“I should go for a walk,” I say out loud, taking a breath and then looking down at myself. My job is one-hundred percent sitting on my ass and staring into space, which isn’t great for staying in shape. Not that I’ve ever been in particularly “good” shape—whatever that means. But it is what it is. I am who I am.
“And it isn’t working, is it, Isa?” I say out loud, sighing and then frowning when I notice my hands are still gripping the wooden armrests of my chair tight. My eyelids flutter as those two words that popped into my mind during the session with Grandpa come back to me:
You’re his.
I feel that dark energy of my gift flowing through me as I gasp and close my eyes again. I don’t know where the words are coming from. I can’t see or sense the spirit that’s whispering to me. A chill runs down my spine as I wonder if it’s a trick. A lot of these spirits are pranksters and tricksters—sometimes dangerously so. I’ve learned to ignore the mischievous ones, but I have to see the little scamp before I can ignore it.
And then I see something, and my fingers dig into the gnarled wooden armrests of my chair with such force that I break a nail on my left hand! I scream in shock, gasping as pain shoots up my wrist and all the way through my body. My body is shaking, and I feel my neck strain as my eyes roll up in my head like I’m being seized by something, something new, something different, something dark, something dangerous.
You’re his, comes the whisper again, and suddenly I’m no longer in my warm, cozy, red-walled room with fake Tiffany lamps and hand-embroidered curtains. I’m in a cold, barren room that feels dark but is brightly lit with harsh white light . . . white light that’s shining on a man in a chair, a man in pain, a man on the brink of despair, a man who feels alone, abandoned, forsaken.
A man who’s mine.
I shudder and moan as my body whips around in my chair and my eyes roll so far up in my head I wonder if I’ll ever see straight again. The man looks familiar, and I know immediately that he’s not a spirit. He isn’t dead—not yet, at least.
The vision shocks me, and I swallow hard and try to focus. I’ve never seen visions of people and events like this. I’m not that kind of psychic. At least I didn’t think I was.
“I know you,” I mutter, frowning as the man’s face comes into focus. He’s handsome, with a smooth but rugged jawline that’s prominently masculine in a way that makes my nipples pay attention. His cheekbones are perfectly symmetrical, like they were sculpted by an artist, and when I look into his green eyes I gasp as I recognize who it is.
Senator Ian Irving. One of the most controversial politicians in America—though maybe he’s not that controversial, since he seems to be pretty much universally hated by the left and right. I saw him on the news a few months ago, and he’s been stirring up shit all over social media ever since he got elected. Not many people pay attention to first-year senators, but this guy stepped into the spotlight and grabbed the public’s attention by the throat. In this time of sharp divisions between the left and right, Senator Irving somehow managed to piss off both sides almost equally! Hell, I’d admire the man if I didn’t hate him so much!
And I do hate him. I don’t know him, and I generally don’t believe in hate, but the brief time I spent taking in the nonsense he was spouting about how America needed to become an empire again like the old days, straight-up overrunning other countries with extreme prejudice, planting our flag everywhere and taking no prisoners was enough to make me clench my fists and shake my head.
“Remind me to vote in every damned election from now on,” I’d said to Gary the Cat, my impish sidekick who I can feel staring at me with his big red eyes, his dark gray fur standing at attention like it’s Halloween and he’s in costume.
“What is it, Gary?” I whisper to him now, forcing myself to push that vision away. “Hungry? There’s food in your bowl, isn’t there? Or did Mommy forget to feed you again?”
But Gary just stares back at me with unblinking focus, and I frown and cock my head at him. Generally the chubby little guy couldn’t care less about the goings-on in my dark chambers of for-profit semi-magic. He wouldn’t be a very good witch’s familiar. But right now he seems unusually focused on the energy surrounding me, and when he jumps up on the TV stand in the corner, tail slowly moving from side to side like he’s trying to say something, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“What?” I say, frowning as I stare at Gary.
