by Jenn Bennett
As I wiped my citrus-sticky hands on a kitchen towel, a bottle of vitamins sitting on the counter caught my eye. The label bore a colorful sketch of a woman whose curvy body was filled with fruit and vegetables, so I assumed they were the ones he’d been foisting on me. Idly, I started to turn the bottle around to see it better, but Lon snatched it out of my hand and shoved it into a kitchen drawer.
“You have the page from Wildeye’s journal?” he asked suddenly.
O-o-o-kay. Why was he so flustered? I mean, he didn’t look it. He looked mildly irritated, staring at me with his perpetually narrowed eyes, but that felt like a false front. As if he knew that I knew, he quickly strode off toward the library. “Bring it with you. Let’s look at it again and make sure we’ve covered all our bases. We need to use this time wisely.”
He was probably right about that. I grabbed the journal page out of my purse, then headed past the kitchen into the first floor’s southern hallway. At the end of the corridor, Lon was grumbling at the fingerprint lock as he punched in an override code. “That little bastard’s been trying to get in here.”
I thought about all the dangerous magick Jupe could get his hands on, but Lon confirmed that the break-in attempts weren’t successful. Score one for expensive technology.
Once he got the door unlocked, I shuffled inside, smelling musty old paper and leather. I’d almost forgotten how much I loved the scent of old books. Lon switched on the frosted art deco pendant lights, illuminating the hundreds of rare occult tomes that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. I plopped down on one of two overstuffed armchairs that faced each other in front of an unlit fireplace in the back of the library. Lon took the other seat, eyeing me cautiously.
“What?” I asked, sinking my toes into the soft rug as I slumped in my chair.
“Nothing.”
He seemed anxious, which was completely out of character for him. I studied him as he cracked open his laptop, trying to determine why he was so edgy.
“So,” he said, pausing for a long moment as the computer booted up. “We know your parents stayed in a house here every winter. And we know they shopped for magical supplies at Gifts of the Magi.”
“You knew that shop?”
He nodded. “My parents knew the Pendletons. Not well, just as people around town. The husband died the same year as my father. The wife ran the shop until she passed—four years ago, I think.”
Before I moved to Morella, then. Which explained why I’d never heard of it. “And there were no other occult shops in town?”
Lon shook his head. “That one only survived as long as it did because it was halfway between Morella and La Sirena, which drew business from the city. La Sirena is seventy-five percent Earthbound. Most Earthbounds don’t want anything to do with an occult shop.”
“Makes sense. But it doesn’t help us pinpoint where that winter house might’ve been located.”
“Jupe said all Mrs. Vega knew was that they said it was peaceful, and they wrote there. Your caliph never gave any hint whatsoever when you moved to California that your parents vacationed here?”
“He didn’t know.”
“Are you sure?”
“He wouldn’t have kept that from me. No reason to. Grandmaster Vega didn’t know, either, or she would’ve said something. After everything we’ve seen over the last week, I think it’s pretty obvious my parents spent a lot of time outside the order’s radar.”
He grunted his agreement.
“The house I saw in the servitor’s upload had a lot of antlers tacked up around the front door. My parents were vegans.”
“Vegan serial killers.”
“They ate that way to keep their bodies pure, not out of respect for animals. My mom believed it kept her Heka reserves sharper. But what I’m saying is that they weren’t hunters. Maybe they were renting that house from someone who hunted, or maybe it was a hunting lodge of some sort. Where do people hunt around here?”
“North of my property, away from the coast.”
“Maybe we can start looking there.”
He nodded and began searching on his laptop, seeing what came up in the way of cabin rentals with nearby hunting. “You wanna take a look at the photos on this rental website and see if you recognize anything?”
I got up and sat on the padded arm of Lon’s chair to study the small photos of the rentals he pulled up. He smelled nice. Not as nice as he’d smelled in the hotel a few nights ago—God, how I wished I had access to that scent knack all the time—but pretty damn good for someone who’d spent a good part of the day riding in a car. And for someone who’d just been super-anxious and twitchy, he was awfully relaxed.
