Haunted

by Irene Preston

  Noel was right up in his face, almost vibrating with fury. Heat came off him in nova-like waves that made the air seem to pulse around them. He stabbed a finger into Adam’s chest. “What. Did. You. Do?”

  If he hadn’t touched him…

  The heat from that one finger set Adam’s whole body on fire. He finally broke eye contact, his gaze drawn downward to the hand that had stopped jabbing and fisted in his shirt. Halfway there, he got distracted by the mouth that was still spewing nonsense questions.

  If Noel hadn’t touched him.

  If Adam hadn’t gone to bed last night with the sobering realization that he was going to be alone on Valentine’s Day. Again.

  If he hadn’t woken up this morning hard as a rock from a dream of that cocky mouth wrapped around his dick.

  If… If…

  He grabbed the other man by the shoulders, spun him around so Noel was the one trapped against the door, and slammed their lips together.

  ~⚜~

  Noel

  Fuck me running. Noel hadn’t expected a kiss, and he sure as hell hadn’t expected to be kissing Adam back. But Adam had, and he did, and somehow, they’d gone from butting heads to rubbing bellies, and Noel couldn’t make himself stop.

  Adam gripped his shoulders so hard, his fingernails would leave marks, and he thrust a thigh between Noel’s, giving his dick something hard to rub against. Jesus. Adam had Noel pinned so he couldn’t escape.

  Not that he was trying. At all.

  Adam’s mouth was warm and sweet and made demands he was happy to meet, because he possessed the one thing all of Noel’s senses identified:

  Strength.

  Tongues wrestling, Noel raked his hands through Adam’s hair. Adam’s grip softened, gentled, and just that suddenly, it was all too much. Noel gasped. Jerked away. Skated right up to the edge of giving in entirely.

  “Dammit.” The words came out in an explosion of sound. Noel rocked his head against the wall, and with a sigh, Adam rested his forehead against his chin.

  “Okay, so”—Adam cleared his throat—“if I let go of you, do you promise not to punch me?”

  In spite of himself, Noel laughed. “Sure.” Confusion overloaded his other emotions. I’d been so pissed off. “Do you have any gin?”

  Adam snorted a laugh and eased back a step. “Nope.”

  The space gave Noel a chance to give him a once-over. Adam’s hair flopped over his forehead, and instead of jeans, he wore a pair of plaid flannel pants. “And a bad pun on your T-shirt. Nice.”

  “Hey, atoms can’t be trusted.”

  They make up everything. Noel rolled his eyes. “Right. You’re the professor.”

  “So, um…” Adam cleared his throat a second time. “I’m not sure this could be any more awkward, but I’ll give it a go.”

  He stood close enough for his scent to wrap around Noel, salty and warm and uniquely distracting.

  “You burst in here like your pants were on fire.” Adam’s voice took on an added layer of resonance, as if he was giving a college lecture. “But I’m clueless as to what you were upset about, so maybe we should start from the beginning.”

  Clueless? Noel figured that was his line. He heaved a sigh and scooted away from where Adam stood. He needed a minute to pull himself together. A quarter turn brought him in line with the window, the burned house at the center of the view. Think, dammit, before you make an even bigger ass of yourself. He tried to recall details of what happened from the time he arrived until The Kiss, but all he came up with was Adam’s blank confusion.

  The silence ran a little long. “So…” How much could he say without giving everything away? “Tell me again why you were over at the house yesterday.” He shot Adam a glance. “Please.”

  “The fire was the day before yesterday, right?”

  Noel nodded.

  “Like I said earlier, on Sunday, I saw smoke and made the call. Yesterday morning, it seemed like every time I looked out my window, someone else was either coming or going from the house.”

  “The fire department sent someone out. I pulled the investigator’s notes this morning.”

  Adam gestured to the only chair in the room, and once Noel took a seat, Adam hitched his hip on the edge of the desk. “Yeah, I saw the department’s vehicle, but that was only one of half a dozen visitors. There was just too much traffic in and out of the house.”

