by Vivien Dean
Brody faltered. “I wasn’t planning—”
“I know.” Cruz cut him off before it ruined the mood. “I was teasing.”
Relief brought back the playful Brody. With a gentle shove, he pushed Cruz onto the futon and straddled his hips. “Since I lost my pants first, I get the first ride.”
Though the date had been Cruz’s idea, Brody was the one who took charge now. He was the one to open Cruz’s jeans, the one to pull him out and stroke his length, up and down with a strong grip that didn’t feel like it could belong to somebody who lived in a lab most of the time. Cruz moaned when Brody swiped a thumb over the tip, collecting the stickiness he found there to coat his own fingers, then groaned in disappointment when Brody reached behind him to rub that same fluid over his opening.
“I could do that,” Cruz said, but Brody ignored him, obviously enjoying the game too much to stop. Over and over again, he teased Cruz with the promise of his hand’s hard rhythm, just to take it away when precome began to drip down the head. It got to the point where Cruz seriously debated flipping them over and taking charge, only to have Brody give up the game as he approached his limit.
Edging forward on his knees, Brody kept his eyes on Cruz as he tore open the condom wrapper. It went smoothly down his shaft, followed by Brody’s slow lowering. This, Cruz couldn’t hold back on, and he gripped Brody’s hips, not to force him to speed up but instead to be a part of it, taking every twitch of muscle under his hands as a guide to better read Brody’s body.
It didn’t last. The tightness whited out his world, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to stop from overloading his senses. Breathing was already a problem, and Brody wasn’t even fully seated yet.
Lips found his. Cruz opened to the deep kisses, savoring each soft burn in case it was the last. The concern was unnecessary, as Brody continued kissing him long after Cruz was buried inside him, neither one of them moving until staying still was impossible.
The futon creaked as their bodies merged and parted in a long, languorous rhythm. Brody was the one to quicken first, tearing away from their kisses to rest his forehead against Cruz’s. Their hot panting mingled, heating their faces even more, and Cruz tasted the first salt of sweat on his raw upper lip.
“Touch me,” Brody whispered.
Reaching between them, Cruz grasped his length. He didn’t even have to stroke him. A moment later, Brody groaned and shot all over their chests.
The way his body constricted undid Cruz. Muscles clamped down around him, forcing him to fight harder to drive inside Brody’s flesh. He thrust faster, deeper, with Brody’s rasped encouragement filling his head.
When he came, he clutched at Brody’s back, his face buried in the crook of his neck. His entire body shuddered. All he could smell was Brody’s sweaty skin and the muskiness of his cologne, but the lack of fresh air didn’t matter. He didn’t need it when he could breathe Brody in instead.
Brody grazed his lips up the side of Cruz’s neck, to catch his earlobe between his teeth and nibble. “So when you said you weren’t going to let me be alone tonight—”
“You’re staying here. Or I’m taking you home and staying there. You pick.”
“Here. Neither one of us should be driving.”
Cruz smiled against Brody’s skin. Who knew being responsible was such a turn-on?
They took their time peeling apart, content to sit and hold each other for long minutes while their skin cooled down. When Brody rose, the first thing he did was go to the bathroom. Cruz looked around for something to clean up with, grateful they’d managed not to get anything embarrassing on the futon he’d have to explain later, but then Brody was back, wet cloth in hand, and proceeded to wash Cruz’s chest for him.
“Want to take a shower?” Cruz asked.
Brody gave him a crooked smile. “You have a fast turnaround time.”
“What can I say? You’re the old man here.”
“Hey!”
Laughing, Cruz caught the wet cloth Brody threw at his head. “I better hold on to this in case you get any more ideas.”
“I have lots of—”
The muffled sound of Cruz’s phone buzzing from an incoming text cut him off.
Rolling to his feet, Cruz buttoned his jeans back up as he ambled over to his pack. The thrum of his heart accelerated again when he saw who it was from.
“It’s not about your sister, is it?” Brody asked.