Until I stretched my neck as he turned his head, and my skull butted into his cheek, sending a quick jolt of pain through my head. “Oh, sorry,” I said, chuckling at the awkward contact. “You’re scratchy, by the way.” I ran the backs of my fingers over the golden-brown stubble dusting the lower half of his face.
The contact was shocking.
Not physically. Something else.
It was as if I’d been listening to a radio station that wasn’t quite tuned, and that skin-to-skin contact flipped it to the right frequency. Suddenly, everything was loud and clear. I just didn’t know what I was hearing. Not right away. It sounded like this:
Happy-content-happy-longing-thrill-happy.
I nearly fell off the arm of the chair when I realized what that meant.
“O-o-oh!” I stammered.
“What? Do you recognize this house?” Lon’s eyes widened as I wrapped my hand around his neck to stop him from moving away.
“No, it’s not the house,” I said, sounding mildly delirious.
Surprise-confusion-worry-worry
“What?” he said again, a little louder, trying to wiggle out of my grip.
“I can hear you!” I shouted gleefully.
PANIC-CONFUSION-PANIC.
“You can hear my thoughts?”
“No, I can hear your emotions. Your knack—this is what your knack feels like. Jesus! It’s amazing!”
He jerked out of my grip and stood up, all in one motion. “You can hear me?”
“Well, I could, when we were touching.”
Eyes on me, he set his laptop on a small table next to his chair, nearly missing the table altogether. “You can’t now?”
“A little . . . I think. It’s hard to tell.” I vaulted off the chair to follow him. “Are you panicking?”
“Hell, yeah, I’m panicking. Are you”—he backed away a step—“sure that’s what’s going on with you? Is this like the fork bending and the smelling?”
“Oh, yes. But this is so much better. You never told me how wonderful it is.”
He backed up another step. “It’s not always wonderful.”
“I think I was hearing Jupe on the sofa—I just didn’t realize what was happening. But it’s definitely stronger now. Either that, or I’m just really attuned to you. Can you hear certain people louder than others?”
“Yes.”
I grinned. “Let me just—”
“Hold on, now—”
“—touch you again. Stay still.”
“This isn’t a good idea.”
I stalked him as if he were easy prey. “Why?”
“Because it’s a distraction.”
“Maybe I need one,” I said, sobering up for a moment. “In case you haven’t noticed, life hasn’t been all that good to me lately, and this has been a particularly shitty week.”
His features softened. “Hasn’t been all bad.”
“No, not all bad.” My breath came a little faster. “A couple of highlights come to mind,” I said as I reached for him.
He sidestepped me and hid behind the chair. “Let’s be sensible.”
“Boo. You’re just afraid of me hearing your emotions, and that’s not fair. You get to hear mine all the time. Turnabout’s fair play.”
Indecipherable curses fell from his tightened lips. He glanced arou
nd as if he was trying to figure out an escape plan. I took that opportunity to leap onto the chair cushion and grab two fistfuls of his shirt.
“Ahhh,” I said triumphantly as I tipped toward him. “Don’t try to run again, or I’ll have to use my youthful vigor to catch up with your weary old-man bones.”
He snorted but didn’t pull away. “You’ve probably got a knack for that.”
“Probably. I’m going to try to read you now. Ready?”
“No.”
I ignored that and clamped my hands on his shoulders, making a fuzzy connection with his emotional rumblings. “Amazing. I can just hear you. It’s the direct contact that really does the trick, isn’t it?”
His Jupe-like dramatic sigh confirmed. “Go on, then.”
I slid my hands up to his neck so I got some skin contact. It turned up the volume from one to ten. “Wow. Just . . . wow.”
After a moment, he said, “What do you hear?”
“You’re still a little panicky.”
“You would be, too,” he complained.
“But you’re curious, too.”