  “So”—Noel massaged his temple, where some little devil had started hammering with an ice pick—“you didn’t, say, set up some kind of surprise for anyone who might have gone upstairs?”

  He regretted the question as soon as it was out of his mouth. If the guy asked for any details, Noel would sound like an idiot.

  “No surprises. I promise.”

  Noel licked his lips, catching another taste of Adam. So much strength. His knee pistoned, bleeding off the tension twisting up his guts. Did Noel believe Adam’s denial? Maybe, maybe not, but pressing the point would leave him on dangerous ground. “You better hope not. If I find anything online, I’ll sue you for every last cent.”

  Adam crossed his arms, his uneasy gaze turning into a glare. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

  “Nothing.” Noel flung himself out of the chair, heading for the door.

  “Jesus, you’re spun tighter than a—”

  “Stop.” Noel spun around, fists clenched, ready for a fight. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. None.” And I can’t believe I kissed you. “So take your fucking superiority and your academic credentials and leave me the hell alone.”

  He stalked out, slamming the door with a satisfying crack. He should call his lawyer—or rather, Mom’s lawyer—and set up a trace so that if any video did turn up, they could issue a takedown notice.

  He’d almost reached his car when he realized the irony in telling someone to leave him alone when he’d been the one who’d almost busted the guy’s door down.

  Pressing the Lexus’s key fob, he stopped with his hand on the door. What good would apologizing do? He was never going to see Adam Morales again, unless he stumbled across his stupid show. He crawled in and slammed the door, reaching for the flask in the glove box. The guy probably thought he was the ultimate psycho queen anyway.

  But damn, that kiss was one for the ages.

  Chapter Five

  Adam

  Well. Adam stared at the closed door.

  Scruffy was even more high maintenance than suspected.

  Why the hell had he shown up? Obviously not because he meant the invitation he had tossed out yesterday. Noel had been angry. Angry and… Adam searched for the something he had sensed fueling the anger and came up blank. Almost tasted like fear, but of what? A bunch of gibberish about Adam and the fire or the neighbor kid and the fire or Adam doing something at the house for the show. All topped off with a threat to sue him. None of it made any sense.

  Not that Adam had exactly contributed a rational and calming influence. He touched his lips, remembering the hot thrill of Noel under him.

  That had been a mistake. Damn if it hadn’t been worth the fallout to shut the little shit up for a minute, though.

  Worth it just to get his mouth on him, if he was honest with himself.

  He felt his lips curving into an unexpected smile. The smile faded as he recalled Noel’s parting words. You have no idea what I’ve been through.

  Something freaky that Noel wasn’t willing to explain. Something at the neighbor’s place? Maybe those idle thoughts about doing a show over there weren’t that far off. What had Noel seen upstairs? His reaction seemed to go deeper than anything that could have happened in the few minutes he was next door, though. And he seemed to think Adam would already know what he meant.

  Adam crossed the room decisively and opened his laptop. Yeah, Scruffy was a pain in the ass, but his behavior today didn’t jibe with the cynical rich-boy image. Without giving himself time to think about what he was doing, Adam opened a search tab. Noel Chandler yielded a ton of
non-Scruffy results. Adding Hughes Wallace Insurance only yielded the corporate site.

  The vague sense of familiarity still nagged Adam. After a few more dead ends, he added investigator. Maybe one of Noel’s other cases would pop on a news site or even FindLaw, something that would give him more detail to dig with.

  He whistled under his breath as Noel’s face popped up on the screen, looking just as annoyed and unaccountably irresistible as it had ten minutes ago. Then Adam got a load of the headline. Scruffy was a cop?