“No.” Smiling, he passed over the phone so Brody could read the text from Etienne.
Told you I’d figure out how to beat these sons of bitches. Call me!
Chapter Sixteen
BRODY jumped into the shower while Cruz called Etienne. When Cruz had made the suggestion, Brody had hoped for some laid-back, goofy, maybe sexy times with this man he was falling head over heels for, the kind of shower that ran out of hot water because time slipped away from its occupants. Now he just wanted to get clean so he could rejoin Cruz and find out what was going on.
He was so accustomed to showers going wonky on him, he didn’t think twice about the water suddenly turning icy. He’d stepped out of the spray to finish washing until it changed back—it always did—when he stopped in midswipe. Was this the Guthrie plumbing or his ghosts at play here? Considering his fears about accepting Cruz’s offer earlier, the latter was more likely, but it was an old house, and this was a secondary shower in the basement. He could be assuming the worst when a much more mundane cause was the reason.
The entire incident raised an important question, however. Would he ever be able to go through his day-to-day life without anticipating the worst from the ghosts? Had they done their damage already?
Ignoring the chilly water, he rinsed off quickly and stepped out to see the basement deserted. Cruz had insisted he shower with the door open in case he got locked inside again. Brody didn’t have the heart to remind him that they could still shut the door and trap him.
While he was getting dressed, the stairs creaked. He poked his head out to find Cruz rummaging around in the suitcase he’d brought back from Binghamton. The sharp slope of his back rippled with tight muscles, and though Brody shook off the momentary naughty thoughts the sight elicited, he made a mental note to take advantage of it at the first possibility he could.
“Well?” Brody prompted.
Cruz straightened, clean clothes dangling from his fingers. His hair was in wild disarray, curls falling against his face. In Brody’s mind, there was no doubt as to what they’d just been doing, and yet Cruz hadn’t seemed to bother hiding it when he’d gone upstairs. Cruz really was lucky with his family. Brody would never have dared to have sex in his father’s house without hiding every trace of it before he saw him again.
“Can you trust me without hearing the details just yet?” Cruz asked.
Though Brody was dying to know what the plan was, he nodded. “How long do I have to wait?”
“Only until Bella gets back.” He gave Brody a quick peck on the cheek as he squeezed by him into the bathroom. “The way she drives, it won’t be long.”
Now his curiosity really was piqued. What did Bella have to do with anything? Cruz wasn’t going to try to do something about the ghosts in his parents’ house, was he? In his confession, he’d admitted he’d never done anything like that before, which had answered more of Brody’s questions than Cruz could have ever known. Like why he’d been so reluctant to take on the evictions without Etienne’s help. Why he thought himself a fake. He’d been living a lie ever since they’d met. The guilt must’ve been eating him up.
Though it was difficult to contain his thirst for what was about to happen, Brody held off requesting any further details until Cruz said it was all right. When Cruz emerged from the bathroom, they chatted about the ridiculous movie they’d watched, keeping it light until Brody asked if his dad was home from the hospital yet.
Cruz nodded. “He stayed until visiting hours were over. Mariana’s doing great, but they’re going to keep her another day in ICU
, just to be safe.”
His sober tone belied the hope in his words. From behind, Brody wrapped his arms around Cruz’s lean frame and squeezed.
“It helps having you here,” Cruz said. “I don’t think you realize how much.”
Brody rested his cheek on Cruz’s back. “The feeling’s mutual,” he murmured.
He helped clean up the rest of the mess, returned the schnapps to the kitchen, and washed their glasses. The front door opened and slammed while he was in the middle of drying. Cruz’s head snapped in its direction.
“Stay here,” he instructed and bolted out of the room.
It took ten minutes for him to return, ten minutes of Brody staring at the walls, trying not to fidget too much while he waited. Once, he felt a chill pass over his bare arms, but he closed his eyes and focused on meditating rather than overanalyzing the occurrence and potentially setting off a string of events he wouldn’t be able to control.
“Ready to go?”