“Of course I am. The last empaths I knew were my parents. It’s been years since anyone could hear me.”
“Does it bother you?”
“You tell me.”
I calmed myself down so I could listen in better. “Wow, this gets really jumbled. It’s hard to tell whose emotions I’m feeling—mine or yours. Whoa.” I sank a little further into the chair cushion and wobbled until my knees hit the back of the chair, putting me just above his eye level.
He slid warm hands around my waist to steady me and said, “You learn to sort that out with practice. Other people’s feelings have a different frequency.”
“You’re . . . a little unhappy. But resigned. Wait, you’re not really unhappy. You’re embarrassed?”
“Uncomfortable,” he corrected, smoothing one hand up my back, then down again. “Not unhappy.”
That hand was distracting me. “You’re worried about something. Oh! I heard that. Right about the worrying, for sure. Why are you worried?”
“Do I really have to list it all out for you? Or have you already forgotten everything that’s happened over the last twenty-four hours?”
Good point. “I’m trying to forget, at least for a few minutes. So don’t remind me. And hush, I’m trying to listen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around me a little tighter. Which felt damn nice. He made a short chuckling noise near my ear, so I guessed he was listening to me, too. I had to adjust my position to keep a hand on the back of his neck. “What else do you hear?” he asked.
“Let’s see. Your feelings aren’t as loud now. Or . . . well, that’s not exactly right. They’re loosening up? It’s like a slower rhythm or something. I can’t read it as easily. And . . .” He ran his fingers through my hair and pushed it off my shoulder, combing it several times down the back of my neck. “Oh, that feels nice,” I mumbled as goose bumps broke out on my scalp.
“What else?”
“It’s really hard to listen while you’re doing that.”
“Try.”
“Okay, I hear something. A twang. It’s sort of, well, not anxious. It’s too calm for that. But it’s got a similar urgency. Just lower-pitched. What is that?”
“That,” he said, grazing my ear with his lips, “is the sound of my willpower breaking.”
His mouth opened on my neck. Hot, wet, pulling kisses that made me forget all about his feelings and my feelings and every shocking thing I’d learned that day. My breasts pushed against his chest as I melted into him, turning my head to give him better access. He took it. And more. While his mouth was busy setting fire to my throat, his hands trailed down either side of my spine, following the curve of my lower back until he palmed my ass and gave it a slow squeeze.
“You want me,” I murmured, excited by the scrape of his whiskers against my cheek as I angled for a proper kiss.
“You think so?”
“I can hear it.” I shifted all my weight to my knees so I could tip forward to press closer. “Jesus, I can almost feel it.”
“Is that right?” He pulled me tight against his hips until his erection butted against me. “You feel it now?”
My pulse doubled. “I don’t know . . . it’s hard to tell from this angle. And last time, you wouldn’t let me touch you long enough to really know for sure.”
“You win. Let’s try again.” He pried one of my arms off his neck and guided my hand down between us. He pushed into my palm as I stroked him through his jeans. Whatever teasing taunt he’d been ready to wield morphed into a low moan.
“That feels promising.”
“Promising?”
“I’m not totally convinced.”
“I can hear the lie, Cadybell,” he whispered against my cheek, making me shiver.
“Oh, that’s right,” I whispered back, giving him another rub before my fingers sneaked up to his belt buckle. “Show me what a lie sounds like. I want to hear one, too.”
“Mmm.” He dragged his mouth against mine and kissed me slowly. “I’m not attracted to you in the least bit, and I haven’t spent the last week in agony, wanting to touch you.”
“Oh?”
“I haven’t thought about how soft your skin is or how sexy it is when your eyes tilt up at the corners when you laugh or how obscene your ass looks in those pants—and I definitely did not come close to pummeling that trucker who was watching you bend over to reach the bottled water in the convenience store at Bakersfield.”
Oooh. That explained the foul mood he’d been in during that leg of the journey home. “You didn’t?”