He rowrs back softly, shows me his gleaming white teeth, and then bounds off the TV stand and disappears into the shadows with a quickness I didn’t think he had in him anymore. Cats. Whatever.
I sit in silence for another long moment, taking in the strangeness of the energy in the room. My body is humming in the weirdest way, and I huff out a breath and pull on the underwire of my bra. It feels tight, and I wonder if I’m retaining water or something. I gotta get out more. Take a walk or something.
But instead I absentmindedly reach for the TV remote and click. The screen takes a moment to light up, and then I almost black out when I see what’s happening on the news.
The video was just released, and it appears to be from earlier today, the newscaster is saying as I stare in shock at the image of Senator Ian Irving tied to a chair, handsome face twisted in pain, left hand splintered and bleeding. His captors say there will be two more videos over the next week, with the final video broadcasting the Senator’s death live. The Federal Government has launched a massive search operation, but with the clock counting down, will they get to Senator Irving in time? Stay tuned for more live updates! You can also follow us on—
I yelp like I’ve just been zapped by something, and I clumsily turn off the TV and toss the remote down on the thick red carpet. But that image of the Senator in that chair is burned in my head, and I know it’s the same damned image I saw in my vision. I try to convince myself that maybe I saw the news earlier today online or something and it was just a memory that got played back as a vision. But I know myself, I know my gift, and I know this came from that place . . .
“But I’m not that kind of psychic,” I mutter out loud, shaking my head as I begin to pace the room in my black silk day-pajamas and bunny slippers. “I’ve never seen anything that’s happening in another place in the real world.”
I think for a moment as my heart pounds behind my boobs as that image of Irving hangs in my mind’s eye like a painting on a wall. His bare chest is muscled and contoured, shoulders broad and strong, stomach tight and rippling with muscles that I know are visible even when he’s wearing his fitted white shirts and tailored suits. He’s tall and striking on camera, and I know that’s part of the reason he gets so much attention from the media.
And the media is probably loving this, I think as I shake my head and walk over to my computer. There was a sickeningly dark delight in that newscaster’s voice, and I know that every channel and online service is drooling over something that’s gonna get the entire world’s attention all week. I almost don’t want to follow the story just on principle, but I can’t fight that feeling I got from the first vision of Irving, the sense that he was reaching out . . .
Reaching out to . . . to me.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I mutter as I squint at my laptop screen and scan the headlines as fast as I can. Nobody knows much, it seems. The NSA and FBI are tracing the source of the video, but apparently things are being scrambled or redirected or something like that. There’s even speculation that Irving is being held outside the country.
I sink back into my chair and bite my lip. My body is still humming in that strange way, and when I focus on what I’m feeling, I’m taken back to that first vision again, that first feeling again, a feeling that flowed beneath the shock, the surprise, the strangeness.
A feeling of connection.
A feeling of fate.
A feeling of destiny.
A feeling I need to follow.
Follow back to him.
To him.
; 3
TWO DAYS LATER
IRVING
It feels like a dream, and I grin at the vision of the angel standing before me. I haven’t eaten in two days, and I know that I’m probably hallucinating from the lack of sleep. I’ve seen some fucked-up shit on those all-night patrols back in my military days. Seen some demons out there in the darkness of the Middle Eastern desert. No angels though. Certainly none with boobs like this.
“An angel with boobs,” I say out loud, my own voice sounding strange to me. I wonder if I’m already dead. “Where are your wings? Turn around so I can see. Fuck, you got a nice ass too.”
She frowns at me, her pretty round face twisting up as if she’s about to snap out a sharp response. Then she looks down at my broken hand and immediately I see from her expression that it’s fucking bad, that there’s probably bone sticking out through the flesh, that without medical attention I might even lose the hand.
“Can you walk?” she says softly, blinking and looking back into my eyes. Her eyes are big and brown, beautiful like a sunset, deep like the roots of an old tree. She looks familiar, even though I’ve never seen her before. And she’s pretty. So goddamn pretty.