Cruz hovered in the doorway, car keys in hand. Brody scooped up his bag and followed him out, prepared to tell everyone good night and thank them for their hospitality. The living room was empty. Nobody was outside either. But when he inhaled to ask where they were, Cruz shook his head, his lips pressed thin.
Brody got it. Caution was still key.
“Already unlocked,” Cruz said as he jogged around the front of the Volvo. “Let’s get you home.”
Brody hesitated for a moment, then decided to play along. “I’m going to crash as soon as I hit my pillow.”
On his next step, his ankle turned. He stumbled sideways but caught himself from falling flat on his face.
Cruz stopped. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” He took a pace forward and winced. “Crap, I think I twisted it.”
“Can you walk on it?”
He tried another. “Yes, I probably just need to ice it when I get home.”
The night was cooler than he would’ve expected, a slight breeze tickling down the back of his shirt as he continued down the path. He was shivering when he reached its end, but as he reached for the door handle, a shock leaped between him and the metal.
“Shit!” He yanked his hand back.
“Just get in,” Cruz said, his voice tight.
The only illumination came from the streetlights, but when Brody glanced up, Cruz was completely cloaked in shadow. His heart skittered. It wasn’t the darkness that hid Cruz from sight. Brody knew those forms. Shadows didn’t writhe of their own volition.
“Cruz…,” he warned.
“I know.” Something flashed across his glasses, and for a brief moment, the ghosts looked like they were going to give up. But then Cruz spoke up again, and they oozed upward like oil and obscured the rest of his face. “Don’t think about it.”
How could Cruz know? He couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see what they were doing to him. Asking Brody not to think about it, not to worry about how they could harm him, was asking him not to breathe.
“Just tell me you’re not in pain,” he begged.
“As soon as you get in the car.”
Brody swallowed his terror. This was what the ghosts wanted. To scare him and feed off the emotion. In spite of his prudence, they’d still managed to discern exactly what would strike the deepest blow.
Listen to Cruz.
Closing his eyes, he reached blindly for the handle again. Another shock jolted through his body, but it wasn’t locked and the door swung open. A familiar scent wafted out.
Trust Cruz.
He fell into the front seat.
The cold vanished. The Volvo’s interior was stuffy and hot, a sharp contrast to the ghosts’ presence outside. As Brody sat up, he gasped for air, squirming in the sudden discomfort of his sweating skin.
The driver’s door opened, and Cruz got in. No trace of the shadows was anywhere to be seen.
“I’m so sorry,” Cruz said. “I thought we’d be able to at least fool them long enough to get in the car.”
Brody peered through the windshield. The ghosts were still outside, furious wisps darting back and forth, over the engine and back again. Every time they buffeted the car, they rocked away like a stone skipping across water.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Cruz cupped the back of his neck.
“It’s okay,” Cruz said. “They can’t get in.”
He couldn’t look away. They’d never stayed visible this long before. They had to be furious. “What’s going on?”
“Etienne told me what we needed to shield the car from negative energy like your parasites. The rest of his property is going to be safeguarded by the time we get there too.”
Cruz kept his hand in place when Brody shifted to look at him. “What were they doing to you?”
“Nothing. I had the same protections.” He massaged Brody’s neck, but it took a few seconds for his strong fingers to start working their magic on the tense muscles. “I already had some of the ingredients Etienne said we needed, but Bella went and got the rest.”
“But they don’t know about what he does. How did you explain it?”
“They know Etienne’s been laid up, so I said the stuff was for him. And I asked my folks to give us some privacy in case your hitchhikers decided to play dirty.” He glanced down at the footwell and grimaced. “Which they did. Are you sure your ankle is all right?”
It was throbbing, but in the grand scheme of things, the ache was such a minor annoyance he could more than tolerate it. “It’ll be fine until we get to Etienne’s. I’m guessing he has ice.”
A relieved smile dispelled the fear on Cruz’s face. “Ice and a plan to get rid of your ghosts for good.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe he thinks it’s going to work.” He turned the key, and the Volvo came to life. “He’s a fighter, just like you.”