“Nope.” He kissed me a second time, deeper and slower, his tongue rolling with mine as I briefly halted my struggle to unbuckle his belt. “And I definitely didn’t have any fantasies about pulling over outside of Bakersfield to throw you into the back of the SUV so I could tear off those damned pants and screw you senseless, because I’ve got caveman genes that make me want to mark you up with my scent so everyone knows you’re mine.”
An equally primal satisfaction squeezed my chest.
“And lastly, I am not wondering”—his arm tangled with mine as he slid his hand beneath both the waistband of my yoga pants and my panties—“just how wet you are right now.”
“Ungff.”
“My,” he murmured in a controlled voice.
But I could feel the thrill that shot through him, as clear as the bright pleasure zigzagging between my thighs as he leisurely stroked me. The way he was making me feel, the way his feelings sounded in my head . . . God, it was all so damn good.
Too good. I lost track of my balance.
All of my weight suddenly shifted toward him—my weight and the chair. Lon’s hand flew out of my yoga pants; his arm tightened around my waist. He stumbled, carrying me with him as the wobbling chair tipped completely backward and slammed against the floor.
“Shit!” I slid down his body and got my footing, twisting in his arms to make sure I hadn’t knocked his laptop onto the floor. I hadn’t.
We both laughed a little. Then he said, “Maybe that’s a sign that we should stop.” But I could still hear him, and he damn sure didn’t want to stop. Good thing, because neither did I.
If I was being totally honest with myself, I could only think of a handful of men I’d ever truly wanted. Fewer still whom I’d wanted to spend time with outside of bed. But Lon was a rare beast. I wanted every bit of him, from his deadpan way of communicating and his unswerving loyalty, to his ex-surfer-boy long hair and devilish good looks. I wanted his surprising wit and his grumbly, slow-burn anger and his long, lean body.
I wanted all of him, and I wanted him all for myself in the most desperate way possible.
My gaze rose to meet his, and I stared into heavy-lidded green eyes blazing with a hunger that was almost intimidating. He was trying to hold himself back, to rein it all in, but this time, it was a losing battle. He kne
w it. I knew it. And I heard the moment he cracked.
He kissed me as if he meant it—no slow tease, no detailed exploration, just his mouth on mine, hot and possessive. The hands that had softly stroked me were now pulling off my clothes as if they were on fire. He had me naked in seconds, mumbling, “Finally,” as if it had taken him hours. I got his belt unbuckled and tugged at the buttons on his fly while he urged me around the fallen chair and onto the rug. He sprang into my waiting hand, hot and thick and proud. I wrapped my fingers around him, enjoying the hissing sound his breath made when he inhaled sharply through gritted teeth.
“Jesus, that feels good,” he murmured.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Fuck. I’ll never last if you keep that up. Come here.”
We sank to the floor, and after his mouth blazed a southward trail from my breasts down my stomach, I bowed off the rug and roughly grabbed his hair—first to keep his face between my legs, then to push him away. I, too, wasn’t going to last.
“Lon,” I begged. But I didn’t need to. He knew.
His body covered mine. He hooked one of my legs around his waist and hiked it higher, spreading my legs wider with his knees. When I felt him nudge my center, I thrust my hips upward and welcomed him inside.
Joy-joy-joy!
Relief-relief-relief!
Whether I was hearing him or experiencing my own feelings, I couldn’t tell anymore. Emotion and pleasure emulsified until I couldn’t separate one from the other, his from mine, mine from his. There was only his driving weight above me and the intense, raw thrill that bloomed between us.
When he spread his knees wider, I twined both my legs around his and dug my toes into his calves, pinning him from below. With his weight braced on one forearm, he used his free hand to cup the back of my neck and pull my head up to meet his, pressing his forehead to mine. His long hair tickled my cheeks.
“You hear that?” he asked between huffed breaths.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I hear us.”
Exhilaration shot through me, and just like that, everything picked up speed and violence—his hips, my shaking muscles, and the urgent release we were both chasing.
He begged me; I threatened him.