I get you anything?” Nora asked. “Water? Wine? Whiskey?”
“Wine would be nice.”
Nora went into her kitchen and quickly poured two shallow glasses of Syrah. While alone in her kitchen, she thought about grabbing her phone to send Cyrus a quick text. But she had a feeling Cyrus would immediately come over, and Mercedes might not answer Nora’s questions with a man present.
When Nora returned to her office, she found Mercedes standing at the bookshelves, eyeing the titles with interest.
“Your wine,” Nora said. Mercedes took the glass with a nod of thanks.
“You have a very large library of books on Catholicism,” Mercedes said. “The Catholic Catechism. The History of the Catholic Church. Pope John’s Journal of a Soul. Thomas Merton. G.K. Chesterton. St. Augustine. St. Thomas Aquinas… Have you read all these books?”
“I like looking for the loopholes,” Nora joked. Mercedes didn’t smile.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing,” Nora said. “I’m just a bad Catholic.”
“Perhaps you aren’t a bad Catholic,” she said. “Perhaps you’re just a very good pagan.”
“Cradle Catholic.”
“You’re old enough to leave the cradle,” Mercedes said. “Aren’t you?”
“There’s someone in my life who would be very put out if I did.”
“If there’s someone in your life trying to control your faith, you’re the one who should be put out, Mistress Nora.”
Nora tensed. Not often another woman put her on the defensive.
“You can just call me ‘Nora.’ The ‘Mistress’ is for those who want to serve.”
“It’s a title of respect, yes?”
“Well, yes.”
“I respect your work, Mistress. But I’m happy to call you whatever you like. So Nora it is.”
“Mercedes,” Nora said. “Unusual name for an American.”
She shrugged. “I’m impressed you say it right. Nobody ever says it right, even after I tell them.”
“It’s a French name,” Nora said. “No accents. Not like we say the car brand.”
Mare-SED-ess, not Mur-SAY-deez.
“You know French?” the woman asked.
“Some. My boyfriend is French. One of my boyfriends, I mean.”
Mercedes raised her eyebrow but made no comment. No comment necessary.
“Sorry,” Nora said. “I say that stuff all the time. I forget it makes some people uncomfortable.”
“I’m a witch. Does that make you uncomfortable?” Mercedes asked.
“You know, I always thought if a witch showed up at my house in the middle of the night, it would be to tell me there was such a thing as a tesseract. That’s from—”
“A Wrinkle in Time. I know. And there really is such a thing as a tesseract.”
“Is there?”
She nodded. “A tesseract,” Mercedes said, “is a cube cubed. A hypercube.”
“I’m impressed,” Nora said. “I didn’t know witches knew advanced geometry.”
“It’s also known as ‘sacred geometry.’ Some believe geometry is God’s native language and that by learning sacred geometry, one can access the mind of God.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t recognize your god,” Mercedes said. “I serve the Goddess.”
“I thought everyone in this town was Catholic.”
Mercedes smiled. “Not everyone.”
She gestured toward her stomach. She was wearing a long red skirt that flared at her hips and a white top, cut off a few inches above her waist so that Nora could see the tattoos on her lower stomach. A sliver of moon on one side, a sliver of moon on the other, a full moon that surrounded her bellybutton.
Nora had seen that symbol before but couldn’t say what it was. “What’s your ink?”
“It’s the symbol of the Triple Moon Goddess,” Mercedes said. “Everyone in my coven gets marked with Her symbol. Not necessarily on the stomach, though. I just did that to cover a stretch mark. I made my daughter pay for it.”
She smiled and Nora knew she was joking.
“It’s pretty.”
“Thank you.” Mercedes nodded toward the armchairs set in front of Nora’s desk. “Shall we talk about why you came to see me?”
“Sure. Let’s do that.”
Mercedes sat in one armchair. Nora took the other. Gmork sat at her feet, on her feet.
“I’m trying very hard not to demand you tell me how you know where I live,” Nora said. “I’m not sure how much longer I can stop myself.”
“Zillow,” Mercedes said.
“What?”
She pulled her bag into her lap, covering the bare inches of her stomach, and crossed her legs at the ankle.
“Zillow. It’s a real estate website.”
“Yeah, I know what it is. You used it to find me?”
“When you came for your reading with me, you said you were waiting to hear about a house you wanted to buy. It was in the Garden District, a red house, and you’d put in a lowball offer. A week later, I checked the website. A red house in the Garden District was now under contract for twenty-thousand less than the original asking price. Didn’t take sacred geometry to put two and two together.”
“You told me I’d get the house. Were you checking to see if y
ou were right?”
“I knew I was right.”
“Then why—”
“My turn,” Mercedes said, and Nora sat up, alert. It wasn’t often another woman cut her off. Or anyone, really.
“Okay, go on,” Nora said.
“Lord Chaz said you were looking for a missing girl. I don’t think that’s true, is it?”
A fair question, but not so easy to answer.
“It isn’t. But I can’t tell you the whole story.”
“Please tell me what you can.”
“A man was found dead recently. He’d shot himself.”
“Accident? Or suicide?”
“Suicide. And I don’t know this man from Adam, but for some reason, I was the last person he tried calling before pulling the trigger. The man was found with my business card in his pocket, so we know it wasn’t just a wrong number—for some reason, he was trying to reach me. Unfortunately, that’s no longer my number. It was an old card from when I worked in New York. He never reached me. For days, I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to think who I might have given one of my cards to while I was down here. Earlier this evening someone mentioned witches. I finally remembered…you. I gave you a card.”
“Only me?”
“Only you. As far as I can remember. Is it possible you gave my card to someone?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I know I told you what I did for a living.”
“Writer. Dominatrix. I wouldn’t forget that even if I’d wanted to.”
“Did a friend of yours, a client, a stranger…did anybody mention they were trying to find a dominatrix?”
“No.”
“Could one of your coworkers at the shop…did they maybe take it?”
“No.”
“Did you throw it in the trash?”
“No.”
“Recycling?”
“No.”
“Come on,” Nora said, exasperated. “It must have ended up in the trash at some point, right? If you know anything at all, please tell me. It’s driving me crazy knowing a man reached out to me, wanted me for something, and when he couldn’t reach me, he killed himself. You’d want to know why, right?”
“I suppose I would,” she said. “But in this, I’m afraid I can’t help you. You see…”
Mercedes paused and opened her bag and took out a large book—black, leather-bound, with two skulls embossed on the cover. Mercedes set it in her lap and opened it carefully. Carefully because the book was full of odds and ends—scraps of paper, recipe cards, photographs, pressed flowers and leaves. The pages themselves were thick, soft cotton, covered in black, red, blue, and green ink. Some of the pages bore elaborate drawings of triangles within circles, circles within squares, animals, trees, moons, and stars.
The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 17