Brody sagged into the seat as they pulled away from the curb. “I feel like I just got knocked out.”
“But you got back up. That’s what matters.”
“What does this plan entail?”
“He wouldn’t say. He just said to get our asses up there. Oh, and that unlucky for us, it won’t be a one-man show.”
“Is that girl going to help him?”
“You mean the one you saw this afternoon?”
“Yeah. She looked pissed as hell. I half expected her to start waving a cane and yelling, ‘Get off my lawn!’”
Cruz chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good description of her. But there’s something you need to know about Simone….”
BRODY needed the drive to be another hour in order to process everything. The girl had been a ghost? But she didn’t look anything at all like the shadows that had followed him around his whole life. She’d seemed solid, though after he thought about it hard, she had seemed to defy more than one law of physics in her attack. But a ghost? Really?
Funny how he still felt like a skeptic after what he’d been through.
Cruz put music on to help distract him once he was done explaining about Etienne’s sister, but not even his off-key singing was enough. Brody kept watching the road to make sure nothing got sabotaged. The ghosts couldn’t get into the car to turn it against them, but Etienne’s protective… magic? What other term was even close to applicable? Anyway, it couldn’t extend to the entire highway. Brody wouldn’t put it past his specters to create a sinkhole to stop him from getting back to the Newman house.
Except they pulled into the private road without a problem, and when they came to a stop in the same spot as earlier, his ghosts were nowhere to be seen.
“You want me to get out first?” Cruz asked.
“No.” Cruz had already risked enough. “I’ll do it.”
His ankle had swollen during the drive, and he couldn’t put all his weight on it as he stood next to the car. His gaze swept around the yard. The night masked the pretty landscaping he’d seen earlier, but he couldn’t tell if the shadows he could make out were real or supernatu
ral.
A brilliant light flicked on in the covered porch, bright enough to temporarily blind Brody. He shielded his eyes to squint at the house.
“That’s Etienne.” Cruz had come up beside him and nodded toward the open front door. “Do you see anyone else?”
He did, which was why he wasn’t moving. There, on the top step, was the girl from before.
She was younger than he’d thought, a teenager most likely, with long blonde hair falling in a loose braid down her back. She wore jeans and a baggy plaid shirt unbuttoned over a white T-shirt. Bare feet. No makeup. Pretty enough, but her unsmiling features were surprisingly stern.
He cleared his throat. Back in Binghamton, Etienne had wanted him to talk to his ghosts, because apparently that was what sensitives could do. Time to test if that theory was full of shit.
“Are you Simone?”
She descended a step. “If your friends hurt my brother, I’m going to kick your ass.”
The response was so unexpected, he snorted.
“Did she say something?” Cruz asked. When Brody repeated it, he laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like Simone.”
With Cruz steadying his elbow, Brody ventured forward, one painful step at a time. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, letting her look down on him while he got his first real good look at her in decent light. He’d been wrong before. She wasn’t solid if he focused on her. If he looked at the post next to her, yes. If he caught her in the corner of his eye, yes. But three feet away, meeting her direct but not quite hostile gaze, there was a translucency to her that looking at made him feel like he was standing in the middle of a bobbing canoe at the center of a stormy lake.
“I’m Brody,” he said.
She sniffed. Sniffed. Seriously, she acted so much like alive-and-breathing Bella, it was eerie. “That’s not what Etienne calls you.”
“Don’t pay any mind to her. She’s still cranky from this afternoon.”
He recognized the voice from the phone, but the lean man who hobbled onto the porch wasn’t what he was expecting. Why did he think ghost hunters were all fat old men? Plus, Cruz had said they were best friends, so he’d known Etienne was young. The good-looking part came as a surprise, though, and the boyish blond curls lent an innocence that probably stood him well with his clients. No wonder Loren had been persistent. Brody was half inclined to sign over his bank account to the man, and he didn’t even like him that much.