  Not just any cop either. Some hotshot detective in LA. So what was he doing in New Orleans working for Hughes Wallace? Adam stared at the year-old image of Noel, a candid close-up cropped down to his face—no clue where it had been taken. But…he knew he had seen that picture before. He sat back, let his eyes go unfocused, and tried to remember. The Haunts and Hoaxes studios were in LA, but Adam was on the road enough he didn’t really keep up with local news. So why…

  Then it clicked. Not something he’d seen on a local news site. Scruffy had wandered into his neck of the woods. The whole thing had been rumors on some very fringe blogs of the kind the show trolled for story ideas when they were running low. One of the producers had actually wanted to run with the story, but something more substantial had come along before anyone followed up.

  And now Noel was here in New Orleans babbling about freaky shit. Adam’s stomach did a funny little flip. He opened his desk drawer and stared at the gris-gris. Then closed it and stared over the fence at the burned-out house.

  Steady, boy. Coincidences happened. So did crazy. Both were way more likely than whatever freaky thing had happened to Noel being real. If almost a decade of chasing ghost stories had taught him anything, it was that hoaxes happened every day. He hadn’t proven a haunting yet.

  ~⚜~

  Adam lasted a day.

  It wasn’t curiosity that did him in, or the almost uncontrollable urge to see Noel again. The guilt, however, became unbearable.

  The local news seemed to have moved on from the fire in the Garden District. He was pretty sure they would have said if someone died, but Noel had sidestepped the question. As much as Adam kept telling himself that there was no way the gris-gris in his desk drawer could be a vital piece of evidence, he couldn’t escape the fact that he had trespassed next door, stolen property, and disturbed what was likely still a crime scene.

  Also, yes, he wanted to know what had happened the day of the fire, what the fuck Noel had been babbling about, and why he had come looking for Adam. And he had woken up from a dream where he had Noel backed up against the door again, only this time, it hadn’t stopped with kissing.

  When asked if he wanted to come by for another chat, Noel was not encouraging.

  “No. Lose my number.”

  Not unexpected, but Adam made a career out of getting people to talk to him. Sometimes he had to give to get. “You were right,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have been in the house and”—was he really going to confess to a cop?—“I took something. Want to come retrieve it, or should I head back over on my own?”

  Dead silence.

  “Noel?”

  “I’ll be there in ten. If you’re fucking with me, you’ll regret it.”

  He already regretted it. Adam looked down at the same flannel pants he’d been wearing yesterday and cursed. He spent slightly more than ten minutes shaving, trying to get his hair under control, and putting on clothes that made him look like a contributing member of society. Then changing back, because he didn’t want to look like he’d made an effort. Frantically changing again, because pajamas when you knew the cop was coming over were unacceptable. Then waiting. Because of course, Noel would make him wait.

  Forty-five minutes later, when shithead finally arrived, he balked at the threshold. He stood at the top of the stairs outside the apartment looking sleep-tousled and put-upon. “Give me whatever you took, and I’ll make sure it gets back to the owners.”

  “Come on in. It’s in my desk.”

  Noel hesitated as if he was walking into a trap. Adam supposed he was. “Scared?”

  That got Scruffy inside. He followed Adam across the room. “So, you really a professor?”

  “Yep.” Community college in Florida. Not exactly Harvard, but he had taught the classes. The show liked to play him up as an academic, and since it was one of the least offensive things they asked of him, he didn’t complain. “You really a cop?”

  “Ex.”

  Adam waited, but Noel neither volunteered anything else nor asked him how he had known. And now the flaws in this plan were becoming obvious. Usually, Adam was the guest. He had gotten really good at conversations while not leaving a place. But as soon as he handed Noel the charm bag, they would be done. He turned back to face Noel, who already looked fidgety and ready to vacate. “Listen…”

  “I knew it.” Noel whirled toward the door.

  “No, wait.” Adam yanked the drawer open. “Look, I’ve got it right here.”

  Noel stopped, frozen in flight, every muscle tense. When he finally turned, his eyes were bright with suspicion. Adam held out his hand, palm down, with the bag in his fist.

  Noel didn’t move.

  With a sigh, Adam tossed him the charm.