My cock moves in my pants, and I just shake my head and look up at her. “Where are we gonna walk to?” I say to my angel, grinning wide as I shamelessly stare at her boobs. I don’t know if I’m in heaven or hell, but who gives a fuck. My cock is now hard, and if that still works, it doesn’t really matter if I’m dead or alive. “We’re already in heaven, aren’t we? Look at that sunset!”
“This isn’t heaven,” she says, a flash of pity in her brown eyes. But then she blinks and cocks her head like she’s wondering if maybe it is heaven. “This is . . .”
She doesn’t finish her sentence—or maybe she does: I’m so fucked from two days of torment and no food that Casper the Friendly Ghost could walk in here and I’d say hello and shrug. Man, I got soft after leaving the military, didn’t I. This is why we need to send our sons and daughters to fucking war!
The thought of combat, raw violence, that feeling of adrenaline that flows through a warrior when he takes to the battlefield clears a path through the confusion, and I blink as reality forces its way into my head like a geyser breaking through the ground. Suddenly I feel the pain in my hand disappear, the dizziness in my brain evaporate, the blurriness in my vision morph to focus. I’m saved, I think. Fuck, this chick is Secret Service or FBI or some shit! This is real!
“About time you guys found me,” I say, grimacing as I look at my twisted left hand and then force myself up off the chair. Those fuckers untied me yesterday so I could go to the bathroom, and I guess they decided I didn’t need to be tied again until the next episode of their little reality show. I groan and look at her again, and then I snort and shake my head, wondering if I’m seeing things again. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is a fucking hallucination. Fuck, I really am dead!
“Why are you laughing?” she says, an indignant frown on her pretty round face. She follows my gaze down to her own feet and gasps. “Ohmygod! What the hell?”
“Bunny slippers?” I say, still laughing as I decide that I might as well enjoy this. This must be what happens when you slip away into death, when the chemicals in your brain go haywire as the light of life goes out. “Well, at least I know I’m in hell and not heaven. Those slippers are a fucking nightmare.”
“This . . . this . . .” she says, those eyes widening as she looks around the room like she’s confused again, like maybe she’s even more confused than I am. “This isn’t right,” she whispers, her eyelids fluttering as she looks at her bunny slippers and then back at me. “How did I get here?”
I raise an eyebrow and grunt. “You’re kidding, right? What kind of rescue operation is this? Where the fuck is everyone else?”
She looks around, her eyes going wide as she hugs herself like she’s not sure how to answer my question. She’s wearing some kind of black silk pajama suit, and my cock moves again as I glance down at the way the shiny cloth hugs her wide hips, highlighting her strong curves in a way that makes me want to get to my knees and push my face in there. It takes a moment for me to break my gaze away from her crotch, tear my mind off the mesmerizing thought of what her pussy will taste like once I get those pajamas and panties off and slide my tongue into that pink slit.
I shake my head and blink five times at the floor. I’m not particularly shocked at my own thoughts. I’ve always been a horny motherfucker, and I’m well aware of the body’s reaction to extreme physical stress that suddenly gets relieved. The body hunkers down when it’s in danger, shutting off unnecessary functions if its very survival is threatened. But once the immediate danger passes, the body floods the system with natural hormones and chemicals that make the most fundamental need come to the forefront: The need to procreate. To pass on your genes before the danger returns. The need to take a mate. To damned well fuck.
I still don’t know what’s happening here, why some curvy chick in pajamas and bunny slippers is standing in my fucking cage like she’s been beamed down from another dimension. The only thing that’s clear to me is that she’s as clueless about how and why she’s here.
“Well, at least there’s one thing that’s clear,” I say softly, narrowing my eyes and licking my lips as I let my gaze travel down along her hourglass shape, linger on her womanly hips, take in the sight of her thick thighs, imagine those boobs bare and bouncing as she rides my cock, picture her round ass trembling as I spank her raw and fuck her deep.