  The cop’s hard gaze never wavered as his arm snapped up to catch it, so Adam knew the exact second Noel’s skin touched the bag. The sleepy eyes flew wide open. Noel sucked in a shocked breath and snatched his hand back against his chest defensively. The charm dropped to the floor.

  Scruffy recovered first. “That’s it, Morales. That’s fucking assault. Don’t think I’m not pressing charges.”

  “Wait!” Noel had a head start, but Adam managed to get across the room in time to slam his hand against the door before it opened. The action meant he had Noel trapped against the door again. Adam’s brain reacted instinctively, cataloging the vulnerable patch of skin just above Noel’s collar, the whiff of rosemary from whatever was in his hair, and the warmth of Noel’s wiry body millimeters away. Adam closed his eyes and resisted closing the tiny gap that separated them. “Wait. Just wait a goddamn minute.”

  His answer was an elbow to the gut.

  Noel used the extra space to turn around and watch while Adam gasped for breath. “You’re a fucking psycho. What was that thing?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I swear. Just a bag of herbs.”

  “My ass.”

  Noel shot back across the room. He crouched next to the gris-gris, then pulled a pen out of his pocket and poked at it warily. After a few prods, he sat back on his heels, one side of his lip caught between his teeth while he considered.

  Adam kept a few arm’s lengths away as he approached. He was pretty sure Scruffy wasn’t above stabbing him with the damn pen if the mood took him. Noel’s caution was contagious, though. Adam hesitated for a second before bending down and scooping up the bag, then felt like an idiot when nothing happened. The cool scent of herbs surrounded him, and the pain in his ribs where Noel’s elbow had connected receded. “See? It’s just a bag.”

  Noel glared at him.

  “Okay, okay. What happened when you touched it?”

  Noel stood and paced over to the window to mumble something incoherent.

  Adam followed him. “Noel?”

  “Static electricity or something. What the fuck do I know? What’s in that thing?” He addressed the whole non-explanation to the window.

  “You accused me of assault over static electricity?”

  “You called me over here to return a bag of herbs?”

  Not sure what to say to that, Adam remained silent. Tension filled the air, but Noel made no move to leave. Finally, unable to stand the rigidly repressed energy coming off the other man, Adam tried again. “Look, truce, okay? I mean…I might be willing to admit that something kinda weird happened to me in the house the other day.”

  By now, the house across the fence ought to have burst back into flames based purely on the strength of Noel’s glare.

&
nbsp; “Okay, okay. You don’t have to admit anything. I’ll talk.”

  Still no answer.

  Under the circumstances, Adam counted that as assent. “So, everything happened exactly the way I told you. I maybe just left out a little bit. The day after the fire, I was working”—he ignored Noel’s snort—“at my desk. And, you know, that house over there is usually pretty quiet. Really quiet, actually. I’ve seen the kid in the backyard once or twice and lights come on at night. That’s it.

  “Well, except the night before the fire, they were having a party or something. There was a Maserati and a couple of other cars showed up late that night. They were still there the next day when the fire started.”

  He was getting off topic. Where had he been headed? “So, anyway, it caught my eye when people started showing up the day after the fire, especially since most of them didn’t go in, but they didn’t knock and leave either.”

  Noel was still staring out the window, but Adam could tell he was listening. “So, like you said, there was the fire marshal. An African-American woman met him, and she had a key. But then there were these two guys in gray slacks and white shirts, looked like Mormons or something, Bibles and everything. They went around the whole house holding up crosses at all the windows and what have you before they took off. Then some girl with pink hair came around to the kitchen entrance and peered in the window and left. Then the Maserati showed back up.”

  “You going someplace?”

  “Yeah, so I didn’t think much of it at first. This really hot girl gets out, and I figure it’s one of the guests from the night before come to pick something up, but she doesn’t go in the door by the drive. She goes around to the French doors at the back and…” Okay, he was sure there was a rational explanation, but paired with the gris-gris, this ought to sound sufficiently weird to entice Noel. “She tries the door, which appears to be locked. So she steps back and does this swirly thing with her hand. Then she walks right in.”