“What?” she says, her voice trembling as she looks at me like she’s questioning reality just like I am.
“You’re mine,” I say with a grin, stepping up to her and taking her hand in mine. My entire body trembles as our skin touches, our flesh makes first contact, our fingers lock like they were designed to fit together. “You’re fucking mine!”
And without any hesitation I pull her into me, lean down, and kiss her. I kiss her hard, deep, and with a wild confidence that comes from the fact that I have no fucking idea what’s going on.
No idea what’s going on other than what I just said to her, what I just feel for her, what I just know about her:
She’s mine.
By the Gods of War and Death, she’s mine!
4
ISA
I’m his, comes the thought as I stare down at my bunny slippers and gasp. I can still taste him, still feel him, still smell him.
But that’s impossible . . .
. . . because I was never with him!
I blink at the familiar red carpet beneath my feet and then I look at my hands, which are still clutching the armrests of my chair. The room is silent, nothing but my own breathing to remind me that I’m alive and alone, that I just had a vision of the sort I’ve never had—much more intense than the one from two days ago, when I first saw the Senator.
“What’s going on, Gary?” I whisper to my cat, who’s looking at me with that unusual intensity, like he can sense something different about my energy.
I half expect Gary to open his little mouth and just answer in plain English, confirming that I’ve lost my shit, that my gift has now turned into a curse, driven me straight-up insane. But he just keeps staring at me with that intense look, and finally I look away and force myself to stand up.
I hug myself, rubbing my arms as I pace my warm, comfortable living room. I’ve barely left my house the last two days. I’m still dressed the same, and a quick glance at my phone tells me it hasn’t been that long since my last clients left. But I know it’s been two days. It’s not like I’ve experienced lost time or anything, where you wake up two days later or some shit with no clue what happened.
“But something happened,” I say out loud as I keep pacing on my red carpet, rubbing my neck as the taste of the Senator’s lips lingers in my senses in the most fascinating, intoxicating way, like his masculine scent is a breadcrumb on the trail I need to follow to get to the bottom of this. I’ve been a scholar of pa
ranormal research most of my life, ever since I understood my gift was real, that there is another world out there, a nonphysical world where life goes on, the so-called Spirit World, as hokey as it sounds.
“Maybe the Senator did die and somehow his spirit got into me briefly,” I mutter as I review the possible scenarios as logically as I can. “After all, that’s really what I’m doing when I interact with spirits: Letting them into me in some way so we can communicate. Sometimes they try to take over my body, invade my mind. But it isn’t hard to stop them with my skills and training. Still, this . . . this felt different. This felt like . . . like . . .”
It felt like fate, comes the whisper from inside me somewhere, and I bite my lip as a shudder goes through my body. I frown as I shake my head. Despite my gift, I’m not a big believer in fate or destiny. That’s a level of hokiness I’ve stayed away from.
Just like you’ve stayed away from men, I think as I step to the window and touch the glass. The sun is moving down as evening approaches, and the trees and bushes in my carefully cultivated garden are glowing green . . . green like those eyes, like his eyes.
My jaw tightens even as I feel my nipples stiffen beneath my silk top. A tremble goes through my body as I fight the feeling of the Senator’s hands on my breasts, his lips once again pressed against mine, his scent invading me like an advancing army.
And then it hits me.
It hits me with a force that makes me weak in the knees.
That scene, that moment, that kiss . . .
. . . it wasn’t my vision, wasn’t my dream, wasn’t my gift!
It was his!
“Holy hell, Gary,” I say to my cat, who opens his little tiger-maws like he’s grinning in approval that I’m finally getting it. “The Senator . . . he’s a goddamn psychic too! He just . . . he just doesn’t know it!”
Curvy for Him: The Psychic and the Senator (Curvy for Him Series Book 9) Page 2